22 Down, ??? to Go!!

Hello, from the Messerle household! We continue to be doing real well over here. Katie is doing great! I can really see her slow down a TON in the last week or so. I think she might have gone on her last grocery shopping trip solo today for a while though (I had a business meeting today). Being on her feet and walking around for too long is just too much for her. She gets some pains down low if she is up walking around for too long. Once she sits or lays down it goes away after a while. The doctors tell us this is normal...

According to Katie, the babies have really been kicking and moving around a bunch this week. I think that is so cool, I can't wait to feel them kicking on her belly! We did not have any doctors appointments this week. We go for a heavy dose of two appointments this week though, two appointments on Friday. We'll be 23 weeks by Friday and we're going to go for our tour of the NICU in the morning and to our high risk OBGYN in the afternoon. We'll be going for a full round of measurements on the babies and check on the cervix. I'll post another update Friday evening after our appointments.

Thank you for continuing to think and pray for our family. We cannot express our appreciation enough for the support and prayers for Katie and the babies. Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Todd and Katie

"Ummm, it's gettting crowded in here!"

Another week and another doctors appointment in the books! We had a great appointment with our regular OBGYN this morning/afternoon. Katie got all squared away with a new prenatal vitamin and more iron supplements, she is also going to continue to take the folic acid and additional calcium. We did the normal ultrasound, checked the heart beats and fluid, then the ever so famous cervix check! We were also glad to see that Katie had gained 8 lbs. in the past three weeks since our last visit!

The heartbeats were great at 140, 140 and 153. Baby C is VERY active in there and his heartbeat rate tends to run higher because he is moving around so much! He actually kicked when she was trying to get his heartbeat and we heard it and Katie felt it! The babies are getting bigger and they are moving all over the place! Baby B two weeks ago was high and now he has moved down low, Baby A was even upside down! Nutty...

Katie's cervix is still holding strong and is still very long, so that is a very good sign. There are many women at 21 weeks that are already on bed rest and having issues with triplets. Dr. Limoscenero is very excited about how well things are going. Katie is really starting to show in the front, she looks great! She is doing so well that we have next week off from the doctors. We go again two weeks from today, this time to both doctors. Our regular OBGYN in the morning and high risk in the afternoon. Dr. Limoscenero is going to take us on a tour after our appointment of the NICU at Lewisville Medical Center. We both would really like to see where our children are going to be born and how they are going to be cared for when they are in the NICU. Should be interesting...

Please continue to pray and think about Katie and the babies that the Lord has blessed us with. We have come a LONG way, but we still have a very long way to go as well. We're going to make it with everyone's assistance and positive thoughts! :) We hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the spring!

Love,

Todd and Katie

20 Weeks and 40 Years...

This week the babies turned 20...weeks and I turned 40...years!  Wow!   The above picture is of Baby B, middle boy, from the 3D/4D image, really cool!  We have a bunch more buy I have to figure out how to get them to post on here...

Katie and I went to our high risk OBGYN Dr. Zaretsky this morning for our 20 week check up.  We checked weights, measurements, the baby's hearts and Katie's cervix.  All the the babies were VERY active, especially baby C, his heart was really going at 153 bpm with all the moving around he was doing in there.  All of the babies looked great, they all had doubled in weight since our last appointment 4 weeks ago.  The Dr. really did a CLOSE look at each heart.  It was AMAZING!  All of the babies have 4 chamber hearts.  He was able to "blood flow overlay" on the ultrasound of their hearts that very clearly showed the blood flow going into their hearts in red and the blood pumping out of their hearts in blue.  He was very happy with what he saw, which was no issues great hearts!

The measurements looked real good too.  Baby A, our girl, was lagging a bit behind the average but he was not concerned.  They are still young and very small and he said that any lagging behind is just magnified right now because we are dealing with such a small number and light weight.  Baby A and B were 10 ounces and baby C was 11 ounces.  If she were lagging behind a bunch at 3 pounds there would be more to worry about.  He is just going to watch her at this point.

We were able to confirm with 100% accuracy that we are going to have 2 boys and a girl!  Good stuff, good stuff!  Above is Baby C sucking his thumb!  :)

Katie is doing great!  Her blood pressure was PERFECT.  The cervix exam went great too.  Her cervix hasn't changed a bit since our last visit a month ago.  He did the pressure test and it was holding very strong.  He was very happy with that part of the appointment as well.  We are just taking it real easy at nights and on weekends and it seems to be working.  The Dr. wants to see us again in three weeks.  We go back next week to our regular OBGYN next Friday for another look!

In the next couple of weeks I am going to be beginning to work on our downstairs nursery.  We've already picked out the color of the room, need to get a ceiling fan up in there, etc.  We are going to use this downstairs nursery initially until they are ready to go upstairs into their full time nursery.  Once that happens we are going to convert the nursery downstairs into a playroom down the line.  I'll be sure to post pictures on the progress of the room.

We continue to be overwhelmed each day by the miracle and the wonderful blessings that the Lord has given us.  We continue to pray and thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers.  It really means so much to both us...

Till the next update...  Peace, love and good bye 30's!

T&K

19 Weeks in the Books!

Today marks 19 weeks and we are still doing well! Katie is starting to "show" and look/feel more pregnant after each passing day. Last week at our doctors appointment the doctor took some blood as part of Katie's check up. Monday morning the doctors office called and her iron level was very low. So, starting right away she is doubling up on her iron pills every other day. She HATES taking them, but she is being a real trooper and adhering to the doctors orders! Other than our iron issue, everything is going just fine.

This week we do not have a doctors appointment, we go again to our High Risk OBGYN next Friday morning. There is no doubt that Katie's body is going through a ton of changes right now and it is going to be interesting to see the babies again at 20 weeks. We'll do a full check up on the babies, with measurements, etc. According to the doctor, week 20 is the optimal week to check their hearts, make sure there are four chambers and no heart defects, etc. It's amazing that they can tell this kind of stuff when they are still so small! You know me, I'll be asking a TON of questions!! I am sure that he will want to get a look at her cervix again as well.

Its going to be another weekend of hanging out and laying low. Katie might try to get her hair cut and run a couple errands on Saturday and that is it. I think after this week she is going to need some rest, bigtime. The weeks of work seem to taking their toll a little bit now. Church on Sunday morning and our favorite Chinese resturant for lunch sounds real good right now!

We hope everyone is doing well! We continue to thank everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers as we move forward in our journey! All the best!

Love,

Todd and Katie