September 18, 2011 - There's No Place Like Home...

Well, for those of you waiting patiently for more info, I have to admit that I am back dating this post to show the actual date that this post should have been made.  So please be aware it should have been posted on Sunday, September 18th.

During the last few days, I started grabbing some photos of some of the amazing nurses that took care of our girls over the past 6 weeks.  Here are some of the fun shots we got:

Thank you so much to all of the nurses who went above and beyond everyday to make sure that our little girls were being taken care of so well.  Each of you have made such an impact in their lives as well as Craig and I.  We will always have a special spot in our hearts for all of the amazing 'aunties' the girls have acquired!  We will be forever grateful for all that you have done.

September 17, 2011
Marly (left), Chloe (middle) & Elia (right)
First (and definitely not last) posed picture of the trio!!
You can see a couple more of these photos on http://www.medcenterone.com/babies/search2.asp

September 18, 2011
Chloe (left) & Elia (right) playing kissy face!

September 18, 2011
Daddy pushing Chloe and Mommy pushing Marly (front) & Elia (back)

September 18, 2011
Marly (back left), Elia (front left) & Chloe (right)
in the strollers on the way out of the hospital

September 18, 2011
Marly (left back seat), Elia (right back seat) & Chloe (middle row seat/black car seat)

September 18, 2011
Marly (left), Chloe (middle) & Elia (right)
snug as little bugs in their bed at home

So far so good at home.  We really believe that we have the happiest and most content babies in the world!  It has been much easier than we ever would have imagined.  I think we feared the worst and that it would be more than two parents could handle with a 3 year old as well.  Life has been very busy and there is not any 'extra' time to relax.  After five months of being split up, we are just happy to be home, all together as one big family.

September 10, 2011 - One month later...

Ok, so my apologies go out for all who have been hoping for some new pictures of the girls as well as an update on how they are doing.  I guess we could say that we are only just beginning to feel how busy life is going to be with triplets!

The girls are all doing great!  They turned one month old this past Tuesday!  They have all been moved out of the isolettes (incubators) and into a crib that they all share (look for the pictures below).  They came off of their pulse oximeters (measures how much oxygen in their blood) today as well.  They have all been busy working on their nursing too.  Chloe will be on full breast feeds tomorrow and Elia and Marly are just slightly behind.  Their feeding is the only thing that is still keeping them here.  And yes, I am attempting the impossible here...breastfeeding three babies.  I might be insane, but I am going to try.  I may fail miserably, but I have to at least try (I will gladly take any moral support on this one!!).  Once they all learn to eat then they are free to go home.  Hooray (but very scary too)!  We believe that they should be able to go home with in the next couple of weeks.

Marly weighed in today at 5 pounds 11 ounces and Elia is taking up the bottom end at 5 pounds 7 ounces.  So they are growing like weeds!  Chloe is somewhere between those two, but I can't seem to remember the weights every day.  I must have a lot on my mind or something...  They get measured every Saturday night and last Saturday, Chloe was taking up the lead at 19.5 inches, which is 3 inches longer than when she was born.  Her sisters were both 19 inches as well.

One funny thought is that the doctors originally wanted me to carry the girls to 35-36 weeks.  Tomorrow (Sunday) would be 36 weeks.  There is no way that I would have been able to walk if I had all of them in my belly still!  Pretty crazy thought!

Ok, onto the pictures...

August 21, 2011
Marly (left), Chloe (center) & Elia (right) with Mommy

August 24, 2011
Marly (left), Chloe (center) & Elia (right) with Daddy

August 25, 2011
Chloe (left) holding Elia's (right) hand

September 1, 2011
Elia with Daddy

September 8, 2011
Chloe's 1st Sleeper

Septermber 8, 2011
Elia's 1st Sleeper

September 8, 2011
Elia (left) & Chloe (right) in their first shared bed

Setember 8, 2011
Garin holding Chloe "all by himself"
He is so happy & proud!

September 8, 2011
Garin holding Marly 'all by himself' for the first time.
I asked him to kiss her this time, but he had to sneak another one
in shortly after when no one was looking!

September 9, 2011
Garin holding Elia for the first time 'all by himself.'
He was so worried about her little head and neck!

September 10, 2011
Elia (front/pink hat), Chloe (middle/orange hat) & Marly (top/teal hat)
On September 9, 2011 the girls finally were able to snuggle with each other again,
which hadn't been done since before they were born.

I hope you enjoyed all of the pictures!  It has been so fun getting to know our babies and share them with everyone as well.  As we are doing the final preparations to bring these girls home, we have been asked by many people if there are things that they can help with.  Yes, there are!  If anyone out there has a great hotdish or quick, easy meals that they would like to drop off, we would surely appreciate those!  That is one of the MOST helpful things.  If you aren't the cooking type, a gift card to a fast food or restaurant is great too.  We are assuming that the first couple weeks are going to be difficult to get out to purchase household items, so if anyone would be willing to grab some groceries we would surely send you with the money to do so.  The final idea for those wanting to help is more diapers!  I don't think we could possibly get enough!  I would prefer Huggies in the newborn size.  Those are my pleas for help for the first few weeks after they come home.  After having our family torn apart during the flooding, the pregnancy, the babies birth, and even now as I am living at the hospital to nurse the girls; we are really hoping to have some quality family time and see if we can figure out how to care for all of these little ones!  Thank you in advance for any and all help that we can get!

August 22, 2011 - Four Pounders!!

Well, the girls are still doing great!  Marly & Chloe have now hit 4 pounds and Elia (pronounced 'e{as in elbow}-lee-a' as we get asked) is a fraction of an ounce behind.  She'll be there tomorrow :)  The big thing for the girls right now is just to grow, grow, grow!!  It will be another week or two before I can start nursing them and work on learning to eat on their own (instead of the feeding tubes).  Other than the feeding tubes (which run through the nose and down to the stomach) though, they are only hooked up to the monitors!  So they continue to do great each day!

We are allowed to hold each girl once a day for an hour.  It may stress the girls out to do much more than that at this point.  We have to coordinate it with their every 3 hour feeding schedule as it causes stress to get them out of their isolettes (incubators) and we don't want to add stress when they are feeding.  Some days it can get a little tricky to get our snuggle times in...but, we appreciate every moment we get to snuggle them as an hour just seems to fly by!  So onto more fun...here are the latest pictures of the girls:

August 17, 2011
Chloe (left) & Elia (right) both bright eyed!

August 18, 2011
Almost the whole family...
Elia (left) & Chloe (right) with Garin, Mommy & Daddy

August 18, 2011
Garin with Nurse B Listening to Chloe's Heart
~ Thanks Nurse B for being so great with our little girls and letting our big boy help too! ~

August 19, 2011
Marly (left) & Chloe (right) with Daddy & Garin

August 21, 2011
Elia (right) really checking out her sister, Chloe (left)

August 21, 2011
Elia looking up at Daddy



August 21, 2011
Marly (left), Chloe (middle) & Elia (right) with Mommy
The first time all 3 have been lying close since birth.


We appreciate everyone being understanding about seeing the girls.  Eventhough they look absolutely adorable in these pictures, we all (including us) have to remember that they were born about 2 months premature and are still very little.  They are still working on developing their ability to maintain their body temps, breathing, and controlling their blood pressures & heart rates (among many other things).  The girls are in the 'Newborn' Intensive Care Unit (NICU) because they need to be watched closely to ensure they are growing properly and do not have any additional health concerns.  We understand that everyone would like to see them, but right now that is not always possible.  The hospital really tries hard to safeguard them from the transfer of germs and disease by not allowing many people into the room where they (and other babies) are located.  They also have a secured or locked down floor that only allows visitors to us or the girls if we are at the hospital.  If we are up at the hospital, we are happy to help facilitate seeing them through the glass windows.  For now, that is the safest way to introduce them to the world of people who are so excited to see and meet them!  We appreciate your understanding during this time.  :)

August 17, 2011 - Update & More Pics :)

The girls are 11 days old today and doing wonderful!  All of the nurses say that they are making remarkable strides for how early they were born.  None of them need additional oxygen, so they are breathing the same air as we are.  They still are getting some additional heat pumped into their isolettes, but they are all clothed now and working on learning to control their own body temperatures.  All of them are on tube feedings and yes, mama is still keeping up with the milk they demand.  They each are getting about 8 ounces of milk per day, but it is split up into feedings every two hours.  So they are doing great and we haven't run into any problems.  They are in the 'growers and feeders' room and basically need to just keep doing that.  Things are pretty steady each day as we wait for them to grow and mature more.  The next step will be working on feeding them, which won't come until they are 34-35 weeks (that is gestational weeks or weeks that I was pregnant).  We are at 32.5 weeks gestationally right now, so a couple more weeks to go till we can try feedings orally!

Anyways, onto the new pictures!!!

August 13, 2011
Garin getting to help hold one of the babies for the first time!
Daddy and Garin are holding Chloe

August 14, 2011
Chloe all dressed up holding Auntie L's hand

August 15, 2011
Chloe is a Sleeping Beauty

August 15, 2011
Elia is a Sleeping Beauty
(Thanks Auntie N for the cute onsie!)

August 15, 2011
Marly is a Sleeping Beauty

August 16, 2011
Elia is wide awake

August 16, 2011
Mommy got to hold two babies - Elia (left) & Marly (right)
This is the first time that two of the babies have been together since leaving Mommy's tummy

August 16, 2011
Two of the Girls!
Marly (left) & Elia (right)

Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we do!  It was so exciting to get two of them together again yesterday.  It was neat to see them open their eyes and really check each other out.  It was adorable that they held hands without any positioning from us :)

August 13, 2011 - One week old :)

Wow!  So it has been a week since the girls were born and the time has just flown by.  We are really learning what the word 'busy' means these days!

The girls are all doing really good!  They have made so much progress in the past week that we are absolutely amazed.  Each of them is getting mommy's milk through a feeding tube and seem to really like it due to the long naps and complete contentment.  So far so good with the milk.  I seem to be able to produce more than what they are needing, so maybe I could actually build up some reserve for later!!  Marly is on full feedings which is about 7-8 ounces per day and her two sisters will be up to full feeds later today.  Prior to this they received all of their nutrients via a line that was run through their umbilical cord.

The isolette (or incubators) controls the temperature and amount of oxygen that the girls receive.  By the end of the weekend they will all be down to 21% oxygen, which is the same as what we breathe.  The girls will all be sporting some onsies by the end of today, which means that they are able to control their own body temperatures without the help of the isolette.  So they are making remarkable strides to adjust to their environment!  Now we just need to focus on getting big!

The girls are all really long (16.5-17 inches), but still very slender so they are adding additional calories into my milk to help 'fatten' them up.  I keep getting teased about how long their fingers and toes are!  I never realized mine were so long!  Gee thanks mom and dad!!  ;)

Mommy got to hold Marly on Thursday (8/11).  I realized that they are so much smaller than I had thought before.  You can see that they are small lying in their beds, but when she was a few inches from my face she was so much smaller than I imagined.  Her little fingers feeling my skin was so amazing.  It is crazy how light three pounds of baby feels.  But they are all fighters and will be getting bigger in no time!  Daddy got to hold Marly and Elia last night and Mommy got to hold Chloe.  So now we've held all of the girls and cannot wait to keep holding them everyday until they are able to come home.  They say that most babies don't go home till closer to their due date, which would be on October 9th.  So we will have quite a few weeks of visiting them in the hospital for now.

Garin absolutely loves his sisters!  He begs to go see them and does really well.  He likes to touch them and sing his songs to them.  They all seem to really enjoy him too!  When he sings their eyes watch him and their heads move as if they are trying to listen really closely.  It is fun to watch and see the bond between them grow each day.  He has impressed the nurses with his sleeping abilities as a couple times now he has napped in a stroller to let Mommy and Daddy spend more time up at the hospital with them.  The second day that he was able to see them, he begged so hard to be able to bring them home.  Daddy tried to explain that they had to stay in the hospital due to the cords that are hooked to them to make sure they are all doing ok.  He responded with, "we can take the cords home too, Daddy!"

Here are some of the more recent pictures:

Garin is checking out Elia in her isolette. 
The girls all had to be under the bright blue bilirubin lights to help prevent jaundice.

Mommy, Daddy & Marly after the first time of holding one of the babies!
Yes, you can see the teary eyed Mommy after waiting 5 days to hold her baby.

Our train of Daddy, Mommy still in a wheelchair
& Garin sleeping in a stroller going to see 'the sisters.'

Daddy getting to hold Elia.
You can see how little she is before she gets
all snuggled in and covered with blankets.

Daddy with Elia.
Looks like she is loving her snuggle time!

Daddy holding Marly

Mommy holding Chloe for the first time.
We are 'kangaroo-ing' them, which means holding them with skin to skin contact.

Garin fell asleep when visiting 'the sisters.'

I also added some of the final belly pictures to the belly page:
http://bigbrotherx3.blogspot.com/p/belly-pictures.html

August 8, 2011 - Some pictures of the girls!

The door to my hospital room!

Daddy and Mommy with Elia

Daddy changing Elia's diaper



We finally got to see Elia's eyes!

Elia with her light blocking mask
(to decrease stimulation and simulate a dark room for sleeping)
is busy sucking her little fingers.



Mommy and Daddy with Chloe



Chloe



Mommy and Daddy with Marly



We also got to see Marly's eyes for the first time!



Daddy's first time of changing little Marly