10 weeks

First things first...we saw our babies today, and they look perfect. They are measuring well, and hearts are beating away at about 155-165 bpm. We heard the hearts for the first time today, which never fails to be an incredible experience. A and B are identicals and are on my right side. C is the "single", and he/she is hanging around on my left.

We both knew our first appointment with the perinatologist would be an intense appointment, since his whole job is to be aware of potential complications and to be on the lookout for them, but after an hour of hearing all of the scary potentials, we left feeling a bit beat up.



He specifically talked about the risks of triplet pregnancies (preterm labor, preeclampsia, diabetes), etc....and the second set of issues surrounding identicals, who are riskier than fraternals. Our identicals do have their own sacs but they share a placenta, which is true for about 70% of identical twins. It would be less risky if they had their own placentas, but more risky if they shared a sac, so we're somewhere in between. Add to the triplets-including-di-mo-identicals (2 amniotic sacs and one chorion) picture that I'm the big 3-5, and we had quite a list of potential problems to explore. It's all stuff we knew but would rather ignore and focus on strollers.





Dr. Berry said all looks great right now. He has about 12 other couples now who are in our exact position, and he sees this all the time now (thanks to modern medicine!), which makes us feel like we're in good hands. He seemed to be honest about the possible complications but also relatively optimistic for a good outcome for us based on what we know so far.

He said to be prepared for bedrest, but that it won't necessarily happen early. Every triplet pregnancy is entirely different, and there's no way to know how it'll go. He said I could make it to 35 weeks but that I'd likely start contracting around 28, because I'll have 8 lbs of baby at that point (the weight of Piper at birth). When that happens, they'll start giving me steroids to prep the babies' lungs and doing all of their tricks of the trade to stave off labor. Fingers crossed (and that's the understatement of the century) for healthy babies that stay safe and snug inside until 35 weeks or so.

We go back in 2 weeks. We'll do more intense genetic screening then. Based on my age, our risks are about 1 in 135 for a genetic anomaly. Since we have 2 pregnancies (odd, but that's what they call it since there are not 3 but 2 genetic profiles), that's about a 1 in 67 risk of a problem. It sounds high, but that for 98.5% of women in my shoes, the babies are perfectly fine. Based on what we see in two weeks, our risk ratio go up or down, and we'll make decisions about further testing from there. It's all very different than it was with Piper, because they can't do the blood tests that they did with her....so in so many ways, this is a new road for Matt and me.

We are fine. We've already connected with lots of lots of success stories. I'm joining AMOM (Austin Moms of Multiples) and have gotten involved in something called Triplet Connection. Matt's partner is an identical twin with a triplet sister....which is sort of crazy...and being able to see the cases of here, happy, and healthy triplets is purely therapeutic for us.

I'll keep you all posted. Thanks for the positive thoughts.