Triplets Plus One = 10.65484549 Units of Cool
Kelly Raines

My wife Jill and I have 4 children: Carter, Sara, and Zane, our triplets who spent time in a NICU, and Jesse who came along three years later. To answer the rather indelicate questions that are frequently posed to us when people discover we had another baby after triplets: Yes, we know what causes babies; yes, were actually very happy to have Jesse; no, there's no reason to pity us; and yes, we are crazy.

I might have been crazy before triplets. I don't remember. I know I'm crazy now and it's all the children's fault.

See, three singleton children are a lot of stuff to do all the time. Triplets, however, are more than just one more than two. Does that make sense? Probably not and I'm not sure I can explain it even though I KNOW what it means. Add another child into the mix and it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. If you've ever been inside a barrel full of monkeys then you know that it is a very special kind of fun that probably isn't for everybody.

I have a theory that multiple birth children are more than the sum of their parts. For example, If one child equals one unit of trouble, then two children do not equal two units of trouble, they equal some multiple of two. According to my calculations, triplets are the functional equivalent of 9.15484549 singleton children. I'm not a mathematician, but you only have to witness the traveling riot that is the Raines family to understand what I mean. I don't have a formula yet for adding a singleton to multiples, but I'd guess that it would be at least worth 1.5 additional units of trouble. All told, we have a whole heap of children, and we don't go anywhere quietly.

Before Jill and I had children, I used to tell her that four seemed like the right number. In retrospect, I don't think I was ever being serious, and I know for sure Jill didn't take me seriously. Jill would usually dismiss my comments with a smart remark like, "When you start having the babies, we can have four."

By the time Jill and I decided to start our family, I had just turned 30 and we were busy with our careers and I wondered if we'd have the time to have one child, let alone four. Then it took a little longer, and still longer, and still longer until having one child began to seem like an impossible dream.

That changed.

I sort of remember the day in the summer of 1998 when we went to the doctor and as we looked at the ultrasound, the doctor said, in what seemed like a rather deadpanned voice as though it was no big deal, there's one, there's two, and ....there's three.

Sara Raines, 1 hour old

I started to giggle and Jill didn't breathe for several minutes. I don't think either of us spoke until we got on the elevator and even then I'm not sure we had any words to describe the combination of elation and fear the news caused us.

Jill had a fairly uncomplicated pregnancy as far as triplets go but still required daily fetal monitoring for much of the pregnancy and several visits to the hospital for pre-term labor. One of the hospital visits required Jill to endure seven days of aggressive labor-delaying strategies, including several days on Magnesium Sulfate.

Sara Raines Five Years Old

Magnesium sulfate is evidently not a pleasant experience. Even the drug’s nickname--Mag--sounds menacing. Mag is an extreme muscle relaxant that takes the person right to the edge of shutting down their entire body and leaves them in suspended animation until reversed with a dose of potassium. It is great at turning off labor but does nothing to turn off the brain. Otherwise, they’d give it to the fathers also. The resulting zombie-like state is described as pretty horrible by everyone I know who's had to take it. Fortunately, the treatments bought us almost 4 more weeks of gestation. With babies who are born premature, every single day counts.

Jill has a will second only to Mother Nature herself and because of this, she got the babies all the way to 33 weeks, 5 days, before the doctor said it was time.

Carter, Sara, and Zane Raines were born on Friday, February 13, 1998.

The birth itself was quite strange. There must have been 50 people in the operating room. There were three teams of nurses, one for each baby, the OB and surgical staff, and about 30 nursing students from a school I've never heard of who we had evidently agreed to let observe by not saying they couldn't. At least they said they were nursing students... they might have sold tickets for all I know. I'm sure it was quite a spectacle.

Carter, Sara, and Zane began life pretty well for preemies. Sara, at 3 lbs, 14 oz was the healthiest of the three and required only an uneventful twelve-day stay in the NICU. Zane, the smallest at 3 lbs, 3 oz had a 3-week NICU stay with few problems other than low birth weight. *

Carter, despite being the largest of the three at 4 lbs 14oz, suffered considerable difficulties. As is often the case with multiples, the largest baby is ironically the least prepared for premature birth.

Within a few hours of birth, Carter was under enough respiratory distress that he had to be placed on a ventilator to try and raise his blood's oxygen level. After 24 hours on a regular vent, Carter was still not responding well enough and was placed on a high frequency oscillating vent.

The days Carter spent on the vent were hard. For a person who's never been there, it is hard to describe the feelings of desperation and helplessness NICU parents experience with a critically ill child. Being around other the parents with "normal" births made having our children in the NICU that much harder. Modern maternity wards being the efficient machines they are, gave me plenty of time to see people come and go after less than a day in the hospital. We, by comparison, were there day after day after day wondering if we would ever take any of our babies home. I felt so bitter and jealous that we weren’t the ones rolling out the door with balloons, flowers, teddy bears and, most of all, a healthy babies. It’s hard to be around other people’s joy when you feeling so much sadness.

During this time, Jill and I found ourselves frequently at odds with each other. We debated the meaning of every word the doctors told us about Carter's status. We called the hospital every morning upon waking, every evening before bed, and visited several times during the day. Between updates, we played this kind of good cop/bad cop game against each other, obsessively analyzing every word the doctors told us.

We were both in an odd kind of denial that was in opposition to each other’s. I could only hear or focus on the positive things the doctors said, and Jill could only focus on the negative. I was trying to keep my attention focused on what signs of improvement to look forward to and Jill was trying to be prepared for the worst. Between the two of us, we had enough anxiety to fill an entire mental ward.

Zane, Carter, Sara at 2 months

Finally, after what seems like months but was really only about a week, Jill called the hospital first thing in the morning and the nurse told us Carter had experienced a major breakthrough during the night and they were going to be able to take him off the vent later that day.

I think the first thing I said was, "See, I told you." I still have scars from Jill's reaction to that comment.

But I'd have borne any scars or made any sacrifice to get all three children home from the NICU. As it turns out, most of the scars and sacrifices have come since the children came home from the hospital.

First to go was sleep. All babies cause sleep deprivation but multiples cause--I don't know...what's bigger than deprivation? How about sleep destitution? By about 2 months after the children came home from the hospital, I was trying to feed the children through their ears and waking up to rock my pillow back to sleep.

The list of trials and travails during that first year is long and overwhelming to recall. Carter had to be on oxygen for 5 months. The equipment we were provided by the apparently cut-rate home health agency our insurance company gave us —Bob’s Medical Supply and Live Bait was what the truck said--never worked particularly well. Among the more wonderful things we lived with a 120-decibel apnea alarm that would go off for no reason at random intervals--usually between 2 and 4 am.

The pulse oximeter didn't fit well, so we never knew if Carter's oxygen levels were exactly what they were supposed to be. I can't remember how many times Jill and I obsessed over the color of his lips. "Well, the pulse ox says 0% but his lips don't look blue to me. Do they look blue to you?" We would pinch his fingers, shine a light in his eyes to make sure his pupils were reactive, and tell him jokes to see if he would laugh. When he didn't laugh, I would be convinced he was in respiratory distress. I came to the ugly realization that I can't tell jokes very well. While, a 2-month-old isn't the best audience, I know now that it comes to joke telling, I stink. We had a few visits to the hospital just to make sure his lips were the proper shade of pink (and to second-guess the faulty pulse oximeter.)

Then there were the illnesses typical of pre-mature birth that all of them shared. Retinopathy, reflux, jaundice, thrush, and every virus and flu bug known to the human race. Aside from the reals stuff, there was all the stuff we had to worry about--RSV, BPD, CP, and other conditions which had acronyms containing all 26 letters of the alphabet. At the end of the first year, we had logged enough doctor visits to put braces on a full platoon of doctors’ children.

 

The children's first year was expensive. On the other hand, what’s money compared to the health of your children? Not that much considering that the babies were home and got healthier and healthier every day. A bargain at 10 times the price but don’t tell my insurance company that I said that. On my worst day, I don't think I ever forget how many people with NICU babies aren't as fortunate as Jill and I are. We had it hard but not that hard.

Flash forward to the year 2000. We had just about learned how to manage the children. We had just about gotten back to fairly regular sleep schedules. The children had just about grown up enough that people didn't gawk at us like side-show freaks every time we went out of the house. And, best of all, the children were on the verge of being out of diapers.

It was a good time and it lasted about a week.

Imagine my surprise. It was about 6:00 A.M, July 9th, 2000, the children were still asleep, I was enjoying my first cup of coffee, and Jill comes downstairs to present me with the positive pregnancy test that I didn’t know she was taking.

Contrary to how more people than I care to remember expected us to react, we were thrilled! Another baby! What incredible blessings God has given us!

Life is weird like that. It seemed so ironic. I used to say I wanted four kids and suddenly, after wanting children and having none, we had four in less than 3 years.

If only I'd have said, "I think $159 million seems like the right number to win in the lottery." For all my pretend complaining, I wouldn't trade any part of the past six years for a 159 $159 million dollar lottery wins.

Jesse Coston Raines was born March 8, 2001 and did not spend a single day in the NICU but still managed to turn our world totally upside down just the same.

Despite starting the whole baby thing all over again, it was lots easier and lots more fun the second time around. This was partly because, like most parents we were experienced and therefore more relaxed. Also, with Jesse, we only one new baby to take care which is, by default, easier than three.

I tell all my friends after they have thier first baby that they have to have at least one more or they'll never appreciate how cool it is to have a new baby in your house.

And having a baby is cool. So, using my mathematical formula, having triplets plus one equals approximately 10.65484549 units of cool. That's plenty for one family.

The Raines Children, 2003.