It was January 2005I was about 5 week pregnant when we went on our holiday to FIJI. Little did I know that I had 3 babies on board. At that stage I felt no different at all. Oh how things would soon change.
The 1st ultrasound.I was 6 weeks & 4 days pregnant when I had the first ultrasound. I had experienced some light bleeding and a lot of cramping & so my Dr thought it might be wise to have an early ultrasound. The ultrasound itself took about 40 minutes & it was the longest 40 minutes of my life. The sonographer looked rather flustered & we asked her if she had found a heartbeat & she told us we would just have to wait until she was finished as it was too early to comment. During the ultrasound we observed 3 different sets of straight lines. At the time I thought the sonographer had made three attempts at finding a heartbeat without success , but we would soon find out otherwise. At the end of the ultrasound she showed us a tiny little heartbeat & told us it looked healthy & then she showed us another. Then she showed us what appeared to be another mark on the screen & asked us if we knew what it was. I thought it was a cyst, but she pointed out a third heartbeat.
Both Daniel & I were dumbfounded. On the way home in the car was a mixture of laughter at what people would say when we told them & what it would be like to raise three babies & then the laughter soon turned to silence as we realised what we were potentially in for.
Hiding my pregnancyWe had both decided that we would not announce our pregnancy to family, friends or work colleagues until we were 12 weeks pregnant due to the risks involved. By the 7 week mark I already had a bulge & a few people at work had asked me if I was pregnant. By the time I was 10 weeks pregnant, I was already in maternity clothing & friends were looking at me sideways & making comments amongst themselves & when I had my antenatal appointment at 12 weeks, I was the equivalent in size to 19 weeks pregnant, so as you can imagine, it became impossible to hide this pregnancy despite my efforts.
My pregnancy & antenatal careWe first met with our obstetrician at 8 weeks. We were given the option of a selective reduction which we both knew we would have been presented with. We had decided earlier that we would not be doing this & that we would continue the pregnancy & let nature decide whether we would have three babies or not despite having been warned of the risks involved. We were told at this appointment that I should finish work by 12 weeks pregnant to commence bed rest from home. I was basically to spend the rest of my pregnancy as a ‘BUM’ as my obstetrician put it. This was a huge blow to me. I had only recently moved into a new job & had enjoyed the change, but this was how it was meant to be.
I was told that at this stage of my pregnancy my antenatal care would consist of monthly trips to the obstetrician & fortnightly ultrasounds. The fortnightly ultrasounds were to check the growth of the babies & to measure my cervix to ensure that it wasn’t shortening. I also had a swab done at these appointments to check for infectious bacteria. The first few weeks of my pregnancy were fairly straight forward. By the time I was 25 weeks pregnant I was the size of a full term singleton pregnancy. At this point I still felt fairly normal.
When everything changedI was 25 weeks and 3 days when I received a call from my obstetrician’s office. I had been asked to go to the delivery suite first thing in the morning of the following day to have steroid injections as a precautionary measure should the babies arrive early. I had known earlier that I would be having these injections at 26 weeks but wasn’t expecting it so soon, but hadn’t thought anything of it. Little did I know what was about to happen. My regular obstetrician was away so I was meeting another obstetrician for the steroid injections. When the obstetrician arrived she asked me if I was the patient who was there for bed rest. At that point I realised I wasn’t going home. I was told that the ultrasound I had earlier in the week revealed my cervix had shortened significantly & I would spend the duration of my pregnancy on bed rest.
My hospital stayShortly after arriving in the hospital further ultrasounds were done & we realised that my cervix had shortened further & then a swab result came back & tested positive for an infection. So I was then put on an antibiotic drip & a suture had been placed in my cervix & I was on strict bed rest, unable to sit up at all for what we thought would be the duration of my pregnancy.It felt like a miracle that I had made it to 28 weeks pregnant. My obstetrician originally believed that I would deliver prior to 26 weeks. I was looking forward to this milestone because it meant that I could be a little more free to move around as I was getting very uncomfortable flat on my back.
I was told that by 28 weeks I was still to be on strict bed rest but I was permitted to get up & down once or twice a day for a few minutes only & to me this felt like a privilege I had been looking forward to for a long time.It was a day short of 28 weeks & I started to itch. Not just a mild itch either. My itch had become intollerable & I was told that it was most likely that it would not subside until my pregnancy was over. This condition was known as obstetric cholestasis & it was horrendous. The itch kept me awake in the middle of the night & at this stage I had become dependant on sleeping pills & other drugs to assist me in getting just a few hours sleep at night.
Not long after the cholestasis appeared, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Yet another condition to add to my already complicated pregnancy & the worst part of it, was I couldn’t even eat the one thing that kept me sane in this journey….chocolate, but surely no one would know if I snuck in the odd box of Cadburys every now & then.
The daily grindMy day in the hospital would start at 7am when breakfast arrived. Then at about 8am my obstetrician would arrive ready to listen to my daily whinge. Shortly after she left I would have my obs done. I would always manage to shock one of the midwives with a somewhat high pulse rate which after a few weeks of bed rest was averaging 120 to 124.Usually around 11am I was luck enough to listen to my babies heartbeats on the Doppler every day, though it wasn’t always an easy task finding all three of them.The rest of my days I spent eating, watching TV, eating, reading magazines, eating again & chatting with my visitors & more eating yet again.
The birthBy the time I was 31 weeks pregnant my blood pressure was starting to rise. In addition, I was feeling rather Ill from the cholestasis & my liver wasn’t looking so good. I had noticed that the medications I was taking had little effect & I wasn’t really getting any sleep at all. At this point my obstetrician gave us the news we thought we would never hear. The c section was set for the Friday 12 August 2005. I was 31 weeks & 4 days pregnant.
The morning of the c section came & went very quickly. The caesarean took no longer than half an hour & went very smoothly. I had a spinal block in place so I was awake during the operation & my husband was allowed to attend.
All three babies were named there & them, the first was a boy, Joshua Daniel at 1.555kg & the second a girl, Olivia Rose at 1.550 kg & then there was Jasmine Stephanie at 1.185kg. We felt very lucky as all babies were very healthy. Both the girls were on oxygen for the first day of their lives, but after this there were no complications. The babies remained in the NICU at TCH for two weeks & then we were transferred to the nursery at Calvary where we remained for another 6 weeks before we went home.
In these photo we had barely been home from the nursery for a few days.
L to R: Olivia, Joshua & Jasmine.
