“You want me to hold you? Will that make you feel better?” Heather Kessler of Bowling Green asks her 3-year-old daughter.
Sarah Kessler and her twin sister Emily were born on November 11, 2002, 10 weeks premature. They were monoamniotic twins, which means that as fetuses they shared the same embryonic sac.
When Heather Kessler found this out, she also found out that there was a 50-percent chance her children would both live. She moved into Centennial Hospital in Nashville at 25 weeks because they had a good success rate with monoamniotic deliveries in the past.
The twins were supposed to be a planned cesarean section, but they had to be delivered sooner than anticipated. Sarah’s heart rate dropped from the normal 140 beats per minute to 60 beats per minute and would not come back up.
When her heart rate dropped, Sarah’s blood went into Emily in what is called a twin-to-twin transfusion, which caused some brain damage.
“I had two OBGYNs and one of them was stuck in traffic in South Nashville, and the other one was in the parking lot, he rushed back up the stairs and delivered the girls immediately,” Heather said.
The twins spent their first 77 days in the hospital. When they finally came home, they were developmentally behind. They didn’t start walking until they were 16 months old.
“I knew something wasn’t right with Sarah but everyone just said she was behind because she was born premature,” Heather said.
But in September 2004, when she searched online for low muscle growth and other symptoms Sarah had, she discovered hypotonic cerebral palsy. When she took Sarah to see a neurologist, they confirmed it.
Hypotonic cerebral palsy means that her muscles are loose rather than tight. Sarah also has epilepsy and is still struggling to catch up to her sister developmentally.
“She has trouble speaking sometimes, but she’s really using her words well now. For a while we thought she wasn’t going to speak at all,” Heather said.
Taylor Hayden is a sophomore photojournalism major from Dewitt, Mich. She can be reached at taylor.hayden@wku.edu.
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