Two events. One mission. A lifetime of difference.

A charitable weekend benefitting families facing extraordinary medical journeys and supporting access to fetal medicine.

• 11:00 AM, Friday, July 31, 2026  -  The Quintero Classic
  • Where: Wintonbury Hills Golf Course | Bloomfield, Connecticut
  • What: A charity golf tournament named in honor of the surgeons who saved our girls. Scramble format, including lunch, on-hole activations, dinner, drinks, and reception.

• 5:00 PM, Saturday, August 1, 2026  -  An Evening with Zac Clark & Friends
  • Where: The Webb Barn | Wethersfield, Connecticut
  • What: An evening of celebration with music, food, drinks, and an opportunity to meet and thank the surgeons who saved our girls.

Our Story

In November 2017, we were told our identical twin girls were dying. We were fifteen weeks pregnant.

A maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Yale diagnosed them with Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS), a condition where the babies share a placenta unevenly and one slowly drains the other. If we did nothing, both would die. We booked emergency laser surgery for the next morning.

That surgery should have been the end of the story. It wasn't. Days later we were diagnosed with Twin Anemia Polycythemia Sequence (TAPS), then a velamentous cord insertion that put fetal blood transfusions in a place no surgeon wanted to go. One of our daughters needed a transfusion directly into her liver, and the plan to repeat transfusions until the girls reached viability had to be abandoned. We were running out of options, and we were running out of time.

So we threw a Hail Mary. We e-mailed Dr. Ruben Quintero, the surgeon who invented the staging system used worldwide to classify the very condition that was killing our girls. He answered immediately. “Fly down to Florida. I think I can help."

On December 7, 2017, we left our 2-year-old son with his Grammie and Pops, hugged him goodbye, and boarded a one-way flight to West Palm Beach to fight for our girls. The next morning Dr. Quintero performed an ultrasound and confirmed what we feared: the membranes between our babies were separating from the previous procedures, and there was a high risk that another procedure would kill them. Most surgeons would not have attempted what came next. He did. Three hours later, every adverse connection had been severed. Days after that, in his Miami office, we heard the words we had stopped letting ourselves imagine: “The TTTS and TAPS are cured."

Words that gave us the courage to paint a nursery. But there was still a long way to go.

More hospitalizations, an amnio-patch procedure Dr. Quintero himself invented, and a flight home in a snowstorm to spend a Christmas morning with our son that we'll always remember. However, Christmas was short-lived and followed quickly by hospital admissions and bed rest for nearly 50 days. We took up residence in Room 124 at the UConn Health Center. Literally.

But at 1:34 a.m. and 1:35 a.m. on February 21, 2018, Alexis Suzanne and Melina Quinn were born. Melina's middle name is a quiet thank-you to the doctor we believe saved her life. Our girls fought for the next two months in the NICU and reached every milestone. We were finally able to bring them home to meet their older brother, John, and our family was complete.

Today both of our girls are happy, healthy, and home.

We are the lucky ones. We had an in-network hospital by coincidence, family living 34 minutes from the out-of-state operating room, the support of a Grammie and Pops to watch our young son, financial savings to risk, and the knowledge to fight an insurance company while we held each other's hands in pre-op. Take any one of those pieces away and our family looks very different today. No parent should ever have to weigh the life of their unborn child against the survival of their family's finances; access to quality fetal therapies must be expanded. Those truths are why we are hosting this event.

Join Us

11:00 AM, Friday, July 31, 2026 — The Quintero Classic
Wintonbury Hills Golf Course, 206 Terry Plains Rd., Bloomfield, CT 06002

A charity golf tournament at Wintonbury Hills Golf Course in Bloomfield, named in honor of the surgeon who saved our girls. Foursomes, sponsorships, on-course contests, food and drinks, and an awards reception to follow. Whether you play a scratch round, or haven't picked up a club in a decade, your entry directly funds fetal therapy research.

Tournament Agenda:
- 11:00 AM: Welcome and player registration
- 12:00 PM: Lunch.
- 12:45 PM: Players directed to shotgun staging area and golf carts.
- 1:00 PM: Shotgun start.
- 5:30 PM: Cocktail hour.
- 6:00 PM: Dinner and awards reception.

5:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Saturday, August 1, 2026 — An Evening with Zac Clark & Friends
The Webb Barn - 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, Connecticut 06109 

An evening of live music, food, and drinks at The Webb Barn in Wethersfield, complete with a special performance by Zac Clark and friends that you wont want to miss. We'll celebrate the families who beat the odds, honor the doctors who made it possible, and raise meaningful money for the families who've yet to fight.

Zac Clark is a musician who was raised in Vermont, but now calls Nashville home. Zac been hailed by Rolling Stone for his own “classic pop progressions” & “stirring melodies,” and has written songs that “explore the notion that there’s something divinely bright in even the most dire of situations; that we can come together even while worlds apart gives us the ability to withstand more than we could imagine.”

As a former member of Jack’s Mannequin and Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness, Zac toured with the likes of Weezer, Billy Joel, Panic! At The Disco and more. Most recently, he toured as a solo artist supporting McMahon, Allen Stone, Guster, Augustana, The Starting Line, and The Maine. His music features collaborations with McMahon (Jack’s Mannequin / Something Corporate), Marc Walloch (Beck, AWOLNATION), Ian O’Neill (Lady A), Sam Smith (Ben Folds), Jon Lampley (Colbert Report, OAR), Joe Pisapia (Guster), and Dan Layus (Augustana).

About The Fetal Institute Foundation

The Fetal Institute operates on babies before they are born. Founded by Dr. Ruben Quintero and Dr. Eftichia Kontopoulos, it is the world's leading center for fetal therapy to treat TTTS, TAPS, spina bifida, LUTO, CDH, and seventeen other conditions most families have never heard of and most hospitals cannot treat. Over 1,000 fetal surgeries. Patients from every continent. The techniques and instruments they invented are now taught around the world.

Fetal therapy faces a problem most people don't know exists: almost none of the medical devices used in these surgeries are formally approved for fetal use. The field is so specialized, and the patient population so small, that traditional medical-device pipelines do not serve it. Surgeons routinely have to adapt, modify, or invent their own instruments.

The Fetal Institute Foundation exists to close that gap. The Foundation funds the research, development, and manufacturing of medical devices designed specifically for fetal therapy — the tools that future families like ours will depend on. It also supports the broader research that allows these techniques to keep improving, so that the survival rates and quality of life for these babies continue to climb.

When you give to the Foundation, you are not buying a thank-you note. You are funding the next instrument, the next technique, the next family's outcome. Every dollar goes back into the chain that brought our girls home.

How to Help

Join us for the weekend, become a sponsor, or make a direct contribution to The Fetal Institute Foundation and the families it serves.

Donate to the Foundation: thefetalinstitutefoundation.org

And if this story resonates with you, please share it with someone whose family was held together by a doctor who refused to give up. They'll understand exactly why this mission matters.

With love and gratitude,

Andrew & Jennifer Garza
Lexi, Lina, and John

Supported by the team at Claggett, Sykes & Garza and Claggett & Sykes.