8/23/13 and I can see their braaaiiins! (10 weeks 4 days)

Sorry for the delay in this post.  We had a busy weekend bookended (well aware that's not a word) by tasty mexican food with the extended Barrientos family.

We had a wonderful Friday, celebrating our five year wedding anniversary as well as getting another look into the triplicate womb.  Because I'm not experiencing morning sickness I frequently begin to believe I'm not actually pregnant during the week, or that something has happened to the babies.  I'm pretty sure the 5 nightly trips to urinate are the only reason I've kept my grip on pregnancy reality.

And once again, all is well in the womb.  The babies are doing great. . . as far as we can tell.  Baby A is the only one to ever give good pictures.  The other two are determined to be blobs.

In other news, I changed the format here a little bit.  I added Gabe's youtube channel to the left side so you'll be able to see any video's he uploads immediately from here.  The newest videos are on top.  I also added a new poll on the left side.  You have until September 30th to take the "What are we having" poll, and hopefully by then we'll know the sex of the triplicate.

On to the good stuff!

Baby A, Heartbeat 160...The Alien

Ahh, my little photogenic alien.  If you watch the video, A was moving A LOT!  It was so cool!  I think the 2nd pic looks like a ninja turtle, Gabe thinks I'm crazy.  In pic three you can see that itty bitty two lobed brain.  mmmmmmm, braaaiiiinnnnsssss...

Baby B, Heartbeat 164...The Spider

Had a really hard time getting any pictures of B at first, but Monica is determined and finally success!  I call B Spider Baby because I swear that thing has three eyes.  Yes I know spiders don't have three eyes, but it's still very spideresque.  

Baby C, Heartbeat 162..The Conehead

Check out 2nd pic of C.  Is anyone else concerned that Baby C is a ringer for Dan Aykroyd in Coneheads?

A little movie action

Great scripting and riveting action we don't have, but since Gabe wasn't there I had to record it all.  Plus it's for my mommers who wants to see everything :) sorry for the poor quality. I was on a bench on the other side of the room.

On To 9Weeks(5days/1day...who cares), Yee-haw!

Hi everybody!

In the midst of week 9 and everything is a-okay!  Gabe is out of town for work and I was a little worried about going to the appointment this morning alone.  I wore my special good luck necklace from Angie and felt a lot better :) For some fatalistic reason, in my mind if Gabe is not there, that's the one time that bad things are going to be found.  

Luckily, the world doesn't work as painfully as my brain. The babies are all doing really well, growth is great, and heartbeats for all.  Baby A is still dominating, Baby B seems to be the plugger, and Baby C continues to avoid the wand like a celebrity versus the paparazzi.   He's in a really weird position that gives us very limited access to him.  

I know they might look pretty similar to some but comparing the first ultrasounds to these, you can see the crazy amount of growth.  

Baby A, heartbeat  170bpm. . . Gummy Bear

Baby B, heartbeat 160bpm. . .Squishy

Baby C, heartbeat  156bpm. . .changing this one to Blobby

**UPDATE**

Here are the videos from the most recent ultrasound :)  One of them has our attempts to get heartbeats with a seriously antiquated sound system that you can barely hear.  The other is our tech taking "pictures" of them. It's not riveting prime-time television to anyone but us, but I thought you might like to see :)  Please feel free to post questions, comments and snide remarks using the comments link at the bottom of the page at any time during this adventure  :)  We'd love to hear from you. . . probably . . . unless you want to tell me scary stories about triplet births that will damage my calm . . . more than google searches already have . . . in which case feel free to tell those stories to anyone but me :) 

*(bonus points to anyone who caught the firefly quote)*

8 weeks 6 days, or 8 weeks 2 days....depending on the tech I talk to

For those of you just tuning in to this program, it's official, and evidently a hard secret to keep.  We are expecting TRIPLETS!!!  I knew the word was definitely out when I got the sweetest hugs from church members whom none of us had told, and a text message from my awesome cousin Jana.  We don't get to talk much so I knew the gig was up :)  I'm hoping to keep everyone up to date here on this blog.  At this point it's no longer even a poorly kept secret so feel free to share with anyone we know...and love :)

As I lay in my bed this morning, waiting for my husband to vacate the shower, I couldn't help but think, "why the heck is he so chipper?  It's too blasted early in the morning to be singing that way!" (I'm At a Pay Phone by Maroon 5, for those inquiring minds)

When he was *finally* done with the shower I snarled some sort of "why you so peppy" comment at him, to which he responded, "It's visitation day with the babies!"  . . . say it with me: AWWWWWWWWWWWW :) After that my typical cranky early morning mood flew right out the window.  What a great dad already!  

Being pregnant with triplets is terrifying but it also has some serious perks, like weekly ultrasounds and heartbeat checks.  I'm so grateful for every extra opportunities we have to check on the. . . nuggets, gummy bears, chachitas, squishies, peanuts, shrimp, three musketeers, three amigos, triplicate? 

Baby A, Heart Beat 173...Gummy Bear

Baby B, Heart Beat 166...Squishy

Baby C, Heart Beat 166...Shrimp

The Gangs All Here...sort of, they are getting too big for one pic together!

So results from today, EVERYTHING IS ALL GOOD!!!  We even got a wave from Baby A!

Despite a little brown spotting yesterday there seems to be no issues.  The babies should be shifting any day now from yolk sac for nourishment to 100% placenta support.  The triplets are fraternal with individual gestational sacs.  This is the preferred, and safest, way to carry triplets so we are very blessed.  

Doc told us last week that we were at 7wk3days, which would have made today 8wk2days.  The tech told us today that we are at 8wk6days, so somewhere in oblivion is a floaty four day period.  Meh, either way these kiddos are coming early.  Our original due date was March 18th.  The DR said that if we hit 30 weeks (Jan7th) she would be happy.  Ideally we want to carry to at least 36 weeks (Feb18th) so that the babies have little to no time in the NICU, but that is a very slim possibility.  So there you have it, somewhere in the frigid, snowblasted, icy tundra that is Chicago Jan-Feb 2014 we will have three new bundles of crazy life!