Finally Feeling the girls move on a regular schedule

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! We sure have!

We are at the beach with my sweet sisters family and are having a great time. It has been so nice to finally feel the girls move inside me. They are very active. We are starting to get excited and start purchasing just a few things for the girls and trusting God that he will lead us through the next few (short months). I have been a little guarded about fitting out a whole nursery, simply because we know the high risks we are facing. I think mentally and spiritually we are letting go of our reservations and just getting so excited and hopeful that everything will be ok. I guess as Christians we know that no matter what our future holds we, as a family, will be ok. Thank you for your prayers for the girls. We are looking forward to our next doctors appt. on Monday, 1/6. Then our next MUSC appt is on 1/12 with Dr. Newman. I will be going into the hospital for the remainer of my pregnancy the first or second week in Feb.

We are having twin GIRLS:):):)

Sorry it took me so long to post after our doctors appt. We really had a great visit. All the ultrasound measurements were good and the girls have healthy heartbeats. They were moving like crazy and they looked like they were hugging one another when they were not kicking each other. Their cords are still tangled but that can be expected with momo twins sense there is nothing separating them from each other. Please keep praying until our next visit in two weeks. The doctor reminds us that we pretty much have to go from ultrasound to ultrasound to monitor that the girls are safe.

Pray for the Klassen family

The Klassen family just lost their momo twins at 18 weeks the day before Thanksgiving. Kerry Klassen is apart of the support group for expectant moms of momo twins, she is also the one that i used her example from her blogspot to demostrate our situation with pictures and diagrams. Please join us in praying for her and her family.

Good Doctors Visit on Monday.

The twins are doing good at the present. Their heartbeats were good and they were very active on the ultrasound. Keep Praying. Our next appointment is Dec. 15th at MUSC and we will have another level 2 ultrasound (2 hours) and the doctors will hopefully be able to tell us the sex of the babies.

Thank you all so much for all your prayers for our family.

Here are some visual pictures to help everyone understand our situation.

Another mom having momo twins had this on her blogspot and I thought it was a very good visual. To read more about her story go to www.klassentwins.blogspot.com.

The first two pictures are examples of the most common types of twin pregnancies. The last picture is a picture of mo-mo twins which is what we are having and is very rare.



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. These twins are always identical too.

OK here are our sweet babies!!!!

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. From this picture you can see how dangerous the cords can be.

We have our next doctors appt. tomorrow Nov.23rd at 10:00 am.

Please keep praying for our little ones.

Here are some facts about momo twins that I got from www.monoamnioticstories.blogspot.com. Its a great place to read encouraging stories of families that have successfully had momo twins and their journey.

• 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
• *75% of monoamniotic twins are girls
• *inpatient monitoring at viability yields the greatest success rates

Here is how our journey started.

This journey recently started two years ago when we moved back to the USA from Australia. Leon and I (Kim) thought that God had wanted us to adopt children from the foster care system. To make a very long story short we ended up after a very long wait in the grasp of adopting two young children from DSS. As we prepared for the journey into adopting these children it was brought to our attention that these children were not "legally" free and could be upwards of a year on top of much my husband was going to be transferred out of state which meant we wouldn't be able to leave the state if we moved foward. With those things in view we decided not to move forward with this adoption. Needless to say this was a very hard time for us and we struggled to understand Gods purpose for our family, especially since we had felt so sure about us having two more children.

Well on Sept. 10th I found out that I was pregnant. I had always wanted more children but it just wasnt happening, so when people ask if we were trying then yes... we had been trying for a longgggg time. Our oldest son Jonathan is 14 and Hannah is 12. So we feel that this pregnacy is in Gods timing and not our own. We are so thrilled.

Since I have had problems in the past the doctor did our first ultrasound at 5 weeks and everything looked great. Of course you could not see very much just the one sac but it was right on track. Then I had a second ultrasound on Oct. 21st. The doctor was just doing her thing and then she said....Oh there is two... and I quickly said "two what?" :). Her response was quick that we were having twins. What! We were having twins! She said that they were right on track for thier growth and that there were two heartbeats. After those comments I was just in happy land. God had answered our prayers for two more children. She immediately shared her concern that she thought that the twins may be monoamniotic /monoamniotic Twins also known as momo twins. This mainly means that my twins are in the same amniotic sac and there is a high risk for cord entanglement or cord compression.
At this point I was so overjoyed about being pregnant with twins that I just didnt hear her concerns. We went back for another ultrasound on Oct. 30th to make sure of the diagnosis. Leon was able to go with me to this appointment and sure enough it was confirmed that we were having momo twins. Our doctor sent us to MUSC to see a Twin specialist. Dr. Newman, because momo twins are often misdignosed, and he futher confirm that our twins were definately momo. When he did the 2nd level ultrasound we saw that our twins cords were already tangled. Of course I just had a meltdown because I think the realitity of our situation became very clear with the specialist. Dr. Newman informed us that momo twins have a 50/50 chance at surviving because of the danger of them getting wraped up and tanlged in each others cord. He also made it clear that there is nothing that we can do or that he can do until our babies get to a viable age. He said that when I make it to 24-26 weeks that I would need to go into the hospital for inpatient care so that they can monitor the babies. Once the babies show any sign of distress then they would deliver the babies and then we would have a higher chance of saving them. He said that for momo twins the longest that I would go is 32-34 weeks max.

So, we're now at 12-1/2 weeks and have the next OBGYN appointment in two weeks and then have level 2 ultrasound (for genetic development, sex of the babies (although the data suggests 70% of all momo twins are girls) at MUSC again on December 15th.

So, we place our Faith in Jesus and pray for our unborn twins that He will keep them safe, and sound inside me until >32 weeks! We must walk by faith, everyday and always remember that God is in control. One thing that I learned recently in CBS is that God tells us in the Bible to "Fear Not" 365 times. I find that very comforting that I have a "fear not" for every day!

Thank you for taking the time to read our story and we will try to keep everyone up to date with how our twins are doing. Thank you in advance for all your prayers.

Many Blessings! The Topalian Family

Topalians Momo Twins Journey