I just arrived in Madison after a full day in the hospital and the drive home.  Here’s an update from today and some perspective on the road ahead…

The ultrasounds went pretty well.  Ruby and Madison continue to do really well.  Olivia was the same today as she was Saturday, which is a very good thing.  The doctors were encouraged to see that she hadn’t worsened.  Praise God.  Along with the good news today, we made a significant decision to take any surgical option off the table.  The main reasons are:  (1) we’re about to reach 24 weeks which automatically rules out one of the options and (2) even though we would be candidates for the laser procedure to separate the placenta’s of the twins, we fall into a small subset (we’re the 5th of over 500 cases of twins and the first with triplets) where the surgery hasn’t been effective.  It turns out that Olivia and Madison’s umbilical cords each insert into the shared placenta less than two centimeters apart.  The other procedures this group of doctors have done to separate the placenta in twins with the cord insertions so close have not been successful.  With the decision to not do any surgical intervention the choice we’ve made is expectant waiting.  What this means is ultrasounds M,W,F to be sure Olivia continues to hang in there.  If at any point she starts to struggle, Allison will have to go inpatient for monitoring or prepare to deliver.  At 24 weeks they all have a chance to live.  We hit 24 weeks this Wednesday.  At 28 weeks the chance goes up significantly.  Our prayer is to get to at least 30 weeks and get Allison home as soon as possible.  Obviously, we’d love for her to deliver here in Madison.  Each day is crucial and as days turn into weeks that they all stay in the womb, their chance to do well goes up.  We spent some time with the staff neonatologist as well today.  We got to look at some “26 weekers” in the NICU and interact with the nurses as well.  The doctor told us that each day in the womb means at least 3 less days in the NICU.  We’re glad we spent the time getting familiar with this area of the hospital and with the idea of possibly spending some time there.  We both feel like we need to be prepared for what could come our way but with that continue to believe God for the best.

That’s the medical update.  As Christians we choose to see this circumstance through the eyes of our faith (Hebrews 11:1), very similar to when we were trusting God to become pregnant in the first place.  Thank you for believing with us.  God is faithful and we thank Him for the lives He’s knitting together in Allison’s womb right now (Psalm 139:13,14).

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