Some Things of Note

Full Circle
In my last post, I noted that it isn't lost on me how far my life has come in just a year. Last October 9th, I was in the emergency room, 12 weeks and 1 day pregnant. The next day, I would not find myself 12 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Instead, I'd had a D&C at the hospital and was home recovering. I was okay that day, but by the 11th, I was a blubbering mess (warning, that link has a pretty graphic description of what happened). The blubbering lasted about a day and then...oddly, I was okay. I was angry. I wanted a plan. I wanted to move forward. And I resented that I couldn't just jump straight back into the game. But I was okay so long as I was working in some forward direction.

So I called for a follow-up appointment at Shady Hell (only to discover that my RE was off on maternity leave- gah!). I started asking questions. I threw away all my positive pee sticks and started collecting NEW positive pee sticks, but this time with the goal to finally get to the NEGATIVE pee stick. I worked on a plan. I begged for IVF so that I could avoid more useless IUI and the great risk of (ready for it?) high order multiples. I was told no... after all IUI had worked for me so why go through the expense and invasiveness of IVF and anyway, there was NO POSSIBILITY that I would ever end up with more than a twin pregnancy and the goal was a healthy singleton pregnancy at all times, of course. (You may stop laughing anytime now) And slowly, I moved forward.

A year later, I'm sitting here wearing three wrist bands which identify me as authorized to enter the NICU to visit my babies. When the babies are discharged, these wrist bands will identify me as the person authorized to take them home. Because these wrist bands identify that those babies are MINE. All three of them.

Progress on Abba Dabba
So far as I know, Abby has improved. Her hematocrit level yesterday had dropped SLIGHTLY from Saturday, but it was still in a normal range (if it drops any more it will be below normal). What I DON'T know (because my husband is the one who talked to the NP who called while I was out) is whether they are going to assume, based on yesterday's level, that everything is fine now, or if they will re-draw her level in a few days to see if it has stabilized or continues to dip. I am hoping for the latter, but we will see. Meanwhile, she is doing well. They have increased her feeds (pressure to produce more milk! Ack!) which she is tolerating relatively well, but she gets tired after a while, so we're not pushing her. She still has her feeding tube and still needs it fairly frequently. She's only taking about 60% of her feeds by mouth at this point, but that's huge compared to 3 or 4 days ago when she was taking 30-40% of her food by mouth. She is maintaining her own temps, so is out of her isolette and in a regular crib now, which is terrific. However, since pulling her from the isolette, she's been eating more, but not gaining weight, so I wonder if she's burning more calories trying to stay warm now. Plus having increased her PO feeds (food by mouth vs. food by feeding tube), she's probably burning more calories that way also. Hopefully this won't affect her ability to come home soon. She's eating 30mls (one ounce) every 3 hours now. (She started out eating 2.5 mls per feed on her 2nd day in the NICU, so this is huge progress!!)

Progress on Ellie and our Little Man
Ellie and the little guy are doing great. Ellie has been having a BIT too much trouble coordinating the whole suck/swallow/breathe thing while eating lately, but I'm told that should get better in the next week or so. We just have to keep a real close eye on her while she's eating. They are both on "ad lib" feeds which means they get to dictate how much food they eat in a feeding. They are both normally eating nearly two ounces per feeding time (they eat 8x per day)...having started at 4mls per feed on their 2nd day in the NICU. This is a whole lot of pressure to produce milk!! The three combined are eating nearly 40 ounces per day, and I'm producing JUST over 40 ounces per day on average for the last couple of days (some days are less, some days are more). Argh! Hopefully once they come home my production will go up as everyone seems to be predicting it will.

Homecoming?
We still don't know when they're coming home, but they're all close. Ellie and the little guy are coming home some time this week barring any unforeseen circumstances. Abby won't be far behind. Suddenly it seems very, very close! Am I up for this?

State of the Me
About a week after I delivered the triplets, I went to the NICU in the evening and was standing outside the door waiting for them to buzz me in and suddenly my skirt feel off of me (thank heavens only my mother was standing around and she looked away quickly). Now, seriously, THIS IS NOT NORMAL. This was a pre-pregnancy skirt. Not a maternity skirt. A skirt I'd worn LONG before I got pregnant. It just FELL off. Please note that I do NOT recommend the triplet diet to anyone thinking this might be a good weight loss plan. However, it was a bit freaky for moi. This happened with another, smaller skirt a few days later, though thankfully in the privacy of my own home... not out at the NICU. I'm down about 50 pounds from my PRE-pregnancy weight. This would be astounding if, you know, I didn't still have another 40 pounds to lose before I got anywhere near the vicinity of my "ideal" weight. Heh. Oh well. Anyway, I suppose it's as good an opportunity as any to go looking for clothes... except I hate shopping. Fortunately, a friend of mine who is bigger than me, but NEVER throws anything away and has spectacular taste in clothing has bunches of clothes that don't fit her but now fit me. So she handed me piles and piles and piles and piles of clothes last night. It was like shopping except without the depression (I hate shopping because it always makes me feel fat and poor)!!

In other news, I'm thinking that whole high blood pressure thing is a thing of the past. This morning my blood pressure was 98/66. Yesterday was 104/58. I'm thinking maybe it's time to get off the Procardia...

I'm still completely sleep-deprived, which will ONLY get worse once the babies are home, but it's all good. Hopefully I'll settle into more of a routine once they're home, because all the back and forth to the NICU right now makes things a bit tougher.

And that's about it...
I can't think of much else to note for the moment. And even if I could, I have an appointment with Maggie Moo in 15 minutes and I still need a shower. I hope you all are well. I'm SLOWLY catching up with blogs, but I know I'll never completely catch up, so feel free to pop in and give me the highlights of the last 6 weeks or so... I had no internet access at the hospital at all, so it would be nice to know what I missed!