Twins' survival a testament

Carolyn Meyer of Modesto was pregnant with twins in December 1988 when she went into premature labor at 26 weeks. She was transported to Sutter Memorial in Sacramento because of its neonatal unit.

"I had a team of specialists who diagnosed the situation as 'twin-twin syndrome,' which basically means that one twin was robbing nutrients from the other," Meyer said.

Doctors tried to give the weaker twin a blood transfusion, but were unsuccessful.

"The doctors prepared us for the worst," Meyer said. "The decision was to possibly have a C-section, or leave them in and take the chance that one would not survive. But the risk of taking them early only had a 20 percent survival rate, and who knew what problems they would have? My husband and I knew we had to leave this in God's hands and decided to just wait."

The next day, doctors tried again to do a transfusion. After an hour, they called for an emergency C-section. Before that happened, Meyer said, "miraculously, God answered our prayers. The doctor had found the umbilical attachment that went to the weaker twin and was able to give him several cc's of blood. This was described as threading a needle into a piece of spaghetti that was inside a balloon."

The twins made their entrance four days later — Jeremy weighed 2 pounds and was 13½ inches long; Justin was 1-pound, 13 ounces, and 13 inches.

"Why is this a miracle?" Meyer asked. "The blood transfusion that was done in utero had never been performed on twins where both had survived."

The boys turned 23 on Dec. 11.

"They are normal, healthy, thriving young men who bring us a tremendous amount of joy, along with their older brother, who is only 13 months older than they are. We can only thank God and our large support group that our prayers were answered."