My story is long.  I am not sure what all to include and what all to leave out, but will focus more on the aftermath than the reduction.  I found out I was pregnant with triplets just shy of 7 weeks after 3 miscarriages and more than 2 years of fertility treatments.  I was over the moon - but I also knew my fertility clinic's stance on 3 or more.  Reduce, reduce, reduce.  I knew my fertility nurse, who had followed me all along and really did a lot for me, felt reduction was best.  I had always thought I wouldn't reduce triplets, but then when I found myself pregnant with triplets, I found myself terrified of all that could go wrong, even as I was thrilled at my dreams coming true.

I wondered how I would handle 3 babies.  I wondered if nursing could possibly work.  I wondered how this would affect my almost 4-year-old son.  I wondered how 3 babies would affect ME from the standpoint that I have a history of depression and had mild PPD with my son.  I worried, after 3 miscarriages, that I would lose all the babies.  I worried something would be wrong with one or all of them.  I read so many horror stories, so many happy stories.

I joined a triplet message board and tried to convince myself that I, too, could be one of the happy stories.  I looked at minivans and triplet strollers.  I read up on breastfeeding triplets (frankly, the news there is kind of bleak...)

The short version of my reduction is, I spoke to 4 medical professionals - and all were of the opinion that reduction was best.  Even the peri I saw who would have followed me had I kept all 3 - we were with an HMO and I consulted with 2 peris, one who did reductions and one who followed HOM pregnancies - was subtly pushing for reduction.  There were various remarks to the effect that reduction is smarter, marriages break up, think of your older son...

I changed my mind 50 times a day.  I kept thinking that, in the end, I would walk out of the appointment for the reduction, I would have played the good patient until the end but then, at the 11th hour, just walked away.  But the night before the reduction I had some very heavy bleeding and I was so afraid that it meant the beginning of the end, that if I didn't reduce I would lose them all.  Over and over and over, it haunts me that I didn't simply walk away.  I felt like I was physically stuck to that table.  I didn't want to leave, and I didn't want to have the reduction.  (And I want to mention that the only reason the reduction was even scheduled was because they booked it when I went for my consult with the peri at 10 weeks.  I knew I would never call to make the appointment - I was too conflicted.  But they said I could always cancel - which I believed - but I couldn't.  I kept thinking of calling to cancel, but my heart would beat wildly when I thought of what would go wrong, and I just couldn't pick up the phone.)

I wanted those babies - but I was scared of losing those babies.  I wouldn't let myself bond with them - I didn't talk about there being 3 to many people in real life - I felt like I knew from the beginning that everyone else wanted me to reduce and I just had to accept it.  My husband and I didn't even talk about it as much as we should have - I wanted to just believe 2 was the way to go, that this was a compromise I could live with (for our marriage, remember?)

I am so ashamed of my thinking at this time - the only thing that gives me courage to admit to it is the fact that other women I have encountered have felt the same way.  The vague scare tactics we have been given are the same.  There is tremendous pressure to reduce from some doctors and unless you are 100% pro-life it is really hard to say no from the start.  I wanted my babies - but I wanted to do the best thing for everyone, too.  It's hard to explain - my thinking was all over the place.  But simply being told you need to consider this is a form of pressure - no doctor would suggest something this horrible unless there was a really good reason, right?  It's the same concept as initiation - the more horrible the torture, the more worthwhile the membership to the club.

So I had my reduction at 12w4d.  I am 28 weeks pregnant today with twin girls and have not had a single complication with the pregnancy, since that bleeding the night before the reduction.  It should make me happy - but instead it reinforces that I probably would have been just fine with all 3.  (And this is important because so many reduction stories you read have the woman feeling so sure she did the right thing, going in to labor early and having problems, reinforcing that she would have been even worse off with 3.  I read those kind of stories and I believed them.  It's not always so!)

I have had tremendous guilt and depression since the reduction.  It seems ironic, given that PPD was one reason we felt I couldn't handle 3 babies at once.  I cannot imagine taking care of 3 babies with "normal" PPD to be anywhere near as hard as taking care of 2 babies while suffering the intense guilt I feel for killing their sibling.  I am having a hard time right now just taking care of my 4 year old, feeling the way I do.  I thought that 3 babies would be hard for him to adjust to, but how could I ever conceive of his being grateful to me for this?  All I can think of is his horror if he knew, and I wish I had told him there were 3 to begin with and let him be my conscience.

Every cute thing my son does tears me apart - because that reduced baby will never get to do those things.  My babies are both girls - I really hoped for a brother for my son, and I know in my heart my Baby C was a boy.  I look at my son and think about the baby I will never know.  I picture another fat-cheeked, blonde-haired little boy with big blue eyes who thinks I'm the greatest mommy in the world.  It breaks my heart how my son still adores me when I feel like the worst mother on earth.

I think of the babies in my belly and I am terrified at the idea of giving birth.  I am ashamed to say that one thing I was afraid of with triplets was a c-section - I have never even had a tooth filled so the thought of major surgery like that while awake scared me.  In retrospect - I could have gotten used to it.  Maybe I could have even requested to be put under general anesthesia.  But I was terrified of a c-section and hung up on a vaginal birth which of course, looking back, makes no sense.  I had my son "naturally" not because I felt natural childbirth was so important but because I was afraid of an epidural.  Well, childbirth hurts - and now I am faced with the prospect of hours of pain while giving birth to 2 babies I am terrified to meet - I can't bond with them, I feel like I have done the most terrible thing in the world to them and how can I ever make that up to them- plus there is the thought of pushing out my Baby C.  I don't know what he will look like.  I don't want to look at him and yet I feel I have to, I feel like I owe him that much.  I feel like we owe him a burial and yet what will the doctors and nurses think of my wanting to take my placenta and decomposed 12-week-old fetus home with me?  (luckily I have learned not to care so much about what doctors and nurses think and feel - I let the opinions convince me to kill my baby, I won't let their opinions convince me to send him to a hospital incinerator)

I am haunted by this child that I will never know.  I can't imagine ever looking at my girls and not thinking about what might have been, how they should be 3 and not 2.  I knew, going in to this, that there would be regrets - and yet I thought there was some real medical justification for this procedure.  I was so sure that if I didn't do it, I would be taking a terrible risk.

Unfortunately, now, with a clearer head than I had when I had to make this choice, I have read many, many things which make it clear that the risks between twins and triplets are not all that different.  They seem a lot scarier when you are in the thick of it and worrying it will happen to you.  The risks are different and if you just look at the numbers, yes, the risks with twins are lower -  but everyone glosses over the fact that to lower these risks, you are giving up a child and is giving up a child worth the lowering of risks?  Not in my opinion, not looking back.  It sounds great to say there is a 5% chance of loss of twin pregnancy and a __% chance of loss of triplet pregnancy - I have been given estimates from 10% to 25% - but there is a 100% chance of losing one baby if you reduce.  This is what everyone glosses over - this is what I am ashamed to say I glossed over in my mind.  It is one thing to feel 2 hypothetical children would be better than 3 hypothetical children.  But once you are pregnant with triplets, those babies aren't hypothetical, and that baby doesn't go away when you "reduce" it - it lives on in your heart and your head.  A triplet pregnancy never really becomes a twin pregnancy.

I really feel that infertility clinics push reduction of triplets to keep their stats on HOMs looking good.  In my case, I was with an HMO, so the fertility clinic and the peris had a relationship and a vested interest in both being pro-reduction.  I felt like I was seeing different doctors but in reality, I was seeing doctors who likely had the same agenda.  I did consult one doctor outside of the HMO - the OB who delivered my son - and he was very much pro-reduction, but I have to wonder in retrospect how much this was so he wouldn't have to share the glory (and fees) with a perinatologist.

I had planned to go back to him once we left the HMO but I couldn't bring myself to - not after he advised reduction.  No, no one MADE me reduce, but no one truly supported my keeping all 3, either, and this is almost the same thing.  The message was always, if you're smart, you'll reduce.  If you don't reduce, you're taking a huge risk.  Think of the babies, think of your son, think of your marriage.

I am so disappointed with myself for not going for one more opinion, for not looking for a peri outside of the HMO.  I know there are doctors out there who do not advise reduction of triplets - I guess I just felt like, well, all 4 of the people I have spoken to think it's best.  How many second opinions can a person really go after?  I have gotten a new OB and have talked with him about my regrets and he has said, well, all of the patients I have seen with triplets have all had PIH and had to be delivered around 32 weeks...  and I said, yes, but in the end, they all got to keep their babies, right?  He said yes, and admitted that there is a drive for doctors to encourage reduction for HOMs.  This is just so heartbreaking and wrong when the women likely to have the HOMs are the women who have been trying the hardest for their babies.

Everything that I was afraid of with the triplets were things that could have been dealt with in time.  Every pregnant woman is scared at the thought of how her life will change or problems that may crop up in the pregnancy - but every pregnant woman is not encouraged to abort as a means to handle it.  I feel like my doctors used my fears to make reduction seem like the smart option and while time and support could have helped with all of my concerns, time is not something you have much of when you are trying to decide.  I only had 2 weeks between my 1st peri consult and the reduction.

I am sickened to think that my baby has died largely for the sake of statistics.  I am sickened to think that I allowed it to happen.  Fear can be so paralyzing.

I think there are certain conditions where reduction is warranted.  If there are 4 or more babies, the risks really do go up.  If two or more babies are identicals, the risks do go up.  If a woman really knows for sure that she doesn't want multiple babies, it should be her right to reduce the pregnancy.  But I have seen too many women reduce under the pressure of scare tactics and this just isn't right.  The fertility clinics can't just take babies out to keep their statistics looking good.

I can never bring my Baby C back.  Day after day, my brain goes over and over what I should have done, but it does no good.  I should have said no.  I should have walked away.  I should have stuck up for my baby.  I should have told my husband to stop the car on the way to the reduction and gone to the hospital instead to check out the problem of the bleeding.  I didn't, and that will haunt me until I die.  I have read stories of total loss in the time since my reduction and I feel like those stories should make me feel I did the right thing - but instead, I just feel jealous that those women had the courage to give their babies all a chance.  It is true that I will never know what may have gone wrong with my pregnancy.  It may have ended badly.  But I do know for certain that because of me, directly because of me, one less person will walk this planet.  The guilt is indescribable.  The grief is immeasurable.  What right have I to grieve when I chose this?  Yet my baby deserves to be remembered all the same.

I am going to start seeing a counsellor this week that my new OB has suggested I see, someone who deals with perinatal and post-natal depression.  I hope it helps, but I am skeptical.  I can handle the loss of my triplet.  At times, I feel almost like I will be OK again some day.  But when I think of how he died for no reason, it's like being kicked in the stomach over and over.

I think the thing that will bring me the most healing is to encourage others who still have time to decide to really consider the statistics on triplet pregnancies and to really consider your doctor's motives for having you reduce.  Yes, the pregnancies can be scary.  Yes, you may end up in the hospital.  Yes, your baby may need NICU time.  Yes, it may be an adjustment for your other children.  But in the end, most triplets turn out OK - and a lifetime of regret simply doesn't make up for escaping a high risk pregnancy and a year or so of chaos from 3 infants at once.  I wish I had realized these things when I still had time.  I hope I can convince other people to consider them - not to opt out of reduction, but to really consider the reasons for doing it.

Jodi, Milpitas, CA, USA