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How Mesa twins beat odds of survival
BY MELODY BIRKETT
Tribune Contributor
Ashley and Matthew Yancey of Mesa received the exciting news in early 2020 they would become parents for the first time and their joy doubled when they learned eight weeks into her pregnancy she was expecting twins.
“To say it was a surprise is probably an understatement because twins don’t run in my family or my husband’s,” said Ashley. “It was an exciting time for us.” They were planning to share the joyous news at 11 weeks but the couple’s enthusiasm soon turned to fear and sadness.
Yancey started having complications and thought she was having a miscarriage.
“It obviously was a very scary time,” she said.
More than a little scary, in fact: It was March 2020 on a Friday, at the beginning of COVID, so doctors didn’t want to admit her to the hospital. “I just prayed and cried out to God, ‘Save my babies,’” Ashley recalled. Ashley Yancey holds on tight to her twin daughters, who encountered a dangerous medical condition after their premature birth during the pandemic. (Courtesy of the Yancey Family)
On the following Monday, she went to see her doctor and was relieved when the physician heard two heartbeats. But it was recommended she go to a more skilled doctor. At 16 weeks, Ashley was walking to her car after a routine appointment when a medical technician ran out after her and told her to go back inside.
“At that moment, my heart dropped because you know something is wrong when someone’s running after you and saying to come back so they can get some more ultrasounds,” said Ashley. This went on for an hour while her husband was sitting in the car, unable to come in due to COVID restrictions.
Ashley was told she had Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) and needed to fly the next day to an out-of-state . specialist.
“My mind at this point was spinning,” said Ashley, who didn’t know anything about TTTS. “I was overwhelmed.” Ashley was told no one in Arizona knows the procedure for treating the syndrome and only a few doctors in the country do it.
Ashley got connected to Dr. John Elliott in Phoenix, a maternal-fetal specialist known around the world for delivering multiple births.
He referred the Yanceys to Dr. Henry Galan, a fetal surgeon and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, one of a few doctors in the nation who can perform the in-utero surgery needed to save her babies’ lives.
seeTWINS page 17
Mesa kids choir registering as rehearsals set
TRIBUNE NEWS STAFF
Sing School Children’s Choir is registering kids 5-14 for its fall semester. No audition is required at this time and rehearsals are slated to begin in August.
Rehearsals will be held on Mondays after school at Love of Christ Lutheran Church, 1525 North Power Road, Mesa. Sing School Children’s Choir is under the direction of Missy Lofgreen Gardiner and Allesha Hatch Shumway and is Mesa’s premiere children’s choral ensemble and education program. Sing School provides a quality choral and vocal arts program fostering healthy vocal production, sound musicianship and performance skills.
Along with rehearsing a variety of quality music, a portion of each rehearsal will Kids who join the Sing School Children’s Choir have a chance to perform before live audi-
ences. (YouTube)
focus on developing and strengthening music literacy skills as well as healthy vocal and performance techniques. Lofgreen Gardiner started the school in 2019.
“We feel strongly about providing an uplifting, musical experience for children in the Mesa area,” said Gardiner, the mother of nine, at the time. “There are so many wonderful benefits from being a part of a choir, and we truly want to share our love of music with these children. It is something about which we are very passionate.” She said she wants to develop a strong reputation for a quality music education program that not only produces successful choirs, but that strengthens individual musicians as well.
“Our choirs focus on healthy vocal technique, musicianship and performance skills in a fun and uplifting atmosphere,” Gardiner said, stating their pupils will “gain confidence, develop friendships and learn musicianship skills that will help them thrive.” She added she wanted to “find and grow quality.”
Register at MySingSchool.com or email MelissaGardiner@MySingSchool.
com.
Time was of the essence so Ashley and her husband immediately flew to Denver.
“We called everybody we know and prayed,” Ashley said. “We had no idea this fast-moving aggressive disease could be fine one ultrasound and the next ultrasound it could go downhill very fast.” Galan first saw Ashley on May 30, 2020. He said TTTS happens in one in 4,0005,000 pregnancies.
“But because we’re a center that these patients get referred to, we see them much more regularly,” said. Galan. “TTTS occurs in pregnancies that have a single placenta where the two umbilical cords that come into the placenta themselves have vessels that branch out like the roots of a tree on the surface of that placenta.” TTTS does not happen with non-identical twins with separate placentas.
“When you have a single placenta, almost universally, you’re going to have multiple connections from one side of the placenta to the other through surface vessels,” explained Galan. “About 90% of the time there’s not a problem,” he said. “Those connections allow flow back and forth between the babies and there are no issues. There’s complete shared circulation.” But Galan said about 10% of the time, the blood flows become unbalanced so that “one baby becomes a donor while the other baby becomes a recipient and it affects each of those babies separately and in very different ways.
“The one baby who’s receiving all that extra blood volume, that baby will end up having, for example, a vascular system in its body that’s super well hydrated.”
But the other twin’s vascular system will become depleted. TTTS can occur at any point in pregnancy, Galan said, and “it tends to be more aggressive if it’s diagnosed earlier in pregnancy than it is later in pregnancy.” There are several stages of TTTS with the more serious stages carrying a risk of the loss of one or both twins. But he said not all TTTS patients need surgery. Once a high-risk pregnancy is diMesa twins Madilyn and Addilyn Yancey will be celebrating their second birthday in Sep-
tember. (Courtesy of the Yancey Family)
agnosed, the patient should be followed every two weeks starting at 16 weeks’ gestation until the end of the pregnancy to evaluate for its development.
“Ashley’s stage of disease was severe enough that fetal surgery was needed,” said Galan. “
Ashley said doctors suggested choosing which baby should survive in case it came down to that.
“But I couldn’t look at that ultrasound and decide which one so we decided to go with the 30% chance of survival for both twins even though the odds were against us,” she recalled. On June 12, 2020, Galan and his colleagues performed the in-utero surgery.
“Through a fetoscope, we can go in and with the camera, we can visualize the connecting vessels between the two fetuses,” Dr. Galan explained. “We can feed that laser fiber down and we can laser or burn those connecting vessels…It accomplishes two things: It treats TTTS and protects both babies from themselves should one baby pass away.
“At the time of surgery, we removed two liters of fluid from Ashley’s recipient baby,” said Galan. “Picture a two-liter bottle of coke. That’s how much fluid we removed from her.”
Yancey successfully gave birth to Madilyn and Addilyn on Sept. 2, 2020, 12 weeks after the surgery.
“I knew I had to take my chances,” she reflected. “I just wanted to give them every possible chance for survival. I didn’t want to cut their lives short.”
Addilyn was the baby pumping blood for her and her sister has pulmonary valve stenosis, requiring two surgeries.
“I’m glad to have her here and thriving,” said Ashley. “You can’t tell which one has a heart condition. All of Madilyn’s problems were in the placenta so she’s fine but she was very tiny.”
Ashley said the twins are very close.
“They walk around the house. They call each other ‘baby.’ If one gets something, like a pretzel, they’ll say, ‘baby’ and hold out their other hand and go give their sister one. Everything I do for one, I have to do for the other. “They do not like being apart. They’ve only been apart a few times like if dad takes one of them to the store. They do not like it. The other one will say, ‘baby, baby’ and walk around the house super sad because their sister isn’t there. So, we don’t separate them very much.” Ashley now wants to spread awareness of TTTS and be a help to anyone who has this disease. “If I get connected to other moms with TTTS, I’d love to talk to them,” she said. “When I found someone else who had it, I connected with them since it’s so rare.” Galan and the Yanceys developed a special bond. He routinely checks in on them. “The most gratifying part is getting the periodic updates and pictures and videos of these kids as they unfold later in life,” he said. Madilyn and Addilyn are very close, their mother says, explaining “Everything I do for one, I have to do for the other.” (Courtesy of the Yancey Family)
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Julia Faye Wick
Julia “Judy” Faye Wick, 91, of Mesa, Arizona, passed away on July 14, 2022 in Tucson, Arizona. Judy was born on July 7, 1931 in Johnston City, Illinois to Vernie Clayton and Virginia Bundren. She graduated from high school in Dexter, Missouri in 1949. Judy graduated from William Woods College in Fulton, Missouri in 1951, a two-year women’s college at the time, and she was a member of the Alpha Iota International Honorary Business Sorority. Thereafter, Judy attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois and pledged Chi Omega Sorority. She married in 1952 and gave birth to Karen Pruett in 1954. After a divorce, Judy and Karen moved to Arizona in 1960. Judy worked at the Maricopa Inn in downtown Mesa in the accounting department and pursued finishing her college education at Arizona State University. Judy met Oliver H. Wick of Wick Insurance & Realty thereafter. They married in 1962. Judy never lost sight of her goal to obtain her college degree. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Education in 1963 and earned a Master’s Degree in Speech Pathology in 1964 from A.S.U. She worked as a speech clinician in the Creighton School District in Phoenix, working with students at several different elementary schools. She continued to take classes in her field, and was always looking for more effective ways to help the children who came to her. In retirement, she pursued the game of golf, was an avid bridge player, and was a member of the Mesa Country Club, P.E.O., and the Scottsdale Garden Club. Judy was a loving caregiver to her mother, father, and to her husband, Oliver Wick, who predeceased her in 2005. Judy is survived by her daughter, Karen Pruett Norton, and stepdaughter, Patricia Wick, and grandchildren, Abby Norton Floyd, Molly Norton Garcia, Peter Norton, Jay Norton, Robert Goeller, and Elizabeth Ewald, as well as nineteen great grandchildren. Judy was a devoted daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and friend. She loved her family and will be greatly missed. The family will have a private service to celebrate her life.
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