So week 22 was my appointment with the sonographer at NUH FCC. We waited for nearly an hour, the centre was packed and as usual, both me and Hambril were pretty excited to see our babies on the screen. However, I was not feeling that good that day, something I read recently online had made me anxious. Especially since my legs are getting worst and my stomach really looked like it was going to burst anytime soon. At 22 weeks, I really looked like I had been 9 months pregnant - not a good sign at all.
My worst nightmare came true that day. At first, the sonographer jokingly said that the left baby was "naughty" because Baby R would not let her see his bladder. Then she kept quiet and went through to measure the usual AFI and Doppler readings. I could not understand the figures on the screen. I saw my 2 babies though, Baby R seemed to be stuck on the uterine wall with little movement and Baby Q was practically floating in a large pool of water. Both babies were not moving so much - they might have been distressed that day.
The sonographer then quietly excused herself to call on a senior consultant, Prof B, or in my case, one of our babies' saviour because if it was not for Prof B, we would not have known about the disease that had plagued our babies and what to do about it.
So Prof B went on to screen the babies thoroughly that day, and we heard him telling the sonographer something about "TTTS". My heart nearly stopped and Hambril quickly squeezed my hand. I could not believe it. TTTS and I am 1 of the 15-20% who has to go through this dreaded disease. My 1st thought was "Why me?".
"Nur Hidayah - it seems like there is some kind of TTTS detected via the ultrasound. Looks like it is TTTS Stage 2, which means that the left fetus is not producing urine and we could not see his bladder. The MVP of the left fetus is less than 2cm - you need to consider the following options if you want to save both fetus: 1. Go for amnioreduction - which does not eliminate the TTTS problem and the percentage of both fetuses surviving is low or 2. You need to go for laser procedure - this procedure is more viable for your case, the laser will cut off all connecting blood vessels from the donor to the recipient, however, you will need to go to Ipoh, Perak to do the surgery as there are no known specialists in Singapore that can do the laser procedure".
I could not control my emotions, tears just start falling, I was not even listening properly to what Prof B had said. All I know is, I want to go Ipoh as soon as possible because I want both my boys to survive TTTS.
So Prof B advised us to see him in a few days to consider the options he had proposed - there were actually 4, but I would not want to mention the other 2 because there is no way I am going to give up after having gone through 22 weeks of pregnancy.
I could not stop crying, I want to run to the toilet so badly to be alone and cry myself out. I also needed a little bit of alone time to digest everything.
The centre was empty when we went out of the consultation room and I have never felt so alone before in my life.
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