the big one - 7/8/13 - 18w4d

   

David Adam

Samuel Abraham

Joshua Aaron

This was to be the week of the Big ultrasound, the one where the baby is looked at from every angle possible and all of the organs are analyzed. It is generally the time that you would find out the sex of the baby. So, we got a sitter for Nick, knowing that this was expected to be a long appointment, and headed to the office. We went in with the same nervous feeling of what would we do if we only saw two heart beats but our minds were quickly set at ease when the technician who was doing our scan confirmed that she saw all the hearts beating. She went on to look at each baby closely and confirm once again that they were all boys. 

Next it was Dr. Shields turn. He came in the room with only one thing to say to us and that was that everything looked status quo. Joshua was still displaying no fluid and the walls of his heart still looked to be thick. Although he was still not sure what this meant since all four chambers of his heart have been formed. He told us that we needed to stay optimistic and the appointment had gone as well as could be expected. David and Samuel were looking great and so was my cervix and while we would like to see some change for the better in Joshua, we didn't see a change for the worse which is a blessing.  

We would like to be able to walk in to or out of one of these appointments with confidence, but I don't think that is in the plan for us and we're okay with that. God knows these babies, loves them, and is in control of their futures and that fact is more comforting to us than our own peace of mind. We will continue to pray and ask that you lift all of these babies up in prayer as well. While I only have about three months left, even the doc says that it's going to be a very long and rocky road ahead.

good and bad news - 7/2/13 -17w5d

I have been feeling these little guys move for the past few weeks now and in light of all the good and bad news we have been getting, I'm constantly trying to pinpoint where and who had moved for that day. When this appointment came about I was nervous because I didn't think that Joshua had been on the move for a while. When we pulled into the parking lot, we started with what has seemed to become the "normal" ritual. We said a few words of prayer and since we were late (S.O.P for the Grindy's) hopped out of the car and practically ran up to the office. Once there, we checked in and waited for the doctor. The technician set us up and told us that Dr. Shields wanted to do our scan again hence why this post contains no pictures. I would say that he was more anxious just to get down to it and so were we. The first thing we found ourselves asking was if he saw three heart beats and the answer was YES. Once again relief washed, over us. Relief for us, Nick (who was at the appointment), and Joshua. 

During the days leading up to the appointment we had become increasingly interested in the importance of amniotic fluid for a developing baby. Once again we took to the internet and began seeing that the fluid didn't provide any nutritional value. It does however provide a cushion to both baby and umbilical cord as well as providing space for movement and growth. Through a friends recent tragedy we also learned that pinching of the cord can result in brain damage. In light of this information, we asked Dr. Shields if the collapse of the amnio sack around Joshua would result in his cord also collapsing. I was fully expecting to hear a yes so when the word no came out of his mouth I was astounded. He went on to tell us that this would be the case in a single pregnancy but since we're talking about multiple sacs, it was not as probable. Joshua and the umbilical cord could be protected by David and Samuel's sacs. In addition, he saw that things had moved around a bit and Joshua was no longer being pushed to one side like before, he was now in between David and Samuel and they were providing the most protection possible. Isn't it funny how God answers prayer? We were asking for a miracle but assumed that if it came it would be an increase in the fluid. Instead, God decided to not refill his amniotic fluid but have his brothers protect him. We were by no means out of the woods but for us this was wonderful news. 

Before the appointment concluded, Dr. Shields told us how he likes to have everything make sense and our baby did not and he wanted to figure it out. So, he made the speculation that there might be a tear or malformation in the amnio sack causing the fluid to leak out into the chorion and be absorbed. If this was the case, then it might mean that Joshua's kidneys are in fact functioning and producing urine, but it's all leaking out. The only thing that was holding the doctor back from making this a concrete observation is that when he looked at Joshua's heart, he thought the walls were too "thick" and if there is a malformation in the heart it is very likely that there is a problem with the kidneys as well. For now, we find ourselves in the uncomfortable "waiting" place once again.           

          

what's in a name - 16 weeks 6 days - 6/26/13

Baby A's Hand

We waited in nervous anticipation for the next few days. Obviously it was going to take a while for the two doctors to communicate as we all know how doctor's offices are with their crazy schedules. But it seemed to be taking forever. We had an appointment scheduled for the 27th which would put Katy at exactly 17 weeks, but on Tuesday morning the 25th, Katy received a phone call from Dr. Sheild's office. The receptionist was requesting us to come in that afternoon at 4:30. She explained that Dr. Shield's had been attempting to contact Dr. Chmait for us and asked us to see Dr. Shield's as soon as we could. Katy's heart stopped. I was in the middle of my crazy sleep schedule, preparing for graveyards that night and dead to the world at ten in the morning, when Katy woke me up to tell me all of this. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Immediately we both assumed the worst, that Dr. Chmait had seen something on the ultrasounds that led him to believe something was very wrong with baby C to the point where he couldn't operate on him. I asked Katy to see if they could schedule it just a bit earlier as I would have to miss work with it being that late. Katy called back and the receptionist related she would try. She called back a while later and said she rescheduled it for the next day at 2:30, which was not what we wanted at all! Obviously we wanted this appointment to come as soon as possible to either give us the bad news to begin coping with it or at the very least figure out what was going on. Now it was too late and we just accepted the appointment as is. 

It seemed like every time we went to Dr. Shield's office, we were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. This time it was magnified by ten thousand. We have been in constant prayer for these boys, unceasing in our requests to our heavenly Father, but that day was different. The car ride over was eerily silent. We left Nick with some friends as we didn't want him there for any horrible news or to see his parents completely lose their minds. In the parking lot, we held each others hands, closed our eyes, and asked God to heal our son and if He chose not to, to give us the strength to make it through and the wisdom to share the news with our four year old. After feeling as at peace as we could, we made the long walk up to his office. For the first time, the nurse said that Dr. Shields wanted to do the ultrasound himself, and not let her do her regular measurements. This just made us about lose it, again assuming he wanted to be the one to tell us the horrible fate that was sure to come. Our faces easily gave away our inward emotions when Dr. Shields entered the exam room as he told us we looked like we had seen a ghost. We nervously smiled and waited for the prognosis. After what seemed like an eternity of him quietly scanning the ultrasound, I asked him exactly why we had been called in early. He asked me what I meant. I told him how we had been called in early as our scheduled appointment was not until the next day and what had transpired the day before. Dr. Shields quickly apologized and said he had merely wanted to make sure we were being seen as he did not think we had any scheduled appointments that week. He assured us that all three boys' hearts looked fine, that baby C's fluid was at this point virtually non-existent, but that they all had grown and had strong heartbeats. The relief and stress that exited from Katy and I was palpable, so much so that we both ignored the mistake and were just thankful that all the boys were okay for now. 

Dr. Shields also told us about his conversation with Dr. Chmait who was not convinced that there was enough evidence to diagnose TTTS at this point. Dr. Shields explained how it now appeared baby B did not have any excess fluid or an enlarged bladder, which would suggest he was the receiver in the TTTS scenario, even though baby C's bladder was not visible and his amnio sac had shrunk significantly. At this point, the only thing we could do was wait another week and see what transpired. We asked what it would mean for the rest of the pregnancy since baby C's amniotic fluid was completely gone. He told us how it was not a guarantee that baby C would make it to full term, but that some babies can be born without any amniotic fluid. The risk for fatality obviously increases due to baby C's lack of protection for his umbilical cord, thus increasing the possibility for the cord to be pinched and the blood to his brain to cease. That slim glimmer of hope was enough for us and that concluded the visit.

We came in to the appointment expecting the worst. While it wasn't great news, in light of the situation we had envisioned it was fantastic news! Our boys did not seem to have TTTS and we did not have to make a decision at this point as to whether we should go forward with the laser therapy or septostomy as there was not enough evidence to make that decision either way. 

As we drove away that afternoon, we both decided we were done referring to our boys by letters. We were going to give them names, even if one or all of them did not survive, to humanize them as we knew they were, and give them the love and respect a name can bring versus a letter. We decided we couldn't allow these three boys to not be a part of the embarrassing tradition of a consonant first initial and middle initial of "A," so here's where our family stands:

RAG - Robert Andrew Grindy

KAG - Kathryn Ann Grindy

NAG - Nicholas Andrew Grindy

DAG - David Adam Grindy - Baby Boy A

SAG - Samuel Abraham Grindy - Baby Boy B

JAG - Joshua Aaron Grindy - Baby Boy C

We're torturing our children. We know. 

it's a man's world - 6/20/13 - 16 weeks

We forgot to write on the previous post, that what the nurse thought was two girls and a boy actually turned out to be three boys! We definitely were looking forward to having another girl in the house, for me to spoil and Katy to have someone for her team as every child who we've had has been a boy, and it looks like this trend would continue! But in the end, we truly truly just wanted all three of these boys to come out of the womb and enter the world, regardless of their gender.

A

 B

 C

Back to the actual week...

TTTS was a brand new term to us. We had no idea what it meant for our babies or for us. We also were very reluctant to begin googling anything as we had been advised, very wisely, to not look online at anything. Needless to say, the draw was too strong and we caved. Fortunately, the first search took us to a website called the TTTS Foundation. After sending an email to the contact person we were surprised when the actual founder, Mary Slaman-Forsythe, emailed me back within 12 hours. She gave me all kinds of information regarding TTTS as well as a link to her Facebook page which connected us with numerous other parents of twins who had/have TTTS. She also forwarded on my info to a man named Dr. Julian De Lia, a renowned researcher and pioneer in the aforementioned laser surgery. Mary is a super sweet woman and I would direct anyone who knows their twins have TTTS to her foundation. Amazingly enough, two days later, Dr. De Lia called Katy personally and spent the better part of an hour walking her through all of the things to look for, ask of our perinatologist, and answering questions. It blew us away that this doctor who has his own patients, research, and life to take care of, was willing to call us on his personal time with very little knowledge of who we were or what we were going through. Dr. De Lia was extremely gracious, kind, and loving to our family and the impression he left, as well as the knowledge, we will be forever grateful for.

The week in between these ultrasounds was quite encouraging with all of the support we had. We went into the appointment feeling equipped and ready to tackle whatever Dr. Shields saw on the screen. Sure enough, it appeared as if baby C had lost more amniotic fluid and baby B's fluid was slightly elevated. Additionally, he could not see baby C's bladder. This suggested his bladder may be empty because it was not receiving enough blood from the placenta to his kidneys to create urine and thus make his bladder visible once it had filled. Dr. Shields still felt as if our best option was for the laser therapy with a man named Dr. Chmait (pronounced Sh-might) down at USC, one of the leading fetal specialists.

So far we have more doctors than we have babies:

Dr. Steinleitner - infertility specialist
Dr. Yin - OBGYN
Dr. Shields - perinatologist
Dr. De Lia - laser therapy pioneer
Dr. Chmait - fetal specialist

The next step was for Dr. Shields to contact Dr. Chmait, send over all of our triplets information, let Dr. Chmait analyze it, and hopefully schedule an appointment for us to go down to LA. I stressed how willing I was to move around my work schedule to accomodate Dr. Chmait's schedule to get in as soon as possible. Once again, everything was completely out of our control and in God's hands, as it always was and will be.

relief - 15 weeks - 6/13/2013

A

B

C

The wait until the next appointment was agonizing! It is well known by Christians that "a child is a gift from God," but when you are faced with the possibility of a loss, it is sad to say, faith might waver and you begin to think that you have control over the situation. Rob and I were constantly on the internet trying to find out anything and everything we could about this bladder problem and what we might be able to do, when in reality God knew all along.

We checked in at the front desk and after what felt like an eternity went back to see the doctor. He looked and looked without saying much of anything until finally he revealed that baby C's bladder was back to normal! Relief and guilt would be the words to describe how we felt at this moment. Relief that things where looking good and guilt about how we doubted God's providence. In our minds the appointment was finished and it was time for us to leave but the doctor had the same look on his face from the previous ultrasound.

Baby C was now measuring low on amnionic fluid. As you can see from the pictures above, babies A and B have a lot of fluid surrounding them, in sort of an egg shape of blackness, thus giving them more room to stretch and move their limbs, while C's fluid was more like a deflating balloon. The most feasible solution the doctor could give us was that this was a rare condition called twin to twin transfusion syndrome, or TTTS. Baby B and C are thought to be the identical twins who share a placenta and chorion sac, and in this case some of the wiring got mixed up so you have what is called a donor and receiver. Essentially, they share some blood vessels and in cases like this, the donor baby would give most of it fluid to the receiver, causing the receiver to have an enlarged bladder and excessive amniotic fluid while the donor did not display a bladder and had little to no amniotic fluid. He went on to explain how there is a doctor down in LA who has been successful at performing an invasive endoscopic laser surgery that would get the wiring back on track. However, it was a bit premature for Dr. Shields to recommend this course of action so he asked that we come back to see him the next week...AGAIN. So we left the doctor's office feeling even worse than we had the previous appointment.

sexes? - 13 weeks - 5/30/2013

A

B

C

At this ultrasound, my friend Caitrin came with me for support as Rob was in Sacramento for training and couldn't make it down. It was awesome to have her there for comfort! If you listen close to the video, you can hear the nurse in the background explaining that she thought baby A was a BOY! She then gave us the exciting news that she thought babies B and C, who would be the identicals, were GIRLS! One boy and two girls! We were very excited!

In the previous ultrasound we found out that baby C was on the small side of things so the doctor insisted that we see him every two weeks to keep an eye on the growth. When he looked this time we were very pleased to see that C was the same size as A and it was now B who was measuring a little bit bigger than the other two. The doctor wasn't so sure about the sexes, saying it was probably too early to tell. The pregnancy was now at 13 weeks and everything seemed to be back on track...except for the face of the doctor.

He explained that while he was doing his in-depth study on baby C, it was very obvious that its bladder was enlarged. This was a concern because it could mean that the baby was swallowing the amniotic fluid but not urinating it back out into its amniotic sac. If the bladder got too large, this might put some strain on the kidneys and the potential outcome could be kidney failure. We were told that this could have several different causes. The first, and easiest to remedy, would be that there was a blockage in the baby's urethra and the only thing they would need to do right now would be to poke a small hole in the membrane between B and C to allow the fluid to flow evenly between the two amnio sacs. Then after the baby was born, there would be a minor surgery performed that would unblock anything that was obstructing the flow of urine. The second cause was that it might also be possible that the baby's urethra never formed, which would result in a much more complex surgery after birth. He would also recommend that we have a shunt put in to the baby's bladder which would stick out of my belly. Third, if C was a girl, then it could be that he was seeing a cyst on one of her ovaries, which would just dissipate over time and was nothing to be overly concerned about. The doctor also said that a fourth option would be to completely eliminate C all together so as not to put any stress on the other two babies, which, as Rob previously posted, would never be an option for us.  At this time, with so many unknowns, we just needed to wait and see what we saw on the next ultrasound.

perry-nay-tall-oh-gist - 10 1/2 weeks - 5/13/2013

For Nick's pregnancy, we used an obstetrician/gynecologist down in Santa Barbara. Since the possibility was close to 100% that our kids would be in the NICU for an extended amount of time, we decided to switch OB's to one at our local hospital which just opened up a state of the art NICU. Her name is Dr. Yin and she is this adorable woman who just loves Katy and these babies and it was obvious from the first visit. However, when you find out you are having triplets, you can't just go see an OB, you have to see a perinatologist. Basically, a high risk pregnancy doc. Ours is named Dr. Shields. There are good and bad things about seeing one of these doctors. The good is that every time you see him, you get a very high tech ultrasound with an in depth analysis of each of the babies. The bad is that every time you see him, you get a very high tech ultrasound with an in depth analysis of each of the babies. This brings with it bad news. On our first visit with him, he was very excited for us, but stressed the medical practice of selective reduction, which is exactly what it sounds like. His straight to the point attitude and lack of a compassionate bedside manner was very off putting. We understand that there are a lot of people who are pro-parental-choice, but we are not one of those. Apparently we did not make this very clear when he asked us for an explanation of why we did embryo adoption. He asked us on not one, not two, but on three separate occasions if this was something we wanted to do. Out of morbid curiosity I asked him what he meant by "selective reduction." He went on to explain how they would snip the back of the baby(ies) neck near the spinal cord and the baby(ies) would be absorbed by Katy and the remaining baby(ies). Immediate images that we had conjured up in our heads from the multiple articles which had recently come out about Dr. Kermit Gosnell flooded both of our minds. Probably more aggressively than I should have, I explained our spiritual reasoning for not wanting "selective reduction" and that our position would not change, to which he rescinded...a bit. Dr. Shields then explained to us how all embryos are surrounded by amniotic sacs containing amniotic fluid. However, each amniotic sac is composed of two membranes. The outer membrane, or chorion, is part of the placenta and contains the inner membrane. The inner membrane, or amnion, contains the amniotic fluid and the fetus. Baby A, the single embryo, had its own chorion, amnion, amniotic fluid, and placenta. Baby B and C, the split embryo and our identicals, each had their own amnions and amniotic fluid, but were contained within the same chorion and shared a placenta. This all became important later, but for now, we knew Baby A was the biggest, Baby B second, and Baby C came in third. Heartbeats normal for all three, and we were the proud parents of triplet babies!

social media - 8 weeks - 4/24/2013

I blame social media...I realized that it has been almost four years since the last time we updated this blog and I have to admit that it was about the same time we acquired Facebook accounts. However, it is important to document this stage in our lives as we are expecting again! We have been trying to grow our family ever since Nick arrived but it was to no avail. We spent the last four years exploring other avenues such as infertility treatments, adoption, foster care/adoption, and finally settling on embryo adoption. This is a relatively new procedure where the doctor got in touch with one of his clients who did IVF and they had leftover embryos that they gave to us. So, on our first round of this embryo transfer I was implanted with 2 embryos in September of 2012.  After waiting almost two weeks the verdict was in and I was pregnant!! Three days later I went in for a blood test that said that I was no longer pregnant. Reluctantly we started the whole process over again and by March 2013 we found out that we were pregnant again. This time we made it to our 6 week ultrasound and this is what we saw:

Not 1, not 2, but 3 babies! We were happy and scared at the same time. We went in to the ultrasound thinking about the possibility of twins, because the doctor transfered 2 embryos into my uterus with the hopes that at least one might stick. Never did we think that we might have triplets and by his reaction, neither did the doctor. Once he regained his composure, he explained that one embryo had split.

Nick is so excited! He cant wait to be a big brother again. When I ask him how many babies he wants me to have he tells me, "Ten!" God blessed us with a little boy who has such a big heart full of love. I realize that some of you might not know what I meant by "big brother again," but about a year ago we had the joy of welcoming two beautiful baby boys into our home through the foster care system.

                                            Matthew was with us from birth to 8 months

and Zane who was with us from birth to 3 months.

Unfortunately, both of these little beauties could not stay in our home and I know that when they left it not only crushed Rob and I, but Nick as well. However, we serve a wonderful and powerful God who knows every hair on our head and was gracious enough to provide comfort and joy for our family in the midst of such a dark time. 

We went through a period of unexplainable spiritual turmoil, trying to figure out why we couldn't seem to keep any of the babies we loved, first Matthew, then Zane, then the first embryo transfer. We wondered if maybe we just weren't supposed to have any more kids and just be content with Nick. Little did we know that God was preparing our hearts and lives to take in three at once! 

Grace

Tonight I was sitting in my son’s room watching my husband play his guitar and sing Christmas songs to the little boy while I hear the rain falling out side and I can’t help but think about how God has always provided for us. There are so many people, in all walks of life, who don’t have a warm dry place to go on a night like this and my heart just breaks for them. However, more than that my heart breaks for the millions of people who do not know God’s grace. You see a few years ago our little family was very unstable financially and through the love of friends and family God showed us his wonderful grace and now we are to show love to EVERYONE else because He first loved us. 

Oops!

So far today has been all about the wrong decisions

Bad decision #1: This morning I got a text from my husband with some husband/wife humor in it, so thinking I would be witty I sent him a message back. 10 minutes latter he sends me another text saying that I sent the message to HIS MOM instead of him. Oops. (thanks Michele for being so cool about it)

Bad decision #2: After breakfast the boy and I were hanging out in the family room and he started to grunt and turn red, then I took a whiff of the air and just as I suspected he pooped. So being the good mom that I am I waited a little while to make sure that he was finished and then took him into the bedroom to get a diaper change. When I opened his pj’s I could tell that it was going to be a messy one. I began the unpleasant process only to have my efforts stunted by my squirmy little boy, so I grabbed the first thing I saw that he could hold and keep his attention while I finished. When I was about half way done I looked up to see a pink liquid covering my boy chest and face. I had grabbed my sons Motrin that was sitting on his changing table and he had managed to open the child-proof cap and spill it all over. I finished cleaning off his little bottom then moved on to the Motrin which he was now painting his body with. After all was clean I went to put a dry diaper on him and he peed on me!

I hope this is not an indication of how my Friday will be.