May 6, 2011 - 17 Weeks & 5 Days

So here we go with the first post to this blog!  I wish I could have gotten this up and running earlier, but between the nausea and running after G man there hasn't been a whole lot of time!! 

So today, we hit 17 weeks and 5 days!  (A couple weeks ago we had to go celebrate at the DQ when we hit 16 weeks since that was halfway to an average triplet birth of 32 weeks!)  It has been just over a week since I quit doing child care in our home and life is getting a little easier!  See, I started getting this insane back pain that seems to get worse the more that I walk and lift objects (i.e. kids) so I had to hang up the towel for a while.  Now that I am not working the pain seems to be much more manageable, which was the goal.

Today we had another appointment with Dr. I (our OB) as well as an ultrasound.  They have been doing ultrasounds every two weeks to keep track of the growth of each of the munchkins as well as keeping a close eye on my cervical length.  Unfortunately, we found out that they can no longer measure them from head to butt, so I put in their measurements from the last ultrasound.  In a couple weeks, they will start measuring the size of the head, chest, and femur (thigh) to estimate each babies' weight.  So the update from today is:

Baby A:
153 beats/minute (heart rate)
(2 weeks ago was 10.55 cm, which was about a week ahead of schedule)

Baby B:
148 beats/minute (heart rate)
(2 weeks ago was 10.77 cm, which was about a week ahead of schedule)

Baby C:
145 beats/minute (heart rate)
(2 weeks ago was 10.63 cm, which was about a week ahead of schedule)

Overall, we couldn't really tell what was going on with these babes this time!  It honestly looked like a mess of baby on the ultrasound screen.  Watching it you could occasionally make out a head, backbone/ribs, arm, but you could no longer see the entire baby on one view of my belly.  I know she said that poor Baby A is located at the bottom nearest my cervix (that is how they always name them, start at the cervix and go clockwise) and bully Baby B was sitting on A's little face!  I'm sure we will see much more of this as they continue to get squished into my ever expanding belly!  Everything looked great with the babies and that was the most important part!!

I did do a little harassing to see if they could tell what we were having yet.  After a couple times of asking, the ultrasound tech tried to do a little searching!  She was having a hard time keeping her eye of Baby B as he/she was jammin' out in there and busy moving!  One of the babes she finally got the right angle, but she said she could never get a clear enough look to tell for sure one way or another...bummer!!  We don't know which baby it was, but Craig and I talked afterwards that as she was looking you definitely couldn't make out any family jewels...so all of you who have started to give to the triplet clothing supply and in PINK might have your wish!!  Craig and I are only hoping for healthy babies, so we don't have much for predictions of what we might have in there.

Cervix:
3.9 cm
(2 weeks ago was 4.7 cm and about 2.5 weeks before that was 5.5 cm)

So, here is where our problem is.  We have been figuring for the last couple weeks that this was going to be my issue.  With little G, I didn't have problems with blood pressure or diabetes so we figured I would be good with these ones as well.  But, as you can tell there is a trend happening here that is in the negative direction.  :(  For those of you who don't know as much about anatomy (as I didn't prior to this) the cervix is the located at the bottom of the uterus and is the opening in which the baby would travel through in a normal vaginal delivery.  In the middle of this cervix is a mucous plug, which is meant to close off the opening until time of delivery.  Now that your anatomy lesson is done...the doctor said that at 24 weeks will be put on some restrictions of spending 2-3 hours 3 times a day either in a recliner or in bed to relieve the pressure on that cervix.  She also stated that this would happen unless my cervix continues to thin or I start having contractions.  Yikes, we are way too early for any of this!  She said at 3.2 cm she will begin putting additional restrictions on me as well.  I have been worried about this for the past couple weeks and was trying to get more info on the internet about it.  I read that somewhere between 2.2-2.5 cm that hospitalized bed rest would be ordered (I sure hope I am wrong!).  At the rate I am going I would hit about 3.1 cm at 20 weeks and 2.3 cm by 22 weeks.  If these babes aren't coming until 32-35 weeks, I really do not want to spend 10-13 weeks on hospitalized bed rest!

So what do we do now?  Well, the doc says that rest and 'taking it easy' (my most hated saying about this pregnancy) is the best thing!  Thank goodness for my amazing mother who will be coming to take care of G man during the week while Craig works.  We don't know what we would be doing right now if it wasn't for her!  I have decided to call this my SOB Plan - sit on your butt plan!  (I'm trying really hard to make fun of the situation instead of thinking about how difficult this is all going to become!)  I will be much more comfy at home than in the hospital so we are really hoping that this will slow down the deterioration of that cervix.  I guess it is just like Dr. I said today too, with three babies in there, something has to give!

The hardest part about it all is that for the first three months I was so nauseous that I could have begged for someone to tell me to SOB (sit on my butt - remember?).  But since I stopped working a week and a half ago, I have actually started feeling really good!  My PT gal this morning even said that my hips and back seem to be so much more in alignment this morning too!  So I don't feel like I want to sit on my butt!  I see all of the things that we need to get done to have our house ready for these babies and I want to work on it - not to mention getting out to enjoy the spring weather and play with my little G man!  Needless to say, it has been an emotional day as I think this appointment was my 'wake up call' that somethings with me have to give too if I want to bring three healthy babies into this world!  The day we found out about the triplets, the first thing my doc said was get comfortable with asking for help.  I just didn't think it would happen this early on!

Thanks for reading our first blog post.  I guess I got a little winded as I explained everything, but I am a detailed person, so I guess that is just what we will get!  We will post again after our next appointment in Fargo on May 23rd.  They will be doing a very detailed anatomy ultrasound of all of the babies, so hopefully we will know what sexes we will be having at that point!!