They say when one door closes, a window opens. Or, in this case, maybe 3 windows open.
When Kellee Briggs of Ankeny, Iowa found out she was pregnant, she and husband Nick Briggs were overjoyed. But at their 10-week ultrasound, Kellee could tell from the technician’s face that something was wrong. Sadly, the test showed three amniotic sacs, but only one fetus remained.
Doctors explained that Kellee had been pregnant with triplets, but two of the babies had not survived. While they were thrilled that one baby was viable, the new mom always wondered about what could have been. Her son Chase was born healthy and on time.
“The one baby, Chase, which is our survivor, you’d see him fully formed but the other two sacs just looked like empty holes,” Kellee explained. “I’ve lost two babies and it was a lot of emotions all flooding in at the same time.”
The family didn’t have long to grieve their loss before something remarkable happened. Ten months after delivering Chase, Kellee was pregnant again.
This time, Nick and Kellee were more prepared when they went for an ultrasound. Kellee says she “had a gut feeling” that she might be carrying multiples again. Although they don’t have a family history of multiples and Kellee is not taking any fertility drugs, doctors told her that older mothers tend to produce more eggs with each cycle, resulting in more multiple births in older moms.
At the ultrasound, the technician confirmed Kellee’s instincts. Once again, she was expecting three babies!
“We looked at each other right away and we knew exactly what it looked like having the multiple sacs,” Nick recalled. “We said to the tech, ‘There’s multiples aren’t there?’ and she looks and she’s like, ‘Yep.'”
Getting pregnant with triplets is rare enough; only about 1 in every 9,000 births are triplets. Two triplet pregnancies back-to-back is crazy-rare, about 1 in 64 million!
Kellee grappled with anxiety throughout the pregnancy as she worried about losing her babies again.
“I was hesitant almost because I was afraid of getting attached,” she said. “I didn’t want to get attached and then lose one,” she admitted.
She hoped to stay pregnant as long as she could to increase their chances of survival, and she made it! She wound up having a C-section at 32 weeks gestation and welcomed two boys and a girl to their family. Aiden, Addalyn, and Isaac all spent some time in the NICU before coming home in the exact order of their birth.
Nick and Kellee are now getting used to life with 4 children under the age of two. They go through about 30 diapers a day and a whole can of formula to keep everyone happy, but the chaos is worth it for these grateful parents. Kellee says she relies on the help of friends and family to get through her days, and Nick thinks it’s all about taking one thing at a time.
“You just got to stop and relax and go with the flow,” Nick said. “It’s all you really can do at this point because you’re trying to keep your head above water.â€
It seems that Kellee and Nick were destined to be these babies’ parents! We wish them the best of luck as they get through these next few days, weeks, months… and years!
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