TEXAS CHILDREN'S FETAL CENTER
Roberta and twin boys
Bohdon and Yuri,
diagnosed in second trimester in utero,
Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome

A pregnant Roberta, her husband Walter and their 8-year-old son were joyously planning for twins when they got the news every expectant family dreads hearing: There’s a life-threatening problem.

Just into her second trimester, Roberta, 36, became violently ill and had her husband rush her to Clear Lake Regional Hospital. A perinatologist informed her she had twin-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), a disease of the placenta that affects identical twin pregnancies. She was then referred to Texas Children’s Fetal Center and Dr. Anthony Johnson and Dr. Kenneth Moise Jr.

Worried and frightened, but determined not to panic, the family came to the Fetal Center looking for help. Thanks to Johnson and Moise’s expertise in maternal-fetal medicine and TTTS, the twins were saved and are now being doted on by their parents and big brother.

"As soon as I found out I was having twins, I was very excited. My husband almost passed out on the floor, so that was a very funny moment," Roberta said with a chuckle. "I think he stopped breathing for about five minutes."

The first three and a half months of her pregnancy went smoothly. Then suddenly Roberta’s health took a dramatic turn for the worse, and she learned that her unborn babies were in danger due to TTTS.

"We didn’t really understand what TTTS was, but thought, OK, at least there’s a name for what this is. So we trusted that these doctors who specialized in this would be able to help us," she said.

Nurse coordinator Karen Moise and the doctors explained to the family that, under normal circumstances, identical twins share an equal amount of space in the mother’s sac. But in Roberta's case, one twin had 75 percent of the space and was siphoning blood supply and nutrients from the other twin. Without intervention, she had more than a 90 percent chance of losing both babies.

Johnson and Moise laid out all the options for Roberta: She could abort one fetus, which still wouldn’t guarantee the remaining fetus would survive, or they could perform laser surgery to separate and close off some of the blood vessels shared by the twins to balance their space within the sac.

"I couldn’t pick one over the other. It’s like picking your left arm over your right one," Roberta said. "So we just went with the surgery."

For four weeks, the family drove from Clear Lake to the Fetal Center for weekly ultrasounds so the doctors could keep a close eye on the condition of the twins until she was far enough along in her pregnancy for surgery. At 19 and a half weeks, one twin’s bladder showed signs of deterioration, and the other was having heart issues. It was time for surgery.

The next day, a Saturday, Johnson and Moise performed a high-tech laser surgery that closed off six blood vessels. After a couple of hours in recovery, Roberta spent the night under the watchful care of Texas Children’s Maternity Center nurses.

Happily, she and her husband got the news they were hoping for the following day. Johnson told her everything looked great, and she was released.

At 35 and a half weeks, after constant follow-up phone calls from Karen Moise, Roberta delivered healthy 5-pound twin boys, Bohdon and Yuri, by C-section in Clear Lake.

"This kind of surgery didn’t exist 10 or 20 years ago," said Roberta. "You lost your babies and that was it."

Roberta is grateful that Houston has the Texas Children’s Fetal Center. Without it, she would have had to leave the state to receive care.

"There are only a few centers in the country that can do this. I trusted the Fetal Center and had lots of confidence in them," Roberta said. "My twins are beautiful. They have perfect, rosy red lips. They are so cute and, boy, are they identical."