A Hodge-Podge of Medical Updates!

Ok, ok, I'm sorry I fell off the blog bandwagon again! I get SO tired at night (which is when I always promise to sit down and update...and I fall asleep and promise to do it the next night...and the vicious cycle continues!! So anyway, so much has happened, I'm trying to group information into "like categories" starting with all the medical updates first! Let's begin with the fact that today I am 29 weeks 4 days pregnant! YES!! (The picture below is last week's pic.)

1.Ok, so I had to finally go do my glucose test 2 weeks ago. (those who've ever had that know exactly what fun I'm talking about!) Drink a sugary drink, sit for an hour, draw blood and see if your glucose levels are normal or too high. Well, the test itself wasn't bad except that it sort of brought me back to my college days, when I may or may not have, shall we say, "chugged" a beverage? They hand me this nice cold drink, (I chose orange over fruit punch) and say to me, "You have five minutes to get it down. Ready? Go!" Oh my gosh, the pressure! No forewarning, no notice, nobody cheering me on, just the go signal! But I did just fine. :) (I may have been out of college for 10 years, but I've still got it!) So out to the waiting room I went to count down my hour...Well, apparently the babies really like sugar! They were all three moving all OVER the place to the point that a girl sitting across from me was going "Oh Oh! Your belly! Oh my gosh!" Yes, she had tuned into the fact that I could have been rehearsing a scene for an aliens movie...so that was fun. Bad news? I FAILED THE TEST!! After one hour, my blood sugar level was still too high, suggesting that maybe my body was not processing sugar very well...a possible sign of gestational diabetes. :(

2. So that brings me to number two. This past Monday, I had to go BACK to the lab-o-fun for the THREE hour glucose test! Yeah, this test starts with me fasting for 12 hours, (to which I say, how do you make a pregnant girl fast?? That's just torture!) But anyway, upon my arrival at 7:30 in the morning, they draw my blood to get a baseline "fasting" level, then I drink the same drink (for which I was much better prepared this time) then I sit for 1 hour, they draw my blood, I sit for the second hour, they draw my blood, I sit for the third hour, and finally they draw my blood for the fourth and final time. After that, all you can do is PRAY that your levels come out normal, cuz if not, there goes my sweet tooth and here comes my diabetic diet. However...The next day I got a call from my doctor who was excited to report that my blood sugar levels were normal at every hour! Woo hoo!! She even said I could go celebrate with a Cold Stone Creamery! YES!! So that's one hurdle I'm glad to be over!

3. This past Wednesday, Brian and I met with a Genetic Counselor at UMC who was recommended to us because of Colton's cleft lip and palate.

The pictures below are of what I think is an absolutely adorable little guy who has a cleft that is likely much more similar to Colton's. The first picture is shows the bilateral cleft lip and palate and the second one is just a few weeks after his lip surgery. HOW sweet is he?? If anyone is interested, you can read all about this little guy and others at Cleftline.org.

Anyhoo, she was such a nice woman and SO knowledgeable! She made both Brian and I feel very at ease about the situation. She helped put us in contact with the Tucson Orofacial "Team" who will help get our little guy the surgeries, etc. that he'll need. We're scheduling an appt. with the lead surgeon before the babies are even born so that he can start to know Colton as early as possible! Yippee! The counselor informed us that after speaking with the "team" she was told that assuming other aspects of his health are ok, they often can do the first surgery (the lip surgery) at a month to a month and half old. That would be so great! But obviously we want to make sure his health is ok first. We were also assured that it appears that Colton's cleft is an isolated "issue" for him, meaning that it does not appear that he has any other syndrome associated with his cleft palate and lip! Hooray!

This is Dr. Craig Hurst. They tell us he's our man! He is a plastic surgeon who has special interests in facial deformities including children's cleft palates and lips! Yay! You can read more about him and our other doctors by going to UMCarizona.org and doing a "Physician Search."

We kind of smiled when she also told us that "she's known about our babies for some time now..." Apparently there is a neonatal team at UMC comprised of doctors, nurses, counselors, etc. who meet every Thursday to discuss any high risk cases going on, babies who will be coming to the NICU soon, etc. So apparently, they've all been talking about and following the "Bunch Babies' progress". (And the babies were commended for how well they're doing! They all show consistent growth (they've consistently gotten bigger each month) and they're also growing in concordance with one another (meaning they've pretty much stayed right around the same weight as their siblings throughout.) Yay! Go babies! I'm so proud of them!

4. Yesterday I went back for my weekly checkup and ultrasound and everything was once again terrific! Blood pressure normal? Check! No swollen ankles yet? Check! No water leakage or bleeding? Check! No contractions? Well....ok, there have been quite a few of those. How was I to know that I was having contractions?? I've never been pregnant before!! I just thought all those times when the babies would all move at the same time and create the "alien-like" stomach I've often described was just that- Babies moving at the same time...Apparently, THOSE ARE CONTRACTIONS! The best way I can describe it is that it looks like my stomach is getting vaccum sealed momentarily....so the doctor confirmed that those are indeed Braxton-Hicks contractions...Who KNEW?? nothing to worry about unless they come repeatedly in an hour or the tightening feeling does not let up....so for now, no worries!

Otherwise, it was a great appt.! The ultrasound showed three happy babies! (unfortunately Brian was not in town to hear the good "talk" about his boys' "parts"...The doctor kept remarking about how great they looked and even took at picture of Ethan's...poor guy. We had the BEST shot of Ethan's facial profile and then his belly, with a perfect picture of the umbilical cord attaching right at his belly button and then his, "boy part"! Unfortunately, by the time we clicked to take a picture, the image shifted ever so slightly, so it's not quite as clear, but I'll post it anyway. :)

So the big circle on the left is his head, followed by his belly. That dark spot over to the right is his full bladder :) (Like mother, like son) and the little "stick" thing sticking out above the bladder is his YOU KNOW WHAT! :)

And my doctor, who came in to chat after I'd been see by a med student and another doctor, congratulates me for making it as far I have without any hiccups! Hooray for me! And then he says, "Let me see this belly they tell me about..." "You've got to be kidding me!! Still no stretch marks?? The nurses in Labor and Delivery are going to kill you!" He laughs and tells me that if I want to do myself a favor, when the day comes that I go in to have the babies, I should put on NO makeup, take the pretty polish OFF my toes, don't do my hair, etc.! Basically, make myself look as bad as I can!" To which I laugh and say, "HA! You obviously don't know ME very well if you think I'm coming in here with NO makeup on!" Oh well...I'm practicing what to say when the nurses start to give me a hard time...."I know there are no stretch marks, I just feel so blessed.."

Yes, this is Dr. Maciulla, the "very funny, possibly crazy (his words, not ours) but apparently very gifted doctor we have talked about....thought you'd like to put a face with the stories!

Anyway, as for the big question lingering....WHEN WILL I HAVE THE BABIES?? Ok. Unless I randomly go into labor early, then we are calling 34 weeks our "DUE DATE!" (He said we could try to be really pushy and go for 35 weeks, but likely we won't do that. So 34 weeks would be the week of March 30- April 4th....somewhere in there!

5. And finally...Monday night, March 2nd, we get to go take a tour of the labor & delivery area, the newborn nursery the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where our little buggers will be going, etc. And I'm VERY excited about that! Not gonna lie... knowing that the tour is coming makes me realize that babies are going to be coming soon too! But that's ok! If I can take pictures at all along our tour, you know I will! ****(And I know that this is the night of "The Bachelor' finale....so Please don't anyone call or text me and tell me what happens! I won't be able to start watching it until at least 9:30 at night!!) :) OH WHO WILL HE PICK?? (Notice I am NOT putting Deanna's picture on here because if he picks her I will be furious!!

Ok, that's all for the MEDICAL UPDATES! Whew!