Hey, Jealousy

This is Roy. Otherwise known as my "royfriend." In his head, Roy owns me. I am his, and no one elses. My soul purpose in life is to lay on the couch with Roy in my arms, kissing and cuddling him. Previously, in his mind, Roy had two competitors for my attention - Joe and Tucker. Not that he has a problem showing either who is boss. Joe receives bites and swats when he dares attempt to cuddle me or even kiss me good night. In fact, Roy keeps us apart when we go to bed each night by laying between Joe and I with his back to Joe and his paw thrown across my chest.


And poor Tucker. While Tucker really has no desire for my attention, Roy sees Tucker's mere existence as a hindrance to him spending time with me. So every chance he gets, Roy beats up Tucker, hissing at him and swatting and biting his head. Tucker has walked away with many a bloody scratch. If you've never seen a 14 lb cat beat up an 85 lb pit bull, trust me you haven't lived.


But now Roy has a new threat - my pregnancy boppy pillow.



Joe bought me this pillow several weeks ago and it makes sleeping much more comfortable. Unfortunately, it also prevents me from holding Roy at night when I sleep. Roy has not taken kindly to this. He's tried throwing himself atop the pillow, yet that makes for an unstable sleeping surface. He's tried sleeping on my head, but that's not as comfy. Every time I go to the bathroom at night (and that's a lot) I return to bed to find Roy lounging in "his" spot on the bed, waving his tail like, "Come on. You KNOW you want to cuddle me." And I usually give in, toss the pillow aside and let him snuggle. Some nights, however, I just need to sleep and I hang on to the pillow. On these nights, like last night, I awake to find Roy sitting on our headboard, glaring down at me and the pillow, plotting the pillow's destruction. I guess it's only a matter of time before I come home and find the pillow shredded to pieces. But better the pillow than Tucker, I guess...

Week 17 Pregnancy Quiz

How far along: 17 weeks
Total weight gain/loss: *mumbles* 36 lbs...
Maternity clothes: All my clothes are now maternity clothes, with the exception of a few big t-shirt, Joe's t-shirts and the odd pair of sweatpants/pajama pants.
Stretch marks: Luckily, no.
Sleep: What's that? Honestly, it's okay, but I wake up just about every 1-2 hours all night.
Best moment this week: Well, technically it was last week, but having dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger last Thursday with our friends Daniela and Gerry and their gorgeous 9 month-old twin girls. Daniela and Gerry had lots of words of wisdom for Joe and I.
Movement: I think I feel the babies flutter/move occasionally, but I'm still unsure as to exactly what I'm feeling.
Food cravings: Ice cream! (see 36 lb weight gain)
Gender: According to two different u/s technicians, we're having one boy and two girls. This will hopefully be confirmed next week!
Labor Signs: Eeek - none!!! We want none of that for at least 17 more weeks.
Belly Button in or out: In
What I miss: The gym, Diet Pepsi and my small boobs.
What I am looking forward to: Registering! Joe and I are going to try to get started on that this week.
Milestones: The fact that I've allowed myself to think about registering. I've been so paranoid with this pregnancy that any kind of official preparation is a big step for me!

Some Culture for the Babies

Over the last few weeks Joe has started reading to the babies every night before bed. During college I worked in a daycare center and there I learned that Sandra Boynton was my favorite children's author. I raved about her books to Joe so he went out and bought several of her books to share with the babies. We really enjoy our quality time with our little ones each night as Joe reads them a silly story. If you haven't heard of Sandra Boynton, you're missing out! Check out her website now!

Two More Hospital Visits

Sigh. Really though, I should NOT complain. Even though each incident I've had has been scary, they have proven to be nothing major and the babies have been just fine, which is all that matters! At almost 14 weeks I had another bleeding episode that sent me to the ER No cause for the bleeding was found, and a visit to the MFM the next day showed that everything was as it should be. I started to relax a bit, but then yesterday, at almost 17 weeks, I had more bleeding. This time I went to Labor & Delivery and saw an awesome OB. He showed me that the babies were fine and assured me that he could really find nothing wrong - placentas, cervix, etc. all looked fine. His best guess was that I had a ruptured blood vessel in my cervix that was causing the intermittent bleeding. Annoying and scary, but not serious our dangerous. That was a relief!

Joe and I have determined though that the plus side to all these hospital and doctor visits is the ultrasounds - at this point I am 16 weeks 5 days along and we've had no less that 17 ultrasounds!

Some happier bumps :)

12 weeks

14 weeks

15 weeks

A Few Bumps

I knew full well that a triplet pregnancy was not going to be easy, but I honestly thought I'd make it a tad further before I ran into any snags. Alas, at 8 weeks into the pregnancy we rushed to the ER when I woke up with major bleeding. We were panicked and convinced that we were losing our beautiful babies. We got a miracle that day, however, when we learned that all three babies were perfectly healthy and the bleeding subsided. We were thrilled. Then, 3 nights later I woke up in agony. I was having horrible, unbearable pain in my lower abdomen. Joe rushed me to the ER, where I spent 11 hours writhing in pain while the doctors tried to diagnose my problem.

Eventually, they gave up on trying to diagnose me and instead sent me into surgery where they would hopefully find and correct the problem. My RE performed the operation and discovered that my right ovary, enlarged from the IVF medication, had twisted completely around my right fallopian tube. Both needed to be removed. Thankfully though when I woke up from surgery the crushing pain was gone and I felt much better. I stayed the night in the hospital and had an ultrasound the next day to check the babies. Once again our superstar babies were totally fine! We have some troopers on our hands :)

To Start from the Beginning

Joe and I met in high school, during my junior year and his senior year. We went to the same college, and got married one year after I graduated. Over the years we added to our family by adopting two amazing kitties, Roy and Roger, and later our dog Tucker. We have a wonderful and happy life - we are extremely blessed. However, we really wanted to complete our family by adding a baby. In May 2007 I went off the depo-provera shot we'd been using for years as birth control and waited for nature to take it's course. Unfortunately, nature had other plans and my body refused to cooperate. After many months of waiting and trying, I visited the reproductive endocrinologist (RE) at Princeton IVF and we began our journey into fertility treatments.

And it was quite the journey. After three failed inter-uterine inseminations, our RE recommended that we move on to IVF. We had our first IVF in August of 2008, but due to poor embryo quality. We were very disappointed, but soldiered on to IVF #2. This one resulted in better quality embryos and a chemical pregnancy. At this point we were into November 2008 and reaching the end of our rope. Anyone who has gone through infertility treatments will tell you that it is a long and extremely emotional road that wears on you after time. Still, we wanted our baby so we went on to IVF #3. My RE made several protocol changes, so we were feeling positive when we began our third cycle in January 2009. We figured, a new year, a new outcome. And how right we were!!

Less that two weeks after our three embryos had been transferred I had my first blood test and it came back positive. We were pregnant!!

The results of the test yielded big numbers, so we were prepared to discover we were having twins. We certainly weren't expecting to find out at our first ultrasound that we were having triplets. Three babies!! Joy, excitement, shock...you name it, we felt it! But we soon realized that three babies were more than we ever could have hoped for and we were more than ready to be parents.

We had a blast telling our families the news (we announced it on Valentine's Day with cards to all) and now we're eagerly awaiting our new additions. We've had a few rough patches within the pregnancy so far, but our babies are rock stars and doing great. We can't wait to meet them!