My Triplet Pregnancy

Long post alert!  Beware. :)

I got a positive pregnancy test on March 21, 2013. You may be wondering how I remember that exact date. Well it's a big deal that your life is going to be turned upside down in a matter of months by becoming a parent, but the truth is that it was 2 days before my friend, Jacqui's, wedding in Charleston, SC. I was a bridesmaid and was wondering how to mask the fact that I wasn't going to be drinking at this super fun, BIG, awesome occasion. During this stage in life, if you don't already have kids and aren't drinking, conclusions are made! Since this was our first pregnancy, I was a little nervous and wanted to follow the 12 week announcement protocol. Luckily a lot of my friends have kids and have passed great advice around over the years about how to hide early pregnancy and tricks of the trade. Needless to say, the wedding was FABULOUS, I made it through without much, if any, suspicion, and was very proud of myself for partying it up on the dance floor ALL night and staying until the very end. We did bail on the after party at the bar though. It was time to go to bed!  I wish I had a dance floor pic to post but alas, I did not bring my camera.  Managed to get this one from FB though...

Jacqui's wedding day :)

Another interesting event of those first few weeks after the positive test was our big vacation to Dominican Republic with #teamDR, aka Heather and Walker Young. We made travel plans months and months before and did not think at all that we might be preggers! Of course the resort was all-inclusive and Thomas made a point to tell me that it had ten bars.  Really, babe?!?!?!  I really want to know how many bars it has where I can go and order a bottled water!  It took Thomas a second to realize what he had just said.  We were both getting used to the news haha! Before we left for the trip I called my OB to get clearance to travel, looked up foods pregnant people shouldn't eat, etc. The eating thing should be easy, but if you're in a foreign country that is Spanish speaking and don't know how to translate "pasteurized", it becomes a little harder! :) I was a little paranoid, this being the first pregnancy and all, so I drank a lot of bottled water and ate a lot of salads. This is awesome at an all-inclusive Carribbean resort (insert sarcasm). Anyway, in an effort to once again maintain the 12 week announcement protocol, we made up a lame story about why I wasn't drinking there and although I am sure they had their thoughts and theories, the Youngs were very gracious and let it go for the week. We had a wonderful time and hope we can take a big family vacation with them and their future children in upcoming years (or even possibly another adult vacay....babysitters, anyone?!?) haha!

We got back from the Dominican on April 7 and my ultrasound appointment was April 8. We went to the appointment and were so nervous to see if our pregnancy was the real deal. I didn't "feel" pregnant and didn't have any pregnancy symptoms and was concerned that I would miscarry.  I am paranoid. We ended up getting more news than we bargained for.  We were TOTALLY shocked to hear that we were having triplets! Despite what I am sure are assumed first thoughts from most people, these babies are not the product of IVF or any sort of medical "procedure"! You can imagine how caught off guard we were at our appointment. I could not even speak. Thomas dove into some nervous, "I don't know what to say" type of laugh and immediately grabbed my hand and told me it would be ok. My first thoughts turned to, "how are we possibly going to be able to do this" and, "we have no family in town and are on our own"....help! Thomas kept saying that God doesn't give you more than you can handle and spent a lot of time and energy trying to reassure me. The doctor explained to us that we would have appointments with my regular OB (for you Greenville people, I saw Dr. Beck at Piedmont and she is incredible...and beautiful!!!) as well as a Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM)/high risk doctor, which is standard for high order multiples pregnancies.

We spent several weeks trying to adjust to the news and start thinking and planning for the future. This involved a lot of crying (for me), emotional ups and downs, financial analysis, blog reading,  googling, and quite a few sleepless nights for me since I am a worrier by nature!

During the first trimester, we had no issues at all with the pregnancy and I was cruising right along. I mean, there was no morning sickness, I was not feeling tired, none of the normal first trimester complaints! What a blessing! I took this to mean that God did indeed have these triplets in His plan for us and was giving me some reprieve.  The babies were growing well and I was gaining weight appropriately. It all was pretty much a miracle, based on what I hear are typical first trimesters with multiples. I could spend an entire blog post on gaining weight, nutrition for triplet pregnancies, etc but suffice it to say that it takes a lot of vitamin supplements, extra calories, eating every 2 hours, daily Ensure drinks, and protein, protein, protein! The more weight the Mom gains the bigger and healthier the babies will be. Goodbye, vanity! 

I was told that a typical triplet pregnancy goes to 32 weeks (a full term pregnancy is 40 weeks).  My OB told me that the longest that they would let me go was 34 weeks, since carrying triplets is very strenuous on the mom's body.  I took this news to mean that I would have the babies somewhere between 32 weeks (the average!!!) - 34 weeks (longest I would be allowed to carry the babies), which in my case was early to mid-October.  When people would ask when they were "due", I would answer that I would probably deliver in October, which is earlier than their end of November full-term due date.  I had no doubts about this because I considered myself to be healthier than the "average" person and my pregnancy was going so well that it seemed like my body was ready to take on this big challenge and of course I would make it to at least the average gestation for triples.  My MFM told me about a lot of issues that I could face during this pregnancy due to the increased risks of having triplets - preeclampsia, nutritional deficiencies, incompetent cervix, gestational diabetes, and so on.  He also mentioned that I was at a disadvantage having never been pregnant before since my uterus had never been previously stretched out and it was going to be stretched further than what it was designed for.  In addition, my semi-petite stature would not do as well as someone that is taller and bigger in general.  Despite these warnings, which made me break down each time I heard them, I just didn't think I would be afflicted with any of these issues.  There were also some serious concerns about the babies.  I knew that pre-term babies are not fully developed, but felt fairly comfortable that my babies would continue growing in utero and although they would most likely have to go to the NICU, they would be doing well and would be released shortly after.  I just knew that we would have the healthiest 32 - 34 week preemies ever.  Of course we would, because my pregnancy had been so super easy and healthy! :) 

All was well until I hit around 22 weeks gestation.  I had been out of town 3 times in the last 2 weeks and was feeling just fine.  I was trying not to "do too much" and rest a lot but the problem with that is that you feel absolutely fine until you don't, and then it's too late.  All of a sudden I started feeling uncomfortable, but thought that pregnancy was starting to catch up to me.  All pregnant women feel uncomfortable at some point and obviously with triplets I would begin to feel uncomfortable sooner than a singleton pregnancy.  Totally normal, right?!?!?  Since the time I announced my pregnancy at work, I had tried not to be too needy and just "keep on keeping on".  That being said, the morning I went to work on the Monday I was 22 weeks and 1 day (7/22/13) and told my boss and our facility manager that I thought I might need a reserved parking spot near the door where I entered.  It was getting too hard to park way out in the back of the parking lot and walk (sounds lazy, huh!!) and when I was going to all my appointments during the middle of the day, the close parking spots were all taken.  That same morning, I called my OB and left a message for the nurse letting her know that I was just feeling "uncomfortable" and wanted to make sure all was OK.  She called me back and said that everything was probably fine, but just to be on the safe side to come in the office that afternoon and they would work me in.  I went to the appointment that afternoon and my ultrasound showed everything was just fine!  Then I had to get checked by the Doctor, who proceeded to tell me that she thought I was slightly dialated.  Wait, what was that???  Dialated???  Not so fast, my friend.  That couldn't be right!  I was only 22 weeks 1 day and I had a cerclage (stitch to help prevent early dialation).  She asked when my next appointment with the MFM was scheduled, which was set for the following Monday.  She calmly mentioned that she thought I should be seen sooner than a week, perhaps the next day.  At this point, it was 5:00 PM and the MFM office would be closed and it was too late to call them.  She said the secretary would call MFM the following morning and let me know my appointment time. I got a call at 9:00 AM the next morning. I had just gotten to work shortly before and had gotten into my email, reports, etc. and wasn't really expecting to hear anything for a few hours.  I was surprised but answered my phone and the secretary asked me how quickly I could get to the MFM office.  This should have thrown me for a loop, but in my typical obtuseness, I just answered that I could get there in about 30 minutes.  She followed up by saying that my appointment would be set for 9:30 and I should head over there.  Ummmm, OK.  Will do.  I sent my team at worked a quick email saying that I had an appointment come up and that I would be back ASAP.  Then I IM'ed my husband to see if he wanted to go to the appointment with me (we work at the same company in the same office...very convenient! :).  I didn't hear back from him quickly enough so I logged out of my computer and went out to my car.  Before I pulled out of the parking lot, he came running out and flagged me down.  THANK GOODNESS!  He had gotten my IM and was a little concerned and thought that he should try to come to this appointment with me.  I cannot explain how relieved I was in the long run that this happened and he was able to come.  Anyway, we drive to the MFM office and wait for at least 30 minutes, which made me feel like nothing was too worrisome or they wouldn't make me wait.  Was this my mind trying to tell me that everything was OK?!?!?  Probably so.  I had another ultrasound and everything again looked fine. Deep sigh of relief.  All this work up for nothing.  The tech told me the Doctor wanted to hook me up to the contraction machine just to check and we walked over to a different room. A nurse got me hooked up and told me to just relax.  Ok, no problem.  Thomas and I were just sitting there and he kept telling me not to look at the contraction monitor and making small talk.  The nurse returned shortly and told me that I was contracting every 2 minutes.  She explained that was way too much for what they want to see at 22 weeks and 2 days gestation.  I could not believe it.  How in the world was I contracting every 2 minutes?!?!?!  I couldn't feel the contractions at all.  I just had an overall uncomfortable feeling, no cramping, no sharp back pain, no urge to scream out.  Apparently, these were not strong contractions, but were contractions none the less.  My MFM doctor came in and told me that this stage was not great and that I needed to go to the hospital for admission ASAP.  To say that Thomas and I were floored is an understatement.  We Could. Not. Believe we were going to the hospital.  Like I said, I was cruising along with no issues!  How was this possible?!?!  We were both so scared, nervous, and worried.  We were unsure about what this news meant, what the next steps were, how "in danger" this pregnancy was and our heads were spinning.  I'm pretty sure I started crying and my heart was racing.  I was so glad that Thomas was there with me.  If I had been by myself I think I would have really lost it!  We checked out at MFM and headed to the hospital...

...this story is to be continued on the "Bed Rest" post.

Here are my pregnancy pics week by week up to week 21.

Week 13

Week 14

Week 15

Week 16

Week 17

Week 18

Week 19

Week 19

Week 20

Week 21

Somehow I missed Week 22...oops!

Movin' on up

Our babies are 7 weeks old today. Time really flies!

The great news of the day and the reason for the title of this post is that all three boys have been upgraded to NICU 2! That means that they're one step closer to coming home! We still have several weeks at least, but this is wonderful news!

NICU 2 has separate rooms for the babies, instead of just pods. It's more relaxed over here because the babies here aren't as intensive as the babies in NICU 1. The babies here are more stable and the nurses don't have to intervene quite as much.

Here is what Stokes & Ryan's room looks like. Ryan on the left & Stokes on the right.

William is sharing a room with another baby. I snapped a picture of his room for you as well. Unfortunately the lights were out so you can't see it very well. :(

Pictures are blurry because my phone was inside a plastic baggie (NICU rules...shhh...we sometimes cheat with this rule).

If you were observant or looked really closely at the picture of Stokes & Ryan's room, you may have noticed another change. Ryan is in an open air crib! That's 2 big changes for Ryan today (changing cribs and the move to NICU 2)!

Doesn't he look sweet???

Thomas fed Ryan and I fed Stokes with bottles for their 3:00 feeding this afternoon. They both did really well and took their whole bottles. William will get a bottle during his 9:00 pm feeding. The hardest part for me is definitely burping the babies! I can't tell if they burped or not due to all the grunts and coos and noises they make! 

On another note, Thomas and I officially became members of Advent United Methodist Church today. We have attended church there for a while and started the process to become members earlier this summer. Unfortunately, we weren't able to become members at that time because I was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital on bed rest. So anyway, we joined Advent, the boys moved to NICU 2, we got to see several family members over the weekend and it's been a great couple of days!

Bottle feedings

On Wednesday of this week I gave Stokes a bottle for the first time and he drank 10 cc's. Yesterday Thomas gave Ryan a bottle and the nurse gave Stokes a bottle and they each had 20 cc's. Today they each took a full feeding (40 cc's) and the nurse gave William a bottle for the first time. He took 6 cc's for his first attempt and got the remainder through his feeding tube. 

Here's the deal with feeding. It's something the boys have to learn to do but it's difficult for them. It takes a lot of coordination to suck, swallow and breathe. In addition it's a lot of work for these little guys so it tends to wear them out. For a bottle feeding, we have to be aware of the time. The goal is to finish in 20 minutes but we can use up to 30 minutes, and that includes burping. We absolutely cannot go over half an hour because at that point they are expending too much energy. While bottle feeding we try to read the baby's cues to make sure they are ok. We try to see that they're swallowing and breathing and not getting too stressed out. We periodically check the monitors to make sure their heart rate isn't dropping or elevating too much and that their oxygen saturation is at a good level. If anything seems out of whack we take the bottle out of their mouth and give them a little break. 

Initially we just introduced the boys to a bottle but now we are trying to do full feeds. To start out they can take 1 bottle feeding per day. Once they have taken a full feeding for 2 days in a row, we can move them up to 2 bottle feedings a day. Once they take both of those full feedings for 2 days in a row, they go to every other feeding and then every feeding (they "eat" every 3 hours so they have 8 feedings per day). The difficult thing is that you can get stuck at one of these levels and not be able to move forward. In addition, as soon as you get the baby to take a full feeding the doctors or nurses may decide to add, say, 5 more cc's to their feeding amount. The more milk they get, the harder it is to get them to comfortably take the whole feeding within 30 min. It is very common to take a step forward just to take a step back during this process . So far so good for the Peery boys, but Thomas and I understand that we will probably have some setbacks or get stuck somewhere along the line.

Pictures of Thomas holding William today

Weekly alligator pictures (taken this evening):

Stokes

Ryan

William

Let's hear it for the boys

Remember that song from the '80s? I love it. Anyway.....

All three boys are over FOUR POUNDS! William finally made it over the hump with a whopping weight gain last night! 

Current weights:

Stokes - 4 lb, 5.8 oz

Ryan - 4 lb, 7.6 oz

William - 4 lb, 2.4 oz

Guess what...William is on low flow oxygen! He got upgraded from high flow to low flow earlier today. We are so proud of the progress he has made!

Ryan is still on low flow as well but I don't think he will be on it much longer. He is doing great and will probably return to room air soon.

Stokes is keeping himself on room air and doing great. His nurse, Kathleen, and I introduced him to a bottle tonight. Bottle feeding is another task that the boys will have to master before coming home. From what I understand it's quite an arduous task for NICU babies. You wouldn't think it would be very hard for them to drink from a bottle but combining sucking, swallowing and breathing is very difficult for a preemie. The goal is for them to take the bottle without dropping their heart rate AND continuing to breathe. So you may be wondering how Stokes did tonight. The answer is that he did awesome! He took 10 cc's from the bottle and took breaks to gulp and breathe. We were just trying it out tonight and gave him 10 cc's out of the 40 he takes with each feeding. Since this was a trial and we didn't want to wear him out, he got the remaining 30 cc's through his feeding tube. This was my first experience with bottle feeding and I didn't know what to expect, but Kathleen assured me that he did really well! Go Stokes! I am going to try a bottle with Ryan tomorrow. 

Pics of our first bottle feeding:

I will do another post later that talks about the long process and the progressions of feeding and why this part is so challenging for the babies and the families. 

I haven't asked for specific prayers lately, but want to ask that you thank God for all the progress the boys have made thus far and ask him to continue pouring His blessings on the Peery triplets. We still have a long road ahead of us and need God's help to stay on the right track. Thanks, y'all!

Together again and it feels so good

Today was AWESOME! Thomas and I show up at the NICU and the boys' nurses tell us that we are going to do a photo shoot with all three babies. We were so excited!!!! The nurses got a bouncy seat set up, created a "background" with a sheet and got the blankets with the boys' names on them and set them in order (baby a, b, then c). I was so happy to see how they would react to each other. They were so funny! We drew quite a crowd of nurses and doctors that wanted to get a look at the boys. There were a lot of giggles, oohs and ahhs and Thomas and I were so proud! 

Stokes, who is usually our fussiest baby, was comfortable and happy and didn't make a peep. Ryan is typically very chill and today was no exception. He was calm and laid back, although we couldn't get him to keep his arms and hands down. William didn't love the photo shoot but he tolerated it pretty well. You can tell he looks kind of red because he was just a little grumpy. It was so great to see them all together! They seemed so natural together and unphased by each other. This is literally the first time they've been all together since they were born on August 25. BEHOLD!!! :)

Stokes on left (baby A), Ryan in middle (baby B), and William on left (baby C)

Stokes & Ryan with arms in same position

Family of 5!

William was telling Ryan a secret

Lots of feet!

Mom holding all 3 boys

Dad holding all 3 boys

We took lots of pictures, had a lot of laughs and enjoyed and cherished these moments. God is good! We are blessed :)

Progress

I love coming to the NICU and getting good reports and news on the boys! Yep, we've got someone getting better with breathing and a couple of 4 pounders! Here are the recent updates.

As of today William is off CPAP and back on high flow! Woooo hoooo!!!! So far he's handling it really well and I am so hopeful that he's done with CPAP for good! He currently weighs 3 lb, 11.9 oz.

Pic of him from yesterday while on a CPAP break:

Dad holding William tonight:

Ryan is having a good day today. He is Mr. Steady and rarely has bad days. His nurse has adjusted the temp in his isolette down to 28.8 C. Once it gets adjusted to 28 C flat, he can move to an open air crib instead of an isolette. That will be awesome and seems to me like a major step in the right direction. He currently weighs 4 lb, 0.5 oz. Big boy!

I held Ryan yesterday and here are some of the pictures.

Smiley*, happy baby

*I know they say that babies this young aren't actually smiling, but I refuse to believe that! ;)

Stokes is doing well today also. He got a new, clean isolette after creating a "code brown" this afternoon. I will let you use your imagination about what that is! While his bed was being switched out, I got to hold him and he was super sweet for me. He currently weighs 4 lb, 0.8 oz. Another big boy!

As promised, we are going to take weekly pictures of the boys with their new alligators so we can track how big they're getting in comparison to something. Thanks to Shea for these cute alligators! The boys love them! Notice the bandanas with their names on them.

Stokes

William

Ryan

Code Orange

CODE ORANGE. No, I am not referring to Clemson football (good guess though!). There was a FIRE in the NICU today. Most importantly no one was hurt & all the babies are ok, thank God, but it has made for a very eventful day! Apparently a computer caught on fire in NICU 2. NICU 2 is a step up from NICU 1, where we are. We will graduate to NICU 2 at some point before the boys come home. Anyway, the battery in the computer exploded and caught on fire. My nurse said that it sounded like gun shots were being fired as the battery was exploding.  The fire alarm was going off, the fire trucks came & I'm sure lots of people were freaking out. They announced that there was a "code orange in the NICU" on the intercom throughout the hospital. By the time I got here the fire was out and the smoke was gone, but we have several NICU 2 babies here in NICU 1, industrial fans trying to clear the air and a general sense of drama over the events of the day. 

I am so thankful that my babies weren't affected by the fire and that all the babies and staff are just fine! 

The bad news is that I can't open their isolettes and touch them today. We don't want any toxins to get in and upset or harm their sensitive respiratory systems. I had planned to hold Ryan today and take some cute pictures of each of the boys with their new alligator stuffed animals. I am really missing my quality time with my babies today and it feels strange to be here just looking at them without being able to touch them and put my hands on their warm little bodies. Hopefully tomorrow everything will be cleared out so that we can go back to our usual routine. I can't wait to hold them again!

Stay tuned for their cute alligator pictures! They are coming soon!