Our identical twins are in the same sac which means they are Monoamniotic (Monoamniotic-Monochorionic). Basically, when the egg travels down into the uterus and does it's doubling, the egg split instead of just doubling, giving us 2 babies. Depending on how early the egg splits, you get 2 babies each in their own sacs- attached to the same placenta, 2 babies in the same sac- attached to the same placenta, or 2 babies conjoined together and attached to the same placenta. This all happens in the matter of days. The first stage is the first 3 days, the next the following few days and the last at the very last moment before attaching to the uterine wall. Monoamniotic twins are rare, with an occurrence of 1 in 35,000 to 1 in 60,000 pregnancies, corresponding to about 1% of twin pregnancies.
The dangers of this pregnancy are: cord compression and entanglement or also the Twin to Twin Syndrome. Cord entanglement happens when the babies are able to move around without any boundaries between them and the cords are wrapping around each others cords and making knots and twists. This can cause restrictions in the cord, cutting off nutrients and blood supply to one or both babies. (Let me just say right now, I got to see a ball of umbilical cords inside at our last ultrasound and it made me ill) Twin to Twin Syndrome is when one twin gets more blood and nutrients than the other twin. One twin can become much larger than the other twin while the other twin remains the same because it isn't getting what it needs to grow. It can be dangerous for both twins getting too much blood or not enough. If one twin dies at this point, the toxins from the baby will be released into the amniotic fluid and can cause mental retardation in the living baby (this is only the case after the baby is around 20 weeks or more).
Right now, we wait. We go into the doctor next Monday at 13 weeks, 5 days. We get ultrasounds every doctors appointment. We visit our OB again on February 27th (we go every 2 weeks). We return to the specialist (in Austin) on March 1st at which point we are 16 weeks. The specialist will look again at the babies and check to make sure they are both doing well. From that point on it is either a weekly or bi-weekly visit to both my OB and the specialist (separately). At 23 or 24 weeks they will determine when the babies are viable- which means one or both would likely survive being born if they had to be. Depending on what we decide, I can be admitted to the hospital from 24 weeks on to have the babies monitored a few times a day- OR- I could do outpatient monitoring, in which case I would have to drive to Austin every day and be monitored for a few hours and go home and return...every day until 34 weeks or whenever they decide to deliver. Momo babies are ALWAYS delivered early because of restricted space. We have to think that we might have these babies as early as April 25th (24 weeks) and as late as July 4th (34 weeks).
That's about all the info I have for you now. Feel free to ask me questions if you have any and I will try to get them answered as best as I know.
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