starting here.
When we got pregnant and found out we were having triplets, I decided to start writing things down. Feelings I had, complications we faced because I thought one day I might need to look back, or the babies might want to and learn about their journey into life. So, this most comes from that writing. Its nothing new, its nothing from the heart right now, its what happened when it was happening. Looking back on it, its crazy to remember where our babies A, B and C started and they sure showed their personalities from the start.
January 13, 2020 – Turunen Twins?
Our first ultrasound was with our fertility doctor, Dr. Fritz. Boy did I like this man, his wisdom and calm demeanor made the whole fertility and baby process such a breeze. He looked on the ultrasound and said to us yep looks like there is a baby in there, in fact there is two. My breath stopped and I looked at Kris who just started laughing. You see, we had this feeling we could have two and our friends had been making jokes about it for the past 2 weeks. So as much of a shock as two babies were, it was also kind of funny at the same time. Dr. Fritz showed us our photos, told us it was a result of 2 eggs being released and set us up for a follow up appointment with him the following week.
January 20, 2020 – Or so we thought….
Our second ultrasound with Dr. Fritz will forever be the day that changed my life. We went in just to be sure the pregnancy was progressing as it should and our “twins” were growing at the correct rate. Following this, he planned to send us back to our regular OB and we would move on with our fraternal twin pregnancy. But in the middle of the ultrasound Dr. Fritz got quiet… my mind told me he was just concentrating but what came out of his mouth next was just that and some. Dr. Fritz told us that baby A is growing well and baby B is growing at the same rate, but he does have to tell us that there is a third baby. We all were silent… he looked some more and sat back for second and looked at us. “We try to avoid this like the plague, I apologize for my demeanor but it just took my breath away. It the 15 years of private practice I’ve been here, this is the first time I’ve seen this.” The thing is… we didn’t conceive these triplets by IVF or a strenuous fertility treatment process, but they also weren’t completely natural. I took a month worth of letrozyl and some how our first try gave us 2 eggs that conceived fraternal twins, but one of those eggs split into two identical twins. Unlike myself, I just cried. I looked at him and couldn’t believe my ears. How can this be… how can I do this.. how can my body handle it.. and how can we get 3 healthy babies out of this? I’ll be honest – I didn’t take this news so well and I am so so grateful for Kris’s strength and support through our entire process. Dr. Fritz told me everything is going to be okay and he is sending us to his referred Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor to have a look. Apparently their ultrasound machines (the Porsche) can see the babies even better than the high tech one Dr. Fritz uses (the Mercedes). So for the following week, I spent my days honestly crying and hoping that nobody could find out until we knew what was happening.
January 28, 2020 - Who even has triplets?
Our first appointment at the big hospital took almost the entire day. Our first part of the day was spent in the ultrasound room. An hour and a half we spent looking at everything inside of my stomach and checking up on all 3 babies. This time they actually looked more like babies than blobs.. and the 4D ultrasound was amazing. Who knew you could see them as if they were sitting right out in front of you. I still didn’t have my head wrapped around 3 babies at this point, honestly it took weeks for that to happen. The ultrasound tech doesn’t say much, mostly we just get to spend the hour looking at them and watching their movements and of course hearing the heartbeat. We had all babies in the 160’s this time. After the ultrasound was when we got more information than we could take in. Our first meeting with the doctor on call told us that we may have an early heart defect in baby C… our hiding baby. The words were that.. we cant determine if there is a defect, but the heart and chest cavity don’t look as if we would normally see them. So what does that mean for us. . . first it was ok, well why? How did it happen, how can it happen? And she explained that this could be from a genetic disorder, or it could be from underdevelopment, we just don’t know at this point. She then moved on to talk about reduction. Reduction is something that you don’t think about when you go to have a baby, but in the multiple pregnancy world, its talked about in almost every other medical conversation. Reduction would reduce the negative results that could potentially happen from the risks of 3 babies. But how is this something you can just say yep go ahead and do it. It just wasn’t something I could do, so we opted for tons of testing and more appointments to see if something was wrong with this little babe.
February 14, 2020 – That dang CVS testing
Valentines Day. What a fun valentines day for Kris and I. We spent about 6 hours in a hospital room learning all about genetics and the type of testing we could get. With multiples, the information that you can learn through genetics testing can help determine how the rest of the pregnancy will turn out, so we opted to do the CVS. Let me tell you…. This was the worst pain I have ever experienced. When I say I was afraid of needles, I mean that I would pass out from a simple shot. CVS testing took needles to the next level. When we ready to do the testing we were told that they need to obtain the correct amount of sample and if they don’t they wont be able to test. First try…. Not enough. So lets do it again for babies B and C, second try was better. BUT we have triplets remember, so we still had another test to go. The process of CVS involves taking a huge needle and sticking it through my belly into the placenta and extracting a few cells. There is no anesthesia, no topical numbing, or anything to help with the pain. After the second poke, I needed some air and some food. Steve, our forever ultrasound tech was nice enough to bring me juice and cupcakes, it was valentines day remember. I ate up a cupcake, while Kris ate 5 haha! And got ready for another poke. One final stick and we were done. FINALLY. Kris was so sweet to find a place for valentines day dinner right afterwards, but little did we know they were sold out of seats 3 weeks prior, so our typical after appointment Panera it was. Next we just wait… wait for those results.
Late February 2020 – Those results and our BOYS
Those test results felt like they took FOREVER to get. Everyday I would check my email just hoping that something would come back. The deal was, we would get initial results within 3 days and then it would take 2 weeks to get the final genetic results. So after 3 days, I got a call and guess what…. the two pokes didn’t give them enough information to send for full genetic makeup on the twins. But it did tell us the most results of the biggest chromosomal issues that could happen and thankfully, our twinnies were clear. Phew. Not only that though, but they had the results of their gender! As you may know, identical twins will be the same gender and ours were sweet baby BOYS! Two matching boys to add to our lives and they were healthy. Hallelujah. Next we waited another 2 weeks for the results on our singleton. They were able to obtain enough sample and grow some more cells to send the single baby’s info off for more genetic tests. Finally, the day came and the results were perfect. There were zero concern with the baby’s genetic makeup, and he was absolutely perfectly healthy and guess what. Baby A was a BOY! Three baby boys. We didn’t get a baby girl out of this crazy life, but I will take my sweet healthy baby boys over anything.
March 15, 2020 – The Corona Crisis
We spent our days in March attending appointments every few weeks and just watching our babies grow. Whenever you are reading this, you might think of March 2020 as the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. It is a crazy world we live in with a sickness spreading like wildfire throughout the world. Covid, also known as the corona virus has turned everyone’s world upside down. I am talking a complete shutdown for the entire country. States have put out stay at home orders and everyone is restricted to their own homes, only allowing you to leave for essentials. What did this mean for us? Solo appointments. Super high risk pregnancy and I had to attend them alone.
April 2020 – Trigger Warning
As I mentioned, when you have high order multiple pregnancies, the question about reduction comes up often. And it was something throughout our pregnancy that we continued to hear. We were in the clear for a few weeks, the babies were growing, we were prepping for them and choosing names, announcing genders, planning parties but week 16 came around. Triple C has low amniotic fluid and is measuring 2 weeks behind. This makes our pregnancy even more high risk, not only for baby C but for A and B as well. If baby C doesn’t have enough fluid, I could miscarry or go into preterm labor. Our options? “The option of reduction may give the other 2 babies a safer chance and reduce their risk of prematurity and complications. This is something you will have to choose for yourself and for your family. Within the state of North Carolina, we have until about week 22 until this is no longer an option. You don’t need to decide now, we do still have some time. Talk to your husband, take the weekend to think about it and we will see you again next week.” I am an extremely practical person, I understood that the decision to reduce would be a lifelong decision that would probably always be, “what if” but on the other hand, I also completely understood that if baby C is unhealthy, the risk to babies A and B could be significant. So what did we do…. We waited and we continued to wait, week after week after week. Every week we, I…because of Covid I was ALWAYS alone, went into the appointments to get fluid levels and measurements on sweet baby C and every week we were right there, just hanging on. That was enough for us, enough for us to say we are still going to wait, because we are fighting for our baby C. And as we found out early on, baby C was fighting for us too.
May 2020 – Welcome to the World… a little too early.
On May 15 2020 we welcomed our babies into the world unexpectedly – 25 week triplets. An emergency c section and 45 minutes later at quarter after 3 in the afternoon. Baby A, Hayes Daniel, 1 pound 5 ounces. Baby B, Brooks Bradley, 1 pound 5 ounces. And Baby C, Max Ryan, 1 pound 3 ounces. In May 2020 we started our prematurity, NICU, congenital heart defect journey with Baby A Hayes, Baby B Brooks, and our mightiest baby from even before birth Baby C – Max.
