From the Beginning

First, the basics. In February 2005 my twins, Conner and Leah, started our family off with a lot of excitement. My husband and I struggled for a year on fertility treatments trying to get pregnant and after an early miscarriage (our first pregnancy) we finally conceived the twins. My pregnancy was anything but easy right from the start. I had hyperemesis and required Zofran and IV's from 7 weeks on. Around 10 weeks, after having to be stuck more times than I care to recall, my doctor had a PICC line put in. With it's semi permanent self I could now avoid being poked every few days and thanks to a very cool portable pump I was able to leave my gravity IV pole behind and move about more freely and comfortably. When all was said and done I was on IV's my entire pregnancy, had several bouts of preterm labor, and ended up with a home nurse that came once a week. Still, through all that, we had to kick the twins out at 37 weeks 4 days. Conner, my first born by a whole minute, was 5 lbs 2 oz, screaming and perfect. Leah, who had the suite in my uterus, was 6lbs 4oz and while she gave us her obligatory cry she remained calm and curious. Their infancy was anything but easy despite the massive amounts of help I had due mostly to my own admittedly OVER-mothering. It would take 9 months and the discovery of my next pregnancy before I finally chilled out. Granted the progesterone I had to inject, even though it was an unexpected naturally conceived pregnancy, may have contributed to my settling down. Zack's pregnancy was a piece of cake. Sure I had some nausea, needed a little Zofran and some Terbutaline later to quiet down my uterus, but all in all an easy pregnancy. At 37 weeks, August 2006, my body decided it had done it's fair share of the work and I went into labor. Zack was born weighing a whopping 8 lbs 9 oz despite being 3 weeks early. An amazing boy from the beginning he also proved to be quite attached to me.....only me. Any attempts to hand him to others resulted in crying until such time as he was back with mum. When he was almost 3 yrs old we would discover this was probably due to his sensory issues and autism. None the less, challenging he most definitely was! The triplets conception and pregnancy could be made into a TV mini-series but for the sake of brevity I will attempt to shorten it up. On our third cycle of fertility treatments we waited patiently for the day when we could test. One fateful day my husband, a police officer, decided to take an overtime shift at work. He would later be injured in a car accident while at work and so began the roughest year of my life. Since I required daily injections of progesterone that my husband could now no longer do I needed my mom to take over this duty until such time that I could test. The third day my husband was in the hospital I decided to test to help me decide whether to continue my injections. Those who believe that one requires a relaxed state of mind to conceive should really view my case history. Three weeks after my husbands accident I was admitted to the hospital for my hyperemesis and discovering that I was not just pregnant, I was VERY pregnant. Quads, four beautiful flashing heartbeats on an ultrasound screen seemed to blinking out "your life will never be the same". Sadly at 10 weeks we discovered that we had lost baby D, a baby we would later name Hannah even though we never knew what gender our angel baby was. If it was a boy, I'm sure I'm in for an earful when I join him a very long time from now! The triplets pregnancy was very much like the twins, IV's and all. We added hospitalizations to my pregnancy experiences and at 33 weeks 4 days, a stomach flu conspired with my uterus and it was decided, they needed to be born that day in January 2008. Noah was first and weighed in at 4 lbs 8 oz, even though he was intubated for the first day he ended up catching up nicely and was for all intents and purposes quite healthy. Claire, who would have been last if not for Megan pulling her leg away from the doctors, weighed in at a whopping 5 lbs 11 oz. Though she needed a little oxygen with a nasal cannula and loved those A's and B's* she was quite healthy from the start. Megan, weighing in at 4 lbs 9 oz needed no help breathing and showed us from the beginning what a determined little girl she could be. The girls came home at 10 days old, and Noah at 12 days old. NICU graduates, with honors.

And then our family was complete, or so I thought....