8 weeks

First things first-- here's me not showing at 8 weeks.  If I look thick, well, that's my normal thickness.  My clothes are all fitting fine.  And if I look short it's because the person that took this picture is really-super-tall.  I'm actually 5'9".

 

 

And just because I feel like I should start taking note of such things, on my scale this morning, I was 159 lbs.  I never actually lost all of the baby weight last time, so this is a few pounds down from where I started the pregnancy which was... 163? 165?  Something like that.  Food aversions and nausea have taken their toll, but not too badly.

 

I think the weight gain goal is 36 lbs. by 24 weeks for best outcomes.  Um, yikes.  24 weeks for me is August 2.  And adding 36 lbs. to my current weight would bring me to 195.  Oof.

 

I have started trying to count protein grams and make sure that even on my lighter eating days I'm getting 80g or so.  My goal is to get up to more like 150g per day, but I need to be able to eat to hit that.  Hopefully in a few more weeks.

 

Here's what babycenter has to say about the babies today:

 

How your baby's growing:

New this week: Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from your baby's hands and feet, his eyelids practically cover his eyes, breathing tubes extend from his throat to the branches of his developing lungs, and his "tail" is just about gone. In his brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways. You may be daydreaming about your baby as one sex or the other, but the external genitals still haven't developed enough to reveal whether you're having a boy or a girl. Either way, your baby — about the size of a kidney bean — is constantly moving and shifting, though you still can't feel it.

http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-8-weeks_1097.bc

This has actually been an eventful past couple of days.  On Wednesday, we had our consultation with Dr. Carpenter.  It was exceptionally helpful-- but I think I'll give it its own post.

Dr. Carpenter recommended that I see Dr. Marco Uribe here in Austin as my OB.  I called Wednesday afternoon to make the appointment, and it turns out they had a cancellation for the next morning at 10:00, so I had my first OB appointment yesterday.

To set the stage, I've delivered all of my babies with midwives.  I (strongly) prefer midwives, because of the level of personal care they provide.  So while I know a midwife is not an option with this pregnancy, there's definitely some sense of disappointment in having to "go mainstream."

So yesterday, I walked into the waiting room before my appointment and it is ENORMOUS.  Seriously like a cattle call-- women everywhere-- I'd say at least 40 of us waiting.  Holy moly!  And boy, did we wait.  I was in the waiting room for about an hour before I was called back.  Then the nurse took my medical history, weight, and blood pressure (low) and I waited about another hour to see Dr. Uribe-- maybe even a little more that that.

When he did come in, he was very nice.  He did a full physical, including a pap smear.  He did a quick ultrasound.  The babies all had heartrates in the 140s and two measured 7w5d, while the other measured 7w6d.  Good that they continue to be about the same size-- that's something they will continue to monitor closely throughout the pregnancy, to be sure they're sharing space well.  He also measured my cervix, which is 3.5 cm, which he said was normal (now that I'm googling, I think it's on the low end of normal... hmmm....).  After the appointment, I had a blood draw-- 4 vials, which left me feeling a little woozy, since at this point it had been nearly 3.5 hours with nothing to eat or drink (not ideal for me right now).

It looks like the plan will be to see Dr. Uribe and the MFM, Dr. Sina Haeri, in Austin until I'm 20-something weeks, at which point, I will transfer care to Dr. Carpenter and a Houston OB.  My preferred OB in Houston would be Dr. Damla Dryden, because she has experience delivering full term triplets vaginally-- which would be amazing (I'd love to avoid having a c-section, if there's a good alternative).

Oh-- also worth noting about yesterday's appointment-- the nurse was pretty flustered (they have a new computer system), but at one point she asked me if all three babies were for the surrogacy, or if we were keeping any of them.  Oh my goodness!  I had to laugh and I think (hope) she realized the ridiculousness of the question after it left her mouth!

Our next appointments are on May 2, at 10w6d.  At 9am, I have an appointment with Dr. Haeri to do the first trimester ultrasound, which will measure the babies' nuchal folds and get an idea of placenta placement-- that's important because I think N and M want to do CVS testing, and we need to know if we will have access to all of the placentas.  Then at noon, I'll go up a floor to Dr. Uribe's office for my regular OB appointment.  Hopefully that one will be quick, since I'll have already done the ultrasound that morning.



Frustrating

I got all anxious about this meeting with Dr. Carpenter, the triplet specialist, today and then it got canceled.  Darn.  M and I were on the conference line for about 50 minutes before Dr. Carpenter's medical assistant called and said he'd been called to an emergency.  Which I understand.  But it's still frustrating.  We are rescheduled to tomorrow at 4:00.

The good thing is M had prepared for the call too, and read through all the information Dr. Carpenter gave us, plus another (more recent) study I'd sent him.  So we had a long time to talk about our own feelings about the materials and the (flawed?) statistics.  It's a lot to take in.  M's main concern is having children that have lifelong disabilities, because they were born too early.  "Too early" is probably the 24-28 week range, and that's where the stats don't seem to agree.  The literature review Dr. C. gave us says 8% are born in that range, but his summary table says 15-17%.  Big difference!

It's very difficult for me to look at this totally objectively.  I strongly believe everything is going to be ok.  Exceptionally difficult (on me), yes.  But I think these babies are in for the long, healthy haul.

Early ultrasound pictures

6 weeks:

 

 

7 weeks:

Not all that much to see in any of them, I guess.  In the 7 week pics, on the right you can see the three heartrates.  You can also see that depending on the angle the picture was taken, the sacs look very different, so it's difficult to get a good sense of relative size.

 

Looks like the scan chopped off the bottom of one picture, but I just checked the original and it's just empty space that got cropped.  For whatever reason, there's no picture from last week with all three sacs in one frame.

 

I had another rough-ish weekend, in terms of not feeling great.  I'm still not vomiting (yay), but I'm having a hard time eating at all, because food is so unappealing.  I ordered a sandwich for lunch on Saturday with spinach on it and had to pick off all of the spinach because it tasted rotten to me-- and I normally love spinach.  Right now, I'm still working on a bowl of oatmeal that I have for breakfast.  It's been an hour and I have well over half left.  I've lost some weight-- maybe 5-6 pounds?  That's pretty par for the course for me in early pregnancy, but I know things need to turn around soon if I'm to be a good triplet "mom" and gain all the weight I'm supposed to.

 

Oh- and my "morning sickness" is definitely worst at night.  Starting around dinner time and going downhill from there.  I'm turning off the light by 9 most nights, not so much from exhaustion, but from hope that going to sleep will keep me from tossing my cookies.  So far, so good on that account.

7 weeks

How your baby's growing:

The big news this week: Hands and feet are emerging from developing arms and legs — although they look more like paddles at this point than the tiny, pudgy extremities you're daydreaming about holding and tickling. Technically, your baby is still considered an embryo and has something of a small tail, which is an extension of her tailbone. The tail will disappear within a few weeks, but that's the only thing getting smaller. Your baby has doubled in size since last week and now measures half an inch long, about the size of a blueberry.

If you could see inside your womb, you'd spot eyelid folds partially covering her peepers, which already have some color, as well as the tip of her nose and tiny veins beneath parchment-thin skin. Both hemispheres of your baby's brain are growing, and her liver is churning out red blood cells until her bone marrow forms and takes over this role. She also has an appendix and a pancreas, which will eventually produce the hormone insulin to aid in digestion. A loop in your baby's growing intestines is bulging into her umbilical cord, which now has distinct blood vessels to carry oxygen and nutrients to and from her tiny body.

http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-7-weeks_1096.bc

I went in this morning for another estradiol test- and good news! At 949, my estrogen level is high enough to get rid of the Vivelle patches altogether! Yeeha! No more sticky residue. One med down! I think I have another 3-4 weeks before I can ditch the Crinone.

More exciting, of course, was our ultrasound this afternoon. I was wrong- last week we saw Dr. Silverberg- don't know why I thought it was Vaughn. Anyway, today, I did see Dr. Vaughn along with a woman who I think must be a resident? Didn't catch her name. Everything looked good with the babies. All three are still there, growing appropriately and with hearts beating away.

Here are the details from the ultrasound report:

Left:
Crown Rump Length 9.0mm, Estimated Gestational Age 6w6d, Gestational Sac 23 x 19mm, Fetal Heart Rate 147bpm

Right:
CRL 9.8mm, EGA 7w0d, GS 20 x 11mm, FHR 146bpm

Sup.:
CRL 8.8mm, EGA 6w6d, GS 25 x 20mm, FHR 139bpm

I'll load pictures later. I got last week's pictures too, though I'm not sure there's any appreciable difference, since everything is so tiny and kind of abstract. It was nice to hear the heartbeats and see how much faster/stronger they've gotten in the past of the week. I guess by the next time we see the babies, they will actually look like babies. That's pretty exciting.

Our consult with Dr. Carpenter will be Tuesday afternoon, wherein we discuss all of the many risks of triplets. I still feel strongly that we can do this, though I know it will be unlike any other pregnancy I've experienced. Keep working your magic, little blueberries.

Opening up

I added a bunch of authorized readers today.  Not quite ready to "come out" with the triplet pregnancy to the world at large, but I'm sharing with some of my surrogacy friends.  Hello, friends!

Today I felt better than I have since Friday.  I managed to eat more than I have since then too, though nothing close to balanced or healthy meals.  I had ramen for lunch!  With an egg for protein, not that that redeems it much.  Oh well.  At this point, calories are calories and I will worry about the specifics later.

I guess I was too caught up in the "THREE!" news to post anything about the babies' development, so many days late, here's what babycenter has to say about babies at 6 weeks' gestation:

How your baby's growing:

This week's major developments: The nose, mouth, and ears that you'll spend so much time kissing in eight months are beginning to take shape. If you could see into your uterus, you'd find an oversize head and dark spots where your baby's eyes and nostrils are starting to form. His emerging ears are marked by small depressions on the sides of the head, and his arms and legs by protruding buds. His heart is beating about 100 to 160 times a minute — almost twice as fast as yours — and blood is beginning to course through his body. His intestines are developing, and the bud of tissue that will give rise to his lungs has appeared. His pituitary gland is forming, as are the rest of his brain, muscles, and bones. Right now, your baby is a quarter of an inch long, about the size of a lentil.
 

http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-6-weeks_1095.bc

 That's all for now from me and the lentil brigade.  More on Friday.

Yesterday's news

Late in the afternoon yesterday, Andrea emailed me to let me know my estrogen level was 721, so I could drop down to 2 Vivelle patches.  Hooray!  Fewer meds = always a good thing.  I need to remember to get a copy of my blood draw order for Friday so I can test again and maybe get off the patches altogether?  Though last time I think it took 3 tests, maybe.  Vivelle is no big deal, except that the adhesive is difficult to remove and, after weeks of being on them, they start to make me itch.  I will not cry any tears to see it go.

I also got a call back from Texas Fertility so I could schedule my ultrasound for Friday.  It will be 3:00 in the afternoon.  Later than would have been my choice, but that's ok.  This week we'll see if we can get a heartrate for baby A, who was too tiny and far away last time to capture.

I felt pretty gross again yesterday afternoon, but slept great (and dreamed Rick bought me a fixer-upper of a house).  This morning, I felt pretty good.  I tend to do worse as the day goes on, but maybe today I can buck that trend.

Not much to report

Did I mention that in all the hubbub on Friday, we failed to get pictures to take home?  Boo. 

It was hard to get all three sacs in one picture, but he did manage it.  Although with Andrea at Houston IVF called, she said it was difficult to read the fax and did it say there were *4* sacs?  4!?  I think three is plenty to worry about, thanks.

Apparently the visual image of three babies was enough to bring on full strength morning sickness.  I felt bad on Friday afternoon/evening and all-out rotten for most of the day Saturday.  I've never taken anything for morning sickness, but if I'm going to keep eating at all, I needed some help.  Took half a unisom and some vitamin B6 (the first line of defense to treat morning sickness) on Saturday night and it made a huge difference on Sunday.  During the day, I'm taking 25mg of B6 every 4 hours or so and that seems to help too.  Oof.

Assuming all three stick around, our 36-week "due date" is October 25.  Less than 7 months to go.

Waiting for a call back from Texas Fertility to schedule my ultrasound for Friday.  This time, I'll remember to get pictures.