Twin Education

So, we knew we were having twins...great! They're so incredibly cute and adorable every time you see the little toddlers in matching outfits at the grocery store. I bet they're best friends for life...then reality sunk in. Being pregnant with twins is HARD! First off, it's very risky depending upon the type of twins you are carrying (and I don't mean Identical or Fraternal). Secondly, you have to eat differenty (aka, MORE) and you run out of room way too quickly. Thirdly, you get big...and I mean BIG!

This photo was taken on the day I delivered the girls. I was one day shy of 34 weeks gestation and measuring 43 weeks by singleton standards. I gained 19 pounds total.

Now, here's a little education about the "types" of twins. The common "medical" names for the three types of twins are momos, mono/di or di/di twins. Momos are the most high risk, sharing not only a placenta, but also an amniotic sac with nothing to separate them. They run a very high risk of cord entanglement and require the mother to go on strict bed rest at a very early point in her pregnancy. Fortunately, our girls are mono/di twins. The thing that separates mono/di twins from momos is that they do actually have something to separate them. Our girls do share one placenta, but they have a membrane down the middle of the amniotic sac that prevents their cords from becoming entangled. It does not, however, keep them from touching, hitting and beating up on one another. The third type of twins, and the most common these days, are di/di twins who actually have two separate placentas and are, in theory, two separate pregnancies that gestate at the same time. Here's an illustration that might help this make more sense.