Pregnant with Twins! Thanksgiving Reflections

It’s Thanksgiving in the USA and, although it’s not celebrated in Austria, it still made me think of the things that I am thankful for this year. I have big news to share – I am pregnant with twins! Two girls to be exact. And this is what I am thankful for this year. While I didn’t expect to get two kids at the same time, I am excited and terrified at the same time. It’s sort of coincidental, that Verena, who writes this blog with me, also has a set of twins, although grown up. I’m sure she will have tons of tips for me.

Since we already have a daughter, we are going to have three girls to take care off. It’s been a topic of the jokes regarding the babies’ dad. The most common are that he will have to have lots of patience, he will have to build himself a man cave, he will have to set up a tent outside, etc.

So to the details – the babies due date is March 8, 2016 but all the doctors said to me that there is no way that they will last past 36 weeks, which is four weeks earlier (full pregnancy term is usually 40 weeks). In fact, I was also told that anything beyond 32 weeks should be considered a bonus. This is because the girls are identical twins meaning they developed from the same fertilized egg that later split in two. Therefore, these babies have the same genotype, are of the same sex, and usually resemble each other closely. So I will have to learn how to tell the difference – which baby is which.

Moreover, women pregnant with identical twins are more likely to experience complications in pregnancy. My twins are sharing the same placenta and are at risk of experiencing so called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). This abnormality of the placenta means that one twin receives too much blood while the other receives too little. This condition affects about 15% of all identical twin pregnancies. Because of this risk, I have to have frequent prenatal appointments with ultrasound (once a week). At those appointments the doctors check the size of the babies (one should not get much bigger than the other) and blood flow from between the placenta and the babies. So far, everything has been normal and I can’t wait to introduce our girls to everyone in a couple of months