The NICU – Part 1

Coming from a mother of multiples (especially 3 or more), you know that your children have a really good chance of spending time in the NICU after they are born. Nothing really prepared me though for the actual NICU. Not only did I have 3 very frail children there with all kinds of tubes and electronic equipment hooked up to them which scared the hell out of me, but I also had the atmosphere of the NICU. There are sick babies everywhere. You constantly here the beeping sounds of babies machines for issues such as a bradacardia spell or apnea. Their medication dispension machine could be low, etc. Every time I heard one, it freaked me out. I guess I was just hoping that it wouldn’t feel so clinical. I had just come from 63 days in my own hospital room with machines, tubes, medications, shots, etc. I was just exhausted and wanted a change of scenery. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.  

We named our beautiful babies Matthew, Jack and Christopher. During my first few visits with the boys, I was in extreme pain. I had a hard time moving from my wheelchair to the hard wooden rocking chairs that they had available for us. It was so strange seeing these little tiny babies laying in three separate isolettes. Christopher was actually in the next cubicle down from Matthew and Jack. My wheelchair could not get through that space between the two cubicles so I had to get up to spend time with Christopher. Still fresh from a c-section the day before, I spent a lot of time keeled over in pain while trying to understand what was being done to each of my boys. At this point, I was not allowed to hold them either. This may seem odd but I didn’t want to either. As excited as I was to have them here in this world, I was also very reserved in becoming attached to them. I was so afraid that something might happen to them but I found it really hard to bond with them. I would sing to them, rub their backs, take lots of pictures, etc. But I really had a hard time connecting or allowing each of them to flood my heart with love. I was scared to death that something might happen. I didn’t want to hurt anymore than I already had. I was mentally and physically spent.

I was able to stay in the hospital from Saturday (the day they were born) until late, late Wednesday night. At that point, I had to pack up my life at what had become like home, and go back to my real home. I had to leave my 3 little angels in someone else’s care. I was petrified. I’ll never forget that night in bed trying to sleep. (Sleeping with a large incision in your belly makes it near impossible to sleep on your side and my ass was killing me trying to sleep on my back.) Not only was I not able to sleep in my normal position, but I started to have a panic attack. I actually missed the hospital. I missed my nurses. I missed my roommate who identified with everything I was going through. I missed my call button in case I needed or was worried about anything. I remember sitting up and beginning to cry hysterically. My husband was so incredibly hurt. After 3 months of sleeping separately, I was finally home and able to cuddle in his arms and all I wanted was to go back to the hospital. It had become a safety net. My second home. It blows my mind that I was even thinking that way. I hated the hospital. I hated the loneliness. I hated the food. But that hospital and it’s staff saved my babies lives. What the hell was happening to me? I had such a hard time dealing with all these different emotions, besides the fact that I had 3 babies in the NICU too.

Our Infertility Story – Part 2

So, we conceived in April 2004. For the first 5 months, everything went pretty smoothly. Or at least as smoothly as it could for a woman carrying three babies at once. There were days that I had convinced myself that I was losing the babies because some of my pregnancy feelings would come and go. I would cry and cry for hours about it. Then there were days when I would have such awful gas and it would hurt so bad that I would be sure that it was killing the babies. My fertility doctor loved when I told him that one. He thought I was crazy. But how can you not be crazy and super emotional when you’ve tried for so long to have a baby. I find it so strange though, that instead of relishing in pregnancy, I kept going to the negative thoughts in thinking that it wasn’t going to happen. 

At 20 weeks we found out that we were having THREE boys. I was petrified and excited all at the same time. It wasn’t a surprise. My husband was one of four boys and his father was one of five. I’ll never forget when they announced it to us during the ultrasound. My husband started to sing the theme song to the old TV show “My Three Sons”. He thinks he is just Mr. Comedian, just like his dad. I initially thought “What the heck? There has to be at least one girl in there! Who are I going to go shopping with? I’m not going to get to help plan a wedding? No cute girlie stuff?” I think I wrestled with the thought of all boys for probably about a week. Then, I remembered how lucky I was to be pregnant at all and I remembered that I wouldn’t have to pay for a wedding, deal with female hormones/puberty and I’d always get to be the princess of the house. Now, I think of my boys and I wouldn’t trade any of them for a girl. They are part of my soul. 

After those first 20 weeks, the pregnancy was worse than I ever could have imagined. None of the books available explain in emotional terms, what could happen. I got extremely big, extremely fast. Because I am petite and Baby A’s head was pushing down directly onto my cervix, I had a really hard time carrying them for too long. At exactly 22 weeks, on Labor Day 2004, I went into preterm labor and was admitted to the hospital. Being in the hospital, flat on your back and pregnant was more horrific than I ever could have envisioned. Within a week of being in the antepartum wing of the hospital with all the other high risk pregnant women, my belly was measuring that of a 40 week, full term pregnancy. I was extremely uncomfortable. I had to lay on my left side for 9 weeks straight. I was not even allowed to get up to use the bathroom or take a shower for the first 3 weeks I was there because they were so concerned about me going into pre-term labor again. I ended up in Labor and Delivery three times because we didn’t think they were going to be able to stop the contractions. Fortunately, they always were. I was taking the drugs turbutaline and nifedipine daily. It was more drugs than I think I have ever taken in my entire life. I was hormonal, emotional and scared to death I was going to lose the babies. I dealt with a ton of emotional guilt because a lot of times I was so physically and emotionally spent that I just wanted it over. I wanted to go home. I missed my dogs. I missed my own bed. I missed sleeping in bed with my husband. The closest physicality we had was him helping me take a shower or use the restroom. I missed seeing the outside world. I missed having the sun shine on my face. I missed real food. I missed normal every day life. I just missed being me. I guess I really didn’t understand that what I thought of as the “real me” was about to end.  

The doctors kept telling me that if I made it to 24 weeks then they could give me the steroid shot to help develop the babies lungs and that would be a wonderful milestone. Then I hit 24 weeks, and all of a sudden, now the goal is 28 weeks. Then it’s 32 weeks. It felt like it was a never ending goal. I missed Halloween and already felt like there was no way I could handle spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in that hospital bed too. I felt like I was going crazy. At one point, they had a psychiatrist come in to evaluate me. He kept saying that I was anxious and that he had a medication that would help with that. I remember screaming at him that I wasn’t anxious. I just wanted to go home! Oh boy, what a winner I must have looked like to him. Only now can I realize that I should have taken the damn medication!

During all of this, I was constantly in labor. I know that sounds strange but I had at least 4 contractions every hour for the next 63 days. Half the time the nurses and doctors would ask me how many I had and I would lie and tell them less because I didn’t want to go back to Labor and Delivery. L&D became this prison. Like the place that prisoners go when they are on death row. Sometimes I get upset that have such memories and feelings like that. I can’t even count how many times I had that thought pop in my head.

When I did go to L&D for the final time, I was 4 centimeters dialated and didn’t even know it. God willing, I was able to carry the babies to 30 weeks, 5 days. The medication no longer would work and the doctor told me what I had waited over 9 weeks to hear. “We’re going to have these babies today!” I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait. For once, I actually wanted to go to L&D (the former prison). And I was so relieved that this was all going to be over that I didn’t have the time or the care to worry about complications, pain, anything. I just wanted them out.

I delivered all three boys by c-section on November 6, 2004. Baby A was born weighing 3 pounds, 4 ounces at 3:34 pm. At 3:35 and less than 30 seconds apart, Baby B arrived weighing 3 pounds, 3 ounces and Baby C weighed 3 pounds, 1 ounce. I saw them only for a split second and they were wheeled to the NICU with my husband by their side. I was totally drugged up and spent hours in recovery. My husband took lots of pictures of them and then went to dinner with his friends while I laid in bed drugged out of my mind. I actually still think sometimes that he should have been sitting there with me. But, heh, I was in seventh heaven. No pain. It was over!!! Hallelujah!

The next day, I was able to view them. I wasn’t expecting them to look so different. Their skin was very thin and they had this look that had me referring to them as “Little old Men”. The shock of seeing their fragile, small bodies rise and fall with the labor of their every breath was sometimes very hard to take. They were our children though and made it through so many hurdles. I had no idea though how many more hurdles we had before we would be able to take them home.

Our Infertilty Story – Part 1

Pregnant with Triplets at 6 weeks.

6 Week Ultrasound – Triplets

6 Weeks Ultrasound

I once started a blog on another blog site but I didn’t really talk in depth about my life. It was more of the fluff stuff. My life for the last 4 years have been quite a physical and emotional rollercoaster. Someone suggested to me that blogging about how it feels daily to be the mother of triplets might be a good thing for me, and on the flip side, maybe I might be able to reach out to others who may be going through similar life experiences. So here’s my story:

My husband and I tried for six years to have a baby. Within the first three years, we did all the usual basic first steps of infertility treatment. We had a Hysterosalpingogram (HSG) to rule out any blockage in my fallopian tubes. That came up normal. Then I had a laparoscopy surgery to rule out endometriosis. They found one of my ovaries had attached itself to the uterine wall, my fallopian tubes were a little irritated and that I had mild endometriosis. They repaired the ovary and the endometriosis during the surgery. After that, we moved into doing inseminations using the drug clomid to help produce eggs within my ovaries. I think we did about four rounds of that. By now, we were about 4 1/2 years into trying to conceive and I had just had it. I was so burnt out on trying to have a baby and then I just quit trying because I emotionally couldn’t take it anymore to see that negative sign on the pregnancy test each month.

Around September of 03, we decided to try again. The fertility specialist recommended that I quit my job because it was really a very stressful job and stress can often play into infertility. That didn’t work either. So finally, in March of 2004, we agreed to give In-vitro Fertilization (IVF) a try. We, along with our fertility specialist, decided to put four embryos back into my womb. He stated that, along with my age of 30, I had less than 5% chance of 3 of the 4 embryos attaching. Well, they did. I’ll never forget the day of our first ultrasound to see how many babies there were. The doctor said, “There’s one and there’s the other one.” We were so excited. “Twins!”, we cheered. Then the doctor got quiet, probed for a second and announced, “There’s another one!”. My husband almost fell to the floor. And of course all he could think about was what kind of car we should get. He loves cars.