[Chris Devine] The doctor came in at the end and said “so
like Baby A has an omphalocele.”
And, you know, like after that,
you're not saying any more like, oh, my God, I can't believe there's two.
It's like, oh, my God, there's something else.
The Complex Fetal Care Center at Penn State is unique for a lot of reasons,
and we have patients come from other centers, other referrals.
And so they've started.
They've, you know, and it's always, you know, scary and frustrating and,
you know,
a little unnerving to be told that there might be something wrong with your baby,
especially for really any couple, but for a couple who has gone through,
you know, having to do artificial reproductive technology,
just really all the things they have to do to get pregnant
and then to have the miracle of having twins.
Dr. Pauli is amazing. She's yes. She’s Incredible.
She's why we were at Hershey. Yeah.
She was very up front and was like, of course we're going to hope
for the best situation possible, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I wouldn't,
you know, tell you these are the realistic options
and we can't write off these certain conditions.
And that's when we were like, okay, we want to we want to go
with Hershey.
An omphalocele is a major birth defect.
Any baby that has any sort of birth defect is at increased risk for certain
genetic conditions.
Charlie does have Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome.
Chris went into preterm labor and had the babies a little early
and had a C-section.
She also, by that point had been diagnosed with what's called
gestational hypertension, and Chris wasn't feeling well.
So Ally brought her back and as it turns out, she had pre-eclampsia.
One of the residents.
in the NICU was like, I just saw your wife that readmitted.
Is everything okay?
And I was like, No, like, this is where we're at.
She's like, Oh, my goodness.
Well, please, now we'll keep you updated with surgery.
So like every like half hour, 45 minutes, they actually like reported.
They called me and she had no idea this was happening, that they called me
to give me an update about surgery.
And surgery went really well, which was one big relief.
And then I came back to the room and Chris was getting a blood transfusion
and was going on on magnesium.
I think that was my moment
of like relief, where it was just like, okay, they're both going to be okay.
She was in the NICU until a day after a month old.
Babies with Beckwith
Wiedemann can have a tongue that just always seems to be sticking out,
and that gets in the way sometimes of breathing.
Not usually, but oftentimes it gets in the way of eating.
So providing nutrition can be difficult.
And in fact, that was after her surgery.
That was one of the main issues that kept Charlie in the hospital.
She wasn't ready to go home until we could figure out how to keep her
safely and adequately fed at home.
Grab it, you got it.
I think one of the things that we appreciated was like you kept
saying, like, it's not just about the babies.
Like it was about all of us.
And I think that was like a piece of it because especially knowing
like the complications at the time when we like found out
about the omphalocele, we had no reason to think that, like, the complications
I ended up having we're going to, you know, be part of our story.
The Devine family was really a success story for us.
They came to us at a time when they were very uncertain and
concerned and worried about their baby.
We were able to walk through that process with them and help them with diagnosis,
help them with care, help them get these babies here safely,
and also take care of Chris and the rest of their family
to make sure that, you know, they had the you know, this is a
absolutely monumental time in their lives.
And I think that we were able to with them every step
of the way.