What a relief!

Yesterday I had my First Trimester Screen; because we're having twins, we couldn't do the blood test, simply because if any abnormalities were found there would be no way to tell which baby they were from, but we still had the nuchal translucency scan done. Choosing to do the scan is a very personal decision - for us, it wasn't a matter of wanting to terminate if something was wrong, but an opportunity to research and prepare if anything unusual was discovered, as well as to check in with our twins and make sure that they were developing on schedule and at the same rate.

The nuchal fold results came back the same for both babies: 1.6mm, which is considered low risk. The odds of carrying a baby with Down Syndrome are 1 in 750 for my age group (28 years old), and with our scan results, that dropped to 1 in 3,123. For the other two screens that were done - Trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) and Trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome) - our odds came back as 1 in 10,100.

All of that was wonderfully reassuring, but for me the best part was this:

Aren't those the most beautiful little profiles that you've ever ever seen?!? The last time we saw them, our babies looked like little grey blobs - and now they're people! People the size of plums! People with heads and arms and legs and toes, people who squirm and wave and dance around!

Seeing them so active and rowdy completely relieved my fears of Vanishing Twin Syndrome. I know this may seem like a bizarre thing to worry about, but since it occurs in up to 30% of twin pregnancies, it really was a geunine concern. But no more! We have two gorgeous and rambunctious little babies, with good solid heartbeats of 143bpm and 158bpm, measuring in at 11 weeks, 6 days (my LMP put me at 12 weeks, 2 days - a three day difference is fine as long as they continue developing as well as they are).

This is such a relief - I finally feel like I can relax and start enjoying this pregnancy!