What the heck is an SCT?!

So what the heck is a Sacrococcygeal teratoma?

The Wikipedia answer will tell you:

A Sacrococcygeal teratoma (SCT) is an unusual tumor that, in the newborn, is located at the base of the tailbone (coccyx). This birth defect is more common in female than in male babies. Although the tumors can grow very large, they are usually not malignant (that is, cancerous).

So here we are 18 weeks into this twin pregnancy and researching the crap outta this new acronym. If you google it and look at pictures its horrifying!!!! Google is a godsend most days, but its definitely not your friend when your looking up medical stuff. It can scare the begeezus out of you!

SCT’s can grow 2-3 times larger then the baby and when they start growing early on in the pregnancy and have a vascular component (meaning it has a vein to feed and grow the tumor) the chances of the baby going full term or even surviving decreases greatly. You are basically dealing with a wait and see scenario.

Ultrasounds became the new norm. We had them every two weeks, then every week starting at 30 weeks gestation. It was stressful. I thought the two week wait after IVF was hard!!! Going in every 14 days to see how big this tumor had grown and “IF” this little baby still had a heartbeat was one of the hardest thing in the world. As much as I loved being pregnant and was thankful to be pregnant, the whole process was daunting and stressful.

At 35 weeks and 3 days high blood pressure and the shunting of one of the placentas brought my pregnancy to a screeching halt. I was starting to show signs of liver and kidney failure, and a Baby A’s placenta was no longer doing its job. They wanted to deliver me a few hours after I was admitted, but with the complication of the SCT it required a specialized team to be in place to perform the delivery. As much as this was an emergency situation, they wanted to monitor me every 3 hours till they could round up the team, arrange the transfer and care at Children’s Hospital, and make sure all the proper boxes were checked off.

I was wheeled into the OR at 11:00 am the following morning and the spinal tap was administrated. We delivered Parker at 12:01 pm and Alexia at 12:04 pm. After sitting in recovery for 45 mins I was wheeled into the NICU to see my baby girl before she was whisked away to Children’s Hospital. I got to hold her for 10 mins not knowing when or if I would see or hold her again.

I’m told babies are resilient, but knowing your little one is about to undergo a MAJOR surgery can make you feel utterly helpless. And what was even harder was seeing her hooked up to tubes and monitors and laying there sedated when shown photos of my baby girl. She looked so helpless. She had fought so hard to be in this world and here her battle was not getting any easier.

It really blows my mind that they can do surgery on a baby so small and so young. She was teeny tiny – only weighing 4 pounds and 2 oz and her tumor was half a pound of her body weight. I don’t know about you but I thought getting cut open for a c-section was painful and here my little girl was getting her coccyx (tailbone) and tumor removed at one day old. I knew I was in pain, but it didn’t compare to how much I felt for my little girl and what she was about to endure. She really was a little fighter!!!