pa-jammy
Oh, so you want to know names? Not A, B, and C?
Okay…
A is Linus
B is Oliver
C is Miles
Their middle names are the maiden names of me, my mom, and my mother-in-law.
Tomorrow we’re going to be interviewed by the news people (WDSU) along with the quad moms who delivered 12 hours after us, yesterday evening. They had all girls, which is fun. I wonder if they’ll trade us a boy for a girl. That’d be fun.
Ha ha, don’t worry, I’m kidding!
Here are pics of our nameless boys!
Baby A
Baby B
Baby C
Well, tomorrow’s the big day!
At 6:30 tomorrow morning, I’ll be having a c-section. Don’t worry, Kristina will be updating the blog for me, so as soon as she knows the details, she’ll post them here.
Eeeep!
So yesterday was my first full day in the hospital, and it went pretty well. Slowly, as you might imagine, but not too bad. My friend Laurie came to visit, which was awesome.
I also met several doctors who came to introduce themselves to me. The anesthesiologist, who of course will be my BFF at some point, plus a neonatologist (for preemies) who I hope will not be my BFF, but if he is, it’ll be okay. Because he’s nice. A physical therapist also came by to show me some exercises to do in bed to keep me from turning into an even bigger pile of mush. Now the key is to, you know, do them.
George came by after work, bearing McDonald’s since the hospital dinner was not something I was going to be eating. So I let George eat it, and even he said it was gross (ice-cold spaghetti with meat sauce? mmm!) Today I should be getting a menu so I can choose my meals, and if not, at lunchtime yesterday (you don’t want to know what yesterday’s lunch was, I’m still having nightmares about it) I discovered you can always get ham and cheeese sandwiches. Whew!
This morning I was woken by a doctor who was v perky and cheerful. She said my labs came back showing I’m definitely developing pre-eclampsia, so I’ll definitely be here until the babies are born. Sounds pretty long-term, which is good – they’re not anticipating that I’ll have them, you know, tomorrow, but pre-e can change quickly, so we’ll see. In any case, it was advise that I get some Christmas decorations in here. 🙂
Not a full day, granted, but I want to keep track of what goes on in here, especially since I hope to be here for a nice, long while. At least two weeks. Before the babies are born, that is.
So we checked in around 11 (I mean, I was admitted – it’s not a hotel, after all) and my doctor came in to say hello shortly thereafter. The nurse who brought me in showed me around and I got changed into a gown while George set up the computer for internet access (priorities!)
I had my first session of attempting to monitor all three babies’ heartbeats at the same time. Not easy. Hardly even possible. So after about an hour, the nurses gave up. My blood pressure was also checked during this time. It wasn’t great, but not horribly high, either.
A little while later, a resident came in and checked to see how I was feeling. Everyone here is really nice, I have to say. Later, because we weren’t able to get the heartrates for 20 minutes total, she brought in an u/s machine and checked them out. Babies are fine. Always good to hear. 🙂
The rest of the day included such highlights as lunch (ick), dinner (better), a salad from Whole Foods brought by George (best) and some chocolate (heaven!) Teresa and Jon and Gareth also stopped by. Tee brought me some goodies in my new favorite scent from Bath & Body Works which was v sweet.
Oh yeah, turns out I have the best room on the floor! It’s private (whew), pretty big, and even has a little foyer. Tee hee! Good stuff. I’m also loving this hospital bed. I need one at home. So handy that you can sit up and read and not need a gajillion pillows. It was v hot in here, but the windows open a bit, and we brought a fan. So now I’m even a tad chilly.
Tomorrow the highlight of my day will be the end of 24 hours of urine collection (heh) and finding out the results of that, and bloodwork. Woot!
>I have really good friends. Sometimes it’s hard to take it all in, you know? The kindness of people?
On Wednesday, I got two packages in the mail. One was from a friend of a friend – this is a girl I’ve never even met! But she sent me three adorable little ducky outfits for the triplets. She didn’t need them anymore, so I was the lucky recipient. Too bad they don’t fit me, they look comfy. tee hee! Thanks Beth! 🙂
The other package was from a group of friends I have that live all over the country. The box was big and heavy (don’t worry, I didn’t move it.) I open it up, and what do I see?
The box was completely full of children’s books. Full to the brim. Almost 100 books. These girls had gotten together and sent me their favorite books from their childhood or their own kids’. It was amazing, and there were so many books in there that I loved as a kid (or during my stint as a children’s bookseller at B&N.)
Between these books, another box from another friend that came yesterday, and the books I got from my showers, these babies are going to be very literate and well-read (to).
At last!!! I have a decent doctor! Finally! Dang. Took long enough.
Yesterday was my appointment with the new MFM (Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist.) I love him. Ohhh, I am so happy I am changing doctors!
So here’s a basic run-down of the appointment…
– My appointment was at 1:00. Guess what time I was in the ultrasound room? Like, 1:03. Damn!
– Ultrasound tech spent about an hour or so looking at the babies. I have a feeling they’re going to be a handful, because she’s the second u/s tech that’s said these babies were going to drive her to drink. Gulp. Okay, so they’re a bit unruly in the womb, switching positions, knocking each other out of the way, being generally mischievous.
For instance, Baby A, at the beginning of the u/s, was head down, in the “presenting” position. That means, if it was going to be born “the old fashioned way”, it’d be coming out first. Later on, Baby B decided it wanted to come out first and plopped its little butt down, right at the “exit”, as it were. Little do they know that they can fight all they want – they ain’t coming out that way. Heh. Anyway, it caused much confusion. And C was going from up and down to side to side to oblique. All over the place. Aww, those kiddos!
– The best news of all – the doctor is 80-90% sure they’re triamniotic. That is, that they’re all in their own little sacs. Hurrrrrraahhhh! This is the news I’ve been dying to hear. This means, if all stays well otherwise, no hospitalization (until they’re born, of course)! I can still work, I can still be at home, I can still celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving with my friends. I can hopefully carry them to 34-36 weeks and let them get big and healthy and not have to go into Intensive Care when they’re born!
I just really, really hope it’s true. But I’m pretty optimistic. This is a good doctor, with lots of experience.
– Upon leaving, his nurse (who herself has triplets) handed me a copy of what seems to be the bible of multiple pregnancies, Dr. Barbara Luke’s book:
This is a big deal to me. It means he didn’t yell at me for gaining 25 pounds so far, like the other doctors did. In fact, he commended me on my weight gain! Man, you have GOT to love a doctor like that! And, he said I have excellent blood! Not entirely sure what that means, but he was quite thrilled with my bloodwork.
And, (sorry male readers) my cervix is nice and loooong and doesn’t change when pressure is applied. This is good. Nice and long is gooooood. And my blood pressure was fine, he said.
So, that’s the rundown. I see my OB tomorrow, hopefully for the last time. I will need to ask him to release me (I think it’s more a professional courtesy more than anything – the new doctor doesn’t want bad blood between them or anything.) and the new doctor will be taking over my care 100%! Yay!
So, I know I have to post about today’s appointment. Can I make it brief?
No membrane found.
But babies look great. They’re all the same sex – but we asked them not to tell us what that sex is.
Doctor is now on my shit list, for basically giving me no information, just saying “come back in four weeks and we’ll look [for the membrane] again.” I can’t tell you how angry this makes me, and I’ll be chatting with my OB on Wednesday about that. I really, really want to switch MFMs now to someone with a shred of bedside manner. Someone who doesn’t fall asleep while the u/s tech is looking at the babies.
So, that’s that. How about some pics?
A:
B:
C:
Feet!
Sorry I haven’t updated in a while. I was going to post after my appointment on Tuesday, but to be honest, I was just kind of depressed about it, and didn’t feel like writing it all up.
But now I think I am over it, and am trying to be optimistic about everything.
The appointment didn’t really go any differently than I expected. It was at the hospital, and I really liked the u/s tech. For about an hour, she looked at all three babies, taking measurements. They looked great. All growing well, all wiggling around (far more active than Mommy and Daddy), so much so that the tech was having a really hard time measuring the heartrates.
Then it was time to look for the membranes, and as I suspected, they were only able to find one, the one between B and A&C. So, B is “walled off” by his (random gender! no we don’t know and we’re not finding out) membrane, and as far as they could see, A&C are floating around in another chamber. They couldn’t find the membrane between A and C, which is vital. Without the “wall” separating them, they can get tangled up in each others cords. This would be very bad.
If they don’t find the membrane at the next appointment, we will start seriously discussing hospital bedrest. Beginning around 24 weeks. (Is it totally wrong to hope it’s at 25 weeks since my second shower is 24 weeks, 6 days?) A lot of monitoring, hopefully to make it to 32-34 weeks.
I really don’t want to be in the hospital. I really don’t want to spend every day for eight weeks worried sick about little A & C. It’s terrifying. And even if they do find the membrane, then I have to worry about another possible complication, where one baby takes more of its share of the placenta, and they both suffer.
It just makes for a bleak picture.
And it doesn’t help that the doctor was presenting us all kinds of doom-and-gloom scenarios. Fine, it’s his job, but it was a little overwhelming.
They also found that my ovaries are GINORMOUS (think baseball sized) and full of cysts, but they’re not worried about it. It really was just funny how the doctor was all “OH MY GOD” at them. Heh. You’d think that between two baseballs and three avocado-sized beings in my torso, I might actually look a little pregnant. Not so much. Ahh, the joys of being tall and wide.
So I may sound very pessimistic from this post, but really, I’m not. There is a good chance they’ll find the membrane. (Based on some reading I’ve done – there were three yolk sacs when they were teeny, therefore there should be three amniotic sacs. So the “scientists” say. Heh.) And if I end up in the hospital, well, what better place to be? I’d happily give up my freedom for the peace of mind this would provide. And George’s work is just a few minutes away, so he’d be able to visit a lot.
I hope all of my male readers enjoyed that tour into my reproductive organs.
So, I had my doctor’s appointment yesterday. It was pretty unexciting, except that I did get to hear all three heartbeats. Woo! I still have a bit of a hard time believing that they can differentiate between three different ones, but I guess they’re the pros! And I could tell that she was pressing on different areas of my tummy when she heard each one. I shall choose to believe that yes, there were three.
I have GOT to start packing for our trip! Ack! We leave tomorrow afternoon! At least I did the laundry. I also have to finish Emily’s birth announcements. They’re cute. Of course! I can’t wait to see her. My own little Emmy to play with! I told Jenny I’d babysit on Friday for a few hours. I wonder if I can get George to change a diaper. I doubt it would be worth the effort, though, but I’m gonna try.
Monday night is the Morrissey concert. Aaaagh! I can’t wait! As long as it doesn’t get cancelled, but I am going to think positive thoughts. The concerts for the past few nights have been cancelled, but we still have a few days for him to drink hot tea and get his voice back. I can’t even think of the alternative. (I’m so dramatic.) I mean, this is the triplets’ first exposure to good music! They’re going to be Morrissey fans! I can’t wait!!! Mwah ha ha ha ha ha!!!
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