It’s been one of those days. You know the type. My brain is full of thoughts, but very few coherent ones survive the trip to the outside world.
To take the advice of Michael Scott, I’ll just keep it simple (stupid).
I’m halfway through a “normal” pregnancy.
I’ve somewhat figured out the secret(s) to being comfortable. No more sleeping on my right side. Stop and sit when I start to feel even a little back ache. Ice, heat, ice, heat, ice, heat, ice, heat.
I think I’m feeling the babies move, but I’ve only felt something a handful of times that made me say, “A-ha! Babies!” Because of that, I think my official stance is that I’m still waiting for movement.
My parents are moving into the neighborhood this weekend, which means our guest bed will have a new home. That, my friends, means Mount Baby Stuff can move its piles of goodies from the office into its future home, ready to be sorted, organized and, eventually, used.
That, folks, is about all I have for today. Boring, I know. It’s just one of those days. Sigh.
No glasses required. You might need to tilt your head, squint and use some imagination, but at least you don’t need funny-looking glasses, right?
Today was my weekly cervical length ultrasound (4.3cm-4.9cm! yay me!), and after the sonographer was done with the serious business she asked if I had somewhere to be because I was her last appointment of the day and she thought it’d be fun to look at the babies.
Pause to inform that the ultrasounds that check my cervix don’t allow for much movement because the ultrasound wand is jammed up my funbits. For baby-peeking ultrasounds, a better range of motion – ON MY BELLY – is needed.
I’m no fool, so of course I gave into her request.
Then she said, “Good! I want to play around with the 3D to see what it looks like with triplets.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m not entirely positive if getting a 3D ultrasound is a normal thing, but I’ve never been offered a 3D ultrasound before as part of the regular checkups. It was my understanding that 3D ultrasounds were a fancy pants thing people pay extra for.
But, once again, PB&J have turned me into an allstar patient, and I got some special treatment today.
First thing’s first – the still shots she printed out aren’t nearly as cool as seeing the 4D views (3D viewed in real time is 4D – or so I hear). But THEY ARE STILL FREAKING COOL.
Second thing’s second – these shots are normally taken after another 10 weeks or so of growth, so my babes look teeny and scrawny because they’ve just starting putting on their baby fat. BUT THEY ARE STILL FREAKING CUTE.
Third thing’s third – I was going to go all fancy and point out things in Photoshop when I was resizing/cropping/cutting & pasting into one image, but MEH. I didn’t feel like it after scanning them all in. I think the two most difficult photos in which to tell what’s what are the third and seventh. The third photo shows Baby A looking up and kind of to the left. The seventh photo, in the right portion, shows Unknown Baby’s elbow, belly, butt, legs and feet. If you can’t figure something out, go ahead and ask, and I’ll try to ‘splain it.
Or maybe I’ll re-edit the image. Who knows?
Oh, one more thing. Poor Baby C only has one photo. She’s currently squished into a wee little space. You might be able to make out one of her arms and one of her legs in the photo of her (her face is off to the right, looking left). I think she’s going to be a yoga master when she grows up. Well, yoga master by day, ninja by night.
Let’s see, what else? Oh, popular question! How am I feeling? GREAT! I had a full day today, complete with running errands, and my back is still relatively pain free. Aside from normal growing aches and pains, I feel pretty normal. It’s difficult to bend, and I’ve had to get creative when I get up from laying or sitting down, but I’m learning how to maneuver around this growing belly.
In other news, PB&J and I are all showered with gifts. I’m currently doing inventory of what we have and what we still need, but HOLY CATS, I have amazing friends and family. These kids have so much already, it’s truly breathtaking.
Also about the showers, I’m collecting photos to put together an entry about how awesome my family and friends are. It’s taking time. I’ll do it – I promise. To hold you over, check out this entry written by one of the excellent hostesses of this past weekend’s shower, Beth Anne. It has some great photos, too!
A lot of women and men battling infertility are also stepping up to the plate to battle infertility ignorance. Or, to put a more positive spin on it, there are so many amazing warriors out there spreading the word and promoting infertility awareness.
That’s all fine and dandy and will continue to blaze trails on the road to greater acceptance and better treatments.
There is one major point that has the potential to snowball and do its own advocacy — education.
What if sexual education was restructured to include more information about reproductive health than the average sexually transmitted diseases teachers and parents are worried teens will catch from their boyfriends and/or girlfriends? What if students were taught to be more responsible for their health over and above just using protection?
Finish reading Blazing Trails With Better Education at Alphabet Soup, Fertility Flavor, my blog for FertilityAuthority.com.
PB&J – gestational ages: 18w1d
The technician technologist was able to get great profile shots of all three babies today – something we haven’t had in … hmm. I don’t know that I’ve ever had three good profiles to share at one time.
Baby A is a girl, Baby B is a boy, and Baby C is a girl. Babies? Internet? Say, “Hiiiiiii!”
In case you missed my tweet and/or don’t stalk my flickr feed, here’s a photo I took of The Belly this past Friday. The pregnancy dated 17w5d.
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.)
