Tummy Tuesday!! (Yes I Know it is Wednesday)

So I can't believe that it has actually been 3 weeks since the last tummy update.  As you can see from the three photos below the growth rate of Jul's tummy has been exponential!  For those of you wondering what it is like to carry around an extra 40+ pounds that your body is not used to, you can rest assured that it is not all kittens and roses.  In fact when consulted about her current situation, Julie explained that it was kind of like carrying around a midget on your back all day long.  (No offense meant to midgets).  I think that the biggest issue is that people assume Julie is close to her due date when in fact she is just over half way there.  Today a woman said to us "you're not going to go into labor while you're here are you?" 

21 weeks

13 weeks

16 weeks

With Julie's new look we are also starting to get the questions from complete strangers when we are out in public such as "do you know what you are having?"  To which we reply a boy.....a girl....and a boy.  It usually takes people a few minutes to put it all together and it is pretty funny to watch them try to figure it out in their heads.  And yes for those that don't already know, we have one confirmed boy, one confirmed girl and a second pretty much confirmed boy (baby C just really does not want to cooperate at the ultrasounds!)

On another note...I apologize for the sporadic intervals of blog posts..I am really going to try to add a new post at least once a week starting next week....or so...or maybe two weeks from now...

Psst...Did you hear that one of the Waskey triplets has a tail...

Please excuse me if this post is a little incoherent but it is late and I am pretty tired.  However I wanted to get a post out about our recent doctor visits to give everyone accurate and up to date information on the status of the trips and to prevent the rumor mill from spiraling out of control (thus the title of this post).

Some of you may have heard that during our 2 hour long marathon morphology ultrasound last week, the ultrasound technician and the doctor thought that they may have observed a congenital heart defect (CHD) in one of the babies and ordered an echo cardiogram (ECD) of the babies hearts to confirm or refute their suspicions.  The ECD was originally scheduled for later next month but we got a call yesterday that they could see us today if we were available.  Long story short, we went in for the ECD today and they confirmed that our baby girl has a CHD called AV Canal (layman's terms).  Basically she has a hole in her heart where the valves between the chambers have not fully formed, thereby allowing blood to circulate through the chambers in all directions.

The good news is that as far as CHD's go, AV Canal is the most straightforward to fix via surgery sometime during the first 3-12 months of life.  The surgery involves putting patches over the "canals" to solidify the chambers of the heart so that they function properly.  The success rate is extremely high and most recipients of the surgery go on to lead normal health lives.  Basically the surgery is routine so far as any open heart surgery on an infant can be considered "routine".  In our case some of the other complications that can arise out of AV Canal were not observed meaning that a few other major issues have been avoided.

The tricky part of AV Canal is that it is a strong indicator for Downs Syndrome (DS).  From what the doctors told us and from what I have found online we have about a 50/50 chance that our baby girl will have some form of DS.  The good news from our visit today was that all of the other "markers" for DS came back negative meaning that right now the AV Canal issue is the only marker.  The only way to be absolutely sure one way or another is an amnio which we have decided against since a positive diagnosis of DS would not change anything for us and there is also a chance with amnio to cause preterm labor/miscarriage, etc..  Since we have beaten the odds of less than a 1% percent chance for triplets and a 2 in 10,000 chance of an AV Canal issue, we are not taking our chances with anything that has a chance above 0.00% of harming our babies.  This means that ultimately we won't know until the babies are born whether or not our baby girl has DS.

Julie and I are very much at peace with everything right now and so please do not feel the need to reassure us that everything will be all right.  We understand that everything is in God's hands and we have truly given this whole situation over to him.  We obviously covet your prayers and one of the main reasons for our decision to be so open about all of this is to encourage you all to pray for the babies and for our continued peace of mind about all of this.  Right now Julie is starting to really feel the effects of this triplet pregnancy and so all of our energy is focused on helping her through the next couple months.  The babies will continue to grow and there is really nothing we can do at this point for them that will change anything other than keeping in the "oven" for as long as possible.  Thank you all again for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Hampton Roads Earthquake Devastation

I know that this is not triplet related but since several people have contacted us to see how we made it through the "Quake of 2011", I thought we'd give you a true sense of the carnage we experienced...

Yes it was that bad.

It's a Mommy World and We're Just Living In It (The Y Chromosome Conspiracy Part 2)

So to the shock and dismay of many of you I proposed in my previous post that there is a sinister scheme amongst the pregnant community to exclude fathers from feeling like they are at all involved in the process.  I promised that I would put forth even more evidence with this post so prepare to be convinced.

After you've read all the books that can be read, the next step in the pregnancy research plan is the internet.  Not surprisingly there are numerous websites and groups devoted to pregnancy and specifically, multiples pregnancies such as Triplet Connection, Mothers of Supertwins (MOST), Moms of Multiples (MOMS), etc…  It is also not surprising to see that most of these groups are mom centered with nary a mention of good ol’ dad.  In fact, when I contacted the local chapter of MOMS to find out when and where they meet, I was told that they were really looking forward to Julie attending the next meeting.  Although I should have taken the hint from the name (MOMS), I was still a bit disappointed that I wasn’t invited to the group.  I actually think that several of the people (I mean women) that I had email contact with regarding membership of their websites were truly confused as to why the father was making the inquiries instead of the mother. (Important Update:  We attended a meeting of our local group and they are actually changing their name to Parents of Multiples with the intention of including fathers...I guess that is some sort of victory!)

In my previous post I wrote about the various memoirs that are out there about raising triplets.  Well just as there are plenty of memoirs documenting the parenting process of multiples, the online memoir world, aka blogs, is exploding.  It seems that everyone and their mother (no pun intended) has a blog these days including mothers of multiples.  The surprising thing is that so far this blog that you are reading right now is the only one I’ve seen where the father does the majority of the postings.  Even the blog competitions are sexist.  If you visit a few pregnancy blogs you will eventually notice that some of them have links where you can vote for them as a “Top Mommy Blog”.  Not real equal opportunity if you ask me.  I eventually found a link on a blog to vote for “Top Parenting Blog” which got me real excited.  However when I reviewed the top 25 blogs as voted for on their site, only 1 was written by a man.

So based on the evidence presented it is obvious that men are being excluded and/or are not interested in being involved in the pregnancy community.  That leaves the real question of why? I have pondered that question for a while now and I have come up with a few ideas about what is going on. 

1.      We live in a world where women have been told all their lives that they can do anything without the help of a man and therefore women have extended that rationale to pregnancy and raising children.  This may also include the ideas that men are not dependable and/or trustworthy and therefore should not be counted on and/or men have no right to be involved because it is a woman’s body and therefore her concern only.

2.      We live in a world where men are slowly being phased out so that eventually we won’t be needed at all.

3.      We live in a world where women just don’t trust that men are competent enough to help with a pregnancy and/or raise children.

4.      We live in a world where men have pulled the greatest con of all time and convinced women that, for whatever reason, they shouldn’t be involved in all of the hard work that is the pregnancy experience (kind of like the 1950’s). 

5.      We live in a world with a lot of lazy, uninvolved, uncaring fathers who feel that pregnancy is a “women’s issue”.

Regardless of the reason for the lack of male inclusion in the pregnancy community, I think it is time for men to step up and be more involved despite the walls and barriers placed in front of us.  It is time that we demonstrated that we are a part of this process too and that our role is no less important than carrying a baby (or 2 or 3).  What say you?

**Disclaimer – it has come to my attention that several esteemed readers of this blog may have taken my previous post regarding this topic a bit too literally.  I want to ensure that everyone understands that while I did want to bring attention to what I observed as a severe lack of male involvement in the pregnancy process, most of this is slightly exaggerated and thus intended to be humorous and tongue-in-cheek.  In other words, I don’t really believe that women want to rule the world (but if you do, please grant me mercy).

Tummy Tuesday!

Our rather plump cat Bella was actually the inspiration for Tummy Tuesdays...

Well I promised you guys a comparison shot or two of Julie's tummy progress over the past few weeks so I thought it would be a good idea to introduce a new feature to the blog - Tummy Tuesdays!  While there won't be an update every week, we will post every couple weeks to show how crazy big Julie's tummy is getting.

Week 13

Week 16

As you can see, the change in just 3 short weeks has been quite incredible.  It is still hard to fathom that there are 3 babies in there.  While Julie has not felt any real movement yet we know it is only a matter of time.

Does Size Really Matter?

Can you spot all 3?

So we had our monthly visit to both the regular ob and the specialist this past Monday and everything is coming along nicely.  We did have one big change this time around though.  Instead of measuring the trips in length they are now measured in weight.  It's no wonder that we have a culture obsessed with weight considering that even at 17 weeks people are concerned about how much you weigh.  I mean what kid wouldn't grow up with a complex when they can hear us outside the womb discussing whether or not they weighed too much or too little.  Fortunately for us, our three weighed in at an age appropriate 6 ounces, 6 ounces and 7 ounces.  All three are still sporting awesome heart rates as well.  A couple of the better ultrasound pics that we received are showcased on the right.

As for Julie, she has already gained over 20 lbs since this whole thing started.  There will be a special post on Tuesday that will include some photos of Julie's tummy progression.  We have also made the decision (based on the doctor's recommendation) that Julie will stop working after this month.  Thankfully there are no signs of Julie needing to go on bedrest anytime soon and having more time to rest during the daytime will hopefully help prevent doctor ordered bedrest in the near future.

Our next appointments are not until the end of the month but I will be putting up some more posts before then including the second part of the Y Chromosome Conspiracy (if you missed the first part you can read it here) and other fun stuff.