Nick and Holli Gorveatt, from Washington, are expecting identical twins. One thing about them that won’t be identical is their birthdays. One of their boys has already been born while the other isn’t due for months.
The Gorveatts found out their sons Link and Logan had twin to twin syndrome (TTTS). The boys shared a placenta which forced them to share the same blood flow. This made both of them very sick. ABC News reported that Dr. Martin Walker, director of fetal medicine at Evergreen Health Medical Center, where the boys were born, told them that, without treatment, the syndrome is fatal in 90 percent of cases.
The boys underwent surgery which gave each of them dedicated blood flows. Unfortunately, shortly after the surgery, Link’s amniotic sack prematurely ruptured forcing the doctors to deliver him at 23 weeks. He was born weighing 1lb 2oz (seven times smaller than the average newborn). His arms are the same size as his mother’s fingers.
The doctors were able to manually close Holli’s cervix which stopped Logan from being born. Every day he stays inside his mother, his chance at survival increases. If he were born today, he would have a 50% chance at survival. The doctors hope to keep him inside Holli until January, when both boys were originally due. If he is born in January, it will be the furthest apart that twins have ever been born, Dr. Walker said.
“Link will not grow quite as well in the nursery as his brother will in the uterus,” Dr. Walker told the New York Daily News. “I think by the time they’re young men, they’ll be identical twins the way everyone else sees twins.”
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Link was only given a 10% chance at survival. Miraculously, more than two weeks later, he is gaining weight and requiring less oxygen every night than he needed the night before. He receives steroid shots daily for his lung growth.
“He’s fighting for his life, waiting for the day he gets to meet his brother on the outside,” the family wrote on their GoFundMe page.
LifeNews Note: Liberty Pike is the communications director for Oregon Right to Life, as well as a LifeNews staff writer
