Couple’s Journey with Triplets: ‘That’s Where It Got Scary’

For five long years, Natalie DeSimone and Ryan Danzey had tried for a baby. With lives already full with work and co-parenting Ryan’s three teens from a previous marriage, they began to discuss adoption. And as sometimes happens when couples relax a bit, almost immediately DeSimone was pregnant.

When Hurricane Milton squelched their first appointment with their Sebring OB-GYN — which could not be rescheduled for a month — the couple didn’t want to wait. They opted for a local ultrasound clinic and got a bit of a shock: Twins!

DeSimone tried to stay calm. “I know people with twins. We’ll be all right; we’ve got this,” she told herself.

At their doctor’s office weeks later, the tech was unusually quiet while scanning DeSimone, so the couple told her they knew it was twins. No, the tech responded. “There’s a third one in there.”

“We were both, like, WHAT???” DeSimone says.

“I said you’d better scan her arms and legs, too — there’s babies everywhere!” Danzey says, laughing.

But the coming of triplets wasn’t all the couple had to process. Their doctors immediately warned them they were not equipped to handle this pregnancy.

“That’s where it got scary,” Danzey says. “There is no NICU in Highlands,” the small, rural county about 85 miles south of Orlando where the couple live.

“We knew a lot of folks who went to Winnie Palmer at Orlando Health, so that was a no-brainer,” Danzey says.

The rest would not be quite so easy.

Beating the Odds

Early on, the couple learned their babies were “monochorionic-triamniotic” triplets, meaning they shared a placenta but each had her own amniotic sac.

“One in half-a-million,” says Dr. Emanuel Vlastos, the maternal-fetal medicine physician who is director of Orlando Health Women’s Institute Fetal Care Center, of the rarity of this type of triplets.

Every day, they’re getting bigger, they’re laughing, meeting goals; it’s so amazing to watch them grow. Now I just can’t imagine life without them.– Natalie DeSimone

“Most triplets come from three separate ovulations,” Dr. Vlastos explains. “Three eggs release, and they all get fertilized and implant. Each has their own placenta; each has their own bag of waters.” DeSimone’s situation was unique: A single egg and sperm had split into identical twins. “And then one of those split again, to make identical triplets.”

“It was already high-risk because I was over 35,” says DeSimone, who was 38 at delivery. “Then on top of that, triplets. But it was even more high-risk because all shared the same placenta,” so were all sharing the same nutrient source.

In a perfect world, each of the babies would get an equal share. “However, due to where the babies are, or where their cords kind of plug into the placenta, you might have two babies each getting 40 percent and one baby getting 20 percent,” Dr. Vlastos explains. “So that baby can’t grow as much as the others. That was exactly the case with Sophie Jo.”

While sister Margo Grace seemed to be just fine, Birdie Reign — the biggest triplet — appeared to be getting more nutrients. Sophie Jo, the smallest, was getting much less, a condition that could threaten both Birdie and Sophie.

When one baby receives much less fluid, that baby could die. “If a baby dies, it has no blood pressure,” Dr. Vlastos says. The other triplets could send blood, but it won’t circulate back; it stays in the baby who died. “So there’s the potential of one triplet bleeding out into the baby who died, which is a horrible situation.”

Surgery to section off the placenta was an option, and so was early delivery. Miraculously, no intervention was needed. Around week 22, the issue resolved on its own.

“We didn’t do anything,” Dr. Vlastos cheerfully confirms. “I put that on Natalie; she was one determined woman.”

One Determined Woman

But neither DeSimone nor Sophie Jo was out of the woods yet.

Pre-term delivery is common with multiple births, with twins coming earlier than a single baby, and triplets earlier still, usually at around 32 weeks. “Mom’s uterus says ‘Game over, I’m done,’ and suddenly you have three premature babies showing up,” Dr. Vlastos says.

For two and half months, from 22 to 32 weeks, Danzey and DeSimone made the three-hour trek to Orlando weekly, sometimes more frequently. “They were extremely intensive visits,” Danzey says. “Each ultrasound appointment was, like, three hours. The amount of anatomy to study and monitor for each baby was incredible.”

Determined to carry the triplets as long as nature allowed, DeSimone herself was now at risk. She had developed preeclampsia, common in moms of multiples, that causes dangerously high blood pressure and can affect the heart, kidneys and liver.

“The only known cure for preeclampsia is delivery,” Dr. Vlastos says. At 32 weeks, he told the couple to prepare to meet their daughters. But there was one more hurdle before all three babies could come home to Sebring.

Can’t Imagine Life Without Them

When the triplets were delivered, it was discovered that Sophie was missing a kidney. A month later, just as DeSimone and Danzey hoped to bring her home, they learned she would need surgery to close her patent ductus arteriosus (PDA), which was allowing too much blood to flow into her lungs and straining her heart.

She also needed surgery for a hernia. All told, Sophie spent 128 days in NICU, days her parents spent juggling two newborns in hotel rooms and vacation rentals so they could stay as close as possible to their littlest girl. “We wanted to be with her every day,” Danzey says.

But she came through it all — “she’s super tough,” DeSimone says.

Ask the couple what a day in the life is like today and they laugh: Busy! “They’re never asleep all at once,” DeSimone says.

Big brothers Tristan and Brody, 18 and 16, are getting a good dose of bottles and diapers just as they enter young adulthood, but they’re loving it, she adds.

Sister Ryleigh, 17, previously outnumbered 2-to-1 by her brothers, is thrilled to have new three sisters.

“Every day, they’re getting bigger, they’re laughing, meeting goals; it’s so amazing to watch them grow. Now I just can’t imagine life without them,” DeSimone says.