REPOST: What's the C for?

As I read through the book of all our blogs over the past year and a half, I'm finding funny ones and ones that make me cry... This one is one of my favorites... It's how we "came out" with the news about the triplets.. I wrote this back in July 2011... One thing I have since found out is that triplets are about 1 in 8,000 - so it's not incredibly rare :-)

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Let me start off with a few disclaimers… This is going to be a long post and likely won’t have a lot to do with Declan, it’s going to be pretty honest (with a few choice words) and I promise I will get to the point sooner than later…

So let’s start at the beginning… I won’t go all the way back to when Andy did this to me J, but we’ll start early enough. About 6 weeks ago, I found out I was pregnant. At this point, we had just moved, Andy was still in Wisconsin and I was with Declan in Jersey. I called Andy shortly after I took the pregnancy test and I said (and I quote), “I think I am f’in pregnant.” I then proceeded to call my best friend and she laughed. All in good fun of course because who else moves across the country, starts a new job and rents a 2 bedroom townhouse and then decides to have a baby…

Fast forward 2 weeks... I go to the Doctor (by myself) to have them “check” if I am pregnant. They did an ultrasound and indeed they find that I am.  But instead of finding just one baby, they find two little ones.  Wait, what? Yes, twins… Let me tell you a bit about that appointment (from what I can remember).

I should have been tipped off right away when she asked if we conceived “naturally” (but really I just thought that was an odd question) and then when she asked the “do twins run in your family” I said “no, why – my husband is a twin… what are you telling me?” She then said the words – you are having twins! At that point I am pretty sure I said a few expletives and asked her if she drank too much the night before and was just seeing double. I proceeded to say additional dumb things that I am sure most mothers don’t say when they find out they are pregnant (i.e. this isn’t medically possible for a twin to have a twin, this is my worst nightmare, and what the hell are we going to do - to name a few). I called Andy right away to tell him the news and his response “shut the front door.” But then immediately said, it’s going to be okay Kelly (always the stable one). I then broke down in tears and started hysterically crying. Now you might be thinking, gosh she’s nuts…  But honestly to put it into perspective, I was there by myself, I had never met these Doctors before and we had just picked up our family and moved across the country. How were we going to take care of twins in addition to Declan? 

Luckily my new Doctor didn’t commit me to an institute at that moment, she came in and said, “well I guess this is a surprise?” More tears… She then took the ultrasound pictures they had given me and she pointed to another circle and she said, actually there were three, but one didn’t make it. At that point, I blacked out and only remember a few additional things from that point forward (seriously after that appointment I couldn’t even remember what she said my due date was). I vaguely remember her saying that there was a third one, but unfortunately it didn’t have a heartbeat. Normal people would likely be sad about hearing something like that. I was still in such a state of shock that I was hoping it wouldn’t grow back. I remember the last thing they did was draw some blood – still hysterical, the technician asked if I was okay. I told her I just found out that we were having twins and that I was a little surprised.  She said, “I always say, God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle.” My response, “God clearly messed this one up.”

By this point, you are probably thinking I am the worst mother and female alive. So let’s fast forward to 3 days ago (because it gets better)… Based on the fact that I blacked out for the majority of the first appointment, once Andy got to Jersey I was gonna make sure he came with me to all my appointments going forward.  Since we were just getting into our 12^th week they were going to listen to the heartbeats. My Doctor used the sonogram (I think that’s what it’s called) and we heard one heartbeat. She couldn’t find the other one and she thought it might be because they were too close. She said to be on the safe side, that she would send us down the hall for a regular ultrasound. This made me happy because quite frankly, I finally had accepted the twins and was moving through the stages of acceptance. I wanted to make sure they were okay in there and the little guys were developing normally (yes boys, I also came to the realization that I would also likely have all boys). I had also figured that I would need to be in full acceptance mode once I got past the first trimester. So the technician was doing the ultrasound and she asked a few questions (which are now common questions that I am thinking about tattooing the answers on my forehead) –“ Did you guys conceive naturally or through IVF?” Our answer, “naturally we were as shocked by the twins as we were when we found out we were pregnant.” Her response, “WOW.” I remember looking at Andy and thinking, well that’s kind of rude, twins aren’t totally uncommon… So then she began to write the little captions on each of the pictures. There was Baby A, heart beating. There was Baby B, heart beating. And then she began to write Baby C… To which I responded, “what is C”? She said matter of factly, “you are having triplets.” And here is how the rest of the commentary went:

·         K: No, no, no we’re not… when I was here last they said that the third one didn’t have a heartbeat and she said it wouldn’t grow back!

·         Tech: I don’t know, but you are having triplets.

·         K (looking at Andy): Shit, what the F Andy?

·         A (looking slightly shocked and speechless): Starts laughing…

·         K: Laughing… Where’s our Doctor?

·         In walks our Doctor. K: What the heck is going on?

Our Doctor was very apologetic for not seeing the third one at the first appointment. She said because I was so early (6 weeks) the technician at the time must not have looked everywhere and the “empty” sack, really wasn’t empty.  I said “look, I’m not mad, but you better not tell me there are four the next time we come in here” (giggles all around), and I say “seriously, make sure you check everything.”

Additional crazy things said by me during the appointment:

·         K: What about daycare? I doubt they will do the buy 2 get the third free

·         K: I’m gonna need to save up because after these are born my skin from my stomach is going to hang to my knees

·         K: We’re going to need one of those old school van’s, like a full size van. A: Like the mystery machine

And that brings us to where we are today. Andy and I will go from a family of three to a family of 6 in a few short months. Oh, our due date is February 10^th, but the likelihood is that I won’t make it past mid-January.

How are we feeling? Physically, for me it’s been an easy pregnancy (if you can believe it – really no “morning” sickness). Emotionally, I have been sent straight back to the denial phase based on this latest development. Andy, the rock and ever positive person he is (thank God!), “says” he’s excited. I think the forward thinking between men and women are so different. I hear triplets and I think how will we ever pay for college or so help me god, if they are all girls, how will we ever pay for their weddings. Andy thinks about how fun it will be to have 3 little ones the same age and how fun it will be to see how close they will be growing up (as they say in the Hangover - the three best friends that anyone could have).

Here’s a picture of the ultrasound. Kind of hard to see, but the bottom right is Baby A (Larry), top right is Baby B (Curly), top left is Baby C (Moe) and bottom left is all three of the little nuggets.

It’s crazy because over the past few days I have scoured the internet looking for data to see how common these spontaneous triplets are… Here’s some data that I found: In 2007 there were about 5,900 triplet births in the US. 40% of these triplet births were a result of fertility treatments. So about 3,500 were natural – that’s not a big number… Although I haven’t been able to find any recent data, the only way that I can explain what has happened to Andy and I, is that it’s a miracle…