Day One

I will try to recount the events of the day. However, fortunately for us they are relatively uneventful.  We started out the day not knowing if it was going to be "the day" or not.  Kristen was brought to Dartmouth by ambulance the day before and we fully expected that when she got here they were going to do the c-section right away but the doctors decided to wait so they could monitor her for awhile.  Her blood pressure had gone back down so they didn't feel they had a compelling reason to take the babies yet.  She was having regular contractions that were fairly painful but was not going into labor.  It was a rough night for her, and she was ready to be done.  Everything was uncomfortable and sometimes painful.  The anesthesiologist came to talk to her about the options and possible side effects for the c-section but she was not up for paying attention to anything he said.

When we woke up Wednesday morning the first positive sign we had was that they assigned three nurses to Kristen for the day.  We were told that usually means they are planning on doing a c-section.  They also told us that the doctors would be meeting at 9:00 to decide what to do.  Once again Kristen was not allowed to eat or drink anything in case they decided to do the c-section.  At about 9:30 the doctor came in and gave us the good news that they decided to go ahead with the c-section.  They decided that some of the tests showed that her health was beginning to decline and at 35 weeks and 6 days it was a good time to do it before things got bad.  They immediately started prepping her for surgery and in less then an hour she was in the operating room.

I was able to be in there with her, and I counted 20 nurses and doctors in the room.  They were ready for anything.  After about 15 to 20 minutes of cutting and separating we heard "I see an arm and a leg"!  At 10:53 they pulled out Kathryn first.  Tyler came out next and then Seth came out at 10:54.  They took each baby over to separate stations and two or three people began checking each of them over.  Kathryn looked great fairly quickly.  It took Tyler a little while to get some good color.  He had some fluid in his lungs so they gave him oxygen.  I was a little worried but the doctors were not that concerned so that was reassuring.

While they were measuring and weighing the babies the surgical team was finishing up with Kristen.  Once that was done they put all three babies in Kristen's lap and wheeled her back to the room.  They all looked beautiful!  After all this time we could not have asked for a better delivery.  God had definitely answered many prayers!

The rest of the day was spent attending to the babies and checking their vital signs.  They were in the room with us and were all doing fine with no assistance.  They were doing much better then Kristen at this point.  She had been through a lot.  It took until about midnight before she started feeling somewhat normal.  She couldn't even keep one sip of water down.

Ben was able to come for a visit, and he was very excited to meet all 3 of his new siblings!  He even got to feed Seth a bottle.  He will be a fantastic big brother!  Ben also helped take care of mommy....getting her cold washcloths for her face, etc.  Oma made it up from PA to meet her 3 new grandchildren!  After spending a few hours with us, she took Ben home for the night.


Tyler spent his first night in the NICU as a precaution.  He was having difficulty keeping his body temperature up so they wanted to keep him warm and make sure he did not have any infections.  After keeping him overnight they decided he was fine and was brought back to the room with us.