Triplet Update...and the First Belly Pic! And A Baby Pic!

I'll be 12 weeks tomorrow. I feel great. No barfing.

The only issue right now is bleeding. Like a ton of bleeding. I started bleeding last friday. Buckets. Sorry for the visual. Bad things always happen on fridays when your only option is the ER. Seriously annoying. I called the doctor and he said this:

You can do one of 3 things:

1. Go to the ER to get an ultrasound. They'll be able to tell you what's going on, but they won't be able to stop it.

2. I can move your appointment to monday. We can see what's going on then.

3. You can wait until your appointment on wednesday.

Troy and I decided to just wait it out until my appointment on wednesday. We have VERY much taken the stance of "we are not in control of this situation and we are going to go with the flow" as best as we can.

It's weird because the bleeding wasn't constant. I bleed at the same time every evening. It starts about 2 hours after I've been in bed. Troy comes home from swings around 1 am and I go the bathroom. And it's bad.

I bleed for a few hours and then while I'm up and moving around, everything is fine.

At my appointment on wednesday, we were expecting to have lost one of the babies. But, much to our surprise and awe, they were ALL fine. And moving and kicking and dancing. They couldn't get them all in one picture, but here is a picture of one baby:



There are 2 on the top kicking and stretching. Poor baby "C" is smooshed at the bottom. Not moving. The other 2 are taking up too much room. Troy suggested that I stand on my head and give the party animals on top a taste of their own medicine. Haha.

During the ultrasound, they saw a subchorionic hemorrhage. Basically, one of the placentas hasn't sealed flat against the wall of the uterus yet and there is a pool of blood between the two. As the placenta gets stronger, it is pushing blood out of the cavity. Thus all the bleeding. It's awful. But apparently nothing to worry about unless there is pain and large clots. Okay then.

Well today is Mother's Day and we figured, at 12 weeks (well, 11 weeks and 6 days) it was time for a picture.



Not showing too much yet. Which I have to say, feels like a victory. Which is TOTALLY different than when I was pregnant with Avery. I remember I couldn't WAIT to look preggo with her. Now, every day that I haven't popped feels like a victory. Like it's one more day that I won't be on bed rest. One more day that I can hold them in and keep them safe. It's so silly, but that's just how I feel about it. I want to NOT show for as long as possible. Weird right?

We are also making progress on our list of things to do.

We have hired a contractor to wall in another bedroom.

We have started cleaning out the house for the yard sale next weekend. The pile in the front room is getting re-donk-ulous. It's mostly households and furniture.

We are have narrowed down our car search and plan to drive to California to buy our new HUGE car next weekend.

We are also going to IKEA to pick up some cribs while in California because...UM VEGAS DOESN'T HAVE ONE!

We have started putting Avery's big girl room together. It makes me want to cry thinking that she's going to be a "big girl" when she comes back...no more crib. Pictures to follow.

Happy Mother's Day to all, especially to my Mom, who has been more help and support than I am able to verbalize.

I'll be back soon! My appointment with the high risk doc is thursday. Can you think of anything specific I should ask? Seriously, I'm worried I'm gonna forget something.

We are Having Triplets

You read that right. We are still processing this information, but if I think about it too much, I feel like I'm going to stroke out, so I try not to think about it. Too much. All the time.

But we have had time to process and evaluate and we are OVERJOYED! Overwhelmed about all of the planning and medical things we will face in the next 9 months, but excited about eventually coming home with our babies.



When last I left you, I had just been released from the hospital after a paracentesis. They were predicting that I would need to be drained again because Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome takes a long time to resolve (through the first trimester) and requires scheduled draining to maintain.

We found out during my followup from the paracentesis with my fertility doctor that we were expecting twins!! YES! Perfect. We didn't know if we wanted 2 or 3 children and the decision was made for us by God and we didn't have to go through fertility hell again. YAY!

I went back to Nellis for my follow up appointment with Women's Health and my next scheduled appointment with intervention radiology for another paracentesis. I was basically back to normal (only up 6 lbs from my original weight) and were able to determine that I did NOT need another paracentesis, much to their shock and surprise. They wanted to do an abdominal ultrasound to see if there were any hidden pockets of ascites (more fluid hiding) in my abdomen. The OB started the ultrasound and found a few very small pockets of fluid, but determined it was nothing to worry about.

Then she says: So, how far along are you?

Me: About six weeks, I think.

Doc: Oooooh fun! Ok, lets see if we can see anything in there!

At this point, a new airman entered the room to observe the ultrasound. She asked if it was ok to sit in, as she was new and trying to learn more about her job. Of course, I was cool with that.

Doc (still doing the abdominal ultrasound): Ooooh look! There's a sac! Ooooh and there's another one! Twins!

Me: Yeah, we found out a week ago. We're excited!

Doc: (pauses) Oh, wait a second. Do you mind if we switch to a vaginal ultrasound and get a better look?

Me (thinking nothing of it): Sure!! Maybe we can see heartbeats!

They leave the room for a few minutes while I "get ready."

They come back in and the airman is looking rather excited. I eye her suspiciously.

Doc: Ok, here are heartbeats on the 2 right here! AND LOOK! There's another baby right up there hiding at the top of your uterus!

Airman: OH. EM. GEE. You're my first set of triplets!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!

AAAAAAND you could hear a pin drop.

There was NO SOUND IN THE WORLD for about 27 seconds. That poor airman was NOT met with excitement, but absolute TERROR.

And then Troy opened his fat mouth.

Troy: So what you're SAYING is, we have to think of ANOTHER name? That's like, THE WORST part.

My mind started going to million miles a minute.

DAMN YOU AND YOUR 30 MILLION SPERM COUNT, TROY!!! DAMN YOU! Oh God. We just outgrew our house. And our car. Why is Troy in the military? We are SO far away from any family and are going to have no help. Maybe I can convince my mom to quit her job. She loves me right? Oh thank God Troy's in the military. We have health insurance. Do we need more cribs? How long is a gestational period for triplets? Am I going on bed rest soon? Poor Avery. She'll never understand. Oh God. I need to do some research in my journals about developmental delays and the NICU. I knew I should've taken that continuing education class about NICU stuff. I can't breastfeed 3 babies. How are we going to diaper that many kids? I'm gonna have to keep using cloth. SO MUCH POOP. My mom was right. Avery needs to be potty trained ASAP. And transitioned to her big girl room. ASAP. Thank God we paid off our cars and have NO debt. I need to work my butt off while I'm feeling good. I'm not going to be able to work for about 6 months between bed rest and the NICU and getting adjusted with triplets. TRIPLETS. Is this real life?

I blacked out during the rest of the ultrasound. No joke.

The next thing I remember is the doctor putting her hand on my knee and saying "hey, are you guys going to be okay?" Like TOTALLY dead serious. She could tell I was about to lose it. Absolutely lose it.

My mom was out in the waiting room with Avery when Troy and I came out with the ultrasound pictures. I handed them to her and said, "well, I'm glad we're going to the buffet for lunch because I'm eating for four." Like total deadpanned facial expression.

My mom grabbed the ultrasound and started jumping up and down, clapping like a seal at Sea World.

I was in complete shock. Complete and utter shock.

SO.

We have known for about 3 weeks now that it's triplets. And we have processed. And feeling SO much better. Avery is currently with my parents in South Carolina having a great time gardening, going to the park, playing in the humidity sprinklers, and eating like a queen. We sent her home with my parents last week after my sisters wedding. She will be staying with them for 2 months.

We decided that this was best for us right now because I can work my tail off while I'm feeling good, save on childcare expenses, and do some things around the house that would be harder/take longer with Avery here. Things like:

- Car shop
- Add another bedroom to our house
- Switch all her stuff OUT of the nursery to a big girl room
- have a yard sale
- Save money

My parents are THRILLED to have her and are doing some things that are making Troy and I VERY happy:

- transitioning her to a "big girl bed"
- potty training
- eating meals NOT in a high chair
- getting in and out of her car seat without help

I am currently 8.5 weeks pregnant. Is it early to be telling? YES!!! With Avery, we didn't announce until we knew that she was girl, we waited so long. But now? We would rather have your prayers, thoughts, advice, and support than worry about anything bad that COULD happen.

So here is where I leave you for now. I will be keeping you all updated very frequently as I will start having frequent appointments with the high risk doctor in a few weeks. I have another ultrasound next week! One of Troy's co-workers wife had triplets last month and he gave me her contact info. We spent almost 2 hours on the phone and I'm sure she will be a WONDERFUL source of support and advice.

While I know the overall tone of this email is somber, we are very excited about our family growing. We are feeling very blessed and our families have been SO supportive. We just have a lot to consider and plan for the unexpected while we can :)


Any advice or resources are VERY welcome. We love you all and will be talking to you soon.

The name of this blog just got real. Like really real :) It's gonna be awesome. Pull up a chair and come along for the ride!

Our Easter Weekend

I am so thankful for my mom. She came out last wednesday after my paracentesis and helped since I was on "light duty." She scrubbed my whole house down, did all of our grocery shopping, all of the cooking, dishes, and took care of Avery while I laid on the couch. Oh, and did I mention she basically potty trained Avery? In a week? Seriously.

We managed to dye some Easter eggs too. And with all the potty training going on, Avery has only been wearing underwear...so sorry for that. Her little pudgy body is pretty cute though :)



Troy made the cool egg using a whisk. I thought Avery would be able to better dye eggs if we stuck them in the whisk and let her dye them. As it turns out, she only wanted to drop them into the cups and cheer if she heard the crack of the eggshell. Oh well.

Here's our finished products.



We also managed to make it to church!! YAY! My mom snapped some pictures of Avery and me. And Avery on the swing being adorable!!



She also took some of Troy and me with Avery. They didn't turn out so great. These are seriously the best ones. And they're pretty bad. In that second one it looks like Avery is trying to fly out of Troy's arms. Better luck next year, huh? A special thanks for Megan for sending some hand-me-downs to Avery to include her Easter dress!



On Easter, we had our small group from church over for brunch. Most of us are military or Las Vegas transplants, with no family around. We had a total of 15 adults and 8 kids. It was a little crazy, but we agreed to have a potluck (we made broccoli cheese casserole and fruit salad) complete with ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pasta salad, brownies, and cheesecake. YAY!! There's nothing like some good fellowship with food! And paper plates. No dishes :)

One of the other couples brought 70+ eggs for an Easter egg hunt stuffed with candy. We took a ton of pictures, but I didn't ask any parents if I could post pics of their kids, so you won't see the excited faces of any kids except my Avery :) She LOVED it and caught onto the idea pretty quickly. We didn't know how it'd go. Avery was the youngest and we kind of had to corral the other kids away from the "easy" eggs that we had hidden for her. Luckily there were so many eggs that everyone got a chance to collect a bunch. It was awesome. We will definitely be doing this again next year.



Overall, it was busy and so fun. I'm SO glad my mom was here to help with everything. Did I mention she planted all the flowers in our yard??

How did you spend your Easter?