32 weeks, in the home stretch!

Here we are.  Lincoln got so excited when he saw we were taking pictures, that we had to take a photo with him.  Plus it kind of shows how he can hide right in front of me!

So I thought I would explain the myriad of doctors that I see on a regular basis.  I originally was seeing my OB who works at Lakeview hospital.  When we found out we were having triplets, we also found out we could not deliver at Lakeview hospital, so we had to switch OB's to a high risk OB. Also our OB office did not have a sonogram machine that would be adequate for triplets.  At 19 weeks they sent me to a specialist,  also known as a perinatologist (I think).  At these appointments I get an ultrasound by a technician, where they usually measure the babies, make sure everything looks good and make sure I am not showing signs of preterm labor.  Then the perinatologist comes in and talks to me and makes all the decisions about my care.  But they can prescribe medications, or deliver the babies.  They then tell the OB how to do his job.  So far we have been to see the perinatologist every 2 weeks, and have only seen the same one a couple of times.  We switched to our high risk OB at 30 weeks, and have seen him twice.  Aside from waiting forever in his office, he takes my weight, prescribes me medications, orders blood draws and everything else the perinatologist has told him to do.  He will do the delivery at St. Marks Hospital.  We see him every 2 weeks. Then we also do what is called NST (non stress test). In these appointments I lie on a bed while they put a monitor on each baby to monitor heart rate.  The idea is to get a continuous heart rate on all the babies for at least 20 minutes.  They also have to do this basically at the same time to make sure they are not monitoring the same baby each time.  This has been incredibly hard so far.  These appointments take forever, and usually end in at least one of the babies not having the sufficient monitoring because the kids like to wiggle and move and kick each other and the monitors right off my belly! We do NST every week.  So we have 2 doctor appointments every week. We try to schedule them at the same time so that we don't have to drive the 45 minutes more than once a week.

Anyway,  we just had our new OB doc appointment.  His name is Dr Watts and we really like him.  He said we were doing great, and at 32 weeks we have passed the worst with the babies and premature birth.  He would like for us to make it another 2 weeks.  After 34 weeks he would deliver us without worry.  If we don't naturally go into labor before 37 weeks (a week longer than my original goal) he will deliver the babies anyway.  So he set up a preliminary C section date for the second week of February.

Next week we go to the perinatologist and hopefully they measure the babies.  Last week all the babies measured between 3 and a half and 4 pounds.  Im so proud of my little ones and how they are growing.

On other exciting news, Jared finally got a set schedule for work so it is being much easier to set up help for when he is not here.  He does so much for our family and is taking care of meals (cooking and planning).  He does all the grocery shopping, taking care of the kids, and the house.  He is amazing even finding time for his school work.  Then he still works full time.  Im so lucky to be going through this process with him.