Doctors said her twins wouldn’t survive Ten years later miracle girls are all grown up

Sasha Seymour-McLeod was pregnant with twins in 2015 when she learnt that her pregnancy had developed serious complications.

She was told that she was suffering from twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), a potentially serious condition that can affect identical twins who share one placenta.

Doctors advised her that termination was the best option. But after hearing her babies’ heartbeats and seeing them on an ultrasound, Seymour-McLeod said she knew immediately that ending the pregnancy was not an option for her.

She continued with the pregnancy despite the medical advice.

Ten years later, her daughters Maleigha and Madison Seymour-McLeod are a source of joy in the household.

“Our daughters like to dance and sing as well as giving trouble, whole heap a trouble. I tell them about their story all the time and they just flutter their eyes and say ‘Wow’,” Seymour-McLeod said between laughter.

Senior consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Leo Walker, while not commenting specifically on the case, explained that TTTS can occur when identical twins share a single placenta and blood flows unevenly between them.

“This is a situation where all the blood doesn’t flow directly from placenta to twin. Instead some of those blood vessels intertwine and what you get is a scenario where blood is flowing directly from one twin to another, so one becomes the donor and the other the recipient,” he said.

The donor twin can lose more blood than it receives, potentially resulting in low blood volume, poor growth and very little amniotic fluid, a condition known as oligohydramnios.

The recipient twin, meanwhile, can receive too much blood, which can put additional strain on the heart and lead to high blood pressure and excessive amniotic fluid, known as polyhydramnios.

Seymour-McLeod’s ordeal began when she discovered she was pregnant a little more than a month into her first trimester.

Already a mother to a son, she went for an ultrasound at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) at 18 weeks. That was when, she said, the doctor gave her the devastating news.

“The doctor told me that she would suggest that I terminate the pregnancy. She told me I was having a twin-to-twin transfusion, and they would not survive out the womb. Of course, I was devastated but I told the doctor I was not going to do a termination. She told me that she was going to send me to [Victoria] Jubilee Hospital (VJH) as there was nothing else she could do to help,” she said.

Seymour-McLeod said she received the same advice at VJH, but she remained determined to continue the pregnancy.

“They said I was going against better judgement,” she said.

Her last trimester proved to be a challenging one. Seymour-McLeod said that her stomach was huge and the doctors had to drain fluid from her.

“The smaller of the twins would not move, and the doctors thought she may have been crippled. But one day while they were draining the fluid she just decided to move,” she said.

Even while hospitalised, Seymour-McLeod said she continued to face pressure to end the pregnancy.

At one point, she reluctantly agreed to the procedure, but it never happened, as something always seemed to come up whenever a date was set. On May 3, 2016, Seymour-McLeod delivered her daughters by C-section at 32 weeks.