As long as I can remember, I have gone out of my mind during what I now know as the luteal phase of my menstrual cycle. I clearly remember going off the deep end the night before my first period. I’d been moody for days. I had gotten yelled at about the printer (whatever) and that was enough to make me think I needed to end my life. I made myself take 20 Tylenol (I was 13, give me a break). Then as I started having physical symptoms like cramping, vomiting and a massive headache, I begged my mom to take me to the ER. You know when we got there… boom, period. Awesome.
It wasn’t until my late 20s that I learned about PMDD. It’s Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder, and it is real. You can google, but basically my brain chemistry cannot handle hormonal shifts. It is not the hormone levels, but the changes of them that create symptoms of intense depression, rage, and suicidal ideation. It makes interactions with anyone difficult, and especially close relationships. It makes having a job difficult. Especially combined with the lack of sleep from working nights.
Now that I am aware of it and know it’s coming, it’s understandable, but the intense feelings do not go away. I’ve tried almost every birth control there was up until 28. I had nightmarish issues with bleeding from one, cystic acne from another, as well as painful fibroadenomas and an ovarian cyst. I finally just said screw it.
I’ve tried taking medication and increasing the dose during that time, but it still shows up. It is always a tortuous 10-14 days where I just don’t want to do anything. The best I ever did with it was while I could get to hot yoga and run every other day.
I’ve just started cycling again after having the triplets and add in the fact that THEY ARE GOING INSANE RIGHT NOW… let’s say I’m having a rough patch.
The boys are 7.5 months actual, about 6 adjusted now. They’re amazing. They’re big, they’re happy and silly. They’re driving me crazy.
They have gotten so busy trying to become mobile that they cannot be bothered to do anything else. Mainly, eating. Then we go to bed and need to eat all night about every 3-4 hours. We tried a lot of different strategies, but less milk meant more waking times three and it’s just awful. So now they don’t want to eat all day but are awake and unpleasant and frustrated by trying to move and me trying to reverse their reversed feeding cycle.
This cycle, I’ve become unable to tolerate this frustration. I found myself yesterday literally growling after failing to feed the babies during daytime hours. I was so crazy, I had to remove myself. I got them all to nap and took off on my first run in years. A whole whopping mile. But I felt a little better after.
I don’t know how to get the boys back on track. I think there will just have to be a lot of crying. From all of us.
But maybe I can start to get myself back on track and embrace the crazy triplet momma life.
I haven’t kept up since the kiddos were tiny. I honestly don’t care if 1 person reads this. It just helps me to get it out. After 6 months of imprisonment… I mean, graciously mothering triplets… I have A LOT to work out. So as I (hourly) flit between my bed and the Little Man Cave tonight, I’ll start chipping away.
I’ve transitioned to a dangerous mama bear. I’m sorry(not sorry), but it’s my way or the highway and I don’t care who it offends. I have too many pieces of my heart on the outside to allow anything I’m not okay with.
These 6 months have brought a lot of good and bad. Good: We’ve had healthy kids, I’ve provided them with mostly breast milk, we’ve not bought a diaper yet, they’ve been clothed by kind donations from other mama bears, we’ve been fed by others countless times, I still have the best job in the world… we have had amazing help. Bad: we’ve had a lot of conflict and I’ve been on the brink of sanity, financially we’re looking at a lifetime of debt (and thank god for health insurance), my last good sleep was under general anesthesia with the exception of a few lovely hours covered by some very kind souls.
Before I continue rambling on like a sleep deprived prisoner… I just want to say thank you. To those who have gifted us with either money, items, food, clothes, and those who have just been supportive and understanding. This has been the hardest 6 months of our lives and there is no way we’d be here without the community of help we have. It truly takes a village.
It continues to be a struggle and every day I have a moment where I might say I hate it… but I just keep on going. Because all my babies are beautiful little souls.
So now that you know what happened from Michelle’s point of view, I’ll give you a similar rundown of events from a dad’s point of view. I’ll preface this whole entire thing by saying that 33 is my lucky number. It’s Larry Bird. It’s my basketball jersey from high school. It’s the number I’d load up on in roulette. I had a feeling things would happen at week 33. I don’t get to say this much: Boy, was I right.
The night started like every other night has for the past six months or so. We sat down to watch Netflix. Michelle has been awaiting the return of the show Ozark for a while now, to the point where she would get upset at Netflix for changing the picture of Jason Bateman and ‘tricking’ us into thinking a new show would be available when it was not. But finally, season 2 was here.
I’ve become a pretty good massager of feet, lower legs and backs in the past few months and being as how we were 33 weeks in, they were more important now than ever. (Part time job? Haha… we are going to need the supplemental income.) We decided to start a second episode and see how far we could make it before our eyelids got the best of us.
Michelle had already gotten up to pee a couple times. This in itself is a process when you are 33 weeks pregnant with triplets. Many times she would refuse the help to get out of the couch because she’s a badass.
I had my hand on her stomach and it felt like Baby A was doing the electric slide (for the older audience) or (for the younger audience) the Kiki challenge. Michelle said she had to get up yet again which was surprising. It felt like she had just sat down, but she insisted she had to go again. She refused help as usual and walked to the bathroom. She grumbled something about needing new underwear because she’d probably just peed herself.
As soon as the bathroom door closed she called me to her. I knew something was off. The dancing baby. The ‘peeing herself.’ The tone of her voice. It didn’t add up. When I opened the door, it really added up. It was time to go. Michelle had lost a LOT of blood and was still hemorrhaging more.
She asked me to run upstairs to get something to throw on to go to the hospital. I ran upstairs, panicked, grabbed something (that was most likely not the thing she wanted) and went back. There was even more blood. Michelle was done calling her doctor and now on the phone with emergency services. She was shaking. I was shaking. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t deal well with blood and looking back on it I think it was just adrenaline that kept me from fainting.
I called our neighbors, Nate and Beth. They had agreed to be our night time emergency contact if we had to leave the house with Elise sleeping. They came over in a heartbeat. Nate even helped get the stretcher in and out of the house. (They seriously are the best neighbors ever…more on them and our other wonderful friends and family will have to be its own blog soon.)
I called Michelle’s mother and she said she would be by to take care of Elise immediately. At least I did a couple things right.
Sacopee rescue got there quickly and I met them in the driveway to let them know we the situation and add the additional detail of the sleeping toddler on the second floor. Owen and Mike came in and were extremely calm, quick, professional. They got Michelle on a stretcher in a matter of minutes and we were out the door, leaving behind what looked like a scene from CSI: Hiram in our bathroom. Owen told me to hop in because: “There is no way you are going to keep up with me.”
As calm as they were, Mike repeated to Owen three times, in three different ways that we needed to get there quickly. Owen followed direction really well. Full lights. Sirens. “We’ll just try to wake up all of downtown Standish,” said Owen. There were times I couldn’t see the end of the speedometer from my point of view, I just knew the trees were flying past the window at an unbelievable rate.
Along the way, Owen tells me how great it is going to be to have triplets. He is the older brother of triplets (How weird is that?) and said at first it is going to be a crazy amount of work, then it’s just going to feel normal after a while. Considering the speed of the drive, the situation with Michelle and the fact that my adrenaline and already overflowing, Owen was able to calm me down and we even shared a few laughs.
Long story short, we got there in just over a half an hour. Basically half the time it normally takes.
The good news, upon arrival at Maine Med, was that Michelle has mentally prepared me for what was about to happen. In a very Belichick like way, she had gone over with me some possibilities about what could happen so I was ready for whatever I could see. She did, at one point, mention that bleeding to death was possible with placenta previa. That is a phrase you don’t forget. It flashed in my brain in neon lights as we got up to the Labor and Delivery Unit.
If Michelle was stressed, it did not show. The doctors and nurses were moving quicker than usual and I could tell by the speed with which things were happening that they were concerned. A strange look when they moved Michelle from stretcher to bed told me that they were nervous just like I was, but professionalism had to win out.
Baby A had a heart rate that was much lower than they were comfortable with so we were off to emergency C-section. I had this whole idea of holding Michelle’s hand while this was happening. I got up to leave with her and the nurse looks at me and just says, “You have to stay here. We’ll get you when they’re ready.”
So I sit. This is not how I pictured it. By this time Michelle’s mom has arrived back at our house and Elise is still out cold somehow. (This is the only part of the night I wish to repeat… the sleeping two year old part.) I don’t sit for long. I get up and start walking, pacing, whatever. A mere ten minutes later a nurse says to me, “Oh, they’re all out. They’re okay!” This was a huge relief, but I didn’t know how Michelle was doing.
I went up to the NICU and met a team doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists bringing Andrew up to the NICU. Many of them said, “Hi Ben!”. I quickly realized that because they were co-workers of Michelle that they knew a lot about me and I knew nothing about them besides that they were awesome and they would make sure my boys and Michelle were okay.
A second thing Coach Belich… I mean, Michelle told me, was that there would be a LOT of people in the room and that I should stay with the babies no matter what. I did just that. There were four people to a baby. Questions were being asked and answered at a rapid pace. It was basically in another language. Every so often someone would explain it to mean in layman’s terms. It was calming to know that this was standard operating procedure. (Thanks Coach/Mama!)
I stood in the middle and just watched until folks encouraged me to step in, take pictures and hold hands with them. It’s weird, even though they are your children you just feel like you should step back and let the experts work, but with some encouragement I stepped in, and had a little chat with each of my boys. Their little hands barely could fit around my pinky.
I can’t even remember what I said to them, but it was something like: “Hey little guy. I’m your papa. I’m really glad you’re here. You just keep resting and growing, okay? I love you.” It was probably more of a jumbled mess than that, but you get the point.
Three hours later I went to finally check on Michelle. She was recovering and in a lot of pain, but she is so damn tough, she was already talking about seeing them and making milk, and still worry about the condition of the bathroom that we left behind. Somewhere around 4 am we got to both go up the room with all the boys. I rolled Michelle’s wheelchair to each pod and it made my heart just melt watching her meet them for the first time. What she dealt with to get them to that point cannot accurately be described.
At 33 weeks and 12 minutes: Welcome to the circus, young Murphlets.
The wildest 2 hours of our lives…. all of us. Except Lisey (Zzzzz)
On August 31st, Ben and I sat down at night to watch Netflix and wind down. The boys felt like they were winding up inside me. Not unusual at that time of day, but I was impressed by this. I think I had gotten up to pee 3 times already in a brief period. I told Ben, “(baby) A is kicking me so hard I can’t tell if I really have to go or not.”
I sat next to Ben and made him feel down at baby A’s region just how crazy he was being, and his intense hiccups. I said, “Oh my god, I have to go again….”
I got up and made it a few steps.
I was peeing myself.
I hadn’t done this the whole time! What the hell?!
I took one more step. Okay, this is more pee than could possibly be in there…
Get to the bathroom. Pull down PJ pants.
Insert scene from Carrie. From my waist down.
“Ben, get in here.”
I sat on the toilet and let loose some large percentage of my blood volume. It just kept flowing. This is a strange experience… you keep waiting for it to stop like you are just going to the bathroom. You sit there holding toilet paper planning to clean yourself up. You slowly realize this isn’t stopping at all. In fact this is bad, bad, bad.
Ben says something, looks very pale. I credit him my life with not fainting. I know he wanted to. He scrambled to find me my phone.
I dialed MFMs answering service. They told me if the doctor didn’t call in 20 minutes to call her back. Hmm, I’m watching my toilet water rise up to meet me with bright red blood… I’ll pass on waiting that long. I dialed 911, who had to remind me I should check and make sure that I couldn’t feel a baby coming out. Then, to get off the pot, since we don’t want anyone born in there. Eventually, we got the local EMS out to our sort of tough to find house.
Ben had contacted our amazing neighbors, Nate and Beth to come by and sit with the baby monitor while my mom traveled over from NH.
The EMS driver, Owen just happened to have triplet younger brothers! So strange. So perfect. The older, more experienced EMT, Mike, was so “Maine”. If he was a little nervous, it didn’t show. He told me he’d delivered 2 babies en route, but we would try not to do numbers 3, 4, and 5.
My bleeding seemed to have slowed some while sitting on a stool. But as we got up to get on the stretcher (in my kitchen hallway) I had another huge gush. Mike felt we needed two super absorbent large trauma pads… No biggie. The stretcher was so uncomfortable, our bumpy driveway was awful… I was hooked up to a ZOLL(the defibrillator that shocks you during CPR), my telemetry and vitals were reassuring to me.
Mike told the young driver he wanted this 50 minute ride to MMC to take 35. They sure did.
Meanwhile, I had heard from the Dr covering, who after planning to see me at MMC, called back to be sure there wasn’t somewhere closer… there really isn’t time-wise. I assured her of Mike and Owen’s ambitious goals.
No way was I showing up at Bridgton hospital bleeding with triplets… they would send us to MMC anyway.
Mike and I were alone in the back, Ben up front with our bags packed for exactly this emergency. I kept thinking two people can not do NRP (neonatal resuscitation program) on three babies! We didn’t have a single fetal monitor, let alone one for triplets. They had to make it there inside.
Reassuringly, I felt babies moving. Surely B and C. I kept tapping at Baby A to be sure he was okay. I could not honestly tell. I was terrified. I was in pain. I looked out and saw us fly through a 30mph zone in Standish faster than I think anyone has gone through it.
Mike started an IV on me and ran “an aggressive KVO”; enough fluid to keep the vein open and also maybe replace some of my fluid lost.
I saw bits of Gorham, Westbrook go flying by. I actually prayed for my babies to be okay. I haven’t gone to church in YEARS. I saw the MMC garage. Thank you, lord.
We got inside and the guys tried to bring us to the ED. They want nothing to do with triplets that aren’t falling out yet, believe me.
Up on L&D triage we got in a room and I had to shift from one stretcher to another. The blood gushed out again. This time with a big old clot in there. The EMTs and the nurses exchanged some info on me, and we settled down. I met and sort of made a plan with the resident. So happy to be there and see Ben again I stopped worrying for a few minutes. I heard from my mom that Elise hadn’t even stirred. I briefly thought about the gross scene in the bathroom…
The resident did an ultrasound and all babies had heart rates. Phew.
Laying there, talking with our nurse Lynn; who had admitted me to have Elise when I was in labor, we were struggling to catch everyone on the monitor. Get one, lose one, get one, lose two. Lynn looked at my bleeding after I had another gush. I saw her nurse face… “that’s really bad but I’m not saying it out loud” I know that face, I make that face. She realized no one had seen the blood quite yet who could make a critical call.
Dr Rainville came in with the resident and clearly decided these guys are getting here tonight. Sign C-section consent, sign anesthesia consent. Get labs drawn, a second HUGE IV placed. The nurses prepping me for massive blood loss. Talk with anesthesia… But Lynn was finding baby As heart rate down in the 90s, down from where it should be. He was in distress.
Everyone showed up throwing on scrub hats, we were going! I had to get general anesthesia. No time for a spinal procedure, no chance to be awake to meet my babies, no chance for Ben to even come with me. I glanced at the three baby stations, panicked. So many things happened getting prepped for surgery in sheer minutes.. painful positioning, a catheter, iodine painting on my huge belly.
Lynn, seeing my fear, was so reassuring. I could barely see through the oxygen mask over my face. I heard them say NICU was coming in. I turned my head to the left and saw Jani’s eyes through her hat and mask. I cried with relief. They pushed drugs, I was out.
I imagine shortly after, so were my 3 boys. Born at 12:10, 12:11, and 12:12, Andrew, Isaac, and Caleb were finally here.
If you want to know how they were when they came out, ask my NICU coworkers, because I really don’t know.
Andrew Everett and MichelleIsaac LawrenceCaleb Matthew
Mid July brought the official start of the third trimester of my triplet pregnancy. They say things come in threes right? This “third” was a little ugly.
I really panicked about taking Lisey for family fun and that our days together were ticking away too fast.
I could handle maybe one outing a day and would then be too tired to do much else. Early on in this stretch we brought Elise to pick blueberries on a perfect day and she thought it was the BEST place in the world. We would take a day off at home, then spend another day going to the lake, or the beach. After a bit of this it started to be clear it was too much. I would wake up wanting so bad to bring Elise somewhere fun… but could tell I was going nowhere.
Late in July I decided we would take her to the wildlife park in Gray. I showered, got out and the scary started. I had a large amount of pink tinged mucous (you’re welcome for the image) pass that morning. I became very crampy and tight. I was terrified I was going into preterm labor at 29 weeks. Too soon for these boys. I also knew with a low lying placenta I had a risk of bleeding badly. (Ahem, foreshadowing.)
I went in and got checked, the cramping tapered off… but it was real now. They thought my cervix looked closed; unable to really check due to the placenta.
I had to chill. We had another weekend where we had more of this drainage every day and spent a Sunday at MMC. Again it “looked” okay. So I had a new normal. Don’t do anything.
Doing nothing.
Ben had to take over all of the dinner planning and cooking on top of getting his plans ready for his substitute teacher. He had to keep entertaining the 2 year old and helping me, caring for the house and yard. A visit from nana and GPa was a big help. Cleaning up and playing with Elise.
Appointments continued to be consistently “fine”. We had a few great 4D ultrasound photos of two of the guys, and they looked so sweet and just like their big sis. Finally, in August the boys were given their notice to vacate the premises.
The next week, they got it moved up even further. I would’ve jumped for joy but I couldn’t. It had been another long sleepless night of Braxton Hicks and going to the bathroom, resulting in more soreness in the morning than the night.
Me Tuesday 8/28. On the way to the doc.
Plans were made, setting things up for after the big day. Ben went to school for a week; had students for one whole day. The first day he was gone, I pushed too hard and shopped in target with my mom and Elise. The next day she came to the doctors and then we went out to eat. We spent Wednesday at home together. I did too much with her again. Thursday I rested while she went to miss Rara’s; but I hurt the from whole week.
Friday, we had another ultrasound. Our first week of two scans a week. It was 33 weeks exactly. We brought Elise to an ultrasound finally, to see the brudders. They “painted my belly” and she got to see the guys jammed in there. She said “they’d do the poops”.
They looked great. All behaving and practice breathing. Plenty of fluid and movement. Not like Tuesday where it took baby A 20 minutes and a buzzer to the belly to wake up and practice breathe.
We took Lisey to Deering oaks. She did awesome. Then we went to El Rodeo as a family for what might be the last time. I had all the excuses to keep going. It was a great day. Elise napped, played with us sweetly outside in the evening, and went to bed easily in her new “comfy bed”. (A pillow and comforter).
Ben and I watched the long anticipated return of our favorite Netflix show; Ozark. He rubbed my feet, back for the millionth time. The babies were active, as usual. Things were “fine”.
We had no idea how soon we would meet the boys. We didn’t know it, but the third trimester was over.
When I decided I wanted another baby close in age to Lisey, she was only 15-16 months old. If you have a child this age, you’d know why. They are AWESOME! Getting so smart and still tiny and cute, and she was already talking and so fun. I knew it would be hard for a while with two littles but I loved my new life as a mommy. We’d find our way.
Enter the world of expecting multiples. Walking headfirst into a tornado. I grieved my time with Elise from the second I found out. She’s 2, you can finally go so many fun places with a 2 year old! I told myself we would bring her everywhere fun and do all the things before her brothers came.
The reality of a high risk multiples pregnancy is that you pretty quickly become stuck staying close to home or hospitals, riding in the car is awful, and you start going a little nuts.
The reality of a 2 year old is you really have to nap good and become stuck staying close to home, riding in the car is awful, and you start going a little nuts.
We’ve done the best we could with what we had. We’re lucky to live where there are beautiful lakes and the sea. We’re lucky she really really loves farms, and doesn’t mind hanging out with us at home.
What ended up happening was spending a lot of time together, with a few good outings, but mostly she just soaked up all kids of mommy daddy time. Maybe too much, since bedtime has become “I need another hug, another kiss, daddy, you rub my back?” And so on. Or she’s just two.
Thank goodness for technology as it allows us to remember all these sweet times and her baby talk as it turns into correct sentences.
In May, I cut back my work hours. I thought I could make it working 2 separated nights a week. I found myself needing to nap longer than I was okay with at work, and could hardly care for Elise at home (to my own standards, one could argue). I tried going down to 8 hour day shifts. It was good the first week but after 3 days of it I was run down, sore, and ended up with an awful cold. Yay. I think I made it through one more day, hardly… before I had an appointment at MFM where we decided it was time to stop pushing.
There was a lot of worry for us financially, but there was a chart in my book about expecting high order multiples showing the likelihood of extreme premature birth related to working (depending on the job, etc). Ben and I had listened to a panel with some twin moms at a Multiples class and all of them wished they had taken it easier, sooner. It also showed the average cost of a hospital stay per baby by weeks of gestation and I was okay with maybe owing thousands, but not millions. NICU is no cheap place for a baby or three to hang for a few months.
Even scarier for me was going on disability at 22 weeks meant my FMLA time only protected my job until just August. I’m not having babies until maybe September? So it feels kind of awful not knowing your job is there when you are ready to come back after such a change. And I wouldn’t have enough paid time off to take more than the allotted 6 weeks post-partum from Maine Med. I have yet to figure this out, but I’ll do what I have to. I finally have a job I love; I’m not leaving.
In early June I started on a medication for my reflux that actually ended up helping with my nausea quite a bit. I still got sick every morning but I felt better after. Jump for joy right?! Wrong. I went from sick to immobile.
My whole life I have had very loose joints, helping for dancing and cheerleading, but by my twenties I was living in a good bit of pain normally. It’s likely a genetic condition called Elhers Danlos, I’ve been told by multiple PTs that I have this, and even had an ortho doc pull on my upper arm from my shoulder and say, “Oh my god, that’s really loose.” So what do pregnancy hormones do? Make you even more loose and unstable. Add in the fact you are having three babies and have delivered one vaginally before… let’s just say my pelvis was already pretty jello-ey. I (still) sleep on a massive pregnancy pillow plus 5 or 6 others, on a heating pad, with an ice pack in my crotch. Realness.
Even after I stopped work I pushed stubbornly to have some normalcy. I ended up stopping the same week Ben got out of school for the summer and that was perfect. The last day of school I was in tears chasing Elise around the house and yard, putting her in her crib, etc. It was daddy’s turn! Although my clingy girl still doesn’t allow me to avoid picking her up at times.
It was time to really focus on getting triplet ready. First was the van, then the house. We were pretty productive in July. We found a used Toyota Sienna with low miles and I said goodbye to my pretty CR-V. We built three cribs in the boys room since we feared we wouldn’t find time once they were here to do it.
Still trying to be the cook.
We were also blessed by both of our work communities. Ben’s school collected thousands of diapers and wipes for us. My sweet work family threw us a great shower. Other family and friends have showed support and gifted us funds or things we need. It’s really humbling to see how much others care. It’s so hard now to do more than be on the couch, but the thank yous are in process. Even if you haven’t heard from us, we haven’t forgotten your kindness!
The last big deal of the second trimester was June 29: Viability day! There’s some debate in the Neonatal world about the true age of viability. I’ve seen babies born this tiny, it’s not pretty. Some do okay, some do not. Just the fact that my boys were finally viable was a huge weight off my shoulders (still there in the belly though!). It felt even better at the end of the trimester to get to 28 weeks; where survivability soars up to 90-something percent. By this point the boys had names picked but not shared, were all doing perfect at every ultrasound, and even growing at the rate of three singleton babies. Things were looking good to head down the home stretch.
Every time I look at this, I think of the mask from the Scream movies. Ironically, it’s the same face Michelle and I made when we found out there were three babies instead of one.
For the very first few weeks, before we knew about the trio, I was ravenous. I recall some nights when Ben and I would have our time to relax and watch Netflix after Elise went to sleep where I would snack so hard, I knew he was mortified. Too nice to say it, but it was clear in his eyes.
After maybe 6-7 weeks I started having the familiar feeling of constant yuck. Waking up and vomiting, vomiting if you don’t eat soon enough, not eating because you feel like vomiting… wanting absolutely nothing to eat. This plus working nights, gah! Forget it. It straight up sucked. When we found out there was three, I was finding little ways to cope, getting by every day, but surely not eating the recommended 4000 calories a day(ha!). And I wanted crap. Soda made me feel better. Bagels lasted a good while. Greek salads and mozzarella sticks. Never meat. Mexican food always appeals to me.
We had our initial consult at MFM on March 23rd. We met with Dr Litton, who reminded me that my three little parasites would just get glucose from me any way possible, whether I was eating or not.
We learned that despite being high risk, the chorionicity and amnionicity was tri/tri – meaning each baby had their own placenta and their own amniotic sac. This eliminates a slew of issues that other types of multiples can develop when sharing a cord or placenta. It also meant they were fraternal, unless by the slightest chance they all split from one egg early and implanted separately. There was a brief mention of selective reduction… but for whatever reason, I was given these three babies and if they were doing fine, I would carry them as long as I could.
I pushed through every day, finding that I already needed to nap at work instead of taking a 30-minute meal break. I also had to give up a lot of the extra shifts I had signed up for and let my boss know pretty quickly in order to do so. After about 12-14 weeks I felt mildly less fatigued and sick, but still vomited every morning, still had no appetite for healthy food. I made it to work… and tried to sleep. I started feeling more and more like physical activity was getting impossible by Elise’s birthday when I chased her around open gymnastics. The pain in my pelvic area and back was getting increasingly bad, and the stretching feeling in my abdomen was unreal.
By 14 weeks, I was as big as I was around 20 or more weeks with Elise, half-way to full term. I started working just in the CCN (more growing and feeding babies than tiny and sick ones) because my brain was a complete fog most of the time. Then I cut down my hours slightly at the end of May, and figured I could tough it out until the third trimester came along.
We also had a guess on genders in May. The crazy part was it was done first, by Elise. The night before an ultrasound she was in the tub, Ben and I were both in the room with her and trying to talk about the babies a little (she ignored most conversation about it for a long time). She wasn’t really talking to us or doing anything, but turned around and pointed at my belly and just said, “That’s my brothers.” and kept on about playing with her toys.
The next morning, we found out she was right. It was an early guess, but the tech was pretty sure I had a belly full of boys.
Michelle Finding out you are having more than one baby when you’ve never had any reproductive therapy is just crazy. It’s never really even been on my radar. Telling your family, friends, and so on is just insane. We decided that day to tell our parents that day. My mom simply said, “Don’t tell me that.” As if I could try to pull off a joke like that. She has accepted the idea, and even enjoys getting reactions out of people herself now.
Ben First off, we’ve got to rewind back to when we tried to tell my parents that we were pregnant again, before triplets were even a thing. We dressed Elise in a shirt that said ‘BIG SISTER’ in very large letters. She walked around the house with it for what seemed like an eternity. Michelle and I kept on exchanging glances like, “How have they not noticed yet?” In my head I was thinking like Kristoff from Frozen, “someone’s gotta tell ’em.” Eventually, we had to point out the shirt. My parents were very surprised and happy, but my dad admitted he ‘never reads shirts.’
When it came time to let them know we were having triplets, we really weren’t trying to be slick about how we presented it to them, but Mom was traveling and Dad was home so it required two separate phone calls. I told my dad first and after he came down from the initial surprise, I told him to call my mom and have her call me but also, DON’T RUIN THE SURPRISE! (My dad has been known to let a secret or two slip in his lifetime.) He agreed.
Two minutes later my mom calls back. I tell her she should be sitting down for the news she’s about to get. She says, “What are you, having triplets or something?” After a bit of confusion, we figured out that G-Pa had not spilled the beans, rather Nana simply took a wild guess at the most ridiculous news she could think of. Murphy’s Law, being what it is, meant that Nana was exactly right.
Michelle I was completely overwhelmed and terrified. We waited what felt like a long time for another baby, and now we had this risky pregnancy. I called Larissa, who is one of those people you can talk to whether it’s been a day or a few months. I forget details, but I know I was less shaky.
My sister I texted an ultrasound photo to. Her reply:
Congrats! I have no clue what that blob is but it looks like A baby is coming!
A baby, and B baby, and C baby!
Ben I called both of my sisters to let them know and they were incredibly excited with a side of ‘Holy S***!’ My nephew Sean and my niece Hannah now will have triplet cousins on both sides of the family. What are the odds of that? My sister Erica runs a daycare, so we joked that they should just move south because we have an entire daycare waiting for them.
Since I found out around basketball season, the only two friends I told were my assistant coaches, Dave and Sam. They could tell something was bothering me and Dave nailed it right away. Being a twin himself, he had some interesting advice about how close an eye we should keep on the wee little trio. Sam, the math teacher, was interested in the odds of this occurrence as well as the odds of them being identical.
Word eventually got around the school and the students knew. We probably wasted a few too many classroom minutes answering questions about triplets. Students were genuinely interested in how things were going; even the ones who didn’t love English class seemed like they wanted to know more.
Before we knew genders they figured out the odds of each combination and proceeded to hazard guesses as to what they would be. After, they would just pepper me with daily questions about what we would eventually name the babies, but they never figured them out despite heavy persistence.
Michelle After a few days I was still basically walking around not only feeling sick and pregnant, but shaking with anxiety and fear. How was I supposed to deal with this and keep it a secret? I’m pretty sure my coworkers were going to think I was on drugs or something since I was already a mess from being sick. If something happened and we lost the trio, I would never be able to hide it. I decided to just let it come out as it needed to. I told a few people I was closer to first, and it gradually came out. These were people who work in the field and understand the risks I was facing. We even have an NP there who had her own triplets! I am so grateful to them for helping support me along the way. They continue to help me keep going when I am still pretty nervous about bringing these guys home.
We were going to wait the standard 12 weeks before sharing with the online community… but that coincided with April fools week, and this was nothing to joke about. So we did the week before, and the responses were great. A lot of “Oh my god!” Most people are just curious, I know. But even those people share kind words and supportive sentiments. I know we both have needed the support and I don’t regret sharing our story.
Social media has also given us the gift of connecting with other moms and families near and far who have gone through or are currently going through the same adjustments. I have learned so much and enjoyed being part of the 2018 Triplet community. I’m not sure how anyone could go it alone. Seeing families who already have their babies home for a bit makes us feel that we can figure this craziness out.
We assume most anyone who read this blog would be family and friends. However, just in case we’re interesting enough to share…
Me – Michelle
I am *cringe* 32 as I write this now, and pushing 32 weeks pregnant with the triplets. I was born in Massachusetts and lived there primarily until I graduated college. I loved it, until I left and lived somewhere quiet. I graduated from UMass Lowell in ’08 as an RN. I wanted to work with babies. I did my senior practicum at Lowell General’s Mother Infant Unit, with lots of nursery time and some glimpses into the Special Care Nursery. I hoped to get a job there.. but it was 2008. The economy collapsed, the other Lowell hospital closed its LDRP, and LGH hired 14 of their nurses who were out of work. Then there were hiring freezes and no new grad programs.
Finally in March of ’09 I gave in and took a job doing Ortho/Med Surg. in tiny Lakes Region General Hospital, in Laconia, NH. I’d live at my family’s cottage at nearby Newfound Lake part time. I did my year, got experience, and took the first spot I could back in Mass. Still in Med/surg. It was hard, sad, and back breaking.
Life changed. I moved home. Missed northern New England. Then I switched to a cardiac based telemetry unit at Exeter Hospital and stayed there while I shifted my life to Maine. I built a pretty house in Kittery. I loved it. It was mine. It was perfect. But I was alone.
Then there was Ben, and I forget everything before him. He is my person. We drove over an hour to be together for over a year. It was easier for me to move jobs, and his really kept him there from dusk til dawn often, so I decided we might see one another more if we lived near his work. Why not? We’ll move in, fix the very primitively decorated house up with modern finishes and make it pretty.
One month from the day we closed on the house in the sticks, I found out I was having Elise. I thought this was the surprise of my life. Wasn’t in the immediate plan. Although, deep down I knew that a family life was where I’d thrive. I loved being a nurse, but once I had my baby, all I wanted was to be with her.
I was working on a unit at Maine Medical Center now taking care of cardiothoracic post-operative patients. It was intense, it was hard, and it was sad. I knew I could do it. But after Elise, I remembered my passion to care for little people. I finally worked somewhere where I had a shot, and applied to the NICU when she was one. I got it. I loved it. I finished training. It was hard to learn and get comfortable in this new and different world of nursing after 8 years. I learned about preemies, twins… heard of and saw “the worst of the worst”. It made me a bit terrified to get pregnant again; but I knew our family needed someone else.
I guess it was all good preparation for these little boys. This triplet journey has changed everything. I was a pretty boring person before this. Now, I feel like everything in life was just baby steps (eye roll/haha) preparing me for this craziness.
And honestly now, I can’t wait to have four beautiful kids. I can’t wait until the day I can hug all of them at once.
Dad – Ben
If Michelle is cringing at 32, what should I be doing at 38? Ha! So a little about me: I am a teacher heading into my eleventh year in the classroom. It has been a long and winding road to get to that point professionally. Let’s just say my degree in journalism from Ithaca College didn’t exactly take me where my 18-year-old self, expected to go. But that is neither here, nor there.
I am a high school English teacher at Sacopee Valley High School, and up until this year, the head coach of three different varsity sports teams. (Cross Country, Basketball and Track) Because of the expected due date and all the craziness that comes with having triplets, I decided to take at least a year off from coaching in the fall and winter. As I told my players, and Michelle, I think everyone would be getting shortchanged if I were to try and balance all those responsibilities at the same time.
When Michelle and I first started dating, I lived in a trailer across from the school. The second year of teaching, I rented a basement from a co-worker. Safe to say she just could not turn down the lavish lifestyle of a public school teacher.
I told Michelle at one point that I was not willing to get out of education or move for the sake of a relationship. I didn’t realize she would do that for me though! Michelle and I bought a house in Hiram. We had so many plans to do this, that and the other thing to the house. Then, life happened. Elise came along. Two and a half years later and I think we’ve done nothing more than paint a few rooms and replace some carpeting. Everything else was put on the back burner, and with triplets coming… well, what’s further back than the back burner? Nevermind.
Michelle is a great momma. I try to tell her that every day. Somedays, I think she actually believes me. She uprooted a pretty awesome life to be here in the woods of Maine with me and I’ll forever appreciate that. I should probably tell her that more often too.
Parenting one child is hard work, parenting four is going to be damn near impossible. I just keep repeating the phrase, ‘Whatever it takes’ (to myself) when I wonder how we are going to get by.
Are we ready? Sure. Yup. Absolutely. (I think.)
The Boss- Elise Anne
Lisey bug, Lisey loo, nuggie, buglet…
If you want to know who’s in charge in our family, spend about 2 minutes with this little lady.
Born 5/9/16 and since then, this girl is momma’s reason for being. I had a couple of beloved girly dogs, Ben’s dog… various outdoorsy sports equipment. The dogs are no longer living with us and my toys sit in the basement for now… I’ve found more joy in helping and watching her grow than anything else.
We struggled early on, she screamed for 4 months or so. We had feeding issues that worked themselves out (through my and her own stubbornness), and I had severe anxiety. We nursed for nearly 18 months; and I’m sure if I had not worked days for a bit she’d have clung on longer. We are inseparable, and these boys are unlikely to change it. Mostly because neither she, nor I, will allow it.
At just 2, she doesn’t quite know what’s coming. But her saying “brudders” is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.
Roar.
We had our initial consult at MFM on March 23rd. We met with Dr Litton, who reminded me that my three little parasites would just get glucose from me any way possible, whether I was eating or not.
Lisey Plus Three 