Whoa. We’re half way there.

Whoa-oh! Living on a prayer!

Man, I love Bon Jovi.

It’s totally true, though. The half way part. I’m 18 weeks, 1 day into this pregnancy. Considering the two average triplet gestation lengths I’ve heard are 32 weeks and 35 weeks, I think it’s pretty safe to say PB&J are half baked.

Let’s pause and let that sink in.

Whoa. Half way there.

And man, oh, man we truly are living on prayer. And lots of doctors and nurses. And food.

I have truly been blessed with a wonderful, healthy pregnancy so far. I had my latest visit with the perinatologist/MFM (the specialist for high-risk pregnancies) today, and I thought for sure that my doctor was going to throw confetti at me or something. He kept repeating, “I’m just so pleased!”

All three babies are measuring right on schedule – 18w1d – and all three look amazingly healthy. We haven’t had any additional screenings for birth defects, but the long, detailed ultrasounds we regularly have seem to be a good indicator of no known health issues.

All babies have four-chambered hearts that beat beautifully, two sides of their brains, two kidneys, one stomach, one bladder, and – as the ultrasound at 15 weeks, 1 day showed – Baby A is a girl, Baby B is a boy, and Baby C is a girl.

All three are also estimated to weigh 8 oz. as of today.

That’s 1.5 lbs. of baby already. That also means they’ve doubled their size from our last growth ultrasound at 15w1d.

Amazing.

While our road to a successful conception definitely wasn’t average and the circumstances and treatment of this pregnancy definitely aren’t average – everything else is remarkably average.

That realization couldn’t come at a better time.

My first trimester was haunted night after night by nightmares of miscarriage. Until last night, it had been a while since my dreams woke me with paralyzing fear. Last night, however, I dreamed that we lost our sweet trio, that my cycle once again reset to Cycle Day 1, and I had to call my reproductive endocrinologist – using my chart number there – to schedule my next treatment cycle.

A part of me knew through the dream that it couldn’t be real. The babies’ death wasn’t near as medically difficult as it would be at this point. Perhaps that is why dreaming of losing the babies didn’t affect me as much as the thought of starting all over again with fertility treatments.

What rocked me to my core and stuck with me all day was the feeling in my dream of complete self loathing – the broken, confused, betrayed feeling of body that fails to perform as it should and the feeling that I not only let myself and Rob down but I also let down my three sweet babies.

I woke up and thanked God that, so far, my days of real-life fertility nightmares are in my past. Sure, any number of things could still go wrong in this pregnancy. The important thing is that so far, they haven’t. Half way through, they haven’t. My body has successfully sustained the lives of three fetuses half way through their journey to the outside world, and it’s been 18 weeks and 1 day of only minor scares (medically speaking – not emotionally).

I just pray the next 18 weeks (ish) are as healthy and average as the first. Then, you know, the rest of forever and ever, too.

(I’ll try to get some ultrasound photos from today scanned in to show off tomorrow.)