How's this for instant family?

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/family/2731795/detail.html

WOW

EGADS!!! She's going to need some help with the diapers and such, isn't she!?!

I'm glad it isn't me! :rolleyes:

That's cool, I had a religion teacher that left in the middle of the year because she was pregnant for triplets and I thought that was neat.

My Grandmothers sister had 3 sets of triplets. :shock: She had 13 girls. I just can't imagine. I never met her. she died before I was born.

My Great grand mother was a fraternal twin, my grandmother was a fraternal twin. She had fraternal twins (my aunts). My twin aunts both had fraternal twins. I had identical twins that were stillborn in the 6th month of pregnancy. Needless to say I was terrified of getting pregnant. One of my cousins had triplets two years ago. Her first pregnancy at 40...... :shock:

Just had to add my two cents.....

I think twins and multiples are cool, I always wanted identical.
My great grandmother had two sets of twins. My husbands mother and her sister were identicals. His cousin had identical boys and my cousin had identical boys.

My Grandmothers sister had 3 sets of triplets. :shock: She had 13 girls. I just can't imagine. I never met her. she died before I was born.

My Great grand mother was a fraternal twin, my grandmother was a fraternal twin. She had fraternal twins (my aunts). My twin aunts both had fraternal twins. I had identical twins that were stillborn in the 6th month of pregnancy. Needless to say I was terrified of getting pregnant. One of my cousins had triplets two years ago. Her first pregnancy at 40...... :shock:

Just had to add my two cents.....
jeepers speedqueen, with relatives like that I'd be afraid to get pregnant!

Oh yeah Snippit

I was scared shi*less when I found out I was pregnant the first time. I didnt even think about it the second time. My second pregnancy I was 18 weeks before I found out there were two in there. The doc kept asking if I was SURE of my LMP date. I only found out at my first ultrasound. Anyway we all know what the outcome of that was.

I think it still would have been cool, the girls were identical twins.

Hugs H

Can anyone tell me which side determines whether or not there's a chance of multiples? I know my hubby's family has a history of twins, but I unfortunately have no idea if mine does or not, so I've been curious how much chance there might be that we would have multiples.

Sorry to drag this up from the bowels of the forum! :flower:

Nothing like that on either side of our families, so I guess we're "safe." But, it would be cool to have two at once and not have to have two pregnancies.

<wiping sweat from brown>

It is a bumped thread! LOL I thought Heidi was expecting two sets of twins! :bigeyes:

I was also THRILLED to see Heidi back. :-( and now I see she isn't.

Fraternal twins run on the maternal side, because you can inherit the tendency to release more than one egg at ovulation. You are more likely to have fraternal twins as you get older, because older women are more likely to release more than one egg.

Identical twins are currently still thought to be random, although they do seem to run in a few families. Just having one set of identical twins in a family wouldn't mean you are more likely to have identical twins. Without fertility drugs, the chance of identical twins is about 1 in 100.

The rate of multiples is quite high now in the US, both because of delayed childbearing, and because of infertility treatments.

Kelly

Can anyone tell me which side determines whether or not there's a chance of multiples? I know my hubby's family has a history of twins, but I unfortunately have no idea if mine does or not, so I've been curious how much chance there might be that we would have multiples.

Sorry to drag this up from the bowels of the forum! :flower:

Men produce, I dunno, a billion (?) sperm a day, every day (assuming normal fertility). Women produce one egg a month. Women who have inherited a tendency toward multiples produce two eggs a month (sometimes more, but usually it's a matter of both ovaries firing each month rather than the left one month and the right the next). Some women may have occasional double ovuations, but not every month. (Some women, who experience ovulation pains, report pain on just one side one month, and both sides the next. So, for example, instead of each ovary releasing one ripe egg every other cycle and taking turns, the left ovary might produce an egg every month but the right is on a "normal" once every other cycle schedule.) So, if twins run in your husband's family, but not in yours, he still produces a billion sperm a day and you only produce one egg a month. You'll only get twins by a fluke (identicals are always a fluke) or if you take fertility drugs. If they run in your family, and you do produce multiple eggs per cycle (at least some cycles) it wouldn't really matter whether twin run in his family or not. There's still a billion sperm ready to fertilize the eggs whether you produce one or two of them. But, your daughters, whether or not twins run in *your* family, may inherit from him the tendency to double ovulate. Your sons will have no influence over their wives' ovulations, but may carry a twin-tendency to pass on to their daughters. If twins run in your family too, then not only do your odds of having twins go up greatly, but it's more likely that your daughters and granddaughters will have twins, because they'll have twice the odds of inheriting double ovulations.

You sometimes hear that twins "skip a generation." That isn't exactly true. The tendency to double ovulate can be passed from mother to daughter without skipping a generation. My mother had fraternal twins (my sister and me) and both my sister and I *might* have inherited double ovulations from her. (We have three births between us, and all of them singletons, so thus far, it hasn't happened.) But, since my mother inherited double ovulation from her father's side of the family, it did skip a generation (my grandfather couldn't "have twins" as he wasn't doing the ovulation). My greatgrandmother had twins, my grandfather did not (as his wife was not a double ovulator) and my mother did. It might also appear to skip my generation if my sister and I do not have enough pregnancies to ever bear twins. My greatgrandmother did not have any living twins, although one of her daughters (and that daughter's daughter) did. With the exception of my mother, who has only been pregnant once, all the women in my family who have had a set of twins also had single births. It's possible, and common, for twins to be concieved and for one to fail while the other thrives, and only an early ultrasound would reveal that this wasn't a simple singleton. It's also possible that double ovulation might only occur once every 6 cycles or more, and the rest of the time these women (perhaps my sister and me included) have just one egg. My mom was past 30 when she got pregnant, and also has a larger build, which are both "risk" factors for double ovulation. If I double ovulate rarely now, and more often as I age, but I only have pregnancies in my 20s, I might not ever have twins even if I do double ovulate. So whether the "double ovulation" gene gets passed along through males for one (or many) generations, or just never gets revealed because of early and infrequent childbearing or early twin loss, it can appear to skip one generation or many, while in fact riding right along.

Identical twins are produced from a single egg which, for reasons unknown, divides (usually after fertilization--if before then you can actually have semi-identical twins--identical on mom's side and fraternal on dad's side, fertilized by two separate sperm) and develops into two people. Without genetic testing, it's impossible to prove that twins are identical and not just really similar looking fraternals. (Actually, there may be other signifiers besides genetic testing. I know one set of identical twins who are mirror images of each other--literally. If one has a natural part on the left, the other has it on the right, and even internal organs are like that--one of them has his heart left of center like most people do and the other has it right of center. I don't think this happens except in cases of true identical twinships, although it doesn't happen every time even with identicals.) Perhaps that is why some people claim identical twins run in their families--really, it's just fraternal twins, but they appear identical, sometimes right down to bloodtype and mannerisms and everything. Or, maybe there is something that can be passed on genetically--a certain uterine pH perhaps--that sets the stage for that magical egg split. No one really knows how identical twins happen, so no one can say for sure that it *can't* run in families. It just doesn't bear out statistically that there is a "tendency" toward identicals, only fraternals.

Speedqueen, I'm so sorry for your loss. Yes, I've heard too that its from the mother's side. My Aunt has two fraternal twin boys, my first cousin(not HER daughter) also has fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.
when I pull up the site it says article not available.

It just doesn't bear out statistically that there is a "tendency" toward identicals, only fraternals.

hum. I've read (in several places) that identical twins run through the paternal side. I've also seen it in a few branches of my family. Anyone know where I can get more research on the topic?

cheryl

No thank you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin

Found this looking for research for euphrasyne.

Thanks curlycare :)

Let me know if you see something more along the lines of a genetic or medical oriented site :wink: lol, I prefer the current technical papers to the more basic info found in encyclopedias. They rarely have more than the very basics and all to often they are out of date.

Thanks!

Cheryl

Cheryl,

I knew that wasn't what you were looking for, but it was my starting point so I thought I'd put it up in case others were interested. I'm still looking for you.

Here's an article about some factors that may cause monozygotic (identical) twins to appear to be dizygotic (fraternal) (http://www.devbio.com/article.php?ch=11&id=111), even to the point of being different genders. Not what you were looking for exactly, but interesting to see that twins who appear fraternal may in fact be identical, which makes determining what's actually going on in families that much harder. And of course fratenal twins can be so similar (as can any two siblings) that everyone would think they were identical. If past generations of your family had twins, you can't be sure just by what you've beed told whether they were identical or fraternal.

This is only the abstract of a study (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aap/twr/1998/00000001/00000004/art00006) showing that whatever causes the egg to split seems to be something about the mother, rather than some genetic code carried in the fertilized egg. The full article costs $6.

That's all i've been able to find.