Thank God We Didn't Listen

I've been in awe at our life lately.  Like my friend, Elizabeth (who has identical triplet boys), I get asked "how we do it" all of the time.  I really don't know the answer to that question, but I always say, "We just do." And it's true that three babies are a lot harder than one...but, honestly, I can't really remember what just one is like now that we have all three here.

Yesterday, I was thinking back to when I was 10 weeks pregnant and we were told Baby A (Reagan) had an increased nuchal fold which put her at risk for down syndrome, other trisomy's, turner's syndrome, etc. I was by myself at the doctor and left feeling like I had been crushed into a million pieces.  They mentioned that I could reduce if we wanted and that I could just let them know what we decided.  Reduce? There wasn't a chance in hell that I wanted to. I cried just thinking about how different our life would be if one of our triplets had special needs, etc. At our 12 week appointment, the nuchal fold had miraculously fixed itself and "shrunk" back to a normal size.  A coincidence? I think not...

Then there was the day we were told Baby B had extra fluid on her brain (hydrocephalus - a condition we would soon learn more about than we ever wanted to.)...again, I remember feeling the most sickening pit in my stomach. This couldn't be happening.  I wanted to crawl in bed, go to sleep, and wake up when everything was "perfect" again.  I had been reminded by my doctor that there was no such thing as a perfect triplet pregnancy. I finally understood what he meant.  It was always something. Again, we were given the choice to reduce and also receive an amnio to confirm if she "just" had hydrocephalus or other conditions along with it.  We were too scared to do the amnio...in fear that something would happen to all three of the babies.

Fast forward to when I was in the hospital at 29 weeks.  They switched Baby A and Baby C (its all about perception of where you think the placentas are).  Baby A was "huge" compared to the others.  And we know now, that Baby C (Caroline) was actually the largest baby.

Can you imagine if we had reduced? Who would have we gotten rid of? Reagan or Sadie? What if they had switched Baby A and Baby C and it would have been Caroline? I cannot imagine my life without each of them. I could have never looked at two of them and thought to myself that there was "supposed" to be one more, but we were too scared of a possible diagnosis outcome so we reduced.  It was never in the plans, but I still think about that...how different life would be.  And how a huge piece of our hearts would be missing.

Thank God we didn't listen...