Well, we have once again changed due dates. We are back in the range of the first due date and calling it March 4, 2010 now. So, I'm back up to 16 weeks!
Had another ultrasound yesterday and BOTH of them had their legs not just closed, but crossed! They would move them around, but not uncross them, so we still don't know what they are. We have ultrasounds on October 14 and then on October 15, so we should know by the end of that week I think! Then starting with October 28, we go to the perinatologist's office every week for a preterm labor prevention program.
After they both wouldn't show their goods I started entertaining the idea of waiting to find out, but when I mentioned this to Paul he looked at me like I was crazy, so I imagine we will not be doing that!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
What KIND of Twins are they??
First off, while people have asked us if they are natural, I think that's not a very useful word to use. I have no idea what an artifical twin would be. They are however, spontaneous.
In terms of the question of monozygotic, aka identical, or dizygotic, aka fraternal, the answer currently is we don't really know. They each have their own placenta, but this is true for 30% of monozygotic twins as well as all fraternal twins. However, since eggplant has measured slightly smaller than heart on every single scan, my thought is they are likely dizygotic.
The shorthand summary I've worked out of mono vs. di is:
If they are in the same sac, they are identical. If they are boy/girl, they are fraternal. Everything else could go either way though there may be indicators towards one type or the other. Also, if they have different blood types, they are fraternal, but this won't be known until after they are born. The true gold standard to test is a zygosity test.
In terms of the question of monozygotic, aka identical, or dizygotic, aka fraternal, the answer currently is we don't really know. They each have their own placenta, but this is true for 30% of monozygotic twins as well as all fraternal twins. However, since eggplant has measured slightly smaller than heart on every single scan, my thought is they are likely dizygotic.
The shorthand summary I've worked out of mono vs. di is:
If they are in the same sac, they are identical. If they are boy/girl, they are fraternal. Everything else could go either way though there may be indicators towards one type or the other. Also, if they have different blood types, they are fraternal, but this won't be known until after they are born. The true gold standard to test is a zygosity test.
Heart and Eggplant
Well, while we were sent home with a picture of two sacs at the last appointment, Dr. Nash did not use the word twins except for asking if twins ran in our family. In fact, as a follow-up to my question of “isn’t there such a thing as vanishing twin syndrome,” she said that there definitely are two sacs with something in each now, but she’d give it 30% odds that there would still be two in two weeks. I think she might have been trying to help me gradually adapt to the idea, because I never found any stat that low online.
So, when she walked in to our appointment two weeks later, she skipped all the small chat and said, “well, I’m wanting to know how many are in there and I’m sure y’all are, so let’s get to it.” And lo and behold:
Heart and eggplant! Both with good heartbeats. Heart is A and eggplant is B!
So, when she walked in to our appointment two weeks later, she skipped all the small chat and said, “well, I’m wanting to know how many are in there and I’m sure y’all are, so let’s get to it.” And lo and behold:
Heart and eggplant! Both with good heartbeats. Heart is A and eggplant is B!
She also changed our due date at this appointment to March 10 from March 2. But, since she also told us the latest we would go is 38 weeks, we actually moved up over a week total.
We also got individual shots of each, but apparently I'm not good enough at knowing how to use the blogpost thing to show both... Oh well
July 8, 2010
We go in for our first 6 week appointment. Everything looks good on the physical exam, so move on to the ultrasound. Dr. Nash looks around for a bit and then looks up and asks, “do twins run in your family?” Umm, what? Was the quietest I’ve ever been in her office!
Paul took it like a trooper while I stayed in a state of shock. That is until we were driving to work and he asked if I realized this meant that we would have to name two resulting in a screamed profanity.
Two huh? That’s a surprise.
We go in for our first 6 week appointment. Everything looks good on the physical exam, so move on to the ultrasound. Dr. Nash looks around for a bit and then looks up and asks, “do twins run in your family?” Umm, what? Was the quietest I’ve ever been in her office!
Paul took it like a trooper while I stayed in a state of shock. That is until we were driving to work and he asked if I realized this meant that we would have to name two resulting in a screamed profanity.
Two huh? That’s a surprise.
Reconstruction by key dates:
So, the timing of this pregnancy was not coincidental. I work as an actuary and recently finished up my exam requirements to move from an Associate of the Society of Actuaries to a Fellow. Yes, an FSA. Seldom has so much effort been expended to turn an A into an F. [That’s a bad actuarial joke, so feel free to not even get it.]
I thought an interesting way to get myself thinking through what I should be recording/blogging/etc. would be to reconstruct the key dates that have gotten us to where we are today.
April 30, 2010 – took CSP-RU exam and felt pretty good about it. Knew I completely aced the non-accounting questions and thought I may have figured out one of the accounting questions completely and hopefully at least got points on each.
May 11, 2010 – took EA-2B exam and rocked it.
May 12, 2010 – talked through performance on the exams and decided we were comfortable going ahead and moving towards getting pregnant even though we didn’t have my results on the exams yet. Theory was since I was confident I had passed EA-2B, the worst case scenario was that I would have to take CSP-RU again. Since it wouldn’t be offered again until the end of April 2011, assuming I got pregnant quickly, I shouldn’t have difficulty taking it as I’d still be on partial maternity leave.
May 15, 2010 – completed FE module. Assuming I had passed both exams, getting this module in before May 30 meant that I would be grandfathered into the older FSA requirements and not have to do a third content FSA content module.
May 28, 2010 – LMP
June 7, 2010 – Appointment with OB. Out of curiosity, I started tracking basal temperatures and monitoring for LH spikes over the winter/spring months. This had not produced any useful patterns. She said that even though we hadn’t been trying, we should go ahead and do some lab work at the start of my next cycle because I had good data and it wasn’t promising.
June 9, 2010 – got my first ever positive ovulation test. Proceeded to do two more in quick succession to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. Gone by just a couple hours later, so was not optimistic.
June 23, 2010 – positive pregnancy test! Do NOT believe those valid 6 days before silliness. Also, make sure and give test enough time to get a result before just tossing it. And thanks to Anita for confirming that a pale positive is still a positive!
July 8, 2010 – twins. Except that word really wasn’t used. March 2, 2011 due date.
July 22, 2010 – still twins, but now the word twins is used for sure! Back up to a March 10, 2011 due date
July 24, 2010 – buy a new bedroom set.
August 19, 2010 – still twins and they look much more baby like on ultrasound. Their size is closer to the March 2, 2011 due date, but apparently we are sticking with March 10.
August 23, 2010 – first perinatologist appointment. Both babies ace their Down’s screening. Perinatologist says March 2 date seems more likely. There’s a third space and an ovarian cyst, but definitely no triplet. I know we would have dealt, but I must confess that I was joyful at there not being a triplet. Triplets is just such a harder and risker ballgame.
Ok, so this post is really for me to keep things straight. Hopefully it gives me motivation to write out more of the story coming up...
I thought an interesting way to get myself thinking through what I should be recording/blogging/etc. would be to reconstruct the key dates that have gotten us to where we are today.
April 30, 2010 – took CSP-RU exam and felt pretty good about it. Knew I completely aced the non-accounting questions and thought I may have figured out one of the accounting questions completely and hopefully at least got points on each.
May 11, 2010 – took EA-2B exam and rocked it.
May 12, 2010 – talked through performance on the exams and decided we were comfortable going ahead and moving towards getting pregnant even though we didn’t have my results on the exams yet. Theory was since I was confident I had passed EA-2B, the worst case scenario was that I would have to take CSP-RU again. Since it wouldn’t be offered again until the end of April 2011, assuming I got pregnant quickly, I shouldn’t have difficulty taking it as I’d still be on partial maternity leave.
May 15, 2010 – completed FE module. Assuming I had passed both exams, getting this module in before May 30 meant that I would be grandfathered into the older FSA requirements and not have to do a third content FSA content module.
May 28, 2010 – LMP
June 7, 2010 – Appointment with OB. Out of curiosity, I started tracking basal temperatures and monitoring for LH spikes over the winter/spring months. This had not produced any useful patterns. She said that even though we hadn’t been trying, we should go ahead and do some lab work at the start of my next cycle because I had good data and it wasn’t promising.
June 9, 2010 – got my first ever positive ovulation test. Proceeded to do two more in quick succession to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. Gone by just a couple hours later, so was not optimistic.
June 23, 2010 – positive pregnancy test! Do NOT believe those valid 6 days before silliness. Also, make sure and give test enough time to get a result before just tossing it. And thanks to Anita for confirming that a pale positive is still a positive!
July 8, 2010 – twins. Except that word really wasn’t used. March 2, 2011 due date.
July 22, 2010 – still twins, but now the word twins is used for sure! Back up to a March 10, 2011 due date
July 24, 2010 – buy a new bedroom set.
August 19, 2010 – still twins and they look much more baby like on ultrasound. Their size is closer to the March 2, 2011 due date, but apparently we are sticking with March 10.
August 23, 2010 – first perinatologist appointment. Both babies ace their Down’s screening. Perinatologist says March 2 date seems more likely. There’s a third space and an ovarian cyst, but definitely no triplet. I know we would have dealt, but I must confess that I was joyful at there not being a triplet. Triplets is just such a harder and risker ballgame.
Ok, so this post is really for me to keep things straight. Hopefully it gives me motivation to write out more of the story coming up...
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