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CNN Live Sunday
Twins Born Against All Odds
Aired May 13, 2001 - 17:48 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: Now a story about a mother and twin girls who are lucky to be alive, much less being together for their first Mother's Day. On the verge of certain death, their lives were saved by new advances in medical technology. CNN's medical correspondent Rhonda Rowland reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RHONDA ROWLAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twins Grace and Kelly Greene, conceived with the help of modern infertility treatments. There mother lives -- three lives saved because of state- of-the-art technology and a medical team that happened to be in place.
ELIZABETH GREENE, MOTHER: Then I was very lucky that the people who helped save my life were in the hospital on a Sunday afternoon.
ROWLAND: This is how it all began. Eliz and Clay Greene tried for five years to have a baby.
GREENE: We want to a series of infertility specialists before we found the guy who knew what he was doing, and he was able to help us get pregnant.
ROWLAND: A combination of fertility drugs and surgery finally worked for them. Then: a surprise.
GREENE: Once I saw that second heartbeat I was like, "Oh, my Lord! There's going to be two babies inside of me."
ROWLAND: It was a difficult pregnancy. Contractions started early. Bed rest and medications were prescribed. By her 6th month, this room at Saint Joseph's Hospital in Milwaukee became her home.
GREENE: But I was willing to do anything. If I had to hang upside-down by my toes, I would have, to make sure that the babies were born healthy.
ROWLAND: Then the critical day: November 12, 2000.
GREENE: It started off as a regular day...
ROWLAND: But suddenly...
GREENE: ... I was in real pain and I knew that there was something wrong. I could point to a spot I mean, it was right here, that hurt. And then there was like radiating pain from there.
ROWLAND: Her perinatologist, Dr. Margaret Carr, happened to be at the nurse's station.
DR. MARGARET CARR, PERINATOLOGIST: A day doesn't go by when I don't have somebody complaining of heartburn. Even chest pain.
ROWLAND: She soon determined this was different -- something very serious.
CARR: It was then she put her eyes back and she became unconscious and she had no pulse.
ROWLAND: Eliz was in cardiac arrest. Specialists, who happened to be in the hospital on call, were brought in. CPR started.
DR. HUSAM BALKHY, CARDIOTHORASIC SURGEON: You could say that she was dead for several minutes.
DR. ROBERT WAKEFIELD, CARDIOLOGIST: The babies were dying. Their movement had stopped. We didn't know if we were going to resuscitate her quickly enough, or should we deliver the babies.
ROWLAND: Doctors took a chance and shocked Eliz's heart.
She opened up her eyes. I said, "Liz, something just happened. Your heart stopped. We don't know if you had a clot to the lung or if you had a heart attack."
And she nodded her head like, OK, something happened, just take care of me.
ROWLAND: Eliz was taken to the cardiac catharitization lab, where staff was standing by due to a last-minute cancellation.
WAKEFIELD: She had a spontaneous tear of an artery in the front of her heart, and we knew that the only thing that was really appropriate was open-heart surgery.
ROWLAND: Specifically, bypass surgery.
WAKEFIELD: Can we do this on somebody who's carrying babies? And the answer is: You could, it's been done in the past. But was it really necessary to put the babies through this? And the answer was no.
ROWLAND: First the twins were delivered by C-section.
CARR: The babies came out kicking and screaming and as you know, they are beautiful.
ROWLAND: The bypass operation began.
CARR: Within 15 minutes after I closed, they were opening up her chest. ROWLAND: Eliz wasn't out of the woods, yet. Could she endure the rigors of having her heart stopped and being put on a heart-lung machine during the surgery? Doctors thought it would be dangerous. They had a new high-tech alternative. While the heart continues beating a device is used to stabilize just the part of the heart being work on. Seventeen hours after her heart surgery, Eliz met her daughters for the first time in a neonatal intensive care unit.
GREENE: The best thing was when he came to tell me that we had girls. It was first time that I saw him after surgery. And he was glowing. See, now, I'm going to do it. He just -- you have never seen anybody more in love with his daughters. He was -- he was so proud and he was so happy that I was OK.
ROWLAND: The beating heart surgery may have contributed to Eliz's relatively short and uncomplicated recovery. Considering her years of infertility treatment, a high-risk pregnancy, bed rest, a heart attack C-section and then open heart surgery.
GREENE: I can do whatever I want at this point, and have been for months. I take the girls out by myself. I can carry whatever I need to carry. I can care for the girls by myself, essentially. And I don't think that would have been possible.
ROWLAND: Doctors say Eliz's condition is uncommon. That she survived it, rare.
CARR: With a little bit of help from God, I think we have modern technology on our side.
ROWLAND: Is motherhood all that Eliz Greene hoped it would be?
GREENE: Even on bad days when they cry for three hours and I don't really know why, it's still a great day. And I'm so grateful and so blessed to have these girls and to have my husband and have a family, that we worked for and hoped for, for so long. And here they are.
ROWLAND: Rhonda Rowland, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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