Gender Unknown

We had hoped that our appointment today might involve another ultrasound and a chance at discovering the gender of our babies. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It looks like it will be 4-5 weeks before we have a chance of finding out if we’re having two little boys or two little girls. While Dr. Hershey (the baby-ninja) had recommended that at 17 weeks we start having ultrasounds every two weeks to watch for Twin-to-twin Transfusion Syndrome, our health clinic has opted to not have our next ultrasound until week 20.

We met today with a midwife and her trainee at our Women’s Health Clinic, and we did get to hear both of our little ones’ heartbeats. They both sounded good, and my blood pressure was fine. As our appointment was winding down, the midwife mentioned that we had a condition called Velamentous insertion of the umbilical cord which might mean that it would be better for me to have a C-section with my twins. (Yes, I had never heard of it either.) She seemed surprised when we quizzed her on what exactly that meant and asked her to write down the name for us, but she explained and also pulled up a web page on it. Fewer than 9% of twin pregnancies have velamentous insertion as a complication, and it adds a bit to the risk of the pregnancy.

I must say, if you are going to tell a pregnant couple that they have some new oddity to their pregnancy, you shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t just nod and say, “Oh, a watchyamacallit. Okay.” The medical term likely means very little to us (until we can research it). What we want to know is what it means, what added risks it brings, what we can watch out for, and if there is anything we can do to positively influence outcomes.

I believe it is partially because of the velamentous insertion (when added to other factors like my age and having twins who are monochorionic) that they are referring us to a different specialist for our 20-week ultrasound. This time we’ll be going to a perinatologist. What is a perinatologist? An obstetrician specializing in high-risk pregnancies. Only around 10% of pregnancies are referred to perinatologists. We should hopefully hear from the perinatologist’s office in less than a week. One comfort is that perinatologists probably deal with a higher percentage of multiple births in their practices.

Stressful? Yes. Admittedly, I cried a little bit tonight after Puck left for practice and I did a little web research. You just want a pregnancy to go as smoothly as possible with as few complications as possible. Still, our little babes did very well on their first screening for genetic problems, and they were ahead of schedule on growth. So, we will be thankful that so much has been learned about pregnancies over the years. We will hope that the pregnancy goes well, and we will continue to look forward to finding out our babies’ gender.

Now, I will drink another 15 ounces of water and get back to work.