I follow a twin message board on another parenting website, and one of the most common questions I see is, “Could I be pregnant with twins?”  So many people ask this based on a variety of facts that they think may make them more likely to be experiencing a twin pregnancy.

The short answer is only an ultrasound will tell, and you just have to wait and see.  No one is ever really satisfied however with that answer, so I thought I’d address some of the common reasons people think they might be pregnant with twins.

1.  I got pregnant via [specific fertility treatment – Clomid, IVF, etc.].  There is certainly an increased chance of twins depending on the treatment you used.  Hopefully, your RE or OB has discussed the increased “risk” of multiples and you’re fairly prepared.  At the end of the day, you still have to wait for your ultrasound, but hopefully the close monitoring at least results in an ultrasound earlier than you might have otherwise! We found out at our 8-week ultrasound.

2.  I/My husband have/has twins in the family.  First, there is no medical evidence that identical twins “run” in families; science can’t yet explain why an egg splits.  There can be a hereditary link to fraternal twins in the maternal side of the family. Sorry, but everything I’ve read indicated that twins in your husband’s side of the family doesn’t help (though it might increase your daughter’s chances of having twins!).  If you have fraternal twins in your family, you may have inherited the gene for hyper-ovulation, making you more likely to release more than one egg at a time. For example, both of my grandmas are twins.  My maternal grandma is an identical twin who gave birth to fraternal twins. The fact that she’s an identical twin doesn’t make me any more likely to have twins (although, I did have identicals as it turned out!).  The fact that she also gave birth to fraternal twins, however, does make it slightly more likely that I could give birth to a set of fraternal twins.  My paternal grandma was a fraternal twin.  If her mother had the gene for hyper-ovulation and passed it down to her, there’s a slight chance that my father (who it obviously would not have affected) could have passed that to me.  Is it likely that I’ll have fraternal twins?  Nope.  Yes, the fact that there are fraternal twins in the family makes it ever so slightly more likely, but not a sure thing.

ADVERTISEMENT

3.  I’m soooo tired and/or having a ton of morning sickness–way more than I had with my other pregnancy.  I think most twin moms experience a lot of fatigue all through pregnancy, but there’s really no way to tell whether you’re extra tired because you’re pregnant with twins or just extra tired because you’re pregnant while chasing another kid. This is a completely different pregnancy, you’re a little bit older, or a variety of other reasons.   Like the fatigue, some twin moms experience pretty terrible morning sickness.  I had a pretty awful round of it myself, but one of my best friends who was pregnant with one baby had a much, much, much worse case of morning sickness.  Being tired and having a lot of morning sickness are two of the most common reasons people wonder if they’re having twins, and there is really just no way to tell.   I really don’t think these symptoms indicate an increased chance that you’re pregnant with twins.  Every pregnancy is different, and these are just not sufficiently reliable indicators to put any weight on in trying to guess how many beans you have growing in there.

4.  I just know I’m pregnant with twins/I keep having dreams I’m pregnant with twins.  There may be something to this one.  I had absolutely no clue I was pregnant with twins.  I hadn’t even considered the possibility, even though I had twins in the family and had spent a good part of my youth praying for twins.  I was also pretty sure we were having girls before our gender scan, which was obviously false, so clearly I just have no mommy intuition.  While it didn’t work for me, a lot of twin moms report having had some intuition, dreams, etc. that they were pregnant with twins.  On the other hand, I may or may not know of a couple who remained convinced they were having twins even after an ultrasound showed one baby and they definitely had only one baby, so I would hold off on buying two cribs until you get that ultrasound with two lil’ tadpoles! 

5.  My HCG levels are high.   Unfortunately, this also really isn’t a reliable factor to depend on for multiples, though it’s true that multiples can lead to higher numbers.  Some people have higher HCG levels with their singleton than they did with their twins. It’s certainly something to consider, but it’s like being extra tired or having a lot of morning sickness….It’s just not something you can put a lot of weight on without more information.  High HCG levels could be because you’re having twins or it could just be that this pregnancy is unique!

Much like the wait for a positive pregnancy test, if you think you might be pregnant with twins, there’s really nothing to do but wait, wait some more, and then keep waiting for that ultrasound!  For fun, however, you can find the early pregnancy symptoms I had with my twin pregnancy in this post!

If you had a twin pregnancy, did you have any symptoms or facts that made you believe you were pregnant with twins?  For mamas of singletons, did you ever wander if you were pregnant with twins?