I can't remember what I have posted and what I haven't so I will start at the beginning. I know you all know what most of this stuff means etc but I posted on our family website and a lot of people who read that aren't as smart as us so I had to give more details. And I was too lazy to retype...

Yesterday was our visit to the NICU at UNC and our meeting with Dr. Doron, a Neonatoligist that came highly recommended by Dr Strauss and Jeanette. Everyone expecting multiples are offered a chance to speak with a neonatoligist and have this tour so it's really standard operating procedure.
We liked Dr. Doron a lot and feel that we all 3 have the same views on babies born or delivered early. We got to tour the NICU and see some babies that were the same size as ours at our last ultrasound visit. Those babies were so tiny and most of them were singleton births just premature delivery. I was amazed at their sizes in person. Nothing can prepare you for that but all seemed to be doing OK.

Mike and I decided that at this stage in the game (26 weeks 2 days and counting) that if baby girl had any negative changes in her blood flow that would jeopardize her in any way we would take measures to save her and deliver all thee babies.

Fast Forward to today for our ultrasound appointment. This appointment was to check growth and check baby girls cord blood flow. Last week she had absent flow and surprisingly today she had intermittent flow. It means that sometimes the flow is absent but sometimes she had flow. That is good compared to last week but her growth was still slower. She had only grown 1 oz since last Wednesday but we also need to take into consideration that 2 different people and 2 different machines did the ultrasound readings so they could be off some what. According to our regular ultrasound guy, she was fine and she has had an acceptable curve growth in the past 3 weeks. since our last ultrasound with him. Her growth percentile had dropped from 13% to 10% so not quite classified as IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction) but close if it drops below 10%. This all means she is still doing OK.

Babies sizes as of today:
Baby A 1lb 15ozs
Baby B 1lb 13ozs
Baby C 1lb 4ozs

After the ultrasound was over we met with Dr. M (taking the place of my docs while he is on vacation). We both liked her a lot. She seems to be on the same page as we are as well. She did bring up something that Strauss hasn't brought up. Dr M said that sometimes when IUGR is seen in babies it could mean chromosome abnormalities. We could never do the tests for chromosome abnormalities because with multiples the results aren't accurate without an amniocentesis. The risks early on with the amnio were too high do anything so we opted out of the amnio. I am young and chances are pretty slim that there was/is something wrong with her or the boys for that matter.

But now, because this growth restriction is seen in babies that have chromosome abnormalities, specifically Trisomy 13, 18 and 21 there is a good reason to do an amnio on baby girl only and rule out any of these. Her reasoning for mentioning this was if our decision to take all 3 to save 1 would change if we knew something was wrong with her and she may not survive anyway would we change our minds on what we decide to do if and when presented with the issue of her blood flow reversing.

So she asked us would finding out that baby girl has some chromosome abnormality wrong with her change our minds on intervening if and when there was a problem and taking all three babies to save her putting 2 perfectly healthy babies at risk. And our answer was yes it would. If the chances are that she wouldn't survive with one of these abnormalities then why risk all three to save her when she would most likely not survive anyway.

That brings us to now, we are scheduled to do the amnio just on her on Friday at 2pm. In the mean time I am going to take a round of steroids to help the babies lungs in case of premature labor which can be caused by an amnio. There is less than 1% that it can happen but we are going to be prepared. I take a shot Wed morning at 9 and Thurs morning at 9 and then have the amnio on Friday. 48 hours is standard for steroids and will give the babies an even greater chance for survival if they were born now or soon.

It should take 48 hours to get the initial amnio results back so by my next ultrasound appointment on Tuesday next week we should know what we are dealing with. Honestly, we think it's nothing but back cord placement with her and not anything more serious.

SAY LOTS AND LOTS OF PRAYERS!!! Pray that she continues to have positive flow and positive growth and that there is nothing abnormal with our baby girl. WE WILL GET THRU THIS!!!

Now for the pics. We got some excellent ones of baby C today and none of the poser baby A and a few of baby B but they aren't that great. Enjoy!!!

C




B (with A's butt in her face, nice)

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