I know that we said that we thought that the girls were identical, but we’re now pretty sure they’re not. If you see the girls’ pictures, their faces are pretty different from each other and it’s pretty easy to tell them apart. Yesterday, Agnes’ dad said “Eleanor has thick lips; Miranda has thin lips.” Agnes went a step further and described Eleanor as having fuller lips, higher cheekbones, and a longer neck. I also think she may have bigger feet, even though she was the smaller of the two girls. Miranda has a rounder face and an incredible pout that takes over her whole face just before she cries. Her brow furrows, her bottom lip sticks out and she’s silent for a moment. Then the wail comes on. When Eleanor cries, her jaw and lips are a little more slack.
The original guess that they were identical was based a few things that were observed in the ultrasound. The biggest clue was that it looked like there was only a single placenta to which both girls were attached. Even this isn’t a foolproof indicator of identical twins though — it’s possible for two placentas to fuse into each other as they grow, which would look like a single placenta in the ultrasound. Our OB said that the placenta(s) still needed to be examined further, but she thought that it was indeed a fused placenta in our case.
Anyway, just from looking at them, we think they are now fraternal twins. This means they are no more similar to each other than any other two sisters, other than the fact that they happen to be the same age.