Less than 1%

It's been over a week now, and I'm finally getting to the point where I can talk about it without crying.  Our appointment last Thursday was life-changing.  LIFE.  CHANGING.  We discovered something that day that we never in our wildest dreams expected.

We went in for our 9 week ultrasound.  We walked into the same room that we'd walked in so many times before.  Two weeks before, we had our first ultrasound in that very same room and saw not one...but two little miracles.

This time, we started the ultrasound and our doctor was silent.  She continued for (what seemed like) forever, and still didn't stay anything.  I automatically started to tear up...not knowing why she wasn't saying anything, but assuming the worst.  Finally, I asked, "Is everything okay?"  She looked over at the nurse and asked, "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"  The nurse nodded.  I frantically asked again, "What are you seeing???"  My doctor replied with a sentence I will never forget.  She said:

"Last time you were here, we told you that you were having twins.  We were wrong.  You don't have two in there.  You have three." 

I instantly started sobbing uncontrollably.  My mind just started racing with all kinds of things:

• Won't they be early? 
• How much time will they have to spend in the NICU?
• Three of everything?  How will we afford this? 
• We're going to need a new car.
• I'm never sleeping again.
• My body will be ruined.

My doctor told me to change back into my clothes and meet her in the consult room so we could discuss everything.  My husband and I walked over to the adjoining room where my clothes were.  He looked at me and just grabbed me and hugged me.  He kept telling me, "It's going to be okay.  We'll figure it out.  We'll be okay."  Meanwhile, I continued to cry my eyes out. 

We went into the consult room and waited for our doctor to come back in.  I cried and said lots of bad words.  My husband stayed calm (this is pretty much the definition of our relationship).  He's always strong when I fall apart.  After a while, our doctor came in and explained everything to us.  She said she looked over the sonogram pictures over and over again, and there are definitely three.  She said even though we only transferred two embryos, they both took and one of them split...which means we have two monozygotic twins (identical) and one dizygotic (fraternal).  The chances of this happening are less than 1%.  In fact the identicals have nothing at all to do with the fact that we did fertility treatment.  We are considered pretty high risk, particularly because we can't at this point if the two identical twins are sharing a sac.  If they are, then it's very possible one or both of them won't make it.  They're at risk for twin-to-twin transfusion and/or unequal placental sharing.  They suggested we not too tell very many people at this point....just in case.  We were also told to expect to deliver 7-8 weeks early.  We did the math and realized we could be having our babies as early as June....something I've tried not to think too much about.  We also found out that 90% of triplets spend some time in the NICU. 

It's all very scary.  And for a few days, I pretty much just cried every time I thought about it.  I'm at the point now, where I'm just trying to mentally prepare myself as much as possible.  People say God won't give you more than you can handle.  So I guess it might just be posssible that we CAN handle three babies.  It's all just so unbelievable.