One week old!

Thought I'd share some one week pics now that all of their CPAP's are off and you can actually see their sweet little faces...

JADYN

COLE

JORDYN

First of all I have to let everyone know how grateful I am for each of you out there praying for us and supporting us through this journey. All of the outpouring of love and support for our family, even from people that don't know our family, is overwhelming. I so appreciate all of the advice from fellow families of multiples and other NICU parents. It's incredibly encouraging to know that there are others out there who have been through much worse and came out just fine. We love you :)

One week old now and that much closer to coming home! The days have all kind of blended together with one trip after another back and forth between the house and the hospital. Aside from the changes in the babies, there is very little difference from day to day. Grandma Jo (Mark's mother) arrived safely from Michigan today and got to see the babies for the first time. Rylee and Jack are just thrilled to have their Grandma's here and are eating up all the extra attention.

GRANDMA TATE WITH COLE

GRANDMA JO WITH JORDYN

Most days we seem to be flying by the seat of our pants. Nothing is routine around here anymore but it actually seems to be working for us just fine. A "typical" day around here looks something like this (keep in mind its about an hour travel time from our house to the NICU one way) :

7:00 am: Up for the day and pump. Shower, dress self and kids, make breakfast, clean up breakfast and do laundry

9:00 am: One of us leaves for the hospital where the morning is spent holding, feeding, and assisting in the care of our three babies.

10:00 am : Pump

1:00 pm : Pump. Home for lunch. Play with the big kids and feel really guilty that we aren't spending enough time with them lately

2:00 pm: Whichever parent did not go in the morning goes to the hospital now.

4:00 pm : Pump

6:00 pm : Home from the hospital and dinner

7:00 pm : Clean up dinner and pump

7:30 pm : Mark usually goes back to the hospital at this time for night time shift change and to deliver the pumped breast milk for the following day.

8:30 pm : Put the big kids to bed

9:00 pm : Try to eek out some household chores before the house plunges into total chaos

10:00 pm : Pump

11:00 pm : Bed for Mom

12:00 am: Bed for Dad

1:00 am : Pump

4:00 am : Pump

7:00 am : Start all over again

The days are much more tiring then I had anticipated. While I certainly would much rather have my babies big and healthy enough to be able to bring them home with me from the hospital I had known from the start that that wouldn't be happening and had prepared myself for the NICU experience. I thought it might end up being a mixed blessing to ease ourselves into this whole 5 kids thing and have a couple weeks to rest and recover from the surgery and still get full nights of sleep before being thrown directly into the chaos of three newborns and two preschoolers in the house. I was wrong. There's not been much sleeping going on over here what with Mark being at the hospital until Midnight most nights and my having to be up every couple of hours to pump. I had absolutely no intention of exclusively breastfeeding and pumping around the clock like that but after the rough start the little guys had with the formula and I saw what a difference it made in their bodies to have breast milk instead I was left with no choice. There may be a million things I would do differently if I could go back and do the pregnancy again but there is NOTHING I wouldn't do now to get them healthy and home. So I pump and pump and pump and pump all day and all night to try to keep up with the feeding demands of three little babies. It's getting harder each day as they continue to up their feeds every day.

Speaking of feeds, they are now all at more then half of their full feeds and will soon (in the next couple of days!) be at full feeds. They are still getting all their feeds through an NG tube but they have allowed me to start putting each of them to the breast now that they are all off of their CPAP and have clear airways. They all have done pretty good although none of them are fantastic nursers. I didn't expect that though, especially for a baby who is only really 33 weeks now. Once they get up to full feed levels we'll start trying to feed them by bottle.

They continue to grow bigger each day and are currently working on their next big accomplishment- maintaining their own body temperature!! Cole began two days ago on air mode and Jadyn started it yesterday. We are told they will be starting Jordyn today. Up until now they have been kept in their isolettes on skin mode. The nurses tell the isolette what temperature they want the baby to be and it continually monitors that baby's skin temperature and adjusts the isolette temperature accordingly. Now that they are on air mode the nurses simply set the isolette to a given temperature and the now clothed baby is responsible for maintaining his or her own body temperature while he or she is in there. Over several days they slowly work the temp of the isolette down to about 82 degrees. If the baby is able to show that they can maintain a safe body temp when the air temp is only 82 degrees then they are able to come out of the isolette and into an open crib! And once they've been in an open crib with no problems for 48 hours they get to come home! So needless to say, we're happy to be working on that milestone with all of them. So far so good and we'll just keep on hoping that they stay snuggly and warm.

In other news, Cole's arm is looking good and beginning to heal. I'm sure it will leave an icky scar but as long as it's not bothering him, is continuing to heal, and is not causing damage to the use of the arm I'm a happy mama. They did get Jordyn's PICC line in after a couple of failed attempts. She is now off her PIV so no more risk of infiltrations like Cole's for all three babies. Cole's Billirubin levels were back up slightly yesterday so they put him back under the Bili light for another day but he will probably be off again today. He had three huge poopie diapers yesterday so I'm sure his bilirubin levels will be back down to normal again soon.

Rylee and Jack have been missing Mom and Dad quite a bit but are also happy to have their Grandma's around. Jack cries a lot especially at bed time if one or both of us are not here to put them to bed. Rylee told me the other day that she wished the babies were never born so that we didn't have to go to the hospital all the time. They've both had a little stomach bug this week and haven't been feeling all that great so I'm sure that has added to their feelings about everything going on. My mom told me a few days ago Rylee had thrown up while we were at the hospital and after my mom had cleaned it up she found Rylee rocking herself in the glider in the nursery with her face buried in the seat and crying for mommy and daddy. It's been much harder then I had imagined to balance the needs of kids in two different places that both need their parents. I've had several chats with Rylee and Jack about why we have to go to the hospital and what it is were doing there and they seem to get it but they don't like it. Although Rylee has recently put it together this way- When we go to the hospital we bring the babies food so they can eat. When they eat they get fat. When they get fat they get to come home from the hospital. Once they are home from the hospital mom and dad don't have to go there every day. So she's trying to see the glass half full :)

So for now we are hanging in there and making this current craziness work for our family. I know it won't be long and we'll have a whole new batch of craziness going on here. This too shall pass....

MOMMY "KANGAROOING" JADYN