When Agnes called me after the 8-week appointment, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. At that appointment we were just making sure that we didn’t have another molar pregnancy on our hands. I could tell that Agnes wasn’t upset, but there was something more she wasn’t saying. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then she said that it’s twins and I was dumbfounded. It suddenly made sense that Agnes couldn’t quite figure out what to say. Wow.

Our doctor had asked Agnes to come back two weeks later for our ten-week appointment to make sure that things were still progressing okay and luckily this coincided with a week that I was going to be in LA. I had met our doctor the previous year when we had our molar pregnancy so this wasn’t my first time meeting her. I like her. She has a direct and confident approach and I feel that we were in good hands with her.

We went to her office on January 19th for our appointment and Agnes got ready in the examination room while I sat on the one seat near the foot of the examination table. When the doctor showed up, she pulled up a stool to start the exam, and I knew that I should immediately move over to stand near Agnes’ head. Our doctor had firmly instructed me to stand over there the last time we saw her — I think she thinks it’s inappropriate for me to stand down near where she’s examining Agnes.

Both fetuses looked like they were growing well. An ultrasound is kind of strange to watch. The doctor is manipulating the probe and things kind of suddenly loom into view. In the previous appointment, she couldn’t get both fetuses into view at the same time, but this time she was able to.

In this picture, the fetus on the left has its head towards the bottom of the picture. The fetus on the right is right-side up in the picture. The brighter X shaped mark near the head of the fetus on the right is where the heart is.

The doctor took several pictures and said that she couldn’t get either fetus into view from the side. Both of them were always head-on. She was trying to see the fetuses from the side to see if the necks have extra folds, which can be an early indication of the possibility of a neural tube defect or of Down Syndrome. We couldn’t tell with this examination. Because of our previous molar pregnancy, this pregnancy is considered at risk for genetic disorders, so it’s good if we can find out about any warning signs as early as we can.

The check-up was over relatively quickly. Agnes asked “If it weren’t for our molar pregnancy, would you consider this a normal twin pregnancy?” and our doctor said “Definitely.” I think this means that everything looks like it’s going well so far. Our doctor recommended that Agnes start taking some additional folic acid and iron supplements (beyond what she gets in the prenatal vitamins) and we went to the drug store later that day to pick some up.

Our next appointment is at week 14. I think it’s a good sign that she didn’t ask for another follow-up for four weeks this time.