Abound in love

By Sharmane Adams  |  The Catholic Compass  |  May/June 2022

Margaret Rogers and her husband Ryan were delighted when they found out their family was growing with their fourth child on the way. However, they didn't anticipate it would happen so quickly, as the other children were all under the age of four. 

“We were open to having another baby, but we were quite surprised when it happened immediately,” Margaret said. 
To their shock, the ultrasound revealed two babies. One was sucking its thumb and the other was looking straight at them, waving excitedly. Ryan was thrilled. Margaret felt overwhelmed by fear. She wondered how they would manage a household with five small children.

“It required total surrender,” Margaret said. She went before the tabernacle that day and gave the Lord all of her fears and anxieties, entrusting the future into the Lord’s hands. She explained that this time of surrender became a great source of peace for the turbulent journey ahead. 

Ryan and Margaret found out that the twins were identical, having two separate amniotic sacs and sharing a placenta. In the ensuing weeks, a diagnosis of Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) was determined. TTTS is a rare condition where the vessels of the shared placenta are distributed unequally, with one baby receiving too much nutrition and the other baby not receiving enough.

Margaret and Ryan explained that the baby who receives too much blood could experience cardiac complications and significant stress on its organs. The twin who doesn’t receive enough runs the risk of underdevelopment and organ failure. TTTS extends through four stages, with a fifth stage being the demise of one or both babies. If the babies survive the pregnancy, health risks still exist.

“When I found out we were expecting twins, I was terrified. After we learned about their condition, I knew I would give anything to keep them,” Margaret said.
The Rogers were told that because TTTS could progress through the five stages at any time and any rate, the twins would require two ultrasounds per week until delivery. Waiting between ultrasounds was unsettling. 

In the waiting room before each appointment, the couple prayed the Litany of Trust. Margaret started a blog to provide updates to family and friends and to ask for prayers. She also requested that everyone ask Servant of God Chi-ara Petrillo to intercede for the twins. 

After several ultrasounds, Ryan and Margaret learned they were having baby girls. They also learned the girls were at stage 1 TTTS. They were told that once the trend starts, it usually keeps progressing unless there is intervention with surgery of the placenta. Three days later, the twins were at stage 3 TTTS. The baby receiving too much nutrition was floating in too much liquid, her heart was working too hard to process the overabundance of blood flow. The baby not receiving enough was essentially starving for nutrition, saran-wrapped in her amniotic sac, and not moving. They were told they needed surgery immediately. 

Within 30 minutes, the couple had left their three children with Ryan’s parents and drove to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, 9½ hours away from their home in Panama City. Racing against time, Ryan and Margaret drove through the night, not knowing if it would be too late and not even knowing when they would return home.

Meanwhile, Father Michael Nixon, pastor of their parish at St. Dominic, reached out to a priest in Houston, Father David Hust, to let him know the situation. Father David planned on meeting the couple at the hospital to pray with them before the emergency surgery. 

To the Rogers's dismay, once they arrived at the hospital, they were told they couldn’t receive the surgery until the following morning. “We knew every second mattered, and we were beyond devastated to learn we would have to wait,” Margaret said. 

Father David got to the hospital at 2:30 a.m. He prayed with the couple and gave Margaret the anointing of the sick and the Rite for the Blessing of the Children in the Womb. 

“Having Father David with us was truly an unspeakable consolation,” Ryan said. “He brought the presence of Christ into the room, and the comfort of his priestly fatherhood into our fear.”

The next morning, Ryan and Margaret met with a fetal expert to have one last ultrasound before surgery. As the ultrasound began, the couple intently watched the ultrasound screen. They prayed that their babies would be alive. “Our doctor scanned and scanned, not saying a word,” Margaret recounted. “Finally, she took the wand off my belly, looked at us and asked. ‘Why did you come here?’ I couldn’t understand her question. ‘Our twins have stage 3 TTTS. They were diagnosed at our ultrasound yesterday afternoon.’ She just looked at us some more. ‘Your twins don’t even meet criteria for TTTS,’ she told us. ‘They are at stage 0.’” 

Margaret and Ryan were astounded. They had watched the stage 3 diagnosis with their own eyes. They had seen horrifying moments of emptiness in the donor baby’s umbilical cord, where she should have been receiving consistent blood flow. And now, the twins didn’t even have TTTS. They didn’t require surgery. All their symptoms had stabilized overnight.

Ryan and Margaret shared their story with everyone they met in the hospital. Each nurse they encountered gave them peace in knowing that God was with them. “One nurse told us she had the same rosary Margaret was praying with. Another said we had experienced divine intervention, and another said it was the power of God,” Ryan said. “None of our nurses had ever heard of this happening before.”

Needing to remain in Houston for further monitoring, Father David’s parents took the couple into their home and under their wing. “The Hust family has become family to us,” Margaret said. “Their love and radical hospitality were an unbelievable comfort.” Margaret and Ryan held on to hope while giving praise and glory to Jesus and thanking everyone for their prayers, including Chiara Petrillo’s intercession. They continued to ask for prayer, as TTTS could recur any time – all the way until delivery.

During Margaret’s time in Houston, she wrote the following in her blog: “I am learning that even when there is so much fear and uncertainty about the future, Christ is so fully present in the here and now. We can knock, and the door will be opened to us today. I fear the uncertainty about staying in Houston for so long and missing my children. I fear TTTS coming back, the potential surgery, needing to induce early, losing one or both babies ... There’s so much to fear right now, but I am finding that my future, like my past, is united to Christ on the cross. And in light of eternity, in light of that unending gaze of love that Jesus directs upon me in the present moment, I have nothing to fear because, just as he is with me now, today, he will be with me every day as it comes. And in that and that alone is my hope.”

The Rogers remained covered in prayer by their family, friends, parish family and community. Although Ryan and Margaret never knew what they would find at each biweekly ultrasound over the remaining five months of pregnancy, the incredible happened: the twins remained stable and were ultimately delivered naturally at 36 weeks. 

Ryan and Margaret were delighted to announce the birth of Sophia Caeli and Chiara Lucia on December 13, 2019. “Now, at age two, the girls are healthy and thriving,” Ryan said. The Rogers are thrilled to be expecting their sixth child in September. 

The Rogers have submitted the story of the twins to the Vatican for Servant of God Chiara Petrillo’s Cause of canonization.

Chiara Petrillo, pray for us!