A window inside

With each ultrasound we watch the triplets get bigger. At first they were shapeless lima beans. At the next appointment they looked far more reptilian. Then suddenly they were gummy bears that wiggled there little nubbins. And the next time they looked like little people. All this before 12 weeks.

What a joy it is to watch you grow.

We watch these scans with intensity. Do they have skulls? Yes. Do they have two hemispheres to their brains. Yes. Do they have arms, legs, bladders, hearts, stomachs? Yes, all yes. We measure their heart rate, their growth, their NT space, their amniotic fluid.

Baby C as he is known (I will use “he” as opposed to that ubiquitous and creepy pronoun “it”) is the fraternal twin. He has his own placenta and is in the penthouse as we call it. He is highest in the uterus and is the most active on the scans. He is also the biggest. I would assume that is a side-effect of not being mashed by the other two.

Babies A and B are the identical twins. They are mono-di twins. (They share the same placenta, but have their own cords and amniotic sacs.) Baby A was so dubbed because (again “he”) was lowest in the uterus and closest the cervix. The twins swap places now and alternate positions. They stand on their heads and sit on each other. It is entertaining to watch, but gives our ultrasound techs a challenge each time. The twins are better off in their own sacs so that they do not entangle one another in their cords. But sharing the same placenta puts them at about a 20% risk for Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, or TTTS. 

Each ultrasound is to measure growth and progress and to look for milestones. We breathed a collective sigh of relief when we could see skulls, limbs, organs, and a properly thin NT space. (This is a measurement of their risk for heart defects and chromosomal anomalies.) 

With every appointment we would be reassured that things were proceeding as well as to be expected in a triplet pregnancy. But still I continued to spot. Some days it was bright red blood. No matter how often they tell me that this can be perfectly normal and mean nothing bad, it terrifies me. And I continued to feel pain in my lower abdomen and pelvic region. 

They have since explained the joys of round ligament pain. It feels like cramps and imminent doom. When you get up from bed, it feels like something is tearing in half. I was convinced that it meant something was terribly wrong. No one told me that it is normal, to be expected, and will be even worse with triplets. Well, that’s comforting. 

The spotting is what made me really nervous. Particularly when one of my ultrasounds revealed that at 12 weeks I had complete placenta previa. I know better, but I started to read up on it at home.

“Placenta previa occurs when a baby's placenta partially or totally covers the mother's cervix — the doorway between the uterus and the vagina. Placenta previa can cause severe bleeding before or during delivery.
The placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to your growing baby and removes waste products from your baby's blood. It attaches to the wall of your uterus, and your baby's umbilical cord arises from it. In most pregnancies, the placenta attaches at the top or side of the uterus. In placenta previa, the placenta attaches to the lower area of the uterus. 

If you have placenta previa, you'll probably be restricted to bed rest for a portion of your pregnancy and you'll likely require a caesarean section (C-section) to safely deliver your baby.”

It was even worse when I got to this:

“If you have placenta previa, your health care provider will monitor you and your baby carefully to reduce the risk of these serious complications:

• Bleeding. One of the biggest concerns with placenta previa is the risk of severe vaginal bleeding (hemorrhage) during labor, delivery or the first few hours after delivery. The bleeding can be heavy enough to be life-threatening.
• Preterm birth. Severe bleeding may prompt an emergency C-section before your baby is full term.”

The good news is that most previa diagnosed in the first trimester resolves itself as the uterus expands and grows. Still, visions of bleeding to death continued to haunt me for several weeks. 

At this point, it is marginal previa and is definitely shifting away from my cervix as my uterus grows and expands. The spotting has even lessened. 

One more obstacle down. Praise the Lord. How many more to go?