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.