Valentines Friday 15 February 2008

My lovely wonderful husband spoiled me rotten yesterday – jewellery, flowers and a meal cooked for me. Plus a card with the most beautiful words in. My surprise didn’t quite work to plan (it involved hair removal cream – ouch) but brought a smile to our faces

I also had my first counselling session with the maternity and neonatal counsellor. We hope that we can both go next time, but this one was arranged very last minute due to a cancellation. As suspected, I sobbed through the whole session as I explained what had happened, and my feelings about it all. I get the impression that she hasn’t dealt with anyone who’s been through a selective reduction before, but she was very sympathetic and asked good questions at the right moments. I hope it works out. Currently I’m not really sure how it will help but there don’t seem to be any good reasons *not* to try.

We have another nice weekend planned, with friends coming around tomorrow with their 2yr old daughter, then two house viewings on Sunday. We’re particularly excited about the house viewings – they’re in a different area, about 50mins drive from our current location but boy will our money go much further! For the price of a 2 bed flat here, we can get a detatched 4 bed house with garage and garden!! Unbelievable – I can’t wait to have all that space, and a garden for the kids to play in, and for me to grow fruit and vegetables. And a real spare room/office. And hopefully more families nearby. Where we live currently is all flats and we barely know any of our neighbours by sight, let alone by name.

And dare I mention it without jinxing it… ssssssh, I’ve had no more bleeding for about 5 days now… still get cramping and a few stabby pains but the bleeding has definitely cleared up. At long last

Good day Wednesday 23 January 2008

I’m feeling optimistic today and have a secret smile when I think about our little wriggler growing so well inside me. Yesterday I posted our scan pics from last week on to Facebook which feels like a big step forward. I’ve been so scared and nervous to get too excited about this baby, fearing the worst at every turn, but it felt like the right time to start being upbeat.

We saw the consultant on Monday afternoon and it was quick but good. Another scan (no. 5, we have the most photographed baby ever!!) and all is well. He didn’t tell me the CTR (crown to rump) measurement but he said he thought wriggler was looking big for the dates – last week it measured a few mm’s off the dates so who knows, I’m absolutely sure of my dates – I could refer them here couldn’t I? The twins are now squashed together and look teeny tiny, with little or no fluid around them – weirdly it wasn’t upsetting or gross to see them, although it made me feel sad. But I’m glad they’re together.

He doesn’t seem bothered by the brown bleeding I’m still getting on and off and there doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason for it. I wonder if it’s old blood from having 3 implantations… The best news is that he asked when I wanted to see him again – I had thought they might decide to send me back to regular routine local midwifery care (which would mean no more scans until 21wks which is 14th March) but I said when did he suggest would be good, and we came up with a fortnights time. When we spoke with the mw there, she seemed to indicate that they were going to look after me until we get to 21wks, so fingers crossed I’ll be getting at least 2 more scans in between. It’s so strange – I know how lucky we are to get to see wriggler so regularly but even going a few days seems like weeks for us as it’s been such a stressful & eventful few weeks. I’m on a high having seen the wriggler waving it’s arms and legs but a couple of days later when the bleeding starts again and the cramps start, I’m back to being a mess again and worrying myself silly that it’s all ending. So knowing they are there to keep me sane is amazing. Hurray for the Royal Sussex, if I had the money, I’d be buying a new wing there!!

So after our appt I went to Mothercare to buy a pair of maternity jeans. I’d bought some Seraphine ones from ebay, but overestimated the size I needed and they are hanging off of me. I tried on a size 12 and they were a bit roomy, so I thought, well why not try a 10, thinking I’d never get them past my knees!! But to my absolute delight, they fit like a dream, making my bum look a normal size instead of a great saggy lumpy thing Amazing – fall pregnant with triplets and end up losing weight and going down 2 dress sizes (not something I’d recommend mind you). All in all a lovely positive day. Our daughter came with us to the scan and was saying ‘baby kicking!’ which amused the consultant so much he gave her a scan pic of her very own which she clutched all the way home. Now she keeps saying ‘hello baby’ to my tummy and saying ‘mama not sad, mama happy!’ – and that makes me happier than ever.

I’ve also contacted my local mw to resurrect my regular appts with her as I realised I haven’t had my blood pressure or urine tested since 8wks (I’m 14wks now). I’m now booked to see her in Feb when I’ll be 17wks and need to see my GP to do a quick blood pressure and urine test for me in the meantime as she’s completely booked up.

For now, everything is looking and feeling ok. Fingers tightly crossed.

Breathing a sigh of relief Tuesday 15 January 2008

After a fretful weekend where the fluid loss continued with the browny coloured blood, we tried calling our local hospital and King’s to no avail. Our local hospital were very sweet but explained that because they don’t do the procedure or see the after results very often, they couldn’t advise if the fluid loss was normal. The number we had for King’s rang out – presumably it’s an office hours number.

I called King’s yesterday afternoon – I’d been putting it off in case I heard the worst, but a nice midwife told me it was hard to say what was normal, the best thing to do was to arrange a scan at our local hospital to check the fluid wasn’t coming from our remaining baby’s sac. K the amazing midwife arranged an appt for me for 10am today so it was just one night to get through. I’ve started to not want to go to bed and sleep as it’s usually in the middle of the night that the fluid loss happens.

So a tiny loss in the middle of the night, followed by hours of inability to sleep again. Shaking like a leaf and feeling sick, we get to the hospital and wait for 5 minutes. The sonographers are so lovely as we explain what we can. Almost immediately they find our baby and its heart is beating, arms and legs waving, bouncing around just like our dd did. Plenty of fluid around it and it’s grown another cm since Thurs. It looks like the fluid loss is from the other two – there is minimal liquid surrounding them now, and their placenta is quite close to my cervix which may explain the brown bleeding. It may also cause problems with delivery if it remains there, but it’s early days and may move or disappear in the coming months. At this point that’s the least of our worries. We hope to have a homebirth, but honestly if they have to cut my legs off to get this baby out, I wouldn’t care.

We are still seeing the consultant on Monday where he’ll scan again to make sure he’s happy with how things are progressing, and then we’ll discuss how to proceed with antenatal care. I still can’t quite get over how amazingly supportive they have been to us. We also have our 21wk scan booked for 14th March. So strange to think that will be our 6th scan when usually it would be our 2nd.

We have 4 beautiful pictures of our bouncing bean – the profile is so like our daughter – the exact same nose. I had been thinking it’s a girl but today I’m not so sure. Again, I don’t give a monkeys – funny how when I started writing this blog, it was partially to document whether we could actively try for a boy. How things change.

Stop the world, I want to get off Sunday 6 January 2008

If only. This has got to be the longest 7 days in the history of man and each day has brought more extreme emotions than the last. I found a great resource in the shape of an online forum called mumsnet – their ‘multiples’ area has brought a wealth of support from twin and triplet mums, and not all doing the ‘congratulations, it’ll be hard but you can do it’ type of support. One pointed me at a blog by a French lady living in America who after IVF was expecting quads, who went on to have a ‘reduction’ (another word for fetocide, or basically eliminating one or more of a multiple pg by means of a potassium chloride injection into the fetus’ heart via your abdomen). This is something which we want to discuss with the consultant – I have no idea if it’s something that will be offered in the UK, or if it only gets offered if there are abnormalities with any of the three.

I can’t tell you how much I hate having to read about this stuff, let alone think about it happening to me, them and us. Many women get through such things by not allowing themselves to think of the babies inside them as babies but I’ve found that impossible. I was so happy to be pregnant and I can’t switch that off now that I know I’m pregnant with three. They are all my babies and I love them all unconditionally already, yet I know we can’t have three – maybe in a perfect world we could, but right now it’s doesn’t seem like an option. And it’s not just down to me, dh really doesn’t think we can do it and is worried (rightly) about the strain it would put on us as a couple, let alone the finances, having to move out of our local area and be miles away from friends and family. So all I can do right now is love them knowing they will only be with me for a short time. I’m determined to ask for a scan picture of them all in one shot – it may be morbid to some, but I don’t want any one of them to be forgotten. And anyway, reduction comes with it’s own risks – it may cause the remaining ones to miscarry so we could end up with no babies at all.

As if these things weren’t enough to overwhelm us, I also started losing ‘old blood’ (it’s brown) which is probably nothing to worry about, but this morning there was quite a lot and accompanied by strong aches/pains in my abdomen. There’s no point in calling anyone, we’re seeing the consultant tomorrow and anyway, I suspect it’s just one of those things. Still, I could really do without it. It’s just another worry on top of the mountain we already have.

Sorry this is a depressing post, but I need to get things down, and whilst my mum and husband are listening, I don’t think they can truly understand how it is for me – the one who is carrying them, who will be the one to have needles poked into her tummy, to feel the effects of hormones racing around her, to deal with the joy of being pregnant to the hell of having to decide how to proceed with the pregnancy. I keep hoping that someone will just tell me what to do, or that the scan will show abnormalities which will make decisions slightly more justified but it’s not going to happen is it? It’s really down to us and that kills me.