Could it be twins?

i am 21 weeks and 6 days pregnant. last week my doctor checked the heartbeat and it was in the 140's. then he felt on my stomach and yelled down the hall that he wanted an AFP. i called yesterday and all they would tell me is that the baby doesn't have downs. I asked how the levels of my HCG were and they said they can't tell me till i see him on dec 22. every time they do an u/s she has been 1 inch below my belly button. I can feel her kick, but seconds after i do it feels like something is ,2 inches above my belly button paralell, fighting back. i have gained 12 pounds so far and every symptom has been servere. There are multiples on both mine and my husbands side. Could i be carrying twins and not know it? i look like this: http://www.babycenter.com.sg/pregnancy/twins/fetal-development/20-weeks-pregnant/ ( just a little bigger now) when i should look like this:http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.babycentre.co.uk/i/fetal_development/week20/index.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment/20weeks/&usg=__eTVX0pDp0-IOf8UFnYI0GWPM8jw=&h=386&w=500&sz=33&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=ACVq-54jvHFJjM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=162&prev=/images%3Fq%3D20%2Bweeks%2Bpregnant%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26biw%3D1362%26bih%3D583%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1063&vpy=255&dur=15&hovh=197&hovw=256&tx=196&ty=104&ei=jUH5TL61LYeglAeNrbmGBw&oei=jUH5TL61LYeglAeNrbmGBw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:16,s:0 . At 19 weeks 4 days my baby that they know of was only 9 oz. and i have beeen following the chart on this web site and my baby has been close to matching it.

Im just wondering what on here everyone thinks. could it be twins?

 

Have you had an ultrasound? If so, when was it done? What did they see, was there any indication that there might be two during an u/s?

 

They did a few ultrasounds, but the girl doing them was new, just out of school, and not sure what to so.When i looked at them the other day it looks like there was a second sac. The doc did one u/s and said he was checking for 2 and that was at 18 weeks (after 4 had been done) Every time i go in the check for twins and always say they only see one. I was told the only way i should feel anything in y ribs is if im either further along or twins. and i asked the doc last week if i could be further along and he said no way.

 

Anything is possible but the only sure ways to know are ultrasound and/or giving birth to two babies!

 

Very exciting. I say ask for an experienced tech the next time you go in for an u/s.

 

At 18 weeks if they were checking for twins the other should have been apparent. I mean, that baby would have to be very, very, very good at hiding and they would have to be not very good at seeking.

 

I had an u/s at about 11 weeks and they saw two immediately. if you have already had more than one u/s, I just can't not see how they would have missed one, even with one that is inexperienced. Plus, a doctor did one? Also, my OBnever checked for two heartbeats at my exams because she said that with twins, you could never be sure if the heartbeat was that of the twin or an echo. She always relied on an u/s to make sure the girls were healthy, not the heartbeats she heard during a visit. She told me that it actually was rare to hear BOTH heartbeats at every visit. Also, inexperience does not mean that a baby would have been missed, that's incompetence, especially if you have had more than one AND a doc did it. Women all gain weight differently, and just because you have had excessive weight gain does not mean there is two. I have an aquaintance that is an itty bitty girl and has gained more weight in the first tri with one baby then I did in the first tri with two. I wish you a healthy pregnancy, but I just don't see how there could be two.

 

If they're looking for twins, then there isn't much chance that they are missing one. Enjoy the rest of your pregnancy.

 

I would imagine that they would have seen another baby and not just a sac at 21 weeks - if there was something that looked like another sac at 21 weeks chances are it would have been filled with a noticable baby if there was one. I had AFP's with all 3 of my singletons, and we did not do one with the twins - our peri told us that the results may not be accurate with twins and it would not have made us change our course of action so we refused - we did the nucheal (sp?) fold test on the twins at like 13 weeks but not the AFP. Also at 21 weeks I do not think that an hcg level would mean much - those levels start to level off and even drop sometime a good bit before 21 weeks. I am not sure why an hcg level would even be pulled at 21 weeks. I would think that even a fresh out of school u/s tech could find twins at 21 weeks 6 days - and if she seemed that unskilled I would question your dr and probably even find a new dr. It is one thing to find twins late surprisingly and another to have been looking for weeks and weeks and still not be sure. 12 pounds is not a bad gain at 21w6d - you are a little more than half way through. I will say that when I was pregnant with my twins, it felt more like I was pregnant with a big octopus than with 2 babies - I felt movement everywhere but it was pretty consistant - I may feel a movement way down low and way up high at once - not all the time but a good bit of the time - Also they could never get two heart beats on the doppler - they were too close together and so they had to do an ultrasound at every visit I found out there was 2 at 5 weeks 5 days. I have heard of people finding out there were 2 pretty late so if you want twins, I hope you have them but it seems unlikely.

 

I hadnt had a us but was feeling movement way high up( above my belly button). My ob at the time listened for hb and only found one but I was measuring big so they sent me for u/s. Jessy was above my belly button(why he didn't hear her hb). They ran the us wand at least to the bottom of my ribs. This was at 23 weeks.

 

My twins were positioned far apart and the second could have been missed quite easily at 8 1/2 weeks when I had my first ultrasound if I hadn't had an experienced doctor performing the exam. She could not get an image with both babies on the screen at once and she had to sort of look around one to see the other. At 20 weeks, though, when I had my second ultrasound, ANYONE could see that there were two babies. So, I wouldn't get your hopes up. For a doctor to specifically check for twins at 18 weeks and still miss one seems pretty much impossible.

 

The doc didn't see Baby B at my ultrasound at (about) 15 weeks. But I was in a developing country where the care isn't what it is in the US, Canada, western Europe. But even when I returned to the US at 21 weeks, my midwife didn't suspect twins. She only heard one heartbeat, I didn't measure large and I had no other symptoms. Imagine our surprise at the routine u/s at 22 weeks!

So while it is possible, it's very unlikely that an experienced doc or u/s tech hasn't seen a second baby at this stage.

 

I agree - by 18 weeks it's very hard to miss the 2nd baby. Good luck!