Miracle babies highlight risk to twins

Kristen underwent the procedure last April, but it didn't work.

Doctors told the Bakers their next option was in-utero laser surgery. The Fetal Care Center is one of about dozen U.S. centers that do it, the TTTS Foundation says. Crombleholme has performed more than 400 such surgeries since he arrived at the center in 2004.

A laser essentially "spot-welds shut the vessels" that are causing the unequal flow of blood, Crombleholme says.

Even with the surgery, there is about a 10 percent chance the twin receiving too much blood will die, he says, and about a 20 percent chance the twin getting too little blood will die.

"Seventy percent of the time, both babies will survive," he says.

The mother faces risks, too, although Crombleholme says such surgery at the Fetal Care Center has never resulted in a serious maternal complication.

Says Kristen, who works as an in-home day-care provider: "We sat and prayed, and said it's in the good Lord's hands."

"It was really scary," says Scott, 36, an account manager for a furniture rental company, "but we had support from family and friends. To lose one (twin), or even two, I couldn't imagine the devastation."

Crombleholme performed the surgery on Good Friday. Kristen, who is Catholic, says she took that as a sign "that everything's going to be OK."

She went home three days later. But follow-up tests revealed the unequal blood flow was still occurring. Carlie's heart was failing.

"Kristen's case was really quite remarkable," says Crombleholme. "She is one of those very rare instances where you do the operation - we had mapped every single (blood) vessel...and we were able to (laser) all of them - but the syndrome just kept getting worse."

The problem was an unusual pairing of blood vessels - an artery and vein from each baby - attached to the same area of the placenta. Crombleholme noticed it during the surgery, but didn't want to apply the laser to such a large area of the placenta unless it was absolutely necessary. Indeed, it was.

A second laser surgery, 11 days after the first, was successful.

The twins were born at 32 weeks, on May 31. Claire entered the world 30 seconds before Carlie.

Now, as the Bakers prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, they marvel at their own miracle children.

"They are doing great," Kristen says. "Prayers worked."

(Edit:Ruby)