Week 8: Parinatologist

Baby is the size of a large Raspberry and making spontaneous movements this week. I've been feeling a bit tired and get about 10 hour of sleep plus 2-4 hours napping in every day. Also still feeling nauseous.

We met Dr. Wu our parinatologist (maternal fetal medical specialist) this week in San Francisco. We had another ultrasound and all 3 triplets are still looking good. Because of the complexity of a triplet pregnancy, we will work with the both my local OB/GYN and the parinatologist though-out the pregnancy. Delivery will be cesarean in either Santa Rosa or San Francisco, depending on the timing.

Dr. Wu explained all the risks of triplets and described the option of selective reduction to twins. We listened but decided it wasn't for us. We will be back in SF during week 12 to measure the triplets' necks, to check for down syndrome. In our case, amniocentesis and CVS screening are not options.

Our next step is meeting with our local OB later this week.

Photos from our Petaluma OB ultrasound 3/2/12. Everyone is on track with their sizes and look healthy.

The Do List

After all those Don'ts, thankfully there are also a bunch of Do's. Here are mine:

Do Eat:

• Organic Veggies! Lot of them. Green, Red, Yellow, Other colors- it's all good.
• Organic Fruits! Ditto colors and quantity. 
• Pasture raised, hormone free meat. (Thank you local CSA!)
• Eggs from our chickens. (We know they are happy, healthy and eat well.)
• Organic tofu
• Organic whole wheat bread and pasta (Sorry Acupuncturist, gluten free is out the window now)
• Organic gluten free pastas and grains (quinoa, brown rice...)
• Limited organic, pasteurized cheese. (Sorry Vegans & Acupuncturist, I'm not currently on board with no dairy)

Do Drink:

• 60-80 oz water per day. (The Loo will be your best friend, but that's ok.)
• Calcium fortified, organic, pasteurized fruit juices.
• Hot water with lemon.
• When needed for nausea, club soda with fresh grated ginger.
• Fortified organic rice milk. 
• Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbal Teas, when prescribed by a reputable herbalist and MD approved.

Do Use/Do:

• Walk for exercise
• Sleep a lot :)
• Use phtalate and sulfate free beauty products. 

The Don't List

There are oh so many Don'ts out there for Preggers people. I'm no OB/GYN, Nutritionist, MD or Vegan but here are some that I am trying to follow from what I've read:

Avoid Eating:

• Raw Egg (some caesar dressing, some eggnog, runny/poached eggs, doughs)
• Processed Meats (ham, lunch meat, hot dogs... This one is easy)
• Unpasturized cheese, juice
• Limit organic pasteurized cheese 
• Anything perishable that has been out of the fridge for 2 hours
• Processed sugar or artificial sweeteners
• Mercury prone fish (mackeral, tile, sword...)
• Limit chunk light tuna 
• Substitute organic fortified rice milk for organic cow's milk 
• Peanuts (Also Tree nuts for me, but that is always my allergy)

Avoid Drinking:

• Alcohol (Duh)
• Caffeine or Stimulants (including decaf coffee, all sodas & some herbal tea)
• Milk
• Anything Carbonated (except for fresh ginger grated in club soda for nausea when needed)

Avoid Doing/Using:

• Taking hot baths or sitting in hot tubs/sauna/steam
• Using Beauty Products with Phtalates or Sulfates
• Jarring exercise
• Cleaning the kitty litter
• Using harsh chemical cleaning products
• Lifting over 10 pounds

Online Resource Links

Information Can Be Found About:


Multiples       www.multiplebirthsfamilies.com

Cosmetic Safety Database     www.ewg.org

Pregnancy Books

A great big Thank You to my friend Sarah (Mom of adorable Cadence) for mailing me a big box of books she enjoyed as well as recommendations for others. I really appreciate it! If you don't have a friend to send you books, check your library. A lot of these will only take one read through.

Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy. A great book to start with. It is a quick afternoon read. Jenny McCarthy is blunt, funny and straight forward. She gives you a heads up that your hormones may cause out of body like craziness and other "fun" preggo realities that other books might not mention.

Skinny Bitch Bun in the Oven by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. Also a quick read, maybe two afternoons. These ladies are fellow sailor-mouth sufferers. If you have delicate language sensibilities, this book may not be it for you. The ladies encourage an organic vegan diet, breast feeding, organic cloth diapers and baby bedding/mattresses, and careful cosmetic consumption. I agree with a lot of what they suggest. One interesting tid bit is pointing out that all animals are weaned off milk and then never eat dairy again. We are the only species that consumes the milk of other species. Evolutionarily it seems a little off. I can pretty much guarantee I won't be giving up cheese (sorry ladies!) but I am switching out to fortified organic rice or soy milks instead of organic milk for drinking. 

Week 7: Videos with Audio of 3 Heartbeats

Babies are the size of Blueberries this week. Feeling pretty darn nauseous and tired almost all the time. One bout of vomiting this week.

Ultrasound #2 in San Francisco with spiffy equipment. Could see and HEAR all three heart beats.

Video view of all 3 embryos

Video with Audio of Triplet 1's Heartbeat

Video with Audio of Triplet 2's Heartbeat

Video with Audio of Triplet 3's Heartbeat

Week 6: First Ultrasound!!

Baby is the size of a Nail head. This week I started having some nausea. Cravings have moved from Ramen soup to Pad See Ew Thai food and Carne Asada Tacos.

February 17th: First Ultrasound with Nurse Practitioner in Petaluma.

Not one, Not two, But THREE potential little Barbours.

I always thought twins would be really cute and it looks like we will find out. Not sure how my Doc will feel about triplets so we may not be going forward with all three but for right now its TRIPLETS. 

 

Next Ultrasound will be Tuesday in San Francisco with the head honcho Doctor. More details then.

Very Exciting!! 

If it was only one baby , we were going to keep my car (because I love my Benz) I think now we will be upscaling the vehicle sooner than we thought. Mama-wagon here I come.

Beginning Weight: 136 lbs (I'm 5ft 7, so my Body Mass Index is 21 aka normal) 

If it was just one kiddo, I'd expect to gain 25-30 pounds. With three that will be about 45 pounds.

Week 5: Symptoms, Cravings and Such

In the middle of Week 5. What to Expect When You're Expecting tells us our 'tadpole' is now the size of an orange seed. The orange seed is causing some changes in the Mama.

So sleepy! I've been spending a lot of time in bed. The pets are quite happy with my sleeping late and napping in the afternoons. We are all pretty much on the same daily schedule. It's really pretty awesome.

Pregnancy brain has already set in. I can usually type and speak pretty coherently. Not anymore!! I misspell stuff constantly now. Slightly embarrassing when trying to train an intern. (Just typing this page has involved a lot of back spaces.) I also say random sh** that makes no sense. It sounds different in my head. One example; our friends are remodeling their bathroom. It has been a big deal and has been going on for a while. I know it is their bathroom. I've seen it. I've talked about it. Yesterday, I told Matt confidently "Oh ya, when they finish remodeling their laundry room". What?? Other stuff like this happens a lot. We worked with a kitchen designer named Gloria. I couldn't remember her name, so I randomly pull out Belinda and then defend myself "I knew it ended in an A".  One more; I saw someone who I've clearly met multiple times but we never really remember each other. She says 'I think we've met' I reply "Oh ya, I've definitely met you before" that's it. No "nice to see you again" nothing. That was just it and I moved on. Hahahaha. She must think I'm severely socially awkward and maybe I am right now.

I haven't had much in the way of nausea, Yay!

That whole not needing any extra calories until second trimester, nobody told my stomach. I feel hungry a lot. Not too many crazy cravings, though. My usual constant cravings for kettle corn and chocolate are gone. I've been on a healthy tofu, udon soup and yellow curry kick. Also drinking glasses of milk sounds good. One night we did go in search of Three Twin's Lemon Cookie Ice Cream (could not find it at 10pm- darn early closing town) but keylime cookie sorbet did the trick. Matt tried a bite and says it is definitely pregnancy-specific food :) More for me!

Drinking 64 oz of water a day is a part time job, and peeing hourly is a new one.

I had one random bloody nose, which is weird for me but apparently one possible preggo's thing.

Week 4: More Confirming, More Needles.

Like I said, I'm not a big needle person. The repeated blood testing is a little bit better than giving yourself shots because you can look away.

HCG results (643 IU/L) on January 30th confirmed we are pregnant. We did all this good stuff again on February 1st (1468) and 8th.

 The first photo taken of us after we got pregnant. Taken by Auntie Des at the Boys and Girl's Club Crustacean Celebration on February 4, 2012.

Our first early ultrasound will be during Week 7, the Tuesday after our annual Tahoe trip. Ah Tahoe while sober and not able to use a hot tub, dance or go sledding... should be a relaxing weekend of playing board games.

Finally... Success! January 29, 2012

"Holy Sh** Honey, I'm Fu**ing Pregnant!" Finally a positive pregnancy test. Hopefully Baby Barbour doesn't automatically inherit Mama's sailor mouth syndrome.

One test must not be enough, so three tests later the home pregnancy tests agreed we were pregnant.

Do you Feel pregnant? I can't tell you how many times I was asked this during our process. NO. I never 'felt' pregnant, including today. I actually started feeling a little crampy and was about to reach for a great big Mojito but decided I'd better be sure I wasn't drowning a baby first. Good thing I checked.

This was the first day we had an idea we might be preggers, but in the crazy way we count pregnancy timing this is already Week 4. Day 1 of this process being 1/1/12.

In the Chinese calendar, the baby will be born in the year of the dragon. As my acupuncturist said before we were pregnant, "Who doesn't want a dragon?"

Week 1: Now THAT was a Process

Getting pregnant was a process for us. It involved two years of trying including pills, injectable medications (I am not a needle person so that was kind of a big deal), 7 rounds of IUI, acupuncture and herbs. Didn't quite expect that one, but we got through it together.

 This is the last photo taken of Matt & I together before we got pregnant. Taken by Gran Gran Lynda on New Year's Eve.

Our Wedding: September 2009

The start of our family adventure: We got married in San Luis Obispo surrounded by close friends and family in September of 2009.