What a long night. Nikki flew in Friday to spend the weekend with Tobie to give me a little breather. I picked her up at the airport around 7 pm. We brought some food to the hospital and had dinner with Tobie. Everything seemed pretty normal. Tobie’s first contraction monitoring session earlier in the day produced a higher than desired number of contractions, but sill within the acceptable limits. After dinner, Tobie was put back on the monitor where she proceeded to have more than the average number of contractions. After giving her some extra cocktail, her uterus quieted back down. This is nothing new to us as they’ve done this many times before. It was just frustrating because the previous 2 days had been fantastic with her uterus being so ever quiet.

Nikki was going to spend the night so I could go home and sleep. I left around midnight, but before I did, I put her back on the contraction monitor because I was worried about her. After about 15 minutes on the monitor, she only had one contraction, which is good, so I left and told the nurse she was on the monitor and to keep an eye out on her.

Well I get a call around 3 in the morning from Nikki telling me they are moving Tobie back down to Triage. I guess while Tobie was sleeping she was having an abnormal high number of contractions. The resident came in soon after and measured Tobie’s cervix again. It was now 2 cm dilated. I arrived back at the hospital around 4:30. Tobie was in serious pain and was squeezing Nikki’s hand with every contractions. Up until this point, the contractions we’ve had weren’t painful, just uncomfortable. I immediately took over for Nikki as the token hand holder. Holy crap Tobie can squeeze hard. And her nails, oh my lord.

For the next few hours they tried altering her drug regimen. They got her contractions to quiet back down for a little bit, but they were still very painful. Tobie asked me to look at her legs under the sheets because they felt wet. Tobie was sweating a lot because of the immense pain she was in. Well I took a look and instead of seeing sweat I see some colored fluid. Not good. The resident came back in to examine her and she was now 6 cm dilated. None of this was too shocking. After I got the first call from Nikki, I knew we were going to deliver that day. Something just didn’t seem right with Tobie on Friday. Tobie felt the same way too.

So after the resident came in, she immediately reported back to the PPA who came in to talk with us. We needed to get Tobie ready for her C-section. Even though we knew what was going to happen when he came in, it didn’t make it any easier to hear. What really sucks about all this besides delivering early is we had our first of two steroid shots the day before to help with the babies’ lungs. We weren’t due to have the second one until 9:30 in the morning. The steroids need to be in the system for at least 24 hours. So we got lucky we had at least one full round of shots. The second shot was administered, but was only in her system for a few hours before delivery.

So a battery of doctors and nurses come in to talk to us. Hi I’m your anesthesiologist. Hi, I’m your NeoNatologist. Hi, I’m your Perinatologist. Hi I’m one of your nurses. Hi, Luke I’m your father. Anyways, that was pretty hard because they were poking and prodding Tobie while I was signing forms and doctors were talking to us. It was definitely go time. They prepped Tobie and wheeled her out of there. I put on my scrubs and waited for them to call me to the OR. About 25 minutes later, they got me. I walked into the OR and let me tell you, when you see operating rooms on TV, they lie! They aren’t that big! We had about 20 doctors/nurses in there. Tobie was all prepped and they were going to cut her open. The next 5 minutes is a blur. They ripped Tobie’s stomach open and started grabbing babies. Paige came first. Since the OR was so small, she was immediately rushed to the adjoining room where they had her bed waiting. Let me tell you, that was a little unnerving. She was there and then gone. Was she okay? What was going on? Since these babies are so premature, there would be no screams coming from them. Their lungs aren’t that developed yet. Cole came next. When they held him up, he was moving his arms and legs. That’s my boy. He’s the one who caused Tobie so many sleepless nights by going to town on her stomach! They immediately rushed him to the bed across the room. Then it looks like the doctor’s arm disappears into Tobie’s body. Ewww! How do they do this for a living? The next thing I see is the doctor holding little Kaylee by her feet, seconds after being snatched from the womb.

So they were all out. Doctors and nurses are poking and prodding each baby. I have no idea what the hell is happening. To make matters worse, Tobie has been screaming in pain. Seriously, drugs do not affect this girl. They had to dope her up so more. Finally, she’s in and out. As the doctors work to put Tobie back together again, one of the nurses takes me to see all my babies. First up is Cole. I don’t know what to make of it. So small, so red, is he okay? What does that beeping mean? Are the doctors concerned? Where did I park my car? (yes I still got it). The nurse proceeded to take me to each baby and say hello. Again, this is probably the most surreal moment I’ve ever had. Was I dreaming? This couldn’t be happening to me. These are my babies? How can anything that small grow up to be so big?

So they stabilized each baby and wheeled them to the NICU. They wanted me to follow them as they finished making Tobie whole again. Funny side note: Assisting our doctor was a 3rd year resident. In post-op, I was talking to the nurse about the resident. I told her I thought it was weird when she asked the doctor where the intensities should go. Tobie immediately woke from her semi-morphine coma to say: What? Are you serious?

In the NICU I watched each team work on the babies. Again, it just didn’t seem like it was happening. Each baby gets an IV in the arm, a catheter in the belly button, and a breathing tube. It sucks, but needs to be done. The doctors were amazed at how big our babies are for their age. No one thought at 24 weeks they would be much bigger than a pound. They all weighed around 1 pound 10 ounces. I can only credit that with Tobie gaining the proper weight recommended when having triplets. I think she only gained around 50 pounds, but she was right on target for the recommended 90 pounds if she would have carried to 35 weeks. My girl can eat!

Tobie’s now back in the maternity ward. She’s in a lot of pain when she moves, but is in good spirits when she slips out of her morphine sleep. The babies are doing as well as can be expected. The apgar scores were: Paige 4 8, Cole 5 9, Kaylee 9 9. They said Kaylee scoring as high as she did for a preemie was unheard of (The best score is 10 10). The staff seems very optimistic. So far on the surface, everything looks good. The babies are under constant care. Blood is being withdrawn, tests taken, settings changed, and the whole process starts all over again. Right now Cole has some sugar issues and possibly a staff infection, and the girls have some blood gas issues.That being said, we are day to day until these babies come home. The first 3 days are critical. On day 3, they do an ultrasound to see if there are any defects on the inside. After a week, we can breathe our first sigh of relief. They will have beat the initial odds. There is such a high risk of something bad happening that first week, well lets not even go there.

In conclusion…We are all good. Tobie hasn’t seen the babies yet. She has a slight fever. It’s going down and we should see the babies in the morning. I’ll keep this blog updated as much as possible with what’s going on. I’m sure the next week will just fly by. Tobie will be in the hospital for probably 3-5 days. Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers. It really did make a difference knowing others cared about us and made a very difficult situation, just a little easier!