HUGE NEWS: I'm Pregnant! With TWINS!!!!
15 weeks along, due in December, and everything with this pregnancy is perfectly normal so far.
That's the nutshell version. Of course if you've ever read one of my blogs, you know there is always a long version waiting to be told as brevity is not my strong point. Ya got the gist of it in the first two sentences, so feel free to sign off and not miss much. But if you're dying to know more, here's the full scoop.
First of all, to answer some of the questions I have gotten:
1. No, we don't know the gender yet.
2. Yes, twins run in my family. My mom's grandfather had FOUR sets of twins for siblings, but not all of them survived. This, however, is irrelevant (see #5).
3. No, I have never taken Clomid or any type of infertility medication or IVF (see #5).
4. Yes, I am "Advanced Maternal Age" (> 35 year old) which means I'm one old chick for a pregnant lady. Geez, I never felt old until seeing that stamped on my chart every OB visit. But no, my "old" eggs had nothing to do with it (see #5) because...
5. They are identical twins. Monochorionic diamniotic twins, for you med geeks out there. That means they share one gestational sac; they share a placenta; and they each have their own amniotic sac. They also have the same genetic makeup. Unlike fraternal twins, which come from two eggs each fertilized by a separate sperm, these babies started out as one egg and one sperm and split apart 4-8 days after conception, making two babies. This is a spontaneous or random event (medically speaking), so things that increase the likelihood of fraternal twins (maternal age, infertility treatments, race, family history, etc) aren't a factor here. Identical twins occur with a flat rate of 1 out of 350 births regardless of age, history, IVF treatment, etc.
Now that we got that out of the way...
We had a little bit of drama in the beginning, and HOPEFULLY that's the end of the drama with this pregnancy. As instructed by the MFM (high risk pregnancy doctor), given my history, I went in for an ultrasound at 6 weeks to make sure everything was looking ok. I was a little apprehensive after Joshua's pregnancy which was sandwiched between two miscarriages, one of which was a twin pregnancy (lost at 12 weeks). The doctor narrated what she saw, and she said, "ok, there's just one gestational sac..." My last twin pregnancy had two sacs, so my first thought was a slight disappointment that there was just one baby. Then she zoomed in and said, "there's two yolk sacs...and (zooming in more) two babies..." Whoa! She immediately said, "but don't get too excited because with ultrasounds this early, it's not uncommon for one of the 'fetuses' to reabsorb back into the body, making it a singleton pregnancy. Most women never even know they had twins. They just get their first ultrasound at 8-12 weeks and the twin is gone by then." Then she saw they each had heartbeats. Baby A's heart rate was 101, rechecked to be 100. Baby B's was a perfect 120. 100 is low. She said if the heart rate is <100, that's a sign the baby won't survive, and it will just be reabsorbed back into my body. If it's >100, it's a sign that the baby will most likely survive. She said it could go either way, so she wouldn't make any predictions. At this point I was thinking, "Can I just please have a non-nail biting pregnancy?"
We kept the whole pregnancy under wraps (no small feat!) until we knew for sure if there was one or two babies in there. We had to wait five weeks, not knowing if we had twins or not. During that time, of course, I fully jumped aboard the twin wagon, reading every website I could get my eyes on and every twin book the local libraries carried. I knew I was setting myself up for disappointment, but I figured if he/she didn't survive, I could at least be a mom of twins for a few weeks and embrace it, but I sure would mourn the loss if it occurred. I think it was on my mind literally every minute of every day. James (smart, logical and nearly anti-emotional man that he is), stayed guarded and didn't start reading up on things until after my 11th week, when we knew for sure.
At 11 weeks, the ultrasound showed two beautiful, active babies each with normal heart rates around 160. Whew! Crisis averted. We will get an ultrasound every 3 weeks for awhile to make sure the heart rates and fluid levels look good and that the babies are the same size. With monochorionic twins (sharing a placenta) there is a risk of one twin getting more nutrition than the other and growing at a faster rate. This would be a bad thing, so we'll follow their growth with regular ultrasounds. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of risks with identical twins, such as prematurity, low birth weight, preeclampsia, placental abruption...all stuff I'd rather not get into now.
When I gave my OB history to the MFM during Joshua's pregnancy, I said I was so bummed about my first miscarriage mainly because it was twins, and I've always wanted twins. He put things in perspective saying "You do NOT want twins! Nothing but trouble!" Of course he sees only the complications, so he's a little biased, but it did shed a new light on things, that it isn't always fun and games and bringing home two big healthy term babies. I met a lot of families with twin babies in the NICU, so I know prematurity and complications are a reality for many twins. Personally, I'm not sure if I can dig up the gumption to go through another round of bedrest and NICU (especially when the closest high level NICU is in New Orleans, 96 miles away from us, and our rock star support network in CO is now far away), so I'm just going to live in denial and do whatever I can to stay as healthy as possible and pray that we can end up with two 6-7 lb babies born at 37 weeks. Many of you, my prayer partners/supporters from the last time around, are probably sick of me begging for prayers, so I'll hold off on groveling until it becomes a necessity. But if you just happen to be looking for something to fill your prayer list, please feel free to add us to it, just for continued normalcy of this pregnancy.
For now, I'm just riding the blissful wave of having a "normal" pregnancy. Unlike with Joshua's pregnancy, I have felt very pregnant from the beginning of this pregnancy with no underlying sense of doom. This first trimester had oppressive fatigue, horrible nausea (both welcomed at the time but thankfully resolved now), and no bleeding. My belly is already bigger than it was when I delivered Joshua at 30 weeks, and I've already gained more weight than I did in that entire pregnancy. I'm just excited to be able to wear maternity clothes this time around. As James teases, I'm "as big as a house!" which is about the best compliment he can give me after the last time around when I was so anxious about not gaining any weight. I told him he ain't seen nothin' yet.
Life is good!
About 30 seconds after our family dispersed after taking the above picture (where he was trying to act like he's not excited for two babies taking over his role as baby in the family), Joshua decided to turn on his charm and act like his normal jovial self. I love these guys!
