“I see 3 babies.”
Picture this: you’re 4 months into being newlyweds, and you decide to start a family - how exciting! And by some miracle, you get pregnant on the first try (sorry, mom!).
You’re overjoyed and quickly make an appointment with a new OBGYN for a dating scan. You get to your appointment, but you’re very newly pregnant - 5 weeks and 5 days to be exact. As she’s scanning, the doctor says, “Do twins run in your family?”
Well, that, my friends, is the beginning of our journey to finding out we were expecting triplets!
When the doctor asked us that question, we immediately laughed (a mixture of nerves and disbelief). My father-in-law is a fraternal twin, so the family always joked that someone would have twins, and it would likely be us! Well, the joke was on them because we decided to overachieve.
Being that I was so early in my pregnancy, the doctor wanted us to come back in a few weeks to confirm the viability of both babies, as only one had a strong fetal pole, and she thought it was likely that the “weaker” baby would vanish. So, she sent us home with the news that we were pregnant, just unsure as to how many babies I was carrying.
Fast forward to 8 weeks and change, I’m back on that table being scanned. But this time, the energy in the room was different. As she was scanning, she said that she could officially confirm that I was having twins - and truthfully, we were excited, but that feeling was short-lived. She quietly left the room, stating that she had to consult another provider before determining the type of twins I was carrying.
When she returned, we got the news. I was carrying, what she thought at the time, monochorionic monoamniotic twins - I.e., an incredibly high-risk type of twin pregnancy. This type of pregnancy meant that the two babies were sharing one placenta (monochorionic) and one amniotic sac (monoamniotic). You could hear the discomfort in her voice as she shared the implications of this pregnancy: high risk of losing one or both babies, definite hospitalization at 24 weeks pregnant for constant monitoring of the babies, bed rest, the list goes on.
We were petrified! She quickly got us connected to a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor (MFM) who specialized in twin pregnancies, but our appointment wasn’t for a few days. When I tell you that I spent the whole weekend crying, I spent the whole weekend crying. Fear overtook my body. Fear about our future, our babies’ chance at survival, and the potential of losing one or both of them. It was the longest weekend of our lives as we processed, grieved, and prepared for our upcoming appointment.
The day finally came. We hopped on the PATH train in Jersey City, NJ, where we were living at the time, and headed into lower Manhattan to meet with the specialist. We’re ushered into a tiny, outdated room where the sonographer begins the scan.
As she’s scanning, my husband is sitting behind me, and we’re both watching the screen and the sonographer’s face closely. As she’s scanning, I notice something - I see not one, nor two, but three babies! But what do I know?! I’m not an expert in this field, and there’s absolutely no way I’m pregnant with triplets - that simply couldn’t be!
As my head is spinning and my unaware husband is sitting quietly behind me, the sonographer quietly says, “I see three babies.”
In that very moment, I shot up on the bed and said, “Are you shi**ing me right now?!” There was no way! No way there were three babies in there. She then says, “I’m going to call the doctor and have him come in here.” To which we say, “Thank you.” Because what else are you supposed to say in that moment?
The time between the sonographer leaving the room and the doctor entering felt like an eternity! We sat there in disbelief. The doctor entered, and he was one of those doctors who didn’t have the best bedside manner. While I understand informed consent and the necessity of factual, non-sugarcoated information, his delivery made everything more difficult to digest.
He started with, “Well, there’s good news and not so great news.” Thanks doc! Good news: all 3 babies look healthy and are growing on track for their gestational age. He wasn’t 100% positive that they all had their own amniotic sacs, as it was difficult to see the dividing membranes at their current gestation, but he was “pretty sure” they were there. Not so great news: the babies were sharing 1 placenta, making them monochorionic-triamniotic triplets.
Without skipping a beat, he started dumping some pretty unsettling statistics on us - such as the odds for intellectual or physical disabilities due to complications or prematurity, genetic mutations that would affect all 3 babies as they were identical, odds of me losing 1 or all before we reached viability (22-24 weeks depending on your state).
The doctor then had a conversation I’m sure most families of multiples are familiar with, regarding fetal reduction. He stated that in the state of NY, we could reduce our pregnancy from triplets to twins, a singleton, or altogether. Again, while I understand the necessity for these difficult conversations and information, it’s a lot to take in.
We sat there silently, holding our breath while attempting to take it all in. The only question we had was, “Are our babies healthy?” To which he said, “Yes.” And that right there sealed the deal for us. We would not be moving forward with reduction, and we would leave my pregnancy in the universe’s hands (and the hands of medical professionals, of course!).
Before leaving his office, the doctor said, “I am going to refer you to a triplet specialist; I only do twins.” So now I was being handed off to my third doctor in 3 short weeks!
The commute home was silent. My husband and I hardly said more than 5 words to each other as we both stared off into the abyss, attempting to process all of the information we were just given. Once we got home, we knew we had to call our families, who were anxiously awaiting an update. My mother answered my FaceTime call and jokingly said, “Don’t tell me it’s triplets!” before I could even get a word out. I responded by nodding my head and quietly saying, “It’s triplets.” She, along with everyone else, thought we were joking at first because let’s be real, who has triplets?!
We do, that’s who.
