Friday, February 17, 2012

identical vs fraternal

So I had originally assumed that because my babies were in separate sacs with separate placentas (di/di) that they were probably fraternal, but I've recently learned that this is not the case at all.
If the egg splits on day two after fertilization, they can be completely separate but still identical. Most sites will tell you that di di identical twins are very rare but also this is not an accurate statistic because they are underreported. Without an expensive DNA test, they will not record the twins as identical unless they know that they were in the same sac or shared a placenta, so there are actually a lot of di di identicals out there that have not been genetically "proven" identical but it's obvious based on appearance.
I learned that one of my coworkers identical boys were di di. She said she thought they would be fraternal and that's what the docs guessed too but they looked very similar at birth and within a few months she could tell for sure.
Then I also talked to our pediatrician who has di di girls that ended up being identical.
So now I'm curious. I assumed that the Femara I took must've made me ovulate two eggs because it takes your normal chance of having twins from 1.5% to 2-3% (still low), but on my ultrasound they've only been able to see one follicle/ cyst on the left side.
Of course, this does not mean there wasn't another cyst that was just smaller or went away, but it does make me wonder.
I'll be very interested to find out.

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