Anxiety dream

First off-- forgot to mention that Friday was my last day of Crinone.  Hooray!  One less med.  I suppose now what's left is for the long haul: Lovenox injections, baby aspirin, prenatal vitamin, and Folbic (massive folic acid supplement).  I've also been taking B6-- not sure how long I'll keep that up, as I'm starting to suspect it's keeping me up at night.  Maybe I'll just wisen up and take it in the morning.  Too easy?

I don't know if it's the absence of the extra hit of progesterone or what, but I did feel better this weekend.  More good days, please.

Last night, I had a major anxiety dream about our appointments on Thursday.  Everything that could go wrong went wrong, at least twice.  First, the MFM appointment was cancelled and rescheduled for the next day.  But our whole family had already driven up in that direction, so rather than make the long trek home (subconscious: the MFM office is too far away), we got a hotel room.

In the hotel room, I was freaking out, trying to remember if the appointment was rescheduled to 12, 12:30, 1, or 1:30.  And then, when it was magically the next morning, I suddenly realized I'd forgotten to cancel the OB appointment, and so now I probably had to pay a fee or something (heaven forbid).  Then I decide the appointment is at 1:30, but it's still really early in the day, and since the hotel is closer to the office than our house, I know it's too early to leave, so I worry about how to use up the time.

But the next thing I know, I look at my watch and it's 1:21.  Ack!  Rick is staying with the girls and not going with me for some reason.  (And I think he's actually sitting in the lobby wearing curlers, lipstick, and smoking a cigarette-- um, not sure where that came from.)  I have to get dressed, but all I can find are denim-ish looking leggings, an animal print skirt, and another animal print (not matching) top.  I pull it all on and run out to the car, holding my keys.  Except I can't run, because the skirt is way too tight, so I have to strip it off and then I'm just wearing these horribly trashy leggings.

When I get outside, I see a tornado in the distance, and everybody is waiting for it to pass before we can get in our cars and go.  But I know I'm late, so I just get in the car anyway.  Then I realize I have no idea exactly how to get to the MFM from the hotel-- but I have a vague idea of where the highway is, so I head in that direction (the tornado has barreled through by now, thankfully).  So I start driving through this gate, but then I realize the gate is actually doors to an interior area of the hotel, so I've driven inside.  And I can't just reverse, because the doors open one-way, towards the inside.  So I had to do a tight turn-around in the pool/lobby area and go out the other side of the doors, where they opened toward the outside.  That's when I remember being annoyed that Rick wasn't going to the appointment with me, because I knew he wouldn't have driven into the hotel.  And that's when I woke up.

Good gracious, I have issues!  What in the world prompted all of that craziness?  For the record, I know exactly when (and where) my appointment is on Thursday and Rick will be going with me (and driving, I imagine).  Nutty girl, right here.

Oh-- other news: I had to dig out maternity pants today and it was such a RELIEF to put them on and not feel constricted.  Ahhhh.  I've never had to wear them so early, but, well, I've never carried a litter of babies either. 

Photo project: 10 weeks

So like I said, I'd like to take a series of consistent photos-- same background, same lighting, same (minimal) clothes.  This is the first installment!

Wearing booty shorts and a sports bra, because I figure this journey is going to impact my entire body-- not just the belly-- and I'm determined to document it, scary as it may be.  I would tell you to avert your eyes, but this is the real world.  Muscle up and take it!

Plan right now is photos every 5 weeks-- 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35.  I'll take informal ones otherwise, but I'm not going to strip down and drag out the photo equipment every week.

Here we go!

10 weeks

Houston, we have fetuses!  Hooray!  Our little trio has graduated out of the embryonic stage this week and now are three teeny tiny fully formed babies, with six months of growin' left to do.

Here's what babycenter has to say this week:

How your baby's growing:

Though he's barely the size of a kumquat — a little over an inch or so long, crown to bottom — and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce, your baby has now completed the most critical portion of his development. This is the beginning of the so-called fetal period, a time when the tissues and organs in his body rapidly grow and mature.
He's swallowing fluid and kicking up a storm. Vital organs — including his kidneys, intestines, brain, and liver (now making red blood cells in place of the disappearing yolk sac) — are in place and starting to function, though they'll continue to develop throughout your pregnancy.
If you could take a peek inside your womb, you'd spot minute details, like tiny nails forming on fingers and toes (no more webbing) and peach-fuzz hair beginning to grow on tender skin.
In other developments: Your baby's limbs can bend now. His hands are flexed at the wrist and meet over his heart, and his feet may be long enough to meet in front of his body. The outline of his spine is clearly visible through translucent skin, and spinal nerves are beginning to stretch out from his spinal cord. Your baby's forehead temporarily bulges with his developing brain and sits very high on his head, which measures half the length of his body. From crown to rump, he's about 1 1/4 inches long. In the coming weeks, your baby will again double in size — to nearly 3 inches.
 

http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-10-weeks_1099.bc

And their picture:

Fingers and toes!

But Mariela will be disappointed with the kumquat description.  Not a helpful reference, babycenter!  An inch and a quarter is about 3 m&m's long.  I will not tell you how I know that, but it's certainly not because I just opened a Fun Size pack.  I wish I could tell you the size in peanut m&m's, which are my preference.  Alas.

I am feeling fine.  Not fabulous, but better, I think.  M called this afternoon and I was telling him it's hard to say that it's getting better because everything changes on a day-by-day basis.  My eating habits are definitely still screwed up.  I have a really, really hard time eating vegetables, which is not at all typical for me.  Also have a hard time drinking enough water and staying hydrated-- somehow, the more I drink, the worse I feel.  But trying to improve little by little.

Weight is the same as last week, I think.  159.6.  I will start gaining soon!  Really!

I have some grand plans for taking consistent belly shots that I'm hoping to launch this weekend.  Could use a little help from the weather-- I need natural light and today it is gloomy.  But hopefully I'll have something soon!

Really looking forward to the day o' appointments next week, when we get another glimpse at ze bebes (that was my French accent, if it's not clear).

A little late

This video is about embryonic development, weeks 2 through 9.  I love this stuff-- really, if anything is miraculous to me, it's human development-- particularly the very early part.  And as many of these kinds of things as I've watched, I still gasped a little when it jumped from 5 weeks to 9 weeks.  The difference is just incredible.

http://bcove.me/1kwsr2wi

Busy weekend

We ended up spending most of the weekend with the C family.  They were staying at a rented house out on the lake in Lago Vista.  We got out there a little after 7 on Friday night and hung out and had dinner-- spaghetti with three different sauces, bread and salad.  Only half the crew was there that night (of an eventual total of 20 people?)-- another carload arrived about 30 minutes after we left.

On Saturday, Mariela had dance, so I stayed home and waited on her.  Meanwhile, Rick and Andie went back out to the house and everyone went out on the boat for a few hours.  My crazy husband and daughter even went swimming, even though it was WAY too cold for that.  When I picked up Mariela, we joined the party.  By the time we ate that night, I wasn't feeling great, but I did eat some delicious tandoori chicken.  The girls and I slept over that night-- Rick had to go home because he worked the next day.

Sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast, played a little while, and then the girls and I headed hom for a brief laundry folding mission.  At home, the girls made celebratory signs for J's triumphant MS 150 finish.  We went to the finish line and met everyone at about 1:00 and J crossed sometime around 2.  It was very exciting to see him and celebrate what he's accomplished-- biking from Houston to Austin!  Andie's now saying she wants to do it next year.  I don't think so, kid.

We hung out near the Texas Children's tent for a while before finally deciding to go eat at Pappadeaux's-- it's hard to find a restaurant to take 20 people on a busy event day without a reservation!  Dinner was delicious.  Mariela spent a lot of it snuggling up to the grandmother crowd and lapping up the attention.  It was good to get to talk to J a bit, since he hadn't been there the rest of the week.  Rick missed out!

Everybody headed home again at about 6.  Fun, full weekend.  And somehow I managed to lose a pound-- not sure that's ever happened after a C family weekend.  Ugh, come on, body!  Eat up!  Pack it on!  Now's your chance!

9 weeks

What say ye, babycenter?

How your baby's growing:

Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. She's starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they'll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby's heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth. The embryonic "tail" is completely gone. Your baby's organs, muscles, and nerves are kicking into gear. The external sex organs are there but won't be distinguishable as male or female for another few weeks. Her eyes are fully formed, but her eyelids are fused shut and won't open until 27 weeks. She has tiny earlobes, and her mouth, nose, and nostrils are more distinct. The placenta is developed enough now to take over most of the critical job of producing hormones. Now that your baby's basic physiology is in place, she's poised for rapid weight gain.
 

http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-9-weeks_1098.bc

So how are these three little grapes treating me?

Not too bad, all considered.  My morning sickness is not terrible for the most part.  Sometimes at night I have some long stretches of misery, but I've thankfully had a decent time of it during the workday.  I had a tougher morning than usual today because I gagged on my toothpaste and once you've gone down that road, it's hard to turn back.  But I'm feeling ok now.  Need to think about eating something soon.

The babies' family is in Austin this weekend, to fete Uncle J, who is biking the MS 150.  So at some point, we're sure to go hang out with them, which will be fun.

Oh-- and my weight this week was 159.6.  We'll round up and call that 160 and a pound gained, shall we?  Babies are definitely growing-- I can feel the top of my uterus about an inch under my belly button.  I think 20 weeks is when it's supposed to get to belly-button level, but I'm guessing we'll be there next week.

Not a lot going on otherwise.  No appointments this week or next week-- next medical event on the radar is MFM first trimester ultrasound and OB appointment, both on May 2.

Food!

I feel like I'm halfway through a normal eating day, so I'm going to jinx it now, but blogging what I've eaten:

Breakfast: 

• 0% plain greek yogurt (more than half a cup, less than a cup-- don't know exactly)
• 1/2 t sugar, because I like to cut the bitterness of the yogurt a bit
• handful of green grapes, halved
• 1/4 c Grape Nuts
• Glass of V8 vegetable juice

All mixed together and it was yummy.  About 25 g protein, I think.

Snack:

• 6 bites of lowfat cottage cheese.  I figure that's about 1/2 c-- they were big bites.

12 g protein.

Lunch:

• Chicken kebab sandwich
• Falafel "shot" (one piece of falafel in some sauce with a lemon wedge

From Kebabalicious.  There was a huge line, but it was good, so I'll say it was worth it.  It was not my favorite chicken schwarma sandwich ever-- I miss Marakesh for my downtown Middle Eastern cuisine needs.  Alas.  RIP Marakesh.  Guesstimate: 50 g protein.

I also ate a mini Three Muskateers (the tiny, bite-sized ones), which was not worth the effort.  Sweets are not my thing at the moment.

For snack this afternoon, I have an orange and more cottage cheese.  Another 12 g protein.

Dinner:

Hmm.  This will be the problem, since I usually am not keen to eat by dinner.  But it looks like I'll have 100g of protein in me by then, so that's a good start.  If I can think of some marginally palatable meat-based meal, I should hit 150g for the day.  Go me.  Hitting the minimum.  'Course, my goal is more like 200g, but whatever.  I will work up to that.

Lost the battle

Well, the nausea won this morning. Boo. I thought getting to 8 weeks with no vomiting was pretty lucky. Luck no more!

Curled up in bed with Mariela, eating ice chips. Could be worse.

Consult with Dr. Carpenter

I said this deserved its own post-- I hope I can remember/piece together from my notes enough details to make it worth it.

The first thing Dr. C discussed with us was risk of loss of the entire pregnancy, between 10-24 weeks.  For singletons, the risk is 2.5%, for twins 7-8%, and for triplets 15%.  The risk of losing a single fetus remains constant over all pregnancies-- each fetus has a 2.5% chance of dying between 10-24 weeks.

The next thing we discussed was prematurity, which is defined as being born between 20.1 weeks and 36.6 weeks.  For a singleton, the rate is 7-8%, for twins 45-50%, for triplets 80-85%.

Next, we talked about the most critical issue in our minds-- delivery between 24-28 weeks.  Here the rates are: 1-1.5% for a singleton, 5% for twins, 7-8% for triplets.  M and I had read the earlier materials to say the risk was 15% for triplets, so this lower risk was a big relief.

We talked specifically about the major risks of delivery in that timeframe.  Babies born between 24 and 26 weeks have a 9% incidence of cerebal palsy, as compared to .1% at 40 weeks.  Other complications of prematurity are:

1. Lung disease (varying degrees, most is resolved by age 7-8)
2. Head bleeds (grade 1-2 usually resolve without consequence; higher grades do have lasting developmental effects)
3. NEC
4. Infection (to any and all organs-- worst is meningitis, next septicemia)

Every one of those complications is scary, but the good news is, in terms of long-term health outcomes, premature babies have pretty good odds, and there are advances all the time.

We talked briefly about the risks of reduction, including the risk of regret and delayed grief.  He said 1% of people who reduce experience great regret.  He also told us about two former patients of his who had reduced triplets and, much later when their twins were born and healthy, had basically psychotic reations to the grief and had to be hospitalized.  Yikes.

He said the timeframe to reduce, if you were going to do it, is ideally 10.5 -14 weeks.

We talked about genetic testing.  He believes the risk of CVS is approximately equal to the risk of amnio, which is minimal.  He said there was a study comparing 34,000 women who received no amnio to 14,000 who underwent amnio, and the increased rate of loss for the amnio group was 1 in 750.  It still makes me nervous.

If we do CVS (and it does look like that's the plan), he said to make sure they do array CGH or CMA testing, which includes molecular testing.  That's a little over my head, but I'm transcribing from my notes.

I asked specifically about the possibility of increased risk related to my taking Lovenox.  He said he would recommend skipping the dose before the test, and restarting 8 hours after the test.  He said he had one patient experience bleeding under those conditions (though I think the pregnancy was unaffected).

Other than that, he said his mantra is "Decrease stress, Increase rest."  He said say it every day and live by it.  He says there's no clinical support for bedrest (unless something goes wrong) and that I should continue to be moderately active-- walking in the pool is a good way to get no-impact exercise this summer.  And, like I mentioned before, he gave us some provider recommendations, which is how I teamed up with Dr. Uribe and Dr. Haeri here in Austin.

So overall, the conversation was really helpful.  We feel secure in our shared decision to continue on with the triplet pregnancy.  If there is anything wrong with any of the babies, we may need to reevaluate that-- knowing that one baby could jeopardize the whole pregnancy.  But for now, we have no indication that anything's wrong and we're all predicting sunny skies and fat, healthy babies at the end of this adventure.

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.