I really, really just can not hold it in anymore. I want to, but the thing is, my newsfeed on Facebook is absolutely overrun with people standing up for a lion, expressing outrage over its death, calling for this devil dentist hunter to be extradited to Zimbabwe, tarred and feathered, drug through the street, cast into the depths of hell, or worse.
And truly, I agree. It is terrible. Really. But it's terrible when ANY part of God's creation is murdered.
The sheer number of people who are speaking out about this is absolutely profound and it seems everyone has an opinion about the appropriate punishment for Walter Palmer.
BUT. This lion was never going to be the President of the United States. Or win a nobel prize. Or lead people to Jesus. Or cure cancer. I mean, sure, he was a majestic and beautiful creature. And displayed some great social interaction with humans. BUT HE WAS NOT A HUMAN!
Which brings me to my next point.
ACTUAL human beings are being killed everyday through abortion and human versus human acts of violence. We are KILLING each other, like intentional, premeditated murder. And very few people are in an outrage in the media or on my newsfeed about preventative death of fellow man. Who knows how many abortions have resulted in the deaths of future Albert Einsteins, Steve Jobs, Mother Theresas, or Beyonces.
Seriously, THIS LION WAS NOT A CREATURE THAT COULD CHANGE THE COURSE OF HUMAN LIFE FOR THE ENTIRE PLANET. And people will not shut up about it.
Stand behind an issue that could change lives.
In addition, right wing crazies who are saying Planned Parenthood needs to be shut down need to step off their soapboxes. You cannot, in one breath, say, "I am pro-life, NO ABORTIONS FOR ANY REASON EVER" and then in the next breath, say that all government entitlements need to be reexamined and revoked.
You are not pro-life. You are pro-birth.
Don't EVER high five a mom for keeping her baby that she can't afford, or doesn't have the family support to raise an infant and then after her baby is born say that she can't have healthcare for her child. Or food stamps. Or WIC. If you are "pro-life" you also must support these moms who made the decision to keep their baby and then need the assistance to keep their children alive. The hypocrisy is crazy to me. You can't be pro-life and be against providing those same women with entitlements and education to keep their children fed and healthy.
If you can't be this ^ definition of "pro-life" that I have outlined, then you should definitely support Planned Parenthood because 97% of their funding goes towards women's health, birth control and education. If you don't want these women to receive entitlements to assist in paying for their children (which they chose not to abort) then be supportive of them PREVENTING MORE UNWANTED PREGNANCIES!
I'm not saying that all the drama surrounding Planned Parenthood doesn't need additional investigating, but saying they need to be "shut down" is an ill-informed lie. Stop watching Fox News. Planned Parenthood is so much more than providing abortions for women in poverty.
Please get behind an issue that matters to the future of humans. Please support women. OR ALL HUMANS. Stop picking and choosing when it's okay to care about people. God commands us to love him and love each other.
In the age of "political correctness" so many people are afraid to say what they think about controversial issues out of fear of offending someone. It's much easier to say, "that poor lion was murdered" because who is going to be offended? It's the truth. Saying that we are MURDERING future doctors, inventors, teachers, or clergy is much harder.
When Dr. Adashek informed us that one of our triplets had anencephaly, Troy and I were devastated. I also had a horrible subchorionic hemorrhage that we found out was a result of that baby's placenta not being properly attached on my uterine wall.
If you need to catch up on our appointments and diagnosis before reading this (or a refresher on the order of events), you should. Our doctor explained all the risks or carrying the 3 babies vs. the risks of the procedure and he strongly recommended the reduction.
After we met with Dr. Adashek, he had set up for us to be his last patient of the day and our appointment was at 430pm. I remember feeling this overall sense of doom while we waited about an hour to be seen. You know how ob/gyns can be. Seriously, always running late. I had this horrible ache in my stomach and I was going back and forth between my heart rate skyrocketing and my respiratory rate racing.
They called us back into their largest room. Seriously big.
It started off with Troy, me, an ultrasound tech and an ultrasound tech student to observe. They did another ultrasound to confirm the bony prominences as markers for anencephaly and to measure the size of the hemorrhage behind the baby's placenta to make sure that it was stable (aka still there but the same size).
I was laying on an exam table and they pulled out a plank (it had the stirrups but they were tucked in) so that my head was at about 30 degrees up and my legs were straight out like a recliner.
After that was done, a nurse came in and stuck me for an IV and then Dr. Adashek stumbled in (he'd hurt himself in a soccer game).
He gave me a hug and then asked me, "What kind of drunk are you?"
I was like, "What?"
And he said, "When you and Troy go out for dinner and you get drinks, do you feel buzzed after 1 drink or after 3 or 4?"
And I was like, "somewhere between 2 and 3 drinks and I'm pretty set."
So then they shoot up my IV with some kind of sedative to make me relax. After about 2 minutes, I was like, "Woah, buddy. I'm a cheap drunk. I feel realllllllllly loopy."
And he was like, "Oh great!"
The way the room was set up, you could watch what the ultrasound tech was doing on a big flat screen TV on the wall. I immediately asked them to turn it off because I was watching my poor little baby squirm on the screen and I didn't want to watch her stop moving.
The people in the room during the procedure were me, Troy, the ultrasound tech, the student, Dr. Adashek, a nurse watching my vitals (blood pressure, respiration rate, heart rate, and oxygen sats) and also running my IV, and one other nurse who held my hand. Troy was standing behind my head. I had my right hand up over my head and my left elbow was bent with my hand resting next to my face so my belly was exposed. Troy was holding my right hand over my head and the extra nurse (basically there for emotional support) was standing by my left shoulder holding my left hand by my face. The ultrasound machine was directly to my right and Dr. Adashek was standing by my left hip.
The first thing they did was use a small needle with a local anesthetic to numb the entrance point for a bigger needle right above my belly button. Honestly, that hurt the most of the whole procedure. At this point, I pretty much kept my eyes and mouth closed during the rest of the procedure. A miracle for me, I know.
He told me what he was doing at every point so I didn't feel a need to ask any questions or watch. The tech kept the ultrasound on my stomach the whole time to see what they were doing with screen facing completely away from me and towards my feet.
The tech and Dr. debated for a few minutes the best place to aim the needle to avoid puncturing another baby, another placenta, the hemorrhage and how to most easily get the needle to the baby.
He inserted a long needle into my belly and put the needle into the baby's heart. I remember he commented that this would be a relatively "easy" procedure because there was no abdominal fat to penetrate before getting to my uterus. Once they agreed that the needle was in the proper spot, he injected potassium chloride into the baby's heart to make it stop beating. I remember him saying, "I'm going to inject the medication now" and he kept jerking the needle around in tiny intentional movements...pretty forcefully while pushing down the plunger. It was kind of akward for me. I'm not sure how accurate they are able to get with aiming the needle directly into the heart with screen imaging, so I think he was jerking the needle around to make sure the potassium chloride was distributed to where it needed to be INSIDE the heart and not just into the heart wall or something.
I remember that I had asked him if he'd ever done a reduction that didn't work and the baby survived afterwards. He told me that it does happen if they don't wait long enough (5+ min after the medication is inserted) to make sure the heart doesn't start beating again but that it has never happened to him personally.
This part was the WORST part of the whole procedure. We all waited for 5 minutes. The nurse was stroking my hair back and Troy would occasionally squeeze my right hand. The tech, student and Dr. Adashek were all staring at the screen but making small talk. I remember being SO annoyed and pissed off during those 5 "waiting minutes."
A lethal injection was just put into my baby for it to die and everyone was talking about Dr. Adashek's private plane that he owns and the process to get his license and he told us a story about having a bit of a hard landing one time. It seemed like such petty, trivial conversation considering what had just transpired. I know they were passing time and trying to be nice but GOOD GOD. And Troy was chatting with him like it was nothing that we were waiting to making sure the baby didn't "come back to life."
Seriously. Longest 5 minutes of my life.
The clock finally passed 5 minutes and he was like, "Let's wait 2 more minutes."
I was dying inside.
Then he pulled the needle out of my belly and started telling me what to expect for the next few days. The actual procedure has the same risks of miscarriage as doing an amniocentesis, which people do ALL THE TIME. So that made me feel a little better that we weren't going to lose the whole pregnancy. Which I was terrified was going to happen. He said that a majority of people lose a pregnancy after a reduction or amnio as a result of infection from the insertion site of the needle, but he was very clean. The odds of losing the whole pregnancy were about 1 in 300. They wanted me to stick around for about 30 minutes after the procedure to make sure I was okay.
They answered all of my crazy questions. The baby that the reduction was performed on was located under my stomach on my upper left side. They said the procedure would have been more risky if it was the one on the bottom, right by my cervix because a cervix can be unpredictable during a reduction and it could start dilating if it recognizes that a fetus has died.
Since I had the reduction at 16 weeks gestation and the baby's bones were still the density of cartilage, as the other 2 babies grew bigger and stronger, they would essentially just grow into the space that the other baby had occupied. The baby would get (for lack of a better word) smooshed into the wall of my uterus as the other babies grew because it's bones weren't fully formed. After delivery of the babies, the baby and it's placenta would be delivered as "afterbirth materials" along with the other 2 placentas and put in bags as bio-material.
So when I wrote the story of Kinley and Caris's delivery and I talked about how long and hard they massaged my belly, it was because I told Dr. Adashek, "You better make sure that you get EVERYTHING out of there. If I'm doing delivery recovery and going pee and 'baby material' comes out on one of those maternity diapers, I'm going to be scarred for life." I was terrified that a teeny baby arm was going to come out after the babies were born. I literally had nightmares about it. Right before I started pushing Kinley out, I was like, "You are absolutely positive that nothing resembling a dead baby is going to come out right now? You promise me. Right now." And he was like, "I promise you. That baby we did the reduction on has turned into an unrecognizable blood clot. Do not worry about that. Now let's deliver your twins. Push."
We got home about 7pm and my friend Katie brought us a chicken macaroni and cheese casserole for dinner.
A piece of good news was also confirmed by doing the reduction. The horrible, scary bleed stopped almost immediately. By doing the reduction, Dr. Adashek proved his theory that the baby's placenta wasn't all the way attached to the uterus and that was the source of the heavy bleeding. Once the connection between the placenta and wall of the placenta wasn't needed anymore, the placenta detached that the blood vessel connections stopped bleeding. Within 2 weeks I was passing the clots from the bleed and it was completely over and they could barely pick it up on the ultrasound within a month.
My sister flew in the next day to keep me company on the couch because I was on strict orders to drink TONS of water and lay around for about a week. The strange thing is, I started feeling the babies move like THE DAY AFTER the reduction. It was like Kinley and Caris KNEW I was upset and they were trying to be like, "We're still here mom. It's going to be okay now."
So at last I left you, I was getting wheeled back to the OR to have the babies :)
My evil plan to start labor is here. And then part II (laboring at the hospital) can be seen here.
The nurses wheeled me back to the OR and I was SHOCKED how many people were in that room. I think it was about 11 or 12.
- Me
- Troy
- Dr. Adashek
- MY labor and delivery nurse
- An ultrasound technician to check and see the position of the babies during the delivery. There was a possibility that Caris (baby B) could flip either breech or head down because she was transverse and the position she went in after Kinley was born would decide the next step of the delivery
- The anesthesiologist
- The NICU neonatologist
- 2 nurses per baby (total of 4 people)
Since I had the epidural, they used a transfer board to get me on the table in the room. Once I was settled and covered up with a blanket (it was freeezing in there) they let Troy come in and stand by my head.
I couldn't believe how CALM that room was. It struck me because Avery's deliver was such a nightmare of craziness. Everyone was making small talk and taking their time getting everything prepped. Dr. Adashek came in and put his ipod in the dock...no Transformers music this time, haha. The anesthesiologist did a quick check to make sure I couldn't feel anything in the event that Dr. Adashek had to do an emergency c-section. Yep....nothing.
I couldn't believe how many people tried to talk me out of a vaginal delivery. They kept explaining to me everything that could go wrong. And asking me "are you sure you want to do this?" and "we could just take them right out and there wouldn't be a risk of a vaginal delivery and a c-section," but I stuck to my guns and was like "NO WAY. We are doing this and it's going to be fine." In the back of my mind, I was TERRIFIED of having a c-section but I figured if, in my mind, a c-section wasn't going to happen and I just kept positive in my mind, there was NO way that I couldn't do it.
Once Dr. Adashek was all prepped and ready, 2 nurses held my legs while Troy stood up by my head. He asked me if I could feel ANYTHING when I had a contraction. Nope. NOTHING. No pressure, no pain, nothing.
He told me that the nurses would watch my monitors and tell me when to push. I pushed maybe 2 times before Dr. Adashek told me that he would need to use the vacuum on Kinley, which I really, really did not want. The way she was positioned, she wasn't straight down. Her body was nestled inside my left hip, at an angle with her butt coming up towards the ribs on my left side. Whenever I pushed, her head was going down at an angle towards my right side. Troy said that the vacuum was more like a hand pump and not as scary as what you would picture when someone says "vacuum." He said that Dr. Adashek placed it on her head and "pumped it up a few times" to make a seal with the crown of her head and when I pushed again, the vacuum helped her come out straight down, rather than towards my right side. So it was more like a directional guide than a vacuum. Which made me happy to hear afterwards.
Dr. Adashek lifted Kinley up and showed her to us right when she came out screaming at 2:11pm. I couldn't believe how much hair she had. I looked right at Troy and said "SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE AVERY!!" I'm not sure he heard me. He started crying immediately. I love that man. He really is so much more emotional than I am. I don't think I registered emotion yet because I still had a baby to push out.
The ultrasound tech had the wand on my belly almost immediately to determine the position of Caris. Luckily, she had flipped head down after Kinley was born...YAY! To keep her head down, the tech put her hand on my stomach and pushed her into my right hip so she didn't try and flip breech and run my vaginal delivery plans.
Dr. Adashek told me that my cervix closed ALLLLLL the way up after Kinley came out. Uh oh. So my doctor grabbed the forceps and used them to open my cervix back up and put his right arm INSIDE ME to more than halfway up his forearm. Thank God for epidurals. I cannot IMAGINE how that would have felt without drugs. He had to grab Caris's head and pull her down so that I could push her out.
I just remember laying there and looking at Dr. Adashek. Kinley was screaming her head off, but it still seemed SO calm and quiet in there to me and all I could do was look at him. He was concentrating SO hard. He was (literally) elbow deep in my body with his eyes closed, feeling around for her head for about 3-4 minutes. I felt like we were the only people in the room, he was so close to me. His head was almost right over my stomach. He had his left hand on my stomach to help move her from the outside and use as a reference while his right hand pulled her down. At some point during this, the neonatologist called out Kinley's weight at 5lbs 4oz. She was 19 inches long.
He got Caris in position and told me to push again. Her head came out and he immediately told me to stop. I didn't know why at the time, but the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and he cut it off while her body was still inside me to make sure that nothing got too tight when I pushed her out. He lifted up Caris and showed her to us and handed her off to the neonatologist at 2:19pm.
And then I started freaking out. She didn't cry. And she didn't cry. And it was an eternity. I kept asked Dr. Adashek what was wrong with her and he kept saying "nothing, she's fine." I think that must've happened 5 times. She finally started crying and they told Troy he could go over with them. He basically ran.
The nurse and ultrasound tech immediately starting massaging my belly to help it start going down and get both placentas out. Hard. I could not believe how hard they were pushing on my stomach. Again, I'm glad I had the epidural, because that was like a dang deep tissue massage on my belly. Dr. Adashek told me I had a small tear and he started stitching me up. Caris's weight was called at 4lbs 14oz and she was 17 3/4 inches long.
While I was laying there, listening to my babies cry, Troy finally walked over holding Caris, all wrapped up so that I could see she was okay. He laid her on my chest and neck for a few minutes while I got stitched up. She was SO SMALL! I couldn't believe I had done it. I had both of my babies out and safe and sound. And I had a vaginal delivery. I was pretty proud. The neonatologist called for Troy and the NICU team entourage took my babies out in incubators to go get checked out in the NICU.
Not gonna lie, it really, really sucked laying there by myself in the OR as all the people dwindled down to just me, Dr. Adashek, and my labor and delivery nurse. I felt SO alone and my body started to totally freak out. I was violently shaking. Huge tremors. Voice shaking. Teeth chattering. Uncontrollable.
The labor and delivery nurse told me that it was "not an uncommon side effect" after delivery. She said it was a response to the combination of a sudden decrease in hormones, loss of the placenta, and the epidural wearing off after birth. And mine was amplified with 2 babies. I didn't feel cold, just completely overwhelmed.
The intense, constant shaking lasted about 3 hours. Troy was gone in the NICU for about an hour and came back in to check on me in recovery. He showed me a bunch of pictures he had taken during the delivery and in the NICU and then headed back down to the NICU to be with the girls. I was snuggled up in the blankets trying to calm down because the nurse said the more I tried to fight the shaking, the worse it would be and the longer it would last. I remember being super disoriented because the recovery room had no windows. And I'd been awake since about 6am the day before (up for almost 36 consecutive hours) so my body was exhausted but with no windows, I had no concept of time. I just wanted to sleep, but my body wouldn't stop shaking.
The nurse brought me in a tray because I kept saying that I was starving during the delivery and to "get these babies out so I can eat." The food was pretty good. Except I was having a seriously hard time feeding myself with all the shaking. I remember talking to Troy's dad and my teeth were chattering so hard, it was difficult to have a conversation.
I stayed in the dark watching re-runs of Friends on TBS, trying to eat, and wishing that I was with my family. The nurse came in and finally helped me out of bed to go to the bathroom. Once I was up, it was on. I'm pretty sure the nurse hated me. I was like, "YOU GET ME A WHEELCHAIR. RIGHT NOW!" Troy showed up in the middle of this and followed the nurse to bring back the wheelchair for me.
He wheeled me down to the NICU and I was pretty heart broken when I saw the nurses had them both propped up in the incubators, feeding them formula. I seriously started crying. I am a hardcore breastfeeder and Avery NEVER had formula and I nursed her for 14 months, when she decided she was done. Watching them hooked up to monitors and drinking formula from the nurses just made me so sad. They were so little I was afraid to ask to hold them. I felt like there was nothing I could do to take care of them.
This is Kinley. Her head was settled into the pelvic bowl THE WHOLE PREGNANCY. Her face was crazy crooked when she was born. The left side of her jaw was stretched and pushed to the right. All the muscle cords in her neck were really tight. We've been working on getting her to turn her head to look over her left shoulder and massaging her neck and jaw muscles to help straighten her out.
And this is Caris:
The neonatologist came over and talked to us immediately and said that Kinley was doing great and would be released to come to our room on the mommy baby floor in a few hours. Caris was still needing some support and needed to stay in the NICU at least for the night.
They moved our room from recovery to the mommy baby room and put us in a room that was right across from the door to the NICU. Kinley came over around 8pm that night and I immediately tried to nurse. I started bawling when she latched right on and started nursing. I was SO happy.
Avery came and visited the next day and held Kinley and went and visited Caris in the NICU.
I gotta tell you. Recovery after this birth was a DREAM compared to after Avery. I didn't think my recovery after Avery was bad or super painful, but this was nothing compared to that. Maybe it was easier because I had done it before and knew what to expect. Maybe it was because they were smaller. Maybe it was because I had 2 kids in the NICU (they both ended up back over there) for a few days after I was discharged and had no choice but to drive and be dressed and be back and forth from home and hospital for a week. I dunno. But holy cow, it was so much better.
They are amazing little babies. They are so good. And Avery is doing so well with them and being gentle. She has only picked Kinley up one time without adult supervision and she even supported her head! We feel so blessed.
We could not have made it this far without the help of a lot of people while I was on bedrest:
- Our church small group for meals and babysitting
- Our military family for meals and babysitting
- My Mom
- My Stepmom
- Troy's Aunt Kathy
- Troy's Mom
- Kristen
- Taylor
And all the prayers from everyone. You guys are awesome. This was a seriously HORRIBLE and WONDERFUL year at the same time. We went through so much to get these babies here and home. I cannot believe that almost our whole year was consumed by getting pregnant and trying to keep these babies safe.
Today is their due date and they are almost 5 weeks old. We are so blessed to have so much support from my mom, who has been here since the day they were born. She is making sure I get a 5 hour stretch of sleep at night and encouraging me to nurse. She's making sure I eat and that my house is clean. And doing laundry. Oh. My. Lord. The laundry is crazy.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We have so much to be thankful for this year.
Troy's parents were SUPER active in youth group when we were growing up. He has made a point to be involved with the youth at our local churches whenever we move. Here are a couple theme night pictures from other events.
Troy as Mr. Incredible with Jim as Batman:
And yes, I volunteered as well, but haven't since Avery was born. Here is Troy and me on Cowboys and Indians night.
As further proof, here is me as a Kangaroo (cause I'm preggo) and Jon as a Gorilla on animal night:
But really, this post is about Troy and is total commitment to a theme night.
So, Troy volunteers with the youth group at our church here in Las Vegas. He goes to their weekly house group meetings for bible study. Every grade has a house in the community that is offered up to the church for the youth. Troy goes to the house for 11th grade boys.
As part of their outreach, the house groups had a theme day during the sunday youth church service. The service is at 11am and is usually 100+ high school kids. It's a full service with their own praise band that is members of the youth group and a sermon and communion and everything. Most of the house groups have about 10-20 kids that go to each house for each gender. For example, Troy works with the 11th grade boys and they usually have about 10-12 kids there. They are trying to encourage more kids to attend house group, so they had a theme day on sunday for house groups.
Each house group picked their own theme and Troy's house picked "Duck Dynasty." Troy was VERY excited and went all out. He dressed up as Uncle Si and even brought the teal cup with a container of sweet tea.
I was dying. He was looking up Uncle Si quotes so that he could spit them out at youth group.
Troy went to Buffalo Wild Wings and picked up "duck wings" for their themed table. Troy was in charge of food for the house table and the 11th grade girls leader (they meet at the same house and so the whole grade had the same theme) was in charge of decorations for the table. I think they did awesome.
Those were all taken with an iphone, so sorry about the quality. But seriously, how funny is that?
And here is a video. Because you know, Troy is the best. I mean, Uncle Si.
It started off great. Troy took leave for the day so that he could do some things around the house and spend some quality time with his mom. We all went out for an early breakfast at Babystacks, a local specialty pancake place. They dropped me off at home so that I could have a relax day. All alone. YES. They traded me for Optimus and went to Floyd Lamb park, which has peacocks and is very cool. They all went straight to the vet on base.
I was feeling kinda weird at home. I was relaxing on the couch, drinking tons of water, and watching trash tv. It should have been a good day. But I was having contractions and heartburn and my stomach hurt and I just felt "weird." I called Troy around 1230 and asked when they were going to be home. He said they were on their way and I told him I was going to head upstairs to lay down because I didn't feel well.
Once I got upstairs, I climbed in bed with my kindle. Now that I was completely still, not watching TV, with no distractions, I decided to start timing my contractions. I was had 5 in 10 minutes. Woah. I texted my doctor and he immediately told to forget my meds schedule and go ahead and take a muscle relaxer and get back to him in 2 hours. DONE!
Troy put Avery down for her nap and climbed in bed with me to keep me company while I ate lunch and kept timing contractions. They were NOT calming.
At 3 I texted Dr. Adashek again and told him what was going on. He wasn't in the office that day, but told me to get to the office within 15 minutes or to head to the hospital. We decided to book it out the door and avoid the hospital. That was the LAST place I wanted to go. Thank God Troy's mom was here, we could head out the door immediately and know that Avery was taken care of.
We got to the office and they immediately ushered me back for an ultrasound. SURE ENOUGH, Kinley's head is RIGHT on my cervix and I had 2 contractions during the ultrasound, during which you could see my cervix dilating all the way to where the stitch was the only thing holding everything in. Crap.
Then they took me over to a fetal monitoring room where they strapped me in and measured my contractions for about 10-15 minutes. Sure enough, there they were. Steady and strong. Double crap.
Another doctor I had never seen before came in and gave me a new medication called nifedipine. It's actually a blood pressure medication and some kind of calcium blocker...which the doc said could make me really dizzy since my BP runs low anyway. YAY side effects. He also said that this medication should be considered an "in case of emergency, break glass" medicine. I made sure to take it right when I picked it up. He also told me that if I started bleeding or having pain to go to the hospital. If the medication didn't help he also wanted me to make an appointment the next day.
Troy and I went and picked it up immediately and I took it in the car before we headed home. I hung out on the couch and snuggled Avery, watching "Toy Story" while Troy and his mom made dinner. My contractions were still going. We ate dinner. My contractions were still going. Avery got a bath and came down and said good night to me. And my contractions were still going.
So I texted my Doc again. He asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. Um no. He called and gave me a pretty ugly lecture. He informed me that the medications I'm on are a pretty heavy duty and there is nothing else they can do at this point. AND that those medications SHOULD be the second line of defense behind bed rest, but he's been giving me the benefit of the doubt that I've been taking it easy already. Which clearly I wasn't.
He explained that if I didn't figure out a solution for help at home with Avery, he would admit me to the hospital and FORCE ME to figure it out and get help. I am allowed to go to the bathroom, shower, move from the couch to the bed (and vice versa) and use the microwave. That's pretty much it. OH and go to doctor appointments. He said that the LESS activity I did, the less contractions I'll have. Which makes sense because when people are trying to get babies OUT at 40 weeks, they are walking, cleaning floors, having sex, hula hooping, etc to bring on contractions. Which is what I want to avoid. No hula hooping for me.
So I am officially on bed rest. If you know me at all, this is torture. I'll have some tips for you later this week for how to keep from going insane. YAY!
My cousin will be here friday, so I'm currently arranging help until then. And attempting to bribe family with slobbery Avery kisses to fill holes in the visitor schedule until my mom comes in October.
All I can say is thank you Jesus for our Air Force family and small group from church.
Mom. Seriously. If you don't send that paperwork soon, we will have words. Loud ugly ones. Mkay? LOVE YOU!
I have been feeling good and working. I have been in good spirits and feeling awesome about the pregnancy. A little more tired physically, but that's to be expected. We bought baby cribs (I'll get a post up with those after we get them put together), Troy's Aunt Kathy was coming to help out with Avery and some things around the house, and I was feeling so optimistic.
I worked on monday and tuesday. Tuesday was a CA-RAZY day. I worked, Troy was off. Troy's aunt was flying in from North Carolina for about 10 days. Troy had an optometry appointment at 3 and I was leaving straight from work to make a 330 doctor's appointment while Aunt Kathy stayed home with Avery. So, of COURSE, I was at the doctor's office BY MYSELF, thinking, I've been feeling good, we are still at our regular routine of appointments. Well, as regular as a high risk doctor's schedule can be.
My ultrasound was great. The girls looked awesome. Dr. Adashek came in to do the vaginal ultrasound to check the status of my cervix. He used that wand thing with one hand and using the other hand, pushed down on the top of my uterus to simulate a light, moderate, and strong contraction (he has done this at all my appointments) and so far, every appointment, he has said that I "have a beautiful cervix." Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it! My cervix is beautiful!
Except for today.
He does a light push and then a moderate push and BAM! You see the INSIDE of my cervix open in a "V" shape about half way down. In an ultrasound, the cervix looks like a cylinder with a thin white line in the middle. When he pushes on it and nothing changes, that's great. But when he pushed on mine, it opened at the uterus end about 1.5 cm and 1.5 cm down. The length of my cervix is about 3.5 cm. So the shape of the "V" looked like an equilateral triangle basically.
I was like, "WHAT IS THAT? No, don't answer that. I know what it is."
He says, "Noooo, I was expecting a normal appointment today. You're funneling. No. No. No."
"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Am I on bedrest? What now?"
He says, "well, tomorrow you're having a cerclage. I'm sending in the nurse to schedule you and go over the details."
Well, crap. He told me that if I didn't have the procedure (not that I was considering going against medical advice) I would deliver in the next 2 weeks. Yikes. 25 week old babies = bad bad bad news bears. I am also now scheduled to come in 1x per week for a progesterone injection to tell my body that I'm still pregnant and not to go into labor. Double awesome.
The nurse came in and told me to be at the hospital at 830am for a 1030am procedure. It is considered an outpatient surgery and I had to fill out some forms about anesthesia. She gave me my shot and sent me out the door with a follow up appointment scheduled for a week later.
I felt really disoriented and confused. Everything had been going so well! Every time I have started to get excited about this pregnancy, God has thrown me another curveball. Triplets? SURE! We get excited and schedule our contractor and buy a new car, only to find out that one has anencephaly. We have a GREAT 20 week ultrasound and order the cribs and now I could deliver anytime? WHAT?
Luckily, God knew this was going to happen. Aunt Kathy flew in THAT day to help, and boy do we need it now. Troy just happened to be off the next day for my procedure so that worked out too.
I have said before that my doctor is amazing and I love him. I will continue to say it. He called Troy's phone at 10pm that night to talk to me. Honestly, he's lucky we were still up. Well, maybe he knows that I am a worry wart would still be up, so we were sitting up in the living room talking when the phone rang. SO LATE. Troy thought it was a work recall or something with the unknown number. Nope. Just my OB calling to see if I was okay, had any questions, concerns, etc. Seriously guys. I talked to him for 20 minutes and he answered every question and annoying concern that any mom would have. He's amazing.
So Troy and I got up for my procedure the next morning and got all checked in to the labor and delivery floor. They gave me an IV, hooked me up to a fetal monitor, made me answer a SLEW of questions about my pregnancy, history, allergies, etc. The doctor using the OR before my procedure was running late, so we were running about 45 minutes late also. I was not surprised. That's just how these things go sometimes. So me and Troy snuggled in my hospital bed watching trash TV.
They wheeled me back for the cerclage to the OR. MY NURSE WAS AMAZING. So funny. She was like in her late 50s/early 60s and witty. It was freezing and she got me heated blankets and gave me hugs. She let me hug her and squeeze her triceps while I got my spinal anesthesia from the doctor. I hate hate hate needles. I'm so glad you can't watch epidurals. I would faint. They got me into "position" after the spinal while I could still feel and move my legs.
Y'all. Lets talk about this. If I hadn't had Avery already, I would have been HUMILIATED. Talk about a procedure that takes away ALL of your modesty. I was laying on my back, with my knees by my ears, and my feet HANGING about 2 feet over my head in these hook things. They put up a drape and had 2 of those spot light things RIGHT on my vag.
I started laughing. Seriously. I was like, "Can my life get any weirder right now?"
Ask and you shall receive.
Dr. Adashek walked in all prepped and clean with his IPOD. And I AM NOT KIDDING - he put on the Transformers movie music sound track. So I listened to THIS while he put stitches in my cervix to keep my babies in:
I was like, "Dr. Adashek...is this Transformers? Really?"
And he goes, "I'm seriously impressed that you know that."
**Side note: I have this FREAKY ability to remember original scores from movies and can identify which movie it is based on the orchestrations...I know it's weird. But seriously. I'm good. It just goes to show how important original theme music is for movies.**
So they raise the table up to his FACE level...while he's standing. And I guess he does the procedure. I didn't feel anything. And I was distracted. I felt like I couldn't breathe and my chest was getting crushed. I started feeling nauseated and hot. I think I was having a panic attack. I couldn't feel my legs. I could feel they were up, but they felt asleep and I kept trying to jiggle them to wake them up, but they weren't moving. My blood pressure was LOW. The anesthesiologist gave me something through my IV to help with the nausea. I was RIPPING the blankets off to cool off and breathing hard.
The whole procedure was done in about 20 minutes. Dr. Adashek said that he was so relieved that they had done the procedure because my cervix felt like mashed potatoes and it was supposed to feel like the end of a nose.
They lowered my feet out of the stirrups and I started freaking out. I was looking at my legs laying flat on the table and they still felt like they were up by my head. Weirdest. Feeling. Ever. My nurse said that since the last thing my body could feel was them up in the stirrups, my brain could still only register that position. Until I got the feeling back in my legs, they would feel that way. They did a sliding board transfer over to my hospital bed and wheeled me back to the room, where Troy was eating chinese food from the cafeteria. Barf. It smelled awful and I was still feeling nauseated. They laid me flat, hooked up heart monitors, a fetal monitor, and my IV.
About 45 minutes later, I started to feel like I had peed in the bed, so I looked down and I had a bunch of watery blood all over my legs. So then I called the nurse.
She came in to check me out and was like, "that's kind of a lot of blood. I think your water may have broken during the procedure (one of the risks) and you're also having some pretty strong contractions."
They cleaned me up and changed the pad under my butt. I also got an IV smooth muscle relaxer to stop the contractions in my uterus and an oral medication that does the same thing. While I totally panicked. Thinking, "oh no, my water broke, I'm delivering these babies today and they're not going to live at 23 weeks." TOTAL panic.
The sensation of getting the feeling back in my stomach, legs, and feet was SO weird. I slowly started to be able to move over the course of 1.5 hours. Still feeling like my knees were by my head. I NEVER want an epidural again. I don't know how people do that. Seriously. My nurse said that people who have "control issues" normally hate the anesthesia. HA. You don't even want to know about my control issues lady.
They came back about 15 minutes later to check the pad under my butt for more fluid and it had slowed and my contractions were gone. They wouldn't let me leave until Dr. Adashek came back to check me out because of the amount of fluid and strong contractions I was having. He came back from the office to deliver a baby and check me out. He said that my water did not break, explaining to me what that would have been like if it had.
I stayed for about another hour, putting our total time at the hospital at 8 hours. Again, thank God, Aunt Kathy flew in the day before. Seriously, the timing could not have been better.
That night was rough. I was scared and once my meds wore off, I started having contractions again. I started timing them from about 1230am to 230am. I was having about 6 per hour, but not at regular intervals. I might have 2 in 10 minutes, and then not have one for 20 minutes. I texted Dr. Adashek and he called me in a prescription for a muscle relaxer for my uterus that I am now taking once every 6 hours. And I am on "modified bedrest" until next tuesday, at least. I am keeping stair climbing to a minimum, not picking up anything over 10lbs (poor Avery), and generally, sitting only. Aunt Kathy keeps yelling at me for doing anything. I think I may be done working for the rest of this pregnancy.
So now, I am trying to drink almost 200oz of water a day, taking uterine relaxers, doing nothing and hoping that the stitches hold. Prayers please. And if you are available in the month of September or October for a trip to Vegas, let me know. Seriously. I'll put you on the calendar.
At church the last week, there was a guest speaker and he was speaking on how there are moments in your life that are true "God moments" where you feel him actually touching your life and putting miracles in place. And then other times, looking BACK at your life, it's a slowing growing miracle. Based on your circumstances at the time, the fact that you made it and are ok is a miracle. There are so many people who are disappointed with the path their life has taken, or their job, or their finances, or whatever. But then, when you look back at where you are now and where you came from, you can see that although it may not have been a "God moment" of epic proportions, your LIFE is a miracle and God has been there through every step.
On the way home, Troy asked me what my "big God moments" were in my life and I just sat there. "Uhhh, you go first." Troy said, "well the biggest one was the day Avery was born. I just felt so overwhelmed and overcome with joy. We wanted her for so long." And I just sat there in the car twiddling my thumbs. And then I said it. "The day Avery was born, I felt nothing."
Troy has known for a while, but I'm going to confess to all of you.
It's no secret that Troy and I have had fertility issues. Miscarriages, medications, doctor visits. At one point in our journey to children, having a family seemed like an achievable dream for other people, but not for me. I have always always wanted to be a mom. Ask my siblings or my parents. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I said "a mom."
The whole time I was pregnant with Avery, I just basked in BEING pregnant. I did it. I was growing a human. I felt amazing. And blessed. And beautiful. And like I was fulfilling my purpose as a woman.
But after a miscarriage and multiple rounds of medications and finally getting pregnant, in the back of my mind, SOMETHING was going to go wrong. My mind was in a downward spiral. It was like, "yay! we're pregnant." And my mind would say, "I'm just going to miscarry." Then, "yay! She's here!" And mind would say, "she's just going to die of SIDS." My mind was desperately trying to protect my heart and make sure I didn't get attached to her because I was so convinced that I wasn't worthy of such a gift.
The day Avery was born was a total blur. They broke my water and started my pitocin drip at 9am. No epidural and at 11:07 (that's right, 2cm to 10cm in less than 2 hours...I almost died) Avery was born. Troy immediately started bawling. My mom immediately started bawling. And all I could think was, "dude, where's lunch? This is serious. Get a menu." I was starving. Isn't that awful?
I said all the right things and posed for all the pictures, but in my mind, I kept thinking, this can't be my life. I can't believe we finally did this. It was surreal. We had a baby. What's going to go wrong now? For 6 months, I waited. I waited for something to go wrong. I waited for her to die. I waited for Troy to be paralyzed in a horrible car accident. I kept anticipating something bad. And living on the edge of my seat.
But everything was fine. She was perfect.
Now I don't want anyone to think I had postpartum depression. I definitely did not. I think I was traumatized from such a deep desire for having children and then miscarrying while Troy was deployed. I just kept thinking that it was never going to happen, and then when it did, all my body wanted to do was protect itself from feeling that pain ever again. If I felt that bad from losing a pregnancy, how much worse would it be when I lost an ACTUAL baby? So instead, I built a wall around myself from Avery, so she couldn't hurt me when she died. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be a Mom. Maybe we were too aggressive with fertility medications. If God wanted me to be a mom, wouldn't he have given me the ability to do it naturally? Is he going to take her from me?
I look at her now and I cannot believe how many snuggles and late night feedings I spent just looking at her feeling detached and not letting myself love her. She is such a joy and so smart. I look at her face and I cannot believe the little parts of Troy or myself that I see in her. It's SUCH a miracle. My love for her was a slow growing miracle. I didn't have a "God moment" when she was born. I hate that I missed out on 6 months of love, but the feeling of it slowly washing over me has been more than I could have hoped for. It snuck up on me with no loud announcement or warning. God made no mistake. Troy and I are the perfect parents for Avery and we had to do the sowing before the harvest. Put in the work to get the prize.
I say this now because so many horrible things have happened this pregnancy. And now it seems that everything might actually be okay. I really hope that I feel that "instant love" and connection that so many people talk about. Cause I totally missed out the first time around. Knowing that this is MOST LIKELY my last pregnancy, I don't want to miss out on baby snuggles or take them for granted. I want to be excited to get up and nurse in the middle of the night because I'll know it's just mommy/baby time. I just want to feel SOMETHING other than pure fear and impending doom.
With Avery's sweet personality and attitude, it's so easy to love her. To think that I am growing 2 MORE people who will have different personalities and attitudes, it's a miracle. To think that one day, not too long from now, Troy and I will start nurturing 2 more little miracles that will one day talk to us, and have opinions, and give us hugs and butterfly kisses fills my heart with so much joy. I just hope that my mind and fear don't try and rob me of the joy of their infancy.
I had my doctor's appointment on monday with Dr. Adashek. He was awesome. The staff was amazing.
We were shown into an ultrasound room, where another very experienced technician did my scan. She was serious. She had "ultrasound elbow" and wore a splint. Like tennis elbow, but from excessive diagnostic imaging. She confirmed (again) that baby C had anencephaly and looked at my cervix length (which is amazingly long, go me).
Dr. Adashek came in and this is a play by play of the highlights of the conversation:
He gives me a big hug. I love hugs. He sits on a rolling stool 2 feet in front of me.
Dr: So, you've been quite the topic of conversation. I've been talking a lot about you behind your back. I've talked to several of the doctors at Nellis as well as Dr. Bolnick. You understand what's going on. We don't need to repeat that. I understand you've already talked to Olivia (the genetic anomaly counselor) and Dr. Bolnick about the procedure for having a selective reduction and I want to answer any questions you have and talk about risks of all scenarios. Where are you currently in your decision to have a selective reduction?
Me: I'm leaning towards having the reduction but I want to know what the risk of carrying all 3 babies to term (as far as my body allows) vs. the risks of the reduction are. Basically, is the risk of losing all the babies by doing the reduction MORE than the risks to myself and the babies if I carry them?
Dr: Carrying HEALTHY triplets, the risk is way more. Carrying triplets and one of them having anencephaly, the risk is even higher to you and the other 2 babies.
Me: What? Why?
Dr: Your body knows that something is wrong with that baby. It is going to pour more nutrients and amniotic fluid into that baby's sack to try and heal it. Which of course, won't work. Ultimately, that baby will get bigger and occupy more than it's fair share of the limited space in there. It will force preterm labor, possibly earlier than 28 weeks. We are happy when someone carrying healthy triplets gets to 32 weeks, and you are still looking at 2 months in a NICU as well as all of the additional health issues associated with preterm babies. At 28 weeks or earlier, you will definitely lose baby C, and the risk of baby A and B being blind, deaf or both as well as having lung problems or a brain hemorrhage is astronomically high. In addition to that, YOU are at risk for preeclampsia, uterine hemorrhage and whatever emotional distress you have because you lose a baby and may deal with 2 other children with severe lifelong health issues.
Me: Ok. What are the risks with the reduction? What are the odds that I could lose all the babies? Troy and I have already decided that there is no way I can go through fertility treatments again, so if this pregnancy doesn't work out, we're done.
Dr: The risks of losing the whole pregnancy are between 1/100 and 1/300. I have the most experience in the whole practice with reductions, thus the highest success rate. Most people lose the whole pregnancy because of an infection as a result of the procedure within 24 to 48 hours. What are your biggest hesitations about the procedure?
Me: Religious mostly. God blessed us with these children and I don't want to feel like I killed one of them. I'm worried about being judged by my friends or family who feel the same way. I know that this is a personal decision, but I still feel like I want the support and approval of everyone.
Dr: Screw them. You tell them to carry triplets and go through the emotional trauma of losing a child. And then watching 2 of them fight for their lives with underdeveloped brains and lungs while you stand helplessly by, knowing that you could have done something to help them 4 months before. Ultimately, you might feel regret and sadness and guilt now, but it's better to feel it now and give your healthy babies the BEST CHANCE at a healthy life than risk their lives and deal with the emotional trauma of burying a child at the same time and feel guilt for the rest of your life. This is your decision. Don't let the other people in your life GUILT you into making a decision that could effect the health of your other babies for the rest of all of your lives.
Me: Troy...are you ok? You haven't said anything.
Troy: I've been on board with the reduction the whole time. I'll support you either way. This is probably going to be harder on you than me. If you decide to carry the babies, you're the one who has to do it and I'll wait on you, hand and foot.. If you decide to have the reduction, I'll be there praying with you and holding your hand.
Me: Ok, well isn't it too late? I'm 15 weeks today.
Dr: It's actually the exactly right time. People choose to have reductions of healthy babies between 12 and 15 weeks. You actually have cause for health reasons of you and your babies.
Me: Ok, well when can we do this?
Dr: I'll schedule you for tomorrow afternoon as my last patient. I don't want to feel rushed because I have other people waiting and I don't want you to feel like I ran out when the procedure was done and didn't answer your questions or hold your hand after.
Me: Ok, let's do it.
He also gave us his personal cell phone number. He told me to never ever go to the ER, never go to Nellis, and to never call the emergency after hours number. He wants me to deal with him personally through the rest of my pregnancy and ensured that I would remain under his care for the remainder of my prenatal care.
I had the reduction on Tuesday afternoon. The staff was amazing. They held my hands, rubbed my hair, and gave us cell numbers to call with questions. My sister flew in this morning to keep me company. I'm doing well. I'm feeling the other 2 babies move, which is comforting to me. I have been relaxing on the couch and drinking lots of water. As of now, I am on the fence about blogging about the actual reduction. I'm not sure who wants to read about it and who would just rather not know. Based on feedback and levels of curiosity about the procedure, what happens to the baby, etc I will blog/not blog.
Some of our friends brought us meals the day of the procedure and the next day. You guys are awesome. I love you. Troy wants those recipes...you guys know who you are.
Update: And I finally wrote about the procedure...about a year later...
I had another appointment yesterday and it went better than the one last week. Whether that be because I was in a better place mentally, or it actually went better, I don't know. But I felt better and didn't cry the entire time. I was able to ask questions without my voice choking up and voice concerns without turning into a blubbery mess.
I gained 3.5lbs. Woah. My bad. I have been making an extra effort to eat more food this past week and I've been SUPER conscious of doing very little to help the bleed heal. Goal attained? Eek.
They did the ultrasound to look at the all the heart beats and we got another set of pictures. I didn't share the last ones, but here are the new ones. The tech was like, do you want any pictures of baby C? I was like, UM YES! She said that some people request not to have any pictures or further info about the sick baby because they don't want to get more emotionally attached, etc.
Here's baby A and it's right at the bottom of my uterus, resting with it's back on my cervix:
Here's baby B and its to my right on the upper side of my uterus:
And here's baby C, located on my left, right under my stomach:
Now, if you scroll back up, you can see that baby A and B have round heads and you can see their profiles. While baby C has a perfect little body, he has no profile or slope to it's head at all :( They also did a "frontal view" of this baby and I just couldn't believe it. The doctor said that it had "classic bone formation" of a baby with anencephaly. Its head looked like it stopped at the eyebrows and the eye sockets were very wide set, almost to the sides of it's head. It looked similar to a frog's bone structure. I thought it looked similar to a troll doll because it's brain was completely open and extended very far above it's head like hair.
I will NEVER forget that image. Poor baby.
The doctor wanted to get that view so that before he sent me to see Dr. Adashek there was a definite confirmation of a terminal diagnosis for that baby.
Dr. Bolnick looked closely at my hemorrhage and said that it definitely looked stable. It didn't look bigger. I thought it looked smaller. He said that it could be smaller, but he couldn't tell because the babies had grown a lot this past week and he couldn't tell if the hemorrhage was just getting redistributed as the babies grew and pushed into other areas, or if it was actually smaller. Either way, I was glad that he said it was stable. I haven't had any active bleeding this week, and for the first time since this whole thing started, I am starting to pass actual blood clots.
Dr. Bolnick said that based on Dr. Adashek's experience and the fact that the bleed looks stable, that he feels confident that Dr. Adashek will feel comfortable doing the reduction as long as there are no changes in the next few days. We'll see. We are waiting for a list of risks, pros and cons, and statistics to make the decision. Dr. Bolnick said that the risk of carrying 3 babies to myself and the health of the other 2 is greater than the risk of doing the reduction, but we're going to wait and talk to Dr. Adashek and see what he thinks.
Thank you for all of your prayers and sending happy thoughts our way. We really feel every single one. I cannot tell you how encouraging it is to get messages and texts throughout the week from you guys.
In other news, construction on the upstairs room starts monday! And we bought a new car. I need to blog more...I'm a little behind.
So last night I had a horrid night. My subchorionic hemorrhage decided to rear its ugly head and bleed. All. Night. Long. All night. Like crazy.
So I didn't sleep. I called my doctor's office around 3am and the on call doctor encouraged me to go to the ER. I was like, NO. My husband is on the night shift and I'm not going by myself. Forget it. Instead, I was told to come in to the office as soon as possible.
I slept horrible. It was like every time I fell asleep my body would be like, "NOOOOO, you're bleeding, don't wreck your sheets!"
I didn't know at the time the cause of the bleeding was the hemorrhage. I was thinking it could be a of couple things.
1. The hemorrhage was emptying out before my appointment so that I would be magically healed.
2. I was losing the baby with anencephalopathy. Which, in my mind, isn't a bad thing. It would happen on God's time, I wouldn't feel like I "made the choice" for my baby to die, and I wouldn't have to undergo all the risks of a selective reduction.
3. The hemorrhage is getting bigger and taking over my entire uterus.
4. I am losing all of the babies.
So. As you can see, lots of thoughts to keep me awake.
Troy got home from work in the morning and we left for the doctor's office. We were shown right back and they took my weight, heart rate, and blood pressure. Everything was good. Then they took us into the ultrasound room. And I swear, it was only 5 minutes, but it felt like an hour waiting for her to come in.
The same ultrasound tech from last week came in and asked me about any cramping/pain/bleeding (yes bleeding, no cramping or pain). She started the ultrasound and said all 3 babies heart beats looked great and the bleed looked exactly the same.
I literally could not stop crying. I just felt like a faucet. I really, really felt like the bleed was going to shrink. I really believed it. I have been praying so hard and really felt like God was going to answer my prayers this morning. I just felt SO let down and disappointed. And I could not stop crying. Poor Troy. It was my first time really crying about this situation in a completely uncontrollable way. He just handed me tissues and rubbed my back.
The genetic anomoly and abnormality counselor came in to talk to us about some more tests that she wanted to run on the babies. We took all of the information and brochures, but ultimately, we decided that we don't want to do that. No matter what the tests said, it wouldn't change the outcome. So when we got home, we threw all the information away.
Then the doctor came back in with the ultrasound tech again. They repeated the heart rates, looked at the HUGENESS of my hemorrhage (it's 7cm by 9 cm by 2-3 cm - it kind of felt like a win to me, it was smaller than my biggest ovary!!), and tested my cervix for length and funneling.
And I could not stop crying. Just silent, huge tears rolling down my face.
The doc turned on the light and basically said "nothing has changed."
I was like, "I really wanted to hear something good and positive. This is just awful. I cut my hours at work from 40 a week to 28 and on my days off, I literally sit on the couch all day long. My house is a wreck and I can't grocery shop or do laundry. I just wanted to hear that making changes had an effect on this."
He said, "this IS new good news. Nothing is worse. You are having the active bright red bleeding, which is unfortunate, but the status quo is the same."
He was humble enough to admit when he was in a little over his head and I am seeing him for monitoring for 1 more week and then I am going to see the "boss man." He is the head of the practice and has the most experience. So that appointment is on June 3rd. I'll be exactly 15 weeks when I see "the boss man."
So basically, everything is exactly the same. No changes. Troy and I had conflicting feelings on the appointment. He thought it was great. He was like "there are 3 heart beats, 2 healthy babies, and you're not in any pain. Sounds like a good appointment to me!" And I was like, "I'm bleeding worse than a scene from Carrie, all of our friends and family are praying for us and the changes I made didn't make a bit of difference."
So. Appointment next thursday.
Please God, shrink this hemorrhage. Help me to accept whatever your will is in this situation. Help me to stay positive and keep these babies safe and healthy. I don't understand why this is so hard, but I know that your hand will guide us and comfort us. Please give me the strength to stop crying and be accepting of your plan for my life.
You read that right. We are still processing this information, but if I think about it too much, I feel like I'm going to stroke out, so I try not to think about it. Too much. All the time.
But we have had time to process and evaluate and we are OVERJOYED! Overwhelmed about all of the planning and medical things we will face in the next 9 months, but excited about eventually coming home with our babies.
When last I left you, I had just been released from the hospital after a paracentesis. They were predicting that I would need to be drained again because Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome takes a long time to resolve (through the first trimester) and requires scheduled draining to maintain.
We found out during my followup from the paracentesis with my fertility doctor that we were expecting twins!! YES! Perfect. We didn't know if we wanted 2 or 3 children and the decision was made for us by God and we didn't have to go through fertility hell again. YAY!
I went back to Nellis for my follow up appointment with Women's Health and my next scheduled appointment with intervention radiology for another paracentesis. I was basically back to normal (only up 6 lbs from my original weight) and were able to determine that I did NOT need another paracentesis, much to their shock and surprise. They wanted to do an abdominal ultrasound to see if there were any hidden pockets of ascites (more fluid hiding) in my abdomen. The OB started the ultrasound and found a few very small pockets of fluid, but determined it was nothing to worry about.
Then she says: So, how far along are you?
Me: About six weeks, I think.
Doc: Oooooh fun! Ok, lets see if we can see anything in there!
At this point, a new airman entered the room to observe the ultrasound. She asked if it was ok to sit in, as she was new and trying to learn more about her job. Of course, I was cool with that.
Doc (still doing the abdominal ultrasound): Ooooh look! There's a sac! Ooooh and there's another one! Twins!
Me: Yeah, we found out a week ago. We're excited!
Doc: (pauses) Oh, wait a second. Do you mind if we switch to a vaginal ultrasound and get a better look?
Me (thinking nothing of it): Sure!! Maybe we can see heartbeats!
They leave the room for a few minutes while I "get ready."
They come back in and the airman is looking rather excited. I eye her suspiciously.
Doc: Ok, here are heartbeats on the 2 right here! AND LOOK! There's another baby right up there hiding at the top of your uterus!
Airman: OH. EM. GEE. You're my first set of triplets!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!
AAAAAAND you could hear a pin drop.
There was NO SOUND IN THE WORLD for about 27 seconds. That poor airman was NOT met with excitement, but absolute TERROR.
And then Troy opened his fat mouth.
Troy: So what you're SAYING is, we have to think of ANOTHER name? That's like, THE WORST part.
My mind started going to million miles a minute.
DAMN YOU AND YOUR 30 MILLION SPERM COUNT, TROY!!! DAMN YOU! Oh God. We just outgrew our house. And our car. Why is Troy in the military? We are SO far away from any family and are going to have no help. Maybe I can convince my mom to quit her job. She loves me right? Oh thank God Troy's in the military. We have health insurance. Do we need more cribs? How long is a gestational period for triplets? Am I going on bed rest soon? Poor Avery. She'll never understand. Oh God. I need to do some research in my journals about developmental delays and the NICU. I knew I should've taken that continuing education class about NICU stuff. I can't breastfeed 3 babies. How are we going to diaper that many kids? I'm gonna have to keep using cloth. SO MUCH POOP. My mom was right. Avery needs to be potty trained ASAP. And transitioned to her big girl room. ASAP. Thank God we paid off our cars and have NO debt. I need to work my butt off while I'm feeling good. I'm not going to be able to work for about 6 months between bed rest and the NICU and getting adjusted with triplets. TRIPLETS. Is this real life?
I blacked out during the rest of the ultrasound. No joke.
The next thing I remember is the doctor putting her hand on my knee and saying "hey, are you guys going to be okay?" Like TOTALLY dead serious. She could tell I was about to lose it. Absolutely lose it.
My mom was out in the waiting room with Avery when Troy and I came out with the ultrasound pictures. I handed them to her and said, "well, I'm glad we're going to the buffet for lunch because I'm eating for four." Like total deadpanned facial expression.
My mom grabbed the ultrasound and started jumping up and down, clapping like a seal at Sea World.
I was in complete shock. Complete and utter shock.
SO.
We have known for about 3 weeks now that it's triplets. And we have processed. And feeling SO much better. Avery is currently with my parents in South Carolina having a great time gardening, going to the park, playing in the humidity sprinklers, and eating like a queen. We sent her home with my parents last week after my sisters wedding. She will be staying with them for 2 months.
We decided that this was best for us right now because I can work my tail off while I'm feeling good, save on childcare expenses, and do some things around the house that would be harder/take longer with Avery here. Things like:
- Car shop
- Add another bedroom to our house
- Switch all her stuff OUT of the nursery to a big girl room
- have a yard sale
- Save money
My parents are THRILLED to have her and are doing some things that are making Troy and I VERY happy:
- transitioning her to a "big girl bed"
- potty training
- eating meals NOT in a high chair
- getting in and out of her car seat without help
I am currently 8.5 weeks pregnant. Is it early to be telling? YES!!! With Avery, we didn't announce until we knew that she was girl, we waited so long. But now? We would rather have your prayers, thoughts, advice, and support than worry about anything bad that COULD happen.
So here is where I leave you for now. I will be keeping you all updated very frequently as I will start having frequent appointments with the high risk doctor in a few weeks. I have another ultrasound next week! One of Troy's co-workers wife had triplets last month and he gave me her contact info. We spent almost 2 hours on the phone and I'm sure she will be a WONDERFUL source of support and advice.
While I know the overall tone of this email is somber, we are very excited about our family growing. We are feeling very blessed and our families have been SO supportive. We just have a lot to consider and plan for the unexpected while we can :)
So on saturday, March 16th, all was well. Troy, Kristen (who was visiting), Avery, and I went to a family appreciation day at Creech with Troy. There was a tour of the new facility that his squadron is moving into and a BBQ, complete with bouncy castles and sunscreen (because is was 90 degrees that day).
Everything was peachy. In fact, here is a picture of us, all looking normal, and Avery looking adorable.
Kristen and I went and saw "Safe Haven" that night, because, hello?? Whenever we're together, we always go see a movie with man candy (in this case Josh Duhamel).
On sunday morning, I woke up around 430 in some pretty bad pain. I went downstairs and got comfy in one of the recliners and watched Pitch Perfect. When I got up to go take a shower and get ready for church, I looked like this...NO kidding:
We were all shocked. I looked about 5 months pregnant. I gained 11 pounds overnight. I wasn't in a super amount of pain, BUT I was more worried about what I looked like and answering questions about "when are you due?" and "wow, are you having a boy or a girl?" That seemed like the cruelest part of the whole deal. I looked pregnant and wasn't.
Kristen and I went and got pedicures after church, which turned out to be a great decision, because I ended up spending a HUGE amount of time in a hospital gown/with swollen feet/getting ultrasounds in the next week.
I started getting uncomfortable, having more pain, and having a hard time breathing with all the fluid build up in my abdomen. So, sunday night, Troy and I headed to the ER at Nellis. I got an abdominal ultrasound, a pelvic ultrasound, a heart ultrasound, and a chest xray. Part of the danger with OHSS is the dehydration of your body while it pumps fluid into your abdomen (trying to heal your ovaries) and then your blood thickens up and you can get a clot (in your heart, lungs, brain, etc). My blood levels weren't looking great. My ovaries were 10cm and 12 cm (almost 5-6 inches each) and I had a bit of fluid around my heart and lungs. Ughhhhhhh. They sent me home with pain meds and a follow up the next morning with my fertility specialist. They had given me morphine while I was there for pain. I threw up in the street for about 5 minutes when we got home. No more morphine for me. We are not friends.
I got up monday morning and got ready for work. I weighed myself. 6 more pounds... and went to my appointment. They gave me a note to be on "light duty" at work. I gave my note to my boss and she took one look at me and sent me home. I wasn't allowed to work until this was resolved. Awesome.
I kept getting bigger and bigger. I gained 8 more pounds by tuesday.
I kept eating my high sodium and drinking gatorade. It was awful. The electrolyte drinks were all so sweet and syrupy. I tried the Pedialyte. It was SO gross. All the pain medication, salty food, and high protein was making me so constipated. I seriously started to feel like I was dying. And I felt this feeling of SO much hopelessness. I felt like I was NEVER going to shrink back. My skin hurt SO bad.
I couldn't pick up Avery. I couldn't hardly eat because my body was so swollen that there was no room in my stomach for anything. And I wasn't peeing. AT ALL. Like downing fluid, and NOTHING. All fluids straight into my belly. I could feel like skin stretching every time I ate or drank anything. I couldn't sleep because my belly would flop over and pull all my organs over. It is SO different than pregnancy, where it's all hard and baby. The pressure was building and my kidneys were getting CRUSHED. My lower back was killer.
The swelling started to spread. I wasn't allowed to wear pants. Troy was rubbing my back and he said I looked like Quasimodo because the fluid was pushing my back out at the bottom. It was CRAAAZY. My hips, butt, thighs, and knees tripled in size and none of my maternity clothes fit.
Wednesday night was the worst. WORST. I woke up around 11pm DYING. Like pain worse than labor. Crying. Screaming. Writhing in bed. Troy holding me down. Me punching him. He loaded me in the car and we went to the ER. Again.
We walked in and they thought I was in labor...I was that big and uncomfortable. Until we told them what was going on. Some of the same nurses/doctors were there from sunday night and they remembered us. They immediately gave me an IV and loaded me up with dilaudid. Thank you Jesus for dilaudid. And Zofran. They redid the pelvic ultrasound to see if my ovaries had changed (same size) and look at my abdominal fluid (there was way more). They sent me home with percocet and zofran. And another follow up with my specialist. My lab work was worse. I was taking the max dosage for pain meds every 4 hours and it was not helping.
On thursday, my fertility doc told me to wait it out through the weekend and if I was not getting better by monday, he would recommend the paracentesis to drain the fluid.
Needless to say, it was not getting better.
Sunday night, Troy told me that I was bigger that night than I was the day I delivered Avery. He was helping me in and out of bed, on and off the toilet and with showers. It was awwwwwwwful.
This is Sunday night. I was SOOOOOOO swollen.
This is me, the morning I went to Nellis for the paracentesis. And up 31 pounds in a week.
We had to wait for a bit. The doctor who checked us in at Nellis was like, "I do this procedure all the time, hold up a second and we'll have this done in a few minutes." He was contracted and didn't realize Nellis procedure for performing a paracentesis and we had to wait on the interventionist radiologist to do the procedure.
I was feeling like SUPER poop and Troy was trying to make me laugh. They told me my liver enzymes were not so great from taking all the pain meds and I needed to stop taking anything with tylenol in it. So no more percocet.
We finally got everything in order (6 hours later) and were set up in a small procedure room in the ER for the paracentesis. The doctor was WONDERFUL. He ultrasounded my belly to looked for an area where he wouldn't poke bowel, ovary, stomach, or liver. He used lidocaine to numb my skin (OUCH) and then put in the catheter to start draining the fluid out of my belly. He guessed he would remove about 2-3 liters. In the picture below, you can see where the needle is in my skin, how he pumped out the fluid manually, and then the bag (which is a 2 liter bag). The bag was emptied twice and he had me roll onto my side to move more fluid towards the drain. He ended up removing 4.5 liters of fluid. SURPRISE!!!
The hole WOULD NOT plug. I had fluid in a constant drip coming out of my belly from about 3 pm until I went to bed at 10. SO MUCH gauze. They sent us home with gauze, tape and absorbent pads for leaking. Gross.
That night, we were worried about leaking all over the bed, so Troy fashioned me an absorbent diaper. Luckily, during the night, the leaking stopped and no damage was done to our mattress or sheets :)
Since the procedure, I have been feeling 100000000% better. With WAY less pain. My abdominal muscles are trashed. A human body shouldn't go from normal to 10+ mo preggo in a week. I'm lucky I made it out with no stretch marks. I'm so vain. I'm also lucky that my friend, Kristen was here and Troy's parents were here to help with Avery. Ughhhhhh. I have an appointment at Nellis next week for another draining. They are guessing the fluid will come back. I hope not. I started having increased kidney function. So hopefully I'll just pee the fluid out now.
What are the odds of this happening? It happens to a 10th of a percent. A TENTH OF A PERCENT. Very uncommon. Odds were not in my favor. Or were they? Should I buy a lottery ticket? Or avoid skydiving?
My mom is here now because I'm still supposed to be on bedrest and I can't pick up Avery. Poor baby doesn't understand :( Love her.
