BockTriplets!

The past few days have been a little crazy – doctor’s appointments, tests, waiting for results, more tests, and so on. By far, it has been the most eventful week of the pregnancy. There were times when we thought she was leaving the house to check into the hospital, only to be sent back home waiting for the results of more tests.

It was kind-of exciting, thinking they might arrive early, but I had to keep reminding myself “this isn’t like getting a package from Amazon a day early – there are consequences with an early delivery”.

The good news is that Lorna doesn’t have preeclampsia, but does have cholestasis. She is responding well to the treatment and as long as everything stays on course, we will have 3 healthy boys delivered on June 22nd! We are past 30 weeks (30 weeks and 3 days, to be exact), so even if some emergency happens between now and then, the kids should all be fine.

Triplets are typically delivered early, because there can be complications if the mother is left to get much larger. Lorna is already bigger than full term, and today the doctor said she is as big as a woman carrying twins is at 36 weeks.

We had our first emergency yesterday. Lorna had some tests last week, and her Doctor called up Saturday telling her to check into the hospital right away.

She has Cholestasis.

And I was in Portland. Luckily her parents, her sister, and my mom were there in case of problems. She went to the hospital, had more bloodwork done, got some instructions and got to go home. Let me tell you, it sucks to be at the other end of a cell phone in a holding pattern with no good way to get home faster. Luckily, everything turned out ok this time.

The emergency isn't over yet though... We were hoping to deliver at the end of June, but now it could be any day. The doctors are going to be monitoring her a lot more closely over the next few weeks, and she got a steroid shot to help develop the babys' lungs - which gives us safer options for delivering early.

Stay tuned - the next post could include baby pictures...

We found out we were potentially having triplets back in mid-November... WAY to early to tell most people, but with enough certainty that we were telling family.

About 20 minutes after finding out we were having triplets, my phone rang. It was my friend Stu. He asked me, "So... are we going to hear some exciting news soon?"

Now, you have to understand that in this particular group of friends, news travels fast. Stu and I are speakers (along with ~25 other people) in a travelling conference on software engineering, and there is a mailing list that keeps everyone up-to-date on news. It is kind of a virtual water-cooler-attached-to-PA-system mailing list. Still.. I had no idea how he would have found out so fast.

"How do you know?!?!" I asked.

"Uh, I'm just asking if you are going to be going independent soon... Why... What are you talking about?"

And so Stu Halloway was the first person to know we were having triplets. I had seen Stu a few weeks before and was hinting I might leave my job; he was looking to pass some work my way.

My kids are so hip - they aren't even born, and they already have a blog... not only that, they now have their first video on YouTube.

Yesterday we went to Baby Insight and had a 3-d ultrasound made. The original video is 45 minutes of assorted baby parts; I have condensed it here to the best 3 minutes for your viewing pleasure, accompanied by a great song by Jonathan Coulton. Two of the three kids were a little shy for their first on-camera ppearance - You will see the side of A's head and arm, and C's butt and leg. Most of the face shots are Baby B... and then there are a bunch of assorted hands, feet, umbilical cords, and even something that looks like an octopus tentacle. It is getting a little cramped in there, but I'm expecting them to be champs at Twister when they get a litle older.

No, our kid's don't have hollow heads - that is an effect of the way the ultrasound is rendered into 3-d.

Already a couple of my friends have looked at me like I'm crazy for starting a blog about our triplets. I even had a stranger find it already and tell me they could clearly see triplets in the ultrasound. So why draw this kind of attention?

When we found out we were having triplets, we were stunned. In fact, there is no word to describe it. Still, I feel like I should feel overwhelmed, but have no idea what to expect. But the stuff we found online and in print was a big help - I felt like I wanted to give back something, and of course, I love to tell stories.

The first thing I did when I got home was hit Amazon for some information on the subject. I ordered a book about caring for triplets, and another one about managing a triplet pregnancy, but the best book was I Sleep At Red Lights, a father's true story of raising triplets.

I hope that over time this blog grows into something kinda like that book.

Comments in my blog are kinda broken right now - they don't look like they submit, but they do, but I can't approve them in the admin interface. I'm a tinkering software guy though - probably has something to do with permissions on this box. I'll fix it soon. Until then, add your comments anyway - I'll eventually figure it out. Welcome to an exciting trip!

Well, we are 9 weeks away from our delivery date and I'm finally getting the website up. This isn't quite last minute, but wow, there have been a lot of interesting stories I need to backfill the blog with.

The picture above was taken at 12 weeks. I'm told it clearly shows our three kids, but when I showed it to one friend of mine, he looked at me and said, "Do you have a kidney stone?"