The NICU Days...

Thirty little fingers, thirty little toes. Underneath the wires, cords, blankets and hats, there they were! My babies were absolutely beautiful. And no, I'm not biased. Not one little bit. I hadn't been allowed to see them for several hours after having them, and would have to wait even longer to hold them. Talk about torture! After fighting every day to get these babies into the world safely, I now had to be apart from them and I didn't like it one bit. Around 6pm the day I delivered them, I told the nurse that I needed to see them right then. She did not feel I was ready to get up yet, but I wasn't waiting. It was horrible pain getting up, but I didn't care. I had to see their sweet little faces. The first time I saw them, I was speechless. I saw Makayla first. She was so tiny, but she was strong! Marissa had a headfull of hair and was a bit opinionated from the start. And my baby boy Jack, he needed to be on a c-pap for a day so it was a little hard to see his face, but he was a fighter as well. The girls looked so much like their big sister already! All along Jack was Baby "A," but Marissa pushed him aside and made sure she was first. I guess in a way, it was a sign of things to come as she is always first. First one I got to hold, first one home, first one to roll over, the list will most likely continue. The girl's on a mission. And Jack is super laid back. As long as you keep him fed, he's happy. So it doesn't surprise me now, that he let her gain the #1 spot. It was so tough, just sitting there looking at them thru their incubators, but all of the nurses were amazed by how well they were doing right from the beginning. Marissa was breathing on her own and within two days, she could eat on her own. The first time I held her, I knew that she knew I was her mother. She was screaming and hollering her little lungs out. She was so mad as the nurse tried to untangle all her wires so that I could hold her. She was bright red by time the nurse was handing her to me. The nurse laid this tiny, 4 pound baby in my arms, and she immediately became quiet. She knew she was in mommy's arms. I felt an instant bond with her and did not want to let her go! I was allowed to hold her for about ten minutes and then I did have to put her back in her "home" as we did not want her losing too much body heat. I could not wait until I could hold my other two babies and hoped it would be very soon! The next morning when we went to see the babies, they told me I could hold Makayla. The nurse put this tiny three pound girl in my arms and my heart melted. Against all odds, here she was. Proof that God does answer prayers! As with her sister, I did not want to put her back, but we didn't want her losing any weight and using her energy to get warm would cause that, so back in her "home "she went. Two days later I finally got to hold my sweet baby boy and at that point I finally felt complete. I had held all my babies and knew that they were doing just fine. Marissa came off of her feeding tube first (of course) and really liked to eat. Makayla and Jack still needed theirs, but the nurses were optimistic it wouldn't be for long. Both of them also had IV's in their scalps, and I couldn't wait until those could be taken out. Of course our number one question was when they would get to come home. The nurses told us to expect them to be ready around the time I would have been 40 weeks, which was June 22, over a month away. This made us sad, but we knew they would come home when the time was right. A few nights after I had them, I started feeling bad around 11pm. I was freezing cold, very sore and very tired. By the next morning I had a fever over 102. So, I sent Mike down to see the babies while the nurses gave me medicine hoping to get my fever down. When he came back, he was very unhappy so I asked him what was wrong. He told me that I wouldn't be allowed to see my babies for 24 hours after my fever broke. I couldn't believe it! I was finally allowed to hold all of my babies and now I couldn't even go see them?? I was very sad about this, but I also knew it was best and I didn't want to risk getting them sick. That day seemed to drag on so long and I was so happy when I could go see them again! The next day, the doctor told me that I could go home and I had such mixed emotions. I missed Marley terribly and couldn't wait to see her, but I also didn't want to leave my babies. We spent that entire day with the babies and that evening we came home to our sweet Marley. She was so happy to see me and just hugged me for several minutes. Over the next few weeks, we juggled visiting with the babies and spending time with Marley. The nurses at Tampa General were amazing and updated us on each baby the minute we walked in. Marissa was thriving and we just had to make sure she continued that for a few days. Makayla was slowly getting the hang of eating and just had to grow a little so she could keep her body warm on her own. Jack struggled the most with eating. I think he thought he was at the Hilton. The second he cried, young, pretty nurses went running to his aid and made sure he was okay. He knew what he was doing! The boy is smart. They even let Marley come meet her siblings which made her very happy. I tried to get as much rest as I could because I knew that once the babies were home, that would be a thing of the past! Four months later, I'm still missing that rest. Less than two weeks after I had the babies, the nurses told me one of them was ready to come home. You guessed it....Marissa! Three days after her, Makayla got to come home and two days after her, on June 2nd (3 weeks before they estimated!) Jack got to come home. We were all home together, all six of us, and we were ready to begin the next part of our journey!

Love

Seeing Jack for the first time

Feeding Marissa for the first time  (thru her feeding tube)

My sweet Makayla

Checking me out!



Holding Jack

Visiting the babies








            

And then there were six...

*This may be a bit graphic at times, read with caution*

1st grade. 24 years ago. That is when I met my best friend, Stephanie. She was new to my school and when she got dropped off, she started crying and went running after her mom. Maybe I felt sad for her. Maybe it was her red hair. Whatever it was, we became best friends that day and never looked back. We've been thru so much together, she was there for the birth of Marley. She had her own precious baby boy this past March (5 days before my birthday).  I would say I hit the jackpot when it comes to best friends. And she knew, before even I did, that I was in labor. It was a Sunday evening and we decided to go to Red Lobster. I had less than 2 weeks until I was set to deliver the triplets so we knew this would be one of our last dinners together for awhile. We didn't know it would be mere hours before my babies would be here. While we were at dinner, I felt very uncomfortable. That was nothing new during this pregnancy though, so I really didn't give it much thought. It was so bad I couldn't even eat and about halfway thru dinner she said, "Jen, I think you are having contractions!" I blew her off, no way. I had a natural delivery with Marley and knew what contractions felt like, this wasn't them. She even went so far as to get her phone out as she had downloaded a contraction timer app when she was still pregnant and told me to tell her everytime I got uncomfortable and she was going to time it. It was nothing steady so I boxed up my dinner and we went home. When I got home, I told Mike that I couldn't do it anymore. My body hurt too bad and from then until I delivered the babies, I was doing as little as possible because my body was telling me it was about strained to its limit. I was even going to ask my mom to pick Marley up from daycare and that was hard for me because I loved picking her up and hearing all about her day from her teachers. So, I spent the rest of that evening laying down and then Mike went to bed and my pains were getting stronger and I couldn't sleep. I went out to my living room, hoping that sitting up on the couch may help. It was about 3am by now and I decided that maybe, just maybe, Steph was right and these were contractions. I started timing when I felt pain and it was roughly every 11 minutes. I debated on waking Mike up to tell him. I knew he would say we need to go to the hospital. This meant I'd have to call my mom in the middle of the night and ask her to come sit with Marley and I felt like I should just wait. After all, it's not like the pain was every 5 minutes. Finally around 5am I went to bed and slept for about 2 hours. At 8am Mike was about to take Marley to school and then go to work. I must have looked different that morning because when he came out of the bedroom and saw me sitting on the couch he immediately asked what was wrong. I said, "Well, I think maybe I'm having contractions, but probably not. It feels really different than it did with Marley so it's probably not." See, my house was a mess since I had no energy to clean and I thought that they would go off to work and school, then I'd clean my house, take a shower and at that point if I was still having pains, I'd call Mike and let him take me to the doctor. Mike said to me, "I'm not leaving for work until you call the doctor." At this point I suddenly felt very naseous which was nothing out of the ordinary, so I told him to give me a second while I went to the bathroom. Apparently God became tired of me ignoring the subtle signs and felt I needed a real wake-up call. I made it to the bathroom and started throwing up, and while I was doing this, I began losing blood. I instantly felt panic and called Mike in. I told him very calmly, "You need to call my mom. She is going to have to take Marley to school. I am bleeding, we need to get to the hospital." He grabbed his phone and told my mom to hurry and get there (luckily she only lives 3 miles away) and we began grabbing things we needed as I was sure I would be having these babies today. My mom got there very quickly and we threw our stuff into the van, kissed Marley bye and told my mom we'd call her. The drive to the hospital felt like it took forever. I was so mad at myself for ignoring the pain and not listening to my body. My biggest fear was that something had happened to one of the babies for me to be bleeding like that. We finally make it to the hospital and we weren't sure where to go. One of the valet attendants comes up to the car and sees me and says, "Are you going to have a baby?" I said, "No, I am going to have three babies!" She said, "Oh my!! Drive up to the emergency entrance and they'll direct you where to go." So, we drive over to that entrance, grab a wheelchair and head up. We were both staying surprisingly calm during all of this. We go into triage where they put three monitors on me and I instantly heard three heartbeats. This made me relax some, all of my babies were safe. Then, in walks the one and only doctor I saw over that entire time that I liked. I felt instant relief. She would be the one to deliver my babies! At this point it was roughly 9:30am. She said she was going to check to see if I was dilated any. While she is checking, she looked at me and said, "Honey, you are having your babies today, you are in active labor and 4 centimeters dilated, get ready." I am not exaggerating when I say that within 3 minutes of her saying this, the entire hallway was lined up with doctors and nurses just waiting for me. We then have a nurse come in and tell me that they will have to put me to sleep during delivery and Mike would not be able to be in the room. We both became very upset by this, as it was something that was never mentioned, and they told us it was best for me and the babies. They then tell us of everything that could go wrong and that upset us even more. My grandma, aunt and uncle walk in at that point and we tell them what's going on and they assure us that everything will be okay, but they also look worried. They then begin wheeling me off and the nurse comes running up and says, "Somebody must like you. We got your labs back, we don't have to put you to sleep after all." I felt very relieved about this and was so happy now that Mike could be in the delivery room. So, they wheel me in where atleast 30 people waited for me and I knew this was it. The anesthesiologist numbs me, they send Mike in and make the incision! On May 16, 2011 at 10:53am, Marissa Marie Boucher came into the world weighing in at 4 pounds 5 ounces, followed by brother Jackson Joseph Boucher at 10:55am weighing 5 pounds 4 ounces and last but not least, Makayla Grace Boucher at 10:56am weighing 3 pounds 14 ounces. My babies were here!!!! Everytime one was pulled out, the entire room said, "Awww!" I did not get to hold them or even really see them. They did bring Makayla to my face for about 5 seconds, and then they were all  immediately put in their "home" for the next several days, their warm and cozy incubators. I was wheeled into recovery where I had brief visits from Mike and my mom, but they wanted to see those babies! After about two hours they were wheeling me to my room and I was wishing somebody was there so I wouldn't be alone. We round the corner and when the nurse opens the doors to go down the hallway to my room, who is standing there waiting, but my best friend, Steph.

Me & Steph, both pregnant



My first time seeing Makayla







Jack not long after birth, just needed a little help breathing





Marissa a few minutes after birth, she was a tough cookie from Day 1







Signs

"How much weight did you gain?"  That was probably the #2 question I was asked, only falling behind the question of, "Did you use fertility drugs?" Well, no we didn't use fertility, but if we had, would that have made a difference? I suppose it is just human nature to ask these kind of things, but when random strangers you don't know feel they can ask, it makes you wonder what is sacred anymore. Back to the weight question- None. I lost 45 pounds. I spent every day and night with my old friend- the toilet. We became good aquaintances while I was pregnant with Marley and we quickly rekindled that friendship while I was pregnant with the triplets. I received so much advice on how to prevent this so-called morning sickness (Oh how I wish it was only in the morning!) and I tried every piece of advice I was given, but nothing worked. I remember the doctor giving me a "Preggie Pop" and I was sick while I was still eating it. Ha. I would wake up out of a dead sleep to say hello to my dear friend. My body just doesn't like those pregnancy hormones. So, believe it or not, I lost weight thanks to the triplets. I was beyond exhausted, always sick and attempting to take care of my 2 year old and it was tough. Thank God I have a wonderful husband who would take over parent duty on the weekends so I could sleep. And thank God I have a wonderful mom who brought me lunch everyday because I would honestly rather have slept than ate but she made sure I was feeding her grandbabies, though they usually didn't seem to like what she brought. After our initial big scare with Makayla, my appointments started getting less eventful, but still very frustrating. I saw one doctor four times in two weeks, yet when he walked into the office to see me, he still had no idea who I was. As if the entire office was filled with women who were having three babies. It was just frustrating to have to always advocate for myself when the doctors I was seeing were supposed to be specialists. At one point my blood pressure was fairly high, roughly 160/90, and I had to point it out to the doctor. Mike had to ask about me losing weight, as I should have been steadily gaining, and even ask the doctor if I should try drinking Ensures or Boosts since I couldn't eat that many calories in food. At about my 30th week, they took some blood to do a few tests. The doctor told me my test for Spina Bifida came back abnormal for one of the babies and I needed to talk to the high-risk doctor at my next appointment. She told me many people who have babies who test positive for this choose to end their pregnancy, because in severe cases the child will never be able to complete normal daily functions. Of course that was not an option in my mind, especially being I was nearing the end of this long journey, but the fear of what could be was now there. For a week, until my next appointment, we were anxious over this. At my next visit, we go into the high-risk doctor's office and he says, "Of course your labs came back abnormal, you are having three babies. There is nothing normal about that!" But of course, once the concern was already in my head, I wasn't just going to forget about it overnight. There were so many little incidents that just added stress to my already stressful pregnancy. I had the doctor's assistant call me and say they were concerned how low my iron was and then she said they needed to take more blood to check to see if I had a certain type of anemia. When I asked her what that was, her response was, "Hang on a second, let me check WebMD." How reassuring! As we were getting closer and closer to my 37th week (the furthest I was allowed to go), I asked at each appointment when we could schedule my c-section. I was anxious to know when I would meet these three miracles!! Each week the regular doctor said I needed to ask the high-risk doctor and the high-risk doctor said I needed to ask the regular doctor. Finally at one appointment, probably during my 33rd week, a doctor walked in that had some answers!! It was my first appointment with her and I knew she knew what she was talking about. When I asked her about scheduling my c-section, she immediately pulled out the scheduler and was getting it planned. My mom always tells me, "There are signs all around, you just have to see them." Well, what happened next had to be a sign. The doctor tells me, that my exact due date, when they would schedule me to have these babies, was May 25th. This was 6 years TO THE DAY that my father passed away in the SAME hospital where I would be having the triplets. If that's not a sign that he was there keeping me and those babies safe, I don't know what else is. As we all know, we didn't quite make it to that day, but it was just amazing to me that of the 365 days in the year 2011, May 25th would be my chosen day- the day  I could safely have my babies.

The first 20 weeks and our miracle baby....

You always hear a picture is worth a thousand words. I can now testify to that. Seeing those three tiny, beating blobs on the screen left me speechless. That ER doctor wasn't crazy after all! I was really carrying three babies. As soon as we found out, my doctor took me into her office and basically told me I was too high-risk for them to see and they would refer me to a group of specialists. She told me of all the hardships I would probably endure over the next several months- sickness, dehydration, strict bed rest very early on, premature birth- to name a few and basically bid us farewell. We left the office feeling scared of the unknown, but after seeing our babies, we felt excited. The next week I was hospitalized for five days because I did become extremely dehyrated, but after countless bags of IVs and a breakfast, lunch and dinner of toast and applesauce, I got to go home. I was still working full time, but the majority of my days were spent in the bathroom and it was anything but pretty. I made my first appointment with my new group of specialists and my mom went with me to that appointment because we knew Mike needed to save up as much vacation/sick time as possible. At this visit, the doctor took us into her office and basically told us the human body is not meant to carry three babies. If I would reduce down to two, it would give both of the remaining babies a much better chance. If I kept all three, I risked all three. I told her apparently my body didn't get that memo and we did not need to continue this conversation any further. She then told us not to start shopping for the babies until I was atleast 24 weeks along and that was that. I should have known in that moment, with the way she basically encouraged me to do a selective reduction, that this doctors group would be the main test of my own strength over the next several months. I would not have a doctor to lean on for understanding and support...so much for these so called specialists! Over the next several weeks I went to appointment after appointment, having a sonogram each time, and all seemed to be going well. Around the 15th week, I went to my appointment by myself (the one and only time) as Mike had to work and my mom was sick. During this sonogram, the tech said she didn't like the fluid levels around Baby "C" and was calling the doctor in. Each baby needed atleast 4cm of fluid and she had 1/2 of 1 centimeter. She also had reverse blood flow which was another major concern. They immediately decided to call a world renown surgeon in Miami to make me an appointment to go see him. She told me he would do one of three things- he would say just wait and see, he would laser her cord in hopes of strengthening it and improving the blood flow, or he would tie her cord off, meaning she would die. The doctor then asked me to go wait in a room while she called to make my appointment. A few minutes later she comes in and says to me, "They will be calling you with your appointment time this afternoon. Getting in with this doctor is like finding a needle in a haystack. When they say go, drop whatever you are doing, and go. However, my gut feeling is that they will choose to tie that cord off." And she then left the room. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach, how dare this woman say that to me, then just leave the room not letting me ask any questions, and act like this was no big deal. This was a human life....MY baby's life!! I decided in that moment I would not let this cold, heartless doctor see me cry because of her and her "gut feelings" so I sucked it up, marched right past her, down the four floors of the doctors office, out to the parking garage, and when I was finally in my car, I lost it. Why would God give me these three babies just to take one away?? I would have to see that precious baby's body, frozen at 15 weeks, every time I had a sonogram. I finally calmed down enough to drive home and when I told Mike and my mom the news, I made it sound better than what it really was, that there was just some concern for her and we would see what happens. That appointment was on a Friday afternoon and on Monday at noon, I still hadn't heard from anybody. I called my doctors to see what the plan was and the doctor's assistant said to me, "Oh, the doctor in Miami said you don't meet the criteria to go down to Miami right now. If you have questions, ask at your next appointment." I just didn't understand. Three days ago you tell me my baby would most likely die and now I don't even meet criteria?? My next appointment comes and I ask the sonogram tech what is going on and she tells me that for the doctor in Miami to even see me, I have to meet very specific criteria. My baby had to be in the 10th percentile or less, she was in the tenth percentile in all areas but one, and in that one area she was in the twelfth. The tech said she used to work for this doctor and had seen many cases like this and she wanted to warn me, it normally went downhill very quickly and I should be ready to go down there soon. If Baby "C" got to where she met criteria and we did nothing and she ended up dying on her own, there was a 30-40% chance that Baby "B", her identical, would have brain damage. Every single sonogram after this was beyond nerve-racking. I felt sick every time she got to Baby " C". However, this little girl wasn't going down without a fight (kind of how she was at bedtime last night!) and each week she miraculously got more fluid and less reversed blood flows. The sonogram tech, who was the only bright spot in that horrible doctors office, said around 20 weeks, " I think she's going to hold her own. I have never seen this before, it usually gets real bad, real fast, but she is actually improving." I truly believe it was the power of prayer and God's amazing grace that saved our little girl's life. I want to thank each and everyone of you who prayed for us. She was on more prayer lists than I probably even realize. It was a scary time, with none of us knowing for awhile what would happen. But, as you all know now, my little girl is happy, healthy and perfect. Our little fighter- Makayla Grace. Now, who thinks I should send that ignorant doctor a picture of her and write, " Here's your gut feeling!!"??

Makayla Grace

So, the time has come where I've decided to start a blog. So much goes on in my day to day life that it may be the only way I will ever remember everything. As anyone who knows us is aware, we now have four kids....Marley, who just turned 3, and our (almost) 4 month old triplets- Marissa, Jack and Makayla!! Life has been a crazy ride over the past almost year but let's start when our lives were changed forever...We really wanted to give Marley a baby brother or sister (who knew we are such over-achievers!) and I found out I was pregnant on October 15, 2010. Well, on Thanksgiving Day, I was in bed with horrible pain in my right side all day. By the time I got to my mom's house for Turkey Dinner, I could barely sit up straight and was definitely not able to eat (this was a sign of things to come!) I was pretty disappointed after much anticipation of this feast! My mom ordered me to the emergency room where we endured hours of tests, all of which came back negative. Then they took me back for an ultrasound. It felt like the ultrasound tech was taking forever to finish and she could not tell me what she saw. I had a feeling it was either really bad news or else we were having twins. So, they take me back to the room and the doctor comes in with a big smile on his face. He says "I have good news and good news. We don't see any infections. And, are you on any fertility drugs?" I instantly thought twins. My nephews are twins and I thought, we have done this before, we can do it! I quickly answer "no" and then he does what I, nor anyone, would have ever imagined....he holds up THREE fingers. I immediately felt the blood rush to my head and was grateful I was laying down. I look over at my husband, Mike, and he looked as dumbfounded as I felt. He said "You saw 3 heartbeats??? You are sure??" and the doctor smiled even bigger and said "Yes!" I felt so many different things in that moment-excitement, fear, happiness, nerves, but mostly guilt. Guilt because I knew the time these three miracles would take away from my precious two year old, knew she was too young to understand it, but I also knew she would be a wonderful big sister and even then, I could have never expected her to handle it as well as she has. I think we just sat there for five minutes taking it in. The doctor wouldn't show us the ultrasound pictures so I don't think we really believed him yet. They let us leave and I instantly called my mom and told her. She was in total shock and said, "That's the same hospital that told you your wrist was broken when it wasn't...let's wait to see your doctor." Mike called his mom and it took him five minutes to convince her we weren't playing a joke on her. We then called some of our family and close friends and they were all in shock, yet very supportive from that first minute we told them. Looking back, I wish we could have recorded everyones reactions. It was usually total disbelief or else they just agreed and said congratulations until it sunk in what we said and then they went crazy. One of my favorite reactions was a close friend of mine. I called her the morning after we found out (we didn't leave the ER until after midnight) and she was getting ready to attend the funeral for one of her best friends and had been very upset for days. When I told her, she laughed hysterically for probably three minutes and was so excited. It was nice to hear her laugh again after seeing her so sad and heartbroken over her loss and I think we both realized in that moment, life is never something you can plan. We are just along for the ride! We had to wait three long days to go to my doctor where it was confirmed....we were indeed having triplets!