At 18 weeks gestation, unborn babies have all of their organs in place. Their hearts are beating, and their brain waves indicate that they probably are thinking, too. They can kick, roll, yawn and suck their thumbs. Their fingernails are beginning to grow, and their own unique fingerprints already have formed.
In almost every state, unborn babies at 18 weeks also can be aborted for any reason.
These facts prompted Sharon, a pro-life mother of twins, to share a video of her 18-week unborn daughters undergoing surgery in the womb. She and her husband said they hope the video of their unborn twins will help people see the value of every unborn baby’s life.
Watch the video below….
Live Action shares the family’s story:
Sharon and her husband were thrilled to be expecting identical twin girls, but at 17 weeks gestation, they received news that no parent wants to hear.
“We found out that they had twin to twin transfusion. We did an extensive ultrasound and that’s when we found out it was quite serious,” explained Sharon.
Twin to twin transfusion syndrome is a disease of the placenta in pregnancies of identical twins, in which the babies share a placenta.
“It’s a very dangerous condition in which the placenta basically malfunctions causing one baby to ‘donate’ her nutrients and blood to the other baby through the shared placenta, causing one baby to become anemic and malnourished, and the other baby’s heart to work very hard to cope with the extra blood,” explained Sharon. “Both of my girls were in danger of dying.”
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Twin to twin transfusion can occur at any time throughout the pregnancy, but the cases that occur before 26 weeks – like with Sharon and her babies – are considered chronic and at higher risk of complications, including death, because they are subjected to the effects of twin to twin transfusion for a longer period of time. Without treatments, the twins would more than likely not survive. Sharon was told they might also live, but be born with disabilities.
Doctors gave the couple several options, including to abort one or both of their twins; but the couple chose to try an intrauterine laser surgery to repair the problem, the report states.
“It was a no brainer for us,” said Sharon. “We wanted our babies.”
During the surgery, the doctors recorded a video of Sharon’s twins in the womb. On the video, the twins’ arms, legs, noses, ears and faces come into view as doctors moved the tiny camera around the womb.
The surgery was a success, and both girls were born alive at 37 weeks. One of the twins was born healthy, but the other spent several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit before coming home, according to the report.
The girls are 4 years old now and healthy. Their parents told the pro-life news site that they decided to share their daughters’ story and video from the surgery to demonstrate how valuable life is in the womb.
“We felt that if just one mom could see it who was contemplating abortion – and if she saw that she was actually carrying a miracle – that she would change her mind, and decide to keep the baby or just let it live,” Sharon said.
