One Month Old

The trio sleeps while they were still in the hospital

Once again I slack tremendously on the blog updates, thanks to all have pushed and prodded me to update the blog.








Sophia and Gabbi play


Kim had the idea that we should stay the night with them one night and both get up for each feeding, to make sure we can handle the process. I don't recommend this to our faithful readers, as all it really did was wipe us both out the next day. We stayed the night Thursday and Jack and Gabrielle came home with us on Friday. But little Nate had to stay in the hospital till he could do better on his feeding.

Jack and Gabbi - profiles

The first night home we tried a new e strategy: one of us goes to bed at 10:00ish and the other would do the midnight feedings. Then the one who was sleeping earlier would get up at 3 and 6 and do those feedings. The idea here was that we both could get a chunk of solid sleep (5 hours) that could be remedied with a nap during the day to make it more conducive to living a normal, less sleep deprived life. The concept was good... but there were a few glitches the system. For this night, the main glitch was that no one told the babies that they are supposed to go to sleep afte their midnight feeding. So from 1:30 to 3:00 they squawked and squawked, which had me checking on them every 15 minutes or so. I got a little more sleep after the 3:00 feeding, and then after the 6:00 feeding I was already up, so I started on my household chores. Tired.... but productive :)


So here it is Tuesday, May 29th, and we are hanging out at the hospital with Nate on what is (so we are told) is his last day here. Tomorrow, we will be a complete family at home.. YAY!

Gabbi says "let the fun begin"

Our feeding system seems to be working pretty good for the most part... but we will need to convince the little ones that their awake time is during the day and not at 3 in the morning. Plus adding Nate to the whole mix may change things.


Jack and Gabbi seem like they have jumped leaps and bounds in just the 4 days they have been home, and Gabbi has already scored higher on the PSAT then 40% of the juniors in Washington State. Okay, so maybe that is a stretch, but they are doing quite well. When we first took them home, it would take 30 - 40 minutes to get them to drink their 2 ounces of their bottle. The first ounce would scream by, then the remaining ounce we would have to continually wake them up, and shove it in their mouth to get them to take it. Now... they it's about 12 minutes to finish a bottle, which means quicker turn around on our sleep, another YAY!

They share a crib now!

Okay, okay, okay... so I'm not the most prompt blogger... sheesh. Sorry about the absence to our loyal fan base ;) All the pictures were starting to look the same, i.e. swaddled up, tube out of their nose... and half asleep.

The kids have been doing great, and are progressing as best to be expected. We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful nursing staff helping us out, as they have definitely made this as easy as possible for us.

As per my title, they are all sharing the same crib now... which was very exciting for us, for some odd reason, it seems like progress ;)

Gabbi acting coy

They are working on learning to take their formula from bottles now, and they are doing pretty good on that front so far.

They have all gained weight since their birth, and continue to grow. Here are their original birth weights, and their current weights.

Nate gets a bath... ladies don't look too close

Jack was 4lb 7 oz and is now 5 lb 6 oz

Nate was 3 lb 1 oz and is now 3 lb 15 oz (might be 4 lbs by the time you read this!)

Gabrielle was 4 lb 1 oz and is now 4 lb 15 oz (almost 5lbs!)

Looks like the week of the 28th for them starting to come home... but we'll have to wait and see. Kim and Sophia and I will spend a couple nights at the hospital near the end of the week to get more used to the regular feedings and ween our way into the nights. Stay tuned!

Cribs for the Masses

Daddy and his little girls

It's Friday and the kids are now all out of there Isolets (sp?) Soon they will all be able to share the same crib!

Jack eyeing the world

We're mid way through week 35 for the triplets justacional age, and the nurses told Kim today it would probably be closer to week 38 before they were able to go home. I was looking forward to them coming home in week 37... but I guess I will have to wait a little longer.

Gabrielle gets fed

They are doing really well right now, but I can't imagine having them off of their monitors... as those really reduce the stress of "is he breathing, is he okay" We'll miss those when we get home... but it will be nice to have them home.

All three have been gaining weight this week which is great news, as they need to get bigger so they are not so fragile to hold.

Nate sports his spring outfit

Kim has become the resident expert on our equipment and process with the babies, so when they bring expecting couples through she gives them the whole spiel about what everything is, how the process goes, yada, yada, yada. It's pretty impressive to see how much of the information she has absorbed.

Triplets Pose Together

Things are going well for the triplets this week. Gabrielle has her own crib, and the two boys joined her for a short stint in a bigger crib, before rational minds figured out that wasn't the best idea just yet.

The babies are still working on getting their feeding through their tubes in their noses, but they are working towards being able to take a bottle hopefully in the near future.

All three kids are much more alert these days, and love to look around when they are awake. Jack still tends to lean towards sleeping, but he is definitely getting more interested in the outside world now.

Sophia got to hold Gabrielle on Sunday, and she was a very proud big sister. She is doing great through this adventure, though its cut into her mommy/daddy time at home.

Today, Tuesday, we finally got to put them all together for a short bit for a group picture... I was only sorry that Sophia wasn't there as well to make it more of a family photo. Still, it was good to put them all back together again, and gave a little more perspective on what we are dealing with ;)

End of Week One

Kim holding the boys with Sophia

The triplets are now one week old, and becoming more and more aware every day. We are getting to hold them more, and helping out with changing of diapers. They encougrage skin-to-skin contact when holding as it helps them feel more comfortable.

When I came in yesterday, Kim was holding both Jack and Nate at the same time. She made it look so easy, that I took a stab at it as well. But I had a harder time, as they kept sliding off my chest.

Kim and I are working from their room a couple hours a day so we can hang out with them, and get to spend time with them during feedings when they are awake. It still feels weird to go home at night and just leave them behind.

The nurses have been great, and do little craft projects at night that we find the next day. It's like having elves surprise us each day.

Gabbi is awake

Everyone has been very supportive, and great about acknowledging Sophia in this whole process as well. I think it really helps her feel part of the big picture, and not on the outside looking in.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

All the babies have the CPAPs off of them, and now you can see more of their characteristics. They are all taking food through tubes now, so we should start to see some growth on them.

Yesterday we were able to hold Nate for the first time, and it was pretty darn cool. He's a small little guy, and the nurses just laid him on our chest for some skin-to-skin contact. He stared at us for awhile before falling asleep, and he felt so precious laying on us like that. (Kim and I took turns, he's not big enough to span the two of us ;)

We have some more pictures, but they were all starting to look the same with all the tubes and what not, so now that those are off, we should get some photos with actual facial features and expressions.

It is very quiet in the babies room without all the breathing aparatus going as they were a couple days ago. Kim and I are working on our laptops as we wait for their feeding and changing times.

More to come later... and I'll put pictures up, I promise.

Progress

Kim holds Jack

Today was a good day for the little ones! Kim and I finally got to hold Jack and Gabrielle, so that was a big boost to our day!





Mark holds Gabrielle

Nate is still covered with little tubes and covers so he does not provide the most photo ops. He is getting better, but still needs some help along.















Jack sleeping






Jack sleeps alot, and slept the whole time we held him. He opened his eyes after we put him back in his bed, and looked at us inquisitively a bit.

Gabrielle takes her first bottle

Gabrielle was wide eyed and bushy tailed the whole time we were there, and looked as though she was trying to figure us out. She also took her first bottle today, while it was a very small amount, it was a big step in the right direction.









Kim is supposed to come home tomorrow, so we will see if that happens. Regardless we are going to be putting a lot of miles on the cars to go see the little ones till the can come home to us.

2 steps forward...1 step back

A nurse woke us up this morning at 3:45 am to let us know the neo-natologist (sp?) wanted to talk to us. I called the number provided and was greeted with a very kurt woman on the other line. She was telling me that they had to innabate Baby B (Nate) as he was working too hard and would not be able to breathe if nothing was done.

Nate sleeping

I collected my thoughts and headed down to the babies' room. There were four nurses/doctors around Nates bed, pushing, prodding and manipulating his various assortment of tubes. It looked a little scary, but they seemed to be calm and collected. They explained what they were doing and suggested I talk to the neo-natologist I had spoken (regrettably) with earlier on the phone. Again, very short, and kurt and caused more concern with me then I originally had. After she left I commented on her to the nurses who all apologized for the way she talked to me.

Things seemed to be in hand, so I returned to the room, and Kim went down to follow up. She called me a few minutes later and said I needed to come down as something had just gone wrong. I headed down while a nurse watched over Sophia as she slept. I got down to the room and everthing ended up being okay, but Kim said it got a little hairy there for a bit.

Jack Sleeping on Day 3

After getting some more rest, we visited the babies'room several times throughout the day, and everything was pretty much status quo. They had some BRIGHT lights on Gabrielle and Nate to help on their jonsis (sp?) The kids had some pads covering their eyes that looked like sunglasses, Gabbi looks like she is lounging by a pool. Also, Gabbi is now breathing completely on her own and doing great. Jack is just sleeping alot and still needs some help for breathing, but doesn't need the BRIGH light as of yet.

Gabrielle in her faux shades

Kim is still recovering and was not feeling very good today. They are going to keep her an extra day, so her come home day is now on Thursday. We will still spend a lot of time at the hospital until the babies come home, and they will most likely come home at different times, which will actually help us adjust easier... I think.