Still reeling from the news of twins, I barely noticed the tech call in another tech to take some sort of measurement or something. My husband, who had just finished his OB rotation, stayed silent. I asked him if something was wrong, he said no that this happens a lot. Techs often want a second opinion on something. Oh well, I had more important things to think about like ' how on Earth am I going split a family Christening dress made from my grandma's wedding dress between TWO babies? The tech cleans me off and we have to wait to talk to the doctor, which gives us time to tell my parents. I shakily grasp the pictures showing the profiles of "Baby A" and "Baby B" and walk up to my parents and just show them the pictures. It takes my mother an unbelievable amount of time to get it and she just start saying "what? What? WHAT?". Over and over louder and louder. To be quite honest, I have very little clear memories from the time between the ultrasound to the appointment with the doctor. I blame the shock. I just remember looking at the pictures over and over in utter disbelief.
We wait 45 minutes for the doctor. My husband is still quite silent, but that is kind of his type, plus he was still attempting to study for his exam. When the doctor comes in, she immediately sits down and hands Kieran a pamphlet about our "type of twins". She proceeds to pulls out a pad of paper and starts in with a biology lessons about twins. I was tempted to say "hey lady, I took high school biology, I get it. Two eggs equals fraternal twins, one split egg equals identical." I am glad I held my tongue because apparently that wasn't the issue. Now I apologize for the college bio lesson, but I had no idea about this and it actually makes a big difference. Identical twins usually have two placentas and two amniotic sacs. I NEVER knew that identical twins were not actually skin to skin in the womb! Did you?? No, apparently when people say, "oh they are holding hands in there" they are probably wrong. At least 99% of the time. Some twins share a placenta but are still separated by different sacs. HOWEVER, in 1 % of identical twin pregnancies, the twins share not only a placenta but also a sac. This means they are swimming in the same pool. Sounds ok, right? NO wrong. Absolutely wrong. The biggest problem is that as they swim around and around their umbilical cords get tangled. The cords can get so tangled that they can cut off the blood flow to one or both babies. As pregnancy complications go, apparently it doesn't get more high risk. The doctor gave us the harsh statistics. 50% of twins don't make it. Usually it is a package deal because if one dies, it quickly becomes septic and poisons the other. If, and talk about one hell of an "if", I make it to 24 weeks, I will be admitted to the hospital until either I deliver because of fetal distress or they perform a c- section at 35 weeks. They will not let me go longer than that because the risk of cord compression outweigh the risks of prematurity. By this time, the tears are flowing, my head is spinning, my heart is screaming. Why was this happening? She mentions there is a chance that their machine missed the membrane and that the twins actually are in two sacs but she says "I would love to be wrong about this but I do not think I am". She mentions she is setting up an appointment with the Maternal Fetal Medicine doctors who specialize in high risk pregnancies. She says a lot more about aggressive monitoring and a team taking care of me and the twins, but all I hear over and over is "50%".
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