When people find out that I am having twins they almost always ask first if I know their genders. "Yes, two girls" I respond. The next question I am asked is are the identical. And the truth is I do not know.
How do I not know this? You think that as their mother, and with modern science, I would simply know what my children are. I don't.
Twins are more complicated than I ever realized before I conceived them.
There are a few different types of twins.
Di/di twins each have their own placenta and bag of waters. This is considered the safest of twin pregnancies. Di/di twins can be identical if the egg split very early, but fraternal twins are always di/di.
Mo/di twins have their own bag of waters but share a placenta. This is mid-risk level. If babies share a placenta they are at risk for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) this is where the blood and nutrients from one baby are going through the placenta to the other baby. There is a 1/7 chance of mo/di twins developing this. It used to be very dangerous but thanks to modern medicine it is caught and corrected regularly. These twins are ALWAYS identical.
Mo/mo twins is the least common type of twins and the highest-risk type. Mo/mo twins are ALWAYS identical. They have one placenta and one amniotic sac. They have the same risk for TTTS that mo/di twins have, but they also have risks associated with being in the same amniotic sac. Particularly, as the babies move around one sac, their umbilical cords can become entangled or compressed, which can result in one or both babies not receiving enough nutrients and blood.
I am pregnant with di/di twins. So it is the safest pregnancy that I could pray for. My twins each have their own healthy placenta and their own bag of waters to play around in. It also means that they may or may not be identical.
If they are identical it means that the zygote split on days 1-3 instead of days 4-8. If they are fraternal that means that I released two eggs and each was implanted by a different sperm.
If the twins had been boy/girl we would have instantly known that the girls are fraternal. Since they are both girls we will have to wait until they are born. If they have different blood types then we will know they are fraternal. The only way for sure to know if they are identical is a dna test.
This used to be really expensive so many people opted not to do it. Now you can swab cheeks and send it to a lab (which happens to be in SLC) and know in 7 days if they are identical.
There are the obvious things if they have different looks, hair color, coloring, etc. then we will know without a test but if it is hard to tell then we will probably have the test done.
Brava for you if you finished reading all this fun science stuff.
Now you know why I don't know if I am having fraternal or identical twins!
If the twins had been boy/girl we would have instantly known that the girls are fraternal. Since they are both girls we will have to wait until they are born. If they have different blood types then we will know they are fraternal. The only way for sure to know if they are identical is a dna test.
This used to be really expensive so many people opted not to do it. Now you can swab cheeks and send it to a lab (which happens to be in SLC) and know in 7 days if they are identical.
There are the obvious things if they have different looks, hair color, coloring, etc. then we will know without a test but if it is hard to tell then we will probably have the test done.
Brava for you if you finished reading all this fun science stuff.
Now you know why I don't know if I am having fraternal or identical twins!
No comments:
Post a Comment