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Tuesday 5 October 2010
Wednesday 13 January 2010
12 Week Scan
Had our 12 week scan at Ipswich hospital yeasterday.
We went in hoping that the 12 week scan would reveal that all important membrane seperating our twins and we were both pleasantly surprised to find that there was a membrane there for all to see.
Because of this I am going to cease updating this blog as there are many normal twin pregnancies out there for the world to read about.
If you have stumbled upon this blog because you have recently found out that you may be expecting mono-mono twins, my advice to you is dont worry too much.
I have read a lot of stories out there about Mono-Mono pregnancies being misdiagnosed and thankfully by the looks of this it happens quite regularly. We had our first scan at 6 weeks which is very early indeed, so much so that the membrane seperating the twins is not visible on most ultrasounds, even the hi resolution ones. It is more likely that later ultrasounds will reveal this phantom membrane.
If you are one of the few people on this planet who do have an actual mono-mono pregnancy, I wish you the best of luck and would just say do not read too much into a lot of the bad stories / statistics you read on the web. More normal healthy mono-mono twins are born than not!
We went in hoping that the 12 week scan would reveal that all important membrane seperating our twins and we were both pleasantly surprised to find that there was a membrane there for all to see.
Because of this I am going to cease updating this blog as there are many normal twin pregnancies out there for the world to read about.
If you have stumbled upon this blog because you have recently found out that you may be expecting mono-mono twins, my advice to you is dont worry too much.
I have read a lot of stories out there about Mono-Mono pregnancies being misdiagnosed and thankfully by the looks of this it happens quite regularly. We had our first scan at 6 weeks which is very early indeed, so much so that the membrane seperating the twins is not visible on most ultrasounds, even the hi resolution ones. It is more likely that later ultrasounds will reveal this phantom membrane.
If you are one of the few people on this planet who do have an actual mono-mono pregnancy, I wish you the best of luck and would just say do not read too much into a lot of the bad stories / statistics you read on the web. More normal healthy mono-mono twins are born than not!
Tuesday 8 December 2009
Abbie Pennell
This entire blog is dedicated to Abbie Pennell, one of our greatest friends who was tragically taken from us in August this year.
She was absolutely 100% sure that our IVF would work, and she was bloody right as well! Well done my dear, Rest In Peace x
She was absolutely 100% sure that our IVF would work, and she was bloody right as well! Well done my dear, Rest In Peace x
Sunday 6 December 2009
How we got to where we are
Being the first post I thought it would be sensible to give you a little insight into how we got to where we are at the moment.
My wife Kim was diagnosed with Stage 5 endemetriosis about 10 years ago and was given a 50/50 chance of ever conceiving children (One of her fallopian tubes was blocked due to the severity of the endemetriosis). We were delighted in October 2005 to find out that she was pregnant with our first child and in July 2006 we welcomed our son Harry into the world.
We never wanted Harry to be an only child so we started trying again and in July 2008 we found out that Kim was once again pregnant with our second child. Unfortunately 6 weeks into the pregnancy Kim was rushed into hospital with a ruptured fallopian tube due to this second pregnancy being ectopic. To make matters even worse the ectopic pregnancy was in her only good fallopian tube which subsequently had to be removed rendering us effectively infertile.
We were both absolutely devestated by what happened that day but over the following few months we managed to pick ourselves up (With the help of some wonderful family and friends) and at the beginning of this year we decided to visit our GP to find out where to go from here, both determined that this wasn't going to stop us having another child.
Our GP referred us to the gynae unit at Ipswich hospital where we were advised by a specialist to undergo a Laproscopy to see whether the remaining tube was blocked or not.
In April 2009 Kim underwent the aforementioned Laproscopy where they injected purple dye into her remaining fallopian tube to assess the blockage. The result of this operation confirmed our worst fears, the tube was completely blocked and as a result there was no way we were able to conceive naturally. The surgeon opted not to remove the remaining fallopian tube as this could have damaged the ovary which it had become wrapped around. This way if we decided to undergo fertility treatment our chances would be optimised.
6 weeks after this operation we were referred to the fertility unit at Ipswich hospital where we were told that we were prime candidates for IVF. In the UK we are entitled to free healthcare (Including IVF cycles), but unfortunately this is a bit of a lottery and the doctor we saw informed us that we would not be entitled to NHS funding due to the fact we already have a child. Of course we were devestated, as IVF is not cheap (Around £8000 a cycle) and like many people £8000 is extremely difficult to come by unless youre exceptionally good with money!
Fortunately we are extremely lucky to have family members who instantly pledged some money to put towards the IVF procedure, and pretty much that same day we booked ourselves into the ISIS fertility clinic which is based in Colchester and luckily for us not very far away.
At the end of September we started our first IVF cycle, having been told our chances of the IVF procedure being successful were at 40% (This is the best chance by the way) as we have had 2 successful pregnancies previously. We were heavily advised that only 1 embryo would be put back in as any more than one embryo successfully taking is risky as twin, triplet etc pregnancies are more high risk.
IVF, as anyone who has been through it will tell you, is a very gruelling procedure physically and emotionally and it took a lot of patience and positive thinking from both of us to get through it.
At the end of the 6 weeks of my wife self injecting with various hormones and drugs the IVF procedure took place, and 6 days later a grade 1 (Top banana basically) embryo at blastocyst stage was put back in. We then had to wait a further 2 weeks before finding out whether the IVF had worked before we could take a pregnancy test. The wait was agonising but we were delighted when we finally took the pregnancy test and it came out positive.
Several weeks later (Last wednesday) we went to the ISIS clinic for a final scan to confirm the pregnancy. The guy who did the scan informed us that there was a pregnancy... and that there were 2 babies in the womb. We were, and still are absolutely flabbergasted by this!
We were then informed that it looked like the pregnancy was Monochorionic-Monoamniotic (Mono-mono) which basically means that our 2 babies share the same placenta and that there is no membrane seperating the two of them. Not only is this an extremely rare form of twins (1 in 10 pregnancies are twins, 1 in 60,000 twin pregnancies are mono-mono) but it is also at high risk from complications, due to the twins becoming entangled in each others umbilical cords, risk of umbilical cord compression resulting in lack of oxygen getting to the babies. As it stands, current statistics we have found on the internet rate mono-mono pregnancy success rates at around 50 - 60%.
After all we have been through in the last 14 months this has come to us as something of a shock. We are both incredibly excited but at the same time understandably worried. We are at this moment keeping positive about everything and will carry on doing so.
So to cut a long story short, this is where we currently are! Kim is visiting the midwife tomorrow afternoon for her first appointment and hopefully from there we will find out a little more about whats going on.
I have decided to write this blog as we have found very little in the way of people chronicling what happens during mono mono pregnancies, apart from one blog that we found on here that was really helpful and interesting to read, and thankfully for the person that wrote the blog, the outcome was great!
Anyway, im really hoping it all goes well and I will be updating this blog as much as I can.
Tom
My wife Kim was diagnosed with Stage 5 endemetriosis about 10 years ago and was given a 50/50 chance of ever conceiving children (One of her fallopian tubes was blocked due to the severity of the endemetriosis). We were delighted in October 2005 to find out that she was pregnant with our first child and in July 2006 we welcomed our son Harry into the world.
We never wanted Harry to be an only child so we started trying again and in July 2008 we found out that Kim was once again pregnant with our second child. Unfortunately 6 weeks into the pregnancy Kim was rushed into hospital with a ruptured fallopian tube due to this second pregnancy being ectopic. To make matters even worse the ectopic pregnancy was in her only good fallopian tube which subsequently had to be removed rendering us effectively infertile.
We were both absolutely devestated by what happened that day but over the following few months we managed to pick ourselves up (With the help of some wonderful family and friends) and at the beginning of this year we decided to visit our GP to find out where to go from here, both determined that this wasn't going to stop us having another child.
Our GP referred us to the gynae unit at Ipswich hospital where we were advised by a specialist to undergo a Laproscopy to see whether the remaining tube was blocked or not.
In April 2009 Kim underwent the aforementioned Laproscopy where they injected purple dye into her remaining fallopian tube to assess the blockage. The result of this operation confirmed our worst fears, the tube was completely blocked and as a result there was no way we were able to conceive naturally. The surgeon opted not to remove the remaining fallopian tube as this could have damaged the ovary which it had become wrapped around. This way if we decided to undergo fertility treatment our chances would be optimised.
6 weeks after this operation we were referred to the fertility unit at Ipswich hospital where we were told that we were prime candidates for IVF. In the UK we are entitled to free healthcare (Including IVF cycles), but unfortunately this is a bit of a lottery and the doctor we saw informed us that we would not be entitled to NHS funding due to the fact we already have a child. Of course we were devestated, as IVF is not cheap (Around £8000 a cycle) and like many people £8000 is extremely difficult to come by unless youre exceptionally good with money!
Fortunately we are extremely lucky to have family members who instantly pledged some money to put towards the IVF procedure, and pretty much that same day we booked ourselves into the ISIS fertility clinic which is based in Colchester and luckily for us not very far away.
At the end of September we started our first IVF cycle, having been told our chances of the IVF procedure being successful were at 40% (This is the best chance by the way) as we have had 2 successful pregnancies previously. We were heavily advised that only 1 embryo would be put back in as any more than one embryo successfully taking is risky as twin, triplet etc pregnancies are more high risk.
IVF, as anyone who has been through it will tell you, is a very gruelling procedure physically and emotionally and it took a lot of patience and positive thinking from both of us to get through it.
At the end of the 6 weeks of my wife self injecting with various hormones and drugs the IVF procedure took place, and 6 days later a grade 1 (Top banana basically) embryo at blastocyst stage was put back in. We then had to wait a further 2 weeks before finding out whether the IVF had worked before we could take a pregnancy test. The wait was agonising but we were delighted when we finally took the pregnancy test and it came out positive.
Several weeks later (Last wednesday) we went to the ISIS clinic for a final scan to confirm the pregnancy. The guy who did the scan informed us that there was a pregnancy... and that there were 2 babies in the womb. We were, and still are absolutely flabbergasted by this!
We were then informed that it looked like the pregnancy was Monochorionic-Monoamniotic (Mono-mono) which basically means that our 2 babies share the same placenta and that there is no membrane seperating the two of them. Not only is this an extremely rare form of twins (1 in 10 pregnancies are twins, 1 in 60,000 twin pregnancies are mono-mono) but it is also at high risk from complications, due to the twins becoming entangled in each others umbilical cords, risk of umbilical cord compression resulting in lack of oxygen getting to the babies. As it stands, current statistics we have found on the internet rate mono-mono pregnancy success rates at around 50 - 60%.
After all we have been through in the last 14 months this has come to us as something of a shock. We are both incredibly excited but at the same time understandably worried. We are at this moment keeping positive about everything and will carry on doing so.
So to cut a long story short, this is where we currently are! Kim is visiting the midwife tomorrow afternoon for her first appointment and hopefully from there we will find out a little more about whats going on.
I have decided to write this blog as we have found very little in the way of people chronicling what happens during mono mono pregnancies, apart from one blog that we found on here that was really helpful and interesting to read, and thankfully for the person that wrote the blog, the outcome was great!
Anyway, im really hoping it all goes well and I will be updating this blog as much as I can.
Tom
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