HOLIDAY GIFT TWICE AS NICE
Miracle twins survive heart woe
THE SEASON of miracles has brought two to a Manhattan family who hoped to give their 2-year-old son a sibling.
Roxanne and Stephen Montalvo-Tsai wanted a boy to give their son, Jordan, a brother. But when they found out they were pregnant with twin girls due in April, they were delighted to learn they would be having double the joy.
That was until an ultrasound in January revealed both girls suffered from a rare congenital heart defect — one that would kill them if they didn’t receive emergency surgery at birth.
The family learned over the next few months that miracles do happen, and theirs came just in time for Christmas.
“After what we’ve been through, having these babies is, to me, the best gift,” said Roxanne Montalvo-Tsai, 39, who will celebrate her first Christmas with her husband, Jordan, and little Selena and Jasmine, who survived their perilous first weeks of life.
The two girls were diagnosed in the womb with tetralogy of Fallot, which produces a hole in the heart and a narrowing of the pulmonary artery that carries blood to the lungs.
The Kips Bay couple had briefly considered ending the pregnancy when they got the news — until they spoke to Dr. Emile Bacha, head of congenital and pediatric surgery at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.
“I was skiing with my wife on a Sunday and I get this phone call,” Bacha recalled. “This woman is on the phone upset, crying, and she’s like, ‘I’m so glad I reached you,’ and I’m like, ‘Who are you?’ ”
The expectant mom asked the doctor if there was any hope for her babies. She had just days left to meet the legal deadline for an abortion. Bacha told her that with surgery, he was confident her twins could have a good quality of life.
So the couple continued the pregnancy, and on April 30, the Zumba instructor and mom-to-be’s water broke. Selena and Jasmine were delivered via an emergency Caesarean the next day.
Selena was born “pink tet,” meaning her tetralogy of Fallot was less severe and she had good coloring. But Jasmine, born without a pulmonary artery, was “blue tet,” meaning her condition and coloring were worse.
Jasmine endured heavy medication, breathing tubes and — at 15 days old — a complicated and lengthy surgery.
“I was terrified because who wants their 5-pound baby to go through open-heart surgery?” her mother said. After five weeks of recovery, Jasmine was able to join her sister at home, but then Selena grew worse and wound up in surgery.
Now at 8 months old, the girls and Jordan are doing great, Montalvo-Tsai said. “Jasmine is very giddy; Selena is very smiley. They’re both very happy babies,” the mom reported. “When I see them, I’m just sot hrilled.”