babies update

Yesterday I had the "big" ultrasound, ya know, the one where they check all the anatomy, the brain, the heart, etc (or should I say--the brainS, the heartS!).

And everything looks great! They are both right on track for where they should be! Both weight 11 oz and are measuring in at 19 weeks 6 days and 19 weeks 5 days! Oh and yes, they're both STILL girls!

I didn't know this until the END of the appointment (which I'm thankful for) but I guess my doctor was pretty concerned about something called Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS). Because I only have one placenta for both babies I have a 15-20% chance of this happening. What happens is that one baby starts receiving all the nutrients and the other baby doesn't get any (or not near enough). This can obviously cause big problems! There isn't a whole lot that doctors can do about it either. There are a couple things, but nothing definitive.

My doctor even told me that in a lot of cases, if a bad case of TTTS is seen by the 20th week, they'll advise the mom's to abort the babies. How sad! There is a 30% chance with TTTS that the babies will have Cerebral Palsy. A 30% chance. And they advise mom's to abort. *sigh* This made me really sad.

BUT, no sign of ANYTHING wrong was found yesterday. Doc said that if I had a bad case they would have seen something by my last appointment (2 weeks ago) and definitely by yesterday. He was absolutely THRILLED with the water levels around each baby and with their growth! THRILLED! Of course I was too, I just didn't know I needed to be until the end--which actually I'm thankful for. I don't want to know how concerned a doctor is about something until there's a reason to actually be concerned! I asked him if he's ever seen a case like mine where everything looks great at week 20 and then it changes and TTTS develops. He said it's possible but he's only seen it ONCE in his entire career. So we're really hopeful that we don't have to worry about this at all now!

This doesn't really have much to do with the health of the babies but I thought these facts were interesting--he said that I'm his only twin patient (out of a "gazillion") that is monochorionic (one placenta). He also said that of his gazillions of twin patients only me and one other mom are natural twins--the rest are in vitro. Weird hah?

So anyway, we've made it to week 20 and so far everything looks great! Praise God! I feel extremely blessed!