Doubling Our Family Overnight

If you were to tell me five years ago that I would be a mother to not only four children, but that my last pregnancy would include triplets, I would have laughed in your face.

The truth is, I struggled to conceive with both pregnancies.

My oldest son, Aaron, was a total surprise. We had tried for nearly four years while I had gone through a variety of treatments for precancerous cells on my cervix, and we found out shortly after moving to Texas and closing on our first home.

SURPRISE!

Turns out we should have gone with the four-bedroom house instead of the three-bedroom we purchased.

Having our son filled my heart with so much unconditional and relentless love. I found myself wanting to protect and keep him safe, as well as push him to learn, grow, and be confident in who he is.

Despite all my love for our son, I always had a longing in my heart to grow and add to our family. Not long after Aaron turned a year old, we began trying for our next child.  The struggle we had conceiving the first time mentally prepared us for a tough and long journey. But, nothing could have prepared me for what the future would hold for us.

We tried to conceive for nearly three years on our own before seeking the help of an infertility specialist. We were repeatedly told how we were young and in good health and just needed to be patient. While I spent most of that time frustrated and feeling like my concerns were mostly dismissed and not taken seriously, I also knew how blessed we were to have our son and never wanted to take him for granted.

Once we moved to Germany, infertility treatments finally became a real financial option for us. Before they start any treatments, there are a series of tests they run to see where the fertility issues are stemming from.  Through this process, we found out I had endometriosis covering my uterus and ovaries and completely blocking both fallopian tubes. Waking up from the procedure to hear you would never have children naturally again, is a heartbreaking pain I will never forget.

We waited a month after hearing this news and collecting information before deciding to proceed with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) treatment. This treatment would only be a tenth of the cost in comparison to stateside costs, and we were ready to have hope one more time to avoid ever having regrets of not trying.

Little did we know how drastically our luck would be changing.

After our first round of hormone treatment, the doctor was able to collect 11 mature eggs. At first, to hear so many eggs were matured and healthy, our hopes of achieving a second child were high. However, fertilization seemed to still be an issue and extra help was needed.

Out of the 11 eggs, only three were successfully fertilized. Two of the eggs were strong, while one was less advanced, and we were told it would likely not survive the implantation process and would also fail to survive the freezing process if we chose not to implant.

My heart broke at the thought of not giving that egg a chance. It was already a piece of me and deserved a chance to become a new life. With the doctor’s consent, we decided to put all our eggs into the basket and implant all three eggs in hopes we would come out with at least a healthy singleton pregnancy. Three weeks later we received the phone call I was hoping for—we were pregnant!

It did not take long to see two beautiful babies in our biweekly ultrasounds.

But, nothing could have prepared us for the scare of a
lifetime while I was at work and I began bleeding. At roughly nine weeks pregnant, I began spotting at work. My husband quickly brought me into the doctor for a checkup. My biggest fear was growing inside me when I prepared for my exam and blood began to run down my leg and pool on the floor.

The realization that I could be losing one or both of the babies devastated me.

Instead of hearing we had lost either of them, we were told there was a third heartbeat.

The original two fetuses were strong and healthy, but the third was underdeveloped, and my body may be trying to reabsorb the embryo. We were told to come back after the weekend and check on the babies’ statuses. Monday came and all three had grown to the same size and were healthy and strong.

We were having triplets!

The remainder of the pregnancy went relatively uneventfully.

Unfortunately, as like many other military families, my husband was across the world in the states while the triplets were born in Germany.  On March 7, 2018, the McLaughlin triplets were born at 32 weeks and 5 days.

On this day, we went from a small family of three to a complete family of six.

The real shock came when all three were born healthy, no oxygen needed, and only required fluids and a feeding tube to help put some weight on.

After 18 days in the NICU they were released, just in time for the five of us to make the three-hour round-trip  journey to pick up Dad from the airport. It was time for our family to be whole again.