24 Week Appointment (Viability!)

We've made it to 24 weeks!! And our babies look good and my cervix is super long at 5 cm (is it weird to talk about my cervix? I don't care, I'm actually really proud of it)!

This is our first major milestone! Though it only gets us out of the red zone and into orange. Meaning that while our babies now have a greater than 50% chance of survival, if they were to be born at this stage there is a high chance that they would have severe, lifetime problems. Things like deafness, blindness, or cerebral palsy and others. So out of 10 babies born at 24 weeks, only 5-6 would survive, and out of those surviving babies 2-3 would have those severe problems. Not odds we want to play with.

But there is so much development that goes on between weeks 24 and 28 that if we can make it to 28 weeks, their chance of survival goes up to 90% and of the 9 out of 10 babies who survive, only ONE has those severe problems. Soooo much better odds. And from the orange zone to the yellow zone.

The crazy thing is, every day that these babies are inside me growing is another day that I inch closer to preterm labor. I'm like a ticking time bomb. The more they grow, the bigger I get, the bigger I get, the riskier it gets. Nice. And like most triplet pregnancies, I have consistently measured 10 weeks ahead. But the last couple weeks growth has picked up and now I'm measuring a bit further than that. For those that have seen pictures or me in person, some may think that I still "look small" but in reality, for my build and body type, I am measuring close to full term.

Thankfully I've been lucky to never have had any body image issues and am more than happy to stretch and grow and gain weight in order to get these babies here. Every person is different and size is relative (my 24 weeks with triplets or a singleton will always look different to another's), so I haven't felt like I need any kind of affirmation of size, large or small, when I reference how I'm growing. I am the right size for what's going on inside me, and for that I am grateful. I am just amazed at what a woman's body can do and adapt to--especially when there's more than one baby inside!

I think maybe the best thing to tell a pregnant woman is that she looks great, rather than comment on size ;) Though you can definitely comment to me on how quickly I've grown, because that is certainly real--week to week and sometimes even day to day. I do most of my growing (and get the most ligament pain and contractions) from Thursday to Sunday. Those days amaze me, because I know what I looked like just a couple days prior and the change can sometimes be drastic. I tend to grow out one week and then the next I'll get wider. It's just crazy to watch myself grow.

And as much fun as some of the things that happen in pregnancy can be (ligament pain, pelvic pain, rib pain, insomnia, heartburn, contractions) I feel so grateful to finally be experiencing it. Every week it gets physically harder, but sometimes the weeks bring things like my belly shaking when I laugh, which makes me feel like Santa Clause and who doesn't love that?? Or my belly button popping out and, as weird as it looks, I love it for some reason. Maybe it's because I've waited so long to actually have a baby bump? And man, when three little babies start rolling and bumping around inside my stomach, it is the coolest thing.

I've written more about their movements and how we feel like it's been a way to get to know them on a different blog post since this is getting long enough already ;)