Pregnancy Journal 4/10/07

Well, my appt. was very interesting to say the least. It was about a two hour ultrasound and then after that another 30 min. or so with a parrinatologist (sp). Both the babies were wide awake and not making it easy to get certain measurements. In fact when we started the ultrasound baby B was transverse and by the end she was breech! So lots of movement going on which was fun to see. :) Didn't get many pictures though because it was strictly a medical ultrasound.

The Dr. was very detailed in explaining things to us. He said that there are three main things that Dr.'s worry about with twins. First, pre-term labor. He said that I'm at a very low risk for PTL because my cervix measures 4cm and usually they're happy to see 3cm so that's a huge positive! Second he said they worry about pre-eclampsia. My blood pressure is always great whenever I go in, and I told him that I'm simply just not going to have that problem. I've decided. :P He said, "Ok, we'll just mark that complication off the list then." And then thirdly the thing that they worry about is growth problems.

He said growth problems can be caused by three issues in fraternal twins. One is a virus, which he said is not an issue in my situation. If it was there would be other obvious problems with both babies and there isn't. Two is a chromosome abnormality. He said that in 95% of cases with chromosome problems there are also other visible defects in the baby, and he said that other than her size Baby A looks perfectly healthy so he said he'd be VERY surprised if that were the case here. Three is some sort of placenta problem. He said at this point he can't really tell if there is a problem with Baby A's placenta, but that as time goes on it would become more obvious if there was. He said it could just be that Baby A's placenta implanted in the uterus in a place where the circulation isn't as good. And he said that since the babies came from separate eggs that it could just be that the two babies inherited different genetics that play a roll in how big or small they will be.

He said the good news is that since my cervix is so long that we have plenty of time for Baby A to grow enough to be healthy. He said that at some point I may want to have an amino test to verify that there is no chromosome problem with Baby A, but at this point he said that was too risky. He said right now he only has one point of info, so he'd like me to come back and have another ultrasound there in 2-3 weeks to check on Baby A's growth.