The membrane between your twins

This is kind of a spin off from my other post. Ive been obsessing about twins ever since I found out we were having them. Ive been looking at pictures of ultrasounds and it seems that mine at 9 or 10 weeks were really close together compared to other pics.. Ive even had a lady on another board say that it looks likes identical twins and now at 15/14 weeks the membrane looks paper thin. The radiologist told me the bigger they get the thinner the membrane looks, which I guess makes sense. Is that normal with fraternal too?

 

here is a picture from last month

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=10736157&l=5433812b6e&id=700535392

 

it is a thin membrane...but that doesn't really indicate frat or id. They can be either one if they are the same sex. Some ID twins have a thick membrane and two placentas. There is no way to tell from a pic. That being said they could be ID. Do you know the sex and are they having difficulty telling if it's one placenta or two fused?

 

I kinda obsess over these things too, since I had identical twins and one monster placenta. But the docs were sure they were fraternal from early on, and I remember them pointing out the membrane to me when we first "discovered" the second twin at our first u/s (19 weeks).

Word is, if you can see the membrane, the babes are di-di. But it will thin out with bigger babies and by the 3rd trimester it's hard to tell the difference.

Also classic is the lambda or delta where the membranes connect to the placenta. If your twins were mono-di (and thus necessarily MZ), the membrane would meet the placenta in a T.

Not a HCP, but that pic looks definitely di-di to me!

 

Those are di di. They could still be identical but they definitely have their own sacs!! Do you have an earlier ultrasound??

 

Here is an u/s of my boys...
9wk U/S

 

No sorry this was our first one.

 

I agree with pp who said that they are di-di - that membrane is too thick to be an amniotic membrane; the chorionic membrane is the thick one. Here's what my mono-di twins looked like at a week earlier than yours:

http://s905.photobucket.com/albums/ac260/amymc72/?action=view&current=amt1.jpg&newest=1

You couldn't see a membrane at all (and we didn't see one until much later).

But your twins can still be identical - and di-di is the safest configuration, right? No entanglement (mo-mo) or ttts (mono-di) issues.

 

I totally forgot I included a 9wk u/s of our di/di boys. The space between them does get smaller and smaller. Here is a pic taken yesterday of their heads side by side. Again my twins are di/di and we will not know if they are ID until after they are born.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=10948406&l=147d8736e5&id=890690566

 

I have a picture just like that. You can't really see the membrane from that angle and I am most definitely having di/di twins. So yes, the space between does get smaller and smaller.

 

Hey Chrissy,
Are you hoping they are fraternal or identical?? When will you get an ultrasound to find out?? Please keep us posted! I bet they ARE identical even if they are di di. They are pretty close together so chances are they are id! That's my guess LOL.

 

It would be cool to have identical but it doesn't matter. Ive read there are more complications with identical but does that go for di/di identicals too?? Ive been told they are di/di. My next ultrasound is in a few weeks. does the thickness of the membrane make a difference? They do seem close together compare to other pictures ive seen of twin ultrasounds at 9 weeks.. We will have to wait and see!! And oh yeah they are both boys

 

I bet they're identical. I'm betting big on it! That's a tricky one cuz the membrane is thick but not AS thick as it is w/ most di di twins. I think it could really go either way w/ yours to be honest. I WISH you had an earlier ultrasound!

 

That looks a lot like the u/s with both our sets of twins and the girls are definitely fraternal (and most likely the boys are too). All it means is that they implanted close together. Di/di can be close together or far apart. Our girls looked like they were ID because of a placenta that fused before 11 weeks, but one is a redhead and the other is a brunette, so definitely not ID. The only way you can tell ID is if they are mo/di or mo/mo. Other than that it's just a guessing game. Most di/di twins are fraternal. Even our boys, who are definitely di/di and 99% sure they are frat, looked just as close as yours at 9 weeks with a very thin membrane separating them. At 7 weeks they were further apart. After our 12 week u/s you could only see a thin line where the membrane was and it just keeps getting thinner and thinner.