The little mutant

My poor little mutant twin B is quite a troublemaker. I went back to the Perinatologist office yesterday for genetic counseling and to have the CVS. After quite a long time discussing my history with the counselor, and listening to the increasingly confused information she was giving about the difficulties of determining anything from the CVS, I went in for another ultrasound. I was still thinking maybe there's a small possibility that they can use the sample to determine the fate of twin B, but the Perinatologist pretty much said out loud what I was starting to question. There is really no reason to have the CVS. Both babies sharing a placenta will give a mix of twin A cells and twin B cells, and it's highly likely that the result will be confusing. Man, I wish he had been there at my NT scan the day before and not rushing off for emergency surgery. Like anyone else matters but me, right? OK, not true, but it would have saved me a sleepless night and a few hours of everyone else's time.

So without trying to make this anymore complicated than it is, the bottom line is that we are in wait and see mode. Twin B is most likely not going to make it too far. We don't know how far that may be, but the fluid levels are significant enough where it could be 1 week or several weeks, or surprise us all and fight for a longer time (in which case I will nickname twin B mutant ninja). I can clearly see what they call a cystic hygroma (see image below) in twin B, while twin A looks fine. The Dr. thinks this discrepancy alone rules out TTTS and most likely chromosome abnormality. And really, it doesn't matter at this point what it is, it's just not good. Now the best option is to get a sample of the amniotic fluid, since both babies have their own sac of amniotic fluid. This will narrow down the specifics of each baby and what is going on. The amniocentesis is usually done at 16 weeks, but it may be done earlier and that is one of the things my Dr. is researching right now.

At this point, it looks like 2 things can happen: (1) twin B will die naturally and will either impact the health of twin A or not, or (2) twin B will survive long enough to obtain an amniocentesis of what's going on which will result in more decisions to be made.

I'm in high research mode. The Dr. told me this is such an unusual case (surprise, surprise--it's a fluke) that he's putting calls out to other specialist to see if they can give some case studies. I will have weekly ultrasounds until we need to make a decision or until a decision is made for us.