We found out early on that we were having identical twins (at approx 8 weeks) - YIKES, there's 2!!!. Our twins share one placenta (that's one of the markers for them being identical), that makes them extra special and considerably more "high-risk" because they are sharing the same blood/nutrient source. As such, we started seeing a perinatologist at 14 weeks to monitor the babies closely.
From the get go things have been on high alert. At first the doctors thought that there might be twin-to-twin transfusion where one baby basically steals from the other baby's blood supply. There were talks of a possible surgery to reverse it but it would not be done until at least 18-20 weeks. When the time came to make the call on surgery the diagnosis changed to un-equal placental share. While the diagnosis was slightly better it still left us in a very high-risk category. This new diagnosis also allowed the doctors to relax a bit with the idea that one baby was markedly smaller than the other so long as the rest of them was functioning normally.
At the end of June we had the echocardiogram done to check the heart function of the twins. Upon first glance we had a potential hole in one heart (VSD) and a slightly enlarged heart on the other. We met with the top neonatal cardiologist based out of UVA that same week to get his opinion. After monitoring our ultrasounds for 2 weeks he was happy to say that VSD issue had been resolved on its own and the slightly enlarged heart was not getting any worse so he wasn't worried enough to change our existing plan of monitoring.
The month of July brought us elation and relaxation... thank goodness! We feel like we finally could relax a bit and wait for the belly to grow. The month also brought us the first movements of the babies, at around 25 weeks. They are now laying Yin and Yang to each other - so while one likes to wiggle her toes in my ribs the other likes to soccer kick me in the lower left corner of my stomach.
Keep them wiggling and kicking we say!
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