Possibilities of twins with lots in the family

[Violet_]

Not sure where to put this post, sorry if this is the wrong section.

So a bit of background into my family.

My mum's father had twin brothers who back in those days only lived a short while and died. Not sure if identical, just know twin boys.
My mother had a set of twins, lost one twin and went on to have the other. Not sure if identical. She thought she had a single pregnancy and had a miscarriage. Then discovered she was in fact still pregnant.
My cousin on my mum's side, aunties daughter has identical twin girls.
My sister has triplet daughters. She had two eggs that were fertilized and then one of those split so she has identical girls and a fraternal in her mix of triplets.
One of my brothers has fraternal twins, one boy, one girl.
Another brother has just found out they are four months pregnant with identical twins (not sure of gender yet or arn't telling).

Anyway, my question is, it seems that a twin gene runs in my mother's family. But can I really take it that my chances are increased by two of my brothers fathering twins?

I don't think that the brother that fathered the fraternal twins has anything to do with him. It was his partner who released two eggs afterall.

But can my brother that fathered the identical twins have played a part? If he carries the twin gene (increased odds) can that mean that upon fertilization his partner's egg is more likely to split? Or is/was it her body, genes that are responsible?

Nevertheless I think my chances are quite good as I am:

From family with twins on my maternal side
Still breastfeeding my 1 yr old
Have three children already and ttc a fourth child (my sister conceived her triplets as her fourth pregnancy)
Taking 2000mgs of folic acid
Taking Vitex

If anyone can shed some light on whether fathers really get any say on the conception of twins I'd love to know.

[Violet_]

I should add that my sister that conceived the triplets was NOT on fertility drugs of any kind. A totally natural conception. Although she was taking high levels of folic acid and a pre conception multivitamin. Also her and her hubby own and run a dairy farm and drink a lot of milk/animal products and they had three single daughters followed by their naturally conceived triplet daughters and now have six little girls.

[atomic sagebrush]

Twinning only "counts" when it's on the maternal side. The gene makes women release more than one egg at at time. So nothing that happens with your brother could matter to you (altho his daughters COULD carry such a gene.)

Identical twins do not count in the mix. No one knows why that happens but it's not believed to be strongly genetic in the way that fraternal twinning is. ID twins don't seem to run in families and sometimes when people think they have ID twins it turns out they are actually fraternal and just look a lot alike (Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are actually fraternal twins, believe it or not.) Also, for some reason, it's not uncommon for there to be splitting where fraternal twins are concerned (this happens a lot in HT) so you start off with fraternals and then one splits to make ID but it ~may~ be the presence of the fraternal twin that caused it to happen, not genetics. (so the fraternal twin was from genetics but the ID twin was for some other reason possibly caused by the fraternal twinning.)

You do have higher odds of twinning though because of your mother's history of twinning (IF they were fraternal that is), and the other reasons you mention. Higher odds isn't a guarantee, of course!!

[atomic sagebrush]

I should add that my sister that conceived the triplets was NOT on fertility drugs of any kind. A totally natural conception. Although she was taking high levels of folic acid and a pre conception multivitamin. Also her and her hubby own and run a dairy farm and drink a lot of milk/animal products and they had three single daughters followed by their naturally conceived triplet daughters and now have six little girls.

Before anyone reads too much into this, we had another lady on here who was a dairy farmer and she had all boys.

[Violet_]

Thanks Atomic. I thought as much about my brothers. I really can't take the fact that they have twins as increasing my chances. So to all the comments from everyone who know my family about me having high odds I can tell them that my chances really are not that much higher then theirs. Secretly I'd love twins, hence the high level of folic acid I am taking (plus I had a chemical pregnancy last month, that still really hurts). But I don't think my odds are much higher then the average person and certainly not a given.

I think the fact that my sister has all girls and I have all boys has more to do with our individual makeup. For instance I have PCOS and high testosterone. And also a very high sex drive. Not sure about her hormone levels but I know she doesn't have a high sex drive and rarely dtd so I'm assuming she has low testosterone. I also find it very easy to orgasm and have many many when dtd, whereas she finds it hard to orgasm.

[atomic sagebrush]

PCOS and high sex drive are def. found more often in women who go onto conceive boys!

The month I got my baby girl I had a really really hard time orgasming. It took forever and it was really lame. (TMI!!)

[Rosie85]

hmm well I have a super low sex drive and no pcos and only get boys :-( NO fair.

Twins run in my family like crazy too and I have yet to fall pregnant with them. So yup...genes are never a guarantee.

[NeedGrace]

Wow Violet! That's a lot of twins. I'd secretly love twins too My mum is a fraternal twin &y grandmother had 3 sets of twins (2 fraternal & I think one identical but she lost the identical twins). So far none of my cousins (aunties' daughters) or my sister or I have twins but then none of my cousins have more than 3 children & none had children after 35. I would be the only one-35+, & next one would be 4th pregnancy .

[Violet_]

Yes, but not really that many when you consider that my brother's lots of twins really have nothing to do with them. It's their partner's who are the fertile ones. So really not really that much of a chance and also the identical twins really can't be counted on as heredity as that seems to be one of those freaky things that can happen to anyone but doesn't really run in families.

My husbands sister also has identical twin girls but not factoring that in either. We are pretty surrounded by multiples tho.

[Super Mom of 6 Girls]

Atomic covered everything i was going to say! She is awesome!

I too have a crazy amount of twins in my family, pretty evenly split between fraternal and identical. I myself have 9 year old identical twin girls. Identical twins are like a freak of nature. The chances of having them are the same for everyone no matter your family history, age, or race. No one know why that egg decided to split to form two babies. Whereas fraternal twins is hereditary. All on mothers side though.

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