“This could be an indication of multiples…”

I want to share a little bit about how we found out we were pregnant and what all that meant for us before the ultrasound confirmed TRIPLETS!

For people who got pregnant normally a beta test is a piloting of a new technology or product. For all of us IVFers a beta is your initial blood test that tells you if you’re pregnant. My first cycle I was a good patient and didn’t take a home test (plus I knew I wasn’t pregnant), but this time around since my real test date fell on a holiday weekend I knew from the start I was going to test at home. A home test is a qualitative test that tells you if your pregnant (yes or no, one line or two). A beta test is a quantitative test that tells you not just that HCG is present in your body, but what your actual levels of HCG are.

My first beta for this go round was on a Monday. They called at 10:30 after my blood draw at 9:00 (the urban legend is true - they do call earlier with good news). They told me that my test was positive, but that they didn’t know my exact HCG level because it was >400. After she assured me that was good news and that they would rerun the test by diluting the sample to get an exact number. She casually said, “this could be an indication of multiples.” The exact number is important because they want it to more or less double in the next 48 hours.

The nurse called on Wednesday (again early in the day). First off, she shared my exact number from Monday, which was 1180 (12 days past 5 day transfer – 12dp5dt). Remember, the test original test only measured numbers below 400, because they don’t expect your levels to be that high that early. On Wednesday my levels were 2538 (14dp5dt), so they were progressing just perfectly. I immediately drove over to Jay's work to tell him in person, which I think initially scared him a little when I showed up in the middle of the day.

At this point, I found a website where moms had posted their HCG levels and what they inevitably had (1, 2, 3, or 4 babies), and I realized that there was a huge range (i.e., some moms with 1 baby had numbers as high as mine, but my numbers were higher than a lot of moms with twins). http://www.surromomsonline.com/support/showthread.php?104399-Master-Beta-Break-Down-List

The next week my HCG levels continued to progress and were 25,589.

Jay and I kept the chance of multiples a secret from all (including family) but our closest friends during these three weeks. We had decided that if we were having twins we didn’t want to get everyone’s hopes up because of all the potential complications. We also thought it would be fun to reveal when we shared news about the genders that we were having a boy and boy (or some combination of two babies). There are really no surprises during IVF (or so we thought) and everyone knows when your procedures are, so they also know about the time you will have news to share. When we found out we were having triplets, however, we realized that we couldn’t keep it a secret because we were going to need a whole other level of support and prayers.

Meanwhile, Wrigley is completely unimpressed by all of this excitement...