The Further Adventures of Woman with a Hatchet

A funny thing happened on the way to the Nuchal Translucency....

Since I'm of "advanced maternal age" I signed up for Integrated Screening, in which I would get an ultrasound and a series of blood tests in my 11th week to determine if I had any neural tube defects, trisomy or Down Syndrome issues. That appointment was yesterday. I've been wound up, nervous and paranoid that something was wrong since I haven't had a single dream about this pregnancy, other than the first one - the Tsunami. Yeah, I knew I was pregnant then, even if you didn't!

This lack of dreaming was kind of freaking me out, since with Caitlin, I knew right away that she was a girl. I had dream after dream of a tiny little, brilliant girl. Then we had the ultrasound which confirmed it. This time: nuthin'. So I've been waiting for this appointment so that I could put all of that fear behind me and get on with the gestating.

Let me lay the scene for you:

Darkened room, U/S tech at the computer, me laying on my back with warm goo on my ever growing belly and Eric to my left. I was looking at the tech, since we were chatting and Eric was looking at the monitor, mounted to the ceiling to my left.

Tech: (Moving U/S device, zip! zip! over my belly to locate the baby.) Did you know there were two in there?
Me: WHAT?!

Dead heart pounding silence.

Me: Are you KIDDING ME?!

Then I burst into tears.

Or wait! First, my brain exploded out of my head and ran screaming! It jumped into the car and escaped to the Bahamas, leaving me gravid (with twins!) and stunned (and crying) in the ultrasound room. Yeah! That's definitely what happened.

Then I looked at the screen, with my lower lip between my teeth, trying not to cry and failing miserably. Shocked. Distressed. Absolutely stunned.

My internal litany of "Please let everything be alright! Please let everything be alright!" switched over into "TWO?! What the hell?! Aaaaaaaah!" and then right after that into "Please let them both be alright!"

I kept looking over at Eric in disbelief. My head felt like it had just been wrapped in cotton and like everything was disconnected and farther away. Like at any moment I'd wake up from this dream (Finally! But what a doozy!). I was dreaming, right? Wasn't I dreaming? Was I really there, in the room, were those really my insides we were looking at and there were two babies in there?

What the hell?!

I am the Interrobang Queen today. Get over it.

I kept trying to blame it on Eric, but it was really obvious that there were two separate amniotic sacs and two separate placentas in there. Eric says I'm an Over Achiever. Apparently as you get older, your ovaries begin to fail and to compensate, produce more FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone - didn't know this would turn into a science class, did you?!) and are more likely to produce multiple eggs. Your periods get more erratic - no egg here, two there and we just hit the jackpot. Eek! Don't believe me? Look here.

What other factors affect the chances that I'll have more than one baby?
• Age: The older you are, the higher your chances of having fraternal twins or higher-order multiples. A 2006 study found that women over 35 produce more follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) than younger women. Ironically, increasing levels of this hormone are a sign of failing ovaries and declining fertility. But FSH is also the hormone that causes an egg to ripen in preparation for ovulation each month, and women with extra FSH may release more than one egg in a single cycle. So while older women are statistically less likely to get pregnant, if they do get pregnant, they're more likely to have twins.

Still don't believe me?
Here's Baby A - the Difficult One. This is the one the tech had to hunt around for to get a good visual of the spine. Hey, did you know the one closest to the cervix is automatically designated Baby A? I didn't either! Hah! Learning something new every day! (Faints.)
Look! Twin B, the Easy One (Labelled already!) is looking upwards and those dots are its tiny hand in front of its mouth. Waving. At me. Hi Mom! Surprise!

This last shot is from "above", showing you two separate fetuses and the separate wall between them. They are clearly in two separate sacs, with two separate placentas and are extremely likely to be fraternal, very very unlikely to be identical and no, we don't know what sex they are yet, it's still too soon. Not everything has finished with the growing and the sealing and the developing yet.

Hello! How's YOUR Friday going?

Aieeee!

OK. So yeah. Um....But now that there are two? Now we can't do the blood test because instead of being 96% accurate with its non-invasive self, since there are two!, it confuses the blood work and drops the accuracy rate to 70%. Do I need to know if everything is OK?

Do fish like water? Is the sun hot? Do you like to breathe air?

Yeah. So now, my choice is wait (and freak out for 7 months) or get an amniocentesis. Oh but wait! Since there are two! and they are not identical, we have to do two amnios. There is a risk inherent in each one. Now it's multiplied by two. How risky?

...the risk of miscarriage from amniocentesis is between one in 200 and one in 400, depending on the skill and experience of the doctor performing it. You'd also have a slight risk of uterine infection in the days following the procedure (less than one in 1,000), which can sometimes lead to miscarriage.

Yeah. There I was, crying again, having to make the decision to do the test, knowing I was introducing another level of risk. Instead of worrying about losing just one, now I'm worried about two. But I need to know. I need to know that everything's going to be just fine. So now I have an appointment to go back in 5 weeks for the ultrasound and amnioS and then 4 weeks after that for the 20 week, full body scan. They appear to have all of the appropriate number of limbs, but we get the full scan at 20 weeks. However, since we'll being doing the amnioS, we'll know 4 weeks early just who is in there. Is there both and Emma and a Brandon, or do I need to come up with one extra name for each sex?

Hey! Hah hah! Remember this post? Hah! It's so funny now, isn't it?

I was just KIDDING! (Shakes fist at Universe, which is clearly convulsed with laughter.)

Well, at least it's not kittens!

Oh and from what the doctor saw yesterday, everything looked good. Yay! (Tiny, weak cheering from the shell-shocked.)

Well! That was completely unexpected!