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Russian School
About
Baby A and Baby B expected in early June 2004 First Prenatal Doctor's Visit - 12/04/03 The first doctor's visit was on December 4th, 2003 at 8 weeks and 2 days. I didn't expect an ultrasound (u/s) because most doctors don't do it until weeks 16-20, when they can determine baby's sex, unless something is wrong (bleeding, spotting, etc.) Luckily, my doctor's practice is always do an early u/s. The doctor jokingly said "Let's do an u/s and make sure there is only one". In a minute a smile came off his face and he said "Julia, there are twins". I couldn't believe it, and I still can't believe it. I told him that twins don't run in my family or Joel's (well, except for Stephanie's Alex and Jacob, but I thought that her husband Matt has twins on his side). The doctor said "there is always a first". I looked at the u/s screen and saw two little white spots, two dots pulsating (2 heartbeats) and one yolk sac. But I only saw 1 bubble/sac. I asked the doctor "I thought that with twins there are two sacs". He said that this is what he is concerned about. He told me that the fetuses are in the same sac and it looks like there is no separation between them. That means that they float freely around each other, twist their cords and risk suffocating each other. Basically, he said that the situation was rare (1% of all pregnancies are twins and 1-2% of all twins are in the same sac like this) and high-risk. This condition is called monochorionic (one placenta) and monoamniotic (one sac). Needless to say that this is just 1 step before siamese or conjoined twins. It's common to have only one placenta with each baby in his own sac inside of the placenta. That's called monochorionic and diamniotic. In our case it's only one sac. This condition is also called MoMo twins, for short. The only good news I got was that they were measuring on target for 9 weeks and the heartbeats were strong. The doctor also broke the news to me that he was retiring at the end of the month. So I have to find a new doctor and a new specialist in complicated pregnancies - they are called perinatologists (peri). Level II Ultrasound - 12/11/03 At that point the doctor directed me to an imaging lab for a level 2 u/s to confirm his findings and to get better images of the babies. I had that appointment on Dec. 11th. Joel came with me. A technician first tried doing an external u/s (I had to drink 48 ounces of water) but then realized that it was too early - fetuses at that point were only 23 mm long. So they did an internal u/s, like my doctor did. They confirmed his diagnosis but could not tell for sure if the babies were conjoined or not - they were very close to each other. Second Doctor Appointment - 12/18/03 I went for the second appt. at my regular OBGYN on Dec. 18th, but he had to leave town on an emergency, so I saw a different doctor in his office - Frances Yuen. She d