Hi,

This is really difficult for me, as I have not been in this forum since before everything started. I used to come to the Triplet Connection to ask all my questions about my spontaneous triplet pregnancy and how to care for our three boys whose arrival we were eagerly awaiting....It is so hard for me to post now, on the other side of things - having just lost all three.

We had just went in for our routine appt and ultrasound. They were doing the anatomy ultrasound. I was 18 weeks 2 days then - it was January 29, 2008...We were so excited to see how they were growing. The week before, I had called and went in to be checked because I thought I was having contractions. This being my first pregnancy, I was unsure exactly what contractions felt like, so I wanted to be extra safe... My cervix had shortened from 3.4 to 3.0 at that point, but the doctor was not concerned because I was still closed. However, I was concerned because of the shortening....About a week later, when we came in for the anatomy ultrasound and routine appt, everything looked fine until she ck'd the fluid on our identicals - Jacob and Noah. The sonographer thought it looked a little uneven, so I started worrying about that. In the meantime, she said to wait until the doctor came in, and she went on to check my cervix.

Instead of telling us anything after she checked my cervix, she said, I have to call the doctor in....Then I freaked out....Started crying and knew it wasn't good....The doctor came in to ck on his own, and said that my cervix was "immeasurable" and I was 1 cm dilated. I had to be admitted immediately. I was so scared. My DH and I went through the admitting process in a fog, and when we got to my room - they brought me straight into labor and delivery - they hooked me up to that awful monitor and I was having very regular contractions that I couldn't even feel. All the doctors said they thought I was going to deliver that night.

The night passed, and the contractions slowed down. After a couple days of waiting and not much going on, the doctors decided to put me upstairs on the Stable/High Risk floor. I was still confused about contractions, and what they felt like....I spent a lot of time in the hospital trying to figure that out - and too much time spent was with that stupid monitor wrapped around my waist!!

About one week later, I had an ultrasound down where I usually had them when I came in for my routine appts...No one was with me because they were unable to schedule this ultrasound. My husband was still at work, and my Mom was too... The babies looked fine, but my cervix still had no length to it...This sonographer called the doctor in, too - argh!!! and he had to do an exam right away. He couldn't even see my cervix because the membranes from our fraternal baby A - Isaiah - were already bulging through my vagina. As soon as he told me that - I freaked out - he said I was at great risk for infection now and that I had to be moved back to the labor and delivery floor immediately - that everything was just a matter of time, and that if I developed an infection, we would have to deliver all three because my life would be at risk at that point, and the babies were not even viable yet.

Almost instantly, I started having real contractions - this time I could feel them - they were so painful and in my back and front. It was awful....I cried and cried as I was wheeled by a nurse who just didn't know what to say back to my room to be moved...My mom came, then my husband as I was being moved...

That night, after a couple hours of painful contractions, Isaiah's water broke. I remained in that labor and delivery room to deliver our Baby A - little precious Isaiah, but he didn't come....

The next morning, a doctor came in to check my cervix. It had closed. They watched me for some time in that room - closely due to my increased risk for infection now that Isaiah's water had broken. We had a few more ultrasounds over the next days - the babies' hearts were still beating, the twins' slower than before - but the doctor said they were all normal....Poor Isaiah had lost his fluid, but he was still kicking away. My contractions slowed down right after my water had broken that night before, and they almost seemed to stop the next day. I had occasional contractions here and there, but the doctors and nurses started calling it "uterine irritability" instead. I had a really calm, restful night and a peaceful morning - my husband was with me. I felt rested and actually said to him, "Maybe God was preparing me for the work that is to come."

....Later that afternoon, when I woke up from a nap, I began having contractions again. Still, they moved me back up to the Stable/High Risk floor within hours as they needed the rooms on the L&D floor and couldn't really tell what was going on with me. We got back upstairs, and my contractions started to become painful and more frequent as the night went on. I asked the nurse to hook me up to the monitor, but she couldn't pick up my contractions. I asked her to move the belt a few times, and did it myself too, but we could not get it in a good place...She came in a little later, and said, "Well, looks like not much is going on and we can take you off the monitor!" And I said, "What?!! Are you kidding me? I'm in pain...They're getting worse, and are every 4 or 5 minutes now. Can you please call a doctor?" It took a while for a doctor to come up, but when one finally did, she checked my cervix and I was dilated 2 cm... I was sent right back down to labor and delivery!

That night I began labor is very blurry for me....I was contracting for hours - not sure how long I was pushing. I had also developed an infection and had a fever of 102....They began antibiotics right away... At that point, we knew we were going to lose them all...Our three little angels.... Our precious Isaiah, alone in his sac with no fluid, was stuck back first, curled up in a ball, in my vagina. It was so painful, I didn't know what was going on or why there was so much pain. I had an epidural put in, but was still having pain. They administered more pain meds through my IV which helped. I didn't think I was going to survive the labor. It was very scary. I had thought through my whole pregnancy that I was going to deliver our three boys via c-section. I had never been pregnant, and didn't know anything about a vaginal delivery. This whole thing was just so scary. We had this wonderful doctor who helped move the babies around to try to help the delivery process....I just had to start really pushing, and she said she wasn't sure that Isaiah was even going to come out all in one piece - but he did - about 9 hours later, at around 5:30am the next morning, I delivered Isaiah - our Baby A - our fraternal twin, who had lost his fluid, and gone through a traumatic delivery. He had no heartbeat.

The doctors and nurses let me rest a couple hours, and then I delivered our identicals, Jacob and Noah around 7:30am. Jacob still had a heartbeat, but Noah had none. I held each of them. And cannot include any more details because I am still so sad and heartbroken...Talking/sharing this story is heart-wrenching, but I know that so many of you here must have been through similar experiences...Can anyone relate to this? I don't know what I am looking for, this is still all so new to me - it was only 10 days ago today, but it feels still like it was just yesterday.

I am still so sad and confused - my screen name - that's exactly how we saw this pregnancy - our first pregnancy with three naturally conceived boys all at once - we thought God was really blessing us. We didn't think there was a way that this could happen, but it did. And we are so sad....

I am sorry if I upset anyone....I just wanted to share at the only place I knew I could share with other moms of triplet angels.

Momma to Our Three Little Angels in Heaven - Isaiah, Jacob, and Noah
delivered at 19 weeks 5 days
February 8, 2008

Kat --

Please don't ever apologize for upsetting anyone. You have been through a pain that is worse than anything imaginable, and you have nothing to apologize for or explain.

I often explain to others that losing a set of triplets is so much more than losing a baby. It's losing three babies, their togetherness, their tripletness, their built-in playmate-ness, your status to the world as a mother of triplets (you are, but you will never be recognized as such by "an outsider"), when it's your first pregnancy, you also lose your entire family (especially if you thought this was to be your first and last pregnancy). You also lost the "ease" of delivering by c-section -- AND to add further insult to further injury, you had to do the hard labor and get NOTHING but pain on the outside. You also get the joy (sarcasm there) of bringing home several bouquets of flowers from the hospital instead of bringing home any of the children you've been loving and knowing since they were conceived. It's SO MUCH MORE than losing a child (which is not in any way meant to diminish the pain from the loss of any child -- not at all).

It's been four years since I went through an incredibly similar saga that ended with our loss of West, Keaton and Rebecca.

As you described the loss of your children, I was taken right back to that horrible time 10 days after our loss. My pain was so raw then -- so raw I didn't even realize how immense it was because I was in too much pain to feel (if that makes sense).

A lot of loss moms on this site helped me through those incredibly tough days. Sadly, there are a lot of us who have lost entire sets. You are not alone. If it helps at all right now, please know that all but one of the 20+ loss moms I know have gone on to have subsequent children (through pregnancy or adoption or both). Those children cannot ever "replace" your first children, but they can heal that need for family and fill many of the places left empty in your heart.

You have a long road ahead -- filled with a lot of pain and sorting through it all (I will not sugar coat this journey).

Some things that will help include:

There's a book called "Empty Cradle, Broken Heart" -- I tell people to open to a page and start identifying (you might want to skip the preface poems, as they can be a bit much to take). This book really helped me to understand 1) how NOT alone I was in this and 2) how my feelings were actually very normal.

The March of Dimes has a site for loss parents .. http://www.marchofdimes.com/pnhec/572.asp

LAMBS is a group on Yahoo groups for Loss of All in Multiple Birth -- everyone in the group has lost their entire set of multiples -- much easier than CLIMB (which has great information) because you don't have to listen to stories about survivors (one or two of a set who survived) which can be hard to face when you have no survivors.
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~cjenks/lambs.html to sign up.

Write write write. Write down everything you remember about your boys, how they looked, how they felt, how they smelled, what about them made you smile (I remember how much Rebecca looked like her dad), how you felt aside from the sorrow. These are things you will want to remember later on when the grief is less raw and they are things that are sooooooo easy to forget.

My heart is with you. Please know that you can contact me if you need to just vent or ask questions or whatever.

My best to you
Steff

^West Rogers^, ^Keaton Edward^, ^Rebecca Joy^ 1/6/04



Missing their sister ^Maria Jose^ 4/7/04-5/10/04

Thank you so much, everyone, for your kind responses and support.

Steff, I am so sorry you had to go through a very similar experience, but it felt so nice to read your response and have you actually say things that I have been feeling but have been unable to put to words yet...about losing three, and their "tripletness", etc...and all the dreams that go along with them being your first and last, or so I thought, pregnancy. And I do understand what you said about your pain being "so raw I didn't even realize how immense it was because I was in too much pain to feel (if that makes sense)" - I can completely identify with you on that....I think that's exactly where I may be right now. I just don't feel like going anywhere or doing anything....I just want to sleep all the time, and going anywhere takes quite a bit of effort. I can't even really listen to music yet because I'm afraid I'll just cry nonstop. I don't know how many times I've told my husband that I just want to be pregnant again, but with our three boys - I just wish we could have another chance with them....but I know that will never happen. Doesn't help that my milk came in and my breasts have been hard and sore for days now since I left the hospital. Just reminds me of how I'm supposed to be feeding my babies that I don't have.

Thanks for the resources - I think I will definitely ck out that LAMBS group. And I'd also love to hear your story, if you're willing to tell it....Did you personally get pregnant again? That is a whole other thing I'm worried about now....I don't know if I have an incompetent cervix, or if I just went into labor so early because there were three, or what... I have my follow-up appt in early March, so we will be asking tons of questions, but we know they can't give us straight answers on a lot of these things either.

Okay, thanks again....
With love, Kat

Momma to Our Three Little Angels in Heaven - Isaiah, Jacob, and Noah
delivered at 19 weeks 5 days
February 8, 2008

I am so so sorry for your loss. My heart breaks for you. My cousin had a story similiar to yours, and she lost her triplets one by one starting at 15 weeks until she lost her last one at 25 weeks. She had a cerclage put in, then taken out to deliver the first one, and then put back in to attempt to keep her other two babies cooking...unfortunately her first baby's placenta was not delivered completely and infection set in. Anyway, the point of the story is that she went on to have two perfectly healthy singletons with no complications or problems carrying them to term. I know she misses her angels daily, but like another poster said, she did go on to have more children and for her, her incompetent cervix during her triplet pregnancy did not pose a problem during her single pregnancies.

Again, I am so sorry that you are having to go through this.

Alice

GGG born 9/3/05 at 35w3d

Dear Alice,

Thank you so much for your reply...It is so good to hear of stories like your cousins'. Not the fact that she, too, lost her triplets, but that she was able to conceive and deliver two singletons without a problem afterwards....That gives me hope. Did she have a cerclage put in for her singleton pregnancies? Or was she just watched closely during those pregnancies, I wonder?

Thanks so much,
Kat

Momma to Our Three Little Angels in Heaven - Isaiah, Jacob, and Noah
delivered at 19 weeks 5 days
February 8, 2008

She put herself on bedrest during her first singleton pregnancy (not her doctor's orders) and was so anxious about it that she ended up on anti-anxiety meds for the majority of the pregnancy. No cerclage. She told me she'd never have any more children because she was so nervous throughout her singletn pregnancy that something would happen like with her triplet pregnancy. I won't lie, she was a wreck the whole time she was pregnant, BUT she really did have an uneventful pregnancy and delivered at about 37 weeks a big healthy boy who went home with her. When her boy was about 1.5 she started feeling awful...a flu that wouldn't quit...Surprise! She was 3 months pregnant. She didn't have time to stress over this one, and had a wonderful baby girl about a year ago. Again, an uneventful pregnancy.

I hope that you DO have hope! I know how hard life was for her when she lost the tripets, and I dreaded telling her that I was pregnant with triplets...Not to diminish her loss, or yours, but I know that she has found happiness as an earthly mom and takes daily joy in her children.

I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

Alice

GGG born 9/3/05 at 35w3d

Kat --

We did fertility to get pregnant both pregnancies.

After delivering West, Keaton, and Rebecca, one doctor told me to wait six months, then my OB said to wait three, then my RE said two. We did one round of unsuccessful IVF, then switched doctors and became pregnant on our first round with injectibles only. We were pregnant with a singleton, and my only thought when I found out it was "just one" was -- "All that work and labor and I'm only getting one baby to show for it!" That baby turns three tomorrow.

We had no issues in our pregnancy with Adam except mild pre-eclampsia that set in at 33.3 weeks, and he just got to arrive a few weeks early -- which was a relief in a way because I didn't really trust my body to carry him -- I thought he was safer out than in -- the whole psychology of subsequent pregnancies is another matter for a later time. Suffice it to say that we did fertility and began our process of adopting our surviving triplets simultaneously -- I was not strong enough to endure being without children for long.

I went back and found my post from about the same time frame you're in now, in case you're interested. http://tripletconnection.org/triplet_forum/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=135&topic_id=2138&mesg_id=2138&listing_type=search It was posted on the main board -- I couldn't bring myself to post on the bereaved section at that point because I wasn't really ready to admit they were gone.

You had mentioned that you aren't able to listen to music ... I still cry at songs especially love songs about lost love -- seriously, just this morning, Franki Valli "My Eyes Adored You" -- the chorus got to the "So close, so close and yet so far," and I thought about my babies, I blew them eat kisses (it's what I do when I think of them).

Will you send me an email, and I will email you (as attachments) the pieces of the "SHARE" packet that that organization sends to loss families. It's some good stuff. Just click my email link at the top of this section of the post.

I'm sorry this reply has been all over the place.

Sending thoughts of peace,

Steff

^West Rogers^, ^Keaton Edward^, ^Rebecca Joy^ 1/6/04



Missing their sister ^Maria Jose^ 4/7/04-5/10/04