Pregnant with triplet, should we settle for twins?

Hello everyone,,

My husband and I are pregnant with triplets. We have been scared and thrilled and confused and anxious and hopeful. Today, I met with the MFM.

All three babies have good heart rates and are growing, but Baby C is a couple of days behind. That doesn't make the doctor thing anything is wrong, though, and he thinks all 3 are likely to stick around (a risk to multiples is that one will "reabsorbed").

However, he said the medical indication for triplets is that they be reduced to twins. Triplets have a 15% chance of being extremely preterm which = high risk of disorders. They also have a 10-15% chance of being lost during the 2 ND trimester. Twins, on the other hand, have a 7-10% chance and 5% chance, respectively. My husband thinks we should do what the doctor recommends. I feel like the doctor didn't recommend anything - he just said what a clinical perspective was. (The issue is the MFM couldn't personalize any recommendation. He clearly stated that reduction is what is medically indicated. And he said there is NOTHING I can do that really influences the outcome from the stats he gave me. I guess I feel like the stats are given from a position from "what's the best course of action to have at least 1 healthy baby." I am looking at it like, "Reducing is choosing to kill a baby to increase the health of the other two." But by reducing, my pregnancy is already then a 33% failure because I have lost a baby and done so by choice. I guess I just feel like my perspective wants to consider the risk to all of the babies, not just 2.) But I also think we still have a high likelihood of success. I wanted a baby for so long and now I feel like I'm stuck. If we don't and we lose all of them, I'll hate myself. If we do and I have 2 healthy babies, I'll always wonder what if we hadn't killed their sibling?

That's my biggest fear - we lose them because I'm selfish. Or we keep 2 and I wonder my whole life if I'm just a murderer because I'm selfish. My specialist has worked with hundreds of triplets and, he said, done hundreds of selective reductions. He has 25 years of experience and I have been told he is the very best. I just feel like perhaps all of that experience has made him... cold or something. Maybe. I feel like he doesn't know us. And I guess I just feel like I should make tzhis decision with my husband. But my husband's moral calculus is just different from mine. He isn't excited about reduction, but he doesn't have the gut "no" feeling about it. Whereas I just keep hearing it as a euphemism for killing one of my babies.

Can anyone help? Weigh in? I know there are so many factors to consider and I am just overwhelmed.

Edited by Kelz - 24 September 2020 at 12:29am