Shocking News

Friday morning was my first OB appointment. I assumed we'd go in, get some general info, and I was hoping we'd have an early ultrasound to date the pregnancy (although my last period was the beginning of March, I was fairly confident that we conceived closer to the end of March - a difference of about two weeks.)

We went into the ultrasound room, and Dr. Heimburger paused for a moment before turning the screen towards us. "There's the baby," he said. "And there's the other baby!" The OTHER WHAT? There they were, plain as day - both with little flickering heartbeats. Needless to say, we were both pretty surprised. A bit of measuring put us right about 7 weeks, with an official due date of December 19th. Of course, twin pregnancies tend to be shorter than singletons, our goal will be to go as long as we can.

After the ultrasound (with me still in shock!), the doctor explained that with early ultrasounds, they're finding more pregnancies start as twins than originally thought (some statistics I've read suggests one in eight start out as twins!), but that for one reason or another, in the first few months, one twin disappears - it's called vanishing twin syndrome. It's the kind of thing that wouldn't even be detected at a later ultrasound. The early stages of twin pregnancy are pretty similar to a normal pregnancy, so for now, we'll just wait and see (and hope the babies play nice!).