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!