Must Read

If I go back and start at the very beginning, that is probably a very good place to start…  We did not find out it was a multiples pregnancy until my 20 week ultrasound.  We had the older kids with us to find out if #4 was a boy or a girl, within the first few seconds the ultrasound tech said, "There are two in there! No wait… there are 3!"  So at 20 weeks and 2 days we suddenly had a lot to do and we would soon learn, a shorter period of time to do it.

That night I googled "average length of triplet pregnancy" and found 33 weeks was fairly consistently the answer.  So we had about 3 months to prepare for babies 4,5 and 6.  Everyone we told over the phone didn't believe us initially.  I mean who has triplets?  Its just so over the top, they assumed it was a joke.  Of course those who saw the stack of ultrasound pictures were much quicker to believe.  

My mother was one who I told over the phone.  She of course wanted a call as soon as we were out of the appointment and was getting antsy because it was taking so long.  She texted and feared the reason it was taking so long was there was something wrong- not that it takes nearly 3x longer to check 3 babies!  As soon as I got in the car I called her and she initially thought it was a joke too.  Honestly I'm not sure why people would think I'd joke about this???  Anyway as soon as my mother got over her shock she hit amazon.com and bought me many books.  Some were good, some were complete duds and one was amazing.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is carrying multiples.  Its called "When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets or Quads- Proven Guidelines for a Healthy Multiple Pregnancy."

Now since I was so far along when we found out I wasn't able to follow these guidelines as much as I'd have liked, but from 24 weeks to 35 weeks when the triplets were finally born, I referenced it nearly daily.  I loved the diagrams that show baby head and feet sizes over the weeks.  The visual is just such a compelling, convincing argument to do everything you can as a mother to keep those babies in there just another week.  The author feels pretty strongly that weight gain should be front loaded, which makes perfect sense to me.  By the end of my pregnancy I just didn't have the room to eat much, but the early weeks I was so hungry, I was able to really load up on the calories and the babies built up a good store. The book includes recipes, weight gain and calorie consumption guidelines and tons of other valuable advice for multiple pregnancies.  I feel very strongly that its a must read for every expecting MoM.  I really place a lot of credit on this book for my healthy 35 week triplets.