Well, it has been a month since my last update. Sorry. You
would think with school ending I would have more time to update, but it has
really meant more time to sleep and go to the doctor with a little time for holiday
celebration sprinkled in of course. A
lot has happened since my last post, so I will try to highlight it week-by-week
as best I can.
Belly: It has
grown a LOT since my 30 week post, but the scariest part is that it has grown a
lot between 33 and 34 weeks. At 32 weeks, I had Jay take a side shot of belly
during which he responded that it looked as though I was pretending to be
pregnant by putting a basketball in my shirt - see below, which is why I proceed
to crack up in the series of pictures :-) Eventhough I am slathering my belly like
crazy the stretch marks have come. They are not nearly as bad as some of the
pictures I have seen online it is scary how they have come all at once and all
of a sudden. I hope they stop.
31 Weeks
32 Weeks
33 Weeks
Symptoms: Let’s
start with the old/continuing symptoms – nosebleeds, backaches and spasms
(Epsom salt is a miracle cure), shortness of breath.
And now for the new - At 32w6d (December 18) after perfect blood pressure and no
protein in my urine suddenly my blood pressure spiked and there was the dreaded
protein. These are both signs of
preeclampsia, for which first time moms and moms of multiples are both at
increased risk. Before you panic Downton
Abbey fans Lady Sybil died of eclampsia not preeclampsia. I feel confident it
won’t come to that :-) Anyhow, because of this I have had to be very
careful about checking my blood pressure each day and I had to collect all my
urine for 24 hours (so fun) to get a true read on the protein. After all this they did in fact determine
that I have preeclampsia, but it appears to very mild. I am so blessed they didn’t hospitalize me
for the holidays. Also, I have been
diligently implementing lots of home remedies thanks to mom and Dr. Jessica
(lemon oil on my liver, apple cider vinegar, Himalayan salt, increased Livaplex
a supplement that detoxes your liver) and my blood pressure seems to be
lowering. All of this is good news for me, but also for the boys. Preeclampsia could force us to deliver early
to protect me, but also because it can put them in distress.
Activities: I’ll
try to do this week by week since so much has happened and I am so far behind.
31 Weeks - This marked
the end of my semester. I think my body
shut down a little after having taught my last class and administering finals, and
I almost immediately started having contractions. This was a little scary, but then the doctors
explained that it was just my body reacting to the size of itself (gee, thanks)
and that to expect them from now on. Since
I was having contractions and since I am past the 28 week mark, Dr. MacClenahan decided to go ahead and
give me the steroid shots that trigger lung development. This is important
because to be effective you have to have two shots, one 24 hours following the initial
shot. If I had been in labor, they would
have needed to try to hold me off for at least 24 hours to get both shots
in. Now that I’ve had the shots, there
is less urgency (read: fear) if and when I do go into labor naturally since we
won’t necessarily have to put things on hold for 24 hours. During this they also checked my cervix,
which is still going strong and even though babies A and B were head down at 31
weeks they do not appear to be putting pressure on my cervix.
32 Weeks: Besides
being a huge milestone for viability for the boys, 32 weeks marked the beginning
of our Christmas celebrations. This is a very nontraditional Christmas for our
family. In addition to my not being able to travel, my brother is in his first
year of residency and had to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we celebrated early. Mom, Steve, Morgan, and David joined Jay and I in
Greenville for the weekend. We had lots of good food and they explored
Greenville while I rested. On Saturday night, we had Christmas dinner and
presents at our house. Below are some pics of the celebration.
Me wearing the bow mom made for our mailbox as a hat :-) This matches the awesome wreath we (mostly she) made.
As I mentioned previously, we had a bit of scare with the
preeclampsia symptoms at 32w6d. All of this was discovered at my appointment with
the specialist (maternal fetal medicine) where they did a growth measurement of
the boys. One thing that triggered them
to check my blood pressure and urine at the specialist (they usually only do
this at the OB’s office) is because they boy’s growth has slowed down
slightly. While this is to be expected
as we near the end, it was a little surprising given what a great trajectory
they had been on up until this time. The
bad news, they boys’ size is now in like the 20th percentile when it
had been in the 60th. The good news is they are all at or near 4
pounds:
Baby A 3lbs 14oz – head down, torso and legs on right side
of my body (babies A and B are kind of keeping each other company with their
heads together. I can’t help thinking about how weird that is that they have
been upside down for over a month now).
Baby B 3lbs 12oz – head down on my left side, torso and legs
sandwiched in between Babies A and C (because of his weird position it was very
hard to measure him. I think he could be a little bigger than the estimates,
but that’s why they’re called estimates I guess).
Baby C 4lbs 4oz – transverse, head on my right side body to
the left (he has clearly carved out the best spot for himself and has the most room
to grow. When we first found out we were having triplets, Jay and I always expected
baby C to be our little runt since the third embryo was a slightly lower grade
than the other two. We know that baby C is not necessarily the third embryo and
that embryo quality does not necessarily impact later development, but this was
just a thought we had that was clearly wrong :-)
Mom pointed out that baby C gets most of my attention since his head is
literally on top of the pile and where I tend to touch the most, so maybe that
is also why he is bigger. Jay says Baby C is already a momma’s baby since biggest or not he
will the youngest).
The other bad news is we have no good pictures at this
point. They are just too smushed, but we can see from the scans that they are
developing rapidly. The funniest news of all is that both Babies A and C (and
maybe B, again it was hard to get accurate measurement) have heads in the 90th
percentile. If you’ve met Jay you are
aware he has a huge head and my nephews also have large heads that are always
in the 90th percentile even when their height weight is on the lower
end of the scale. My poor sister-in-law
even broke her tailbone giving birth to my eldest nephew. I had to text her
immediately with the news. These are definitely Ennis boys on the way.
33 Weeks: After
our first semi-bad news, we were thrilled to have family coming into town to celebrate
again. Dad, Tracy, Rachel and Dakota came to visit us to celebrate Christmas in
Greenville on Saturday before heading to Knoxville to celebrate with David on
Sunday. It was great to see everyone and
meet Rachel’s boyfriend Dakota. We had a great little visit, and again it was
kind of fun to do Christmas at our house.
The next day, Kip and Bobby stopped in to visit and celebrate Christmas
with us. The Gardennismiths did their
Christmas celebration on Thanksgiving in Florida, but we were on travel
restriction and had to miss out, so it was great that they were able to come
through Greenville before heading up to see Christy, Bryan, and Waylon who also
had a to miss the Thanksmas celebration.
The next day (December 22), we went back to the specialist
to check on the boys again. The great news was that even though my blood
pressure had been spiking all weekend, the boys looked even better than they
had the previous Thursday. The blood
flow from their cords to their bodies looked better and they were all
practicing breathing. Mom came into town
that day to help drive me to all my doctor’s appointments and so I won’t be
alone while Jay is at work, especially with these newfound complications. On
Tuesday the OB called with my urine results (and as I mentioned previously a
diagnosis of preeclampsia). We went in to see them (I was fully prepared to be
admitted since they were seconds away from admitting me on Friday after the initial
urine results came in), but since my blood pressure was normal they said to
come back Friday (the day after Christmas) to monitor the babies. The doctor I saw that day (not my favorite so
I won’t mention her name) said you may be having these babies this weekend. Obviously, I did not like hearing this. Even though
we are out of the extreme danger zone, I want these boys to cook as long as
possible as I know every day inside decreases time in the NICU and long term
complications.
We had a lovely, low-key Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went
to candlelight service at Christ Church Episcopal. It was a beautiful service
and I was glad I got to show mom the church (very cool old church in downtown Greenville
in the middle of an awesome old cemetery). I was also glad Jay suggested I remain
seated during hymns or else it might have been too much for me. It was a very special night and the priest
gave me and the boys a special blessing during communion. Afterwards, we went to PF Chang’s, which is
always special to me :-) On Christmas Day, we had a lovely meal of ham
(thanks Dad), hash brown casserole (thanks Amanda) and leftovers I had frozen
from our earlier celebrations. We also half watched Die Hard and half decorated a gingerbread house before I needed a nap. That night, Jay and I kept with tradition and went to see
The Hobbit (we usually go to a movie every year on Christmas with my dad). This may be the last movie we see for the
next 8-10 years, so I’m glad we went.
34 Weeks: The
next day we went to OB triage to check on the boys. Since the specialist was
closed for the holidays they had us go to OB triage and see their doctor on
call. I reluctantly packed a bag just to
be safe (remember the babies this weekend comment). However, it was absolutely not necessary
because while we were there my blood pressure was normal and the boys all
scored an 8/8 on their tests (fingers moving, arms moving, practicing breathing,
and plenty of fluid/room in their sacs). It’s a Christmas miracle! Now we are
home waiting and resting and just ecstatic to be at 34 weeks. We go back to the
specialist on Tuesday.
Initially, the doctor said the goal was to get to 34 weeks
(we’re here!) and that they wouldn’t let me go past 36 weeks (January 9). My goal has been
35 weeks and 5lbs all along. My goal date has been January 5. Jay’s
guess is January 6. I have
asked the boys not to come on January 1 for obvious, football-related reasons,
so far they have been pretty well behaved, so we’ll see…
