Father of Triplets

The Featured Blogger Interview today is from Paul. He has recently started blogging at First Time Father Triplets  where he is sharing his journey from conception to the pending birth to Fatherhood. If you are a Triplet mum or dad feel free to reach out and connect with Paul and his blog as he asked the big question we all once asked ourselves, “”How do you do it?” Ha, ha, I mean seriously!!!”

Why did you start your blog?

I started writing the blog as a way for me to capture the feelings and emotions that I was going through as a first time father at age 48. Plus it was a good way for us to go back and relive each step and emotion as they happened. I have never blogged before and I wasn’t sure how I would come across in written form. Hopefully in the future our kids will be able to go back and experience the feelings and emotions we were going through during this wonderful process…

How did you find out your partner was carrying Triplets?

So we go in for our first scheduled appointment and Melanie the Nurse Practitioner asks us about our family history, etc. She gets Rachel ready for the sonogram and just like we expected we’re having a baby!

Melanie measures the fetus and it is approximately 9 weeks 4 days. While measuring – Melanie shrieks “Oh My God!”

ME: What? What’s wrong? Is there a problem?

Melanie calmly says: No, not really. She then asks us if we were using any fertility drugs or if twins or multiple births were common in either of our families.

Rachel’s father has a cousin that had natural triplets. Nothing on my side of the family.

Melanie: “Well, you are having TWINS!” I was shocked, but extremely happy.

She starts to measure the baby B and it’s about the same size 9 weeks, 3 days. Again she shrieks “OMG!”

I had already asked her not to do that!

ME: What’s wrong, is there a problem?

Melanie: Do you guys see what I see?

ME: Yeah you mean that third one right there? I thought you were talking about that one to begin with!

Melanie: “You’re having TRIPLETS!!!” Then she looks at me and asks “Are you all right, do you need to sit down?”

ME: No, no, I’m fine, it is what it is, right??? 🙂 BREATHE, breathe!!!

OMG – talk about your mind racing, how did this happen? (I know how it happened, SILLY!) At this point Rachel has this shit eating grin on her face! I am pretty sure she was in shock, but extremely happy. I am too!!!

How did you announce your pregnancy to your friends and family?

We wanted to hold on to it for a couple of weeks, because we had lost a baby in October 2014. We manage to hold off for a few weeks, and we started out by sharing with some of our close friends and family. After about a month, we could no longer hide what was going on. Rachel was definitely showing and missing a lot of time at work. We finally came clean and had to tell everybody (including co-workers, we work together at the same company) so that was a little awkward! Everybody was in shock at first, but seemed really happy once they realized we were not joking! (It didn’t help that we started to tell everybody our news on April 1st!)

How are you preparing for a Multiple pregnancy and birth?

At first I went to the internet and started reading every blog that was out there. I joined various forums and searched high and low for anything that I thought would be helpful. There is a ton of information out there. Maybe too much! It seemed like the best advice came from a book on multiple pregnancy written by Dr. Barbara Luke. She gave us realistic goals on weight gain and the amount of nutrition that was needed to carry the babies for as long as possible. We also saw Dr. Danny Wu at Kaiser San Francisco and he was able to answer any questions/fears that we had on the pregnancy/birthing process.

What question or questions do you have for the families in the community?

I guess the biggest question I have is – “How do you do it?” Ha, ha, I mean seriously!!!

What is your favourite blog post to share with the Multiples and More?

I think one of the best blog posts that I have read has to be Tips on Triplets. I really like how it was written from the father’s point of view and I can totally relate to everything that they went through in early pregnancy. It is also a grim reminder that no matter how prepared we are, things can happen that are totally out of our control and that we need to relate our experience to help others that might be on the same path. I think that was a goal that I had in mind when I started to blog about this process. If I could help just one person/couple – it would be totally worth it!

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