The Final Three

I left you hanging with my final three babies. As I mentioned earlier, I never planned on transferring more than two embryos for fear of high order multiple pregnancy. All of my embryos were “high quality.” ***Side note*** Yes, the embryologist actually grades your embryos. I have found it interesting that the quality doesn’t seem to matter. In fact I have had a friend get pregnant with triplets when all the embryos the doctor transferred were of “poor” quality. God decides which babies will be held outside the womb and which ones won’t. ***End side note*** Regardless, I felt compelled to NEVER transfer more than two embryos. God has a way of changing my NEVER’S. He did it again. In order to explain, I have to go back in time….TIME WARP HERE….

I am in the Labor and Delivery getting ready to give birth to my second child. I had developed a high amniotic fluid leak. In other words the bag that breaks when a woman says, “My water broke,” had a leak up high and so I was leaking some fluid, but not much. This meant that even though she was three weeks early, she was coming. Around 3 o’clock in the morning, despite maximum dose pitocin (the medicine given to induce labor), my contractions were getting “farther apart and weaker” according to the monitors. According to my failing epidural, I was in significant PAIN and they were NOT weak. ***Side note again*** My sister was told the same thing, but given birth naturally with contractions that aren’t “strong” enough. ***End Side note*** So my doctor gave me the option to wait it out on maximum dose pitocin for another hour, with the failing epidural, or have a c-section right then. That wasn’t a difficult decision for my husband and I to make. I said, “GET her OUT of me.”

So I had a c-section and because I had a c-section with baby number 2, my doctor and I decided it would be safer to have a c-section for baby number 3. All was normal with my third child’s delivery until my doctor attempted to deliver the placenta. At that point my placenta did not want to detach from my uterus. My uterus actually flipped inside out and my doctor had to cut the placenta away from my uterine wall. When a placenta attaches too firmly to your uterus, it is called a placenta accreta. More than half of all women with placenta accreta lose their uterus and those who don’t have an increased risk of having another placenta accreta with future pregnancies.

We have three precious frosties (tot-sicles, embryos you choose). If I only transfer two, and I get pregnant, I run a risk of losing my uterus and not being able to take home the third. However if I transfer all three, I could end up with triplets or more if one decides to split into identical twins. So I freaked out. I didn’t want to transfer more than two, but my hands were tied. I had in my mind no choice because I could not run the risk of not being able to take one of my babies home. In some ways I loathed the idea of transferring more than two embryos, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had to do it. I had no choice in the matter any more. I HAD to transfer three embryos or run the risk of not being able to take them all home.

I was fearful and a worried over that fact. I knew it was tomorrow’s worry and so for several months after giving birth to my third child, I stuffed that concern. About seven months later, God and I started discussing the issue of transferring more than two embryos. I told God I felt scared, I didn’t want a high order multiple pregnancy, so why did it have to go this way? He being ever patient said NOTHING. However over the course of a month or so, He gave me a peace. He told me that He was in control. That if I had a high order multiple pregnancy that He was able to keep me healthy and my babies healthy. He told me His grace was sufficient and that if triplets is what He wanted to give me, Dan and I could handle the realities of the situation. As time for the transfer drew near, my heart changed. I was hoping and praying for all three to make it. I prayed for healthy full term babies, a healthy pregnancy, that they would all survive the thawing process, and the list goes on.

I have admitted that I am a planner. So I started looking at Dodge Sprinters, triplet strollers, and other triplet items. The transfer was emotionally exciting. I told my husband that God could do whatever He saw fit, but I was giddy to finally get to carry all our babies home in my womb if not in our arms. I had prepared, so I thought for anything God may do. Oh, but the negative pregnancy test and the confirmation blood test, I was not ready for. Ending this journey on a note like that broke my heart. I knew God’s ways are not mine. I cried, I mourned, and now I wait.

I have said it before, but I’ll say it again. I am waiting for God’s miracle. He can do a miracle in my body and give my husband and I another child (my tubes were tied and wrecked from the tubal pregnancies); He can do a miracle and practically place a child that needs adopted on our doorstep (our sweet family cannot handle the ups and downs of trying to adopt); or He can do a miracle in my heart and take the longing for more children away. Regardless of which miracle God does, I rest and trust in Him. He knows what is best for me and my family.