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.