Looking Back: Here Comes Amanda, Claire, and Melissa!

Of course the pregnancy with the triplets was a bit more... exciting, stressful, and eventful! I've already written about it a bit, but I'll put in some more details this time.

When I had gone in for my first blood test with the ob, the count with Meredith was 20. With the triplets it was almost 500! So we knew something was a little different. The counts were more than doubled at the next blood test and I went in for my first ultrasound at 7 weeks expecting to see twins. As soon as the sonographer started, I could see two sacs on the screen and she confirmed that there were two tiny heartbeats. Then she got very quiet, but I was taking in the news of twins, so I didn't ask anything else. Then she "suddenly remembered" she had forgotten to tell the doctor I was here, claiming, "They always like to come in for this part." Hmmm, wasn't that way with Meredith. She returned alone a few minutes later saying he was busy, and she guessed she'd have to tell me herself. She went back to the sonogram machine and pointed out the third heartbeat up in the corner, barely visible, but there! Good thing I was laying down when she delivered the news. One set of identical twins, sharing a sac and placenta and another fraternal baby = three!

The first sonogram with all three babies

After the sonogram was over, and lots of pictures were printed, I met with the ob, who was quite shaken about the news of triplets. He immediately talked about risks and selective reduction, which I quickly told him was not an option. He suggested I go over to the high risk maternal medicine and schedule an appointment. That doctor was a lot more optimistic! He saw higher order multiples pregnancies much more often, and said that I might have a problem carrying the babies long enough since I'm only 5'4", but we'd deal with that when the time came. A sonogram showed all the babies growing well, and I went home with instructions to be careful picking up Meredith, but nothing much more specific than that. At about 9 or 10 weeks I started bleeding, but a sonogram didn't reveal a cause, and the babies looked fine, so I was sent home to rest. At about 13 weeks the bleeding was so heavy that I was sure I was miscarrying. We rushed to the doctor, and another sonogram showed the babies were fine, and no cause for the bleeding. He speculated that one of the placentas was pulling away a bit, and I should just go home and rest. The good news was they were able to see a thin membrane separating the identical twins - so they would not have a risk of getting tangled up in each other's umbilical cords. At this point in the pregnancy, there was nothing they could do to help it along. We were also just 2 weeks away from a 1000 mile move (to be closer to family), had just listed our house for sale (that we'd just moved in to three short months ago), and Greg had just accepted a new job and given 2 weeks notice for his current job. No stress here! I laid in bed all day and watched others pack our things, the movers came and loaded up, and I got out of bed to go board a plane for the 1096 mile trip to our new home - and prayed the whole time for the babies to just hang on! As soon as we got there, I went back to bed and had an appointment with my new doctor (who by the way is a father of 14, including two sets of twins - and considered to be very aggressive in treating preterm labor). By now the bleeding was lighter, but still caused me to worry. A sonogram showed the babies to be doing well, and again no clear source of the bleeding. The doctor referred me to a program where a nurse would come once a week to administer a progesterone shot, which has been found to help when there's a risk of preterm labor. So at 16 weeks, I started weekly shots and also made an appointment to see the perinatologist, a doctor who specialized in high risk pregnancies. That appointment was at 18 weeks, and I had a 1 1/2 hour long sonogram appointment to check out all the babies. It was here that we learned that all three were girls - and all body parts and measurements were just perfect. Things got a little smoother after this, and for a few weeks I was able to get out a bit. I went and got my driver's license. We bought a minivan (which is another great story I'll have to write about soon!). I did some Christmas shopping. We visited a couple churches.

Then when I was about 22 weeks, Meredith came down with an awful stomach virus. I got it a couple days later, and ended up going to the hospital for dehydration, expecting to get IV fluids for a couple hours and be back home. By the time I got there I was having contractions every 2 minutes. Not good when you're only 22 weeks pregnant! I was hooked up to monitors and given an IV. After a long wait, I was given a shot of terbutaline to slow the contractions. This is normally given in a series of three shots (I believe 10 minutes apart), but it caused my heart rate to jump up to around 140, so they could not administer the 2nd or 3rd shots. But thankfully the contractions slowed and I was eventually sent home. They told me not to come back. Seriously. We had gone to the closest hospital, which is not equipped or experienced with handling triplet pregnancies, or babies born way too early. So the next time we went to the hospital, we'd drive the extra miles to the hospital where I would eventually deliver. The next day, the contractions were back, so off we went - to the big hospital. I was hooked up to monitors, and the doctor on call was not very encouraging or optimistic. He told me at 22 weeks there was nothing they could do, and 22 week babies did not make it. I was sobbing as he left and just couldn't believe that I could make it this far to not have anything done. Eventually he came back and agreed to give me another shot of terbutaline. This time my heart rate did not get quite so high, and I was able to get the 2nd and 3rd doses (which are quite painful by the way!!). The contractions slowed, I was given additional IV fluids, and send home with a prescription for terbutaline tablets. These worked for a little while, but after a couple weeks the contractions came back and I was admitted to the hospital on December 26th with contractions every 2 minutes. (We were in the middle of moving into our new house this day, and it was just too much - though all I did was get out of one bed, ride in a car for 15 minutes, and then lay on the sofa.) IV fluids and a sedative did not slow the contractions down. At this point I was 24 weeks along, and the doctor on call started me on magnesium - which was quite effective, but not a fun drug to be on. I was on it for 48 hours, during which time you are not allowed to get out of bed at all. It makes you hot. Really hot. And it's very difficult to sleep with 4 monitors strapped to your belly, blood pressure monitors, and heart rate monitors beeping constantly! This hospital stay lasted 6 days. I was given steroid shots to develop the babies lungs in case they had to deliver sooner rather than later. I finally went home after my doctor was able to check me out and he ordered a contraction monitor for me to use at home. Twice daily I was to strap this on and send the results in over the phone, to be analyzed by some experienced labor & delivery nurses. It finally arrived a few days later and my first session showed 26 contractions in one hour. Yes, 26!!! This apparently caused quite a panic, as the next day I was also started on a terbutaline pump, which a nurse came to the house to set up for me - I had to change it myself every 4-5 days - a pump that delivered the medicine subcutaneously through a small tube I had to insert into my leg. This did the trick! Contractions were way down (only like 1-4 an hour), blood pressure and heart rate still great. One night, I can't remember how far along, but I want to say sometime in January, I was awake for about 4 hours in the middle of the night while the triplets were having a disco party. I was being pushed, kicked and jabbed constantly. For four hours! Prior to this, babies A and B were head down and baby C was transverse across the top. After this 'party', babies A and B were feet down, and baby C was feet down in the middle of A and C. Guess they wanted a new view.

Following sonograms showed the babies were doing great. I was still getting the progesterone shots (I would get these until I delivered), and the nice thing about this was a nurse came to the house every week, and would also listen to the babies' heartbeats. The terb pump did great and got me to 28 weeks, and then it wasn't so effective. I then learned that your body becomes immune to it after 3-4 weeks. So back to the hospital I went with contractions every 2 minutes. Another round of mag, this time the hot flashes were horrible! The nurses brought me a huge box fan which blew straight on my upper body, I had only the hospital gown and a thin sheet covering me, but my legs sticking out, the thermostat for my room was set at the lowest possible setting (it was January 28th, by the way, so cold outside too!), and I was still hot Hot HOT. Greg came to spend the night on the cot and he slept in his clothes, a sweater, a heavy coat, his shoes, and covered up with a sheet and 2 blankets - and he was still cold! The doctor on call took me off the mag a little early and did not put me back on anything else to prevent contractions, so they started creeping back up within a few hours. He talked about possibly delivering the babies, saying they were 28 weeks they'd be just fine. I was not happy that this doctor would not call MY doctor before making this decision (he was out of town). Luckily, my doctor got back and said absolutely not. He put me back on the terb pump (after 48 hours of being off it, my body would respond to it again), and he put me on an oral medication, Procardia, as well. Apparently, my ob is one of the few who believes in and uses this terb pump. It's not FDA approved, so the hospital staff could not help me with it or be in the room when I started it back up. But I truly believe this is what saved our babies and helped them stay in as long as possible. I went 4 weeks with no hospital visit! I was given another round of steroid shots to develop the babies lungs. Contractions went up and down - at times the monitor showed as many as 12 or 16 in an hour. At one point, I declined the nurses 'recommendation' to go to the hospital. After talking at great length with her (and I had talked with her almost daily for a month now), she said that when you are having multiples, especially higher order multiples, you just contract a lot. My uterus was already stretched beyond a full term size, and it thought it was time! Plus, every time a baby kicked, and with three in there it happened a lot, I had a contraction. Every time I got up I had contractions. If my bladder was too full, I had contractions. If I didn't drink enough water I had contractions. If I didn't eat enough protein, I had contractions. The difference is most of my contractions weren't strong enough for me to even notice. And those weren't so worrisome. It was the ones I did notice that could start to cause me to start dilating and cause additional problems. So this nurse said when the monitor said I had 16 contractions in one hour, but I only felt three - I should go with the number 3 rather than the 16. So this is the advice I followed. But if my count was above 10, the nurse was required to recommend a trip to the hospital. I was going to the doctor every week now - either the ob or the perinatologist. The babies were growing well and doing great! Sonograms showed legs and arms everywhere.

I'd been on bed rest for 2 1/2 months now. How did I pass the time? I watched too much TV, I read books, I played Sudoku, I surfed the web, I ordered birth announcements, I paid bills online, and I was even able to play with Meredith some - she'd come and color with me, or we'd play with her dolls a little bit. By now I was going to the bathroom almost every 30 minutes to an hour. I had to roll back and forth from my left to right side b/c my back would hurt, my legs would hurt. I was on oral medication twice a day, and had to change out the medicine for my turb pump just about every day, and change the stint every 4-5 days. But when you've gained 65 pounds and can't really move without causing a contraction - you just lay there. A lot. Though I did get outside a bit. Greg moved the recliner to the back patio one day so I could get some fresh air and watch Meredith play. Another day I sat on the porch swing for a few minutes blowing bubbles with Meredith (about 10 minutes was all I could take, and then I was so tired I had to go lay back down!)

Don't laugh at me... this was taken just a
couple days before the triplets were born.

Then on February 21, I went to bed - a normal evening. But I just didn't sleep well. And when I woke up the next morning, something was different. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly, but I felt different. I was preparing for a visit to the perinatologist, and I was having more contractions than usual. The kind that I could count. So off we went to the perinatologist, and I mentioned to the lady doing my sonogram that I was having a lot more contractions. After she finished all her measurements and said everything looked great, they hooked me up to a monitor. Now, this wasn't go lie on a cold hard examining table while we strap all these monitors on you. This was go sit in this big comfy leather recliner while we strap all these monitors on you! So that made it a little more tolerable. After 30 minutes, the perinatologist came in and said he thought I needed to go to the hospital. He called my ob and they had discussed it, so off I went. It was about 11 am, and I was starving! But no stop by Wendy's for my usual meal on the way home from the doctor's appointment. I arrived at the hospital and was hooked up to all the monitors - this time on a cold, hard, hospital bed. After a couple hours, my ob decided not to put me on magnesium again, that this would be the babies' birthday. Mostly because I had already had a previous c-section and the doctor didn't want a scarred uterus, stretched beyond 'normal', to be pushed too far and risk anything else. By this point I was having regular contractions, and they were becoming quite painful. My c-section kept getting pushed back because of emergency c-sections. I finally got my epidural, and at 7:02 Amanda was born. At 7:03 Claire and Melissa were born. And they were beautiful! 30 fingers and 30 toes. Just perfect.

More coming soon...