34 weeks 4 days - The Girls are Here!

Ava Munai Cunningham (Baby A) was born on February 4, 2011 at 8:39 a.m.  She was the smallest of the girls at 3 pounds 4 ounces and 15.5 inches long.  Lia Rose Cunningham (Baby B) was born next at 8:40 a.m.  She was the biggest at 4 pounds 14 ounces and 18 inches long.  Last, but not least, Mya Anne Cunningham was born at 8:41. a.m.  She was 4 pounds 8 ounces and 16.5 inches long.

We arrived at the  hospital at 6 a.m. on the morning of the C-section.  By 8 a.m. we were heading back to the operating room to prep for the surgery.  The operating room was quite the mob scene, but totally organized chaos at the same time.  The first thing I noticed was the room next to me, which was set up with the warmers for the babies to go to as they are born.  The room was packed with probably a good 20 hospital staff awaiting their arrival...a team for each baby.

There were at least 10 additional doctors, nurses and anesthesiologists in the operating room with me.  Once I was in there I had to receive my spinal block shot to numb me.  This was easily the worst part of the C-section.  It took a couple of sticks, but once they got it in I was numb within a couple of minutes and things moved quickly from there.  By the time they got Wade into the room, they were already starting the incision.  It's pretty amazing how quickly they get in there and start pulling out babies.  Wade, of course, is standing up watching everything over the curtain. 

Ava came out first and was kicking and crying.  They briefly brought her over to me to see and then whisked her away. Next, as they are attempting to pull Lia out, I hear the doctor kind of laugh and say "oops"....not something you want to hear in the middle of a surgery!  It turns out that Mya did not want to be last to be born and while they were trying to deliver Lia, Mya stuck her leg straight out to try to block her way.  It was a nice try, but Lia still got to be born second.  She was born with an attitude and an angry cry. They brought her to be also and she was obviously bigger than her sister and she did not look happy at all about being born! Finally, Mya got to come out and join the others.  It was a relief to here all three of them crying!

While they were finishing up the surgery, they called Wade back to where the babies were.  As they were checked out, they cleaned them up a little bit and had Wade bring each one out to me so that I could see them for a little bit longer and touch each one of them before they took them down to the NICU.

Wade stayed with me while they finished the surgery.  Then, when I went to post-op, he went down to the NICU to stay with the girls.  It turns out that little Ava was doing the best of all three.  She scored the highest of the three on  her Apgar test (newborn assessment).  She was on room air from the beginning.  Lia needed a little bit of help and was on some low flow oxygen for a few hours but was on room air by the end of the day.  Mya was on a high flow oxygen for awhile after she was born, but was also on room air by the next morning.

The girls are continuing to do well in the NICU.  There are several things that need to happen before they are able to come home.  They need to be breathing on their own, which they are doing already.  They also need to be able to maintain their body temperatures.  Currently they are in isolettes to help keep them warm, but I was able to start kangaroo care with them yesterday (holding skin-to-skin) and they all did well with that.  It was very exciting for me to get to hold them for the first time.  Hopefully Wade will be able to do it today.  The third thing that needs to happen before they go home is that they need to be eating on their own and gaining weight.  Yesterday they started tube feedings for all three of them and they are tolerating it well.  I have been pumping for them so we will see how long I can keep up with their feedings.  Lia and Mya are much happier now that they are being fed.  Lia especially was a little fussy, but is much more calm now that she is getting fed.  I guess it's because she is used to hogging all the food.  They are both really going to town on their pacifiers so it sounds like we will probably try a bottle feed today as well and see how that goes.

All of the girls are showing signs of jaundice which is very common in preemies.  They started Ava on bili lights yesterday, so she's hanging out under the sun lamp with her sunglasses on.  It sounds like it's a good possibility than Lia and Mya may have to do the same pretty soon.  Ava has been getting pretty fiesty and kicked her IV out of her foot last night, so now the poor thing has the IV in her head...looks like she has a unicorn horn :( 

So, all in all, everyone is doing fantastic.  I will probably be heading home tomorrow, so we will have to start trekking back and forth to see the girls everyday.  Hopefully it won't be for long and we will be able to get them home with us soon.  I'm having a lot of cramping, but I am recovering well.  I have been up walking back and forth to the NICU since Friday evening and that is getting a little easier everyday.  Thank you to everyone for their thoughts and prayers during my pregnancy.  Obviously they worked because we couldn't have hoped for things to go better than they have.  I will continue to update often on the girls' condition and as soon as I get home, I will post some pics on here.

Ava aka Baby A

Lia aka Baby B

Mya aka Baby C

34 Weeks - Snowbound and Nervous

I wasn't going to add a post this week until the girls were born on Friday, but I figured that today's snowstorm deserved a mention for future reference.  Just to add a little last minute excitement to this rather uneventful pregnancy, we are in the middle of the biggest snowstorm of at least the past 15 years, just 3 days before the babies are scheduled to be born.  Anybody who has been to my house knows that the likelihood of even making it out of our driveway in nearly 2 feet of snow is slim to none.  Although Wade and his brother are out in the dark as we speak shoveling as much as they can just in case we have an emergency and need to get out tonight!  So, I am currently putting this uterus on lockdown until Friday.  Nothing is going to get out of here!  Of course, since the governor did declare a state of emergency, I figured that if absolutely necessary they can call in the national guard that is on standby to get me to the hospital :)  So, now we just have to make sure that we dig out before Friday because I am getting to that hospital, one way or another!

Over 20 inches of snow predicted for Jeff City

Blizzard Warning

Our back deck at about 4:30 - still hours of snow to come!

3 Hours of shoveling - As you can see, you can't even see the street because our driveway if such a nightmare...

33 Week Checkup - Last Dr. Visit :)

So, it looks like this will most likely be my last post as an extremely pregnant woman.  Turns out, we'll be having babies next week instead of Feb. 7th, so my next post will be about babies and not just me for a change!  But, more on that later....

Today was probably one of the most stressful doctor's visits I have been to.  For almost all of our visits, we have been very lucky and gotten in almost immedately.  Even with ultrasounds, we are usually in and out in under an hour.  Today when we walked in, the waiting room was absolutely packed.  Still, we probably only waited about a half an hour before we got in, so it wasn't too bad.

And of course, once we got back to the ultrasound, these stubborn children wanted to do nothing once again.  I mean, they were painfully active on the car ride to Columbia and we get back to the room and all activity comes to an immediate halt.  Their heart rates were all good as usual and after about 20 minutes of inactivity they finally came to life just enough to get all of their movement and tone points.  We had our favorite ultrasound tech, Margaret, today.  So, Margaret tells us at this point that she is a little worried about the amount of fluid around Baby B...that it looks to be quite a bit less than what Baby A and Baby C have, so she wants the doctor to come back and take a look at it.  I guess this was probably the beginning of my escalating blood pressure for the day...

So the doctor comes back to take a look and says that the baby has enough fluid so that is not a problem.  Margaret then tells him that we haven't been able to get any practice breathing points for any of the babies today.  So, he watches a little bit longer and makes a comment that we may be having the babies sooner rather than later.  And the blood pressure goes up a little further....  Then all of a sudden Baby B takes like 3 or 4 breaths and he decides that is good enough.  Huh?  There's still 2 other babies in there that haven't done their breathing and none of them has completed a full 20 seconds like they are supposed to.  But, whatever, he is the expert.

Then, we get back to the exam room and the nurse asks me if the doctor has talked to me about the C-section date.  I tell her, yes, we scheduled it several weeks ago for February 7th.  She tells me she knows that is when we were going to do it, but that the doctor is now going to be out of town that week and that she has reminded him several times to discuss a different date with me, which he obviously hadn't done.  So, for some silly reason this is the date I have my heart set on, and now it is out the window.  Oh, by the way, now it's time to take my blood pressure.  Um, if you think that it might have been a little bit high at this point, then you would be correct.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 160/100.

Of course, that bought me a ticket to labor and delivery for the afternoon.  When I tried to bring up the C-section date before we headed over there, I was told to wait and see what the monitoring shows.  Fortunately, it was not quite the ordeal that it was a couple of weeks ago.  They got all of the babies hooked up to heart monitors and they took blood to run labs.  While I waited for the lab results, I had to lay flat on my back without moving for over an hour while they monitored the babies.  Talk about uncomfortable.  But, thankfully, all of the labs looked great and the babies were good, so they let me head home after a couple of hours.

So, once I got home, I immediately called the doctor's office to get the C-section date sorted out.  At first they told me that they would call me and let me know first thing in the morning.  Fortunately, I think that the nurse pushed the issue and called back almost immedately and asked how I felt about having babies on February 4th instead of February 7th....so that is the new plan, just 8 days away!  While I want to keep the babies in as long as possible, I am really not comfortable with the possibility of going into labor while my doctor is out of town, so I think that February 4th is the best solution.  34 weeks and 4 days...can't ask for much better than that. 

Unless anything crazy happens between now and then, we will be welcoming Ava, Lia and Mya into the world next Friday.  As soon as I am up to it, I will update with details and pictures!

32 Week Checkup - Still Cooking

I'm happy to report that our 32 week checkup was significantly less eventful than last week's visit.  Since I have been behaving myself and staying in bed, my blood pressures have been great.  Even in the doctor office is wasn't too bad - 142/84 - which is much better than last week.  I was pretty nervous because the nurse at the hospital last week told me that if I had another bad blood pressure reading this week that they would send me right back to the hospital.  So I figured that statement alone would be enough to guarantee me a record high number, but thankfully that wasn't the case.  For good luck I decided to go completely prepared for any possibility this week.  I took everything to the doctor with me:  suitcase, laptop, pillows, even the diaper bag.  I guess my strategy worked!  I don't have to go back until Thursday next week...only 2 more visits until the big day...19 days and counting.

During the ultrasound, the babies decided to be less than cooperative today.   We listened to loud music all the way to Columbia and the babies were just bee-bopping away in there.  I guess they wore themselves out because they didn't do much of anything but lay there like bumps on a log through most of the biophysical profile.  Baby C did finally get a score of 8/8, only because she got the hiccups and that counted as practice breathing.  After a lot of pushing around on my stomach, we finally got everyone to move around enough to get most of their points, but neither Baby A nor Baby B did much of anything in the way of practice breathing so they each got 6/8.  Nobody seemed too concerned about it, so I guess I won't be worried about it either.  Everyone's heart rates were good.  Baby A and Baby B were around 135 and Baby C was a little higher at 156 because of her hiccups.  Also, we finaly quit doing the cervical measurements today.  I guess we are at the point where it doesn't really matter what the measurement is because they wouldn't take any steps to stop labor at this point anyway...so that's one less thing I have to have done every week.

Well, I guess I am going to hunker down and enjoy the snow storm.  Hopefully we are good to go for another week.  I have had several requests to see the baby bump, so I have broken down and taken a picture for your entertainment...although I think the black may have a slimming effect ;-)

There's no place like home!!!

I am officially back home and resting comfortably in my own bed.  After all of the monitoring, all of the babies look good, my resting blood pressure looks great and the 24 hour urinalysis only showed trace amounts of protein.  The only down side is that I am now on complete bedrest for the duration.  I realize that I have been very fortunate on my "modified" bedrest up to this point, so I am definitely not going to complain (yet).  Anything is better than spending the next few weeks in the hospital!  But, any more high blood pressure readings or any increases in protein levels will most likely put me back into the hospital.  So the main lesson I am taking from this is to start taking a packed hospital bag to every doctor visit and prepare for the inevitable.  It won't be long now...just 4 days away from the 32 week goal.  Anything after that is bonus!

31 Week Checkup - First Trip to the Hospital

So, I am currently stuck in the hospital for at least the night :(  My blood pressure had shot up a little bit today to 148/106 and they found some protein in my urine sample, so after my doctor's visit they sent me over to labor and delivery for testing and monitoring.  Twice today we have had all three babies on heart monitors for at least 20 minutes simultaneously (which is not an easy task) and they seem to be doing just fine.  All of the lab work and blood draws they took have come back normal and my blood pressure has been really good since I've been over here.  So, since the babies look good and my blood pressure has stabilized, it doesn't look like there will be any kind of rush to deliver the babies so that is the most important thing.  It doesn't necessarily mean that I will get to go home though.  We have to wait until tomorrow to get the results of some of the 24 hour tests to make that determination.  While the attending doctors (who are not my doctor, so won't be deciding) seem to think there is a chance that I could go home, my nurse has said that from her experience, she will be surprised if they end up sending me home since we are nearly full term for triplets...usually they end up staying.

They did go ahead and give me a couple of medications to give the babies a boost in case they would end up delivering early.  I had a steroid shot today and have to get another one tomorrow.  These help strengthen the babies lungs.  They are also giving me magnesium sulfate, and all I can say about that is that it sucks.  They start out with a large dose that more or less makes you feel like your skin is on fire for about a half an hour.  OK, that may be a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea.  Now I am on a lower dose, but apparently it's pretty cold in the room from the way Wade is bundled up and I am still on the verge of sweating.  Anyway, the magnesium apparently has some neurological benefits for the babies if they are born early and has been shown to decrease the chances of issues such as cerebral palsy.

Well, other than all of that, everything is still looking fine.  We did a growth scan and biophysical profile on the babies this morning at the doctor's office.  All of the babies scored 8/8 on their profiles.  Also, all of the babies gained over a pound since the last growth scan.  So, at 31 weeks 2 days, here are their weights:

Baby A - 3 lbs 1 oz. - 14th percentile
Baby B - 3 lbs 7 oz. -  25th percentile
Baby C - 3 lbs 9 oz. - 31st percentile

It looks like Baby A is still a little bit of a runt, but she did put on about the same amount of weight as her sisters.  They are all a little lower in percentile than last month also, but that is not really unusual with triplets...at a certain point their growth slows compared to singleton babies just because of the lack of room.

So, I am officially carrying around over 10 lbs. of baby now and boy am I feeling it!  My cervix was still measuring at over 3.5 cm and I am not having any regular contractions so it looks like they are content staying where they are for awhile hopefully.

Well, I will update tomorrow when I have a better idea of what the near future holds for us.  Let's hope that the update comes from home and not here!

30 Week Checkup - C-section Has Been Scheduled!!!!!!!

Today was an interesting dr. visit.  I didn't realize that we would start doing biophysical profiles on the babies every week from here on out.  This test is done during the ultrasound.  The babies are given a half hour of observation to make sure that they are performing certain actions.  If they do everything, they are given an 8/8.  They watch for the following things:

Amniotic fluid levels - there should be at least one pocket of amniotic fluid per baby - 2 points
Practice breathing - each baby must show 30 seconds of breathing movements with diaphram - 2 points
Body Movements - each baby must show at least 2 large body movements such as kicks or punches -2 points
Muscle Tone - arms and legs are usually flexed and head rests on chest (fetal position) - two or more flexes or extensions seen such as opening and closing of a hand - then a return to this position. - 2 points

Babies A and C both did everything they were supposed to and scored 8/8.  Baby B did not show the full 30 seconds of practice breathing within the 30 minute period, so she only scored 6/8 this time.  They did say that the babies are really just now starting breathing movements, so they are not worried about that yet.  At this point, they are more concerned with the body movements and fluid levels which were all fine.  In a couple of weeks they will be more concerned if any of the babies are not doing their practice breathing.  She did take a few breaths that we saw, she just didn't do it for the full 30 second period.  Hopefully next week she will show us what she can do. 

All of the babies were pretty active during the ultrasound and all of their heart rates were right around 145.  Baby A is still breech and Baby B is still head down.  Baby C moved a little bit this week and is now head down instead of transverse.  Another exciting thing we discovered today is that we were able to get a pretty close look at Babies A and C and it has been decided that they definitely have hair!  Baby B's head was hiding behind Baby A so we couldn't tell with her.  Also, we finally got a good face profile shot this week, but Baby A was the only one cooperating.


My cervix measurement was down a little bit to 3.8 cm, but still doing very well.  At some point it's bound to start shortening up anyway, so at this point they start being a little less concerned and will actually probably stop checking all together pretty soon.  Next week we will do another biophysical profile and a growth scan, so I am hoping that they will be well over 3 pounds each...3.5 pounds would be even better!

My blood pressure was great at 128/72, but my swelling is getting worse, causing me to gain 5 pounds this week, which is a little worrisome.  I think that this is what prompted the doc to decide to go ahead and schedule our C-section for Monday, Feb. 7th which will be exactly 35 weeks.  He did make it very clear, though, that I should not have the expectation of making it that long and that we could very well go anytime between now and then.  He said that if I start having any contractions at all that I should come in so that we can start the steroid shots to strengthen the babies lungs for delivery.  So, in a maximum of 33 days the girls will be here!

Not much else to tell from the past week.  We had an uneventful New Year's.  Wade had to work as usual and I only made it until 11:30, of course.  The kids (finally) went back to school yesterday.  It was nice to spend extra time with them, but I was ready for things to quiet down around here.  We did get a little bit of work done on the nursery, so I will leave you with a few pics of our progress.  Hope everyone has a good week!