My High-Risk MCMA Pregnancy

When I found out that I was having twins, I was shocked and surprised and excited. As we twin mums hear from so many people - I had always wanted to have twins. What I didn’t know is there are different types of identical twins. The doctor said he couldn’t see a membrane, they might be high risk, I would need specialist care. It wasn’t until I read the referral letter that I comprehended the term monochorionic monoamniotic, and looked it up and found out all that I had never known about identical twins.

Because MCMA twins are quite rare, it is hard to find someone to talk to about it. I would have loved to find a blog post from a momo twin mum talking about the actual lived experience. So here it is, here is my experience of momo.

My Journey Through Pregnancy and Birth

To start with, of course I looked it up, and of course you will look it up even though your doctor will tell you not to. Let me tell you right now - if you read something that sounds really scary about abnormalities or survival rate, discuss it with your doctor. Modern clinical practices for MCMA care have led to much better outcomes - though you will be having your babies prematurely, it is the safest thing for them.

From 7 weeks gestation I lived in a state of anxiety. It was calm anxiety, but that was mostly because I refused to let myself consider potential negative outcomes. My primary coping mechanism was to not do too much baby prepping - I guess I thought it might be a bit of a jinx. I bought a buggy, but I didn’t really read parenting books, buy clothes or even buy bassinets. There would be time for that when they were in NICU after all.

I had detailed scans every two weeks. We had one scare, at 17 weeks, when Twin B had intermittent umbilical blood flow. She continued to have blood flow issues so from there I had scans every single week. I went into hospital for more intensive monitoring at 26 weeks, and we were planning on a c-section at 32 weeks. After some CTG scans showing Twin B having periods of accelerated heart rate, we adjusted to plan to a c-section at 30 weeks, and agreed that if we had any more scares they would come out even earlier. 

I had my twins at 28 weeks, on the dot. Because I had already been in hospital, I had been given steroid injections to help their lungs grow and then a magnesium drip in the lead up to the c-section (reduces risk of cerebral palsy). The c-section was really fast, the babies cried, and then they were whipped away to NICU. From there, we had 5 weeks in NICU and 10 weeks in SCBU, but that is a different story.

If you have any more questions for Jaimie, feel free to reach out to her: jaimieleigh.jonker@gmail.com