Bodies go through a lot of changes during pregnancy, but one woman’s baby bump has people talking the world-over. Mom Michella Meier-Morsi of Copenhagen, Denmark, recently went viral after sharing photos of her baby bump before giving birth to triplets Charles, Theodore, and Gabriel on January 15. Many people online marveled at the mom’s tummy, which grew bruised and purple as she neared her delivery date.
Michella gave birth to her triplets via C-section at 35 weeks.
According to the Daily Mail, the delivery marks her third pregnancy with her husband Mark. The couple shares two 3-year-old twin daughters, Filippa and Ophelia, already, but just because Michella delivered multiples in the past, it doesn’t mean this pregnancy was easy. In fact, days before she was meant to deliver via C-section, a photo of the mom’s distended pregnancy belly, which grew “straight out” instead of “up and down,” shook the internet and the mom admitted that she was in “extreme pain” before giving birth.
As the mom explained in a post from January 7, she was just plain over the aches and pains that come with carrying triplets.
“Just one more week and then I'm the mother of twins and triplets,” she wrote in a translated post on Instagram.
“I honestly do not think my body can do much more either,” she continued. “I can barely get out of bed by myself eventually. And when I sit up to eat […] my feet and legs start to sleep because my stomach stops the blood supply down there when it rests on its legs.”
She added that she couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like when there would no longer be "seven kilos of babies" in her stomach.
“I remember I was insanely sore when I woke up after the twins' cesarean section… but this pregnancy belly is in a different league,” she added.
She admitted that three days before the boys were due, she told her husband “I'm not ready!"
“I also think I whispered that phrase to Mark a million times,” she wrote in an Instagram post from January 11.
“I seriously do not feel ready for three babies,” she wrote. “I naively thought that I would get ready at some point — that I would feel a joy that the pregnancy is coming to an end and that we should finally meet our trio. But if it were not for the extreme pain, the triplets would have to stay in the stomach for a month or three more.”
Michella called the whole experience "overwhelming."
“I'm nothing short of scared out of my wits!” she added. “Yesterday I wanted to curl up in a corner and sob over how unmanageable it all seems.”
In the caption of an Instagram Reel shared on January 13, the mom mentioned again that she was “insanely scared and insanely tearful.”
“I started crying wildly when they called from the hospital earlier today to give us practical information on where to go, what to eat before, etc.” she wrote. “It feels so unreal to have to have three babies and it's like my head can not handle it. I simply can not imagine it or them.”
She shared that she had a "bad" C-section in the past, which is perhaps why she was so scared to go through another one.
“I have been prepared for the fact that my blood pressure will probably plummet when I get the anesthetic applied, because my stomach is so big,” she wrote. “That they will give me antiemetics in advance. That I will probably lose a lot of blood because the uterus is so big and that it is not certain that I will react better this time because they are not sure why I got it so bad last [time]."
Luckily, she has over 272,000 followers on Instagram to cheer her on.
Some people were simply awestruck by her baby belly.
While other commenters applauded her strength.
"It seems like you have the right attitude and team spirit as a couple to make it happen," one commenter wrote in. "Can't wait to see the little ones!"
"This woman is a hero!!" another commenter enthusiastically wrote.
"Women’s bodies are truly amazing," someone else noted. "Congrats mama! You’re glowing."
Thankfully, the boys were born on January 15, 2021. The mom called the experience the "wildest 36 hours."
“The birth went much better than feared — I got it bad along the way, but it was not nearly as bad as last time,” she wrote in a post announcing her sons’ birth on Instagram. “On the other hand, my postpartum pain and injuries are markedly worse than last!”
But despite the pain, the mom was clearly smitten with her three newborns
“The boys are absolutely amazing!” she wrote in a post on January 17. “That's how easy it can be summed up. They are mild and mega cool and we are completely in love. It's hardly any surprise that we are in the most wonderful baby bubble.”
Ten days after her C-section, Michella shared a photo of her deflated stomach — and admitted that her body had not quite recovered postpartum.
While her stomach has shrunk, “it is heavy and incredibly painful,” she wrote online.
“The cesarean section is not bothersome — unless I have to cough, sneeze or (God forbid) vomit,” she added. "But my intestines roll around in the big cavity, which is both uncomfortable and hurts. My uterus lies right next to the skin and is super sensitive — the slightest touches hurt. And the last few days, the stomach has felt like a big black mark. It even hurts to breathe.”
Her doctors also discovered she had too much blood in her uterus that she "couldn't get rid of," which put her at risk for inflammation.
She will have to go through a scraping procedure, where her doctors will remove abnormal tissue from her body, Daily Mail reports.
Still in the hospital, the mom’s latest post expressed just how much her family has changed so quickly.
“Oh how I have cried and felt divided, tired, overwhelmed and giving up the last few days,” she wrote on January 25.
“Every three hours our routine starts," she continued. "Three babies need to be puzzled, woken up, bottles need to be warmed up, one baby needs to be breastfed, two babies need to have a bottle, a nursing baby needs to have a bottle, and finally they need to have the remaining milk on a tube,” she continued. “I have to pump and Mark has to sterilize bottles and clean up. It usually takes 75 minutes. And there we have a nurse to help us.”
It doesn’t help that her twin daughters have been acting out while their mom was away.
“They are angry, defiant, enormously bored and simply unruly and rude,” the mom wrote. “They miss us and definitely feel let down to some degree. And it's completely understandable.”
The parents ultimately decided that Mark would go home with the girls and Michella would stay with their sons at the hospital.
And while hopefully thing will eventually even out for their family, right now Michella seems understandably torn.
“I want to go home to my girls, give them love and security and a fixed framework,” she explained. “And I want to give the boys the best start in life and myself the best start in childbirth and breastfeeding. The two things just can not be done at the same time.”
