My Diary of Triplet Fatherhood

It struck me again just now how wonderfully lucky we are to be having tripets. Statistically (a quick Google tells me), conceiving triplets is a massive 4848 to 1 chance. Which would be amazing enough if it wasn’t for the fact that the chance of conceiving triplets naturally is almost twice that at 8100 to 1.

I guess it would be easy, after two miscarriages, to see something propitious about three babies coming along on J’s third pregnancy. But I don’t think there is. People get lucky sometimes. This is my time to be smiled upon by fortune. And, by god, am I ever smiling back.

Fergus

Here’s the scan from monday. The top baby is the wriggler. He’s also the smallest (but only by 2mm or so) but the fact he is in lots of amniotic fluid is a good sign.

The bottom picture shows one of the twins and the singleton.

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Went for our third scan today! It was wonderful – dumbstruck by hearing the three heart beats. The smallest one (one of the identical twins) was wriggling like mad. Suspect he may be the naughty one.

The consultant said everything looks normal so far which is a relief. Booked in for another scan in a fortnight.

This is the triplets at 9 weeks. They’re about 21 mm and are only just growing arms. Two are sharing the same chorionic sack (but have a yolk sack each, which is good apparently). This makes them diamniotic twins. The other has his own bedroom… I mean, cthonic sack (or whatever it’s called).

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This is the scan they gave us after the first visit to the early pregnancy unit. The babies are tiny; only 14mm or so long, which makes them about seven and a half weeks old.

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7th March 2008: Of all our scan pictures, this is the one that I will never forget. J was desperate for a wee even when we went in for the scan (they need a full bladder to get a good pic); by the time we left the room it was all she could do not to throw nurses and other preganant mums out of the way as she sprinted to the loos. She was gone for over 20 minutes. In all that time I never once looked up from this picture.