We're getting bigger!

I can't believe how the time is just flying. And yet in the middle of the night it drags on and on! The girls are growing so fast. As of their last weight check (which was almost a week ago last Thursday) Mckenna weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz, Madison 8 lbs. 7 oz., and Carly 8 lbs. 12 oz. They are starting to really get their personalities. From the physical therapist that meets with them, she said that when you have twins there is always a watcher and a mover. There's never two movers or two watchers. And then with triplets there is always a combo as well; either two watchers and one mover or two movers and one watcher. So we predicted that Madison will definitely be the mover, Mckenna will be the watcher and we are still on the fence with Carly. Sometimes I think she will be a watcher and then she surprises me and I think she is a mover. We'll just wait and see. They still mainly eat, sleep and poop right now but they become more aware everyday!

I tried to get a new picture of the girls..... Do you know how ridiculously hard it is to get a good picture of three babies? And for some reason I can never get Madison in a good picture with her sisters. So I took a couple pictures and you can decide which was is the best. And then I gave up and uploaded a video as well. Maybe it was because this was taken right before a meal. From left to right: Madison, Carly, and Mckenna.

And the video!.....

First week all home!

Well, we made it through our first week with all the girls. It seems more like four weeks but I'm sure it's just the lack of sleep. The girls are doing so good! They have all gained at least 1 ounce to 2 ounces a day since they have been home. They were weighed last Friday and Mckenna was 6 lbs. 2 oz., Madison was 7 lbs. 5 oz. and Carly was 7 lbs. 11 oz. We are so glad they are doing so well. They definitely do their fair share of crying and don't always sleep for a good consistent time between feeds but it's usually every other day that they are a little naughty. And I guess that is just babies. I don't know, this is my first experience. Here's a few pictures below. The first is trying out tummy time. Madison loves this! Mckenna falls asleep as soon as we put her on her tummy. And Carly does not like it at all. Carly actually likes being on her back more than the others. But we've got to start building up the muscles!

And I had to put a picture of Grandpa and Grandma Pendleton holding the girls. My mom has been staying with us for a few weeks and my dad missed her too much so had to come over for the weekend (and of course to see the grandbabies too).

Also, congrats to Justin and Nicole! They are having their second baby in February, number 6 grandbaby for my parents (all in the past 2 years)!

13 Weeks Old.... 3 month birthday..... and Home!

I can't believe that we have finally arrived at August 11th! If the girls hadn't been in such a hurry to come then they would have been born today. But I think the experience that Kyle and I went through has made us appreciate them so much more! We love our little girls.

Well, my pictures downloaded out of order but as you can see in the last picture, Carly came home on Friday night! So now we have all three at home! It has been so exciting (no more traveling to the NICU/hospital every day, hooray!) to have all the girls at home and moving on into the next stage of our lives!

But it has been completely nuts. I don't know how many times I've tried to sit down to post a blog and gotten sidetracked by one or more babies crying. We have developed a shift change through the night and that has helped so that we can all (me, Kyle and my mom) get some uninterrupted sleep. I haven't become skilled enough yet at feeding more than one baby at a time (there are still hard to feed in multiples at this age) but I am determined to figure it out. Kyle has had the week off so me and my mom have not been alone enough to have to feed two at once out of necessity. But I'm sure the day is coming since Kyle eventually has to go back to work. Somebody has to make the money since we are currently going through a can of formula a day. I hope that I can even feed three at one time--- but one day at a time for now.

Madison is definitely the noisiest baby. She has quite the set of lungs. I am pretty sure Carly has lungs too since she is so big but I don't know if she has learned how to REALLY let loose and cry and we're hoping she doesn't discover that for awhile. Carly is pretty laid back and just loves to sleep unless her reflux is really getting to her. And Mckenna is so sweet and quiet although I notice she has gained some louder habits from Madison in the past week.

We love our little girls and are trying to enjoy this time even though I sometimes can't remember my name due to sleep deprivation. The best part of being home is I can take pictures whenever I want of them, so here are some of the pictures that we have taken in the past few days. Triplets do make awful cute pictures! I recommend them!

Left to Right: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

Left to Right: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

Left to Right: Madison, Mckenna, Carly (Madison once again always makes the pictures exciting)

The sleep deprived parents (actually this was the first night home for Carly so we were pretty alert at this point---- and even fixed our hair!)

Carly coming home!

12 weeks old!

It's amazing to think that next Tuesday (the 11th) would have been the girls due date. I still sometimes have a hard time believing that they were born three months early and now are getting bigger. It makes sense that they were due next week because they are finally starting to look like real newborns to me now. We just took a scary detour before getting to this point.

Well as you can see from pictures below, Mckenna is also home now! She came home on Saturday night. It really hasn't been too bad so far with the two girls. It helps that my mom is here to take care of half the work. She will stay for a little while to help with all the girls and then my mother in law will come over for a little while after that. I'm a little nervous when that all stops because then I have to handle nights on my own. It's still my biggest fear that they will want to eat at the same time and I won't be able to do it. But the longer I do this I realize they are just going to have to be patient with each other.

So Mckenna is now home and doing great. We are really working at fattening her up right now since she is still sooo skinny (of course her sisters are too but she is definitely the one that needs the most extra fat right now). After starting with Madison home first, Mckenna has been quite a breeze. She is very quiet and sleeps really well. She's a little slow when she eats compared to her sisters but I just have to practice patience with her. Her shunt is doing very well and hopefully will continue that way. She was 5 lbs. 3 oz. when she left NICU on Saturday and she was weighed today and is now 5 lbs. 5 oz. Oh, and she was 18 3/4 inches long so longer than Madison. She's really quite a perfect baby. Sleeps and doesn't cry much.

Mckenna headed for home. Look how little she looks in her car seat.

Dad and Mckenna at the house!

I don't really like the color purple but Mckenna looks awful cute in it!

I don't know if you can see it, but this was putting Madison and Mckenna in the crib for the first time and home and they were hilarious; they just stared and stared at each other. So cute!


Madison is still doing so great at home. We might say that so far she might be the high maintenance one. She really not that bad but can be a little noisy and she screams really well when she is hungry! She might have some reflux because she loves to be upright and has a hard time sleeping in her crib or pack n play. Here favorite place to sleep is on Mom and Dad's chest... of course. She hasn't been weighed in a week so we aren't sure how much she has gained yet but they will weigh her on Thursday. I think she has to for sure be over 6 lbs. by now. Anyway, I think she is loving having her sister home!

Madison also loves to sleep in her bouncer. Thank heavens for bouncers!

Carly is still coming along well. Each day she gets better and better at eating in a more coordinated manner. She doesn't suck and stop breathing as bad. I think one of the main reasons is because they have her on a thickener to keep the formula more weighted and then they also put her on Zantac (weird, I never thought of it for babies) and maybe changing to Prilosec when she goes home. It just helps keep things settled in the stomach. But hopefully she will keep doing well and maybe she will join the other two in the next week or week and a half. She is still growing at a ridiculous rate. She is 6 lbs. 11 oz. right now! Almost 7 lbs.! That's the size of a normal baby! Anyway, I don't think she is missing her sisters yet because she is an excellent sleeper. Maybe that's why she gains so well. Since her sisters have left Carly she now has a roommate like she did when she first started in the NICU. It's a little boy right now who is very very sick. He was born at 23 weeks and it's a miracle he is still alive. It just makes me realize how grateful we are that we were blessed with such healthy girls for being so early. We are truly grateful for these girls and how well they are doing!

Carly getting some quality sleep time with Dad.

11 week mark!

Well, I'm a little late this week but A LOT happened this week so it finally took me until now to update the blog. I also don't have the best pictures of Mckenna and Carly this week but I will make sure they all get enough pictures on here. So, here we go....

Mckenna: Mckenna finally had her brain surgery on Friday last week. They decided to put a shunt in her head because after they did the CT scan of her brain, the stint wouldn't have helped the right area where she has clots. So, she went into surgery on Friday at 11:50 am and came back to the room around 3 pm. They also had to check to make sure she didn't have a fistula (connection) between her bowel and bladder. They assumed she wouldn't because in girls the reproductive organs are in between the bladder and bowels. It's more common in boys. So the neonatologist surgeon went in laproscopically through her belly to make sure that everything was good (which it was- everything is just fine!) and then Dr. Churney (neuro surgeon) started the shunt procedure. They cut two incisions on the top of her head; one near the front and one near the back to make sure they threaded the long tube that goes from the brain down her body. The tube runs down her neck and across her chest and down into the abdominal cavity (not into the stomach) where there is a lot of excess fluid just floating around anyway and then the body will just absorb it. Dr. Churney went in as well through the small incision made in her stomach to make sure that everything took proper placement. Sounds pretty easy huh? The surgery went really well and it takes about a week to recover completely. Hopefully everything stays okay with the shunt. She does have a 30% chance that it will clot up (the shunt) with leftover clots from the brain in the first couple years so we have to watch her pretty carefully for anything unusual. Hopefully nothing will happen and if it doesn't then she probably won't need it replaced with a new one until she's about 12 years old! That's sounds pretty great to me! The shunt does look a little big on her head. It kind of looks like a small ridge that rounds across her head. It does look a little big now but they said that in about a year when her head gets bigger it will not even be noticeable. Especially if she keeps on growing hair as fast as she does right now!

She has recovered well in the past few days. She is off the ventilator and was able to start oral feedings without being fed through a feeding tube. When she's awake she still has a little pain from the incisions but is still acting like sweet little Mckenna. She's always been quite a happy little baby which is amazing with all she's dealt with. And her coloring looks so much better! I didn't realize how pale she normally looked before this surgery. Now she looks nice and pink! Such a pretty color on a baby! Anyway, nothing else really new except she did break the 5 lb barrier today so she is finally just in the five pounds!

This picture was before surgery, I'll have to get a picture after for next week.

Madison- Well, one of the best news of last week is that Madison was able to pass all her tests and was stable long enough that they sent her home with us! We couldn't believe it because it is about three (four?) weeks before her actual due date so she is quite a spunky little fighter. It has been so great to have her home! I think one baby is pretty easy but I have to think that way since there's two more still to come! I think I had said before that she is a noisy baby and in our quiet house it really sounds noisy. But I think she loves being home! And she's eating like a maniac. She was eating 60 mls feeds before coming home and now almost always downs 90 mls. It does help to have babies in the NICU because they have them on a strict schedule in there and so she is actually quite scheduled. I was so worried she would wake up every 1 1/2 to 2 hours to eat but she will actually go 3 1/2 to 4 hours before she eats. So nice.... And she weighed 5 lbs. 5 oz when she left the hospital last Wednesday (and 18 inches long) and we went to the pediatrician on Monday and she weighed 5 lbs. 10 oz.! So she is definitely gaining well. The only thing I don't enjoy is having to lug her back and forth to the hospital everyday but I also think it's good that she sees and is around her sisters everyday so she doesn't get lonely and miss them. Who knows if they even miss each other, maybe that's me making it up.
Anyway, we love our little girl at home and can't wait for the others!

Madison and Dad coming home through the door!

Her first real outfit at home!

We just had to show this picture. Madison gets crazy when she wakes up to eat and sucks her hands or whatever is near her before she gets the bottle. One night I was going to kiss her while waiting for the bottle to warm and she grabbed my nose (she has quite a grip) and then started sucking on her hand. We thought it was funny, maybe it's just funny to us. Oh, and she had my hair in her other hand. I guess no earrings for a while....

Carly- Oh Carly, Carly.... Carly just about came home with Madison last week but then had a bad morning the day she was going to go home. I was a little nervous already about taking her home (she wasn't quite as stable with breathing and eating and Madison was) so it was a good thing she acted up because it gives her a little more time in the hospital for some help. They worried she was still having breathing problems but her lungs are great and then they ran a ticker tape on her stats for an hour one afternoon and believe she just has pretty severe reflux compared to her sisters. That's why she holds her breath all the time. So they put thickener in her feeds but then they did a Swallow test on her yesterday (watch with an xray in real time where the formula goes; whether it goes down the esophagus like it should or down the trachea into the lungs where she could develop pneumonia) and she does let it get down her trachea but her vocal chords stop it and push it back out to the esophagus. When she was on the thickened feed it was worse then when she didn't have the thickened feed so...... they took her back off the thickener! I don't know... Carly will probably be the last one that will go home. Kind of ironic (as Dr. Myers told us) that the biggest one without the brain surgery might be the last one to go home. But reflux just takes a lot of time (up to six months old I guess) to recover from so we just need her to get a little more stable before she comes home. We'll see what the next week brings with her. She is gigantic now, 6 lbs. 2 oz! So good, she is doing so great!

Also don't have a lot of pictures of Carly this week but she is so happy in this picture! I do love to see them smile, it's the sweetest thing I can think of!

10 weeks!

We are in double-digit weeks! I just can't believe how fast they are improving right now. They said that once they get on a good run of weight gain, they just seem to take off! It has been kind of a wild week so hopefully I can remember everything:

Picture of the girls together at 10 weeks old! L to R: Mckenna, Madison, and Carly

They love to touch each other, it must be comforting. Here Madison looks like she is checking Mckenna's temperature on her forehead.

I didn't get this picture at the perfect time I wanted. Carly is on the right, Madison on the left and here it looks like she is kissing Madison's head but earlier it looked more like she was sucking on the back of her head.

Updates:

Mckenna- So I guess I shouldn't have said that Mckenna was having surgery last week. They ended up postponing it because she had kind of slowed down on her breathing, eating, etc. improvements so Dr. Churney is waiting a little longer before he has to make the permanent decision. He's trying to give her a chance to take care of it on her own. But in the last two days she has improved again so possibly (and I do mean possibly) she might have the surgery this week. If not this week, then next week. Things change back and forth all the time in the NICU.... there's a lot of planning and then the planning didn't matter cause things were cancelled. And it's not unorganization on the hospital's part, it's because of the girls. They really act according to what the girls do not according to what the doctor's and nurse's want the schedule to be. I love that they put the girls as first priority- it really has been a great NICU experience for us. Also, we won't know if they are going to do a shunt or stint until after surgery since Dr. Churney has to wait until he gets into her head to know what will be best for her. Good thing we have a lot of confidence in him! Besides the big brain surgery, Mckenna is doing amazing. Still the best coordinated eater (sucks, swallows, breathes the best) and she just had her feeding tube pulled out a few days ago and I think it will stay out (except for post surgery for a few days) permanently. Hopefully.... She also is gaining just as well as her sisters, she's just about a pound behind but she should catch them eventually. She is 4 lbs. 8 oz. so getting close to 5 pounds! Oh, and she is still being tapped (brain liquid sucked out of her head) every other day and they are taking out about an ounce when they do it. She still tolerates it pretty well but I would assume she gets a big headache in the process (I know I would) because she is a little sensitive for an hour after. But with surgery, that would be stopped. We'll see what they decide this week.

Mckenna always has the sweetest happy face. It's rare that she looks upset. Such a happy little girl, especially with her major stuff she is dealing with right now.

Madison- I don't know how I missed it but Madison has become the front runner of her sisters of first to go home. She has had her feeding tube out well over a week and eats at least 2 ounces of formula right now. She is actually quite a little piggie. She makes a lot of noise while she eats and really acts like this is her last meal. But she is the best at not desating while she eats (her sisters are still working on this). We actually were able to room in (at the hospital- they have separate rooms set aside for this) with Madison and Carly on Friday and Saturday night. What they do is put the babies in the room overnight with mom and dad. The girls are set up on monitors still so that the nurses can make sure nothing goes wrong. But besides that we take care of them through the whole night. So we change their diapers, check temperatures, feed them, report on anything strange or not good that happens. I was very excited to do this but after the first night, Kyle and I both said to each other "What were we thinking having this many kids!?" It was pure chaos..... They had tried to get them on the same schedule before night started but Madison ended up eating early and Carly late right before they came in with us so they were exactly 1 1/2 hours apart in feeds. Plus, Carly was quite a pill. I think she must have been so overstimulated with mom and dad alone in the room with her and in a different environment that she wouldn't go to sleep for about 4 hours! So by FOUR in the morning, we finally were able to get them closer together on the same schedule and we were actually able to finally fall asleep! AND, that was only two, we haven't even thrown Mckenna into the mix yet. I knew I would be busy and tired but good grief. I learned that I really am going to need my mom (who is coming to stay for a few months once the girls come home). But, after such a crazy Friday night, we made sure that they were on the same schedule on Saturday night before they came to the room with us (and had taken their vitamins earlier in the evening which gives them an upset stomach) and Saturday was actually a pretty smooth experience. They both slept for four hours between two of their feeds! Amazing! Now I know it won't always be like that but I at least have hope when we can have SOME good nights like that. Anyways, this is going to be a lot of work... So don't expect blog posting to be quite as good when they come home.

Anyway, Madison did great for the two nights but Carly struggled a little with desats, etc. so there is a chance that Madison could be coming home in the next week. But, like I said with Mckenna, that doesn't mean it could happen. She could take a step backwards and not come home until a few weeks later. We'll just see. When I think of taking care of three babies, one sounds like a piece of cake. I did make a mistake on Madison's weight last week. I said she was 4 lbs. 13 oz. and she was actually 4 lbs. 10 ounces. But are you ready for this? Through most of the week she gained up to 4 lbs. 13 ounces so not a lot of weight gained in a week. But then, the two nights she roomed in with us she gained 9 ounces in those two days! So she is now 5 lbs. 6 1/2 ounces! As of yesterday she was only one ounce smaller than Carly. I told you she has been eating like crazy! So maybe they will all easily be over five pounds before they go home.

I put this picture of Madison because she has serious cheeks and a double chin. Good thing it is so adorable to have those at this age! We love to touch and pinch her little double chin, I think it's adorable!

Carly- I kind of already gave Carly's report in Madison's. She stayed in the room with us. I think we have learned that Carly is going to be the most sensitive baby. She cries the easiest (mainly when she wants to eat and we just aren't moving fast enough to get it to her). She also drinks her bottle like she is in the Sahara and hasn't had water for days! The problem that she has is that she doesn't breathe when she sucks. It's like she gets so panicked that it is going to be taken away that she decides breathing isn't necessary. And then she desats and you have to pull out the bottle until she catches up with breathing but she gets so mad that you have taken the bottle away. It's quite cute in the middle of the day but at 3 in the morning, so frustrating... But after she has the edge taken off her hunger then she gets coordinated with her eating and does great through the end! So she might need a little more time in the hospital to get better at that. We are assuming that she is probably going to go home at the same time as Mckenna (if Mckenna recovers fast and well from her brain surgery) but once again, that could all change. They also got concerned again with Carly's bigger right arm (like she had at birth and still has) and so they ran tests but we don't have the result back yet. They are pretty sure it is a hemagioma (I'm sure I slaughtered that word) which is kind of like a tumor that sucks blood from the blood vessel it's next to. It's typical for people that have it to have a limb larger than the other one and it's discolored (kind of like a port wine stain). They can laser out the little tumor-cysts things but if they are too big she might just always have a big arm. We'll see how it progresses as she grows. Her right arm is very functional and it's not life threatening (they've already done tests to make sure of that) so we'll just wait and see. She is still gaining weight, just a little slower this week. She weighed 5 lbs. 7 1/2 ounces.

Don't mind me in the picture but I put this up of Carly because she LOVES to cuddle. It's the best way for her to calm down. She just melts into you when you hold her like this. And Mom loves to cuddle too!

They are doing so well and we are so blessed! They are getting so close to going home, I can hardly believe how fast it has gone!

Nine Weeks Old.... and 2 Months Old!

I'm so excited because they are all in the same bed! Hooray! It took a lot of persuasion on Kyle and my part to get them together but the doctors had their monthly meeting last week and talked about our girls going together and it was kind of split down the middle but the director over the doctors sided with us! They had to put them all in isolation for the rest of their time in the hospital which just means that no other baby can be put in the room with them (and I'm not complaining about that). The doctors and nurses also have to gown up every time they handle our babies but we don't we just can't linger in the waiting rooms of the NICU which is no problem since I never do. Who has time to linger right? So I didn't get any pictures of the girls alone, just all together. We went to Wyoming this past weekend (it was very hard to be away from the girls for a few days) and had a great time but our battery on our camera died on the trip so I could only snap a few pictures of them all together (and a video!). A few updates on the girls....

Mckenna- Mckenna started out the best bottle eater and is still phenomenal. They took her off the feeding tube first but because she is still so small she tuckered out too fast (and having her brain liquid drained out every other day does help her cause either) and so had to go back on the feeding tube. She was also weaned of her caffeine but still needs a little pick me up until her lungs mature a little bit more. We also learned this week that Mckenna is going to have surgery on her brain tomorrow (Wednesday). We knew that the Reservoir in her head was only temporary for her stay in the hospital and that she would need something more permanent. I think I talked in a past post that Dr. Churney (her neuro surgeon) was debating between a shunt and a stint for this first surgery. He probably won't know which one he will end of up doing until he gets into the surgery (how scary does that sound but he is more than capable so we feel safe with him). So we probably won't know what he is going to do until after the surgery is done. If she gets the stint there is a chance in a few months that it will resolve the blood clots but if it doesn't she will get a shunt put in. If she moves to a shunt then she will probably have to have multiple surgeries as she grows up and the shunt shortens. They actually run the shunt from her brain (the ventricles where the cerebral liquid lives) down her neck, across the front of her chest and into the stomach and that's where it will drain. So we'll see which one is going to work. We appreciate all the prayers on her behalf through this hard time. Sometimes it breaks my heart that such a little baby has to go through such an invasive surgery but I wouldn't have it any other way if it is going to make her life more full. And she is finally over the 4 pound mark at 4 lbs. 2 oz. She will probably loose weight through this surgery but hopefully she can catch up easier after that.

Madison- Madison has kind of taken over as the best eater right now. They took out her feeding tube about 4-5 days ago and she has just taken off. In fact, she is kind of a pig in the eating spectrum. She drinks it like it's her last meal! She used to play around with her bottle but they said that now that she doesn't have that huge tube down her throat it probably helps her eat better. She is also completely off caffeine and doing quite well. We predict that she will be the first one home (it would have been Mckenna except for her brain stuff has slowed her up) and hopefully I am ready whenever that happens. She is trying really hard to catch her sister Carly and weighs 4 lbs. 14 oz.

Carly- Carly is doing so much better with her desats but she is still on a full dose of caffeine per day because she just needs that little help. I'm sure she just needs a little longer to develop her lungs and then she should be great. She is also a pretty decent eater and more than half the time finishes her whole bottle. (I should throw in Mckenna almost always finishes her whole bottle as well) She is such a chunk compared to her sisters and now weighs..... 5 lbs. 5 oz. Crazy! So I guess I am probably not going to have to worry about preemie clothes for her, she is already getting big in the preemie clothes.

Everyday they are getting more alert and actually looking at us more and smiling more which is so great to see. I'm feeling like they are getting closer to acting like newborns and I can see a little light at the end of the tunnel!

Here they are together! L to R: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

I thought this was a really cute picture because you can see all their faces. It goes in order: Mckenna (oldest-left), Madison (middle-middle) and Carly (youngest-right).

I hope that this video works out. I am talking in it if you have sound (don't make fun of me, I'm talking baby talk in it). Enjoy!