When Heather Garrity was 22 weeks pregnant with her twin boys, doctors urged her to abort the babies, citing a medical condition.
Garrity disagreed with the doctors, despite the grim prognosis, and carried her babies to full term. Today, she is the proud mother of two young men who are top high school athletes and students, KOVR-TV reported.
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Ethan and Dominic were born with Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome, which can happen when identical twins, sharing the same placenta, have uneven blood flow between them. This can cause one twin to become dehydrated, while the other produces too much urine and develops alarmingly high blood pressure.
TTTS occurs in almost 15 percent of all identical twins.
The condition is random, and there is no way to prevent it from happening. Though a TTTS diagnosis used to signal a likely death for both babies in the womb, today there are advanced treatment plans that save 60 percent of the babies affected by the condition.
In the case of Ethan and Dominic, Heather’s decision to defy doctors and not get an abortion proved life-saving. Today, the twins are thriving.
Ethan and Dominic are about to graduate from Nevada Union High School in Grass Valley, California, after which both have plans to attend college.
Dominic is deciding between Harvard, the U.S. Naval Academy, West Point, the Air Force Academy, the University of California-Berkeley, UCLA and Johns Hopkins. Ethan is deciding between the Air Force Academy, Harvard, Dartmouth, UC-Berkeley and UCLA.
“They’re about as impressive as you can get, both 5.0 students,” Scott Wheeler, the boys’ football coach, told KOVR. “As many schools as they’ve gotten into, and the list is amazing, they remain two of the most humble high school students I’ve met.”
The 18-year-olds have not only proven physicians wrong, but thanks to hard work and a “strong support system” at home, they’ve achieved amazing things in their young lives.
“Throughout our lives and throughout adversity, we’ve had a very strong support system, and we’re very grateful for that,” Dominic told KOVR.
(H/T: KOVR-TV)