Hello family, friends, and other interested folks. We (Seth and Melissa Johnson) have created this blog as a home base for information about our impending twins, Micah and Spencer.
We've kids already (three energetic boys) and haven't blogged about their prenatal experiences, but the level of interest in these two has been a tad higher than normal. First, because they're twins: there's a novelty factor involved. Second, because there's a complication afoot.
About a week ago, we learned that Micah and Spencer are affected by "Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome," sometimes also called simply "Twin Transfusion Syndrome" or TTS. The last few days have been incredibly hectic, a little confusing, and pretty scary. We've learned an awful lot about TTS--or at least what's known about TTS. And that's not much, frankly. The doctors we've consulted with to this point have told us that that scientific literature is more than a little thin in this area. Why? For several reasons:
- TTS isn't terribly common. About one-in-ten pairs of monochorionic, biamniotic identical twins are affected. (Here's that last sentence in English, for those of you more versed in that language than science-ese: "About 10% of all identical twin-pairs who share a single chorionic sac but have their own amniotic sacs are affected.")
- It's difficult to design and conduct good studies on TTS. There aren't many cases to involve in the study anyway, and randomizing treatment to those cases that researchers can track down is understandably a sticky wicket.
- Neither of the treatment options out there is scintellatingly effective. More about this later.
In the next several entries, we'll bring you up to date on what has happened so far. Both Melissa and I will make entries to this blog, so you'll notice some variation in the writing style. We'll make entries when we can, but we can't promise anything like a regular posting schedule. Entries will vary in nature from informational to just plain emotional. Feel free to respond to posts as a way to communicate with us about our kiddos. You can also call or email, but we'll be variously contactable (not much) over the next few months, I think.
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