24 Weeks & A Baby Shower!

This post might be longer than normal, but I want it for memories! All good stuff!!!

We are in the 24th week of the pregnancy. If I make it to my goal date then I have 10 wks left! CRAZY! It's finally kicking in that soon we will have 3 little babies. The reality of that is something I can't quite wrap my head around. Which I'm guessing is a very normal feeling when you are expecting multiples. There is honestly so much on my mind and I just need to get it all out there. This might jump around from subject to subject but in 10 years I want to be able to go back and remember all these feelings. And I want the babies to one day read this and know...so hang with me. Or just jump down to the pictures. :)

Ok......the month of May. This has been something on my mind for days now. I wasn't sure I was going to blog about it but I think I want to. There are so many things happening this month between baby showers, Mother's Day and my birthday. All of these events have been something that i have honestly dreaded in the past few years. Thanks to infertility. First off baby showers - they were always so hard to go to. I always dreamed of one day it would be me. Then the next baby shower would come and it wasn't me. This pattern went on for awhile. It hurt worse every time.  Same with my birthday.....another year older and childless. And Mother's Day, same feelings - another year - not a mom. All of these events have or are happening this month and I'm so incredibly thankful and feel so blessed right now. There are SO many women that have it harder than I did when it comes to infertility. So many of them are friends of mine and it hurts my heart!! The thing is we ALL want the same thing - to me a mom - no matter what this journey throws at us and what obstacles, painful medical procedures, a roller coaster of hormones due to medications, the list goes on and on. So, I will stop rambling about this and leave this subject with a request that if you pray, please don't forget the ones going through this crazy journey. I know it got me through and I'm so thankful for all the prayers that I received....they worked!!!!!

On to todays dr's appt! Once again everything looked great! My dr could not be more pleased with how this is going. The babies continue to grow and grow! My cervix is perfect still - I know gross but this is what is keeping me out of the hospital and off bed rest. All 3 babies are measuring right at 24-25 weeks and weigh well over a pound each! We are thrilled and shocked at how well its going. So are our dr's. They have all said by now normally i would be on bed rest or in the hospital. I did have my gestational diabetes test today. All was great until I almost passed out. My blood sugar crashed really bad. My dr and nurse rolled me on my side and covered me with cold wet towels. After a few minutes of that and drinking some juice I was ok. We will have the results back on that within a week. I'm praying I passed it. If not, I have to do a 3 hour test and I don't know how i will survive that!!!!
Today's sonogram pics! I really should stop taking pics of these and should scan them. BUT that is too much work!

This is a pic of all 3 heartbeats. Kinda cool!

Brennan's sweet profile. 

Carter looking at us! Ha Wonder if he will have chubby cheeks - looks like it!

Carter's profile

And Wild Child Annie!!!!!! 

This girl is so active! She flips around ALL THE TIME!

 I don't know how she had room to move around like she does!

Baby Shower! 

Sunday afternoon the girls from work threw a baby shower for the trips! It was so fun and cute! Laurie did an amazing job with the help of Traci and Susan!! I LOVE all these girls to death! I don't think we got pics of everyone though. :( Be prepared for picture overload and they are all out of order! 

Aubrey, Me, Traci and Christen

Aubs face in this cracks me up! Susan made "Thing 1, Thing 2 and Thing 3" onesies!

And she made the cutest little animals! LOVE these!

Again, Aubrey's face! Cracking me up! 

 And again.....

 Something must have been funny...

Every gift Aubs bought had a giraffe on it! 

 Laurie, Me, Susan and Blue dogs head

 Adorable cake!

 Some of us hanging outside on Laurie's amazing patio!

 Gift bags filled with popcorn! 

 Susan, Traci, Laurie and Pistol the Yorkie

 This is the moment that sweet little Benjammin asked me how I got 3 babies in my belly! Ha! 

I love this kid!! 

Decorations and food! So yummy!

  Me and TK!!!!!

 Benjammin and sweet old Fudge loving on each other!

 More decorations

 Me and Jennifer

 Me, Aubs and Raech! 

21 Weeks and Identicals???

It's been I think 6 weeks since I've updated! OOPS! Everything is going great! The babies continue to grow as they should and I'm feeling good! 

We started seeing our perinatoligist(the dr that specializes in high risk pregnancies) weekly a few weeks ago. They watch the growth of the babies carefully as well as my ob. They travel to Longview weekly so I can go there for appts instead of going to Grapevine every single week! Longview is about 45 mins away so that is nice!

The coolest update I have is this............the boys are most likely IDENTICAL!!!!!!!! Yesterday during the sonogram the dr said that the membrane(which I guess is the sac) between Brennan and Carter is much thinner than Annie's. He said that usually means they came from the same egg that split which would result in identicals! Of course we won't 100% know until they are born but he was pretty confident in this! We will be thrilled either way though. :)

We have started the nursery. Its a slow process since we have to have triple of everything but it's coming together and it seems like we rarely have time to work on it. Between traveling to Grapevine almost weekly and work we just haven't had a lot of time. We have the cribs up and the closet is full of clothes as well...thanks to my mom, mother in law and my addiction to baby clothes shopping! The changing table is at my moms being painted and we need to put the glider together.  I will post pics of it once it's done!

For now here is a pic of their closet! This was actually about 3 weeks ago so more as been added. :) It's all preemie and newborn with a few 0-3 month outfits! So fun! 

Sorry to cut this short but Gracie is destroying something in the other room. Shes eaten 2 pairs of my brand new shoes with in a week so I must watch her like a hawk! But I will leave you with sonogram pics of our little babies!



Oh and one more thing. Everyone has been begging to see a pic of the belly. Well, you can all thank Laurie for taking this AWFUL pic of me yesterday! I'm not too embarrassed to post it even though my face is PUFFY! But Laurie my sweet...I mean evil..friend, you will pay for this!! She already posted it on facebook so why the heck not....

Yikes.

Xoxo,

J

15 Weeks & Some Randomness!

We had a Dr's appt yesterday. The babies still look great! The Dr said everything was perfect! They are all measuring right at 15 weeks and growing on track. We were able to see the genders again yesterday and got that confirmed! All 3 were wiggling around and active. I will start seeing the high risk OB in 2 weeks! Things are moving along fast!!!!!

 Here are ultrasound pics from yesterday...

BABY A! Still a BOY!

He kicks me all the time. :) Feels like little flutters right now...I'm sure soon it will be much more intense! Future soccer player??

BABY B! A GIRL!

2 weeks ago this was the baby they thought was a boy(we think...unless they told us wrong then) but definitely a girl! She is positioned with her head up  and Baby A is heads down...kicking her in the head! They assured us can't really feel it. I told Trav it's just making her tough and she will get revenge on her brother one day! :-)

BABY C! A BOY!

He is heads down as well like his brother.

Although he's not kicking his sister in the head.

;-)

The belly bump this week!  :-)

 Gracie was spayed yesterday and we found out she has BAD teeth...at only 7 months old. Not a clue why either! They took some dental x-rays and ended up pulling 4 teeth yesterday. We are going to have to take her to a specialist to see if they can try to save her other canines. It seems like it's always something with our dogs! Poor things. :( She is recovering well today and sleeping a lot. She HATES the cone on her head! I would too!

Love this face too much!

2 of the cribs arrived right before we left on Saturday for Keller. As soon as we got home last night Trav could NOT wait to put one together. It's sitting in the middle of the living room right now. Haha! He is going to work on getting the guest room furniture moved to the bedroom we are using as an office this week. I am HOPING the room is big enough for the 3 cribs, dresser and a glider....but I'm not holding my breath.

Here he is putting it together. We are doing the classic jenny lind style cribs!

I think that's it!! I'm sure there will be something I forgot but oh well....that's my life these days!

XOXO,

J

13 Weeks and Genders!!!!!!

LONG DAY! But all is good!! The babies look perfect. All measuring great and with good heartbeats! They are starting to look like little humans now! The Dr said everything was fabulous!!! Now to the FUN part....ultrasound pics and genders!! The ultrasound tech is very confident about Baby A and C's genders. Baby B was a little shy. These are her BEST educated guesses as well but it was pretty obvious! LOL

BABY A is a......

(NO idea how to rotate these and I'm too tired to figure out....so tilt your head! )

BABY BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BABY B is a...

MAYBE a BOY!

But we aren't 100% sure....this one was being shy!

BABY C is a.....

BABY GIRL!!!!!!!

We will know for sure in a few more weeks but these are GOOD guesses! Especially on Baby A and C!!!

Sorry it took so long to post this! I had to take Charlie to the Animal Emergency Clinic as soon as I got home. He's OK.....we think. The ER Dr was a moron! We will take him to our regular vet tomorrow for testing....since the ER was out!

XOXO,

J

The Triplet Details!!

I wanted to blog all the details from the beginning until now. We have been asked so many questions by many people. We figured the best way to explain it all was to put it in one place! Plus, we want to remember all these details in 10 years!

As many of you know we have struggled with infertility for awhile now and we lost a pregnancy in July 2012. The past year as been such a roller coaster!! After waiting 3 months after the miscarriage I started clomid(a fertility drug that helps produce mature eggs). I had tried it before with no luck but had a feeling we needed to try it again before we started looking into IVF, etc. Well....just a few weeks later we found out we were expecting!

We found out about a week before you normally would...at 8 days post ovulation! This was my first feeling that we might be having multiples! At 5weeks 3 days my HCG levels were over 22,000...although HCG levels aren't an accurate way to determine multiples we had a feeling it was!

A few days later at 6 wks, on New Years Eve, we had our first ultrasound where we saw 3 babies with 3 beating hearts! WE WERE IN SHOCK! TRIPLETS!!!

Honestly, the night before the thought of triplets popped in my head but I thought I was crazy!! Trav was beyond excited watching those little flickering hearts on the screen! I really think he felt like he had just won the baby lotto! It was so fun watching his expressions! We called our parents and told them from the parking lot of the drs office! Everyone was so shocked and excited! We told a few close friends and other family members as well. Such a fun special day!!!

We were told at 6 weeks that Baby C might not make it because his/her heart beat was so low. We went back at 8 weeks to check on them all. We were so nervous that day! All we wanted was for all 3 to be ok and it was totally out of our hands. I don't think we said much to each other on the way to the dr because of nerves. As soon as they started the ultrasound we could see all 3 heartbeats!! Baby C had caught up with the other 2 and all 3 looked perfect!!

I don't think I have ever been so relieved in my life about anything when we saw that all 3 were ok!

(Left to right - Baby A, B and C)

After the 8 weeks ultrasound we decided to find a dr in the DFW area. Mainly because the OB's here in Tyler don't have much experience with multiples pregnancies...especially triplets. The most important thing right now is my prenatal health to make sure the babies are growing as they should.

We had our first appt with my new Ob last week. This was the BEST decision we could have made. She spent so much time with us explaining what the plan is, what to expect and answering all our questions. We feel so comfortable with her and she is so sweet!!!!  I will have appointments every 2 weeks til 20weeks then weekly after that. At that point I will be seeing her and a perinatologist. She also wants me living in the area at that point in case I start to go into pre-term labor or have any complications - which she said will happen. I will be staying at my moms then since her house is close to the hospital and dr's office. Our goal is to deliver at 34 weeks so we will need lots of prayers that it doesn't happen before that!

So here are the babies at 10 weeks 3 days!

All 3 in one picture! This is probably the last pic we will get like this! They grow so fast, they won't all fit in one anymore!

Baby A! You can see the cute little profile of  this one! So sweet!!

Baby B. Kind of hard to see because of the location and position of this baby.

And finally, Baby C...the backside of Baby C since he/she is facing the back of my uterus!

Everyone has asked when we will find out the sexes. Normal time is 16-20 weeks but since I will get ultrasounds every 2 weeks it might be sooner! Everyone has their guess on what they are. I think 2 girls, 1 boy! Hopefully soon we will know! We honestly don't care what they are! We just want happy and healthy babies!

I think that is just about everything!! We are so excited and feel so blessed! These babies are such miracles. I can't tell you how many dr's told us we would need major intervention to get pregnant. I have probably been to the dr about a dozen times over the past year and we NEVER received good news. Last week when my OB told us that everything looked "perfect" I will never ever forget how I felt at that moment. I'm carrying 3 perfect little miracles. We know that this is the easy part and things could get pretty wild here pretty soon with the pregnancy but we are prepared and willing to do whatever we have to do to keep the babies safe!  

Thank you everyone for your prayers over the past year!!

They were answered X3!!!!! We will use this blog to keep everyone updated so check back every few weeks! Next appt is Feb 18th!

XOXO,

J

Our Loss

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It's a day to raise awareness of miscarriages, ectopic pregnancy, still births, and infant loss. You can find more info here.

This day actually means something to Travis and I now. We suffered our own loss in July. We lost a pregnancy on July 27th at 10weeks. We will always always remember this baby even though we never met him or her. I have tried to write about this for awhile now and haven't been able, but thought today was as good as ever. It was a scary time. I ended up in the hospital for a few days and had a D&C. I am fine now and ready to try again. We were able to get pregnancy without any fertility drugs so we hope to again. I have an appt with a new Dr in November as my Dr passed away a few weeks ago!

Anyways, today at 7pm all over the world in different time zones everyone will be lighting candles for one hour to remember our babies.

So many people grieve in silence and the goal of today is to bring awareness to this and to remember. I have had so much support from amazing friends and family. I don't know how Travis or I would have been able to get through it without them.

Love y'all,

Justin

Kaeli Elyse Modern Digital Prints COUPON CODE!!

I know I haven't updated in forever! Things have been crazy. I have a blog post half written with an update but haven't been able to bring myself to finish it and post. Hopefully I will soon.

But I'm here to talk about something different today and a little more exciting!! Through this journey with infertility I have met some of the most amazing woman going through the same. Although I don't wish infertility on anyone wanting a baby I am so thankful for these girls in my life. I was lucky to be able to help one of them recently. It's not really my place to to tell her story but I will tell you that she is the sweetest girl and needs our support!! She has an etsy shop called Kaeli Elyse and makes the cutest digital modern prints! She sent me one and I LOVE it!

Her message from her site:

"Times are hard, but making your house a home isn't out of reach with my digital prints! Each print is customized & made to order just for you! 100% of the proceeds go toward funding our fertility treatments/baby fund. I help you decorate your home, while you help us fill ours. Thank you so much for shopping!"

This month a portion of her sales are going to help a friend's documentary about their surrogacy journey! Check it out on Facebook here!

Here are a just a few of my favorites

 LOVE this one so much! Hope to have it hanging in my house one day!!

She is offering all my friends, family and whoever is reading this 10% off if you mention "Allred10" when you order!

So if you need something super fun to fill some wall space in your house, need a baby shower or wedding shower gift, these are perfect and they are helping pay for infertility treatments for some people that would make AMAZING parents!

Xoxo,

Justin