BOOK AWARD WINNER: LEFT: WHEN NOTHING GOES RIGHT

“Oh my!” the nurse blurted as she looked at the ultrasound. The Donohues, Chad and Ryann, were in the middle of the initial checkup for their latest pregnancy. “I knew instantly that ‘Oh my’ was nurse speak for twins,” Chad Donohue recalls. “I remember burying my face in my hands and noticing how damn hot that cold room had become. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. We were planning on a fourth child, not a fourth and a fifth. My mind was immediately scrambled.” They soon learned that Ryann was carrying monochorionic and monoamniotic twins, an extremely rare—and dangerous—pregnancy. So-called momo twins share a single amniotic sac and one placenta. Twins of any type are not common, happening in only one of every 250 pregnancies. Identical twins are rarer still: only about three or four pregnancies in every 1,000. Of those identical twin pregnancies, momo twins occur in less than 1 percent. The possibility of conceiving momo twins is roughly one in 750,000. In such pregnancies, the babies have only a 50/50 chance of being born alive. The Donohues learned that their babies had only a 50/50 chance of being born alive. Left: When Nothing Goes Right chronicles their journey through this high-risk pregnancy and months in the neonatal intensive care unit. It is a story of courage, humor, grace under pressure, deep faith, loss, and love. It is a father’s story; it is a family’s story.