Does this shirt make me look fat?!

Updated below with a "done up" picture as Joseph calls it...

So, for your viewing pleasure I decided to take a belly pic tonight. And I actually decided to take it because apparently my choice of outfits today made me look bigger then normal...this based on the amount of people who made some kinda comment about my belly or touched it in amazement (and I promise NONE of this bothers me at all!). So, I made Joseph take some pictures...


At first I thought all the fuss was because I had my shirt buttoned just above my belly, so then I pulled it back, and well, you can see below, that's not the problem either...





Joseph did ask me at some point if I should be taking the picture in the morning when I'm "done up" which made me laugh. This picture is after a 13 hour day (mostly spent in a chair though) so maybe in the morning when my hair is did I'll have him take another one!

So...apparently it has nothing to do with my shirt selection...let's keep in mind though, I am pregnant with triplets after all! Oh well...continue reading for some answers to questions....









Let's see...and I did have a few questions asked that I thought I'd go ahead and clear up. Someone did ask me why I have to get so many ultrasounds...great question (remember I'm a teacher and no question is ever dumb except the question not asked!). Anyway...I get an ultrasound at my regular OB just to identify a heartbeat in each baby. They can not distinguish between the three using the doppler, so that ultrasound is just checking for heartbeats. They do not do any measurements or anything, though they do let us watch them for a few minutes because it's just amazing to me to see a baby move around on the screen, which is something we never saw with Jackson. Still just amazing to me!

As for the specialist and those ultrasounds, they are checking for something very important. The girls (who we need to stop referring to as the girls and start using their names), I mean Abby and Claire, are identical twins and share a placenta (blood and nutrients). They are at risk of developing something called "twin to twin transfusion". What this means is basically that one baby can dominate and take all the blood, nutrients and fluid. So at each ultrasound they are looking at fluid levels and to make sure each of them is growing at the same rate and one is not dominating. They have a little term called "poly-oly" where poly means to much fluid and oly means to little fluid. So far there have been ZERO signs of this happening, so there is no real worry right now. It is actually something that can be corrected if caught early, so I am happy to let them check everyday if they need to. The chances of this occurring is around 15%, so though not very high, just something to keep an eye on.

Anyway, that's all for this time around. I'm off to bed. Only two more days with kids this week then a workday, then a 3 day weekend with an ultrasound on Monday...tough life I know! As always, thanks for sharing in our journey, and please always, Remember Jackson!

and babie