As many people probably know, we are not typically the type of people to ask for help, however, with the craziness of what is to come, we are humbly asking for some help from our friends and family. As we’ve recently announced, our family got some very shocking news a few months ago, my wife is pregnant with not one, not two but THREE babies, who are very soon to be arriving! We didn’t do IVF or any fertility treatments so yes… this is just as shocking to us as it is to you!
We currently have a 2-year-old boy named Frank – who was an absolute miracle and a blessing to our family. My wife, Chelsie was born with a mitral valve disorder, (or leaky valve), which has caused a heart murmur, and she has managed that throughout her life. As I am sure many of you remember, when Chelsie was 16 she suddenly became very ill, she was life flighted from the Hutchinson Hospital to the Children's Hospital in St. Paul where she was placed into a medically induced coma due to five different life threating illnesses that she was battling. At the time, the doctors had given her less than a 25% chance that she would survive if she only had one of those illnesses so adding all 5 of them the odds were not in her favor.
For anyone who knows Chelsie, you know that she is a very strong woman, and she's a fighter! Once they were able to tackle some of the illnesses. Even after being weaned off the sedatives, Chelsie remained in a coma for 32 days before finally waking up and it was a very scary time for her and her family. To show just how amazing this woman is, after finally waking from the coma it only took her 3 days to relearn how to walk, talk, swallow, and most of her basic functions. She was out of the hospital 5 days after that due to her unwavering determination to get better! She has made as close to a full recovery as can be expected. Although she does have lasting kidney damage and an auto-immune disease from the whole ordeal. She is one of the strongest people I know.
Given Chelsie’s medical history, when we decided to start a family we went to the doctor to make sure it was safe for her to do so. This is when we found out that she has uterine didelphys (she has two uteruses and cervixes) which is very rare, .1% to .5% of women in the U.S. have this. Given this information we were told that there was a high risk for preterm birth, miscarriage, among other complications and suddenly starting a family became very scary…. But we persevered, and we got pregnant with Frank. She had regular check ups and she did everything possible to care for our baby even before he was born. We were so lucky she was able to carry him to 39 weeks and we were so grateful to have our baby who we expected was going to be our one and only as we weren’t sure Chelsie’s body would go through it again.
As I am sure almost every parent can relate to… once that baby gets a little older you start to miss that infant stage and the baby fever returns. We decided to try for one more… clearly god has bigger plans for us! We found out we were pregnant very quickly this time, and we went in for an 8 week ultrasound to make sure the baby was doing well and everything was ok with Chelsie. It was at this appointment that we found out we were having triplets! I could only find 5 reported cases of uterus didelphis triplets happening in the world! To make this even rarer is that there is one baby in the right uterus and two in the left! All three babies have their own placenta, which means that the two on left might not be identical! We are very fortunate to have a fantastic medical team working with us including a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and a perinatologist. We cannot thank our hospital team enough!
As I am sure you can imagine, we are extremely excited and happy but at the same time we are overwhelmed and anxious. Currently all 3 babies and mom are doing well, and we are feeling so blessed! With a triplet pregnancy alone, there are a number of complications that could occur and adding in Chelsies medical history, it is taking a lot of doctors to closely monitor her and our little ones. We are hopeful that the pregnancy and birth goes smoothly, but we are preparing ourselves for the possibility of pre-term births and extended stays in the NICU which will be costly.
We are absolutely up for the task but we know that it will involve many challenges.
As I said above, we are not typically the type of people to ask for help but as they often say – it takes a village to raise kids and we are in need of an entire village to help with these babies! We appreciate SO much anything you can do to help and are grateful for your support!
Thank you,
The Pietrobon Family