6. The Screenings

So, the plan was first to make it to week 22. Week 22 is the point of no return. Up until then you can, according to (Danish) law, terminate a pregnancy, if there are serious health risks involved. This is especially relevant with identical multiples pregnancies, as the shared placenta, and its distribution of nourishment, can go awry and result in TTTS. Or Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome.

This is another thing about triplet pregnancies. Nothing is really about triplets. It’s all about the twins. The books, the brochures, the data, the vocabulary. And add identicals to the mix, and you practically get nothing. The only recent medical study and statistics relevant to our situation was conducted on just 50 Japanese women, and that is not at all conclusive. So it all boils down to one thing; the risks are considerably higher than with a di- or polyzygotic pregnancy, but nobody knows exactly how much.

So we went to weekly screenings. Checking the little ones’ sizes, the little ones’ flow, and the distribution of liquid in the little ones’ amniotic sacs. All indicators of a possible onset of TTTS. The screenings were long and slow. It is difficult to keep track of three fetuses, and difficult to measure such minute differences in growth and development. But we were in good hands, and had complete faith in our Alpha-obstetrician.

Every week we would walk to the hospital through the park, heart-in-throat and hand-in-hand, fearing the worst. You would think it would get easier after a few weeks, but it doesn’t. It is not something you get used to. It was weeks void of joy, weeks full of anxiety, weeks of not daring to grow attached to our little future babies. It was weeks of holding our breath, weeks of looking at monitors, weeks of waiting for results, and of making it through another week. We didn’t even want to know the gender. For how can you keep your distance, when you start thinking up names, and picture your babies growing up?

But each week yielded good results, and our little ones were not identical by name only. Their growth were synchronous, the distribution of liquid excellent, and they behaved at once like they were three, and as if they were alone. Sharing as they should, but developing in growth as if they were singletons; getting bigger by the week, and getting equally big. As we finally reached week 22 complications and TTTS seemed much less of a risk, but instead another problem started to pose a threat.

∼ TDD 2015 ∼

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