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twin dna testing


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I'm curious as to why you would need to? Mine are obviously fraternal, so I'm probably missing something.

 

I wouldn't say she has a need to, more like she has a desire to for interest. If there was a medical need it would be done anyway(like for matching purposes). Unless I had B/G twins i would likely get it done to to satifisy my own curiosity.

 

OP I have no idea whatsoever about the variance in prices. But I would be curious to hear the results once you get it done :)

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I wouldn't say she has a need to, more like she has a desire to for interest. If there was a medical need it would be done anyway(like for matching purposes). Unless I had B/G twins i would likely get it done to to satifisy my own curiosity.

 

OP I have no idea whatsoever about the variance in prices. But I would be curious to hear the results once you get it done :)

 

 

I was just curious if it was so she could put an end to stupid remarks. Like telling people "No they aren't identical- I've had them tested to prove it (or vice-versa). My girls barely look related to each other, much less like twins, and I still get comments like "Are they identical?" Seriously, one is five-ten, the other is barely five-five. They don't look anything alike. I also get the "They can't be twins- they look nothing alike." comments.

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I was just curious if it was so she could put an end to stupid remarks. Like telling people "No they aren't identical- I've had them tested to prove it (or vice-versa). My girls barely look related to each other, much less like twins, and I still get comments like "Are they identical?" Seriously, one is five-ten, the other is barely five-five. They don't look anything alike. I also get the "They can't be twins- they look nothing alike." comments.

 

 

LOL - that's like my twins. People often don't even believe they're sisters. One is 5'5" and one is 5'1" and looks to be staying there. Her younger sister is just passing her (so when I say I have twins, everyone now assumes it's the shorter twin and her 2.5 yr younger sister).

 

I have a friend who says her twins are fraternal (she may have had them tested, but I'm not sure) but heck, they look exactly alike. I cannot tell them apart. But their older sister looks just like a taller version of them, so maybe it's just that's a family that makes really similar looking kids...

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At this point, it is just out of curiosity, but when they get older, I think it would be medically important for them to know. We're starting a unit on genetics for school and were reading about genes and I was talking with them about it and they really wanted to know, so I thought, okay, I've been meaning to do this for awhile, if it can happen in conjunction with this unit, that's kind of cool.

 

I thought for a long time that they were fraternal because fraternal twins run in families and twins run in my family. They weren't in the same sac. And the delivering ob told me that they were "definitely" fraternal since he had seen it in the placenta. I've since learned that's complete bunk. You cannot read the placenta. Sigh. Doctors. And I've heard that when you think they might be identical then they probably are.

 

Interestingly, most people - kids anyway - we know are like, no way are they identical! But I'm telling you, it's 99% because their hair is cut radically differently. When I look back at old pictures before they got their hair like that or when I look at them both with their hair slicked back, they look very alike. This has led to a lot of discussions with kids about the difference between environmental factors (haircut) and genetic factors (natural hair color).

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If anyone wants to weigh in with a non-scientific opinion :D - thisis probably the most recent picture of them side by side on my blog.

 

I think they do look pretty similar in the face. :) But that could just be sibling similarity, too. My two are a boy/girl and are not the same age, but since they are the same size and similar coloring people are CONSTANTLY asking me if they are twins. Sorry no, but you're starting to give the older a complex, random people at the store.

 

 

As far as DNA testing, if you're just doing it for basic interest and have time to wait (IME higher lab costs are sometimes related to faster turn-around) there's no reason to go with the more expensive option.

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I don't think they are even related. They have their arms around each other and are smiling. Not trying to kill each other. Nope, not related at all!

Same eyes, same nose, same smile, but the one on the right looks to have a slightly more pointed chin. Or is that camera angle? Anyway they are both precious!

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I don't think they are even related. They have their arms around each other and are smiling. Not trying to kill each other. Nope, not related at all!

Same eyes, same nose, same smile, but the one on the right looks to have a slightly more pointed chin. Or is that camera angle? Anyway they are both precious!

 

:lol: Yep. Odd, aren't they?

 

I do think the one on the right (BalletBoy) has a slightly more pointed chin, actually. And he's consistently a bit smaller, but it's pretty negligible. When it's that small a difference, I think it can just be environmental.

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My completely unscientific way for telling apart my fraternal twin brothers-in-law is their ears. They thought they were identical twins until they were about 10 when one became noticeably taller than they other, but I can even see in old pictures that their ears were slightly different shapes. If your boys' ears are the same, I'd say they're identical.

 

Yes, I know it's weird.

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If anyone wants to weigh in with a non-scientific opinion :D - thisis probably the most recent picture of them side by side on my blog.

 

I think I'd need to see a picture of your son's hair slicked back because with the bangs his eyes appear to look different than those of your son with the long hair. Their other features look very, very similar, and it could very well just be the hair (or shadow from the hair) causing their eyes to look different.

 

If you do get them tested, please share with us. I find twins fascinating.

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My completely unscientific way for telling apart my fraternal twin brothers-in-law is their ears. They thought they were identical twins until they were about 10 when one became noticeably taller than they other, but I can even see in old pictures that their ears were slightly different shapes. If your boys' ears are the same, I'd say they're identical.

 

Yes, I know it's weird.

 

Ah, but I have a son with two differently shaped ears--both on the same head! He has one attached earlobe and one detached (isn't that supposed to be a genetic thing? How can he have one of each??)

 

I looked at your picture--they are precious. The one on the right does seem to have a pointier chin/longer face. A bit hard to tell because the other has hair across his forehead, but it seems to me that he has a longer distance from his mouth to the bottom of his chin.

 

I say do the testing just to satisfy your (and their) curiosity.

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My twins are b/g (still was asked daily for 3 years if they are identical!! One is blond, once with brown hair, but I digress)

 

I know people who have used http://www.proactivegenetics.com/fees-for-twin-and-triplet-testing.html, which seems to be on the less expensive end of the spectrum.

The folks at twinstuff.com are pretty good at determining if identical from pictures.

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My twins are b/g (still was asked daily for 3 years if they are identical!! One is blond, once with brown hair, but I digress)

 

 

 

Several times I have been asked this and it just blows my mind... The 1st time I was asked that, I just kinda looked at them with my head cocked to one side and said, "well, one is a boy and one is a girl"... She still didn't get it...

 

I was told the same thing, can't tell from placenta, so I would do it just to know for sure....

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My twins are b/g (still was asked daily for 3 years if they are identical!! One is blond, once with brown hair, but I digress)

 

I know people who have used http://www.proactive...et-testing.html, which seems to be on the less expensive end of the spectrum.

The folks at twinstuff.com are pretty good at determining if identical from pictures.

 

That's the cheapest one I found. Apparently one of the reasons for the pricier test is so it will hold up in court for things. I was like, yeah, we don't need that. It's good to know someone has used it.

 

I'd never been to twinstuff.com before. I had one little attachment parenting twins list that I was on and don't read much anymore. And that's it. I should have realized there were twin boards out there.

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I think they look identical. Slight variations in appearance, ie, pointy chin in one but not the other, would not discount identicalness. Here's a recent picture of my identical twin boys, and you can see the slight variance in their appearance. http://coach-and-six...ay-day.html?m=1

 

Handsome guys. :) See, that's like my boys, I think. Very alike, but you can tell them apart.

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even if they look identical they may not be genetically identical. Mirror twins look almost exactly like each other with slight variance. Think of the Olsen twins....everyone thinks they are identical but they are not. It is easier to tell "identical" twins early on before time and environment have had time to act upon their phenotype. For instance you can have genetically identical twins who look slightly different because one sustained an injury or extended illness that restricted growth, etc.

 

If I had twins I would definitely have them tested but that is because DH and I are both geneticists and it would really bug me not to know.

 

People always assume my boys (who are 16.5 mos apart) are twins and say they look identical but I don't think they even look that similar.

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Handsome guys. :) See, that's like my boys, I think. Very alike, but you can tell them apart.

 

 

I babysat identical twins for several years while I was in JH/HS. The were very, very alike but still easy to distinguish from one another even in a picture (which I always thought was harder since you can't see mannerisms in a picture). I was also friends with a set of identical twins. They looked enough like each other that they won twin contests, but they were easy to tell apart as well.

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If I had twins I would definitely have them tested but that is because DH and I are both geneticists and it would really bug me not to know.

 

 

 

Hehe. I was talking to a friend who is a geneticist about this awhile ago, saying that I would eventually get them tested and it was clearly bugging *her* not to know. She was like, but you have to do it! You must! Then she was trying to think of something that would be genetically determined (like tongue rolling or attached earlobes) that we could see if it was different.

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My oldest two are 15 months apart and have the same coloring. I never got comments about them being twins until we got a Sam's membership. Dd9 is tall with long, long legs. Ds8 is average height but has a super long torso. When they would be sitting side by side in the double-seated cart at Sam's, they would be the same height. So many people thought they were twins. They did look like twins if you didn't notice that Dd's feet hung about 6 inches lower than Ds's.

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I found a testing site on a deal a day thing for 30 bucks...but it depends on what you want. The one I used was not medical or legally binding and only for fun. My sister and I both did it and then we compared the result on the loci and they were all the same which makes us identical! For 30 years we had been told we were fraternal due to placenta stuff and just looked a like so it kinda changed my life to find out we really were identical!

 

My sister has twins and 1 has cancer and so she had to do a very expensive test in order for it to be medically binding to determine if her boys were identical or fraternal....they are identical, which means there is a higher likelyhood of the other son to get cancer too.

 

If you just want to know for fun and your own info then I would do a cheap test that tests at least the loci that the FBI uses. Good luck!

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even if they look identical they may not be genetically identical. Mirror twins look almost exactly like each other with slight variance. Think of the Olsen twins....everyone thinks they are identical but they are not.

 

 

My father is a twin. I was always told he is an identical twin, but I have my doubts now. Mainly, his mother was a twin, and he has a set of fraternal twin brothers. The chances that she was a twin and had a set of identicals and a set of fraternals seems pretty low to me. More likely both sets are fraternal and they just look alike, but I don't think they will ever be tested.

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I had mine tested when they were babies. It was only because we were curious but I'm still really glad we did it. I think now that they are older I would have decided they were fraternal if I hadn't tested them already. They are identical but one is allergic to dairy and one isn't and I think they look very different now. The older they get, the less identical they look. People who don't know them still can't tell them apart easily but I also get asked if they are triplets when they are with their little sister who is 3yrs, 10inches, and almost 20lbs lighter! People are strange. We used Affiliated Genetics which was just a cheek swab and about $100. Ours had separate placentas but the same blood types. Looking at the picture of yours, my vote is for identical.

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Think of the Olsen twins....everyone thinks they are identical but they are not.

 

 

Last I heard they are basing their assumption that they are fraternal on placenta testing when they were born which is not a valid measurement. They could be wrong.

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:lol: Yep. Odd, aren't they?

 

I do think the one on the right (BalletBoy) has a slightly more pointed chin, actually. And he's consistently a bit smaller, but it's pretty negligible. When it's that small a difference, I think it can just be environmental.

I have a friend with identicals, and there is no doubt. But they are different heights.

 

And look at the twins that play Zac and Cody on Disney. When they were small I couldn't tell them apart. Now one is definitely shorter than the other.

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Just out of curiosity, are you sure they weren't tested at birth? The hospital where mine were born did it as a standard operating procedure, even on IVF b/g twins (???). Our OB was as shocked as we were to discover my boys, who are indistinguishable in practically every way, even at 8, are fraternal.

 

Eta: Mine look as much alike as yours.

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Just out of curiosity, are you sure they weren't tested at birth? The hospital where mine were born did it as a standard operating procedure, even on IVF b/g twins (???). Our OB was as shocked as we were to discover my boys, who are indistinguishable in practically every way, even at 8, are fraternal.

 

I'm sure they didn't. The full of himself ob "read the placenta" and that was that, I'm sure.

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This isn't exactly right. Mirror image twins are a subset of identical twins. They are monozygotic. So even though they are mirror reflections of each other, their DNA is still the same.

 

We noticed within the first few weeks that our twins are mirror image due to their hair whorls going in opposite directions. As they've aged, there have been many interesting things about them, like their first tooth coming in on opposite sides, left and right handedness, etc. And today, as they are exploring college majors, one is leaning toward engineering while the other is leaning toward creative writing. Opposites in many ways.

 

Mirror image occurs when the zygote splits late, after the line of symmetry has been defined in the zygote. Had the split ocurred only a few hours later than it did, the twins would be conjoined.

 

It is fascinating stuff.

 

As I read the first few posts I thought of mirror image twins; we have a set in our family. Something funny, one discovered something unusual about the placement of his internal organs and I believe that the same interesting quirk held true - in mirror image - for the brother.

 

As I was expecting my own twins, I read an account of twin sisters. They looked different enough at birth and in childhood that everyone just knew they were fraternal twins. In their fifties, one needed a kidney transplant due to an accident/trauma, so her sister was tested for a tissue match. Turns out, they were actually identical twins.

 

Fascinating stuff, indeed!

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Hmmm, I have a friend who does twin studies who always referred to look-alike fraternals as "mirror". Wonder hiw i go about telling him he has been misspeaking. Yikes.

 

Seems odd he wouldn't already know, if he's been involved in studies... what kind of researcher is he?

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If anyone wants to weigh in with a non-scientific opinion :D - thisis probably the most recent picture of them side by side on my blog.

Though some differences, they could be identical. I have a set of twin sisters. They are identical. Very few people paid enough attention to pick them apart (if you knew their expressions and their personalities you would). They look almost NOTHING alike right now. Much of that has to do with environmental issues as well as various health and habits. They are genetically identical.

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I grew up with a guy who had younger sisters who were twins. I would swear they were identical, but they were told they weren't. About a year ago, one was diagnosed with cancer and they all had matching testing done. Turns out they were identical. (very sad, actually. The one with cancer passed away shortly before Christmas. sigh...)

 

My boy and girl are 17 months apart. DD (the younger one) was always very tall for her age, so we were always getting asked if they were twins. I told DH it would be easier to just say "yes", rather than explain why they were so close in size. Nobody ever asked if they were identical, thank goodness. That kind of thing drives me crazy. Boy-girl twins are obviously fraternal, if you have any idea what the word means.

 

If I had twins, I'd be curious enough to have the testing done.

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I am a vote for the unscientific result of ID twins. Normally the ladies on twinstuff break down the individual features on the face. Your twins eyes, nose, mouth shape all appear the same. The difference in hairstyle does make that a little trickier, but it appears to be the same color and texture. I am pretty sure the company recommended above is the one that twinstuff has advertised on their site, and many women have been happy with their results. My boys are most definitely fraternal though, so I have never had a need to use them.

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So this post hilariously has given my blog its biggest boost ever. :tongue_smilie:

 

It's funny how you can't always tell with twins... And how many twins may not know their correct twin status. And how many people think children four years apart are twins.

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This isn't exactly right. Mirror image twins are a subset of identical twins. They are monozygotic. So even though they are mirror reflections of each other, their DNA is still the same.

 

We noticed within the first few weeks that our twins are mirror image due to their hair whorls going in opposite directions. As they've aged, there have been many interesting things about them, like their first tooth coming in on opposite sides, left and right handedness, etc. And today, as they are exploring college majors, one is leaning toward engineering while the other is leaning toward creative writing. Opposites in many ways.

 

Mirror image occurs when the zygote splits late, after the line of symmetry has been defined in the zygote. Had the split ocurred only a few hours later than it did, the twins would be conjoined.

 

It is fascinating stuff.

 

 

This is the most interesting thing I've read all day!

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This isn't exactly right. Mirror image twins are a subset of identical twins. They are monozygotic. So even though they are mirror reflections of each other, their DNA is still the same.

 

We noticed within the first few weeks that our twins are mirror image due to their hair whorls going in opposite directions. As they've aged, there have been many interesting things about them, like their first tooth coming in on opposite sides, left and right handedness, etc. And today, as they are exploring college majors, one is leaning toward engineering while the other is leaning toward creative writing. Opposites in many ways.

 

Mirror image occurs when the zygote splits late, after the line of symmetry has been defined in the zygote. Had the split ocurred only a few hours later than it did, the twins would be conjoined.

 

It is fascinating stuff.

 

 

This. One twin is very right brain the other very left. One is right handed the other left. Get them on a soccer field and they are real trouble as one plays forward left the other right. Baseball one bats left one right. The only thing we have yet to do is x-ray the location of internal organs. Having mirror twins with ADHD is it's own battle. They both technically have it, but it manifests so differently due to their different wiring.

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I have a boy and a girl that are 23 months apart and people constantly ask me if they are twins, although only once did someone ask me if they were identical. :lol:

 

One of my sisters and I are only 18 months apart. At one point, a woman stood there and ARGUED with my mother telling my mother that *we were* identical twins. We still laugh about it at family functions.

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And I've heard that when you think they might be identical then they probably are.

 

 

I've a friend with identical twins who thinks they look nothing alike. she could tell them apart in the dark when they were little. she's the *only* one. even her dh had to look closely.
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Mirror image occurs when the zygote splits late, after the line of symmetry has been defined in the zygote. Had the split ocurred only a few hours later than it did, the twins would be conjoined.

 

 

 

The egg split is a matter of days, not hours. My twins were mono/mono. "Any later," they said, "they'd of been conjoined." We had aggressive monitoring done by the head of maternal fetal medicine at Columbia Presbyterian. She also, happened to be doing a major, decades long, study on mono/mono twins.

 

http://en.wikipedia....oamniotic_twins

 

I haven't read anything about mirror image twins. I don't think mine are mirror image. When the one was born she had a large white patch on her head and hair on the left side. (Made it easy to tell them apart.) She also has multiple moles/birth marks on the left side. They other has none of these. They do both have large, similar hair whorls on the back left of head. I think it's easy to tell them apart. One looks more "fuller" in the face. And she feels more solid. Even though the other is only a pound lighter she feels more delicate. Their personalities are very different from each other as well. I'm already worried about teaching them. But maybe in the long run, I'll found out that they are opposites in their academic abilities. I'll have to think about their personalities more and consider whether they are "opposites", as opposed to just different.

 

I've always taken for granted that I've known they were identical. If I didn't know, I think I would want a test done.

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