Week Four

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! I can not believe our little girls are 4 weeks old already, wow did that time fly by! They are so precious! Sydney is the most alert at this point, Taylor seems to enjoy her sleep these days and Brooke is in between, she is sleeping a lot but she definitely lets you know when she doesn't like something, like getting her temperature taken. They are all working hard at growing and Sydney is still leading the pack with weight, followed by Taylor and Brooke is still the little peanut, although she seems to lead the pack in all other ways. She may be our leader, and will probably be the mastermind of well planned schemes:)

We also found out yesterday that Donna, one of the amazing NICU nurses is going to be our new neighbor. Donna, her husband bought the lot directly next to us and are going to be building a house in spring, we are so happy! I love chatting with her, it turns out we have many mutual friends, as I always say Smallwaukee is getting smaller! We are also found out today that it was Dr. Potter's last day at St. Mary's, the docs rotate hospitals and his rotation is over. I will miss seeing him everyday and getting the updates on the girls. He always made me laugh, what a great man! He took great care of our girls!

Brooke wants to be heard!

Three Little Pumpkins

Grandma made these adorable pumpkin caps for the girls. They look so sweet in them, thank you for making sure they too were able to dress up for Halloween!

Busia made a ton of delicious rice crispy treats for us and to share with the NICU staff, they are an amazing group of people!

A big thanks to our parents for watching the dogs so we could have a night away from home. Jason and Kate's Wedding at the Pfister was awesome, we had a blast!

Week Three

All three girls continue to do well, all packing on the ounces and really beginning to fill out. Sydney now weighs 3lbs (nice work little one), Taylor weighs 2lbs 10oz and Brooke weighs 2lbs 5oz. Feeds are increasing in volume which is awesome! They have changed so much already. The days are busy with feedings every three hours, long naps where they really focus on growing, and visits with holding time pretty much every other day from Busia and Papa and Grandma and Grandpa. We need to get a picture with Grandpa! It is amazing how fast the days go and how little I get done outside of spending time with our sweeties! I never want to leave, but the time comes that the dogs need to be let out and I really need to take some time to organize the nursery and get things ready. We still have quite a few weeks until any one of the girls come home, but time is a-flyin'! Chris and I constantly talk about how badly we want to have them all home, it is so hard to leave them each day and night.

We brought home hats the girls wore and a blanket from the hospital to see how the dogs would react. Wrigley, not surprising, didn't seem all that interested, Charlie was more interested and did a lot of sniffing, Carmen was locked in on the scent and couldn't stop sniffing. We hope the dogs will be on their best behavior (not sure that really exists) when the girls come home! I love all three of them very much!

Feel the Love

Sometimes they look like little dolls to me! Sometimes I also stop and think about what a miracle we have here! How could we be so lucky to have such beautiful healthy little triplet girls? I love them so much and I can't stop telling them that! I think I am starting to get what my parents would always say to me, "you will understand someday when you are a mother." It is intense for me! We are so blessed!

You can see the love in that smile!

Week Two

Today is Grandma's Birthday! Happy Birthday Grandma!

Well, another week has passed and Dr. Potter, the girl's Neonatologist, said everyone is doing great. Sydney was diagnosed with PDA, Patent Ductus Arteriosus. It is when the ductus, does not close, or remains partially open. This is due to either an absence of the normal oxygen sensors in the ductus muscle, or a weakness of the muscle which does not allow complete closure. It is relatively common in preemie babies and with a few doses of indomethacin, a medicine given via shot, the valve should close. We think the medication worked since they have not heard a murmur for a day or two and we pray that it is gone forever. After they did an EKG things look good! The girls have also been having weekly head ultrasounds. One major concern with preemie babies is hemorrhaging in the brain because the capillaries are so fragile, we were so relieved to find out that there were no signs of bleeds in any of the girls. Thank goodness!

The girls have been getting breast milk pretty much from the get go, and for the most part are tolerating it well. The nurses feed them through a tube they put down their throat, they really won't have the gag reflex for a few more weeks, so it doesn't seem to bother them much. After each feed if they tolerate or have little residual (undigested milk from the previous feed) they increase the amount of milk for the next round. It is pretty cool how quickly things are progressing.

Sydney's new outfit, PANDAS!

With the help of Grandparents we found many adorable preemie outfits for the girls. Sydney was the first to sport one of the new threads, they seem to fit her best now that she is getting close to the 3lb mark! I wonder, will she follow in my footsteps with my love of clothes? Isn't part of the thrill of little girls dressing them? I think so, look at how cute she looks!

Sydney is off the ventilator, YEAH!

The girls are 1 week old today! We finally got to hold Sydney today which was really special. It was hard to see her in her isolette while we were holding her sisters. Now that we can hold them all we try to give everyone equal time and rotate holding them each day, I imagine this is going to be an ongoing challenge pretty much forever!

Auntie Angela is heading out very early in the morning, so it was fantastic that she could see Sydney out of her bed. It was so great to have her in town to see the girls just a few days old. She also helped Chris and I a ton by organizing all the amazing gifts we had recieved at the shower back on Sept 19th. I was admitted into the hospital two days later and all the presents had been sitting in our garage. She was a huge help, thanks Ang!

Brooke and Taylor enjoying Kangaroo Care

Week One

This week has been quite a whirlwind! Saturday 10/3 the girls had their first visitors! Busia and Papa and Grandpa came to meet the girls in the NICU. Grandma was up North when the girls were born and we knew it was killing her to not be there, but she came home early on Sunday to meet the girls. It was pretty cool to see the excitement on all of the "first time Grandparents" faces, they are so proud!

I was finally able to go home on Wednesday morning, I can not explain how much I was looking forward to being home. It had been over two weeks since I had been home and I could not wait to be home with Chris and the doggies. I missed them so very much! That night Auntie Angela, my sister, flew into town to meet the girls. We picked her up from the airport and wasted no time getting to the hospital for her to meet her tiny nieces!

Wednesday evening was very exciting for us because Chris and I got to hold Brooke and Taylor for the first time. They both were only on the ventilator for about a day, their lungs were more mature than their younger yet bigger sister Sydney. Wow they are beautiful and oh so tiny. Unfortunately we were not able to hold Sydney just yet as she had to go back on the ventilator, she was having to work just a little too hard to breath:( She should be off soon and we couldn't wait to hold her too! Over the next few days Chris and I did "kangaroo care" which is holding the girls skin to skin on our chest. The skin contact and sound of the parent's heartbeat has proven to be extremely beneficial to preemie babies. It is an amazing feeling to be able to do this and help them in any way possible because it can be a very helpless feeling just looking at them in their isolettes. Thank God the nurses have been just wonderful and do a great job putting our minds at ease. Auntie got some good holding time in as well, she also had many encouraging words for little Sydney! Sydney's middle name is Angela after her Auntie so it was very special she was there to talk to her and give her strength! Auntie Angela's husband Uncle Eric will be in town for Christmas and is looking forward to meeting his nieces then. They live in Northern California, we look forward to the day we will take the girls out there to the beautiful town of Petaluma!

The girls also have an Auntie Beth, she is Chris' sister and she lives in New York. She will be coming for Thanksgiving with her boyfriend Justo, which we are all very excited about. Brooke's middle name is Elizabeth after Auntie Beth. She can't wait to meet and hold her first "set" of nieces! Taylor's middle name is also a family name. Both of my Grandmother's first names were Sophie, so we chose to make it Sophia. It was important to us and meaningful to use family names for our girls.

Brooke is "hanging loose"

She always seems to do cute things with her hands, I try to get her to do the rock horns for Dad's amusement!

Taylor getting snuggle time

This is one of my favorite pictures so far of Taylor, she looks so perfect and content!

Welcome to the world Beautiful Tiny Girls!

The girls were born this morning at 12:22, 12:23 and 12:24 AM. What a night! Brooke Elizabeth was first weighing 2lbs 3oz, then came Taylor at 2lbs 6 oz and finally Sydney tipping the scales at 2lbs 9 oz. We are so thrilled they are here even though they are much earlier than planned at only 29 weeks 2 days. We were able to get the series of steroid shots to help the development of thier lungs and to strengthen their capilaries in their brain to help prevent bleeds. That all makes me so nervous, but we can only hope for the best. I think these are going to be tough little girls!

About 8 PM last night Brooke decided it was time for some freedom, she and Taylor had been fighting for space, kicking each other in the face and grabbing each others feet for the past 7 months. Sydney was lounging in what Dr. Pircon described at her own condo and was not quite ready for this adventure, but she really had no say in this because once Brooke made her decision and broke my water all systems were go!

Dr. Fait was an amazing doctor and we had complete confidence in him throughout my pregnancy! We would highly reccomend him to anyone, he is in private practice so I never had to worry about who was going to deliver our babies.

Brooke Elizabeth

Taylor Sophia

Sydney Angela