Say What?!?!?

OMG are they twins?  Are they identical? Are they fraternal? They look so much alike! They look nothing alike!  How do you not know?  ----Yup, those are the same questions I get asked on a regular daily basis.  If that wasn't exhausting enough, I hated not being able to give an answer.  Sometimes I would just say no they're fraternal just to shut people up, but honestly the "not" knowing was eating me alive.  As a mother, how did I not know what my little girls are? I know I always make fun of people for asking me so many silly twin questions but the truth of the matter is I don't really blame them.  Before I found out I was pregnant with twins, I didn't know anything about it either.  I, too, was ignorant about the subject.  So before I can jump into the whole finding out thing....let me give you a quick lesson on twins lol.

There are three types of twins:

• Mono/mono - This means both babies share a sac AND a placenta, therefore they are identical.  This means that they come from one egg. Identical twins can only be the same sex; girls or boys.  Boy/girl twins are NEVER identical.
•  mono/di-  This means the babies are in separate sacs but share the same placenta.  This also means the babies are identical unless they had different placentas but ended up fussing together.  In that case, they babies can be fraternal.  Yes, I know, a bit confusing.
• di/di- This means the babies are in separate sacs and separate placentas.  This typically means the twins are fraternal, from two different fertilized eggs.  There is however, a 20-30% chance that the babies could be identical.  This means one egg spit in half and separated very early on.

*Identical twins can happen to anyone.  It's a "freak of nature."  The egg splits into two. Your chance of having twins again does not increase.
*Fraternal twins is genetic or happen through fertility drugs.  Two eggs are fertilized.  This is also common in older mothers over 35.  If the twins were conceived naturally, then the chance of having twins again increases quadruples.  Fraternal twins may look similar or different, just like siblings, they just happen to be the same age.

My twins are Di/Di twins.  They didn't share a thing lol. In my head it made sense.  Twins run in my family.  Yup, I thought my body dropped two eggs and boom...TWINS!  I still knew there was that small chance they could be identical.  Once we found out the sex we still couldn't be 100% sure because both babies were girls.  Then we found out that they had the same blood type because Brad and I have the same blood type and therefore all of our children will have the same blood type.  Yup, still no answer. 

Once the babies were born I could tell them apart right away.  Still to this day they look so different to me.  But I also know that they have many similarities: same color eyes, same color hair etc.  So after thinking about it for a very long time, we decided to do the zygosity test. My friend recommended the same place she used to find out what her twins were, Proactive Genetics.  So I went online and bought the zygosity kit. It was so weird because I got really anxious as soon as I bought it. I even started to sweat lol. 

After a few days we finally received the kit with all of the instructions.  We had to do several cheek swabs on two different days. 

 

 

Juliana thought it was so funny to have that in her mouth.  Isabella hated it.  She's like get this thing away from me haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I mailed it, the waiting game begun.  Deep in my heart I always felt my girls were fraternal.  How can my two distinct little girls be identical?  However, a part of me wanted them to be identical so that in the future we could have baby #3 and not worry about having twins again.  Then finally the results came...  I had to wait until Brad came home from the gym to see the results together!

 



Ahhh I didn't have to read this at all.  I could see right away in bold letters...IDENTICAL!!!!  Say What?!?!?! I cried.  I was so happy to finally know.  I was very happy with the results.  I mean how cool...to think that my egg split in half!!!!  Brad must have super sperm haha.  I spent the next few days thanking the girls for splitting lol.  I'm so lucky to be amongst the few to have di/di identical twins.  I'm so blessed that this "freak of nature" happened to me us.  I can't imagine life without my little twins!!!

♥I hear that identical twins share an even stronger bond ♥

Half Way to TWO!

Can you guys believe that our twinkies are 18 months old?!?!?! Seriously, time is flying by, which reminds me that I will be 27 in less than a month...eww.  It's so hard to picture life before the girls.  I feel like they have been around my whole life.  I can't thank God enough for blessing us with them.  They're beautiful, healthy and happy...it doesn't get any better than that =)  Yesterday we found out they are IDENTICAL (blogging about that soon!).  Here are a few pictures of our 18 month photo shoot.  Taking pictures of them is getting harder and harder.  They don't want to stop for a second.  All they want to do is explore and run around.  Enjoy!

 My beautiful family ♥

 We each get to play with one hehe

 Absolutely in love with this man!

 Mama and Isa ♥

 Dada and Juju ♥

 I love that the girls are smiling

 Juliana

They wanted to play with the flower

Isabella

When the Heart Aches

I only usually post about my twins, but tonight I have to vent a little.  A good friend of mine called me today almost in tears freaking out.  Her boyfriend is deploying next month for 8 months and she can't stop crying.  She's former Air Force and has been deployed herself but didn't have a boyfriend at the time.  Now she's on the other side, the one that gets left behind.  She has nobody else who she can talk to about this besides me.  I'm the only one she knows that can relate to this.  So what advice can I truly give her?  Honestly, nothing I can say will make it better because the truth is deployments SUCK!  That's exactly what I said.  All I can do as a friend is listen to her and give her my own advice of what I experienced.  Just hearing her over the phone and listening to all her worries brought back so many memories.  It's crazy that it has been 7 years since I went through the deployment with Brad, yet I can remember things so vividly.  To this day, certain songs will make me tear up and little things will trigger my memory back to that time.  When Brad deployed we were newly weds and I was still very young; only 19.  It was hard enough being the only one in my group of friends to be married let alone having my husband deployed to Iraq.  I'm so very grateful to the online friends that I made that were going through the same thing and my amazing friend, Tanya, whose husband, then boyfriend, was deployed with Brad as well. 
I'm happy that I can try to help a friend, even if all I do is listen to her.  I told her that if they can survive this, they will come out so much stronger when it is all over.  Saying goodbye has been one of the hardest things I ever had to do. But like I told her, homecoming day is so amazing.  Being able to hug and kiss your man after so long is such an amazing high...one of the best feelings in the world.  Not a lot of people get to experience that.  So with that said, my heart aches for her because I know exactly how she's feeling and exactly what's going through her head.  I pray that they make it through this and that he comes home safe.

To all my amazing friends that still have to deal with deployments, I love you!  I will forever be grateful to your man and you for making the sacrifice ♥


The day before I said goodbye to Brad I gave him a scrapbook that I made for him.  In return, he made two videos for me.  I tried posting the link but is not working.   

Brad in Iraq 2006 during a convoy



First time seeing each other after 8 months

Brad and Josh