Hospital bed rest day 59 W28D5: Woo hoo, we are passed 28 weeks and belly pictures!

Finally, we have passed the second goal of 28 weeks!  This means that if the triplets are to come any time now, they are most likely than not to survive, although they will probably be very ill babies, with possible long-term medical and health problems.

At the scan with the Peri last Wednesday (W27D7), the babies weight were:

Baby A: 1047g

Baby B: 1054g

Baby C;1001g

Oh, by the way, did I mention that we are having BBB triplets?  We found this out quite early at week 16. DH was hoping for a girl, but I reckon that if we were to have a set of single gender triplets three boys is still more manageable than three girls, ha ha.

According to Dr. Luke’s statistics for fraternal triplet boys, our boys are slightly below the 50^th percentile of birth rate.  I guess this is where our babies' growth will unfortunately start to slow down in comparison to a singleton baby.  Still, DH and I are quite satisfied with the weight of our boys given my 5’2 height and small frame.  Also, we are conscious that the stats were taken from a sample of Western triplets and we wonder if perhaps Asian babies are smaller than Western babies?   I was a bit worried because I felt that I had not put on enough weight over the past 2 weeks, so we’re just happy that they’re all above 1kg now.

Now for the cervix.  The Peri said this was going to be our last cevix scan since anything beyond 28 weeks would be redundant as the cervix starts to shorten in preparation for labor thereafter.  He took the first measurement and it was 2.1cm – bad news.  Prior to this, my cervix had been pretty consistent, at abou t 3.5cm so this was pretty drastic shortening.  Anything below 3.0cm is not good.  The Peri took another measurement and this time the cervix was 3.2cm.  So is it 2.1 or 3,2?  Also, he was concerned about some sludge that he sported in my cervix.  He gave me some progesterone pessaries  for daily use, and I go back this Wednesday, i.e. tomorrow for another cervix scan. 

I’m trying not to get too worked up about my cervix, since the only thing I can do is to pray and wait.  Everything has been going on fairly smoothly so far, and I do hope that it will continue this way.

The Peri did mention in passing about my refusal to get the daily blood thinner jab.  He didn’t insist on it, though.  I’m trying to be as ambulatory as possible but although I feel the increase in my pelvic pressure whenever I walk, and it making walking uncomfortable.  Actually, I am truly waddling (not walking) at this stage.  Even the prenatal cradle does not help much with the increasing pelvic pressure.

I’m also worried that the increase in pelvic pressure means that my baby has dropped and that this is another indication of pre-term labor.  The Obs assures me though that this pressure is normal because I’m carrying three babies.   So I guess right now I just have to bite the bullet and tolerate it in addition to the pain in my leg joints, sleep of not more than two hours in a stretch, and pain in my fingers every time I wake up.  I know these are still considered minimal complains.  I have no backache, heartburn, acid reflux, nausea or serious carpel tunnel syndrome, so I have a lot to be thankful for.

Our boy would have to almost double their weight in order to reach the ideal minimum weight of triplets at birth, 1.8kg.  I already feel so heavy so I have no idea how it would be like to be carrying double of my babies weight! That would be equivalent to about twice the weight of an average birth weight of a singleton baby (i.e. 3kg) in additional to three times the amount of placenta and amonic asid inside my poor uterus.

From now onwards, every additional two weeks is a milestone for us.  Our next goal is reaching the big 3 – 30 weeks.  It doesn’t seem too far away.