A few words on carrying triplets

Ok, so we are at 21 weeks and every one is doing very well.  You-know-who has been working furiously on the room.  I think its going very well, too.  Although for me 'well' is relative.  Two flights of stairs ok, three flights and I am winded.  It makes me feel really....lazy, fat, and out of shape.  But I am apparently a stellar incubator, thus far anyway.  Yesterday we learned that the fundus of my uterus is about 2 inches under my ribs and sternum.  Minimal room for the diaphragm to breathe.  Oh, that explains it...  I have also lost my lap, well most of it anyway.  My cat now prefers you-know-who's lap, sigh.  I have been feeling the babies moving this past week.  Particularly in the top and center of my abdomen.  That must be baby C.  People say it feels like a flutter or gas bubble.  I recently had a mild, non-painful muscle spasm/twitch in my leg and it is exactly what the babies feel like at this time.  You know, the kind of spasm you feel but can barely see, that's what it feels like.  Last week I had a day where my feet got twice as thick as normal.  I think it was due to sitting and studying all day.  The chair I was sitting in barely cuts into the back of my thighs.  So you-know-who brought home a foot wedge and an over the bed table like they have in the hospitals, without prompting, on her lunch break.  Major brownie points were had.  After a few hours the feet went back to normal.  They were not physically uncomfortable but visually very disturbing.  I am kind of vain about my feet.  I have returned to afternoon nappiness.  Needing a few winks anywhere between noon and 4 pm.  My doctor said he thought that was related to the amount of carbohydrates in the diet.  But after a diet review said that there weren't any red flags that he could see and my urinalysis was negative for glucose.  My incessant hunger and need to eat has finally curbed somewhat.  I can at least go hungry for a half an hour before I become a raving lunatic.  But I have developed evening heartburn.  Strikes between 3 and 5 pm. I don't feel it when I am napping.  It is clock-work like I had with the evening morning sickness.  Just taking a few calcium chews for that.  Seems to be fine, although the doctor did say he could give me proton pump inhibitors.  But who wants to take more pills when minty calcium chew tablets do just fine?

It's a ...

(warning: explicit photos)

The results are in...

Baby A - girl

Baby B - boy

Baby C - girl

It's two girls and a boy!  Two daughters and a son.

All babies are doing well.  At 19 weeks and 3 days when we went to the doctor the babies measured:

Baby A - 19w3d
Baby B - 19w2d

Baby C - 19w0d

All are still growing at about the same rate and are appropriate sizes.  Each is about 6 inches, crown to rump measurement or about 10 inches, head to toe.  Not yet a pound, they each weigh around 10 ozs.  So far everyone appears healthy. 

J is doing great though her belly is beginning to be an obstacle.  She can't put her feet up to help keep swelling down and do schoolwork on the computer at the same time anymore.  The laptop, to accommodate her belly, sits too far away for her arms to be comfortable typing, at the table or on her lap.  We rented a hospital style table yesterday, the kind that adjusts up and down.  Hopefully it will help.  Only six more weeks of this semester left and then working on the computer will become optional.

If you don't want to see explicit baby genitalia on ultrasound don't look at the first three pictures below.  Girls are indicated by three little lines and boys, they're a bit more obvious.  Both girls were moving around and it took until the very end of the ultrasound for them to move into positions so we could tell if they were girls or boys. 

19 weeks 3 days

Baby A, we saw three lines during the ultrasound but she was a little wiggly and only two of them were captured in the pic.

19 weeks 3 days

Pretty obvious Baby B is a boy.

19 weeks 3 days

Baby C, her three lines showed up better on camera.

19 weeks 3 days

Baby A looking straight at the camera and waving.  She's still looking a little alien but you can see how her skull is developing.  It's getting a little crowded in there and the ultrasound looks more like a jumble of moving parts now than individual babies.  It is still very exciting to see each one of them moving around and get to hear each of their heartbeats.

19 weeks 3 days

Baby B, has his chin to his chest in this pic.

19 weeks 3 days

Baby C, she was moving all over.  This is a great pic showing her rib cage development.  Her profile is a double because she was moving.

Our next doctor visit will be the big 20 week scan (though ours will be at 21 weeks) where they will look very closely at how all the babies are developing.  They will look at heart, kidneys, brain, spine, etc.  Here's a link to a list of what they look for in an anomaly scan or as our perinatologist called it, the modalities scan.