My Triplets Were Inseparable, Whatever the Risks

“FOR the first month, their bedroom, with all the wires and machines, would look more like an extension of the intensive care unit than a home nursery. Endless visits to the pediatrician, ophthalmologist, cardiologist, gastroenterologist and neurologist would fill the boys’ first calendar year.

But with a good insurance plan and Medicaid’s coverage for babies under 2 pounds 10 ounces, we were relieved that we did not have to pay the million-dollar hospital bill. This was not the time to pontificate on how our quest to have a family resulted in a significant financial drain on society’s resources, though that knowledge has weighed on me.

What hasn’t weighed on me, as our boys have grown healthier and bigger (they’re now 4 and thriving in preschool) is our decision not to reduce. I often look at them and ask myself that impossible question: Which one wouldn’t be here?

But I feel no righteousness about our choice, only luck. Time and again I run into mothers at the playground with twins who notice my triplets (it’s hard not to) and gently ask whether I faced that decision, only to then confess their deep guilt at having reduced from triplets themselves.

“Look, don’t,” I tell them. “We could have lost all of ours. We almost did.”

Almost.”

Susanne M. Sanchez lives in Hollywood, Fla.
I appreciate Mrs. Sanchez’s insights and story. Yet I have to think about the story of the mother who gave birth to triplets that is outlined in the Book Having Twins by Elizabeth Noble
The mother in that story used midwives and had a home birth. Every night her husband would pack her some fruit and turkey by her bed, and she ate and ate and ate the Brewer diet, which is basically a 170 gram protein a day diet, for each additional baby you add 20 grams of protein and 500 calories for higher order multiples. The mother in that story carried her three babies to term and gave birth to them at home.
I would challenge any mother reading this to seriously consider investing in the Noble twins book and start now, before you even get pregnant, to train your body to digest all that protein. It takes time and the wrong time to start is when you are six weeks pregnant, however, any efforts that can be made to increase calories and protein will help those babies.
Jenny Hatch