My Life in 3hrs

In my typical attire of pajamas and sweats, why be uncomfortable if I'm not going anywhere?







Little Helpers



We've had a healthy stream of relatives visiting that have been very helpful. They have taken late night feedings so Phil and I could sleep a little more and have made dinners and cleaned so we wouldn't have to, but it's sad to say that they are now gone. This gave me the opportunity to finally be on my own with the boys (for two days albeit). I felt a little panicky at the thought of being by myself the whole day but am now relieved that I was able to handle it just fine; however, I only have time for babies and a few things here and there. Here is my life in 3hrs:

1.5hrs: Change diapers and feed babies, sometimes two at a time if they can't be consoled by a pacifier. (I can sometimes get this done faster)

30minutes: pump while I eat something (unlike pregnancy I'm always hungry now)

45minutes: do something productive as long as babies are content, like clean bottles, baby laundry, and pick up the rats nest I've created in the living room.

15minutes: prepare bottles for next feeding.

Repeat every three hours

At 7pm, once Phil is home, I go to sleep for 3hrs and then wake up so Phil can sleep for 5-6hrs. I need him to get the min amount of sleep necessary to still be productive at work and bring home the bacon. Then at 4am I hand over the boys again and sleep another 3hrs before Phil is off to work. So basically I only see my husband on the weekends. It's only temporary and before you know it the boys will be all grown up so I'm in no hurry for things to change even if it means a little sacrifice now.

The babies are really good and they've never cried inconsolably but I dread the day that it will happen (or will it happen, might I have the good fortune of it never happening?). At worse if they are having a hard time falling asleep I just hold them and if that doesn't work I nurse them for 5minutes and they pass out. This is great for getting them to fall asleep but not so good at getting them to take a full feeding at the breast but that's another story. It's like I have this hypnotizing power over them so the minute I touch them they are out or maybe the smell of maple syrup calms them, who knows. I busted out the double nursing pillow today and was able to get two boys nursing at once. This will really help at getting the boys more practice since I was nursing only one boy per feeding.

JP

Goodbye grandma and grandpa!

Thomas

Eli

What the heck is wrong with your hand Caleb?

Caleb: Woe, woe, woe....wait a minute, just wait a minute.......woe

Thomas getting cheeky

Good bye mama Sue and papa Ed, we'll miss your personal style of diaper changes and calming voices!

Some of you may be wondering how I have time to blog. Well, I have lots of awkward 5 and 10 minute chunks of time where I find myself wondering what to do. I barely have time to eat and shower so I neglect anything else that needs to get done like my uni-brow that almost grew back entirely, hideous!

Professional Glamour Shots

Local photographer Rebecca Davis of Catch Lights NW volunteered her time to photograph the boys. She did a wonderful job!

1 Month!

Can't believe they are already a month old! They are growing so fast, all are over 6 pounds. Lot's of squishy goodness to go around now. Caleb is a little worried about losing his preemie figure but I told him not to worry and just eat up.

You may be wondering if we can tell the boys apart, actually quite easily. We can't tell instantly but a couple of glances and we know. Here is how:

Caleb: very round head and lot's of stylish hair

Eli: narrow face as a result of his football shaped head, less hair than Caleb, and he has two cowlicks (hair swirlies) while his brothers only have one

Thomas: narrow face as a result of his football shaped head, less hair than Caleb, and has a birthmark on the top of his head (see last post for picture).

The boys really are adjusting well to life out side the womba, here are some of their favorite past times:

-Screaming, but only at night during daddy's shift
-Peeing while having their diaper changed
-Peeing on daddy
-Peeing on self, including their eyes
-Taking their sweet time to finish their bottles while their other brothers are screaming their heads off to get fed
-Choking on their milk for attention
-Interpretive dance, I'll include a video soon so you can see


Babies on our way to an appointment in their loaner car beds, or shall I say "baby torture devices."


Sweet Boy

I smell like maple syrup

La Gran Rana Bocona taking a nap.


Swaddle houdinis, they can always break out of mommy's swaddle but not daddy's.


They absolutely hated tummy time. Will try again in a couple of weeks.


Thomas caught sucking his thumb! You can also see his little birth mark on the top of his head. Technically called a "hemangioma" (spelled phonetically), unfortunantly the doctors say it will go away in about a year or so, would have been a nice differentiating mark.


Here we are out for an outing to eat lunch at the carts near our house. Not too many stares in our deluxe limo stroller thankfully. The outing felt eerily normal.


The boys loved the walk and fresh air. The walk however was a little tougher on me though. Now that I'm feeling better from the surgery, the walk unmasked exactly how out of shape I am. Since about week 14 of my pregnancy when I was told to throw out the carrot sticks and load up on cheetos, I also adopted a very sedentary life style. Didn't want to burn up any extra calories or induce preterm labor I was told. It was very difficult but I somehow managed to gain over 60 pounds, which was an ideal amount of weight gain for a triplet pregnancy. I was over 170 lbs by the time the boys were born. I weighed more than my husband (I think), yikes! I was so heavy I had to be careful because my knees would buckle under my own weight. All at once just from the birth I lost 30 lbs. And at my two week post partum check up I had lost an additional 15lbs. So much for my idea of keeping some reserves for breast milk production. Now at 128 lbs I'm fighting further weight loss. Never did I think my incredibly good metabolism would haunt me over and over again. Well I'm back to packing on the butter to my pancakes, got to increase that milk production. I also find it funny that I'm actually taking more pills now than during pregnancy. In addition to same array of vitamins I now take 9 fenugreek seed pills/day, and 6 blessed thistle pills/day to increase my milk. A little fact I read about and quickly forgot is that the fenugreek makes your sweat and pee smell like maple syrup. I all of a sudden remembered when I started craving pancakes when I caught a wiff of myself. I think it's working but not as fast as I would like it too. I feel like giving up at times but I have to keep reminding myself that even a little bit is better than nothing. All the lactation consultants I've spoken to tell me that if you can provide 100% for your baby that's fantastic, if you can provide 50% that's also fantastic, and if you can provide 30% that's also fantastic.

The boys are doing great and getting fatter by the minute. They were at one point all head with a skinny little worm body but now their little bellies are quite round. Now they sound and LOOK like pygmy goats. Even their preemie diapers are fitting a little snug. They all weigh over five pounds and seem quite vigorous. I'm not worried about tiring them out anymore so I'm cracking down and putting them to breast more often. They still cannot take a full feed at the breast so practice we must. It would be so nice to quit pumping so much!

Our 15min of fame

There has been quite a bit of fuss over the triplets and the fan mail is rolling in, below is a link to the follow up news story on KGW.

the Triplets are home News story

This might be it for media attention the boys enjoyed being stars but want to stay out of the spot light for a while, Oprah will have to wait, it's nap time.
-Phil

Former Wombmates

BACK TOGETHERS AGAIN!

As I sat waiting for the boys to be discharged from the NICU, I looked on at the boys and wondered how long their calm preemie demeanor would last. The nurses didn't seem to have any trouble keeping them on a 3 hour eat/sleep schedule. After some more contemplating I wondered how long it would take me to mess up that schedule. I half way joked with the nurse that the minute we get them home everything would go haywire. The other half of me feared this. We got them home after a nervous car ride home, didn't want anything to happen to our precious cargo, just in time for their eight o'clock feed. As we settled in for the night I agreed to take the 2am feed and Phil would take the 5am. Unfortunately I still had to get up and pump.

Let's just say the poopie diapers hit the fan! All Hades let loose, the boys pretty much cried through out the whole night. Not all at once but they nicely took turns so as to have continuous chorus of crying. Thankfully grandma and grandpa took the 8am feed so Phil and I got a couple hours of sleep. It must have been the change of environment because the last two nights have been WAY better. All except for what I call their "witching hour," from around 1am-4am they fuss and whine and of course it's during the feeding I chose to handle. And they are worse during the 20 minutes I spend pumping and am not able to go and console them. It's hard getting up and out of bed and walking back and forth from the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen as I'm still quite sore from the surgery. I feel I'd have the energy for everything only I'm slowed down by the pain. Oh well just have to wait it out and at least we have plenty of help till the grandparents leave at the end of the month. On the bright side I think my anemia is much better, as I said before my energy levels are up quite a bit more.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea though they are really good babies thus far. In the NICU there was a little girl probably 3.5pounds that was aweful crying and screaming like someone was trying to kill her. So thankfully I don't have three of her!