30w4d - Another eventful dr's visit and trip to L&D

Some things - like doctor's visits - simply can't be rushed. 10 hours of waiting, scans, and testing, many of which was spent getting acquainted with the Labor & Delivery unit... More on that little excursion later.

First, we have lots of good news to celebrate. Our three baby girls are growing like weeds!
Baby A: 3 lbs 8 oz
Baby B: 3 lbs 11 oz
Baby C: 3 lbs 4 oz

That's 10 lbs 7 oz of babies. My oh my.

The biophysical profiles on the girls are looking fine, even though they each scored 6/8. The trio must have conspired beforehand, because the u/s tech couldn't catch either of the three doing a 30-second breathing movement. The girls scored 8/8 on their previous two BPPs, so nobody seemed concerned.

The perinatologist congratulated me on "growing such nice, big, healthy babies." It meant a lot to me hearing how pleased my peri is with the girls' progress.

Although our baby girls are looking terrific, the perinatologist diagnosed me with cholestasis of pregnancy. Lovely. But no real diagnosis on the constant upper right quadrant stabbing pain that I've been experiencing for the past few weeks, so off to L&D we went for further testing.

I spent about five hours in a hospital gown in the L&D triage area (can you say dress rehearsal?) The nurses hooked me up to a contraction monitor which showed I was having lots of contractions, but none that were regular enough to cause alarm. My husband found it amusing that many of the contractions were off the chart, and that he could tell when I was having a contraction.

They drew blood and wheeled me to the ultrasound suite for a closer look at my liver, gallbladder, and kidneys.

They checked the babies' heartbeats again (and with a little guidance from the mothership), were able to track them down easily. All good.

The hardest part was not being able to eat all day. I had a small breakfast around 6 a.m., we drove to the peri (about an hour away), and because of how the day unfolded, didn't have a chance to eat. Before we headed to L&D, I practically inhaled a yogurt, but then one of the L&D docs on duty said not to eat anything else in case they needed to do a C-section. Scary thought. 12 hours on a piece of toast and yogurt when you're expecting triplets... pure torture.

Fortunately, the u/s and blood work all came back normal, so I was discharged. Hooray! I've never been so happy to go home, eat, and of course, cook the babies some more.

Oh, and thank goodness for all of you who advised me to go ahead and pack that bag, because I had my laptop with me for distraction and having my stuff plus the babies' stuff there gave me fewer things to worry about when it seemed like I might need to be admitted.