Early Symptoms of Twins
If you’re recently pregnant, you might be wondering if if you could be having twins. Being pregnant with any number of babies comes with pretty clear symptoms – but how do you know if you’re expecting twins? While there’s no way to know for sure until you see twins on your ultrasound, there are a few hints. Check out the list of early symptoms of twins (from a real twin mom) below.
My Early Symptoms of Twin Pregnancy
The symptoms of twins in the first trimester aren’t necessarily different than regular first trimester pregnancy symptoms. So people often ask me – can you tell if you’re having twins?
Some women say yes. But when I was carrying twins, I really didn’t know I was pregnant with twins! Even though twins ran in my family (I have fraternal twin sisters), for some reason I just never thought it would happen to us.
I did have tons of exhaustion, but I brushed it off as being par for the course. I also had morning sickness and the heightened emotions, but I didn’t think they were worse than when I was pregnant with my first. In fact if anything, I thought there was less morning sickness, because I had learned the tricks to make morning sickness easier.
So, when at 10 weeks, the doctor waved the ultrasound wand over and we saw two little babies in there, it was a true shock! (Note, if you’re wondering when do twins show on the ultrasound, it’s usually earlier than that; 10 weeks is just when we had our first ultrasound).
Before we dive into the early symptoms of twin pregnancy, if you’re curious about what it’s like to actually experience it first hand, check out my week by week twin pregnancy experience. From week 4 through week 37 with twins, I wrote a weekly recap of what the experience was really like. Check it out to see which weeks morning sickness hit, which weeks I felt the first kicks, and which weeks I started to feel huge!
And if you find out you really are pregnant with twins? We’ve got you covered with the 10 ways to make twin pregnancy easier and the Twin Pregnancy To Do List. Now let’s dive in!
The Early Signs of Twin Pregnancy:
1. Morning Sickness x 2
Morning sickness can be legit. But morning sickness with twins? Most women claim it’s doubly intense.
I was one of the lucky ones who found morning sickness with twins easier than with my first child. But – it’s mostly because I learned the tricks to minimize morning sickness.
If that queasy feeling is more intense than you were expecting, there’s a chance you could be expecting twins!
2. Deep, Deep Exhaustion
Pregnancy is exhausting, no matter what. Even in a singleton pregnancy, I was exhausted and could have easily rocked a nap every day.
But when I was pregnant with twins? I was extra, extra exhausted – often falling asleep on the couch at 8pm. If you find yourself being doubly exhausted, it may be an early symptom of twins.
3. High HcG
HcG (chorionic gonadotropin) counts tell you how much of the pregnancy hormone HcG your body is producing to support fetal growth. When the counts are higher than the average range, you may end up having twins. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s one of the more reliable twin pregnancy symptoms.
A caveat is that the ranges can be huge, so a high number is not a 100% guarantee of twins. Check out this link to learn more about HcG and see average HcG ranges in pregnancy.
4. Measuring Big
Do you have a growing pregnancy bump that showed up before you expected it to? It might be a twin bump!
When carrying twins, most women claim that they start showing sooner than they expected. Also, some twin moms claim they feel those first flutters of kicks before singleton moms do. While your pregnant belly size in the first trimester isn’t a surefire way to know if you’re carrying twins, it could be a hint!
5. Extra Emotions
We all know that pregnancy is filled with hormones. Those hormones do their job in helping make your body a great place for a baby (or babies!) to grow.
However, those hormones can also manifest in interesting ways – like making you cry when you see a commercial with a baby in it. Or, by making you tear up in a work meeting (been there).
If you’re a few weeks pregnant and already your hormones are going haywire, it may be a hint that there are extra hormones in your body, accounting for an extra baby!
Interestingly, when I look back at my 8 weeks pregnant with twins symptoms, having big emotions was at the top of the list. It’s also when I started to see a twin bump emerge.
6. Extra Food Aversions
A cousin of morning sickness, food aversions can make your stomach roll when you see a normally innocuous food.
Has chicken always been part of your daily plate, but now it causes you to gag?
Is creamy pasta your favorite cheat meal, yet now you can’t stand the sight of it?
Is the scent of cleaning products causing you to run to the other room?
There’s a chance those intense aversions are because you have extra hormones and babies in there! It’s not a guaranteed early twin pregnancy symptom, but it could be a clue.
7. Intuition
Sometimes, you just have a sense that there’s something more going on.
Maybe it’s adding up a few early signs of twin pregnancy above and connecting the dots…or maybe there might not be a logical reason why you feel you might be expecting twins. But if you have a feeling, deep down in your gut, that there might be pregnant with twins, you might just be right.
If You’re On a Twin Pregnancy Journey
…then welcome to the twin club, mama!! It is an incredible experience, and I’m so, so excited to welcome you on it.
Being a twin parent isn’t easy – but it’s incredible, amazing, and absolutely awe-inspiring.
I have so many resources on this site to help you be a mom to twins. To start, check out the resources for twin pregnancies, twin babies, twin gear, and so, so much more. I also recommend joining the Twin Winning newsletter – it’s the go-to place where you’ll find out first about new twin tips, articles, and even when we open up our course How to Thrive with Twins.
The course only opens up a few times a year. To be the first to know and get one of the few spots, make sure to get on the list today!
What about you? Did you experience any early symptoms of twins? Send over a message and let me know!
Read Next:
What Not to Buy When Having Twins
Follow along on social @TwinWinning
