He gives, He takes

Today was our big 18 week appointment that we've been waiting in anticipation for. Unfortunately, we didn't receive the good news we were hoping for. Both of the babies have died, neither one had a heartbeat that could be found. Tomorrow we will have to go back to the hospital to deliver them. We need you to pray for us as we go through this painful process.

Leaving Comments

We realize that many of the visitors we've invited to this blog may be new to the whole blogging thing. One thing we want you to know about is commenting. You can comment or leave a note on any of our posts by clicking the link at the end of each post.

Clicking the comments link will take you to a page with a box to leave a comment. Right now we are allowing anonymous comments since we know most of you won't have a blogger id. Feel free to leave a comment under an anonymous name and just leave your name in the body of the comment for us.

Secondly, we are currently moderating our comments. All this means is that your comment won't show up right away when you click to post it. We will receive an email telling us that you have commented. Once we have a chance to check in to our account and publish your comment, it will show up on the comments page. We really appreciate any and all comments that you have for us. It's so encouraging to know that so many of you are out there praying for us and supporting us. Thanks!

Fraternal vs. Identical: In Pictures!

Here we have a set of twins with two outer sacs (chorion) and two inner sacs (amnion). They are called dichorionic-diamniotic or di-di twins. This is your best case twin scenario, and typically this is what fraternal twins look like. They result from two ovum being fertilized by two sperm. However, identical twins could look like this if the single egg fertilized by a single sperm split very early on. In this case, the only way you would know for certain if the twins were NOT identical is if they are boy/girl twins (because yes, identical twins are ALWAYS girl/girl or boy/boy). Also, if the same sex twins look markedly different, you would assume they were fraternal. Sometimes it is not so easy to tell.

Here we have your typical identical twins. They have the same outer sac (or chorion) and two inner sacs (amnion). They are called monochorionic-diamniotic or mo-di twins. This is also a good scenario for twins, and we're still holding out hope that they will find a membrane (meaning two amnions) in our twins. These twins are always identical too.

Here you see what our doctors think we have right now-- one outer sac (chorion) and one inner sac (amnion). These are monoamniotic twins. No need to reference the monochorion, since of course there has to be one chorion if there is only one amnion! These twins have skin to skin contact. The next level of twins would be conjoined twins. Thankfully our little eggy decided to split in time that the babies will not be conjoined (yes, this has been confirmed on our ultrasounds).

Baby Pictures

This is the twins at 8.5 weeks (September 18), the day we found out there were two. We have an even earlier one from 6 weeks where they look like grains of rice on the screen. The technician missed the diagnosis at that time, but when we look at it now, what we can definitely see is two grains of rice side by side, not just one. So cool.Another shot at 12.5 weeks (October 15). We think it's quite remarkable. They're just hanging out together, keeping each other company and waiting to be big enough to come out and meet everyone.

Did You Know?

Here are a few interesting facts about monoamniotic (commonly referred to as momo) twins, taken from the monoamnioticstories blog site:

*Monoamniotic twins are always identical
*Monoamniotic twins are the result of a late splitting egg; one that split around 8-12 days after fertilization
*Monoamniotic twins only occur in 1% of twins
*Monoamniotic twins share a placenta and amniotic sac which means they have skin to skin contact
*Monoamniotic twins are considered extremely high risk because of the risk of cord compression leading to fetal death as a result of umbilical cord entanglement
*Monoamniotic twins are always delivered by C-Section
*Monoamniotic twins are usually delivered between 32-34 weeks gestation because the risks of staying in utero are greater than the risks associated with a premature birth
*inpatient monitoring at viability yeilds the greatest success rates
*75% of monoamniotic twins are girls

And since we know you're wondering, we'll let you know that yes, our ultrasound tech said she thinks our twins are girls too! We'll hopefully find out for sure at our appointment next Wednesday.

So when exactly are we due?

That is a very good question. Technically, if this were a "normal" pregnancy with just one baby, our due date would have been April 27th. With twins, 37 weeks is generally considered "full term," which would put us at April 6th. However, with monoamniotic pregnancies, there is more risk than benefit to the babies to go past 32-34 weeks, which means that these kids will arrive no later than mid-March and likely even earlier than that. They will then stay in the NICU (neo-natal intensive care unit) for a few weeks and we'll bring them home close to when they should have arrived anyway.

A Picture for Everyone

This is what 17 weeks, 2 days looks like when carrying twins, just in case you were wondering.

So far we've made it over half way! Since we'll deliver no later than 34 weeks, we now have less time left than what we've waited already.

Our Diagnosis

We got our diagnosis on September 18th, 2008. At the time Kerry was 8.5 weeks pregnant. Because we had two previous miscarriages, we were in for a routine ultrasound to make sure our baby was growing and staying alive. We had already had one ultrasound two weeks earlier when we saw the baby's heartbeat for the first time. We were looking forward to seeing it again and were not expecting that this day would be anything other than ordinary.

Corwin was in the room with me, and for some reason there was also a doctor or intern in the room as well. It seemed to us that she was just bored and had nothing else to do so wanted to try her hand at doing an ultrasound. The actual ultrasound technician was patiently trying to explain to her how to maneuver the scanner so as to get the best view of the baby. Finally she said it would be better if she just took over and had a look for herself.

As soon as she started scanning, she furrowed her brow and leaned in closer to the screen for a good look. At this point, I was starting to get nervous that something was wrong even though they had told us that there was a heartbeat present. Then the doctor, who was still in the room, asked me if I had been taking Clomed, which is a fertility drug. (For more background on our journey to parenthood and why she would be asking me this question, read this post.)

Right away I responded, "No... why?" In my mind I was already thinking this meant twins, so when she said, "No reason..." I thought, yeah right and asked if they saw two heartbeats. Slowly smiles crossed both their faces and the doctor nodded her head. I responded again by saying, "Well, I didn't take fertility drugs, but we prayed for twins!"

Imagine that! I really had been praying for twins, but I thought that since we would be starting fertility treatments that the reason for having twins would be attributed to medical reasons. So as it started to sink in, I started thinking maybe they weren't quite sure yet, so I asked how sure they could really be that there were twins this early on.

Their answer? 100%.

Oh my. We're having twins!

Welcome

Welcome to our blog. We are Corwin and Kerry Klassen, and we are expecting identical twins. Most of you visiting us will know that but we wanted to introduce ourselves in case you have stumbled upon this site looking for more information about monoamniotic pregnancies. We're starting this blog for that very reason, and also to keep our families and friends updated and informed about our progress.