Wow!

SIX MONTHS OLD!!

December already!

We are continuing to enjoy our adventures in triplet-hood. The babies are definitely learning new tricks every day! They are on the move, rolling and scooting around but still a ways from crawling and sitting up. We still have lots of puke to clean up, but we have doubled our need for spit up rags and old t-shirts due to the DROOL! OMG! They are all three chewing on everything and working on those gums in hopes of breaking out a tooth or two someday!

We packed up the troops and took a road trip to Grandma Linda's in Fort Myers last week. The babies got to meet Santa! And I was impressed that Santa's lap had room for all three! We crawled back in the car for a trip to Miami to spend Thanksgiving with Aunt Laura, Uncle Jeff and Cousin Colton. Colton is a month older and had all kinds of 'skills' that our kids were envious of. He is good at sitting, scooting around in his walker and grabbing anything and everything. But never fear...our three taught Colton how to SCREAM and be heard. Aunt Laura is SO THANKFUL for that. HA!!

The babies are going to be 6 months old in a few days. WOW. Time really does fly too quickly. They really seem to enjoy talking to each other, staring at each other and trying to pluck each others eyes out. It is amazing to watch them interact.

Tyler is still the big boy. He is a chatterbox and is very loud these days. He cracks himself up and really enjoys talking to Handy Manny on the Disney Channel in the morning. He is our most snuggly baby and sneaks into mommy and daddy's bed really early some mornings as we try to keep his chatting from waking up the other kids!

Thomas is much happier lately and is so fun to listen to as he coos and giggles. He is a BIG eater and will take at least five 8 oz bottles, a jar of fruits and veggies and a helping of rice cereal or oatmeal twice a day. And he would eat more than that if we offered it to him. He loves the excersaucer and jumpers and will bat at all the fun toys and buttons and giggle the whole time!

Reagan is little miss HAPPY! She smiles more that any baby I have ever known. She loves to squeal and reacts to everyone that looks her way. She is very strong and loves to roll and stand on our laps. She rarely is still and has a ton of energy. When she is upset she has a very dramatic cry with instant tears that just break your heart! Thankfully, it's a rare sight!

We are anxious about our first airplane flight next week. We are going to Kentucky to see Peter's family. Colton will be with us also, so we will shock people with our 5 Adults and 4 Babies. I am getting a little lightheaded just thinking about it really. I will let you all know how it goes! PRAY FOR US!! :)

The Christmas decorations are up and we enjoy looking at the pretty lights. I can't imagine how we will keep everything contained next Christmas. It's about time to invest in baby gates galore! It's going to be fun with new challenges meeting us every day. What a crazy life we lead!!!!

Merry Montage Christmas

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Trick or Treat

It's been another busy week. The babies had their 4 month shots. They ate their first peas and now are on to carrots. Thomas had his first ER visit (due to nonstop puking). We got to see great grandpa and grandma for the first time! We enjoyed our first carved pumpkins and trick or treating. AND they swam for the first time too! Mommy is TIRED.

And how sweet are these babies!

REAGAN, TYLER, THOMAS

And we're back!

TYLER
THOMAS
REAGAN
We are still alive!! It's been a wild and crazy few months. Lots of puke, little sleep, and worth every minute of it. The babies are perfectly healthy and growing like little weeds. All three babies are smiling and giggling and enjoy sitting up in their bumbo seats or bouncy seats or just being held up to see the world. It's a tough job caring for these three little munchkins as we knew it would be. Thomas is a very emotional and needy babe. He is so sweet and snuggly, but we do spend our whole day snuggling him! Reagan is independent and always in motion. She is our most social baby, cooing and laughing all of the time. Tyler is a laid back guy and is very soft hearted. He sometimes cries just because his brother or sister is upset. They are quite a group of sweet babies. My husband and I are fortunate to have both sets of grandparents available to help out during the week. And we now are going to have a little volunteer help from our church. We are excited to have people eager and willing to help us get through this crazy time!

We want to thank everyone who has supported us, prayed and thought about our family during the past year. It's overwhelming. We feel like a miracle has brought these three children into our lives. I never would have dreamt that I would become a mother of triplets. It still shocks me every day to walk in and see those three cribs!

I could write a million stories from the past four months since the babies have arrived. I am sorry to have been so out of touch with my blog buddies. And I will do a better job of keeping up with our progress! I look forward to sharing our thoughts from our crazy, beautiful life!

Ready for the pumpkin festival!

Teaser!!

Here is a more recent picture of the babies!!

Stay tuned for a blog post next week! I miss you all! You can also stay in touch through Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/annwheatley

Tyler
Thomas
Reagan

Wow.

It is almost impossible to find time to blog. But I promise to try harder in the future. I have a lot of catching up to do!! But, here is the exhausted shot we have all been waiting for....THEY ARE ALL HOME!

One Home! Two to go...

Where's Thomas?
There he is!!!

Guess what?

It is getting harder to blog! I can't imagine how much harder it will be after these babies come home. I will get a chance to sample that this weekend. Because THOMAS IS COMING HOME!! He is doing his car seat challenge tonight. And hearing test tomorrow. Eye test on Thursday. And home on Friday! How amazing is that? Hopefully the others will soon follow. But we will surely enjoy the 4th of July weekend in awe of out sweet little Thomas. We haven't figured out the schedule to visit the others in the hospital yet. But most likely Thomas will be doing some visiting of his long lost siblings.

I just can't stop smiling! And cleaning!

Thomas

Little Thomas!! Weighing in at 3 lb 12 oz. He is growing SO FAST! I think he may be the first one home. He is all tuckered out from a full feeding by bottle!
Great Grandma Louise from Kentucky. Thomas is glad he had the chance to tell her how hard his life has been! :)
Daddy feeding his first bottle of many to the babies!

Happy Father's Day!

Thomas tuckered out from learning to eat!
Tyler WIDE awake from us playing dress up with him!
Reagan winning over daddy's heart in her Diva leopard print blankie!
It was a fun day in the NICU! Tyler moved to his new bassinet and out of the isolette! Thomas tried breastfeeding. TRIED is the key word. :) And Reagan just chilled out awaiting her turn at breastfeeding tomorrow. Daddy was able to snuggle his little babies and enjoy his first Father's Day with the triplets!

Big Boy Clothes

We walked in to find our sweet little Tyler out of the warmer and bundled up in CLOTHES! This mommy is SUPER excited to be sorting preemie clothes to take for him to wear now! What a great day.

Thomas

10 days old!

Just a quick note. We are doing great! I was always wanting to fast forward through the IVF and then fast forward through the pregnancy and now I am torn! I don't want these sweet little babies to grow up! But I DO want to fast forward through the NICU a bit. I am ready to get my babies back together and bring them home!! They are just amazing little people already. Thomas is taking what they consider "full feeds" with his tube feedings now. So he will most likely be getting rid of his PICC line next week. And Tyler is next in line as he is one step away from full feeds. Reagan has a little ways to go, but she is catching up fast!! She is the tinies peanut at 2 pounds 13 ounces and Tyler is back to 4 pounds 6 ounces. So we still have the variety pack with our kiddos. I just can't wait until the day we put them together and let them snuggle each other again. It will be wonderful for us all!!!!

Reagan

Tyler

5 days old!

Thomas and his daddy!
Reagan and daddy.
Reagan and Thomas are really in sync with each other now and doing well with breast milk in their feeding tubes and IV nutrition. Thomas is still on a nasal cannula but Reagan is breathing room air now!! Thomas is 2 pounds 14 ounces and Reagan is 3 pounds one ounce. I know we don't have pictures of Tyler! Little Tyler has had a rough time. He was initially the BIG boy! But had a struggle during his delivery. He is down a pound and weight 3 pounds 7 ounces. He can use some extra prayers! But we are seeing progress. He is a momma's boy and breathes better on room air in my arms than on the CPAP machine with O2. Go figure! He is coming around and just taking his sweet time.

Thomas

Our littlest man Thomas.

Mommy Heaven!

I got to hold Reagan today when I delivered her some milk in the wee hours of the morning. It was AMAZING!

a whole day old!!

REAGAN
THOMAS
TYLER
THOMAS

A few OR pictures

I think my babies are AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL! I can't wait to share our lives together as a fammily of FIVE!

We delivered three healthy babies today!! Details will come tomorrow.

time keeps on ticking...

This game is getting OLD, fast. Today we spent the day on the monitor. Or should I say monitor(s). Some nurses freak out about the amount of contractions I have, and some don't give a hoot. It was a freak out day. And the doctor got involved and ordered continuous heart and toco monitors for each baby. Which meant an ultrasound machine to locate the babies, magic marker on my belly to mark each kiddo, and 5 straps around my gut. It sucked! I missed my opportunity to eat lunch, my back is so sore, and they still didn't take out these babies! Oh, and a nurse checked my cervix and immediately ran into Reagan's head. She is WAY DOWN and ready to be out. And I am ready for her to be out! So BRING IT!

Chubby cheeks!

We had our daily BPP and the babies are practice breathing like crazy and passed with flying colors. We saw plenty of hiccups today, which is kind of cute. All three are down low and ready to get off this ride! For a bonus, we were able to see the shadow of Thomas' face laying on his side resting on his sister. How amazing is that?

the waiting game

My contractions continue. We found out my monitor strip is running all over the hospital and this morning it stirred up some chaos when the OR saw the nonstop waves. So they called in extra staff!! But, still no change here. Lot's of cramps and contractions, but NO BABIES!

Still cooking...

We had LOT of drama last night again. Cramping, contracting, monitoring, drugs - BUT NO BABIES YET. Such is our life these days. But interestingly enough, our ultrasound today revealed that the babies all moved! Reagan is still head down and now so low the the ultrasond tech has a hard time seeing the top of her head! And now Thomas has flipped from being breech, to being head down on the other side. And Tyler was transverse on the top bunk and has now slid down on the right side. HOW WEIRD!

I am ordered to just lay here still and gestate. So, that is what I shall do. I have a strong reaction to Vistaril and took one last night. So I will go back to sleep after lunch and should be able to sleep all day. YAWN.

Amniotic Fluid update

The ultrasound showed that the amniotic fluid is down to 5.2 (which is VERY low). I am not surprised as I was not able to drink yesterday and they upped my dose of Indocin which causes low amniotic fluid. SO, I am totally off Indocin which WILL cause contractions as it leaves my system. But, it's everyone's opinion here that this is okay and it's time to have these babies anyway. So we shall hurry up and wait to get this show BACK on the road!

Drama

It's been a rough couple of days. After the echo the other day I contracted through the night and by yesterday morning they had decided to start an IV, make me NPO so I had an empty stomach and put me on continuous monitoring. I contracted MAJORLY all day and we were sure we were headed for a C Section last night! But, as before they were able to get things under a bit more control.

I was able to eat breakfast this morning and although I am contracting, it's much better. Unfortunately, the increase in Indocin back to the higher dose is what seemed to do the trick. And the babies have their own cardiologist who told us we couldn't take that much Indocin due to the risk of closing the ductus in their hearts. SO...we will try to taper off that med by Saturday and keep things under control.

It will only be a matter of time before these babies decide to make their grand arrival. In the mean time, we continue to do this exhausting balancing act! I am waiting for an ultrasound this morning as the Indocin is also the cause of the low amniotic fluid level we had last week. I'll keep you posted!

More updates...

I had NO idea that I was scheduled for an echo again today for the babies. So they surprisingly showed up in my room after lunch and wheeled me over to the outpatient cardiology building again for a two and a half hour check on their tickers. All three look good! Every ultrasound of the babies results in a fight to capture Reagan sitting still. But, today was ridiculous. It's not even funny anymore, she is a wild woman! The techs get SO frustrated chasing her around my uterus. I have a feeling this fiesty girl could give us a run for our money someday. I got way behind on my meds and am contracting like a mad woman. So hopefully that settles down soon.

The 24 hour urine came back with less protein spilling than before. So that's great news! And I actually felt like crap this morning because my blood pressure was TOO low after the Labetolol. Which is better than it being too high at this point!

For those of you following my mom's situation. She went to the urologist in Fort Myers today and has a 9 mm kidney stone that needs to come out! So she will be cancelling her plane ticket back to England on Thursday for medical reasons. She needs to have a follow up ultrasound this week and will do that up here somewhere. And then if it hasn't passed on it's own, that darn thing will need to be removed next week one way or another. So, I guess mom will be here awhile longer!

31 weeks

wow

We always thought we would have May babies. And GUESS WHAT? It's JUNE!

still growing, and growing

No more Mc Dreamy! He is on a new rotation. So I woke up to the same female doctor I had on the first night I was admitted to the hospital. She was with me all night while I was on Mag Sulfate and dilating. She is REALLY nice. She said she couldn't believe I was still pregnant over two weeks later and said that the babies are just doing awesome and although they will have the challenges of prematurity, she is confident that they will be healthy and do great. That puts a smile on my face for the morning!

My belly has gotten SO BIG in the past week. I actually pulled some muscle or ligament or something between my thigh and belly when standing up yesterday. And now I can barely put weight on my left leg. I guess this is normal due to the ridiculous weight of the giganto belly, and the nurses don't want me up because I could fall or my water could break. So - I will try my best to just chill in bed. I know I am huge, but now the nurses are even commenting how fast it is growing. Yikes.

Peter brought me my favorite throw from our house yesterday. And I slept SO GOOD with a comfort from home last night! All of the patients from the high risk unit either delivered or went home yesterday. I was the ONLY patient on this floor last night. It was so quiet! I slept for FOUR solid hours. Awesome.

The skin has completely broken down on my belly and I have open scratches and sores now from my itching and just the wear and tear of the sheets and blankets etc. So today we will try a new steroid cream. It is quite horrible! But, it is my biggest complaint and I think that's probably a good thing.

Ultrasound came in during this post and did the BPP. And the fluid is back at 13! Reagan's cord flow is elevated again. But she is doing just fine. So, all seems well again today. We will see what the doctor says.

Good with the Bad!

The nurses had some trouble finding the heartbeats today with their little monitor. Actually they found all kinds of heartbeats, but it's tough to tell who is who! SO, I now get the biophysical profile daily. I won't argue with that, who wouldn't want a daily ultrasound? So the GREAT news is that my amniotic fluid has built way up to 13!

My belly is red and hot and stretched to the max. And today I have been begging for some kind of cream to give me some relief. They gave me Benadryl cream. I dunno if that's going to help? The cord flow was a bit off on the ultrasound today, even though the babies are doing just fine. So this earned me another 24 hour urine test to watch the pre eclampsia. YUCK.

Oh well! We survived another week!!

Zzzzz....

Sleep, glorious sleep! I was able to sleep through the night from 12 - 6AM with only one potty break around 4AM. And it was MARVELOUS!

My poor mom is in Fort Myers trying to relax for the weekend. But she ended up in the ER and was told she has a kidney stone. So there shall be no comfort or relaxation for her! Ouch. Been there, done that.

ch ch ch ch changes...

Now that it's day 16 in this lovely hospital, I needed to request some changes. Along with the crappy problem of nurses in my room all night long, I had a nurse 'forget' to monitor me one day and decide 2AM was a good time to wake me up and strap me to the machine. And last night the resident pagers accidently were set to call back to my room. So I had residents dialing my room at all hours of the night. It's insane!

So, the past two days I have had a great nurse that pointed out how I can take charge of some little things and ask/or demand some of these simple changes. SO, during the night my last remaining vein blew with an IV flush. The night nurse was ready to start poking me around midnight and I asked if she could please go talk to the resident at the desk about this. I have NO IV meds currently, nor do I have fluids running for the time being. So, I was thinking we could just forget about having an IV for a few days. And GUESS WHAT? They said no problem. So I am tube free for another day or so.

I have been taking Vistaril to help me sleep at night which also seems to keep me drugged up and sleeping half of the day. I only need it because I am currently getting meds every two hours during the night. This requires lights on, blood pressure, temp, talking, and of course reminds my bladder that it's full. UGH. So I sleep for only a half an hour to an hour at a time (if that). Maybe this is prep for babies, but right now, I just need to be rested and healthy! So I spoke to the nurse about my annoying nights and she figured out a better med routine and proposed it to the docs. AND GUESS WHAT? Tonight is my first trial of NO meds from midnight to 6 AM. The nurses will not open my door unless I use my call light. And I am insanely happy about it! I am sure they are LOVING me, but I don't care. I have won some small victories and I feel like I gained some control of my life again!

So weird

Did you know that with pre-eclampsia you swell in the craziest places? Well, a couple of my stretch marks have filled with puffy fluid on my belly. They are huge, itchy, and odd looking. And they feel like they are going to EXPLODE! OUCH!

boring day

I didn't sleep well last night which resulted in a nap day. My poor mom sat here and listened to me snore all afternoon! Tonight, I finally took a shower and Peter took me outside for my 20 minute wheelchair ride. The nurse says she will do my assessment, stick me on the monitor for awhile and then drug me up to hopefully get a better night of sleep tonight. My body is just exhausted and I have HIT THE WALL!

But, boring is a good thing!

Baby Gifts from Uncle Brian

Our good friend Brian came up to visit this past Sunday. And he brought some lovely baby gifts. And we laughed our butts off. Can't wait to take pix of the babies wearing these!