We're Expecting! Triplets!

Hello! It's been a long time since we've written here.  We've had nothing to write about other than triplets, but of course it was too soon to talk about it until now.   We're 13 weeks pregnant with triplets!!

The Process 
I'm going to tell all of the details for a couple of reasons.  We received a lot of questions, and many people are assuming we did in vitro.  Also, we have lots of friends embarking on or going through this same journey. If all you really need to know is that we're pregnant with triplets- two identical and one possibly identical, stop reading here.  If you want the play-by-play, read on!


The story begins in the fall when K and I started searching the cryobanks for an anonymous donor who would agree to be known when the children turn 18.  We found our perfect donor and began meeting with a fertility specialist, Dr. Michael A. Henry.  In the first attempt we decided to start with only 50mg of Clomid.  During clinical trials for Clomid, about 7% of pregnancies led to twins, about 0.5% of pregnancies led to triplets and 0.3% to quadruplets- very close to the rate of incidence for the general population.  So I took the Clomid on the first 3 days of my cycle, and then two weeks later, we went in for an ultrasound.  The ultrasound technician looks for viable eggs.  She said I had one egg and that it was viable, so we proceeded with the IUI.  Two weeks later, we had a positive home pregnancy test!  We were cautiously excited.  Blood tests confirmed, and about a month later, we went in for our first ultrasound.  During the ultrasound, the technician kept glancing at Dr. Henry.  He was silent but stood up to take a closer look.  That's when he said, "Well, one for each of you. That's what you ordered, right?"  I couldn't say or think about anything, and K kept saying, "Are you serious? Do you mean twins? Is he serious?"  We laughed a lot and left excited.  We called our parents from the parking lot, and they were excited too.

We went back for another ultrasound the next week (apparently fertility specialists do lots of ultrasounds) and saw the twins again.  It's so amazing to see their heartbeats flashing on the screen!  We went back again the next week, but this time, immediately, we all saw THREE heartbeats!  This time K jumped to her feet and said, "You've got to be kidding me!!"  Dr. Henry softly said, "Oh shit."  Dr. Henry explained that one baby has its own amniotic and chorionic sacs.  The other two were sharing a chorionic sac (and therefore a placenta), and eventually we were able to see that they had their own amniotic sacs.  That was good news; sharing an amniotic sac is not good.  So the two sharing a chorionic sac most certainly are identical, and the one in its own sac may or may not be identical.  If the egg split early enough, it could be identical with its own sacs.  We'll just have to wait and see.  Gender will be our first indicator.  Chances of identical triplets are one in 250 million.  I guess the chances that they missed an egg are greater than identical triplets, but we'll see!!  Also, there are no factors (including drugs) that influence identical twins.  Incidence of identicals are consistent across cultures and time.

After we calmed down Dr. Henry explained that this was a game changer- an ultra high risk pregnancy, and now we only had one choice for our OB- Dr. James Sumners, the only perinatologist in Indiana.  (He's also a maternal fetal medicine specialist.)   

Dr. Sumners
On December 17 we finally got to meet Dr. Sumners and his staff at St. Vincent's Women's Hospital.  It was also great to see the very familiar and beautiful face of Colleen Matthews Lauck there.  She is an ultrasound technician for Dr. Sumners.  We LOVED Dr. Sumners. He has so, so much experience with multiples and really lays out all of the facts to you.  He also spent a generous amount of time with us.  I think we were there for 3 hours.  The facts are that 13% of triplet pregnancies are spontaneously lost because the body just drops the pregnancy in the 2nd trimester.  I'm assuming that once the weight of the babies reaches that of one normal baby, the body starts letting go.  To avoid this phenomenon Dr. Sumner has done over 300 transabdominal cerclages.  He has suggested that I have this procedure, too.  This is a surgery in which the he will go in across my abdomen, as the name implies, remove the uterus holding our babies and my bladder in order to sew up the top of my cervix.  Why not just sew it up from the other direction?  Well, think of the cervix like a funnel.  If you close the bottom of the funnel, the funnel still has to bear the weight, and eventually the stitches will give out.  If you close off the top, the funnel doesn't have to do any work.   Dr. Sumner says that having this surgery takes the chances of spontaneously losing the pregnancy down to 2% or 4%, I forget exactly.  He's getting this information published this year.  This surgery is not common practice for multiples, but it is very common for women who have shown a history of an incompetent cervix. 

I'm scared to death to have my organs and babies laid out on a table, but we feel like we have to do it.  How could we live with ourselves if we don't and something tragic happens?  Actually, I'm pretty confident that I could carry this pregnancy without the surgery since I'm tall and big and a physical person, or I could just be naive.  I have only had one other surgery, ACL knee surgery, and I was very, very stressed by it.  This sounds much bigger than an ACL... at least the surgery itself sounds more serious.  Maybe the recovery won't be as bad as the ACL.  That thing was horrible. Anyway, we need lots of prayers.  I'll be having this surgery on January 5th.  It involves two nights in the hospital and 4-6 weeks recovery.  I hope to go back to work in 2 weeks, but you can't drive for 4-6 weeks.  He said that in order to be cleared to drive, you have to be able to slam on the breaks, and you need abdominal muscles to do that.

We're currently in NY with K's family, so I haven't really had time to freak out about the surgery.  I imagine as soon as I get home, I'll start worrying about it.  There is so much that I need to do at home to prepare for 3 babies, and now I'm going to be down for 4-6 weeks!  By the time I recover, I'll have only a short amount of time before I can't move around.  (I saw this video on youtube of a lady pregnant with triplets who got stuck in the couch and could get up or out.  Her husband was video taping it, laughing, and not even helping.) 

Due Date
So if we were just having one baby, our due date would be July 5th.  With triplets we're going to try to make until 32-34 weeks.  That puts us in mid-May.  If I understand Dr. Sumners correctly, we darn better make it past 28 weeks to give the babies a fighting chance.  He said anything earlier is really tough.  My plan is to have them right at 34 weeks, confirm that all are healthy, and then send K off to be the Matron of Honor in Allison's wedding the following weekend.  I think it will work!

So please be praying for us, especially on January 5th.  This is the most exciting and terrifying thing we've ever done!