I don't know how long surgery took all I know is when I woke up my husband was holding my first born triplet, my baby boy Caleb. His tiny body was still warm but he was gone. I just cried I felt that he had fought so long and hard all those weeks...I was certain he was gonna pull through. As our families took turns holding our angel the wheeled our other babies in one by one. They were in incubators and they had been intebated, their eyes were covered(because they were still fused) and they were being flown two hours away in St. Louis. We got to see them for only a few seconds before the took them away.



I remember the nurses pushing me to my hospital room as I held Caleb and I was so mad that they were playing a lullaby on the overhead speaker. Even now as I write this the emotions are as strong as ever! I felt robbed and heartbroken. I finally told my husband some hours later to get the nurse, that I had to let them take Caleb then or I would never let him go. My only request was they wheel him out like he was going to the nursery, not to cover him up. My nurse was so sweet, her name was Becky she asked if she could hold him before she took him out of the room. As she was leaving with him I saw her wipe away tears. She came in later and told me that she had taken him to get his picture taken, hand prints and foot prints and she had put a tiny gown on him, baby blue.



The next morning Doug and his mom drove to Cardinal Glennon where they had flown the babies to see them for the first time. I can still see Doug's face when he came back to my hospital room that night. He was crying hysterically and couldn't stop. It wasn't until about 1 am that morning that I was about to find out why. The doctors had called me to tell me that Emily wasn't going to make it through to morning. They could not get her oxygen saturations up past 60% and that if I were to hold her before she passed then I should get there as soon as possible. I'm not even sure how I managed to get out of bed, but I did. I walked out to the nurses station and told them they had the amount of time until I got dressed to discharge me and give me some pain medicine.



We stopped by my ex-mother in laws to pick up my older son, Tyler. I wanted him to be able to hold her too. It wasn't until we walked in that hospital nursery and saw our babies that I knew this was going to be the fight of our lives to keep these babies here. They were so tiny, little skeletons with paper thin skin on them, you could see every vein in their head and body. It was horrible to see something you love so much struggle so hard just to even breathe. Tyler got physically sick and I had to call someone to come pick him up. He had wanted a brother or sister for soooo long and it was eating him up inside to see them like this.



As I made my way into Emily's room the nurses were so nice. I was afraid to touch her, when all I wanted was to pick her up and make it all better. The nurse suggested I put aquaphor on her, it would help her skin. As I put my hand in the crib it almost entirely covered her body. I was talking to her telling her how much I needed her and rubbing this lotion on her skin, as I did her saturations slowly started to climb up and before I knew it she was in the 90's. It was amazing to me that she knew mommy was right there.
Emily two days old