It's a girl. And a girl.

So we're sitting with the ultrasound tech at the start of our appointment and she begins to point out what we're looking at. "That's your cervix. And that's your right ovary. That's your left ovary." And then she moved the wand over and this popped on the screen:


The first thing I thought was: "Those look too big to be organs. How weird." And then I asked, "What are those two things?" at the same time that the very thought was running through Sean's mind. The u/s tech, Marina, got quiet for a few moments and then finally said, very softly, "It's twins." (This picture is looking down at the tops of their heads as they face each other.)

I laughed nervously. "No really." Silence. My smile fades. "You're kidding, right? Shut up!" Silence and my slow realization. "Wait. Are you serious? Is that twins? Are you joking?" She replied, quietly, "We don't joke about that."

She said, "I'm going to step out for a moment and just let the girls know that we'll be taking a little longer for this ultrasound than we thought." Apparently this was the first time in her career that she had been the one to tell someone they were having twins. Normally people know a lot sooner than 18 weeks, 6 days because they can hear two heartbeats or the bloodwork comes back wonky, but not us! In those brief moments until she returned, Sean and I tried, unsccessfully, to process this. "Wow. This changes everything." "Oh, my God. We're having twins." "Holy cow."

As the tiny detail about suddenly having two children was being absorbed, we got another piece of news. The babies are sharing the same amniotic sac. In a normal twin pregnancy, there is a placenta that connects to a different sac for each baby, so they're kept separate from each other but within the same womb. To put it in perspective, 1 in 250 pregnancies results in twins. Of those, less than 1% are what are called "monoamniotic". We are that very rare occurrence. Our babies are in the same sac and have arms and legs all intertwining with each other. (More on that in another post.) And, since we know they are monoamniotic, it is 100% certain that they are identical.

The babies kept shifting position and getting in the way of the right angle for some of the shots, so we have a few of Baby A and only one of Baby B at this point. We saw WAY more than this during our 2 hours of scanning, but these are the shots she printed out:

Baby A, face, looking straight at you.

Baby A, profile

Baby B, face, looking straight at you

If anyone tells you that twins run in their family, here's the skinny: fraternal (non-identical) twins come from two different eggs that are each fertilized. The mother releasing two eggs at once is a genetic trait that can be passed down. Identical twins, a single egg that gets fertilized and begins to split into 2 cells, then 4, etc., then at some point splits and separates into what becomes two different fetuses, are a different story - they are a fluke occurrence that has no genetic basis, and, frankly, no one really knows what causes it. That's us.

Marina waited until she had done all of the measurements on Baby A, the one on my right side and a little lower in my pelvis, before she finally keyed in on the news we originally thought would be the main event: the gender. Sean had thought it was a boy, I was leaning toward girl. We laughed about how we were about to find out that one of us was even more right than we thought. She panned to a view looking up from the feet to the pelvis and we saw those three little lines that mean girl. We looked at each other and said, "We're having identical twin dughters." You can probably imagine all of the not-preschool-friendly words running through our heads. And for the record, I was the one who was doubly right. Just so that's documented.

*Side note: Do you recall that I was hoping to find out gender so that I could use more specific pronouns and not have to keep saying generic things like "they" when describing the baby? Turns out "they" was pretty accurate.

We were having close friends and family over to our house later in the evening for a little "baby gender unveiling" party, but on the way we called the people who couldn't make it. We started with, "It's a girl!", waited a moment and then said, "...and a girl!" The reactions were priceless and ranged from utter confusion, to excitement, to outright calling us liars. The reactions at the party were along the same lines.

I think my brothers said it best, as I suspected they would: "Leave it to Britt. Go big or go home."

Holy crap, we're having twins. I'm still in complete shock and disbelief. Is this really happening? I was JUST adjusting to the idea that I have a baby inside me, and now we're having two at once? This is crazy talk.

Actually, looking back, when we first heard the ultrasound, I briefly thought I heard two overlapping beats. I got a terrified expression on my face and asked, "Is that two!?" The midwife repositioned a bit a said, "No, it's just one." My response: *sigh of complete relief* "Phew!" Uh...

So, in coming posts: "Monoamniotic Twins - but what does it all mean?" and "The Name Game". Stay tuned.