Our Three Miracles

I know this post is a long time coming and I'm tempted to say that we just haven't had much going on this year, but that is really not true.  Then I'm tempted to say that nothing exciting has been going on, but that isn't true either. So what have we been up to this year?  Lots and lots and LOTS of doctor appointments!

We have struggled with infertility our entire marriage, especially after Annie was born and we decided it was time for a second child.  We have been through so many infertility treatments with no success and even tried a more "natural" approach which was a big failure as well. (With the exception of my weight loss.  At least it wasn't a total waste of time, right?)  We even decided at one point that we would adopt.  We were very excited about this decision and we were ready to start on the paperwork when after much prayer we felt that adoption wasn't what we were supposed to do after all.  It was a very difficult time and I felt like I was going  through the loss of miscarriage all over again.  I kept feeling prompted to go back to the doctor and try the treatments again which was NOT what I wanted to do.  Anyone who has been through infertility treatments knows how physically and emotionally difficult they are.  I went back to the doctor after a while of dragging my feet and started back on the same treatments we had tried previously hoping that my weight loss would have a positive effect on things this go around.  Well, it didn't and they didn't work.  Again.  There was only one more thing we could try  - in vitro fertilization (IVF).  I had been so against this treatment for so long because it is expensive and there is not a guarantee that it would work.  I am not a gambler so I had never thought twice about it - until my sister started telling me about some women in her ward that had success with it and knew of a doctor that wasn't as expensive.  That got the ball rolling and we started considering IVF as an option.  Everything started falling into place and it became very clear that IVF was what we were supposed to do.  We ended up choosing a fertility clinic in Pleasant Grove and in January had our first appointment.

I won't go into a lot of details about how IVF works, but basically you take medication to stimulate your body into maturing several eggs (normally your body only matures one egg per month) and then they are removed from your ovaries and fertilized outside of your body.  The eggs that are fertilized and become embryos are transferred back into your body and you hope and pray that they implant and become babies.  Our doctor is very big on transferring just one embryo per IVF cycle.  Years ago they used to put three or more embryos back in.  They have refined the process enough that you can have just as much success transferring just one or two embryos.   Anyways, our doctor told us from the beginning that she prefers to transfer one embryo, but if we wanted she would maybe consider transferring two.  The day of the transfer our doctor walked in and said she would highly recommend transferring two embryos.  This both shocked and relieved me because we had decided we wanted to transfer two.  My IVF cycle did not go as smoothly as planned and this along with the quality of the embryos led to the decision by the doctor to transfer two.  And so we did.  So how does this lead to us having triplets?  One of the embryos split.  So we are expecting to have two identical babies and one fraternal.  Before the doctor transferred our embryos she said our chances of having one baby was 60-65%.  Our chances of having twins was about 30% and our chances of having triplets was LESS THAN 1%!  When the nurse was done with our ultrasound and all three of our babies were discovered she looked at me and said, "I hope you realize how rare this really is."

So now we are preparing for three baby girls this fall.  We are nervous about it, but mostly we are excited and feel extremely blessed.  We now have the opportunity to have the family that we dreamed of.  You know how you talk about how many kids you want to have?  You know, when you are young, engaged and naive?  Well we had talked about having anywhere from 3-5 kids.  That dream was diminishing rapidly and it was painful.  I in now way want to take anything away from the joy that Annie has brought to us.  We love her so much.  It's been hard for me to watch her be alone.  I wanted her to have siblings that she can grow up with and develop friendships with like I did with my siblings.  She is so excited to have three little sisters and these little girls couldn't have a better big sister!

I am currently 22 weeks along. A normal singleton pregnancy is 40 weeks.  We are hoping to make it to 32 weeks.  Things are going well with the pregnancy.  I am not on official bed rest yet, but I have to stay off of my feet as much as possible only doing what's absolutely necessary.  I'm having a hard time learning what is absolutely necessary and what is not.  : )  Bed rest will for sure come.  Probably sooner than later.  The doctors have even told me to plan on being in the hospital for a while before the babies are born.  We are very excited to watch our family grow and welcome these three little miracles.  I will try to keep the blog updated as things progress.