22 weeks

Finally, a belly shot to prove that I am indeed pregnant:

Phew, I'm tired. I just returned from a trip to the west coast to see my family. The babies went crazy on the flights there, kicking and squirming like I had never felt before, must have been the changes in pressure. It was a good trip, but a little more difficult to travel at this stage in pregnancy than I had anticipated (see photo). Airplane seats were uncomfortable, walking through airports dragging my bag was tiring and having to fit into all sorts of unfamiliar compact cars was a challenge. Despite the minor inconveniences, it was fun to show off my bump and I was always mindful that this would be my last solo trip for some time to come, so I tried to get as much quality time as I could with family and friends.

My mom and I took a trip to the most wonderful wool shop where she treated me to gorgeous wool to make sweaters, hats and booties for the babes. She did not, however, approve of my choice of deep plum, mauve and sage green as she is still firmly of the opinion that appropriate colors for babies are white, cream, pale pink and pale blue. Ahem.

Although I somehow managed to gain four pounds this week (!) I am still dealing with background nausea and threw up twice. It's more irritating that incapacitating, but it would be nice to just feel "normal" again. My monitoring appointment on Wednesday turned out to be another fetal survey which was very difficult to get through as I can't lay on my back for more than five minutes without feeling like I'm going to pass out. I had to keep rolling from side to side and sitting up during the exam and wasn't really able to concentrate on watching the babies on the screen because I was so uncomfortable. They all look fantastic and are starting to look pretty darn cute, if I say so myself. Cervix is still holding strong and Dr. Awesome told me everything was looking perfect and that I didn't have to come back for another two weeks.

I did get some sad news: my cardiologist died this week very unexpectedly. It was quite upsetting, even though we'd only met him once, both my husband and I had enjoyed talking to him and felt very comfortable having me in his care. And his poor family, losing him right before the holidays, so very difficult. It was a sobering reminder of how short life is and how precious these three new little lives inside of me truly are.

20 weeks

I just returned from my weekly monitoring appointment. My cervix is still holding strong and all three babes are looking good. I was catching up on some other triplet blogs and realize how different the management of triplet pregnancies is depending on the doctor and the hospital. So many women seem to be put on mandatory bed rest, or are told how much weight to gain or otherwise terrorized into very conservative behaviour without any indications that it is necessary. My doctor, who delivers ~30 sets of triplets per year, has fully informed me of the possible complications of this pregnancy, and monitors me accordingly, but has put no restrictions on my activities. I really appreciate this sort of approach; I know I'm in a high risk category of pregnancy and I feel well taken care of, but no on is trying to instill unnecessary fear in me. Good thing, too, because I am a total worrier and prone to assume the worst.

For example, last Friday I came home from a busy day/week of work and noticed that my ankles were so swollen that I couldn't see my ankle bones. I freaked out, assuming that I was developing congestive heart failure (I am being following by a cardiologist, after all) or pre-eclampsia and was going to die, lose the babies or both. Seriously, I was sobbing uncontrollably. My bewildered but ever rational husband consulted Dr. Google and informed me that this sort of swelling was normal for any pregnancy and managed to calm me down. At my appointment today, I asked Dr. Awesome about it and informed me I had possible courses of action: (1) to ignore it, or (2) to put my feet up and that whichever option I chose, the swelling was only going to get worse as the pregnancy progressed. Can you see why I love Dr. Awesome so much?

Everything else pregnancy-related is going well, I still have loads of energy, good appetite despite the mild lingering nausea and am occaisonally feeling the top two babies move, although it's a lot more pinching and sharp poking than the delightful tickles that most people seem to experience at this point. Still no food cravings (I'm being to think that this cravings business is a convenient excuse to eat a lot of junk food :) although I do enjoy my daily ration of the extruded chick pea snacks that we get at the local Indian grocery.