08-01 Expanding Feet

Yes, yes, I know, I'm supposed to be expanding. But that's in the tummy!

Yesterday I put on a pair of sandals...brand new, just bought them in March. By the time I got home last night, they were so tight they felt like they were cutting off circulation. And all I'd been doing was sitting down the whole evening! Then tonight, all my shoes were too tight. Oh well, I guess I won't be needing shoes much this year anyway, what with being on bedrest and all.

Here's an interesting fact related to breastfeeding...Blondes, redheads, and other really light-skinned women have more sensitive nipples than darker-skinned women. I read that somewhere just recently, but I had heard something similar from my podiatrist a couple of years ago, who said that extremely fair women were more prone to the type of plantar fasciitis pain that I had. On a similar note, the same podiatrist said that his patients were split about 50/50 over whether labor or a steroid shot was more painful.

08-02 Minivans and Music

Someone mentioned the "minivan craze" to me today...see, that's why I didn't want one! But then again, how do you get three carseats into anything smaller? I just went from an Escort hatchback to a pickup truck, and now I've got a minivan! Don't have any kids yet, don't even look pregnant yet just extremely fat, so I feel like an imposter driving around town in the thing. Didn't have any trouble getting it, though, no shortage; the craze here is on pickup trucks, everybody wants pickup trucks here.

I've never been a very emotional person, but ever since I got pregnant, the tears come without warning. I've been crying at sappy television commercials, sad stories, a surprising variety of things. Especially whenever I think about having these babies, the faucets turn on.

I was pretty chubby in the midsection before I got pregnant, and pretty much my entire life I've had this lovely crease in my body right around my bellybutton, so whenever I sat down it looked like I had two bellies. Always wearing jeans that were too tight didn't help this any. So, to anybody who knew me before, I look pregnant now, because before this T-shirts would hang loose past my chest, so you couldn't see my belly; now my belly pokes everything out past my chest. Only, that lovely crease is still there, all the time. So friends have marveled at how big my belly is getting, but I have yet to have anybody else ask me when I'm due or anything like that; I still walk around in T-shirts and jeans most of the time, so if you don't know me I just look really fat! Kind of depressing, really.

My mother got me Baby Bach and an album called the Romantic Flute when I got pregnant, plus I have a bunch of celtic, classical, and modern instrumental albums, so I've been playing these for the babies, something at least once or twice a day. I have a cheap pair of headphones that I stretch across my belly. Plus, between my piano and flute practice, they get plenty of music! From what I've heard, if it's not too loud for you it will be okay for the baby, so I try to keep mine at about conversational level.

08-03 Cats and a hospital tour

We are moving in 2 weeks into an apartment closer to Brian's work so he can walk to work while I am bedridden. Because he's blind we had absolutely no choice in where we could move to; these are the only apartments this close. Unfortunately, these apartments charge $450 per animal in pet deposits, and $250 of that is non-refundable. Because of this, we can only afford to bring one cat with us. We have another cat that must find a home. She is 5 years old, a gray tabby cat, spayed, declawed, and current on all her shots. I have been in tears all morning because the lady I thought was going to take her in just called and said she can't. I have had ads out since mid-June with no other responses, and I have called everyone I know. Even the local pet shelters won't call me back. If I have to put this cat to sleep I will have nightmares for the rest of my life; I need to know she will be with a good home. If anybody can help, please let me know.

We did our tour of the hospital today to get it all taken care of before I go on bedrest. The LDR rooms here are pretty huge, too, but I won't be seeing those again. Here they take regular babies away immediately after birth, then give them back for recovery, then take them away for another hour for bathing and warming while they transfer you to a mother-baby room. I don't like that at all; just reinforces my original decision not to give birth in a hospital. But, since I don't have any choice in it now, I guess it doesn't matter. The way they explained it was, they only have 23 LDR rooms. They used to use them for postpartum as well, but now they've run out of room, so they converted the rest of the floor to the mother-baby rooms so they would have more spaces available. I guess it would be pretty sad if they had to turn somebody away because there was no room; they already have to stick people in non-LDR rooms, itty bitty things, if they get too busy. And they said normally the separation between recovery and the mother-baby room was just long enough to clean mom up and get her there. Still don't like it.

Another thing I don't like is Brian can't stay with me while they prep me for the cesarean, he can only come in when everything is ready, so I'll be all alone for most of it. But again, I have no choice. There are only two hospitals of this level in town, and I think the other one is pretty much the same. After the regular tour, the tour guide nurse snuck us into the cesarean room so we could see what that would be like. Not pretty, but I feel ever so much better having a picture of what to expect instead of this big gray area. We found out that I will be on the maternity floor no matter when I go in; for preterm labor they'll put me in an LDR room until I'm stabilized and then move me to a mother-baby room until the birth, when I go back to LDR to prep, into the operating room for the section, back into recovery, then back to mother-baby later. I guess I'm going to be seeing every room in that place!! I'm definitely going to have to customize my room if I'm there more than a day or two. I despise institutional-looking rooms.

We didn't get to see NICU tonight after all; they had a situation when we finished the tour and didn't want us up there, so we'll have to try again later. They had 43 babies in ICU this weekend!!

Also found out I'm going to be highly decorated, with three ID bracelets of my own, and an additional one for each baby. The babies each get two bracelets, wrist and ankle, and a fourth is supposed to go to whoever gets into the nursery. So we get to cheat; everybody else can only let that one person go into the nursery, but I can let in three!

08-06 Missing out

I feel like I'm missing out here. It sounds ridiculous, even to me, but it's true. It's not the bedrest or anything else; I can deal with that. Even Brian says bedrest sounds like a dream come true to him; since both of us spend 99% of our time either in front of the computer, the tv, or a book, I'm not missing much with that.

But something that I had been looking forward to so much was actually giving birth to my child. I'm not going to get to give birth to these babies. Yes, they're my babies, I'm growing them, they are mine genetically and physically and I will love them. But it's like I'm not going to have to do anything to get them. All I have to do is show up; beyond that the doctors go to great lengths to ensure that I have nothing to do with the process. I won't even be allowed to go through labor.

I feel like this is a badge of honor that I'm not going to be allowed to go through. I know it's not fun. But there must be something there I'm missing, or the "twilight birth" period of medical history would never have ended. There are so many hormones created during labor and birth; I won't get any of those, just some drugs to make sure I don't feel anything. I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling; it's like...I can't even think of a proper analogy. There's nothing I can compare this to. I guess I feel like I'm missing out on part of becoming a woman. It's a right of passage that I have to skip. And I might not ever get a second chance.

I don't regret the decision to have a cesarean; it's the right thing to do, the safest. I am so happy that I am having these babies, and I'm so looking forward to seeing them and watching them grow. But I'm still grieving for the part of the process that I'm going to miss.

08-07 On the lighter side

Comedian Steve Wright: "I was born by ceserean section. Most of the time you can't tell, except whenever I leave the house I go out through the window."

Brian's response: "I was born by natural childbirth. Most of the time you can't tell, except whenever I leave the house I go out through the cat door."

We've also decided that we would like to have more children someday, as long as our finances can support them.

08-09 First contractions

I'm looking forward to the babies' third birthday. By that time, they should all be walking, talking, and pretty much potty trained. They may not be good at it, but it'll be a start. They'll be more like real people then.

Well, here comes the fun part of having triplets...Contractions!!! I had a bunch last night, for several hours. Scared Brian so bad he made me call the doctor. But the only thing I can do right now is drink more than my weight in water (feels like that!) and lie down; the doctors all seem to agree that tocolytics won't even have an effect until 20 weeks. Next visit next week I get to find out all the juicy details about exactly when to call and what to do.

08-11 Stretch Marks

I've discovered an interesting thing with my stretch marks. I have a beautiful set from when I was 17 and I gained about 30 pounds during my fourth semester at college. They look just like pregnancy stretch marks, too. They've all faded and turned white now. The new ones for the pregnancy started popping up a couple of weeks ago, and now I've got ten or fifteen new ones. But except for one or two, all of the new ones are just extensions of the old ones. Very strange looking; right now they're just getting started, so it looks like I have red dots on the ends of my old stretch marks.

08-13 Watching the birth

I'm one of those people who has to watch the whole time if I get blood drawn or stitches done or anything else. They say to cough before I get a shot or something and I say yeah right, just stick me! I asked the doctor if we couldn't just lower or get rid of that curtain at the birth, and they said something about germs getting in. This doesn't make sense to me. It seems to me that any germs I could breathe on that cut would already be there in my body. But I got a look at the operating room when we did our tour and they have a big mirror they said they would set up so I could watch that way.

I saw a live triplet birth on the Health Network last night. They filmed it over the doctor's shoulder, so you can see everything. Plus, they kept filming after the babies were out of the room. I don't know what exactly they were doing to that poor woman's stomach, but I don't think she really wanted to see it!

08-16 Music

Pregnancy has definitely been affecting my musical abilities. I sing and play flute (and piano, but I won't be doing that this fall), and I've noticed a lot more trouble with longer passages. Part of it is babies crowding out my lungs; I have a hard time taking a deep breath now unless I'm in just the right position. But also when you're pregnant your need for oxygen goes up and so does your respiration, so whatever breath you take just doesn't last as long. I've even been breathing faster at night

Piano was my first instrument; I started that when I was four. I was originally trained to be a concert pianist, but when my parents moved to a different town we never found a teacher quite as good as the first, so I just kind of went my own way. Since I was 12 I have played oboe, bassoon, viola, guitar, harp, clarinet, and flute. A lot of the time I can't stand listening to myself long enough to get the necessary practice in; I think I only lasted a couple of months on the clarinet! I think it's better for kids to start learning an instrument when they're really little, like I was on piano. That way, they don't know how bad they sound and get disappointed. I can't wait to teach piano to these three.

08-17 Moving

I was supposed to be moving last weekend. We got a call from the apartments last Tuesday; some people who had put a hold on a first-floor apartment never called back, so we got it! Only the move-in date for it was August 21 instead of the 14th. So we still haven't moved yet, now it's this Saturday. But things are looking good, looks like we should have everything packed up. And we'll have a first-floor apartment, which will be really good with the kids. I was starting to have nightmares about hauling a triplet stroller up the stairs!

08-18 It's a Girl!

We found out today that we have at least one girl. We couldn't get a good enough look at the other two today, so we don't know about them, but Lefty is now Tamara Elayne. Hopefully we'll be able to see the other two better on Monday, when we go in for the Level III ultrasound.

So far I've gained 26 pounds, which I think is pretty much on track considering I'll start gaining even faster soon. I'm not doing anything special, though. I just told myself I could throw everything Jenny Craig taught me about only eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm full out the window and eat as much as I want whenever I want. So I stuff myself sometimes, but I don't force myself to eat or anything. I try to get in a good protein shake every day, and eat lots of protein at other times, but aside from that I just follow my appetite...and then some! It's going to be interesting unlearning all these bad habits again after the babies come.

The end of this month is when I'll get mean about bedrest. But I'll probably start for the most part as soon as we move, because we're going to just set everything up for it as we move in. It's much easier that way.

08-20 Genetics and a crib

Brian and I are constantly arguing over what the babies will look like. He doesn't believe me when I say my family has strong genes. My father's family is Swedish, I'm third-generation American. They marry dark people and consistently have blonde-haired, blue-eyed, pale as snow children. My mother is Cajun, brown hair and eyes, and my brother and I are both still extremely fair. Brian is part-Native American, so he's pretty dark; he says if we have blonde-haired blue-eyed babies he's having them DNA tested!

I finally got the baby shower invitations out this week, and apparently everybody's already getting them. We came back from buying more boxes this afternoon, and we got a call from Babies-R-Us, saying somebody had bought something on our registry. A crib!!!! One down, two to go! And these are old friends of my dad's who I haven't even seen in over five years; I didn't expect more than a card from them, much less a $100 crib. Wow!!! We're going to go pick it up tomorrow after we move and set it up in the nursery. Our first nursery furniture...I'm just walking on air right now, this is so cool! *sniff* Now I'm crying...

08-21 Moving Day

Even though the house we've been living in is only a couple of miles away from Brian's office, right across the highway, he has been unable to find a ride to work since he's been there. So today we moved across the highway to an apartment complex right next door to Brian's office. This way, he'll be able to walk to work while I'm on bedrest.

The move exhausted me even though I didn't really do anything. I was under strict orders from my doctor not to pack or move anything. Still, I felt like a complete heel, sitting around and telling other people what to do. It was the fastest move we've ever made; we actually got everything done in one day, instead of the usual two weeks. Some friends of ours even loaned us their kids for the day to help with the small stuff; they worked hard for us. We also had some friends that Brian met through his old job helping us out. They're three guys who have spent almost every weekend for the last twenty years helping somebody move. They were great; beer is a wonderful incentive!

It's just really starting to hit just how crowded we will be here. We plan to move after the babies are born, but the time in between their coming home and the next move is going to be rough. This is a 900 sq. ft., 3-bedroom apartment; we wouldn't even have been able to get our old waterbed in here! But, of course, we had no choice, if Brian is to be able to get to work.

08-27 Back online

This week has been extremely frustrating for me. Naturally, my doctor forbade me to do anything on the move except give orders. Unfortunately, this includes unpacking. Our help with the move also didn't do much unpacking, although I got the kids to do some of the kitchen.

So I have been sitting all this week without television, without my computer, without access to my books, my sewing, or anything else, including most of my dishes. I have a tatting project and one book that I kept with me during the move, and that's it. Not much fun.

Fortunately, my brother arrived toward the end of the week. He's been helping a little; at the very least he's another human being to talk to!

I did get my computer back online today, thank goodness! Once my brother got here, he was able to dig through the mess and find everything I needed to hook up. We set it up in the living room, on the coffeetable, because I plan to spend my bedrest primarily on the couch. My brother even bought me a new mouse, one of those trackballs, to make it easier for me. The internet guy came today to hook up our new broadband access that we can get in these apartments. The only problem is, I haven't been able to get the network card I bought to work. How frustrating! So for now, I'm still connecting on the phone line to my old account.

08-28 Baby shower

Today I had my baby shower. My friend Laura Stoltenberg threw it for me and we hosted it in the common room at our apartment complex. She completely surprised me with everything she did. She brought all these little sandwiches she made herself, plus all kinds of other food and drinks. She also got me a cake, although I knew about that one; we went together to pick it out.

I got so many wonderful presents! Lots of little stuff, of course, but also so much big stuff. I was so surprised by some of the people who got big things, as well as at some of the things they got! Many people came who I didn't expect to see, and they all came bearing gifts. We got three high chairs, two carseats, and a gigantic teddy bear. (...and a partridge in a pear tree...)

I haven't the slightest idea where this bear is going to go, especially since we already have a six-foot-long stuffed lion we got for Christmas several years ago. I think we'll have to stuff the lion under a crib, and maybe we can prop the bear in a corner for now.

08-30 Level III Ultrasound

We had our first Level III ultrasound today, finally! It was originally scheduled for last week, but apparently the doctor got subpeonaed to testify in court or something, so they had to reschedule it. We had been hoping to find out the sexes before the baby shower so we could tell everybody.

The babies are looking good this week, though. We have two girls and a boy! This means we can finally pick names for everybody, so we have Brenden Connor, Tamara Elayne, and Caitlin Alyssa. Brenden is on the bottom (formerly known as Sleepy), Tamara is in front of him and to the left, and Caitlin is high up on the right. Now I know who's been dancing on my bladder!

The ultrasound took about an hour and a half, as the tech spent time with each baby, measuring the head, belly, and arms and legs, making sure everything was there and growing normally. What fun! Toward the end, she took a look at my cervix, and apparently something didn't look right. She said it looked "beaked." So I was ordered to stay on the table, and they hooked me up to a toco monitor to monitor contractions while we waited for the doctor to come back from a lecture he was giving at the hospital across the street.

When the doctor arrived, he checked me internally, and announced that I wa dilated to the tune of 1.8 cm. Worse, Brenden's sac was poking through, and the doctor could feel it hanging out. This, obviously, was not good. The technician, ever tactful, commented that if we hadn't already had an appointment for today, we most likely would have lost all the babies.

So, in short, I've been admitted to the hospital and placed on IV fluids and antibiotics in anticipation of a cerclage tomorrow evening. That will sew my cervix shut so we can keep the babies in longer. I didn't even get to go home first; we had to call some friends to take Brian home and get some stuff. My poor brother is going to be there alone tonight.

Did you know that they measure your urine in the hospital? They put this big cup in the toilet that covers the whole seat. You're supposed to pee in that. Then the nurse comes in every so often and measures it. Wouldn't you like to have her job?

08-31 Cerclage

I had the cerclage put in today. What an experience! Thank goodness it's over, though, and I don't have to worry about losing my babies anymore.

I've been starving most of the day. I wasn't allowed anything to eat or drink after 10 in the morning, because of the anesthesia. Brian stayed with me all day, and we read and listened to the tv, just waiting.

I thought I was okay, but when the orderlies finally came to take me downstairs, I lost it. Brian was able to stay with me until they were ready to take me into the operating room. They said he couldn't see me in the recovery room afterwards, but they said they would go get a book from him so I would have something to do while I waited for the anesthesia to wear off.

The doctors wanted to give me general anesthesia, but I was worried about this because I've developed the most horrible cold over the weekend. I can't breathe through my nose and I'm coughing a lot. So I was able to talk them into giving me a spinal. That was a big relief; the thought of going under scares me to death.

The way the doctors explained it to me, they don't worry about a general anesthetic affecting the babies this early because they're still on my life support. It's at birth that a general can become a problem, because the babies are about to have to breathe and everything on their own and they might be too dopey to do it. But when they're not going to be born anytime soon, it doesn't hurt them at all, and they were concerned about my reaction to being awake for the surgery along with the risk of severe headache after a spinal.

I was very scared, but it was actually much easier than I expected. The doctors said they will also want to give me a spinal when the babies are born, so now I know what to expect. I had to sit up on the edge of the operating table with my feet hanging over the side, and hold on to a nurse so I could hunch over and relax. When the needle went in, it really just felt like a mosquito bite. It took effect so fast, I needed help to lie down and straighten out my legs.

The surgery itself took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I kept myself entertained by listening to the doctors. Did you know they really do talk about golf in the operating room?

The anesthesia started to wear off as I was being wheeled to recovery, which really seemed to surprise the doctors. I was completely bored. There was nothing to look at; I couldn't even see my own monitors. Plus, as the anesthesia wore off, I started feeling very crampy. Then, when I really needed the distration, they told me I couldn't have my book after all! I think next time I'm going to hide the book under my shirt or something, I won't let them take it away.

I think I was supposed to spend an hour in recovery, but after spending twenty minutes complaining about the cramps and asking everybody in sight if they had something to read, they finally sent me back to my room. Yippee! I was escorted by a very nice young male orderly wearing a black cap with skeletons on it. I'm sure that goes over real well with other patients.

On to a slightly nastier topic, but I know a lot of people worry about this more than they need to, so I'll share. I did have to have a catheter put in after the cerclage. I was a bit scared, but even putting it in without anesthetic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Once it was in place, all I felt was a strange feeling, almost like needing to pee, that I got used to. The most annoying part of the whole thing was the tube, which was taped to my thigh. Seemed like every time I rolled over I had to adjust it. But it was definitely nowhere near as bad as I expected it to be, and facing it again I would have no hesitation at all.