Child Care Woes

I've been feeling a little bit better lately.  As long as I eat often and I don't eat anything greasy, I don't get too terribly nauseated.  It's been really nice to be able to function again for the past 3-4 days.  On Thursday we went in for our ultrasound.  It was our last official appointment with the Reproductive Endocrinologist, which was definitely bitter sweet.  I am thankful to be graduating to prenatal care with a specialist, but I am sure going to miss the folks at Dr. Magarelli's office.  I felt totally comfortable asking them any questions and calling with any concerns.  I hope I can forge those kinds of relationships with the new doctors and nurses.

At the Ultrasound on Thursday, we were again able to clearly see all three babies.  It's absolutely amazing how quickly they grow.  This time, we could discern little arm buds on babies A and C.  Baby B still doesn't like to cooperate with good positioning.  They are all three measuring perfectly on track and have very strong heart beats.  Baby A and Baby B were fluttering at 150 bpm and Baby C was a solid 152 bpm.  So, basically, they are perfect.  The nurse gave us an 80% survival rate for all three.  That's really high at only 7 weeks and 4 days pregnant.

Finally, a group picture with all three!

Now, we feel pretty comfortable proceeding as if we are going to be bringing home three babies.  Up until this point, it still felt a little tentative to me.  Our first order of business is to find someone to care for our children while we are away at work.  As it turns out, getting an infant into a day care is quite a process because each facility only has a few spots.  Getting three in at the same time means we have to start searching immediately.  I have been absolutely shocked at both the cost and the logistics associated with this process.  We haven't found a solution just yet, but let me walk you through the process thus far.

First of all, neither Ryan nor I are available to stay home with the children.  I'm in the military, so I still owe them until July 5th, 2014.  After a brief period of working for a terrible CPA firm here in Colorado, Ryan has finally found a job that he really enjoys.  He is as happy and fulfilled as I've seen him in a long time, so it would be best for him to stay where he is for the time being.  Not to mention, neither one of us is cut out for staying home during the day and taking care of the children.  I admire those who can do it, but we are just not those people.

So, we've established that the best thing for us will be to find child care for the triplets during the day while we are at work.  There are tons of options, each with their own issues.  A lot of people take their children to a private home provider.  That is when you take your child over to someone's house who is a licensed provider, and they watch them during the day.  It is usually a very cost effective option.  However, we are not eligible for that kind of care while our children are infants.  As it turns out, in the state of Colorado, these types of providers are only legally able to have a maximum of two infants in their homes.  Unless we split our kids up, that's not an option.  On Ryan's Facebook page, multiple people recommended nannies.  Unfortunately, we can't possibly afford that option.  For triplet infants, it would cost about $150 per day at a minimum.  A really qualified nanny would be more like $200.  That's an average of $3500-$4500 a month depending on the nanny.  I know that there are plenty of people who pay nannies "under the table" to cut expenses, but we are not willing to do that.  In fact, we are not willing to do anything that breaks laws in order to have our children cared for.

It is seeming more and more like day care is our most appropriate option.  Yesterday, we toured a high end day care only a stone's throw away from our house.  It was amazing.  It had great security, was shockingly clean, and they would teach the infants sign language throughout the day.  They were even willing to do cloth diapers.  It was all sounding absolutely wonderful until they told us the price.  $3,374 a month for the triplets.  Holy crap.  Many of the daycares that I have contacted are unable to accommodate all three of our infants.  Our next stop is going to be the day care center on base.  For three infants it will be about $400 a week.  That's $1600 a month during months with 4 Fridays and $2000 a month during months with 5 Fridays.   It sucks, but it's doable.  We will tour many other facilities over the coming weeks, but we need to come to a decision quickly in order to get our kiddos on the waiting lists.  I will keep you updated about our child care journey over the coming weeks.  After that, the next order of business will be Project Van.  Yuck.

Manning, Party of Five

I am feeling much better today than I have been.  After spending the weekend wallowing around the house and feeling like poo, I tried to go into work on Monday and found myself trudging out the door an hour later, too sick to work.  I finally called the doctor.  They prescribed Zofran.  It's an antiemetic taken every 8 hours.  It took me from miserable to functional.  On Tuesday night, I went in for acupuncture and that got me feeling darn near normal.  So far, this pregnancy is no joke.

This morning was big for us.  We went into the doctor for an ultrasound on which we would presumably be able to see the heartbeats of any viable babies.  As soon as the image popped up on the screen, it was clearly evident that there were three distinct little ones in there.  As the nurse panned over each baby we saw a little flicker and she said, "That's a heart beat," three times in a row.

The next thing she did was turn on the doppler on the ultrasound machine and let us listen to each baby in turn.  The heartbeats were as follows:  Baby A 122 bpm, Baby B 120 bpm, and Baby C 115 bpm.  Those are all solid heartbeats.  As we were listening to the heartbeats, Ryan had tears of joy in his eyes.  To see him so excited about being a father is amazing.  I'm so lucky to a husband that is so emotionally invested.

We are officially pregnant with triplets.  We have a long road ahead of us, which is good because we're going to need time to process.  We have only one more appointment left with the reproductive endocrinologist before we are released to a perinatologist.  Because this is considered a high risk pregnancy, we are going to be monitored very closely over the coming months.  I'm very glad about this because I'm going to need the reassurance.  

All three babies.  Baby B was being shy.

Baby B in full view.

Feeling Icky

It's taken me a few days to get enough energy to write a post.  Lately I've been tired in a way that I can't even begin to explain.  Last night, I went to bed at 9:45, woke up this morning at 9:45, ate brunch with Ryan, then took a nap.  Geez oh Pete.  I've also been working all week.  I have to take a nap at lunch just to get through my day.  I'm even fighting the morning sickness monster already.

Yesterday, when I was seeing a patient, I gave them an injection, calmly lifted their chair up so their back would be to me, then I ran as fast as I could to the bathroom to vomit.  I then returned, did the procedure, and promptly left to vomit again.  They must have thought I was the least personable dentist they had ever met.  Every morning when I get up to get ready for work, I have to wake up about 30 minutes earlier to push through the sickness.  I feel like I drank two bottles of wine the night before, stayed out dancing until 4:00 am, and I'm trying to drag myself to work by 7:00.  Of course, the reality is that I'm in bed by 9:00 after a short nap on the couch during TV time.  Pitiful.

Don't you worry, I'm doing every trick in the book to avoid the nausea.  Crackers in the morning, sea bands, ginger, Vitamin B6 suckers, drinking lots of water.  I guess the problem with having three babies inside of you is that you get to be three times as sick.  Yep, you read correctly, I said three.

We went into the ultrasound on Thursday morning fully expecting the third sack to have vanished.  Not so much.  In fact, the third one looked perfect and it was oriented in a way that we could actually see the little baby inside of it the best out of all three of them.  In fact, we were able to see all of the little bugs.  At this appointment, they were labeled Fetus A, Fetus B, and Fetus C.  Nothing is set in stone at this point, as we have yet to see any heart beats.  We are going in on Thursday of this week and hoping to see their little hearts beating.  That will determine viability and whether or not we can actually say for certain that we are pregnant with triplets.    

People keep asking us if we're excited.  I would probably say yes if I weren't so sick and scared.  The problem with being the practical people that we are, is that our minds go straight to logistics.  For instance, we were sitting in the restaurant this morning for brunch and saying, "How will we do this with three babies?"  We talk about transporting them and grocery shopping with them and managing their needs.  Will we take them to daycare or can we afford a nanny?  Do we need a bigger car?  Will I even be able to breast feed?  What will the logistics be for the move back to KY?  How expensive is private high school?  Etc, etc, etc.  Right now we are feeling a little overwhelmed.  A lot of people have said, "Just enjoy it."  But that's easier said than done when you spend most of your day sleeping or vomiting.  I guess right now we're just trying to process and bide our time until Thursday morning.

Here are the pictures of our little bugs.  Because of how they are oriented, they couldn't get all three in one picture: