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Hazel and Olive Fitzgerald Memorial

A personal campaign sponsored by Brion Fitzgerald

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Until now, we didn't know how important and healing it would be for us to tell you our story.  We wish to remember and honor our twins, Hazel & Olive, for their precious but short lives.

On Monday March 3rd, 2014, we had our first ultrasound at the beautiful Adventist Hinsdale Hospital.  On that day, we learned that we were expecting not only twins, but twin girls!!!  We never considered the possibility of having twins, but after much shock and joy, we began to rapidly change our plans to accommodate our new bundles of joy.  During that ultrasound, we also learned that they had Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS).  This added a wide range of additional emotions, including worry and confusion as we knew nothing about TTTS or its existence.  At the hospital's recommendation, we flew to Pennsylvania to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for possible life saving treatment.  We were fortunate enough to be able to choose CHOP, based on their expertise and long history of dealing with this still 'young' Syndrome.  Their research and experience makes them one of the best in the U.S.  Unfortunately TTTS is unpredictable, and during the first test on Monday March 10th at CHOP, the doctors could not find any heartbeats.  We had just felt them moving around the night before.  The doctors and staff at CHOP did an excellent job of helping us work through our emotions and get through the frightful days ahead.  They worked seamlessly with Hinsdale Hospital to provide us with all of the support and answers we needed for the coming weeks.  Without their support and guidance, we don't know how we would have gotten through that first day.

We swiftly returned to Chicago that evening, thankfully on an almost empty airplane.  We returned to Hinsdale Hospital on Thursday, March 13th to start the delivery process.  We said our hellos and goodbyes to our twin girls, Hazel and Olive, when they were born on Friday March 14th.  Even though this all happened in the span of less than two weeks, they became very real people to us, and we will always consider ourselves their parents. 

We encourage our friends and family to help support CHOP and the amazing work & research they do every day.  Even though CHOP did not have a chance to help us surgically, they were instrumental at the beginning of our healing process.  We hope the donations provided can help other families in similar situations, in support of future research into TTTS and other fetal diagnosis and treatment.

- Brion & Tina Fitzgerald