Catching Up

Yesterday was our last RE appointment. We'll miss them, but being able to streamline our appointment schedule sure will be nice. They did one last quicky ultrasound and took some blood. Later that afternoon, they called to tell us Trina no longer had to take PIO shots. YAY! Seeing both doctors has been kind of a pain, but it has allowed us so many glimpses of the trips, that I can't complain. Everytime we see them it's more and more amazing. Trina is now over 12 weeks pregnant so we're graduating to the Peri's care only.

Trina has started craving my favorite foods. These are things she may or may not have eaten in the past or has even hated. She's gone through an entire gallon of my favorite ice cream, several bags of my favorite chips and yesterday, out of the blue, suggested we go to my favorite restaurant. She doesn't even like the place. I'm pretty sure it's because my babies already have good taste in food. :) She's also started having some very odd hallucinations. She smelled pot smoke really strongly in our kitchen, even though the windows were closed and it didn't appear that anyone was smoking in the vicinity of our house. Then later she tasted cigarette smoke at the back of her throat. She said it was like someone had ashed in her drink. Very strange.

Trina has had 2 nearly nausea free days this week. I'm hoping this means she's going to eventually leave the vomiting behind and actually get to enjoy this next trimester. She's started being able to eat more as the nausea has slowly started to fade. She still has to eat small amounts often and eat those amounts very slowly. Otherwise, it's vomit city. A few days ago she vomited so hard she broke some tiny blood vessels in her eyelids and on her neck. :(

Unfortunately, Trina's cervix is already shortening due to the weight of 3 babies. It went from 3.4cm to 2.9cm in 2 weeks. Tomorrow morning she's getting a cerclage. We're both worried about her being under anesthesia, but we're more worried about miscarriage due to incompetent cervix. Please, please let this work.

Here are the newest belly shots.

11 Week Belly

12 Week Belly

Flutters

At around 6:30 this morning Trina's started feeling a vague fluttery feeling low in her belly, just above her pelvis. She laid awake for about an hour just experiencing it. This evening she was laying on the couch and felt it again. We're about 95% sure these are the first detectable baby movements. Trina's pretty in tune with her body so I never questioned her when she told me she "felt the babies" even though it's super early. After work I jumped on the triplet message forum and sure enough, there were several triplet moms who began feeling flutters around 10 weeks and actual kicks between 13-15 weeks. I can't wait until I can feel them, too. After 2 long, drawn out years of waiting and hoping, suddenly everything seems to be moving so fast. I swear the milestones are just flying by.

2 Months 2 Weeks 2 Days

This weekend we took our annual beach vacation. Due to Trina's semi-constant nausea, we didn't do much other than lay around the cabana and relax. It was great! We ate at our favorite breakfast burrito place every morning and grazed all day as Trina's stomach allowed, or demanded as the case may be. I can't tell you how many times we stepped into a restaurant then quickly walked back out due to a "fishy" smell. Trina's super sniffer is VERY particular these days. One little whiff of something foul and she's retching. Trina has now vomited in several places all over Pt. Aransas, but NOT on the beach so points for her. :) There were so many drunk people at Sandfest, no one even noticed one extra puker in the crowd anyway. We walked down to the sand sculptures only once as it took a lot out of Trina to make it that far. Add the "fishy" beach smell and it wasn't nearly the "fun in the sun" we were going for. Instead, we sat by the water across the island and watched dolphins play in the bay near the ferries and marveled at the flocks of pelicans flying overhead. I didn't even know pelicans "flocked". I've only ever seen them solo or in very small groups of 2 or 3. All in all it was a great getaway that we needed badly.

Today we had another appointment with our RE. Trina vomited so violently as we were waiting that it came out her nose. How utterly lame is that? My poor wife. The babies were SO active. I couldn't believe it. All 3 were dancing all over the place. Here I was so amazed by a little wave last week and today it was like a disco in there. Baby A appeared to have hiccups. Is that even possible at this age? I'll have to check into that. During the wanding our RE casually asked how our Peri appointment went. I mentioned that she told us the identicals shared a placenta and that Trina had a mild previa. His face darkened and he asked how she determined they shared a placenta. I told him she did an abdominal u/s and then proclaimed it to be so. :) He muttered a bit about it being too early to accurately see the actual placentas and took a good hard look at the identicals. Once again he followed the umbilical cords from the bellies until they attached at 2 very different places in their sacs. Basically he disagrees with her "placental assessment." Oh well, only time will tell. The most important thing is that they are all measuring on track and have great heartbeats. Not to mention they're pretty snappy little dancers. :)

They took good pictures of everyone, but there was a snaffoo in printing them, so we ended up empty handed. :( We were told they'd have them printed for us next week. I sure hope so because they were really cute... Since I have no baby pics to share, here are a few mama pics. Both belly and boobs are definitely growing!

6 Week Belly

10 Week Belly

1st Pants On Ultrasound!

Today we had our perinatologist appointment. We were told by both our RE and 2 friends to expect the worst in regards to bedside manner. Apparently she has a reputation for driving home the "worst case scenario" speeches with little to no tact. Having the personality of an angry headgehog is the trade off for being an amazing peri who specializes in multiple pregnancies. I'm REALLY glad we had the heads up, but she ended up not being nearly as scary as we anticipated. She opened by rattling off a "grocery list" of her worries for our triplet pregnancy including everything from pre-eclampsia to gestational diabetes to cervical incompetence. She even made a comment about our choice to use my eggs due to the higher pre-eclampsia risk involved in "donor eggs". I'd never heard this, so I guess I have some more research to do. She's definitely a "no nonsense" kind of gal but we can appreciate that. We don't need someone to hold our hands, we need someone to help us grow 3 healthy babies and deliver them into this world safe and sound. Her nurse was her polar opposite in that she was really personable and talkative. I think we'll get along fine at this clinic, but I reserve the right to complain or change my mind later. :)

As for the babies, they're all doing great. Just to make things confusing, the babies are now labeled differently so it may take me a while to keep them straight. Babies A&C are the identicals and Baby B is our fraternal. If I'm not mistaken, and there's a good chance I am, Baby C is "Sneaky Pete". Babies B&C are both measuring 8w6d and Baby A is 3mm bigger measuring 9w1d. Trina had her first pants on ultrasound so that was a treat AND we got to hear the heartbeats for the first time. Until now, we've only "seen" them on screen. Today we could see Babies B&C so much more clearly. We could easily make out tiny little arms and legs. Baby B even waved at us...twice! It was SO cool. Baby A was laying sideways and appeared to be squished by the sac above so we didn't get a very good visual. No worries though, because we were assured the sac was the same size and not squished, just in a bad position for viewing.

Now for the "less than good" news. There are, in fact, only 2 placentas. This means that either our RE was wrong, or that the identicals' placentas grew and fused together. This is not uncommon. Furthermore, the identicals' placenta is lying low and partially covering her cervix. The doc said she's not overly worried yet because Trina's cervix is closed tight and there is a good possibility that it will "self correct" as her uterus grows and expands. I'm doing research on placenta previa but trying not to obsess. I figure if Dr Doomsday isn't overly concerned, then I shouldn't be either.

Here are our latest family photos. They're really starting to look like babies now!

This is "squished" Baby A. That oval area to the left with the plus sign on it is the head. You can see both little legs in the air at the right. See it? No? Squint your eyes and tilt your head. See it now? Good. :)

This is Baby B, the waver. This one's easier, head to the right, butt to the left. You can see both feet and even make out the most precious tiny little toes. I LOVE baby toes! :)

This is Baby C or "Sneaky Pete". Once again, head to the right, butt to the left. If you look close you can make out an arm.

9 Weeks

Yesterday we got to see the babies again. This week they are about the size of olives. They looked like little marshmallow men with tiny arms and legs. We even saw one flinch as the wand came his way. It was amazing! Our doc confirmed that we do have 3 sacs and 3 placentas. He even took the time to zoom in and show us where the each of the umbilical cords attached to a baby then followed it all the way to where it attached to separate placenta. It was so neat to see the tiny pulsating cords. There was a lot of "Oooh" and "Ahhh" and "Wow!" uttered in our exam room yesterday. :)

I know I am truly starting to accept and embrace the idea of triplets now. Last week when we had an appointment to see them, I was pretty nervous. I just kept thinking "Oh no, what if they're not all still there, what will we do?" Then when they all checked out fine I thought "Holy crap, they're all still there. What are we going to do??" Yesterday I was REALLY nervous about going in. Again I was thinking "What if we lost one?" but when they were all there and the doc proclaimed that there were three strong heartbeats I was SO relieved. I had perma-grin all day. These are my babies. :)