Welcome babies!

Christopher

4:37 pm

4 lbs., .04 oz. 

APGARs 8/9

Isabel

4:39 pm

4 lbs., .09 oz. 

APGARs 8/9

Nicholas

4:41 pm

4 lbs., 1.3 oz.

APGARs 7/9

All born via c-section, since labor was progressing and baby A was still breech. All breathing room air on their own. I'm in recovery and doing just fine. :)

Update

To me, the mag sulfate doesn't seem to be working. Contractions are stronger and closer apart (about 3 minutes). Feeling a little less confident that we can put the brakes on this train. 

I wish there was just an off switch. 

Here we go

I woke up this morning at about 6 to a gush of fluid. And then some more. No question about it- my water broke. 

I walked/waddled down to M and N's room, with my soaked pants and let them know. N called Dr. Dryden, who told us to go to the hospital for assessment. I called Rick and filled him in.  Threw some things in a bag (pretty blindly- I hadn't prepared for this at all). Drank some milk. Got in the car and headed to the hospital. 

In assessment, I peed in a cup, weighed in, and changed into a hospital gown. They started monitoring all the babies (they sound great).  The nurse started my IV and fluids. She took blood and did a GBS swab. And about then, we moved down to Labor and Delivery. 

Dr. Dryden met us down here. The babies went back on the monitors. They started mag sulfate in my IV, which slows down labor and can make you feel awful (but that should have been immediate, and I feel fine). She checked them out on ultrasound, and unfortunately, A is still breech, so we likely have a c-section in our future. She checked my cervix and I am 3 cm dilated, 70% effaced. I also got my first dose of steroids, an intramuscular injection in my left glute. 

The plan is to get both doses of steroids in at a minimum (they are 24 hours apart), which means hopefully nothing before 8:30 tomorrow morning. But the real plan is to wait as long as possible. As long as I'm not in active labor and don't have an infection, they won't deliver me. So, on the short side of things, I could deliver tomorrow. If we're super lucky, it could be 2+ weeks. Dr. Dryden says her crystal ball is broken, but most likely, we are looking at a few days as the best case scenario. Today I'm 32w3d. 

Oh, and it's definitely Baby A's sac that ruptured. That boy is trouble. 

So that's the current state of affairs. This is what we get for being cocky and thinking we would get to 37 weeks!  Thankful we've gotten this far. Hopefully, we have three big babies who just need a few weeks in the NICU. 

I'll leave you with a hospital bed self portrait. 

Tour and appointment

Busy afternoon yesterday.

 

We started off with Jan Ivey (social worker) at TCH giving us a tour of the hospital.  We started on the 9th floor, which is labor and delivery.  M and N said the labor and delivery rooms were scary-- I think the OR is scary!  Well, actually, I'm still a little uncomfortable with the hospital at all, even though I full understand it's where we need to be.  It's just all very unfamiliar, compared to the simplicity of a home or birth center birth. Throughout the tour, I was surprised how many people (just about everyone) asked if we were having a vaginal delivery or a c-section-- I would have thought there would be an assumption that it would be a section.  Interesting.  Who knows what will happen for us, but I do like that they are welcoming of non-surgical delivery.  If that doesn't benefit me, it will benefit someone else down the road.

 

Then we headed to the 8th floor to tour the NICU.  At TCH, instead of a bay of NICU beds, they have each family in their own room.  So most rooms are designed to have one warmer or isolette at a time, but there are rooms big enough to take three.  Great setup.  Hope we never have to go there.

 

From there, we headed up to the 12th and 14th floors, which are mother/baby recovery and where I will go after I deliver (hopefully where the babies go too).  When it comes time to deliver, we will try to request a suite.  The suites have an additional entry room, which I think will be best for our rather large party of spectators.  Those floors also each have a newborn nursery.  I'm hoping we don't even send the babies to the nursery.  Slumber party for all in my room!

 

Last stop was down on the 3rd floor to pre-register.  I had wondered when that would happen (again, with my unfamiliarity with hospitals), so I was glad to get us done.  They have our court order on file, which should make everything go smoothly in terms of filling out birth registry paperwork.  All we need to do now is show up and produce babies.  Easy peasy.

 

Belly pic to break up the post (my equivalent of a commercial break):

 

 

Should have been a photo project pic today, but those are on my camera and I can't get them off until I go home.  So this is just filler for now. 

 

Ok, back to yesterday.

 

After the tour, we went next door to Dr. Carpenter.  Babies are all still in the same presentation.  (Boo.)  I asked whether he had any secret strategies to turn A and he said no, but that there's still plenty of room for him to turn, so that's good at least.  I honestly think our best strategy now is just positive thinking.

 

The primary purpose of the appointment was to check A's growth.  The good news is, it was right on track for the growth curve he put himself onto last time.  He's grown about 13 ounces in two weeks and is holding steady in the 47th growth percentile.  We don't know why he jumped down from where he'd always been in the past (65%+). It could be a difference between the two offices or maybe he just slowed down.  But as long as he continues to grow steadily (and he did), Dr. Carpenter is not worried.  I'm not worried either.

 

He did not measure B and C-- just checked heartrates, movement, and breathing, which all looked good.  But assuming everybody grew about the same amount, they should all average out to about 4 pounds each (A a little less, B a little more, C in the middle).  12 pounds of baby hanging out in my belly.  Good times.

 

Two other updates: my belly button has completely flattened out and I've developed a bunch more stretch marks.  This is what 12 lbs. of baby earns you.  Glamorous!

 

 

 

 

32 weeks

Yahoo!  Ok, that's false enthusiasm.  At one point, 32 weeks sounded like a major goal, but quite frankly, now that we're here and everything is still blessedly uneventful, it's just another day.  That's a good thing, right?  That's not to lose sight of the fact that it really is amazing that 32 weeks into a triplet pregnancy, everything is still routine and boring.  We are lucky for sure.

Giving myself a generous .8 lb. round up, I've now gained 60 lbs.  Check it out:

Ten pounds away from doubling what I gained in each of my three singleton pregnancies, and at this rate, there's a good chance I'll hit that number before I deliver (I almost typed "before I graduate" there-- I suppose it's a graduation of sorts).  I am not a super overachiever in the weight gain department, but I'm definitely in range.

In related news, I measure my fundal height at 47 cm, which would translate to being 47 weeks pregnant, and my "waist" at 47.5".  So I'm basically 4 feet around.  Attractive!

Even though I'm not feeling the babycenter updates anymore, here's this week's, just for giggles:

How your baby's growing:

By now, your baby weighs 3 3/4 pounds (about the size of a large jicama) and is about 16.7 inches long, taking up a lot of space in your uterus. You're gaining about a pound a week and roughly half of that goes right to your baby. In fact, she'll gain a third to half of her birth weight during the next 7 weeks as she fattens up for survival outside the womb. She now has toenails, fingernails, and real hair (or at least respectable peach fuzz). Her skin is becoming soft and smooth as she plumps up in preparation for birth.

http://www.babycenter.com/6_your-pregnancy-32-weeks_1121.bc

And the reason I actually went over there was to grab their picture of twins at 32 weeks:

Just throw in another baby on top and that's what I'm looking like from the inside out.  Look at those beautiful head-down babies.  Let me repeat that for Baby A's benefit, since he may have been distracted: LOOK AT THOSE BEAUTIFUL HEAD-DOWN BABIES. 

On that front, I have been doing everything I can think of to convince A to flip for me.  I'm spending a minimum of 30 minutes per day, split into 2-3 sessions, laying on the decline bench I bought last weekend.  Any other time, I try to be very conscious of my posture, and I spend a lot of time on my hands and knees.  I've talked to the baby, I've visualized him being head-down.  I'm continuing to go to the amazing Dr. Long (chiropractor) once a week and she is doing everything she can.  This week, I tried Pulsatilla (a homeopathic remedy), using the instructions on the spinningbabies website.  I'll swim again this weekend.  I think the only standard advice not yet in my arsenal is moxibustion and acupuncture, and it's a little early for either of those.  We are throwing the book at this.  This week in a multiples group on facebook, several people shared their stories of Baby A turning as late as 36 weeks.  So that is encouraging.

We will get to check in today and see where the happy crew is currently making themselves comfortable.  Appointment with Dr. Carpenter at 4:00.  Main purpose of this appointment is to check on Baby A's growth and make sure the readings last time were a fluke (I feel sure they were).  Before that, we have a tour of the Women's Pavillion at Texas Children's Hospital, which is where they will be born.  Also touring the NICU, though it is still absolutely my goal and intention to never have these three darken those doors.  Fat, healthy 5 pound babies.  That's what we're going for.

Aside from our loss last fall, I've never had a baby in the hospital, so this is all new territory for me.  I've been to two hospital births (one vaginal, one ultimately a c-section), so I know what it looks like from a not-in-the-spotlight perspective.  I do believe all the raves about TCH and think there couldn't be a better option for us, so that's good.

I'll update on the appointment probably tomorrow and post a belly pic then too.  Until then, just gestatin'.

Meditate on this

I've posted that picture before (24 week triplets), but now let's all meditate on that presenting baby's position, ok?  Baby A, this goes out to you.  Look how cool it is to be head down.  Flip, kiddo!

Sundays stink

Saying goodbye to my family does not get easier. Bleh. It's so nice to have them here, and I feel a little wimpy being sad when I'll see them again in a week, but there it is. What can I say?  They're good people. There's a reason I choose to be around them so much. :)

I tried to take a "big" belly pic for M, who claims my pictures aren't big enough. Not sure this does it, but it's the best I could pull off.