Lisey Plus Three

May-July

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.

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.