Update

Well, if you found this blog looking for advice on triplets...maybe you've found out you're pregnant with triplets and are searching for support, you may not want to read this blog. It's been almost 17 months since I last blogged. I know...because my daughter, the youngest of three and my sole surviving triplet is almost 17 months. She and her sisters were born two days after my last pregnancy update.

I started having a lot of small contractions so I lay in bed all day. They seemed to be lessening but when I woke up in the middle of the night to pee...my water broke. Later that day, my temperature spiked and the doctors can only guess that I had some sort of infection that triggered labor. The rest became a blur. My three girls were born at 26 weeks 1 day gestation. Because of Baby B (R)'s heart condition worsened by her immature lungs, she passed away within just a few hours. I was still in recovery from my emergency c-section and didn't have a chance to even hold her until it was too late. She was 2 lb 4 oz.

Baby A (A) was born first at just 1 lb 12 oz but she was so strong. Her little lungs were surprisingly strong and we could hear her cute little cry when she was just a day old. She was doing amazingly well and growing on track...until she came down with an intestinal infection, N.E. C.. It overcame her and we would lose her when she was just 19 days old.

Baby C (C) was born last at 2 lb 4 oz. She had always done great but did not enjoy the stress of being delivered. She wasn't breathing and had to be resuscitated. She didn't seem to be enjoying jospital life as well as her older sister, but she was always a cruiser. After 81 days in the NICU, she came home. Literally, she saved me. It was a dark time that tore at my heart daily and holding her while I cried and mourned for her sisters was my only comfort. I had found quite a few stories of triplets who were born too early. Until I read those stories, I had never really grasped why it really was a high-risk pregnancy. As painful as it has been to lose my girls, I'm still dealing with the grief...I know that not everyone came home with a baby at all. Baby C is my blessing and I pray over her crib every night. I'm so frightened of losing my last little girl.

If you are pregnant with triplets, here is my one advice. Leave your job if you have to. Stay in bed and never get up. I had only finished work a few weeks before. The doctors thought I was doing great and warned me that bedrest was around the corner but they hadn't given me the official command. So, I was freaking out that we weren't ready. The house wasn't ready. Nothing was bought for them. My high-risk doctor told us and I agree that there really isn't much medical proof that bedrest does anything. There might be but it really isn't signficant. But he did tell us that it is for peace of mind. That you never look back and have regrets.

I have such regrets. I feel such guilt. We had run around to all these stores on Monday, trying to buy curtains and a crib. I lay back in the car when we were driving and I rode in a wheelchair in al the stores but that is when the contractions seemed to get consistent. Not close enough to warrant alarm but definitely increased. And they were present until my water broke about 36 hours later. I wish I had just quit my job and just lay down. I will always wonder if things would have been different if I hadn't been stressing...if I hadn't been moving. I can't dwell on it. It's taken me a long time to get out of the deep blackness into just a tolerable sadness. But it changed my life and it changed me. I miss the person I was.

It's been 17 months. We had an amazing support system. We now have best friends who we met through this whole ordeal. NICU nurses and people who just started showing up to give us support. We've met people in the last year who don't even know our story and just think C is our first and only baby. It gives you a sense of normalcy.

C is amazing. Sweet, funny, stubborn, energetic, a climber. She loves to give kisses and dance. She stayed here to give us comfort while her sisters are together in heaven.