Emotional rollercoaster...

Well, we were definitely on an emotional high after Tuesdays visit to Danville where everyone was just pleased as punch at how big the babies are and how close they are in size. Everyone seemed pretty confident we'd make it to the scheduled C-section on October 16th.

Today has been another story... Last night Michelle was having a hard time sleeping and just feeling generally uncomfortable. She was feeling anxious and down about it.  She also felt some cramping that felt like low level menstrual cramps. She'd felt something similar Tuesday morning and mentioned it to the Danville OB.  He said she should call if she felt that again, so we called this morning & they had us come in. The first thing the did was a physical exam and fetal fibronectin test. The doc said her cervix felt a little soft and open just a bit, but only on the outside. If the fetal fibronectin test is negative then I guess it's unlikely that she'll go into labor in the next two weeks. But we've read that this test isn't necessarily accurate with multiples so who knows. We won't get those results back until at least tomorrow.  

After those tests it was time for a quick ultrasound to check cervical length and the babies heart rates. Babies all look good, but Michelle's cervix has shortened a lot and is now only 1.4cm long. They'd really like it to still be about 2.5 cm.  So after the ultrasound they did a modified non stress test to monitor for contractions.  Usually during a non-stress test they monitor both the babies heart rates and contractions, but Grays Woods only has a single fetal monitor and had just looked at the babies on the ultrasound so we just used the contraction monitor part.  Michelle hung out in a recliner with monitor strapped on. There are some low level, fairly infrequent contractions but they didn't seem too concerned.  Michelle couldn't feel anything internally when the monitor showed the contraction and neither of us could feel it from the outside either.  The doctor called MFM in Danville and they just said to get the booster steroid shot today, no need to go to Danville.  They just recommended rest and lots of fluids. And obviously to call if she feels the cramping again or has any bleeding or fluid leaking.

So all that and nothing really changes, except that I think we are most definitely on higher alert now. In all likelihood, the babies would be fine even if they were born today, but we sure would like them to keep on cookin', at least for a few more weeks. I'm definitely feeling a little extra pressure now to get my files in order for work and to get a few more meals in the freezer. And I think we'll err on the side of caution and make sure Michelle is really resting and off her feet as much as possible over the next couple weeks. The OB in Danville said it is pretty normal for the uterus to contract a bit in response to this much stretching, but it still makes us a little nervous. Michelle is feeling down about all of this, wanting to be the "rockstar" triplet prego, but this isnt her fault and is out of our control! Plus, she already is a rockstar in my book!  Michelle's fundal height measured 47cm today so her body thinks it is 7 weeks overdue! So not too surprising that it is starting to prepare to get these babies out, but here's hoping it can hold out a while longer! Send lots of incubating energy Michelle's way over the next couple of weeks!!

Big Babies!!! Almost 31 weeks ultrasound pics

Hooray for big babies!  At the last ultrasound our babies weighed in at 2lb 12oz (A) & 2lb 11oz (B&C) which put them at the 90th percentile for triplets and in the 60s/70s for singleton babies.  We didn't want to set too high of an expectation and be disappointed, so going into today we were hoping to hear that the babies were all 3lbs 8oz which would be just over the 50th percentile for triplets (but of course hoping they'd be more closer to 1700 grams (3lbs 12oz) & the 90th percentile).  So imagine our delight when the ultrasound tech finished measuring baby A and said he's estimated to be 4lbs 5oz already!!!  That puts him in the 85th percentile for singletons!  And the even better news is that the girls aren't far behind weighing in at 4lbs 1oz (baby B) and 4lbs 2oz (baby C)!  There's only a 6% difference between A & B which is incredible!  Anything less than a 20% difference is good.  All the doctors were impressed and just said, "Hey, whatever you're eating or doing, keep it up!  You've got some big babies in there!"  The girls are putting on about ounce a day and right now our little dude is gaining even more than that each day.  If these babies keep up this weight gain and make it to their scheduled C-section, they could each weigh almost 6 pounds!  I was only 5lbs 14oz when I was born and we could have three babies all about that size!!  It's incredible!  But even if they make their appearance earlier than that, at least they are over the 1500 gram "very low birthweight" marker, which bodes well for good outcomes.

Our appointment with the OB went well.  He was nice and talked a bit more about what to expect during the C-section.  He said he would plan to schedule our C-section for exactly 36 weeks, which would be October 16th.  So unless they insist, these babies will all be born the morning of October 16th!  As it turns out, the MFM docs are the ones who cover labor and delivery on Wednesdays so it will be one of them that does our C-section, which was comforting.  But of course, when they actually looked at the schedule, it is the only one of the four MFM docs we haven't met yet who will be doing the C-section!  So they scheduled our next ultrasound/visit with her so we can meet her ahead of time.  I've heard good things about this other doc, the only female MFM doc, so that is good. But it will still be nice to meet her next visit and have her be a familiar face when the day comes.  Our next visit is October 7th!  We will be doing weekly OB visits here in State College, but the MFM docs see no reason to do more frequent monitoring since we've had such an uncomplicated pregnancy, Michelle's blood pressure is perfect (120/70 today), and the babies are all growing well. 

So all good news today!  Michelle did joke in the ultrasound room though that if it wasn't for the fact that the MFM docs deliver on Wednesdays she would change the day because "Wednesdays child is full of woe" and we can't have three babies all full of woe! =)  Hopefully that is NOT the case!  Buddhists associate being born on a Wednesday with the color green (one of our favorite colors) and with the idea of receiving.  And astrologists say Wednesday is ruled by Mercury and people born on Wednesdays are good communicators. So, ya know, it'll be fine, right?! =)  Anyway, here are the stats and a few pictures from today.  They're getting pretty squishy in there so it's getting harder to get good pictures...sorry!



Baby A's stats today!  He's got a big noggin & a big belly & short legs!

Baby B is proportioned similar to A with the short upper leg compared to the rest of her!

Baby C's stats.  She's always had a bigger belly & smaller head.  Funny how they're different.

This picture shows all three sacs & some various bit of each baby...you'll just have to trust us on this one!

Baby C was the only one giving up a really good profile shot today!  She's kind of off on her own a
bit on Michelle's right side so she's the easiest to measure and get pictures of. 

It's a little hard to tell, but that bright white area in the middle/right is Baby A's face and right next to his
forehead is Baby C's foot!  She's not even born yet and already kicking her brother in the head!

 

 

This video clip shows Baby C practice breathing.  It's hard to tell unless you're an ultrasound pro, but just right of center athe bottom is her heart beating, and then there is a vertical darkish line near the center that sometimes moves and we think that's it but it was even hard for us to catch it in person! (and during this clip you hear the tech saying "she stopped," so we might have missed it! Like I said, you gotta be a pro!)  But I thought I might as well add it here anyway.

 

 

 

Assorted pictures from the last couple of weeks

Tomorrow is another long day of appointments in Danville so I will of course be blogging tomorrow night with new pics, latest weight estimates, etc.  But I have a handful of pictures I've been meaning to post to the blog so thought I'd do that tonight before all the excitement of tomorrow.  Tomorrow we start the day with an OB consult in Danville.  We're a little annoyed about this appointment because we didn't know it needed to happen until last week.  Our local OB group in State College is part of the same Geisinger system as the maternal fetal medicine (MFM) folks in Danville, which is nice because they share an electronic medical record.  But the compartmentalization or specialization within the system has sometimes been puzzling and other times just plain annoying.  This is one of the annoying times!  At our multidisciplinary meeting last month they told us we would schedule the C-section at our next OB visit at Grays Woods.  But when we tried to do that the OB seemed perplexed and said "let me check on that."  Well, as it turns out, since we'll be delivering in Danville, one of the Danville OBs will be doing the actual C-section so we need to see someone there to actually schedule that.  It's fine, really, but we're kind of annoyed that nobody told us this until now.  We could have been doing OB visits in Danville this whole time and getting to know the docs down there and then just doing the "extra" appointments up here in State College.  Then Michelle would have been more likely to know the person who is going to be cutting her open.  Prior to this, I guess we just assumed it would be an MFM doc doing the C-section, but I guess they never actually said that.  So anyway, it's not that big of a deal, just a little annoying.  We're excited to see the babies again, though I know Michelle has mixed feelings about ultrasounds now since they aren't always comfortable for her.  We're really hoping that the babies are all around 3 and a half pounds now and that everything is still looking good.

I told you how Michelle threatened to put herself on bedrest right?  Well, today as she was bemoaning how hard things are now, I described this pregnancy using the analogy of climbing a mountain.  It's fairly easy going, though a little rocky at the start, then it gets progressively steeper but you can see the summit so it isn't too bad for a while.  Now she's on the last steep ascent to the summit where it's very slow going.  Soon, but hopefully not too soon, we'll be trying not to tumble down the other side with our three babies!

Okay, this is supposed to be a picture post so here goes...

went to dinner at a new friend's house with this amazing pond & view on Labor Day

Just a few of Jorene's lovely sunflowers

we realized we don't have many pics of the two of us with Michelle's big belly!

THE BELLY!!!  This makes it look even bigger
because I took it from below, but still a cool shot
and Michelle looks great!  She's a trooper, smiling
for the picture even though it's been a tough weekend

another great pic of my lovely wife and our garden
(I like the way the light is streaming in!)

Tomato soup & sauce made from Annie & Jorene's tomatoes
Ready for the deep freezer!

quite possibly my favorite "triplet-y" gift so far!
we're not big on matching, but coordinating is different
and this is just hilarious!  Definitely taking a pic in these!

Mommies' and babies' hospital bags are packed!
(they've been in the car for a month now, but this weekend
we re-packed them and added a few missing items.  They're
all set now except for the last-minute things we can't pack ahead)

 

Made it past Labor Day with no labor! 30 week belly pic!

We're now two weeks into the third trimester and it feels good to be in the "30's" now.  I think we're both breathing a little easier knowing that by now all the babies should be over the 1500 gram mark (3lbs 4oz), which is the designated weight for being very low birthweight and their lungs should be mature enough at this point.  The flip side of "being in the 30s" is that it is really setting in just how close we are to the arrival of these three tiny babies!  Statistically speaking, they should be born in two weeks, which is average gestation for triplets!  Did you catch that??? TWO WEEKS!!!  Now of course we are hoping to be well above the mean and make it to the 35 week mark, but even the very last possible day that these babies will be born is now less than six weeks away!!  October used to seem so far away!

Michelle is really slowing down.  This weekend after her afternoon nap she called me into the bedroom.  (At this point in the pregnancy, I always come when called!)  When I got to the bedroom she feebily lifted her head and in the most whiny, pathetic voice with the edge of a two year old temper tantrum in her voice, she said "I'm putting myself on bedrest! I'm never getting up!"  I couldn't help it, and laughed hysterically for the next few minutes because her delivery was so spot on.  It was so cute and pathetic, but really sums up how much these babies are drawing on her energy.  It's really tough for her to be productive and get a lot of schoolwork done now.  She usually sleeps in a bit, works for a couple/few hours, and then lays down for a couple hours in the afternoon.  Monday night was the first time we noticed that in the evening her ankles were both swollen and hurting a bit.  So she's been trying to put her feet up even more, but it's really hard to find a position where she can have her feet up and still be productive for school.  I might need to try to rig some type of table up for her this weekend.  

I've been a busy bee, which I'm sure isn't that surprising to anyone who knows me.  I spent some time working on slides to prep for guest lecturing in Michelle's class on Wednesday this week.  The talk went fine, but was a little rushed because class was interrupted by a fire drill about five minutes into my presentation!  I spent all day Monday working in the garden, trying to get a handle on the massive weed explosion.  And tonight I cooked up a storm.  We have generous friends with huge gardens who shared a ton of tomatoes with us so tonight I made a black bean, tomato, corn salad, a batch of homemade tomato sauce, and one of our standards, Tuscan tomato soup.  I put all the sauce and soup into jars, labeled them, and stuck them in the deep freezer so we can have some quick and easy meals post babies and get a taste of summer.  Next up is making tons of kale chips and maybe a kale soup because I have two big bags of kale from our friend Joreen to use up too!  

Okay, on with the pics.  These profile pics with a shirt on aren't as dramatic, but you can definitely tell a difference in size still from 28 weeks!

28 weeks

30 weeks

Michelle & our three pregnant friends in Penn's Valley in order of due date from right to left
(this was the last prego shot of Erin, in white, because she went into labor
on Labor Day and had her little boy at 33.5 weeks!  Mom & baby doing well now)

the fruits of my labor!

Things that go bump in the night

Some pretty funny things have been happening at night around here that I thought I should fill you in on. The babies have been a little more forceful in their activity over the past few days or so. We're not at the point where we can just lay down and watch Michelle's belly ripple but there's no mistaking kicks now and sometimes you can just feel the shifting positions too. But they are most active at night (great! already off schedule!) so the other morning Michelle said "the babies were having a party last night!"  A party is what Michelle calls it when all three babies are noticeably active at the same time. I said next time they're having a party she needed to wake me up so I could be join the party! So the next night she woke me up (or so she claims!) and I rolled over and put my hand on her belly for all of about 30 seconds before falling back asleep. I had no memory of this at all in the morning!  Apparently, last night I slept right through my party invite and was completely unresponsive! Hopefully my amazing sleeping abilities will come in handy once these babies arrive and I'll be able to fall back asleep quickly after night time feedings.  About a week ago the induced lactation protocol called for adding one middle of the night pumping session. That hasn't been my favorite thing, but I guess it's good practice, right?!

Yesterday I had another mini-panic moment when I realized that if they are "average," our babies could be here in two and a half weeks, which seems crazy! I know that we pretty much have everything ready, but we still don't quite feel ready. I still have too many things to check off my pre-baby to do list, though admittedly, they are non-essential things.  Michelle is feeling pressure to finish her candidacy project before the babies too so that she can defend this first big project by December. She's been working hard, but these babies really suck the energy out of her, so her productive time window is fairly short each day. Hopefully she'll get a lot done over the next couple of days!  Okay, that's enough 3am rambling for one night. I'll wait to post in the morning to make sure this actually makes sense! :)

(Having just bumped into our living room chair, this title can now refer to both me and the babies!)