I get to quit my 2nd job!

Well like the title says I get to quit my second job of looking for a regular “I’m not going to do anything but test your pee” OB/GYN. I’m so sick of calling doctor’s offices and explaining everything just to hear that they will not take us on. It’s very hard to find a doctor for our situation. We thought we had found a doctor and the hospital that we were going to deliver the trips in; but that turned out to be a big no! It was a free/community (Medicaid) outreach clinic where you saw whatever doctor was available to see you and they didn’t deliver you. (Plus the doctor that we saw had her degree in Zoology), so something went terribly wrong. (On a side note, and this is just one of the many FML moments we have; we were told to use the valet, so we are done they stamp the ticket and we are leaving wishing we didn’t waste 3 hours of our time, and I realize that the ticket is stamped “Free Clinic”, and I didn’t have any cash for a tip). It seems like a great place if this is all you can get, but we are used to our small town doctor’s office where the doctor you see and knows your case delivers your baby. We did learn a lot from this appointment (not about the babies, but how these hospital’s work) most of the OB/GYN’s in the McKinney, Plano, Dallas area do not deliver babies the hospital hires OB/GYN hospitalist that do nothing but C-Sections, and births all day. Which in theory sounds good, but it’s not the experience that we are really thrilled with. So we have made the choice to try with everything we have to have the babies here at Texoma Medical Center.

We know that this may not happen, we are under no misconception that Danielle, and/or the trips will have to be sent to Plano, but all things considering this is what makes our stress level go way down. If something happens pre-term labor wise then she will be sent to Plano and a hospitalist will take over, same if we were seeing a doctor there. If the trips are having problems that TMC can’t handle they will be sent to Plano as well so it’s really not that big of a change. Bottom line, if something goes wrong or happens too fast we will be in Plano. (TMC – 5 minutes, Plano -1hr-1hr30min)

Met with the new OB, Dr. Cutler and I think it’s really going to work out very well. He has delivered two sets of triplets, trained with/by our maternal-fetal medicine doctor, and has a lot of connections with the hospital that he will send us to if we encounter any problems (Presbyterian Hospital Plano). He doesn’t seem scared or completely turned off to the idea that all this will work as long as we realize that it might not. So the new goal is 34 weeks to have the babies here! So September 7^th is our 34 week, girls you need to hang in there until then!

Our next appointment is May 8^th with Dr. Z, and it will be another 2 hour marathon ultrasound, so we will have lots of updates then and pictures. We will also get the 100% on the babies’ sexes at that appointment; Baby C may have decided that she wanted to be a boy! 

Lots of updates on the pregnancy and the babies:

Saturday night after going to the emergency room we found out that we had three perfectly healthy babies and unfortunately baby D was no longer there. It’s a strange and weird feeling that we had when we got this news, some people will not understand, however most of you have never been faced with this monumental situation. Yes, we were sad we lost a life that we created, it was our flesh and blood, but at the same moment it was a wave of what can best be described as relief. The difference that one baby makes is absolutely mind blowing. The relief feeling comes from not having to have an extremely high-risk life threating pregnancy, Danielle not having to be on in-patient bed rest for 6+ weeks, not having 4 micro-preemies that will have major medical problems/issues, not having to move, and not having to get a cargo van. It also takes away any hard decisions that we were faced with, selective reduction/total termination was always an option, and always declined, however, decisions that make you have to choose to save the life of one at the expense of all, or choosing to save Danielle or the quads. So yes relief is the word that I would use, this was put into god’s hands and here we stand. Triplets by no means is a walk in the park, but it’s a much safer and easier pregnancy then what we were faced with, and for that we are grateful. We knew from the start that baby D was a little behind and heart rate was a little lower, and with HOM (High-Order Multiples) it’s very common for 1-2 of the babies to stop growing at a certain point and simply vanish, it’s not an indication that the pregnancy is in trouble.

Now on to the fun stuff!

1^st Appointment with Dr. Z, and I have to say that I am a great doctor picker! This wasn’t a doom and gloom appointment that we were bracing ourselves for, it was very informative and the office staff was very excited and extremely nice. It was the 1^st appointment that we have gone to during this pregnancy where we felt like it was ok to be happy that we were pregnant. We had a 2 hour ultrasound, and boy oh boy (or should I say girl or girl) my babies were moving, jumping, and very cute (even Dr. Z said so). Our goal delivery date is 9/24/12 (correction) Aug 24th, which is 32 weeks, Danielle needs to gain about 30 pounds at the 24 week mark to have the best outcome. Most triplets don’t require inpatient bed rest, (which is a huge relief since it would kill Danielle to be away from Georgia that long) they will require a stay in the NICU however it’s almost cut in half, and some triplets are born at 5 pounds which is our goal. So Danielle is required to eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, and eat. She needs to take in over 4000 calories a day! Starting at 16 weeks, we will have bi-weekly ultrasounds (at 2 hours each), these babies will get a lot of face time with us!

96% Chance that all babies are girls!

Baby Stats:

A – 12w6d, 164 BPM (Possible Baby Name- Mariah Ann)

B-  13w1d, 162 BPM (Possible Baby Name- Maggie Jane)

C- 12w4d, 156 BPM (Possible Baby Name- Emma Claire)

So….what’s new? A BIG NOTHING!

The babies are the size of a lime! Well four limes! Drink anyone?

Giving a 12 week update, since we will be completing our 1^st trimester this week, and we are trying to think about what updates we can give out. We haven’t been to the doctor yet, and at our last appointment with Dr. Hermann, it was just a quick, “ok, good luck” visit. It seems like forever since we have gotten to see the quads and check on them, Danielle is scared to death that when we do get to go it will be bad news. This seems to be a theme for our pregnancies- DON’T GET YOUR HOPES UP. But we keep reminding her that it will all work out like it’s suppose to, and there isn’t anything she can do different now to change that outcome.

Our 1^st appointment with the Maternal-Fetal Medicine doctor is April 9^th, which just so happens to be my mom’s birthday (so Happy Birthday, and I hope that brings us some good luck). We will be going to see Dr. Michael Zaretsky at Children’s Medical Center Legacy in Plano. That in it’s self was a major project, finding a doctor that would take you with quads, that takes both insurances, delivers at your choice hospital, and has a highly rated NICU for the babies. It was a full time job, and once you finally get everything ready and you have your selected doctor, you just have to wait, because they don’t see anyone before you 12 weeks. Also we may get to find out some of the sexes of the babies at this appointment.

We have really been lucky in the fact that almost everyone that has had quads, has a blog, so we have been able to read, read, read, (at least 2 blogs start to home coming a day), it’s really given us some insight for what is going to be happening for us in the upcoming weeks. We had some hesitation with opening up for everyone to see, but if it wasn’t for people like that we would be in the dark about a lot of things, so expect us to be completely open from cravings to constipation. (Speaking of cravings, I have been woken up by Danielle the last week around 4 a.m. each morning with a new one, the last one that I can remember is the 4 a.m. wake up for McDonald’s French fries.)  We have so much to do, but we are frozen, we don’t want to start doing anything because we don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves and something happen. One thing is that our Explorer that we bought 3 days before we found out we were having quads will not fit our family, and it appears that a family of 7 with a triplet stroller and a twin stroller will not fit into anything other than a small bus…frankly I don’t think I can do it!