6 week ultrasound

Early Tuesday morning, M's uncle passed away.  Because I knew M and N would be busy planning the funeral and hosting family, I moved the ultrasound appointment to Texas Fertility.  Rick and I promised that we would FaceTime them for the entire appointment; they wouldn't miss a thing.

We arrived exactly on time-- 11:15-- and so went back almost immediately.  Rick got M and N on FaceTime and we waited for Dr. Vaughan to come in.  When he did, I gave him our relevant history-- including that I'd been bleeding heavily the day before-- and then we got started.

We immediately saw two sacs, and then, with just the slightest bump of the wand, we saw the third.  Three sacs.  We started with sac A, which was anterior and therefore furthest from the ultrasound wand and most difficult to visualize.  Even so, we could immediately see both the fetal pole and the heartbeat.  He couldn't get it to focus clearly enough on the heartbeat to get a rate.  The fetal pole measured 5w6d-- completely normal.

Sac B also had a clear fetal pole, with a heartbeat.  That pole measured 6w1d and the fetal heartrate was 104 beats per minute.

Sac C initially looked empty.  But no-- then we saw another fetal pole, measuring 6w2d, with a heartbeat at 109 beats per minute.

All in all, three completely normal looking little fetuses.

Oh, boy.

Dr. Vaughan said "Tim's going to be mad... at himself."  (Tim = Dr. Hickman.) Yep.  Triplets were definitely not the goal.  He rolled the dice, we depended on his advice, and now we are the 1% risk group.  Pregnant with triplets.

Now that we're here, though, to me, there's no option than to soldier forward and do everything we can to ensure the best outcomes for these babies.  As Dr. Vaughan reminded us, we are not assured of triplets.  There are many hurdles to overcome (including this bleeding, for which he saw no cause, but didn't seem to be overly concerned about).  This is no walk in the park, unless we're talking a really scary, twisty-turvy, obstacle-filled park.  But I do still have an image of three babies at the end of this journey.  Three toddlers running around the C house a couple of years from now.

Here we go...