Say “Cheese and Peanut Butter!”

This past week was a rather uneventful week from my perspective, but certainly not from the growth and development of the babies!  All three babies are now the size of raspberries and are about ½ inch long. It makes me wonder, if I am only carrying 3 raspberries, why does my belly look like I have 5 layers of pancakes instead…needless to say my belly has recently “popped”!  Our babies are starting to get their facial features including lips, eyelids, a jaw, a nose, ears, and pigment and nerves in the eyes.  Last week the babies got buds for arms and legs which differentiated and now you can see the hands, fingers, feet and toes! The heart is beating near its fastest rate during this time of growth, at about 150 times a minute, over twice as fast as our heart beats!  We thought our babies were budding geniuses last week…now both hemispheres of the brain are developing. Other developments include the appendix, pancreas, and liver which is already producing red blood cells. And, I saved the best for last…one of the more important developments this week is the umbilical cord. Each cord now has distinct blood vessels to carry both oxygen and nutrients to the baby and wastes away from the baby. Talk about a lot of development in one short week!!

I have now moved from weekly appointments to every other week, this week being an off week. However, I did meet with a nutritionist today and she was very complimentary on my progress. I’m up a whopping 9 pounds already—and yes, 100% of it is in my belly (would be great if it stays there!). I kept asking the nutritionist for different ideas for protein sources since meat is one of the items that isn’t settling well.  It always seemed to boil down to either cheese or peanut butter, so it looks like I’ll have a lot of them for the next 7 months! I kid you not when she was telling me to have cheese on everything—even popcorn and apples!  So, the motto for the week is cheese and peanut butter…hopefully I don’t get sick of it!

Next week we will have an OB appointment and it will be so neat to see the development over the past two weeks…I can’t wait!! Jay and I might just have to celebrate with some cheese and peanut butter!  Next week’s blog I’ll post pictures…see you then!

Three Budding Geniuses...Three Healthy Heartbeats

This week the babies are now the size of blueberries…I’m counting my blessings how easy it is to get around with blueberries, as opposed to three eggplants, which will come before I know it! This was a big week for us as a couple and for our precious little babies. If you haven’t guessed it, I was blessed to hear all three heartbeats on Baby A, B and C not once, but twice this week! All three are growing, 2 of them measure exactly on target for my dates and the third baby measures just two days behind. Guess it gives me a good reason to eat more ice-cream Snicker’s bars! This week was also memorable because my OB was gracious enough to start me on Zofran to control the nausea and vomiting. No exaggeration, I almost went into “pyscho chic” mode when the pharmacist was holding the Zofran hostage to double check on details of the prescription…it almost got ugly!

You ask—why the title? Well, we have three budding geniuses growing inside of me. Nothing to do with our genes, all to do with God.  In every passing minute this week, brain cells were generating faster than 100 cells per minute, per baby!! I think they might be getting big heads already! Also, the nose, mouth, tongue and ears were formed this week. Each baby also has arm and leg buds, which will further develop into hands, arms, elbows, shoulders, and feet, knees and legs. The babies also now have their permanent set of kidneys, the intestines are starting to develop (if the babies truly are budding geniuses, they will stay away from mine and Jay’s!), pituitary gland, and tissue that will give rise to the lungs.  Can you imagine all this development in just one week—and multiply it times three! God truly is amazing.

This week I meet with a nutritionist to best support pregnancy from a nutrition standpoint. The OB doesn’t think I’ll gain much weight the first trimester from being sick, but I’m here to prove him wrong. Gained 6 hard earned pounds, only 70 more to go!!! I think Jason is secretly jealous of my new “diet!” More to come next week!

Bless You, Our Three Little Sweet Peas!

Well, if you haven’t guessed it from the title of this blog, our little orange seed sized babies have grown to the size of sweet peas! Arguably these sizes are not much different, but let me assure you, not only could we appreciate the size difference on ultrasound, but there has been a lot of development this past week!

This past week, the head is starting to develop, including the jaw, cheeks and chin. The baby now has ear canals and small bumps that will eventually form the eyes and nose in a few weeks. The liver, lungs, and kidneys are also shaping this week (believe it or not, the baby will go through its third set of kidneys by next week! Embryology is the most amazing thing ever!). We were able to see another ultrasound picture this week and all three babies continue to be growing. In fact, the smallest baby last week, Baby C, is now the biggest baby—stealing all the groceries, as we like to say in the NICU! Next week we will continue to follow ultrasounds and if we are lucky we will see and hear a heartbeat. It is likely that we will not hear the heartbeat until the following week, so the motto was with IVF, we will take it one day at a time.  Just as a side note—you know you have a lot of ‘baby real estate’ when they can never get all three babies on the same ultrasound screen! Baby C is implanted in a totally different place from Baby A and B, so in order to see all three we need to get two ultrasound shots. (I’ll post ultrasound pictures sometime after we hear heartbeats, for all of you who are wondering).

Many of you are asking how I’m feeling. Well, praise God, I’m starting to feel pregnant! As this week comes to a close, I’m starting to feel more symptoms, most prominently food aversions and nausea. Food cravings—one and only one—PICKLES! You know you are having a severe craving when you actually run out of pickles and despite everything in you telling you that this is ‘just plain wrong’ you happily drink the pickle juice and are fully satisfied. Not only that, but after you realize that you are pouring gallons of preservatives into your system, you decide to put the lid back on, and store it in the frig because it might be a few more hours until you can hit the food store to restock on this very coveted item! Of course there are the frequent bathroom breaks, due to the shift in hormones…or maybe from trying to flush out the pickle juice from my system! Lastly, my once renowned frigid body temperatures have shifted to hot, hot, hot! I thank God every day that I feel so good so far…every day of feeling good (specifically not puking!) is a huge accomplishment in my eyes! More to come next week!

Ask and You Shall Receive!!!

All of you know that I’m a believer in Christ and have no doubt that a pregnancy for us is nothing short of a miracle from heaven above. I fully believe in the power of God and prayer and have not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that our great news that we have to share with you is only from the merciful, loving and gracious hands of our Lord Jesus Christ.

If you haven’t guessed it already, Jay and I are so thankful that we can announce that we are indeed pregnant. Please understand, pregnancy during these very, very early stages is extremely fragile and I cannot express enough how delicate each little embryo is at this point during development. Even with knowing that anything can happen this early on, we wanted to share with you even more good news…we are pregnant with TRIPLETS! TRIPLETS! TRIPLETS!

I hope to update the blog almost every week at the end of each week. During this time I want to share, as part of my testimony, the awesomeness of God’s creation. So…here goes! This week, we are entering our 5^th week of pregnancy.  We realize that this is a very, very early proclamation of both pregnancy and for triplets and that any week our news could change, so we are preparing our minds and hearts for the ride and just having the mindset of being thankful for every day we have! Right now, the babies are each the size of an orange seed. Even though it is still very early in development, these little babies are rapidly developing. This week, the baby’s heart is made up of two tubes, which are already beating, but will take at least 2 more weeks for the heart beats to become coordinated (the next two weeks, until we have healthy heartbeats, are pretty crucial for our babies, and again, know that we may not have all that survive even to that point). Also, the beginnings of the spinal cord and brain are developing. Stay posted for next week’s happenings in these little precious babies!

We can’t thank you enough for all your love, prayers and support and we ask that you continue to pray fervently for these little babies that we already love so much. Course, praying for my health and Jay’s sanity are a bonus as well!!!