2nd Monday, 5 more Mondays to go? Fingers Crossed

No sonogram yet today so I'll post the results of that later today after it finally happens.  The Peri on today is not much for routine.  He was here this morning but only had time for one more emergent patient and is coming back this afternoon to do the rest of our sonograms in antepartum.

I had a dream last night that my OB called to tell me I was actually having 5 babies and I needed to have that confirmed during my sonogram this morning.  I took the news surprisingly well.  Luckily we still only found 3 heart beats this morning, so I think I'm safe.

Emma and Ethan were good babies this morning and monitored really well, Alex would have no part of it and spent her entire 10 minutes kicking and punching the monitoring pad.  Thankfully my nurse is level headed and doesn't spend an hour trying to make an uncooperative baby get on the monitor when she is clearly moving and we can hear her heart beat.  Emma is the only one that MUST have a 10 minute printed strip so when she isn't in the mood to cooperate monitoring takes forever.

Here's a picture of me all hooked up to the heart beat monitors yesterday afternoon.  You can see how hard the nurses are pushing trying to get the HR's to trace on the computer.  Big surprise this started contractions.  The better nurses don't push this hard.

Yuan has convinced me to start posting my diameter in my weekly tummy size pictures to the right.  Since I'm about the size, or larger, than a 40 week single pregnancy at this point I can safely say, I would have had a cute sized single baby belly.  I am all up front and a cute little round ball of babies.  I'm interested to find out what I look like in 6 or 7 weeks.  I still don't think I'll be as big as I expect.  Thank goodness for being so tall!!

This weekend Yuan brought me noodles with beef /Chinese celery and eggs/ tomatoes - so delicious.  We had that twice.  We played a ton of California Canasta and he killed me.  I need a new strategy...  We took a nice wheel chair ride Sunday, it was in the 60's with tons of sunshine.  Yuan decided to make a work out out of it and found a line of traffic cones in the parking lot that we he ran and pushed me weaving through a few times.  He thinks his record time is about 30 seconds and dares anyone else to beat his time!  He is awesome, I've kept him busy on the weekends with cooking, cleaning and errands.  He tends to spend the mornings at home trying to accomplish everything then the rest of the day and evening here at the hospital.  He also stops by every night and sometimes in the mornings too.  I don't think either of us will be well rested when the babies arrive...  Maybe better to not have such a shock to our systems upon their arrival.  He is an awesome husband, I couldn't ask for anyone better.  

I'm hopefully going to learn how to Knit.  Volunteer services offers knitting and crocheting lessons.  I figured something to pass the time while I watch tv might be nice.  We will see how this goes, I'm not the best at anything sewing related.  My instructor just stopped by to meet me and said she will be back with supplies.  

Had our sonogram this afternoon and yet again no worsening in Emma, yay!  Good fluid, good movements and stable circulation issue.  HR monitoring afterward was less than successful, both Emma and Alex weren't in the mood.  We did the best we could but knowing they had just looked fine on the sonogram helped.

My friend Brenley came by this morning to chat and brought me cookies!!!  Soooo good.  I told her she managed to tie my friend Katie's title for best chocolate chip cookies!  I also got a care package from my brother and his wife that was funny and awesome - thanks again guys!

I have lots of visitors this week, I'm so excited.  Next week is currently open so just contact me to set up a day and time.  I'm going to seek out a way to post a calendar if I can now.  Thanks for being such great friends and family everyone!!

1 week mark

It's been a chaotic morning, not because anything was wrong but because the normal things are all out of wack.  I asked for my breakfast to be delivered at 8:30 today as I had to fast for blood work that had yet to be ordered and most likely wouldn't get drawn until 8:15.  The nutrition hostess last night said it would be no problem she would enter it in my chart.  Well, the food showed up at 7:30 of course.  I told the hostess the situation and she said ok, I'll set it out here for later.  To which I replied, no, I'm not eating hour plus old food, I want a new tray when I asked for it at 8:30.

Over the next hour I had my sonogram which went great, Emma is still the same, other two look good and my cervix hasn't changed even a millimeter!!  Bed rest is helping as are the shots to stop the contractions.  My OB stopped by and he ordered the liver test for choleostasis and said sorry the only thing you can do for some relief from the itching is ice.  :(  But even if I have choleostasis it shouldn't make us have to deliver early.  Yay!!

The nurse was able to get the lab up to draw my blood pretty fast, so they rolled in at 8:15 and got that done.  Then my tray of food was brought in.  Same tray, cold old food with warm milk for my cereal.  Disgusting.  I was pissed-but also starving.  So I just ate the gross breakfast, minus the warm milk.  Then at 9am, nutrition services rolls in with a fresh breakfast tray.  I'm thinking, you have to be kidding me.  I was so aggravated.  It's hard enough getting them to monitor the babies around meal times so I don't always eat cold food.  It would be nice to try and get at least 1 hot meal a day...  Grr.

1st heart rate monitoring of the day good.  Didn't happen until 11am, but still good.  2 more to go.

Yummy lunch today too, chef's salad.  For hospital food I expected far worse, it's been fairly decent.  Definitely edible.  Yuan is making and bringing dinner for the both of us tonight.  Noodles with veggie dishes on top.  So good!  Looking forward to that.  :)  I am having a pedicure today too!  The hospital has approved people than can come in for things like that.  I am so looking forward to that!!  My poor neglected toes.

Here are the sonogram pictures from today.

Ethan's profile.  Mainly his head with a little of the top of his chest.  You can even see a healthy ventricle in his brain!

Alex's portrait.  She is face forward, a little haunting but some well defined features for an ultrasound.  I assume that is her hand next to her head but they are getting crowded in there so it could be someone else's...

The back of Emma's head and part of her spine...  Yep, she rolled over 2 months ago and we haven't seen her face since.  She is camera shy, or else is demanding 1 million dollars for the first portrait of herself-Blue Ivy ain't got nothing on Emma Gao.  Since she is an identical twin I assume she looks a lot like her sister above.  :)

Since everything is looking good today they probably won't do a sonogram again until Monday morning.

Have a nice weekend, I'll only write if something worthy of an update happens.

Oh the itching!

It has been an eventful few days as far as hospitalization goes.  Yesterday, Wednesday we had a scare with Emma.  During her morning heart rate monitoring she had a major deceleration, she was down to 50 bpm and under 100 for 6 minutes of monitoring, in the 50's for at least 2 of those.  The normal HR for a in utero baby is 120 to 180 bpm.  The nurse quickly had me roll from my back to one side then the other trying to get it back up.  She quickly called my OB who said keep monitoring her and get the sonogram done asap!  Her HR did start to climb and luckily the perinatalogist had just arrived so they rushed me to sonogram.  He looked and of course her HR was normal again and thankfully her circulatory problem had not worsened.  She was the same still.  They ordered more monitoring a day to see if this was an isolated event for Emma, like she rolled onto her cord, or if it is a pattern.  So far all her monitoring since has been normal.  :)

I also had a wonderful baby shower yesterday that my friends held here at the hospital in my room.  It was so sweet of them and so many of them were able to alter their plans and make the trip to the hospital.  Thank you again Sarah for arranging everything.

The new news is my itching.  I've been itching all over for a month but it's been manageable.  The last two days it has become far worse.  Last night I barely slept had such bad itching of my palms and soles of my feet.  So we ran some liver blood work today which came back slightly abnormal.  I might have a bile acids test run tomorrow to see if I am developing choleostasis.  If I am it sounds like we have to  hope the acids rise slowly because there is no fix other than delivery...  There is a drink they can put you on to try and keep them lower and delay needing to deliver.  Grr.  So hopefully I'm not going to be a problem.  The blood test takes 4 days to come back.

Having the fun terbutaline shakes right now as I try and type, that's a challenge.  But luckily still only had maximum of 2 a day usage of it for the contractions.  That is good.

My friend Katie and her daughter Annabelle came for a visit today and brought their amazing chocolate chip cookies - of which I've eaten way too many already!  We chatted and then they took me on my wheel chair ride.  It was lovely out and I so appreciated some fresh air.  It was great to have company and helped to fill my morning.  After they left I ate lunch then took a 2.5 hour nap until almost 4pm!  Awesome!

Sonogram tomorrow morning, I'll report on the babies after that.  Wish me a far less itchy night so I can sleep!!!

Tuesday - Day 3, or is it technically day 4?

Since I didn't check in last Friday until about 3pm I'm not sure I can really count that as a day in the hospital.  :)  Although it feels like it.

Nothing much new today.  We did not have a sonogram so the only update on the babies is their first heart rate monitoring of the day was good, everyone close to or in the 150's and everyone is kicking, punching and flipping up a storm.  It makes me feel so reassured to feel them move so much and get stronger with each week.  But it is a busy belly for sure.

My doctor came to discuss contractions this morning.  He is pleased with where I stand with them so far, they aren't too concerning, in fact very typical for 27 weeks with triplets, not worse than they should be.  No regular medication needed for them at this point.  We will continue to treat the ones that come up and start to get regular with intermittent injections of medicine.  It was a reassuring discussion.  I also got permission to have a massage therapist come!  Yay!  I already scheduled a pedicure for Friday - can't wait for that!  It's been 3 months already since I could really reach my toes so they are looking neglected.  He also gave me permission to sit in one of the chairs of my room for meals and here and there during the day for a change of pace.  Though I will eventually be entirely restricted to the bed right now he is more interested in limiting my activity to basically nothing.  But sitting in a chair is cool.  So yay again, a break from the bed!

I tried to get someone from volunteer services to come give me a wheel chair ride today but so far no luck.  I think I missed my window of decent weather now.  At 2pm it was supposed to be 65, the high for the day.  Plus the rain is coming!  Storms are predicted for this evening.  We need the rain so I can't complain.  Hopefully there will be a good lightening show so I have something to watch!

I'm super excited for tomorrow, my friends are throwing me a baby shower at the hospital.  I'm so looking forward to the company, and honestly, the cupcakes.  :)  I also have visitors Thursday and Friday.  I know having someone visit as often as possible will help with the boredom.

I sewed a ripped hem of a nightgown and talked on the phone all morning, that helped.  This afternoon I spoke with my mother in law and have been watching a movie and playing online.  It has become too cloudy to read, I'll just fall asleep though that might just happen anyway.  Better take advantage of naps now!

Moving Monday

I was woken up this morning by a nurse coming in to say you all ready to move to your new room?  That was at 7:20am.  I looked at her and said, I just woke up and this is the first I've heard of the move so can I at least wait for my husband to arrive and pack me and maybe go pee?  :)

Things happened all on top of each other then.  Yuan arrived, quickly packed me, the nurses came to help move our stuff and I jumped into a wheel chair.  I managed to get a ride to the door of my room and was diverted to the Sonogram room for my scan with the perinatologist.  Then during the scan my OB came and found us, said I've been looking everywhere for you, your old room, your new room, if you weren't here I'd think you escaped!

The scan this morning showed no change in Emma's circulation.  But no change is still good.  It didn't get worse.  Ethan and Alex look good too.

Heart rate monitoring went so much faster this morning too!  15-20 minutes tops.  What a difference good monitors make.  :)  But the combo of moving rooms, a sonogram, heart rate monitoring and a shower stirred things up and my contractions were going.  Another shot of Terbutaline.  One last night too.  But I was informed today that my uterus is already the size of a 40 week single pregnancy uterus!  So my body thinks it needs to start contracting and begin labor.

In my new room now.  It is slightly smaller than the LD room but still quite nice.  Better view and better bed!!  A refrigerator and places to put my personal items.  So a good move I think.  Luckily it is quiet too.  You sort of go into a closet to get into my room so I have double doors, that helps with noise - except when people need in the closet...  But I'm ok with it.  I just need a plant or something, I can see brown trees in the distance outside but it feels very sterile.  I was hoping my windows would open, but no luck.  Not like I could fit through the opening to jump out..  Oh well.  My new room is LDR13 and the direct phone number is 817-305-5351.  I have my cell with me at all times so you can just call on that.

Thanks for all the comments and well wishes, they make me feel far less alone.  Hopefully we will make it 8 more weeks!  Seems like an eternity but it would be so awesome for the babies!!!

PS - Thank you to all my neighbors and friends on Delaina for the shower you were all having for me on Friday.  I'm bummed it had to be cancelled but it was such a nice thing to have you all participate in.  I received your gift - thank you to everyone!  And Angie sent the cake with Yuan to the hospital, it was delicious and so cute.  We shared with the LD floor and everyone was excited.  Here is a picture of the cake before the feeding frenzy began.

They are technically Gao Triplets :)  

No worries, having a different last name than your husband messes a lot of things up.  

Thank you so much Angie and Kim for organizing the shower!  That was incredibly thoughtful of you.

Catching You Up

I decided to start a blog to keep everyone updated on the triplet's progress day to day.  It seemed easier than sending and answering individual emails and texts - though that is one way to kill the time!  So here goes the first post which includes a little catching you all up on the last few days so it is going to be a little long.

On Friday January 20th at our Perinatologist appointment it was discovered that Baby C, better known as Emma, is having circulatory issues.  That alone landed me in the hospital that day for bed rest and close monitoring of her especially but also her identical twin Alex since they now share a placenta.  Additionally, my cervix had shortened to 2.5cm which is the cut off for being off bed rest and needing to be put on it.  So double whammy Friday morning.  Luckily there was no imminent danger so I was allowed to go home and pack, eat lunch, and I even squeezed in a maternity photo shoot with my amazing photographer friend Sarah!  So happy to have done those photo's, Sarah already sent me two and they are awesome!  I will find out if I can post some soon.

Emma's circulatory issue stems from the placenta.  She has low/immeasurable diastolic pressure.  Simply meaning the blood from the placenta is flowing into her still but isn't coming back out as well as it should.  She currently doesn't have back flow of the blood which is a good thing!  So there are many scenarios of what could happen with this.  One, the worst case is she starts having back flow of blood and that will stop her growth and everyone has to be delivered early, this week or next.  Two, the circulation stays the way it currently is, not worsening not improving, and she still doesn't have good growth in two weeks, we probably deliver at 29 weeks.  Third, circulation stays the way it is but she keeps growing enough then everyone stays in.  Fourth, her circulation improves and she grows then again everyone stays in and we shoot for 34 + weeks.  There is a small possibility Alex's circulation could become affected also but that would mostly happen if Emma's worsens or doesn't improve.  This apparently is very common in triplets, even twins, and a lot of them do manage to hang on with bed rest for many more weeks.  So we are hopeful.  Just to clarify, the problem is in the placenta, not Emma's heart so this won't affect her outside the womb.

When we finally go to the hospital I was admitted and put in a Labor and Delivery room because antipartum was full.  No big deal they are right next to each other and nice for me because the LD room is HUGE compared to the Anti room.  I didn't have to go on an IV which is so nice, I have more mobility and less irritating things attached to me.  They gave me my first steroid shot to help mature the triplets lungs in case things get worse and we have to deliver in the next week or two.  So I will hang out in LD until a woman with triplets in antipartum delivers this week, then I get her room :)  The nice thing about having triplets is I need so much additional monitoring equipment that they have to keep me in big rooms.  This hospital only has 2 large antipartum rooms so I have one waiting for me now.  :)  Yay!  This is a big deal to me because I was in a small room at 13 weeks and it was icky.  Old, run down, tiny tiny with a tiny tiny bathroom to boot, and loud in a more used hallway.  The large room is much more quite, recently updated and doesn't feel claustrophobic.  Fingers crossed it has a view too, my current room does and that's nice.

Saturday morning both my OB and the second perinatologist visited me and gave a lot of reassurance.  The perinatologist did another sonogram and nothing had changed.  I will be given a sonogram every other day unless anything indicates I need one sooner.  I get their heart rates monitored 2 times a day, which is a ridiculous ordeal right now.  Since there are a lot of women here needing monitored and another triplet mom I got stuck with one new monitor and one old one.  They each only monitor 2 babies at a time.  So for the past 2 days they have had Ethan and Alex on the new monitor and then they spend over an hour trying to get Emma on the old monitor.  Finally this morning I asked why we couldn't try getting Emma on the new monitor, she is deeper and harder to trace and the new monitor seems far more sensitive.  Well, they got her immediately, of course...  But that meant one of the other babies needed to move to the old monitor.  I suggested Ethan he doesn't have as much room to move and is fairly shallow.  They were able to get him on the monitor pretty quickly too.  Now you'd think they would then catch Alex on the new monitor, but for some stupid reason they try and get her on the old one too...  Why?  So they spend 30+ minutes trying to catch Alex's heart rate and of course they can't.  I am getting more and more frustrated at this point and have asked twice why they can't just get her on the new monitor.  FINALLY, a new nurse comes in and does it they way I keep suggesting and we have everyone easy and finally finish, again after an hour.  So tonight I am demanding Emma and Alex go on the new monitor and Ethan only on the old.  Apparently when I get the other triplet mom's room I get two new monitors and this won't be an issue.  I know, seems like I"m making a big deal out of this but is is very irritating and uncomfortable to my stomach leaving me with a red itchy belly.  They also always do it when my dinner arrives so I only eat cold dinners...  AND they interrupt prime time TV which is the only TV worth watching each day.  So it would be great if this got easier.  :)

Sunday morning I was woken up by strong contractions at 5am.  I been having contractions since 17 weeks it isn't abnormal to be feeling them.  They have woken me up at night before.  So I cat napped with them until about 6:30 and then called a nurse to put me on a monitor.  After an hour it showed I was having regular contractions every 7 minutes and she wanted to call a doc to ask about giving me a Terbutaline injection to calm them down.  The doc decided with the other stuff going on we should do the shot.  So at 8:30 I got the drug.  The nurse asked if I'd had the medicine before, I said no and she said the common side effect is feeling gittery like having too much caffeine.  I got the shot, ran to the bathroom, came back out and was shaking head to toe.  The nurse came back in with my breakfast right away and I asked if it happened that fast and she said yep.  I was shaking like crazy, far more than caffeine can make you shake, more like having drug with draws or very advanced Parkinson's.  Kind of crazy.  It lasted about an hour and a half.  The nurse said the drug opens up all the vessels to get blood to the uterus and relax it.

Also, today, Sunday the Neonatologist came to visit us and talk about what the babies might face with premature birth, both starting next week and through 34 weeks.  He was very nice, explained everything thoroughly and in an understandable manner.  He was very positive that even if we have to deliver soon things will be ok.  There will be struggles but they have a lot of experience with babies as early as 23 weeks that make it.

The rest of Sunday has been fairly uneventful.  There was some entertainment earlier in the day, the woman in the room next to me was in labor and the first time I heard her the was a lot of screaming and cussing as her first painful contractions started.  I don't think she was prepared to feel that.  :)  For the next 8 hours we heard a lot out of her.  Did I say my room was quiet?  Haha.  No, it really is, so no worries.

Yuan cooked me dinner tonight for Chinese New Years and as of midnight tonight our babies will officially be born as Dragons!  For those of you who don't know Yuan is a tiger and I'm a dragon so he is going to be very out numbered by 4 dragons.  Dragons are a bit of an aggressive year so he's in for 3 more Adrienne personalities...  Poor guy.  He made dumplings and some Chinese broccoli - they were DELICIOUS and I wanted to keep eating but my limited space meant limited dumplings.  I'm hoping for a repeat tomorrow night.  :)

Sunday looks like it is ending with us watching the 49ers and Giants (go Eli!) and waiting for our 2nd hear rate monitoring of the day.

I will try to blog about progress at least every other day and I doubt they will be nearly as long as this, but as I said, I had some catching up to do.

I'm at Baylor of Grapevine Hospital in the Labor and Delivery ward, 2nd floor of the Women's Center.  I would love visitors so email me and we can set up a day and time. My friend Katie recommended borrowing dvd's of TV shows I haven't seen so if you have any that you are willing to share email me and I'll tell you if I've seen or not.  If you are visiting I would love to play games, I have cards, or you can bring a game, just talk, and some of you will get roped into giving me my 30 minute wheel chair ride of the day or helping me with bed exercises.

Thank you all who already know and have written with well wishes, we really appreciate them.  Just keep praying for them to stay in 34+ weeks.