24 Week Ultrasound

I had another ultrasound on Tuesday. Once a month is about the norm for women carrying twins. It’s nice to be able to check on them so often even though I feel them moving all the time.

There were a few angles/images the ultrasound tech was unable to get at the anatomy scan due to how they were laying so we got to see more of their hearts and brains this time for those images. The hearts look bigger than last time, but still like pulsating scary cartoon trees. Still four chambers on each – one beating at 136 bpm and the other at 148 bpm. The tech did a lot of the same measurements as last time - their arm and leg bones, the circumference of their bellies and heads and thickness of the tissue at the back of the neck. She showed us again where their bladders and kidneys are too.

Neither little lady was too keen on showing us her face but when they turned just enough for a profile the tech got a few good shots. They don’t look much different than they did four weeks ago to me. Their skin is still translucent and their spines are still reptilian looking. One thing I could see more clearly this time was the nasal passage. Since all you’re seeing on the screen is bone their noses look huge! Hopefully they come out with noses proportionate to their faces!

 

At my last ultrasound they were both stretched out longways like two horizontal lines. Now they are both sitting sort of Indian style curled around each other like the ying yang symbol. (Separate placentas though – they’re fraternal.) Four weeks ago they weighed 13 and 14 ounces. This week they both weighed 1 pound, 9 ounces. That’s more than double the weight in 4 weeks! The tech said they are growing right on track. I checked my app when I got to work. It said most babies weight around 1 1/3 pounds at this stage so they aren’t on the small end of the spectrum at just over 1.5 pounds each. This is extra reassuring because people keep telling me I look “too small” to be carrying twins. I know my height helps me here. Standing at 5’11” I have a lot more space than your average pregnant woman to house two growing humans.

The discomfort has been minimal the last couple of weeks. My energy level is still up and I don’t have to go to the bathroom every five minutes. I get acid reflex occasionally but it seems to be random now and not solely linked to tomato based things like pasta and pizza sauce. I am hiccuping a lot but I always hiccuped a lot before so it’s hard to tell if that has actually gotten worse since becoming pregnant. I also sneeze a lot. My co-workers started a sneeze jar for the twin’s college fund. Every time I sneeze two or more times someone contributes a quarter. I have over $15. By the end of my pregnancy I should have a solid $25-30 to start investing! From the beginning it was decided they would not pay out for hiccups or they’d all go broke.

My doctor called yesterday to let me know he’d reviewed the ultrasound and everything looks good. They are growing proportionately and from all they can tell they are healthy.

In short, life is good.