Happy Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for this year. It has been a year full of blessings, especially the blessing of our three sweet baby boys. We are thankful for them, their health, and the fact that they're at home this holiday. We are thankful for the doctors and nurses that took such good care of our boys in the hospital and all of our family and friends that have supported, loved and helped us from the day we found out we were having triplets! We are thankful that MaSha is here and worked so hard yesterday and this morning to make us a delicious Thanksgiving meal. We are thankful for so many things, today and everyday. We are so blessed!

Our little turkeys...

Ryan

William

Stokes

It's snowing!

Wow!!!! It's snowing here! It's the babies' 

first snow! I am very excited! I told the boys they could play in the snow later, not this year, and they were ok with it. ;)

Here's what we are doing this snowy morning.

William & Stokes

Ryan

View of snow from nursery

 

Happy snow day! Stay safe if you are traveling.

Three months old

Today marks three months since the boys were born. I know I sound like a broken record, but time is just flying by so fast! 

I mentioned in a previous post that we were getting professional pictures made today. OMG...I cannot even wait to see how they turned out! The boys behaved for the most part and our photographer, Jana Candler, was AWESOME! She was so good with the babies and had some great, creative ideas for poses and such. Overall it was a great experience! 

It was a pretty busy morning for the boys so I imagine they will be doing some good napping this afternoon. Good for me so I can take a nap as well! :)

Happy 3 month birthday, sweet babies! Your mom & dad love you!

Happy due date, babies

Well today is November 24th, my full term, 40 week due date. It is so strange to really think about carrying the boys full term and delivering them today. I knew from the beginning that we wouldn't go full term, but now that the boys have been born for 13 weeks I cannot even fathom it! Trust me, I would have rather carried them a lot longer than I did. I was extremely disappointed to deliver at 27 weeks. I felt so guilty and inadequate. Shortly after they were born, I would look at them in their isolettes, with wires and tubes and struggling to breathe, and it would bring tears to my eyes knowing that it was all my fault and I put them through all of this by going into labor so early. If I could have carried them longer, even by just a week, their NICU time probably would have been shorter and they would have been much more well equipped for life outside the womb. Every mother wants the very best for her baby(ies) and it's terribly heartbreaking to know that you've caused any harm or pain to them and given them a harder path in life than they deserve. They say that "mommy guilt" starts as soon as they're born, and I can attest. My mommy guilt was very strong and so much more devastatingly real than the guilt of realizing you waited too long to change a diaper or feed a baby or that you put him/her in daycare. My mommy guilt was close to being on a life and death level for my babies. I think a lot of NICU moms can probably relate. These boys have come out of that ordeal like true fighters and set my mind and heart at ease with how well they've done and how far they've progressed. They have made up for my shortcomings as a maternal safehaven and womb for them. I love them so much and my heart swells with pride for them.

We had an appointment with our pediatrician on Friday and once again got a good report. Their growth chart is following a healthy curve and she said their actions, bodies, and everything she can see indicates that they look like normal, healthy newborns, just as they should be at this time in their lives. 

Updated weights and lengths:

Stokes - 6 lb, 14 oz; 19 1/4" long

Ryan - 6 lb, 12 oz; 19 1/2" long

William - 6 lb, 10 oz; 19" long

Pretty standard newborn sizes! Go boys!

Just think...if I had carried them full term, I would have had almost 21 lb of baby in my belly! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! 

Happy full term due date & 13 week birthday to these sweet, beautiful and precious miracles from God!

On another note, I saw this video on Facebook and if you have a few (7) minutes you should watch it. It's very touching and beautiful, but keep the tissues nearby!!! It tracks a NICU baby's life from birth through his first birthday and is incredibly sweet. :) This video is something I can totally relate to (at least the first part since we are only 13 weeks old!). I watched it while I was holding Ryan and I was just letting the waterworks flow and holding and hugging Ryan and thanking God for him and his brothers. 

I only have EYES for you...

We are keeping up with our busy schedule of doctor appointments. Yesterday we had a follow up appointment with the eye doctor at Piedmont Retina and tomorrow is a pediatrician appointment.

We only took Ryan and William to the eye doctor yesterday, since the doctor determined that Stokes's eyes were mature 2 weeks ago at our last appointment. The eye exam is NOT fun. The babies scream and cry and it breaks my heart. They get their eyes dialated and then have those metal things holding their eyelids open during the exam. Afterwards their eyes are all red and puffy and I feel so bad for them. Poor babies! So the finding of the appointment is that William's eyes are both mature now. Yeah!!! Ryan still had one immature eye and will have to go back again in 2 weeks. This eye exam does not check their vision. It is checking the maturity of their retinas and making sure we aren't in danger of retina detachment due to immaturity. Since Stokes and William both have mature eyes now, there is no chance that they will go blind due to Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). The doctor said he doesn't see any reason that Ryan's eye won't mature, but the longer it takes, the less likely that will be. Considering that each appointment gives us news that one of the boys had two mature eyes, I am hopeful that our next appointment will provide the same update for Ryan. The doctor did mention that the boys are at an increased risk for astigmatism, nearsightedness, farsightedness, etc. We will cross that bridge when/if we get to it. Please pray for Ryan's left eye to mature and for the boys to have good, healthy eyes and good vision.

This week Thomas's Aunt Fifi has been here helping with the boys. She is really good with babies and loves holding and soothing them. You can tell that they really love her, too! She mentioned the first day she was here that she thought they looked so much alike and was wondering if she needed us to put nail polish on their feet to help her tell them apart. By day 2 she was an expert and needed no help! Once you're around them, I think it's pretty obvious to see the differences between them. I know it's harder though to just see pictures and try to tell them apart. 

MaSha is coming back next week to stay here, help with the babies and celebrate thanksgiving with us since we can't travel this year to be with family. We are excited to have her back and looking forward to the holiday!

Another thing that we are super excited about is our newborn pictures!!! Jana Candler is coming to take pictures for us. She is so sweet and does such a great job! These baby models are pumped to get their beautiful faces photographed. :)

A few pics from today...

All 3!

Stokes

Ryan

William

World Prematurity Awareness Day

Today is World Prematurity Awareness Day, sponsored by the March of Dimes. I am so grateful to this organization whose mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. I never really knew much about the March of Dimes until I had my premature babies. It is incredible what this group does for babies and families of babies in the NICU.

Science and medicine had made huge strides in helping to save preemies. It is truly amazing to see the difference that 10 weeks in the NICU made for our sweet babies. To be honest, when the boys were first born, I wasn't sure if they were going to make it. Now they look like happy, healthy newborns who just happen to be 12 weeks old. Photo proof of the incredible changes we have witnessed...

Stokes

Ryan

William

Pics of all 3

I love Stokes' face in this one...lol

3 Little Tiger Fans

We are getting ready for the game tonight.

We've got bottles of beer milk in the fridge for the tailgate and are wearing our Clemson orange!

Go Tigers! Beat Georgia Tech!

Stokes is "holding" a football signed by Danny Ford! :)

A few of our Clemson sleepers are still big on us, but we are glad to wear them anyway.

Feeding triplets

The boys are currently getting about 2 ounces of milk each at every feeding.  They eat 8 times per day - at 12, 3, 6, and 9 through the day and night. We are fairly strict about our feeding schedule, as I hear that it will save my sanity! So if you do the math, that is 8 bottles per baby per day, times 3.  24 BOTTLES.  Gees. It is really quite time consuming to wash and make all the bottles.  We try not to run the dishwasher a billion times a day in an effort to NOT make our utility bills skyrocket. We finally have enough bottles that we can make all the bottles for a full day without having to wash any.  We run the dishwasher once to get all the bottles clean and then do an assembly line to prepare them to feed the babies. We keep the bottles in the fridge until it's "go time". We add 2/3 teaspoon of Similac Neosure formula and then 60 ccs (aka ml) of breastmilk to each bottle.  The Neosure is just added for extra calories for these little guys! While MaSha was here, she took charge of washing and making the bottles. That is a true labor of love. We really appreciated all her help with that. We now have dedicated a shelf in our fridge solely to bottles.  Here's what it looks like!

Dedicated milk shelf...haha

This shoebox contains the pumped milk that will go into the bottles. Shortage shown here since a day's worth of bottles were just made and used up quite a bit of it!

I am anal and made instructions so that we can use the FIFO (first in, first out) method. Don't want any of this milk to go bad! ;)

A full day's worth of bottles (24), ready to go for the Peery triplets!

Had to thrown in these sweet pictures of my 3 peas in a pod. Love these onesies from their Aunt Tara!

Family pictures

We got MaSha to take some pictures of the Peery Family of 5 while she was here visiting with us. Please notice that Thomas is participating in "No-shave-ember". Yikes. I am encouraging him to get rid of the facial hair! :)  Here are the pictures...

Weird to think all 3 of them were in my belly about 11 weeks ago!

Pictures of MaSha with the babies before she left this afternoon.  We sure will miss her!

 

MaSha, Thomas and the boys

Just hangin' out

It is awesome to have the boys at home. I was scared to death at the thought of bringing them home and being responsible for them, but it is way better than I could have imagined! We are managing pretty well. We are figuring out a routine that works and settling in. We just got done eating and then had some tummy time!

Stokes:

Ryan:

William:

I am obsessed! :)

By the way, my maternal instincts have shot through the roof since my babies have come home. My best friends and I always laughed about how NOT maternal I was, which was a small concern when we found out I was having triplets! Anyway, while they were in the NICU, I was relying so much on the nurses to help and to guide me instead of just trying to do what I thought was best. This is a good plan in the NICU, especially when they were first born and so premature and fragile (I could have hurt or hindered them by doing what I thought was "best" at that time), however, I may have been leaning on the nurses too much there towards the end of the NICU stay. I was completely lacking confidence in motherhood and my ability to take care of 3 babies. All that to say, now that they're home and I am in charge of them, those instincts are finally kicking in. It's hard to describe, but now it feels like my boys are MINE, and I never felt that 100% in the NICU. 

I mentioned in a previous post that the boys weren't taking their whole bottles and that was making me nervous. I am glad to report that they are doing much better and drink all of it almost every single time. They are also getting faster with finishing their bottles, for which I am so grateful! Every little minute helps when you are taking care of 3 babies!

MaSha, the boys' grandmother, has been here helping since Thursday, and what a huge help she's been! She is helping diaper and feed babies, washing and making bottles, doing laundry (babies's and grown ups!), organizing stuff around the house, cooking/meal planning, etc! Thomas and I are grateful for the assistance! 

We are still putting a few finishing touches on the nursery and I will be so excited when it's complete! Can't wait to post pictures because I think it's so cute! Btw, this must be my "nesting instinct" kicking in as well because I am ALL ABOUT working on my house and getting it looking good right now. I know, this instinct is also showing up a little later than expected! I think the hospital bed rest and NICU threw my instincts for a loop!

My dad came by this weekend to visit with the boys. His name is Stokes...sound familiar?!?! Yep, he's the namesake for our Stokes. :) Here he is loving on one of his grandsons.

Thomas and MaSha are out running errands right now. I am on my own with the little guys! Everything takes a lot longer with just 1 person, but I am no longer nervous to do it on my own. Score. Speaking of errands, I got the luxury of running errands on Saturday and it was glorious!!! Hobby Lobby, WalMart, Buy Buy Baby, Ross, Marshalls Home Goods & Target...I was really getting after it! Nesting instincts made me buy a lot of house stuff ha! Like I said, it was glorious..at least for a few hours and then I hit 5:00 traffic on Woodruff Rd and wanted to be done and back home as soon as possible! You Greenville people know what I am talking about!

Agenda for the rest of the day...give the boys a bath and possibly get MaSha to take some pictures of us as a family. Will post them!

Side note: I have gotten a lot of feedback from people that are reading the blog and cyber-supporting us (I think I just made up that word!) and I want to say THANK YOU! Glad to hear that people are reading and enjoying it! xoxo