The Most Perfect Day Ever! 3 babies on 3-31-13

Midnight on Easter morning, March 31st some of our nurses came in and congratulated me on making it to 27 weeks. Corey and I were still awake getting ready to watch the first episode of the new season of Dr. Who, which he had to bootleg to our computer from our home dvr. Spending a month in the hospital you get to know most of the nurses and even ones I didn't know were rooting for me. When you are having triplets you become a little famous :) All of my nurses were determined to not have me go into labor on their shift.

We went to bed around 1:30am. About an hour or so later I woke up to my first painful contractions. At some point I had already had the oral meds and shot for increased contractions, so the only other option was to increase my magnesium for the first time since I was admitted. I remember talking to God about this because it was the first time that something really different had happened and I thought this could really be it this time. From the very beginning of this pregnancy and finding out about having triplets I trusted in Him to have healthy babies and believe that it was His will to give me three babies, especially since the odds are so small for triplets to happen. There are all kinds of things that can happen in a triplet pregnancy and I experienced none of those scary things and had a great pregnancy with babies that were doing awesome. I had also made it through the scariest part of my bed rest experience too. People have started to ask me if I was scared when I knew I was having the babies at 27 weeks. My answer is no because I decided to trust God once more. Knowing that I was exactly 27 weeks, just one week short of what my goal was, and it was Easter sunday, my favorite holiday, I told God that if that was His master plan for my little girls to be born this day, I would trust that it would all be just fine and my babies would be healthy and strong. With that I went to bed.

In the morning everything seemed fine. I didn't have any more painful contractions. My mom and stepdad were in visiting so they came over to be with us. My pastor and his wife came over after church to pray with us and share communion. I loved this because I was sad I wasn't getting a normal Easter celebration like I'm used to. Plus I thought it was so sweet of them to take time out or their holiday to come see us and share. A couple hours later my water broke. The perinatologist came in and said I was fully dilated now, but that still didn't mean that I couldn't make it a while longer on bed rest- surprisingly. He said to call if anything changed like I felt pressure or got more painful contractions. Then I started to get a little anxious just because I wanted to know whether or not this was really happening or if I had a few more days or weeks. I didn't want to have the babies on April fools day either. So I was like alright we are having these babies today or not for another week. But my doctor was only gone for a few minutes when I began to feel pressure. So he came back and said okay we are having babies today. They called my regular ob/gyn in as well as a neonatologist for each baby and assembled all the teams needed for my c-section. By 4pm I was in the O.R.

Now I had two perinatologist and my favorite one was on call that day, it being a sunday and a holiday. My regular ob just happened to be the doctor on call for his medical group as well. So I had the doctors I always wanted to be there to deliver my babies in the first place. One is not always in control of these things. According to the nurses, I also got the best anesthesiologist in the hospital that also happened to be on call that day. During the surgery all the doctors and nurses said what a good job I was doing and how relaxed I was during the surgery. Again I'm not sure what kind of people they usually experience LOL. To this day they all say what a good job I did keeping the babies in as long as I did. For me the hardest part of the c-section was sitting up for my spinal block. I had one big contraction when I sat up for the first time in a month and it was hard to relax for the doctor to do the spinal, but the nurse helped and it was all good after that.

Baby A, Oswyn Grace, was born first at 4:25 at 2lbs 4oz. They discovered that her placenta had began to detach so these babies really came just in time. Baby B, Fiona Lynn was 2lbs 1oz, and baby C, Molly Jane was 2lbs 7oz both born at 4:26. 2lbs sounds small and it is, but those are excellent weights for babies at 27 weeks old. They did awesome and continue to do so. They have never needed ventilators to breathe, which to me is shocking. They are just on what is called high flow-which helps push the air into their lungs basically. In fact, I had gotten a steroid shot for their lung development at 25 weeks and that shot peaks twice-once when you first get it, and again later-exactly when they were born :) The nurses and doctors are always telling us how good they are doing and that they are feisty little fighters. In more ways than one these babies are truly miracles. I don't know if its still totally real to me that I'm a mom and these beautiful babies are for real. It felt like we were waiting forever for them and now they are here. It was so worth everything and it really was the perfect time for more than one reason.

These are the pics of me getting to hold my girls for the first time. This was about 2 weeks after they were born. Its called kangroo holding-its skin to skin and you do it for at least an hour. There are whole studies on the benefits of it for both pre-mature baby and mom.

 Fiona

 Molly

 Oswyn

The month of March

Feb 28th I had a growth scan scheduled with my perinatologist. I was almost 23 weeks along. We went in and all the girls were measuring over 1lb each and still doing great. Other than starting to get uncomfortable I was doing great too, but I wasn't sure if I was feeling all the contractions I was having or not. So the doctor put me on monitors and I was having a lot more than I realized. None of them were painful, I just felt the hardening of my belly. My doctor sent me over to the hospital for the day where they put me on an oral medication to calm down the contractions and monitored me all day. By evening the meds were working so my doctor, surprisingly sent me home telling me to continue on the meds and if I had an changes including more than 5 contractions in an hour to come back.

The next day, March 1st, I spent mostly on the couch relaxing except for bathroom breaks. Every time I got up to go to the bathroom I was having a contraction. By lunchtime I was getting close to having 5 contractions in an hour, almost a half hour really. So Corey and I quickly packed a bag for me and went back to the hospital knowing that that would be it - I would be on bedrest at the hospital for the rest of the pregnancy. But I had no idea to what extent or how serious my situation had become. When I got to the hospital I was 4cm dilated, where I had not been at all the day before.

They hooked me up to an IV and gave me magnesium sulfate or "mag" which is a muscle relaxer. The first like 48 hours or so they give you a really high dose and it makes you really loopy, hot and not very able to move your body much because you feel really heavy. I also got double vision so it was really hard to focus on anything. They also put me in a position in the bed where my head was lower than the rest of my body for the first couple days I was there. I had to eat like this which caused terrible heartburn. After the first couple days, your body adjusts to the mag and the side effects subside.

The doctors were really concerned that I would deliver at the very least baby A, who was the lowest and head down, if not all three babies. But everything they did worked, plus I remained calm. By day three in the hospital I had made it through the weekend and everyone said it was a miracle that I was still pregnant. My doctors then said let's just see how far we can go like this. At this point they raised my head so I was more horizontal. I still wasn't able to sit up though-maybe 15 degrees but that was all. They didn't want any pressure on my cervix with my dilation.

We made short and long term goals. Each day and week was a short term goal, and my ultimate long term goal was 28 weeks. If I got to accomplish that I would make a new one. We met with the neotanologist to talk about what to expect and make decisions about what we would do if our babies were born at 24 or 25 weeks etc. Most people know that 24 weeks is considered viability or when a baby could survive outside of the womb. But most people don't know that its just barely true. If a baby does survive at 24 weeks its usually at a terrible cost. There are so many things that aren't developed yet. So at 24 weeks the decision to resessitate is up to the parents. Its not until 25 weeks that by law, doctors are required to step in. This was the hardest discussion Corey and I have ever had to have and I hope we never have to have anything like it again. Thankfully, we didn't need to come to any of those aweful decisions. The neonatologits begged me to make it to at least 28 weeks because those babies do way way better. But she also told us that girls and multiples do much better and develop quicker than boys or singletons, so we had both of those things on our side. I'm so grateful to God that we got through that super scary period to 27 weeks.

From there it was just a day to day challenge. Every day I woke up thanking God for another day of pregnancy. My day was pretty scheduled. I would wake up, we would see our doctors and meet our nurse for the day. Corey would feed me breakfast. I couldn't feed myself because I couldn't sit up all the way. I would make a bib with my napkin. I felt like I was the baby being taken care of before it was my turn to take care of mine. Corey would go to work and I would most likely go back to sleep for a couple hours. The magnesium makes you quite tired. Then the nurse would get the babies on heart monitors. This was always fun with three babies! And babies don't like the monitors either so they would kick them and move around alot as if running away. Then maybe sleep again, then lunch, then sleep, maybe some hgtv and dinner with Corey. Maybe I would get a bed bath at some point during the day too. I wasn't allowed to get up for anything, so it was bed pan and all for me.

My doctors and nurses were continually impressed in my positive attitude and compliance. I was kind of surprised at this-not sure how the rest of their patients behaved. But I can understand some women being less calm than I was. I am very grateful to God that He gave me a calm and sanguine personality to get through this difficult period of my life. But it also helped that I knew that I had to do it for my babies. Nothing else mattered. Being on bed rest can cause problems including respiratory infections, other infections from being in the hospital, and of course muscle atrophy. I'm also grateful for the best husband ever, who not only spoon fed me every day, but spent every night in the hospital with me. These were a huge huge comfort to me.  My parents also helped by coming to visit and hanging out with me during the days and spent nights at our house taking care of our animals. I'm so glad that they have schedules and money to have been able to do this. We are also blessed with a wonderful church family that came to visit and pray with me regularly. We have wonderful friends that checked in on us and did stuff for us as well when we were not able to. Our nurses were amazing too. Talk about people who have a serious gifting and are working in the field that uses those gifts perfectly. I am forever grateful to you amazing women!

I had ups and downs during me stay. There would be times I would increase my contractions and I would have to have a shot and/or oral medication on top of the magnesium to calm down my uterus. I also made it to 6cm dilated about two weeks in. But I still continued to plug along. All the while still never feeling anything painful. I really think my poor uterus was confused. It was probably thinking okay I'm 9 months big enough, I can't get any bigger! I never felt like the babies wanted out of there and I think that's what kept them safe and happy with me for as long as they did.

I made it to a month in the hospital, but the rest of the story is for the next post :)