The Mother Recounts The Story Of Her Identical Twin Girls

 


In the fall of 2014, Troy and I decided it was time to grow our small family into a family of four. In December of that year, we found out we were pregnant and couldn’t wait for our first date! In early January, we sat there in my obstetrician’s office waiting for the results of that first ultrasound. As she was scanning, Troy decided to “joke” ask if there was a baby in there. Not lying, he actually asked that. The sonographer turned to us and said um…. there are actually two! Y’all, our lives changed in an instant.

She completed her scan and was able to determine the heart rate of both babies and explain to us the different types of twins. Scans next week confirmed the fact that the line was there and we weren’t in a super high risk area. With identical twins, they still recommend seeing a high-risk obstetrician in addition to regular appointments. We had our first high-risk appointment with ROC (Regional Obstetrics & Gynecology) in Jacksonville at about 13 weeks. Your first visit is sometime later. 

 

They can do some more accurate tests during a certain time frame of your pregnancy. This is where things start to get a little fuzzy, so bear with me. When the sonographer was doing the scan, they took time to look at every detail for each baby, but I noticed that she kept going back and forth measuring the same things. And then she recommends doing an internal ultrasound for a better picture. I thought that was a bit odd but didn’t ask the question.

Once it was over, she told us to wait for the doctor to come in to take a look at everything (the sonographers can’t really discuss anything with you, good or bad). We really felt like we had been waiting forever, 30-45 minutes at least. Turns out, they were waiting for their chief doctor to come and talk to us. It turns out that the part the sonographer continues to measure is the Nuchal Translucency (NT), which is essentially the thickness of the skin behind their neck. Like I said, neither Troy nor I knew what they were going to be looking for that day,

So we didn’t know what that meant. I believe a “normal” NT size is under 3mm, both of our girls range from 5.5 – 6.5mm. Also into the “abnormal” range. As devastating as over the next few hours (and months) I would have to say we couldn’t have asked for a better doctor. She sat there with us for almost 2 hours explaining everything over and over to us and answering any questions we had. Basically we are told that with high NT we have the following statistics.

50% chance of chromosomal abnormality, 25% chance of heart defect, 15% chance of TTTS ( Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome), and TEN percent chance of having a healthy baby. I will NEVER forget those statistics. We only have a handful of options going forward and most of it is just a terrible waiting game. They could take some blood to send to the lab to rule out certain things, but they explained to the twins that it couldn’t be 100% accurate.

We also followed up with our regular gynecologist a few days later, where she was able to tell us it was two girls. Part of me hates that moment. Another big hitch occurred, but I still had to visit my high-risk doctor almost weekly. Day after day, we prayed and cried. In the end, maybe around 27-28 weeks, we overcame all the hurdles. Any bad stats. Our girls are healthy and growing up. I can breathe. I don’t think we even picked out names until I was 30 weeks pregnant.

I can not. I couldn’t name them when I knew something might happen to them. I have denied. About 30 weeks Troy and I chose Emily Katherine and Sarah Elizabeth. I was able to enjoy my 7 weeks of pregnancy. Now is to celebrate sweet, sweet girls turning sophomore (2016)! Check out their Sweet Shoppe first birthday party here (2015)! This year we will take it easy and just have a small meal with the family, no big party for us, just enjoy these sweet treats.

 
Source: dailylifeworld.com


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