It's a good thing we are here

We got to LA about 7:30 am but our appointment wasn,t until one and we could,t check into our hotel so we went out for a bit then headed to the doctor,s office at the hospital. The doctor did our ultra sound because his tech was sick so we got more time with him. He was super nice and seemed to really know what he is doiing. from the ultra sound we could see right away that Baby A (the "donor" baby with the small sac) was now basically shrink wrapped in her sac. the doctor measured and the little sac had shrunk from 1.5 cm to .5 cm in 2 days, and the "recipient" baby (Baby B) fluid level had increased from 8.3 cm to 11 cm in 2 days. the doctor said it was a good thing we were here!
He then measured my cervix and it too had gotten shorter since Monday which means it is at risk for preterm labor so along with the laser surgery he recommended we do a cerclage where they will put stitches in the cervix to keep it from opening too early. The TTTS has been putting too much pressure on the cervix and it is not going to hold out without this. he said without these treatments things could go bad really quick so we are extremely grateful we got here when we did.

we then went into the doctors office and he went over all the findings he found and each step of the surgery and talked about risks and benefits. he explained everything really well and we feel like he is really skilled and knows what he is doing. The nurse told us there are only 12 doctors in the country that do this surgery and he is one of the best.

TTTS has stages from 1 to 4 and we are still at a 2 so that is a positive thing, but it definitely needs to be done in order to save the babies. So we will do both the laser surgery for the TTTS and the cerclage tomorrow morning probably around 10. I will be awake through it but will have a spinal. he said I will be able to see everything on the screen that he sees while he is in there. we will stay overnight at the hospital and go home Friday night. Unfortunately Kris will not be able to be in the OR and will have to wait by himself for 2 1/2 hours in the waiting room.

the one technical concern he had was that because of the place he has to make the insertion (he goes into baby B's sac) and because of the position of baby A underneath where he goes in, he will not be able to see the top of the sac and will have to be careful not to poke into her sac.
After the surgery the babies will not be connected for survival. they will each have their own flow of blood from the placenta.
After meeting with the doctor he sent us over to the children's hospital to have a fetal echo cardiogram on the babies. the cardiologist found positive findings. he said both babies hearts looked good right now, especially considering what they are going through. With TTTS the recipient baby can have too much stress on the heart from all the fluid and cause heart failure, but luckily right now it looks like she is still ok. the concern for the donor baby comes after the surgery when her heart suddenly has to start working harder to process the new fluid.
I have actually been feeling worse and worse lately physically. My stomach feels bloated and super heavy with preside on the pelvis and they said it is due to TTTS and the excess fluid so even in my body I was feeling like something was going bad so,
we feel like this is the best decision to save these little girls, and if we have to do it, we feel we are in good hands here. So now all we can do is pray....
THANK YOU again for all the prayers! We truly feel buoyed up because of them.