At my November appointment, Dr. Snead said that my body had responded strangely to the clomid and that if we didn't get pregnant this month that I was getting too complicated to handle. Bob, of course, wondered why it had taken the doc that long to figure out I'm a little more complex than the average nutcase. In order to prevent my body from dropping all six eggs that were maturing, Bob had to give me a shot on Friday morning. He could not have been more giddy. He kept running around the house and pantomiming shoving a giant needle through my breastplate in an homage to Pulp Fiction. I was not so impressed with his antics, and when Friday morning rolled around, I was much more nervous than I expected. Despite his numerous attempts to find the breast bone in my tush, Bob was a surprisingly decent nurse, and the shot could not have gone better. Since beginning fertility treatments, I'd learned what it felt like to ovulate, and I was pretty sure that I felt three eggs drop just as I had the previous month when nothing had happened. So, when we took the pregnancy test, I fully expected a negative result and to get shipped off to a fertility "expert." The positive result made my head spin and took my breath away. It was four days early and the box said that the results that early were only 50% accurate. All of this combined with my internet browsing and baby book research made me think that maybe I had a few more hormones coursing through my veins because we had more than one baby. Bob wasn't so sure about a multiple pregnancy.
After our first round of positive pregnancy tests, we just assumed that I was pregnant and all was well. As our appointment approached, I started to worry that we read the test wrong and that I'd told our family about a false positive and that I wasn't really pregnant. As we drove to the doctor together (for the first time Bob was actually coming with me, so it felt pretty real), I could feel my heart race. We waited patiently for the nurse, Haydee to call us to the back and my nerves just jangled. I did the usually business in the cup, and when I came out, Haydee made a comment that she didn't need to test for pregnancy because my previous blood work had come back with a positive. I felt a little relief at this but my anxiety rose again as I had to step on the scale. Ugh.
I met Bob in the back where he was patiently waiting in the sonogram room. As I de-pantsed and covered with the little towel thing, I shared what Haydee had said about us being pregnant for sure. When Dr. Snead came in, it was time to assume the position (why do TV shows always show the sonogram moment as cold gel on your tummy and smiles all around) for our vaginal ultrasound. At first, the doc had the monitor turned away from me and as I felt him search around I tried to get a clue of what was going on by examining Bob's face in the dark. Neither of us could figure out what was going on, but the doctor's head shakes and negative noises put both of us on edge. "Well, do you want to guess?" Doctor Snead asked. I started tentatively with one, then two, then with a hint of panic three?
"Surprise, it's triplets!" Dr. Snead announced, and I reached over and grabbed Bob's hand as I tried to process the number three and the fact that it represented the number of babies growing inside me. Bob was stunned too. Neither of us knew what to say, and it hit us like a ton of bricks...good bricks, but still a ton of them. Dr. Snead took pictures of our babies, their first group shot and an individual photo for each, then left us to get dressed before he came back in for a consult.
As I pulled on my pants, Bob and I quietly whispered panicked reassurances to one another and waited for the doctor to return. As soon as he came back, he began by stating that there was an option for selective reduction which I adamantly rejected - there was no way I'd voluntarily give up one of the precious babies that were growing inside me after such a struggle to conceive them. Then he informed us of a slight chance of a "disappearing embryo" in which one of the babies might just spontaneously miscarry in the early weeks of pregnancy. We asked as many questions as could make their way through our hazy brains, and then shared our good news with the office staff as we left.
In the car, Bob and I didn't know what to say to each other except for wow, so we began by calling our mothers. My mom was first and since my grandparents were in town, we headed over to my parents' house to show off our first pictures of our children and called Bob's family. All of our parents were impressed with the number and offered reassurances but didn't reiterate any offers to babysit.
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