Monozygotic, Diamniotic

Crazy words! What in the world do they mean? EVERYTHING!

On our way to our 8 week ultrasound a few weeks ago, I was "prepared" for anything. I knew that most pregnancy losses happened early on and in the first trimester. I have several close friends who have experienced loss. And although God had blessed us with a pregnancy at all, I was still trying to remain neutral and thankful for whatever was awaiting us. Each day, up until that 8 week ultrasound passed with "Is this the last day that I will be pregnant?" "Is there still life in there?" With each negative thought, I followed it up with my mantra, "God gave me these babies." And momentary relief was found. Am I weird for having these thoughts? My counselor says no. Phew! Still somewhat normal!

Unfortunately, with the wonderful world wide web, I was a googling fool once we found out about the identical twins. So this is what we knew: One egg was released, one sperm met that egg, and it was in such good quality, that it split into two genetically identical embryo's (monozygotic). Wow. Nothing short of amazing! Upon my googling, I came across the several different routes that an identical twin pregnancy can take. Yikes. If they stay in the same amniotic sac (you know... the "house" that is filled with amniotic fluid, which is the "water" that breaks when you go into labor) they would be called "monoamniotic". If that is the case, there is only a 50% survival rate due to the high risk of the cords tangling and the babies dying because of lack of blood flow. Our other option was for the twins to, at a certain point in development, to create a thin membrane that separates them into their own amniotic sacs called "diamniotic". Now once they are diamniotic, they have two other options from there; they can share a placenta (which supplies all the blood, nutrients and takes over all of the hormone control in the babies development once they reach the second trimester) or they can have their own placenta's. If they share a placenta, there is a high risk for TTTS (Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome) where one baby can "steal" all the nutrients from the other baby, which can result in loss of one or both babies. Crap! After reading those bits of information, I realized that in addition to the rarity of an identical twin pregnancy, I/we would be in for lots of testing, lots of watching and lots of praying. Which would it be for us?

As we waited for the doctor to decipher what was on the screen he said, "Ok, here's Baby A". (YESSSSSS, there's still a Baby A and a Baby B!) "And, they are in their own sac's!" (YESSSSSS! Diamniotic, one risk down. Wohoo!)

Both babies we in their own little bubble. They look like little teddy bears floating around. Each with tiny little buds that would soon become legs and arms. Big heads, small bellies and nubs for arms and legs. Crazy! They were both 1.7 cm long, and had a heart beat of 168 bpm. All very normal for an 8 week gestation. The doctor also noted that he was pretty certain that they would have their own, separate placenta. We could see the umbilical cord of Baby B going in one direction, and then Baby A was very close to the opposite wall of it's bubble and one could assume that although we couldn't see the cord, that is was going the other way. Yes!!!

Then the most wonderful, reassuring words came from the doctor; "So, if you guys were waiting to tell people, you can go ahead and do it now - Everything looks really good." Wow. Now, although neither Mike and I are very keen on someone "telling us what to do", that was the single best thing to hear at that moment. We were free from hiding things, from making up little lies (which I HATE doing) and could tell everyone that we are pregnant, with identical twins.

Thank you, God, for giving us these babies.