i was by myself when i first found out about my trio- i am very independent & try to be a low maintenance family member so i drove myself to ALL of my appointments solo- because this was supposed to be routine @ 9 weeks, my dr sent me in with the lab tech to get started, so it was just the 2 of us- she was all, ok lets look at …..then there was silence and she looked at me funny- i asked her if something was wrong, because i had previously miscarried the december before- she said no, would you like to know how many heart beats i see? i looked at her for a second and said, one strong one would be nice! she said, think again- so i said, we have 2? no, there are one, two THREE very strong heart beats in there! and as she was saying that she turned the screen around so that i could see all of my babies- then she ran out & grabbed the dr to see our handi-work- everyone was giddy because it was technically my ob’s first set of triplets (she had delivered them before for other dr’s but this was her first real set) so it was quite the holiday in the office that day- they sent me home with group shots of everyone-their first family portrait- and singles of all three because they were all doing something different-
i had time to kill before my husband got home for lunch that day, so i ran by my fathers to go on & break the news to him – he had been thinking about getting a new larger car- i told him not to worry about getting an suv, that we were going to need something more along the size of a school bus- he said, WHY? & i told him we were having triplets- he thought i was JOKING!! & refused to believe me til i showed him the group photo of them all together-
husband also thought i was kidding til he saw the proof- then he became giddy & all excited- & he has stayed that way even to this very day-
mine are 15 month old b,b,g triplets born @ 34 weeks to the day as the dr ordered! no real problems to speak of!
~mimi

The following is long – but is the answer I gave to the same question ‘How did you feel when you found out you were having triplets?’
…..

The thin blue line invoked feelings more of fear and uncertainty than joy. This was our last attempt at IVF; we had accepted that it was unlikely to work and prepared ourselves to start the adoption process. So mentally reconciled were we to adoption that the blue line seemed almost an inconvenience, just another hurdle between us and starting a family.

We had a blood test to confirm the reading on the plastic stick and the counts were high. Very high. We’d seen a test result like this before, the first time the blue line appeared for us. Breda had been pregnant with twins then – but they had been lost – taking with them a lot of our joy in life and the confidence that IVF would ever actually work for us. Another blue line followed, but it also never brought us the children it promised. Our third attempt was the worst – failing before it ever really got started.

The odds of a successful IVF treatment are listed as being 25% or 1-in-4. Therefore we promised ourselves that we would have four attempts only. It would be so easy to get caught on the IVF treadmill for years, with our lives on hold but unable to give up the dream of having our own children. After three failed attempts we held little hope that the last try would bring us any success. We were only really going through the process so we could say we had, at least, tried our best.

And now, on our last try, the thin blue line once again teased us with its unspoken promises.

We cheated. We couldn’t wait for the hospital and found a local clinic which would do a private scan. We didn’t have the money – but we had to know. If something went wrong again we wanted to have at least seen our babies once before they were taken from us. Even if it was only as pale blurs on an ultrasound screen.

I held Breda’s hand as the nurse ran the scanner over the wet gel on her belly. After a brief search the screen was filled with the white comma-like shape which confirmed my wife had another life growing inside her. Then, quickly, another dot appeared. As we had expected, the twins were there.

However, as the nurse moved the scanner around to spread the gel, I had seen something that set my heart racing. For just the briefest moment a third dot had appeared. Breda could never stand to look at the scans until I gave her a signal that things were okay, and the nurse was distracted by the two large echoes, so no one else had noticed. I knew though. I had stood anxiously through enough scans to know what I was looking for. I held my breath and prayed that I was wrong while the nurse continued her examination. However any hopes that I was mistaken were shattered when the nurse exclaimed in surprise ‘Oh! I think I see another one!’

She moved the scanner and, as the third dot appeared on the screen again, I burst into tears. The nurses in the room all chuckled thinking that I was joyfully overwhelmed at the news. But I wasn’t. I was devastated. Not at the thought of having triplets, ever since we had lost the twins I had hoped for another chance to have multiples. No, I cried in the certain knowledge that we would lose these children as well.

I understood that the odds of successfully bringing triplets to term were stacked against us and knew, with utter conviction, that this would be yet another failed attempt for us. If we couldn’t manage to bring twins, or even a single birth, to completion, what hope was there for us to successfully carry triplets? In that clinic I mourned the loss of our children from the first moment I saw all three of them together.

We parked just down the road from the clinic, Breda wanted to ring home and I welcomed the chance to compose myself before getting onto the motorway. I had kept my fears private from her but my own mind remained in emotional turmoil. I thought about all we had had to endure to get to this point, the five hard years of infertility, the pain and loss of the miscarriages, the struggle with feelings of envy and, yes, even hatred as our friends all had children around us, the years of wasted life and thousands of pounds which had brought us nothing. We had gone through all of that, only to end up here on our last attempt – faced with yet another certain failure.

As I listened to Breda’s excited voice and the muffled screams of astonishment from her family, I stared out of the car’s windscreen; my mind filled with just one reoccurring thought. For fuck’s sake, why can’t we just be like normal people?

I didn’t respond to the post, but here’s my story.
My husband and I did IVF to conceive our triplets (who are now almost 3). We transferred 2 eggs, and on the day of the ultrasound were so anxious to find out whether we were having twins or a singleton. When the tech told us there were three babies on the screen, our first reaction was “That’s impossible! We only implanted 2 embryos!” Eventually it sunk in, and now we’re enjoying our trio: identical girls and our little boy.