Monday was our first meeting with our MFM {maternal fetal medicine aka high risk} doctors. I meant to post about it Monday night or yesterday, but I took some time to let it all sink in as well as sleep. The appointment lasted over two & a half hours.
First, I peed in a cup, was weighed {& the husband saw the number, eek!} & my blood pressure taken. We were taken to a room & met Jeanette our nurse. My doctor quickly came in & we chatted for a bit. Since I hadn’t had a pap in a while, next he did that as well as other normal ob/gyn appointment things. Then time for the fun stuff! Ultrasounds! We learned since there are three, a normal doppler doesn’t work {all heartbeats would be heard at once}. So we will have some sort of ultrasound at every appointment!
Our babies were given their first names: A, B & C. Baby A is down closest to my cervix & thus the easiest for a transvag ultrasound to see. & boy could we see baby A! I’ll post photos tonight, but we saw full body, hands punching, legs kicking & baby rolling around dancing for us. Baby B is to my left of A & looked good but a little fuzzier. Poor ninja baby C. It’s up there {a couple inches south of my belly button} so it was hard for the ultrasound to get a great picture of C. We heard heartbeats for all three {each was between 165-170}. Since we hadn’t gotten a super clear baby C picture, my doctor decided to try a belly ultrasound too. That was still kinda fuzzy but he was able to confirm, like my RE thought, that each baby has it’s own sac & placenta. He really doubts that any of them are identical.
Other fun stuff? The book that I’m using as my triplet guide by Barbara Luke, my doctor knows her & swears by it too! He thinks her calorie & weight gaining guides are a little high. He wants be to make 3000 calories a day my goal & to gain 50 pounds over the pregnancy. So far, I think I’ve gained about 10 pounds.
I decided I’d start keeping track of calories {based on doctor kinda asking me to see if I was hitting 3000}, so yesterday I re-downloaded myfitnesspal app. Ha! It won’t let you put in to gain more than a pound a week & it cuts off calorie max at 2600. Oh app if you only knew! Thanks to PW’s chicken spaghetti dinner, HT brand cheesy garlic bread & Oreo ice cream, I think I came pretty close yesterday! I have to say eating that much that often is kinda exhausting but I’m hearing over & over how important it is so I’m doing it. You could set a watch by my every two hour eating schedule!
We finished off the appointment with blood work. Five viles of it. I suck at blood work~ I’m scared & my body doesn’t like to give up blood. I was poked in the left arm & the tech got enough for two viles before that vein said no more. Then she tried the right arm but my veins kept jumping on her. So she went to my right hand. At this point, I was almost crying & called Husband back to hold my hand. She was able to get blood out of my hand enough for the last viles. Holy crap that wasn’t fun & I’ve got bruises to prove it.
Next up, the high resolution 11 week ultrasound next Mon which will also check for Down’s. Luckily, it’s at their close-by practice instead of us driving 35 minutes to Chapel Hill. He wants to see me every three weeks or so & Mondays seem to be their see-patients day. But three weeks from Monday is the 26th & they’re closed; the following Monday is the 2nd & they’re also closed. My dr didn’t want to wait until Jan 9th, so we’re going back to UNC on 12/19. Yay for seeing babies {& doctors & copays} three Mondays in a row. Our frig is going to be packed with baby ultrasound photos. I can’t wait.
