Week 35: The last week of pregnancy for me.

So the final week is here. This still does not seem quite real to me. I cannot believe I am about to be a mother to 5!!!! children. I never pictured myself having this many kids. It really just does not seem real that there are 3 babies inside me. Right now I have 4 heartbeats, 40 toes and fingers, 4 brains, 8 eyes and ears and it is just so hard to believe. One thing I have heard from many moms of triplets is that it does not quite sink in until you and your babies are home. While in your belly you cannot quite grasp the magnitude of things and most have to stay in the NICU and so you still feel like they are not quite yours. I pray that the time here has bought them as little time in the NICU as possible and they get to go home with me.

Surgery details: I am scheduled Tuesday 7/22 at 8:30 AM. I plan to be up at 6:30 to shower and let Jerimiah run down and get a quick breakfast. At 7 AM they will come into my room and start doing prep, and they plan to have me into OR and ready by 8 AM. They said I should be back to my room by noon assuming everything goes as planned. I am sure I will go pretty quiet afterwards for a bit, as I recover. I know my Facebook will get updated more than here initially, since I can post smaller mini updates there.

Tuesday I saw Dr. P. I was really honest with her as I have been about my depression and history of post-partum depression with Allen. It is hard because my PCOS condition requires hormonal therapy and metformin to balance my hormones and keep my emotions stable, but you cannot breast feed on those. She suggested Zoloft to help, she said that up to 200mg (50mg is starting dose) it is safe to breastfeed on it. She warned it will not help as much as going back on my PCOS medications, but it may help curb some of the depression until I can go back on them. The current plan is to start that after birth. I also had Jennifer from TMoTT come out and visit me today. I have to say I absolutely love everyone I have met through TMoTT. Between TMoTT and my Facebook triplets group I have managed to keep my sanity this pregnancy. I think it has helped validate how I feel and make me feel like so much less of a freak show! There are only 7 days to go! I finished off the Sopranos (all seasons), Sons of Anarchy (all seasons), and caught up on all my other shows.

Wednesday Dr. Be was here. He said as of right now we are looking good for Tuesday 7/22 still. He said that he is on duty again Sunday (through Monday morning) and he will make sure all my preoperative orders go in. Sue brought the kids up here to see me super early. Issy was not very well behaved and did not want to listen. I also was not feeling so great that early and I was not in a good mood at all. My nurse came to me in tears after lunch. She made a medication error on me. Luckily it was my heparin, which they can counteract if they needed to. She gave me 10cc instead of the 5cc that I was supposed to have, the doctors decided to just skip my night dose for now. Tony at MFM was on vacation again, but he sent one of the techs from his office over (a day early.) She was originally only going to do a BPP, but I asked her if she had time to scan for growth. I told her I was dying for an estimate. She estimates these weights from a quick scan: Sophia (A) at 7 lbs, Meredith (B) at 7lbs 1 oz, and Penelope (C) at 5lb 12 oz. I was totally shocked at those numbers, but I do hope they are pretty accurate. It would mean a greater chance of no NICU time, especially for A and B. Sophia is head down again, but Meredith is trying to push her out of the way. Meredith was sitting between breech and transverse on and right next to Sophia. Penelope really has a penthouse to herself at this point, and she is stretched out across the top all by herself. Jerimiah came up to spend time with me and we had dinner downstairs. The food at Au Bon Pain Cafe is so wonderful! Not sure I would have made it this far without it. Jerimiah stayed late to finish up season 7 of Criminal Minds.

Thursday morning I saw Dr. W again. It was just a slow day. I have been nauseated really bad the last few days and needed phenegren around the clock almost. Even with the medication I am throwing up about half of what I eat. Delores (one of my favorite nurses) came to see me! I didn't have any visitors today. I mostly slept the day away. Sleeping the day away is great, but it means sleep is harder to come by at night.

Friday morning my contractions woke me up around 3 (after lying awake until almost 2!) I tried drinking water and re-positioning etc. Finally at 5 I had to get my Procardia and I was hurting enough to want the Percocet again. I had the most intense craving for Sam's Club cheese pizza. That is one of my all time favorite pizzas. I saw Dr. Ba and he said just hang tight and if it gets worse to have the nurse update Dr. S. Natalie showed up about 11 and all my contractions completely stopped. The girls decided to behave for her. I had a good visit with Natalie and the boys, then they headed on home for nap time. I had a talk with Jerimiah, catching up with him about stuff. His work is a cause for some major stress due to issues with management and its completely out of his control. We cannot afford for him to be out of work, which he was 2 days last week and not by choice. Praying it resolves itself quickly, because we just cannot afford it. Natalie came back up and spent the night with me. She had me laughing so hard I had to change clothes within an hour of her getting here! She gave me another pedicure and my feet felt absolutely amazing. I missed my partner in crime sooooo much. We watched the Book of Eli, which Natalie had never seen before. It is one of my all time favorites.

Saturday Natalie got up and went off to work. Dr. S came by to see me. I begged him to roll me on back and take care of my c-section. Hey, at least I made him laugh! I slept a good portion of the day. I had some Procardia and Percocet again. Contractions are so very painful at this point. I called to see how Issy's football sign ups went, but Issy told me he did not want to play this year. He said that he felt practice and stuff took up too much of his time and contributed to his struggles at the beginning of last year. He said he wants to focus on doing better in school. I was surprised by the very mature decision making on his part. I told him if he was doing well and wanted to play basketball or baseball we would do everything we could to give him that chance. Jerimiah came up and spent Saturday night with me. We watched some shows and just hung out.

Sunday morning Dr. R came in to do rounds. She said she was going to stop my heparin. It was unexpected but it made me soooo happy. I was so sick of shots in my stomach. The nurse had a hard time finding the babies and they had to call in Dr. Be to check on them. He did an ultrasound and found them immediately. He said they were looking good. Pam from my MOPS group stopped by to bring me lunch and visit after church. We literally talked for hours. For several hours I forgot I was trapped here. It was such a blessing to spend time with her. Meredith's heart rate was jumping way up so they had to call Dr. Be to come back again and check them out later in the afternoon. It was after 9 when she left and I crashed not too long after.

Monday Dr. Be did rounds. He got all my pre-operative stuff squared away. Penelope from anesthesiology came by to do their work up on me. Sue brought the boys up here and I got some great snuggle time in with Allen again. Issy was so sad and did not want to go back home. I had to take some medicine for nausea, which has made me loopy. I have officially started to freak out. I saw 2 other people form anesthesiology who came in to verify information from earlier. I managed to finish up the stack of paperwork for the pediatrician and got all their online forms completed as well. Overall I was very productive, when I really wanted to just run away and hide somewhere. I did not have a very good nurse today either. My day just started out all wrong. Jerimiah came up to stay the night. I skipped dinner tray again because he was supposed to be here earlier, but he ran late and I was starving by the time he made it. We are getting ready to roll downstairs for dinner.

I cannot believe I go to bed tonight a mom of 2 and tomorrow I will be a mom of 5. I just pray my time here has helped my girls grow enough that they will be strong and able to come home with me. It is my biggest fear that I will have to leave even just one of them here when I go home.