Genetics of Twins

Since I know a little bit about genetics and am researching a lot about twins (and getting asked about heredity of twins frequently) I thought I'd give everyone a quick genetics lesson. Everyone hears that twins "run" in families, that is true, to an extent. Fraternal (aka non-identical) twins tend to be hereditary, but there are a few "rules". Fraternal twins are caused by hyper-ovulation (the release of multiple eggs at a time) so if there are twins on the father's side, it has NO effect on them having twins. However, it means his daughters will have an increased chance of having twins. Example: my Grandpa is a twin, but since his genes have no effect on my Grandma, they did not have an increased chance of having twins, their daughters however, did. If my Great-Grandma had had any daughters, they would have had an increased chance of twins, but she only had sons. Having these twins in my family, has no effect on my twins (nor does the fact that I have a cousin who is currently pregnant with identical twin boys; its an odd coincidence, but that's it, just a coincidence). That is because my twins are identical, meaning that the egg split after fertilization. Scientists haven't found a cause for this and there seems to be no heredity factors involved, so it's just a random act of nature. (Again, my handsome hubby had nothing to do with this, so PLEASE stop congratulating him on having twins. His head is getting quite large from all the compliments on how manly he must be to have "made" twins. PA-LEASE, I'm the one doing all the work here! :) )

Another question I get asked frequently is "how do they know that they're identical?" . From a Doctor's standpoint, there are 3 types of twins dichorionic/diamniotic (di/di; these have 2 separate placentas), monochorionic/diamniotic (mo/di; shared placenta), and monochorionic/monoamniotic (mo/mo; shared placenta). Now, what does this all mean? Babies are in 2 sacs (ALL babies), the thicker chorionic sac and the thinner amniotic sac. Fraternal twins are ALWAYS di/di . Identical twins can be any of the above, depending on when the egg split: 1-3 days = di/di; 4-8 days = mo/d; 8-13= mo/mo; 13+ days = conjoined twins. My twins are mo/di, so they have to be identical.

In other pregnancy news, things are going well here. We saw the hematologist a week ago and he said everything looks great. After our last visit they drew a ton of blood (14 vials to be exact) to run some tests for additional blood clotting disorders; they all came back negative. Two weeks ago (a month after I started the shots) they tested my levels of Lovenox (the blood thinner I'm on); it's supposed to be between 0.5 and 1.0 and mine is at 0.7 so we're right on track. Everything is looking so good, that I don't have to go back to see him for 2 months (YEA! especially since this is the one Dr. we have a copay for and it's not cheap). On Monday we'll see the regular OB again and then the following week we have a visit with the High Risk Dr.

Now, for a J update: Friday afternoon, J and I laid down for a nap because I had a killer headache (I've been getting those frequently, and they're no fun). When we woke up, I felt better, but J had a fever. Her fever progressively got worse as the evening went on. I finally got her to back to bed and she slept until around 11:00 when she woke up crying. I could tell she didn't feel good (she was really hot, and had glassy eyes). I checked her temp (102.7) and tried to get her to drink something (she wouldn't and she hadn't drank anything since earlier that evening). Right after Erik got home (around 11:30) she puked everywhere (lucky me, I was still holding her. YUCK!). We bathed her and finally got her back to sleep. She had a very restless night (as did I), and still had a slight fever in the morning. We had a relaxing day at home laying on the couch, watching movies. J still wouldn't eat or drink anything on Saturday. She slept well Saturday night and Sunday woke up like nothing was wrong. We kept her home from church, just to be safe. She finally started to eat and drink as well. Then, on Monday, she woke up with a rash covering her entire body. She gets hot VERY easily and frequently wakes up with a heat rash on her belly, but it's just on her belly. This rash was EVERYWHERE, so we took her to the Dr. She had/has Roseola. The Dr. said that the rash should go away within 3-4 days and that once the rash shows up, she's no longer contagious.

I know this post is getting VERY long, but I never mention Erik on here so I'll give a quick up on how he's doing. He's busy, that's about all there is to it. He works, and works and works. Somehow we still manage family time here and there, but it's not uncommon for us to go a few days without seeing him do to him working long days. He does find the time to play in HPD's midnight softball league (that's because the games are at 11:15pm, 12:15am, and 1:15am when J and I are asleep). He also finds the time to help me out around the house, for which I am very grateful. Needless to say he's definately SUPER DAD/ HUBBY!!

Premonition and Blessings

A lot of women get premonition during their pregnancies. They say that they know they're pregnant even before any tests are taken, they have a "gut feeling" about what gender their baby is and so on. I had none of this with J, in fact, we didn't find out that she was a girl until she was born (though not for lack of trying, she was just very modest in the womb, a total change from how she is now). We went to the hospital with a boy name and a girl name because I had no "gut feelings" about it, or about anything with her pregnancy. This pregnancy has been very different. I didn't know I was pregnant until there were obvious signs, but once that happened, I just had this "feeling" that it was twins. I even kept joking with Erik about it, he didn't think it was funny and it made it so he didn't believe me when I told him when the OB confirmed my suspicions. I'm no ultrasound tech, and the only ultrasounds I've ever had were when I was pregnant with J so I know very little about them, but as I was laying on the table looking at the screen at that first appointment I remember seeing 2 little white spots and thinking there's two of them, even before the OB said anything. Soon after that appointment I was laying in bed one night and I had another "feeling" come to me that they were 2 boys and their names were going to be X and Y (sorry we don't tell names until after the babies are born, something has to be a surprise). At our high risk appointment (12.5 wks) the Dr. confirmed that it was 2 boys. Erik and I both like the names and haven't even looked at other possibilities. I think its great that sometimes these "warnings" are given to us to help us to prepare and to lighten our load.

As many of you know, we've had a long hard road to get to where we are now and are no where near the end of our struggles, however as time goes on, we are starting to see the Lords plan, and His hand in all of this. While it was VERY hard and trying to have to go through 2 miscarriages and wait so long for a successful pregnancy, we can now see the purpose in it. Without those 2 miscarriages my "disorders" (antiphopholipid syndrome/Hughes Syndrome and MTHFR gene mutation) never would have been discovered. Unlike other blood clotting issues that affect pregnancy, antiphospholipid syndrome is not limited to pregnancy, it is something that I will have the rest of my life and because of it I will most likely have to be on blood thinners and under the watchful eye of a hematologist for the rest of my life. Having it go undiagnosed could have put me at an increased risk for blood clots, stroke, and a number of other serious problems. Having to wait for almost a year to have a successful pregnancy is also turning out to be a blessing, especially since we're having twins. Now, J will be in preschool 2 days a week and have gymnastics a 3rd day to help give me a break (and her some time without the babies), also, my MIL is retiring at the end of this school year and since she lives close she'll be able to help with J and with the little ones (don't worry, I'm not just assuming that she's going to help me out a lot, she's already volunteered and is planning on taking J quite a bit this summer). Don't get me wrong, we don't know everything, in fact, there are a lot of things that we went through and are still going through that we don't have answers for and we may never know every thing, but we do know that the Lord is in charge and that He knows what we're going through and we know that if we trust in Him everything will work out in the end. This doesn't make things easy, but it gives us the strength to keep going, and that's something we all can use! When times get tough, I'm reminded of an article in the March 2010 issue of the Friend magazine (a magazine that the LDS church publishes for young children) that I read to J, it was entitled, "I can do hard things". I have learned, especially over the past year, that I too can do hard things!

Gymnastics

Our little monkey recently finished another semester of gymnastics at The Little Gym. She has now graduated from the parent/tot class to the big kid class. When she starts again in the fall she'll be able to go to class all by herself. Hopefully she'll listen better than she did when Erik and I were around. ;) She has really shown improvement this semester. She loves to do all the "daring" tricks, but gets bored with the easy skills. She loves to stand on the blocks and jump to the bar. She also enjoys doing the spider walk, and even taught Daddy how to do it. She also enjoys doing handstands on the wall and backwards rolls. Her teacher this semester was Mrs. Tran. We really enjoyed her, she pushed J and made her try more difficult skills. We hope that her teacher next fall is just as dedicated and challenges J as much. If J continues to improve and show enjoyment in doing gymnastics we'll probably switch her to a gym that does competitive gymnastics next year.

15 weeks

We had another OB appointment today, we got to see the babies (sorry grandmas, no pictures this time). We also were able to hear their heart beats. The babies are so close together that it took the OB a while to get one heartbeat at a time so that we could hear them clearly, but she did it. Their heart rates were 168bpm and 163bpm. She also measured my fundal height. I'm measuring 17cm (what a singleton baby should measure at 17 weeks). I had some routine blood work done today and the phlebotomist asked J if she could take her blood instead of Mommy's, J didn't like that idea. In fact, she was so upset by the thought that she started crying. After we reassured her that they would only be taking Mommy's blood she settled down and watched them take my blood. We go back to see the OB in 2 weeks. We also get to see the hematologist this week and then the high risk Dr. in 3 weeks. I'm so glad my insurance pays for all these Dr. visits or we would be VERY broke!

In other 2nd trimester news, I feel like I've been gypped. Most people feel awful their first trimester and then start to feel better by the second, I'm going in the opposite direction! During the first trimester I was extremely tired, but otherwise felt ok, in the past couple of weeks not only have I been extremely tired but I've been getting really bad headaches (for which Tylenol does nothing) and have been sick to my stomach. Oh well, such is life!

What? What? What?

What is probably the most common word we hear J say these days. She's suddenly full of questions. We are constantly asked, "What is this?" "What are they doing?" "What's going to happen?" "What's his/her name?" oh, and there's the occasional "Where are they going?" Fortunately these questions are usually a lot easier to answer than the upcoming "why" questions, but I have to admit, they get VERY annoying, especially when they come during a movie that she's seen more times than the rest of the population of Houston combined.

J is growing up so fast, and she's so smart. I'm SO glad that we found a preschool that will let her attend in the fall (most wouldn't because they follow the school district deadline of September 1st birthdays and hers is Sept. 4th). She walks around grabbing her arm say, "you know what this hard thing is, its my bones." She also LOVES to tell people that she gets to be the big sister and that she's my big helper (and she is, most of the time). The first several weeks of this pregnancy was very rocky for both of us, I had NO energy and spent most afternoons laying on the couch resting or attempting to take a nap and J didn't like the sudden decrease in activities/ mommy's attention so she started acting out. It seems like we've started to get into a routine of things lately. I still need to lay down for a few hours a day, but I've learned that during my rest times if I can't get J to take a nap with me then I can either put a movie on for her upstairs and lock her up there (where the only things she can get into are her bedroom and the playroom) while I take a nap or put a movie on downstairs so both of us can lay down and watch/rest. I've also put together a craft basket of J friendly activities that she can do at the kitchen table while I lay on the couch nearby if need be. We have discovered that Play-Doh usually keeps her occupied for at least an hour at a time, sometimes a lot longer. On days that Daddy's home we always try to make time for a family activity. It's been tough trying to schedule time for J with all the doctors appointments and stresses that are part of the package with this pregnancy but we have found that doing so has been so worth it.

A few things about J, she loves to take care of me. She always "helps" me with my shots in the mornings by getting the shot out of the box and then taking it to the trash for me when I'm done (don't worry there's a safety mechanism that covers the needle when I'm done so she can't poke herself). She then asks if I need a band-aid and kisses the bruises on my belly so they'll get better. She enjoys going to the doctors with me, especially when I have labs done, she LOVES watching them take my blood, but always asks if I'm ok when they're done. She enjoys sharing her crackers with me so I can "feed them to the babies." Some of her favorite things to do with Daddy are play baseball, tickle him (she always says, "get your tickle fingers ready" first), and dance with him.

Words can't express how much I love my little girl. She's such a good kid and a great helper. I love spending time with her, even if it's just watching movies together and answering her "what?" questions. She's going to be a GREAT big sister!

12 week Ultrasound Pictures

One blessing of having a high risk pregnancy with twins is that we get to have an ultrasound and EVERY doctors apointment. Last week we saw both our regular OB and the high risk Dr. so we had 2 ultrasounds. Here are the pictures they gave us.

12 week ultrasound with regular OB.

12 week 2 days ultrasound with High Risk Dr. The regular ultrasound picture is Baby A and the 2 3D pictures show both babies.

Pregnancy Update

I figured that while I'm laying here waiting for J and her Daddy to get home from gymnastics that I'll post an update on how things are going in the Zugner household. After a few days of giving myself shots twice a day, my medical team got together and decided that once a day should be good enough (YEAH!) so I've been doing that for the past couple of weeks. At first the shots weren't too bad, but now they're starting to sting and bruise really bad. I also find that I bruise everywhere more easily. I just keep reminding myself that it's what's best for the babies. Last week we had an ultrasound with the Radiology Dept. for our regular OB. Everything looked good, from this ultrasound they were able to tell that the babies are diamniotic - monochorinonic (identical) twins. They're both growing well (ahead of schedule by a few days actually). We had another quick ultrasound on Monday with the OB, she does them at every appointment to check the heartbeats. During most pregnancies they use a Doppler to hear the heartbeat, but a Doppler can't detect 2 heartbeats so my OB does an ultrasound so she can physically check to make sure both are doing ok. Then this past Wednesday we meet with the High Risk Dr. for the first time. He was really nice. He too did an ultrasound. He said everything looks good, though he does want to see us again in a month to check for Twin-to-twin-transfusion (a problem that arises in 10-15% of twins when they share a single placenta). During the ultrasound he asked us if we wanted to know what we were having, this surprised us because we were only 12.5 wks, but of course we said YES! He said he's 95% sure that they're BOYS. So, we're being well taken care of by our doctors. As for me, I'm feeling okay. I can usually get up and get things done in the morning, but by 2-3 in the afternoon I'm done. I think a lot of it has to do with the heat. I'm exhausted, have no appetite and usually get headaches in the early afternoon, but if I take a couple of Tylenol and lay down for a few hours then by 6 -7 I'm doing much better. We've been very fortunate to have good doctors and good friends that have been more than willing to help out. We have a couple of weeks of no appointments so we're going to take advantage of our free time and try to get things at the house ready for the little ones.