The final countdown!

We're in the final hours, literally, of this amazing journey. I'm writing this on Wednesday morning, and we are scheduled for the c-section Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m. We will be just 2 days shy of 36 weeks, which is well beyond the average 32-34 weeks that a triplet pregnancy goes. I can't believe it. I don't feel like I did anything remarkable...there are many women who do all the same things I did but still deliver early. I attribute this almost solely to the prayers of our friends and loved ones, and the good fortune that my body somehow tolerated this pregnancy for this long. They did measurements of the babies again Monday, but since it had been only one week since the last measurements, the estimations aren't quite as accurate. Having said that, what they came up with is 6 lbs, 3 oz for Baby A, 5 lbs 10 oz for Baby B and 5 lbs 8 oz for Baby C...for a grand total of 17 lbs 5 oz of baby in there! Whoa. If I'm ever pregnant again with just one baby, that will seem like a breeze, I'm sure. I've attached a picture of me with my neighbor friend who is pregnant with her third child and is 2 weeks further along than I am. She complained at the beginning that she was bigger than me with just one baby and I kept assuring her that would not be the case for long - I think I can say with certainty that that is the case! :-) I'm going to post one last "prego" picture later today to record the final girth just for fun. Well, this adventure is really just beginning, but we appreciate all of you who have followed along this phase with such interest and encouragement! We can't promise to be this detailed in keeping you posted in such detail in the coming months, but will try to do our best. Much love to all of you!!!

These babies can come ANY time

Did anyone think you'd be reading a blog update at the end of August and still be waiting for the Burke babies to arrive??? Not me! As of today I am 34weeks, 2 days into this marathon. While the experience has been amazing, challenging, exciting, exhausting...I have to admit I'm ready to be the mother of triplets that are outside my body, not in it! I know they'll be 100 times more exhausting to take care of on the "outside," but my body is pretty much maxed out. Here are the vital statistics:

The babies: They're HUGE! The estimated weights are 5 lbs, 4 oz for Baby A, Baby B is 5 lbs 9 oz, and the Baby C is the "little" one at 4 lbs, 15 oz. I may have Baby A and B mixed up, but my notebook is downstairs and I am upstairs and too tired to go get it! For anyone too lazy to do the math, that's nearly 16 pounds of babies I'm hauling around. I still feel LOTS of movement from the babies, but it's really just squirming, not kicking, at this point. The doc says they're still doing great, but I marvel at how they could possibly be even remotely comfortable these days!

Mommy's status: I've gained a total of 42 pounds and am measuring 49 weeks gestational/belly size. Basically, I'm HUGE - that's 9 weeks beyond the average 40 weeks of a single pregnancy. Jeff's at a meeting in downtown Chicago the next few days so I can't have him snap a picture to post, but I promise I'll post one more shot before the big day unless something really unexpected happens. Basically any position - standing, sitting or laying down - is uncomfortatable and awkward. Because I've gone so long, I am getting some stretch marks (argh!) but I guess that was inevitable. I'm just hoping they'll fade enough to get back into a bikini one day, but if not, it's a small sacrifice I guess! I also try to stay off my feet as much as possible, but usually by the end of the day I have very attractive elephant feet and ankles. I will NOT be showing those off in my final picture...better left to the imagination, or not imagined at all! I'm just grateful that it's summer and I can throw on flip flops - not sure what I'd do in the winter, cause no other shoes would fit!

When are these kids coming? As mentioned in the previous post, we're scheduled for a c-section on August 31st. My OB is guessing I might "go" sometime later this week, and my specialist thinks I can make it at least one more week. So, it's anyone's guess! The docs would deliver me without hesitation at this point if I went into labor, but each additional day in the womb strengthens their lungs so I want to give them every day I can possibly manage.

I think that's about it for now...we'll make sure to send out an email with the big news as quickly as possible after it happens. Love, Deanna and Jeff

We have a birthday scheduled!

Just a quick update today. We made it to the magic date of August 14...my doctors have returned! Had an in-depth check up with each yesterday and everything is very good. Did an ultrasound first and all three babies seem quite content where they are for now. No measurements or weights this week, but they check things like their movements, amount of amniotic fluid for each, etc as indicators of whether any seem to be experiencing any distress. Next was the non-stress test/monitoring, and the babies heartbeats are great, but I'm still contracting quite a bit. I'm continuing on my medication to try to control it, but they don't seem to be bothering the babies or causing any other problems, so I just try to ignore them! Next was my OB check - blood pressure's good, weight is good (a total of 40 pounds now, which is right in the range of the 40-45 pound gain they told me to expect). My belly is now measuring 46 weeks pregnant, so as you can imagine, gravity is not my friend. I've also begun to swell a bit, mostly in the ankles. First thing in the morning it's almost inperceptible, but by evening, even with mostly sitting and a little walking around they've puffed out - I guess I didn't escape the "cankle" affliction entirely! Jeff affectionately refers to them as my Fred Flintsone feet. :-) I have surpassed the "average" triplet delivery range of around 33 weeks, so we are truly in bonus territory. I've been told that if I started to dilate they might try a few things to slow it down and buy a few days, but that if they were born tomorrow, the outcome would almost certainly be excellent. The best thing is that I'm beyond the window when they would use the "big gun" drug Magnesium to stop contractions/slow dilation...it has some nasty side effects and requires hospitalization during its use, so I'm VERY grateful to have escaped that. Both doctors seem to think we can make it to 36 weeks, which would be as much as we could possibly ask for. So, we went ahead and scheduled a c-section for Thursday, August 31st, just 2 days shy of the 36 week mark, and we'll pray the babies and I can hold out that long! There's even a chance that if we make it that far, the babies would come home with us after my c-section recovery...no extended hospital stay. Yippee! Then the fun really begins, right? My mom visited last week and between she and Jeff we made a ton of progress on our To Do list! They installed a closet organizer in the nursery, and my mom painted our dresser/changing table, checked all the swings and bouncy seats to make sure they're operable as well as washed the covers, ran a bunch of errands and much more...she was a warrior! Jeff installed the car seats over the weekend and now we just need to have them double checked at the police dept to make sure they're installed properly. There are still things to do, but it felt good to knock those off the list. Please keep us in your prayers that we make it to August 31st. Much love to everyone!

We're getting SO close!!!

Hey everyone! Lots going on, but not a lot of energy to write about it. We have reached another huge milestone, 32 weeks. Triplets are typically born sometime between 32 and 34 weeks, so we're in the window...could be anytime! Triplets born after 32 weeks typcially do quite well and everyone including the doctors and nurses are pretty relaxed at this point, reassuring us that all is well. And, as of our last check up on Monday, the babies are doing AWESOME. Baby B and C are both approximately 4 lbs 7 oz (can you believe it???). Baby A was tucked a bit behind Baby C in the ultrasound, thus we couldn't get one of the measurements needed to estimate its weight, but the doctor thinks it's pretty close to the weights of the others. They'll continue to put on about 1/2 a pound a week until they're born, so we could have some 5 pounders on our hands! Despite being packed in there, they find a way to move around quite a bit, and at this point it feels more like squirming than kicking. Just 4 more days until my regular doctors return from vacation, which will be a huge relief. We managed to remove another big thing from our To Do list, and that was finding a nanny/childcare. We found a very sweet woman named Paulette, an empty-nester in her early 60s with three grown daughters and several grandchildren including two twin grandsons. We felt comfortable with her right away, and she's excited as can be about the job. She'll be with us 4 days a week, at least for the first several months. We also found some night nurses to help us out in the very beginning, referred to me by another mom in my triplet group. They are two Neonatal ICU nurses at a local hospital who do this work on the side, and they split up the work based on their schedule at the hospital. We're going to have one of them here 2 nights a week for the first few months, until the babies can go 5 or 6 hours at a time with their sleeping. They will usually come on the nights Jeff travels, so that he can get back to a somewhat normal work schedule as quickly as possible, but allowing me some sleep while he's gone. We have been so blessed to find this help! I can't believe it finally came together. We're also making tons of progress on the nursery, getting organized around the house and so on. My mom is here for a few days this week to help us out even more. Seems like it is all finally coming together. Still have to get the carseats installed and a few other important things, but if these guys can hold on just another week or so, we'll pretty much be ready for 'em! As far as mommy and daddy, we're doing pretty well. Jeff's working hard these days in preparation for time off and a sporadic schedule in the coming weeks, and trying to do all the manual labor around here that I can't do, AND put up with my wild, hormonal mood swings that appear at the oddest moments. I'm trying to make each day productive, but get the rest I need as well. I am still amazed at how fortunate we've been that I haven't been forced to go on bedrest. However I have to admit that physically it's gotten very challenging the last few weeks. I think I've mentioned this before, but just moving around can be a difficult whether it's getting in/out of bed or a chair, or the car. Believe it or not, I still drive! If I position the seat right, there's room for all of us behind that steering wheel, and I get around for a few errands, but mostly doctor's appointments. At this point I have only a few clothing items that still fit - and even fewer that are actually comfortable, but what's the point of shopping at this point? And I'm still wearing the very unattractive support hose that help with my circulation - improves blood flow for the babies and reduces swelling - no "cankles" - phew! For those that don't know, cankles appear when you swell so much that your calf and ankle become one...not attractive. I think I'm most surprised that as of now, I have NO stretch marks!!! Is that a miracle or what? I've been good with the cocoa butter lotion, but not religious about it, so I think it's mostly luck. Enjoy the pics I've attached. One simply demonstrates how huge the belly is (and mostly straight out!). The other is a picture I had the nurse snap the other day during my monitoring session, when they track the babies' heartbeat as well as my contractions for about 30-40 minutes at each appointments. With the babies, they look for a pattern of a baseline heartrate and periods of accerlations, which evidently indicates active, strong, healthy babies. Hope you all are doing well, and we'll try to keep everyone posted as the "big" event draws near. If we're lucky enough to make it another week or two, the C-section will be scheduled most likely for the last week of August sometime.

Another false alarm, a little scarier this time!

Well, I suppose as we enter this final stretch we should be expecting more of these "little" scares. Tuesday night I was contracting more often than I had before, and I was actually starting to feel them as opposed to the phantom ones I've been experiencing up until now. By 9pm, they were coming consistently every 7-9 minutes or so, so we called the on-call doctor, who sent us to the Birth Center. I got hooked up to the monitors, which track the babies hearbeats as well as my contractions, and did some lab work which included a test which can indicate the possibility that labor is soon to come. The test was negative, but the contractions were indeed coming every 6-8 minutes according to the monitor. Also checked for any change or dilation of the cervix, which was closed (VERY good sign). So, they decided to keep me overnite for observation, and put me on an IV in case I'd gotten dehydrated with all the heat (dehydration can cause contractiions). A short time later I started to contract even more, only about 2-3 minutes apart, and I could tell the nurse was troubled. She called both the on-call OB and high-risk specialist (the subs for my vacationing regular docs!). The specialist said to continue monitoring for another 3-4 hours, as sometimes you can have a little run of closer contractions, then they begin to space themselves out again. He wanted to wait it out a little longer before starting any special meds, as it's sort of a once shot deal, meaning once you use a certain medication, after that it won't be as effective. So we waited it out, both Jeff and I trying to get a little shut eye in between the nurses popping in every half hour or so to check on us, and thinking, "Is this it? Are the babies coming!?" Fortunately by about 5:30/6:00, the contractions were starting to subside. Later that morning we got visits from both the specialist and OB, got checked again for any cervical change (nada!) and they sprung us. Phew... So, we're home again and I'm so happy to be here. Frankly the hospital is not all that comfortable or restful, especially when they've got all those monitors on me and I can't move around a lot to get re-positioned. And I think Jeff would agree, as he slept on an even less comfortable chair that pulls out into a pseudo bed. I was sent home on orders to get plenty of rest and fluids, and to call any time of day or night, with any concern. But, I have not been put any major restrictions on me, so I can still drive, run an occassional errands, do a few things around the house, etc. I go back in on Monday for my usual ultrasound and monitoring - so I'll have updates on the babies' weights and all of that then.