All smiles at fetal care center for Father’s Day
Families return happy after high-risk pregnancies
When Nicole Shore heard that the twins she carried in her womb were in danger because of a fetal abnormality that could be corrected only by cauterizing blood vessels they shared within her body, she was devastated. The children had Twin-toTwin Transfusion Syndrome, a disease involving the placenta.
Without surgery, they would both die.
Doctors in the Colorado Fetal Care Center at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora told her that chances were good they could save at least one baby.
“But I was concerned with losing one, if not both,” she said Sunday.
The surgery involves using a laser to seal the blood vessels they shared. Husband Ari Shore, 42, said: “I remember saying, ‘If we do nothing, what are the odds?’ They said, ‘None.’ You forget all the statistics and say, ‘Where do I sign?’ ”
On Sunday, the couple were back at Children’s, celebrating Father’s Day with their twins Mila, and Ciela, now active 3year-olds, and other families whose children were born there after high-risk pregnancies or fetal abnormalities.
When Ariel Gilstrap, 26, was 19 weeks pregnant, an ultrasound revealed the baby would be born with myelomeningocele, a severe form of spina bifida, that can lead to serious spine and brain issues.
Ariel and her husband, Mark, 28, who lived in Utah at the time, contacted Children’s, and within a week they traveled to Denver, where they consulted with a medical team.
When Ariel reached the 24th week of her pregnancy, fetal and neurosurgeons repaired the defect, caused when the bones of the spine improperly form around a portion of the spinal cord.
Before the operation, Mark said, he went through a grieving process when he realized the life he hoped for for his child was threatened.
“You think what the baby is going to do, how they will have their life, and what you are going to do with them. You think she is going to dance or do something you remember from childhood.”
That feeling disappeared when Emma was born, her brain in perfect condition.
“Once she is here, you say: ‘Oh, you know what? I can do this,’ ” Ariel said.
Now 3, Emma, a little blond girl with bright, blue eyes, travels in a tiny wheelchair, propelled by wheels that flash with red lights as they roll.
“She does things differently. When she goes really fast in her wheelchair, she says, “Oh, I’m running.”
The center offers every fetal intervention procedure currently available in the world, and patients from 45 states across the country have gone to Aurora for their treatment.
Debbie and Jennifer Stevenson, found out that the fetus Jennifer carried had congenital diaphragmatic hernia, a condition that allows the stomach, intestine, spleen, to push up into the chest, shoving the heart and lungs to the left.
They thought they would have to relocate to Philadelphia or Boston to have the fetal surgery to treat the condition.
A friend in Boston told the couple, who live in Castle Rock, to check with Children’s. “We came here, they did the evaluations. They never talked about termination,” Debbie said.
Today, they have a 7-week-old baby, Elijah Stevenson.
Dr. Kenneth Liechty, co-director of the Colorado Fetal Care Center, said 83 percent of babies with diaphragmatic hernia treated at Children’s, survive, the highest survival rate in the country.
All tests needed to diagnose the fetus are done in one day, he said.
“Then they meet with a team of physicians who have reviewed the case and come up with an answer.”