MM Inspiration
Susan looking after both girls in Birmingham
Twins can be a handful at the best of times, but spare a thought for one mum, who has had double the worry – with both of her girls suffering from heart problems. Nevertheless, in this uplifting story, she tells MM how she also gets double the joy!
Let’s hear it for the girls!
When Susan Spence attended hospital for hospital for her 20- week scan, she already knew that she was expecting twins. What she wasn’t expecting, however, was to be told that one of her twin girls, Chloe, had an issue with her heart. The condition – hypoplastic right heart syndrome – meant that the right ventricle of Chloe’s heart was under-developed and so that chamber couldn’t be used. ‘The condition was linked to the fact
that I suffered from HELLP syndrome during my pregnancy,’ Susan told MM. ‘HELLP syndrome is a rare, but serious condition that can happen when you’re pregnant or right after you have your baby. ‘HELLP is basically a complication of
pre-eclampsia and, amazingly, it was only discovered when I was going to the twin clinic and they found that my blood pressure was slightly raised! When they took bloods, they found that my platelet levels were crashing, and this was having an effect on my organs. I felt fine, but they kept me in hospital at 36 weeks in order to keep the girls in situ – particularly because of Chloe. The consultant wanted to get them as far on as possible.
12 Modernmum
Chloe after undergoing her major operation
'On the Saturday I was brought into hospital to be induced, but
labour didn't progress and I was re-started on the Monday. My waters broke at midnight on Monday night and my blood pressure also started to go up. I was eventually given a C-section at 11pm on the Tuesday night and spent six days in hospital as a result of the complications. Once the girls were delivered, Chloe was taken straight to the Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast. To my horror, however, they then told us that Lucy had a hole in her heart. While this is relatively common, the consultant said it was a matter of keeping an eye on it. ‘After five and a half weeks, we took
Chloe to Birmingham Children’s Hospital to get a stent put in and were there for a week. In the December, Lucy developed a chest infection. We’d noticed that she wasn’t putting on weight and the consultant then discovered that she had a second hole in her heart. Her breathing was much too fast, and she was given antibiotics. At the end of March 2016, I wasn’t happy with the way she was breathing and so I took her to the RVH at half four in the morning. They discovered that she had a urinary tract infection and >
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