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Bachelor alum Vienna Girardi revealed Sunday that she lost her twin daughters.
Girardi, who was 18 weeks pregnant, shared the news in an emotional Facebook post, saying the twins had experienced twin-to-twin transfusion (TTTS), in which identical twins share a common monochorionic placenta, according to the TTTS Foundation. The syndrome can cause one of the twins to have a smaller share of the necessary nutrients needed to grow and survive.
“This is the hardest thing I have ever had to write,” Girardi wrote, saying she went in for an Aug. 3 ultrasound because “the Perinatologist notice one of my twins had more fluids than the other which was the first sign of TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome) this is when one twin takes more nutrients than the other. They said that it did look like it had improved over the last week though. Unfortunately, that was not the case and that evening my water broke due to the amniotic sacs rupturing. I spent the next 2 days in the hospital trying everything to save them.”
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She said her doctors advised her to deliver the babies or else she’d be risking her own life and her uterus could become infected, but they warned that the babies would not likely survive a birth at only 18 weeks.
“They also said that there was a very slim chance under 5% that the babies could survive and the fluids in their amniotic sacs replenish themselves so as any mother would do I did everything to save them but their hearts stopped beating on day two which is also when I went into a septic shock with 104 fever,” she wrote. “My little angels went to Heaven on Aug 5th and I was rushed into the OR for emergency surgery and was in the ICU for 4 days.”
Girardi said she’s been questioning why this happened and has been “laying in bed heartbroken” for several days as she deals with her grief. She also said a doctor asked if she would “consider donating my little girls to science so they can also understand why this happens and be able to save another women who has twins with TTTS. This was the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my life but I knew my little girls were in Heaven already and the pain I feel I would never want any mother to ever feel.”
She added of her “sweet angels,” “Mommy will never forget you and I loved you both with my entire heart.”
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Girardi, who lives in Orlando and works as an architectural and engineering recruiter, had recently revealed to Us Weekly that it was a high-risk pregnancy, saying she had been unable to work out and experienced a difficulty first trimester.
“I have monitoring every two weeks,” she said. “The moment doctors see one growing bigger, there’s a surgery they can do.”
Girardi competed on Jake Pavelka’s season of The Bachelor in 2010. The two became engaged but broke up several months after filming. They opened up about their less-than-amicable split in an interview that aired in July of that year and then reunited in 2011 on Bachelor Pad, while she was dating fellow contestant Kasey Kahl. The reunion led to a great deal of drama throughout the season.
Girardi first shared news of the pregnancy in June in an Instagram post with an ultrasound photo that read, “Twice the blessing, twice the fun.” She told Us Weekly earlier this month that both of the babies were girls. She has not revealed who the father is.
A post shared by Vienna Girardi (@viennag) on
Read her full Facebook post below.
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