On Friday, February 23, 2007, the Mathews triplets arrived. We went to Misty's doctor on Thursday and decided to give Misty her steroid shots for the babies' lung develop in case they decided to make an appearance. After the first steroid shot, a second needs to be given within 24 hours. So Misty received her first shot on Thursday morning and received her second on Friday morning.Since Misty was having a lot of contractions from the time she woke up on Friday morning, her doctor decided to admit her to the hospital to monitor her contractions. Misty was not dialated significantly on Thursday morning, but was 3 cm on Friday morning.
It should be noted that Greg had been to every single doctor's appointment prior to the Friday morning. Caden had a dentist appointment on Friday and since Misty was just going in to get her second steroid shot, we decided that Greg would take Caden and Misty would go alone. Misty believed that she would be going home on Friday and that the contractions could be stopped. Greg called Misty after the dentist appointment and said he would be on his way, but Misty said that Greg should take Caden to lunch with Gran and Pop, can go home to get the camera just in case and then could come to the hospital.
During lunch, Misty called and said that the nurses didn't expect the contractions to stop and that she should expect to meet her girls today. Misty passed this information on to Greg and still believed that the process was still multiple hours away. Greg was again instructed to go home and get the camera. After finding the camera (but not new batteries), Greg started driving to the hospital which is about 15 minutes away from our home.
Misty called about 5-10 minutes later and asked how much longer it would take to arrive and said that she had told the nurses that it would be about 15 minutes. Greg asked why the 15 minutes was important and Misty said that the C-Section would begin when Greg arrived. Yikes! Greg learned that you can drive 70 mph on Woodlands Parkway safely (typically 45 mph).
Upon arrival, the nurses gave Greg some scrubs to dress in and were in the process of moving Misty's bed to the operating room. While Misty was getting her spinal injection, the nurses showed Greg the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) beds that the babies would be placed in upon arrival. Two babies would be placed next to each other, but the third would have to be across the hallway due to the arrangement at the time.
The nurses invited Greg to join Misty in the operating room, where her C-Section was just beginning. Greg sat down by Misty's head and started taking pictures. Since new batteries weren't found, the camera instructed us that no more pictures could be taken (babies are still inside Misty). We had a backup plan for just such a contingency and pulled out our disposable camera. But we wouldn't be able to take any videos. Just then, a nurse came in the operating room and handed Greg a DVD-camcorder. What a coincidence! We noted that it looked just like Gran and Pop's camcorder but we did not know how to use it. We had about 5 seconds to learn and right when it said, "Recording," the first baby was arriving.
Addison Hope Mathews was born at 1:00 PM, weighed 3 lb 4 oz and was 15 3/4 inches long. She was taken to a little bed and showed us that she already knew how to cry. We were impressed with her volume. She had an APGAR score of 6/9.
Very soon after, the second baby was arriving and Misty told Greg to record her arrival. Greg turned to film and didn't see the second baby and noticed that she had already been taken to the bed next to her sister.
Emery Grace Mathews was born at 1:01 PM, weighed 3 lb 9 oz and was also 15 3/4 inches long. From the beginning, Emery seemed very comfortable with the whole environment. She had an APGAR score of 7/9.
Greg didn't want to miss the arrival of the third baby and panned the camera back to Misty just in time to record the arrival of the final triplet.
Harper Faith Mathews was born at 1:01 PM, weighed 3 lb 1 oz and was our tallest at 16 1/2 inches long. She was very skinney just like her big brother Caden. She had an APGAR score of 7/8.
The girls were taken to the NICU and Greg quickly followed. Addison and Emery were next to each other and Harper was in the room across the hallway.
More to come. . .Misty and Greg are going to see the girls again!
