I have never really been in to throwing big parties for little kids. They are too little to understand what is going on, so why spend the money right? Well, that is what I used to think. Ever since the boys were born, and I was faced with the reality that I had four kids under the age of 18 months, everyday was a struggle. I was looking for the light at the end of the tunnel…so to speak.  For some reason in my mind the end of that tunnel was when the boys turned one. I wouldn’t have to worry about breast milk/formula anymore…which would save a TON of money. They would be somewhat mobile, no more infant car seats, hopefully not as much crying, eating people food…all of which meant my life would be getting easier. So when their first birthday came…I felt like I had done it! I had made it to the light at the end of my tunnel. I had never been so excited for a birthday before and I wanted to celebrate!

So I went into all out birthday planning mode. I chose a theme, and went from there. The food, the colors of the balloons, what the boys would wear, what I would wear, right down to the last detail. I stopped just short of telling everyone else what to wear. I chose to do Dr. Seuss theme, which satisfied the teacher in me and it would give the boys a chance to wear their Thing 1, Thing 2 and a custom made Thing 3 shirt from their Aunt Jill and Uncle Mike. It was perfect!

We had such a fun day. Lots of friends and family were able to come over and help celebrate my amazing little men, Charlie, Ollie and Sawyer. Big sister Emmerson was happy to have so much cake around to eat too! It was the cutest thing ever to hear her sing “hap birdday” to her brothers, and then sneak a finger full of their icing. She has been a great big sister…she can even tell them apart now! I think that is pretty incredible, but I’ve always know she was super smart.

All in all I would say the day was a success. The year was a success really. I promise not to end up on the TLC show Outrageous Kids Parties, but I did have fun. The new light I am looking towards is birthday number two…look out!

I know you are all probably thinking, it’s about time she did another post! And you are right! I can’t believe it has taken me so long to update everyone. There are many reasons why…three in particular You have no idea how many times I have sat down with my laptop ready to write, and have fallen asleep three words in. It finally got to a point where I got so behind and so much had happened that I was a bit overwhelmed and didn’t know how to even start to get caught up.

But now seems like a great time to start up again because my boys just turned ONE!!! I survived my first year with triplets and a two year old…and most importantly so did my kids! It has been one of the most challenging years of my life, to say the least. I feel like I have aged 20 years in the last 12 months. I have shed many tears, lost lots of sleep, made many bottles and changed way too many diapers! But these kids make me smile every day.

Most people look back at how big their kids are getting and feel sad about it. They wish time could slow down because they feel like their baby is growing up too fast. I remember feeling that way with Emmerson. This time however, it’s a little bit different. Ok…a lot different! I look back at when the boys were first home and how little they were, and how much work it was to take care of them and I am just so happy that they are getting bigger. One of the only things that got me through the really hard times and the insane amount of crying was telling myself that it will get easier. Month by month it has slowly gotten better. I have gotten into a rhythm, the boys are in a routine and life is plugging along.  The boys can crawl now..which has made life non-stop motion,  they can pull themselves up to stand, walk with their walking toys,  they babble all the time, and they are even starting to eat some people food in the non-pureed form!  Each little milestone they reach I get a little more excited because I know life is getting easier.

I look at my boys everyday and can’t believe how much they have grown. I remember our first month in the NICU and how just breathing was a struggle for them. Now they are laughing, crawling and almost walking. A lot can change in one year. I am ready and looking forward to year number two! It is only going to get easier…right?

I

I will fill you all in on what has been going on the last 7 months…Eventually

My boys turned 4 months old today. I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown by. I look back at pictures from when they were these itty bitty 4-pound nuggets and then see the whopping 12-pounders they are now and it’s hard to believe they’re getting so big. Time flies when you have three infants. The gang went to the doctor today for their 4 month check up. Oliver is my big boy weighing in at 12 lbs 3 oz. Charlie is a close second at 12 lbs 2 oz. And then there’s my runt (by only 3 oz) Sawyer, coming in at 11 lbs 15.5 oz. While they seem huge to me, they are still only in the first percentile for weight and height. It’s going to take them a while to catch up. If their buns had stayed in the oven, they’d be 2 1/2 months old. So if we compare them to that, they would be in the 25th percentile for weight and height. So still small, but not THIS small. Overall the doctor was very happy with their growth and said they are perfectly healthy little guys. That’s easy to see.

Charlie

Sawyer

Oliver

A couple of milestones they have reached so far – smiles! They smile like crazy! I don’t think there’s anything cuter than when these boys smile. It melts my heart instantly. I remember when Emmy was a baby we’d do everything short of standing on our heads and she wouldn’t even crack a smile. She was not impressed. That has definitely changed. But the boys are definitely little flirts. They even make cute little cooing sounds and sometimes it sounds like they are trying to laugh. But my favorite new development – they are finally sleeping through the night! HALLELUJAH, Praise the Lord!!! They can go about 8-9 hours now. So if we put them down at 9 or 9:30, they will sleep until 6:30 or 7:00! Of course I don’t go to bed at 9:30, so I still don’t get 8 hours, but I’m getting more than 3, so I’ll take it.  It’s amazing how a little extra sleep does wonders for my attitude.

Another thing that makes me happy is the new stroller I bought for the boys. It’s a triple stroller so it allows me to take the boys out by myself. Up until now I had two double strollers so I had a seat for all four kids. The only problem with that scenario was that I always had to have someone with me if I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, even for a walk down the block. I am a very independent person, and this situation just wasn’t working for me. I felt trapped in the house having to wait for someone to come push a stroller. It was cramping my style. We finally found a triple stroller that would hold infant car seats and voila, we are a one stroller family.  Now at least I can get out and about on my own, but there’s still the challenge of Emmy. I don’t have anywhere for her to sit, so I usually try to carry her. Justin is also working on building a little side car for the stroller – like we don’t get enough attention already! One downside of this device is all the attention it draws. People see you walking around with three babies in a row like that and they literally point and stare. It’s pretty funny.

After four long, hard months, I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of having triplets and a toddler simultaneously.  For a while it felt like I was struggling just to keep my head above water, and I still have those days, but now I feel I can go places without creating chaos. It’s still a bit of a circus in that it takes about 45 minutes to round up everything and everyone and get them all locked and loaded in the Geel Mobile, but the anxiety level is definitely going down. And that is a start. It seems each day gets a little easier, that or I’m just getting used to the chaos, but either way it’s a good thing. Emmerson is turning out to be such an amazing big sister too. When one of the boys starts crying she will run over and pat him on the tummy, and after much practice she even does gently! Then she tries to put a binki in his mouth, this one is going to require a bit more practice. She loves her “brudders” and I love her!

Here’s to the next four months, hoping they are just as great as the first four! Happy four months Charlie, Oliver and Sawyer, I love you like crazy!

She is a great big sister

The Geel Gang

After nine years of working in the education field, I’ve been a substitute, a director of education at Sylvan and for the past six years I had my own 2nd grade classroom. After all that, today I had to say goodbye to my room and my school. I never expected to become a stay-at-home mom. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I just never saw myself doing that. I love teaching and I never thought the day would come that I had to give it up. My own mother worked while raising four kids and truly set a wonderful example for how possible it is to balance work and family.  I always figured I’d do the same.

However, the time came to tell my principal. Would I be coming back? Or would I be taking a year off? When I was having to make this crucial decision, my boys were only two weeks old, and at that point I was commuting back and forth between the NICU and home everyday. Just the thought of balancing work and a toddler and three infants was enough to put me in the loony bin – I decided to take a year off.  A good decision, yes, but now I am realizing I may lose my marbles either way!

On the last day of school I headed back to my classroom saying goodbye to my students and my colleagues. And then the fun part. I had to start moving and packing up six years worth of teaching supplies and materials. This was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Six years worth of stuff piles up pretty quick, but I must say I have made some pretty awesome purchases in that time. In the midst of packing up my stickers, books, posters, etc. I came across my goodie drawer. The goodie drawer contains a magical world of fun for the holidays. To say that I am a dork is an understatement, but that is one of the reasons I like teaching second grade, and probably the main reason that I’m good at it. I can sing silly songs and wear silly hats and they don’t think I’m a dork! They’re probably the only ones though. Once I came across these treasures naturally I had to try them all on again, and that’s when the fun really started. Luckily my sister was there to help me pack, and luckily she had her camera, and luckily I don’t mind sharing my dorkiness with all of you.

So, you know you’re a teacher when you own a green curly wig and a giant leprechaun hat.

That's right folks...I wore that to school.

Nice hat

You know you’re a teacher when you have really scary eye glasses and vampire teeth and glasses that spell Boo!

YIKES!!!

Boo!

And last but not least, you know you’re a teacher when you own a giant birthday cake hat and a Dr. Seuss hat. Oh! And don’t forget your pirate hat and eye patch for national “Talk Like A Pirate Day’ – and yes, that is a real day.

I would have my kids wear this on their birthday

Arrrgggg Matey!

For Dr. Seuss day

Actually packing up and moving out made it feel a lot more like I actually quit my job rather than just taking a year off.  It was a very emotional and sad day. I didn’t realize how hard it’d be to walk out of my classroom, not knowing when I’d be back.  I put a lot of sweat and tears into that room and into the kids I taught inside it. Now all my awesome teaching things are stuffed in boxes in my garage. I don’t know what will happen after this next school year and if I will be able to go back to teaching. I hope that one day I can. BUT, what I DO know is that Emmerson is going to look awesome in that wig!

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. I love the loud boom of the fireworks, and I am a sucker for patriotic songs. Some of my favorite memories of growing up are from eating perfectly ripened tomatoes, drinking sweet tea, spelling my name in the air with a sparkler and sitting on the hood of our car with my sisters taking turns saying “ooooh, aaaaah, ohhhhh…poppin fresh dough” after every explosion in the sky.

This year was a little different however. For the past several years our family has gone camping over the 4th, or we had some big family BBQ and then went and watched the fireworks together, but this year we found ourselves without plans. The thought of going camping this year with four kids under the age of two sounded crazy…even for me, and most of our family and friends were either out of town or had other plans. So we spent the day with just the six of us. I was so happy it was sunny and warm because it gave me the chance to finally fill up the giant swimming pool that I bought “for Emmy”.  Justin and I spent the day taking care of the boys and swimming in the pool with Emmy. Justin even let me have about 30 minutes to myself so I could just lay out in the sun and read and not have to worry about taking care of anybody. That is a rarity these days. Emmy loved her pool, we ate corn dogs for lunch, grilled steaks for dinner and listened to great music all day long.

Then came the part of the day that I was dreading…the fireworks. I went from loving the big boom sound, so loud you can feel it in your bones, to cringing every time someone on the street lit another whistling peete or another M80. It is no easy task getting four children all calmed down and asleep. My eyes were glued to the baby monitor making sure that none of them woke up, praying that they could tune it out and keep sleeping. I wanted to run out side and yell…”YOU WAKE ‘EM YOU TAKE ‘EM!” but somehow I doubt that would have done any good. Thankfully, it never got to that point! They all did great and made it through the night! Even the dogs were chilled out, not one bark out of them either.

It was the perfect day with my family. Although, getting to see the beautiful fireworks and enjoy the loud booms was replaced by being so stressed out they were going to wake my kids up, I am looking forward to the day when my kids can chase each other around the yard with a sparkler and stay up late enough to watch the fireworks and come up with their own silly sayings. It is going to be great!

Life happens fast these days, faster than I can write about it. Although the blog has been kind of quiet lately I can assure you life with Geel Gang has been anything but quiet.

My boys are three months old today! I can’t even believe it. The NICU days seem so far away – thank goodness! At their two month check up Charlie had taken the lead as the chunky monkey. He was 9.1 lbs, Sawyer was 8.12 lbs and Oliver had dropped down to 8.7 lbs. They are now officially the size of a regular newborn baby. It is so crazy to look at them and think that at three months old, they are only just now the size of a full term baby. They are in the second percentile for height and weight, so it’s safe to say I have some tiny little nuggets! While on a normal scale they are itty bitty, they seem HUGE to me. They have doubled their size since the day they were born.

For Fathers Day we took the gang to a Mariners game. This was actually the second time we were crazy enough to cart our kids to a game, but again they all did great. We didn’t dare attempt this by ourselves, of course. In honor of Father’s Day we brought my parents and Justin’s parents along too. It was six on four. 1 adult per child and two to carry the stuff. Isn’t there a joke that goes something like that? How many grown-ups does it take to raise triplets? Well, there’s your answer. So we’re at the game and we figured we should take our shot at the Rally Fries. I figured since we beat the odds in having identical triplets, maybe we could keep our luck going and score some fries! As if holding four kids wasn’t enough, we threw a sign into the mix and proudly hoisted, “I just had TRIPLETS, we really need rally fries (and a lot of diapers)!” high in the air. It wasn’t long before the cameras caught a glimpse of the commotion and promptly declared us the winners of the Rally Fries! We even made it on TV! Our boys are now local celebrities. It was all really fun and exciting, the whole section was rooting for us and then we got to feast on our fries – which I’m pretty sure were from last Tuesday’s game. Oh well.

I also finished my National Board exam this month. It was a year’s worth of long, detailed papers about my teaching topped off with – more writing! A four hour essay test about different teaching scenarios. I’m not really sure how I did, but I’ll find out in November. I’ll keep you all posted, so stay tuned.

Justin and I also celebrated anniversary this month. If someone had told us on our wedding day that in such a short time we’d have four kids under the age of two, we definitely would’ve laughed in their face, maybe even cried a little. But here we are six years later, with four amazing and healthy children, and we feel very blessed. Especially since we got to go away for the weekend. It was a lovely and much needed get away. I feel horrible admitting it, but it was so nice to not have to worry about being a mom, even just for one night. We caught up on sleep and clocked in some personal time, just the two of us, something we hadn’t had in way too long. The weekend’s events included a hot air balloon ride, wine tasting, and celebrity sighting! We saw Sir Mix A lot at our hotel, apparently he likes big butts AND fancy restaurants.

Life is nothing short of crazy here, but I’m surviving and getting my sleep when I can. I will try and do better about blogging and posting pictures because they are growing and changing like crazy. My goal is one post a week. Week one, here we go. See you next week.

Charlie enjoying the game

Rally Fry sign

The dads and the kids

Oliver enjoying a beverage

I am sure you have heard the saying, “We do more before 6 a.m than most people do all day.” Well, I beg to differ although I am not really sure when my day starts and when it ends. I am constantly taking care of someone, feeding someone, carrying someone, changing someone, and feeding someone again. And then there’s the fun stuff, playing, reading, laughing, hugging and kissing on someone.

Here is a typical day…

4:00 am- 5:00 am: Feed the boys and change their diapers. To do this we have gotten pretty good at the assembly line method. We start with whoever is the most vocal and the most upset at the moment, change his diaper, which ticks him off even more, then put him in his bouncy seat, prop up a bottle, and repeat with a different baby.

When their little bellies are full, we start the after feeding ritual which includes burping, swaddling, and putting them back down to bed. This whole process takes about an hour. Most of the time they will cooperate and go right back to sleep, but sometimes they feel the need to be wide awake and fussy. The worst is when they gang up on us. Charlie will decide that as soon as Sawyer is done crying, he will wait approximately 30 seconds and then he’s gonna cry. This usually happens the moment mom and dad have finally gotten back in bed. Then Oliver takes his turn after Charlie. They repeat the process until we finally give up and let them sleep in bed with us. We get at least two hours of sleep if we’re lucky.

And all of this is before you’ve hit snooze!

7:00 am-8:00 am: Justin gets ready for work while I make Emmerson breakfast.

8:00 am- 9:00 am: Justin leaves for work and it’s now breakfast time for the boys. The assembly line begins…

9:00 am- 12:00 pm: Play time! The boys are usually still awake, which is really fun. Their little faces are so cute! They have such big eyes. They get to play on their tummy time mats while I read and play with Emmy. If the sun decides to shine, we spend some time outside on the new swing set. At some point  I have to find time to pump and, if I’m lucky, take a shower. My friend and neighbor comes over a couple mornings a week to play with Emmy and watch the boys so that I can take a shower, otherwise it probably wouldn’t happen. Clean hair is highly overrated.

12:00 pm- 1:00 pm: The boys are ready to eat again! You know the routine by now, change diaper, prop bottle. While they’re eating, I start feeding Emmy. Then it’s back to check on the boys, make sure they’re not choking,  get a few good burps out, then go back to finish feeding Emmy.

1:00 pm: Nap time, the happiest hour of the day.  After lunch I put Emmy in her crib and the boys in their swings for naps. Unfortunately mommy doesn’t get a nap, this is my chance to get some stuff done around the house. I get caught up on laundry, dishes, clean the bottle factory, maybe even eat lunch myself and if I’m lucky I sit down for half a second before all the kids wake up.

3:00 pm: Emmerson wakes up, and we have a snack and cuddle time with Mommy. She is always very cuddly right after she wakes up from a nap, I love it!

4:00- 5:00 pm: Feeding time for the boys – again! I swear at this point I feel like all I do is feed the boys. But they gotta eat, right? And it’s working, they are all over 7 lbs now!

5:00- 6:00 pm: More play time with the kids while patiently, and sometimes no so patiently, waiting for Justin to get home so I can have a minute of relief.

6:00 – 7:00 pm: Dinner time, and a GIANT thank you to everyone who has donated a meal over the last couple of months. I don’t know what I would do without all of your help with food. It is such a huge help knowing that I don’t have to worry about trying to find time to make dinner. If I had to cook dinner everyday, pretty sure we’d be having PB&J every night! So thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

7:00-8:00 pm: Bath time and bed time for Emmy. She gets to take a bubble bath, where she usually eats all the bubbles, and splash, splash, splash. When she starts rubbing her eyes, she’s had enough. It’s time for bed. She gets her Ba-Ba, we rock a little before she dozes off to sleep. Of course it’s not this smooth  every night, but it’ll totally get smoother.

8:00- 9:00 pm: Yet another feeding for the boys. And, unfortunately, this is their fussiest time of the day. They don’t really like to go back to sleep after this feeding. They are pretty much crying constantly until they eat again in four hours. I’m not sure why this is, but they will all be crying at once. Justin likes to call it the chorus of tears. It can very quickly get on your nerves and send your blood pressure up a few notches. We spend the next several hours bouncing and shushing babies. My latest act is holding two babies on my belly, shushing and patting, while bouncing the other baby in his seat with my foot – welcome to the circus.

12:00 am: We have finally made it to the last feeding of the day. We change, feed, burp,  and swaddle the boys for the night. At this point there’s nothing left to do but hope and pray they’ll sleep because in just 3 VERY short hours, they’ll be up and ready for the assembly line.

This life we have now is pretty crazy. It’s busy, non-stop, and there’s never a dull moment. It’s full of laughs and sometimes it’s full of tears, not just from the kids – I’m not kidding when I call it a circus. I’m thankful for this crazy life, but there are times  when I have my moments of doubt. I’s a day-by-day, minute-by-minute process, but we are so blessed. Today was a good day and hopefully tomorrow will be too, because tomorrow starts again real soon.

Ever since the boys were born the topic of conversation at our house has been about whether or not the boys are identical. Are they identical or fraternal? Are they all identical? Or just two? If so, which two? We seriously ask these questions and have this same conversation three times a day. Of course everyone has a different opinion about who looks exactly alike and how they each look different.

Having identical triplets is pretty rare, but we quickly realized how possible it was because we couldn’t tell them apart – at all! I mean, not even a little bit. I still look back a pictures from when they were born and don’t know which baby this is a picture of. It’s a best guess type of situation. Which baby are you? Who do you have? Or have we fed whats-his-name yet? These are all common questions in our household. When they were still in the NICU, we gave daily pop quizzes to our family, picture messages that said, who am I? They usually failed. But that trick came back to haunt us, and even we couldn’t get them right. This was going to be a problem. I was terrified I would get them mixed up somehow. In the hospital it was easy to tell who they were because they each had a hospital bracelet on, but after a few days their bracelets didn’t fit anymore. I needed to come up with a way to tell these kids apart. Some people suggested we put dots on their feet, some said paint their toe nails a different color, but I decided to write the first initial on the bottom of their feet. This method works well as long as I remember to touch up the letter after they have a bath! Seriously, I forgot the other day. Oops. I had a mini-heart attack when I went to change one of their diapers and looked at his foot and there was NO LETTER!! Luckily the other two had just enough of their letters left that I could barely make out who they were, so by process of elimination I knew who I was holding and I rewrote their initial. I’m 90% I have them labeled accurately now.

One night we were getting the kids ready for bed, they’re all swaddled up and we’re putting them in their bassinets. Charlie was super fussy, so I’m holding him and shushing him, calling him by name and telling him everything is okay.  We go to bed, wake up for the 4 am feeding, and I go get Charlie, change his diaper and start giving him his bottle. As I’m giving Charlie his bottle his little foot pops out from under his blanket. I’m pretty tired at this point, barely keeping my eyes open, bu I’m staring at his little foot, and what do I see? A big letter S on it. This whole time I thought I had Charlie, I really had Sawyer. I was calling him the wrong name for about 12 hours. Nice job mom.

Another day and the conversation begins again. They’re all identical. Well, maybe just Sawyer and Charlie. But wait, that’s Oliver? I thought that was Sawyer. I guess everyone was tired of saying the same old things, because on Easter my sister and her husband surprised us with the gift of DNA testing! This would put the conversation to rest once and for all, so we decided to do it. We got the DNA kit, swabbed the inside their cheeks, then waited for weeks to get the results back.

Well, ladies and gentleman, the results are in! Any guesses? Charlie and Sawyer are identical – and so is Oliver! Yep, that’s right, ALL IDENTICAL! And just for fun, the odds of having spontaneous, identical triplets is 1 out of 200 million! Those are some serious odds we just beat. I think we should go to Vegas and see if keep this streak going!

You’ve heard the saying “the early bird gets the worm”….well these days I am actually up early enough to see that bird get his worm. Sleep does not come in copious amounts these days. On average Justin and I get about four hours of sleep a night, broken up into one and half or two hour chunks. Needless to say we are very sleepy people. So for Mother’s Day my mom came over and took the boys overnight for us! We not only got eight full hours of sleep, in one night of sleep…we got TWO full nights! I don’t even know what to do with myself with that much sleep. It was a great gift…the gift of sleep.

This was my third mother’s day. The first one I was pregnant with Emmy, the second one I had an infant, and one short year later, I have four kids! I started my day with a donut, of course, and then Justin and I headed out to pick up a swing set I found on Craigslist. I have been wanting to get a swing set in my back yard for a while now, but hadn’t found the right one- until today. We drove down, picked it up, shoved it in the van and headed home. This was my mother’s day gift to Emmerson. It is so hard for me to even get myself dressed during the day, let alone get all the kids ready, even for just a trip to the park. I feel guilty that she is just stuck in the house all the time, so at least now she has something fun to do right in our own back yard. My family came over for a great lunch, we watched the Lakers LOSE, and Justin spent the rest of the day setting up the swing set for Emmy…which by the way she would rather play with a stick and a puddle of water rather than the slide, but that’s ok.

So now the gift of sleep is gone and I’m back to watching the early birds catch their worms, but I had a great Mother’s Day. I am blessed beyond measure with an amazing family and I only hope that I can be as great of a mother to my four kids as my mom is to hers.

According to Webster’s dictionary, transformation means a thorough and dramatic change. Well, there have definitely been plenty of transformations in my life lately. My family has been transformed from a family of three to a family of six, I have been transformed from a mother of one to a mother of four,  from a working mom to a stay at home mom. We have been transformed from a double to a single income family. We have been transformed from being able to quickly pack up and head out for a weekend away to it taking a full day to get all of our things together, and Emmerson has been transformed from an only child to a big sister.

But the greatest transformation of all has been to see how quickly my boys have changed. One month ago my precious little boys were born into this world six weeks early. In the last month I have seen my sons go through an amazing transformation. They started out small, and helpless, and unable to breathe on their own without the support of a ventilator. Now they are all a pound over their birth weights, and don’t need any tubes or machines to breathe or eat for them. I am so thankful and blessed that all three of my boys did so well and were able to get healthy enough to leave the hospital as soon as they did. Looking at their pictures from the day they were born to pictures of them now…it truly is an incredible transformation.

Not all transformations have been welcome ones, but I am so in awe of what my boys have been through and how drastically their lives have transformed in the last month. It will be interesting to see what transformations are in store for the Geel family next.

Now that the boys are home Justin and I are trying to see what life is going to be like now with a house full of children. I have really been impressed with how well Emmerson is handling all the change. As long as I’m not holding or feeding one of the boys – which is pretty much all of the time – she does great. She is such a good big sister. So far there have been no signs of trying to sit on a baby, and that is always good news! She also likes to help them swing. She will walk up to the swing, start shaking it back and forth and yell “WEEEEEE”. That could be a problem, one of these days she is going to send her brothers flying through the air. So we will be keeping a close eye on her for sure.

Friday we had to take the boys to their first doctor appointment since they were released from the hospital on Wednesday. It is always so crazy trying to leave the house to go anywhere, even when you only have one kid! I remember after I had Emmerson I was never on time for anything because I could never seem to get myself and Emmy ready to go – thirty minutes late was a good day! So I thought that with triplets it would take 2 hours to get us all ready to head out to the doctor. Surprisingly enough we were only ten minutes late,  but that was probably because I had two people there  helping get the boys ready, and I didn’t shower, and I brushed my hair in the car. I didn’t look that attractive, but we were only ten minutes late! The doctor was also super happy with their progress since leaving the hospital. He kept saying that “this is a huge success”. It felt really good to hear him say that, because I feel the same way. My boys are growing and eating well and have no major health issues…they are a huge success!

Sunday we thought it would be a good idea to try and take our family to church…all six of us! Preparations started the night before so I could arrive before church was over. I laid out four outfits, gathered bottles, sippy cups and snacks. I packed the diaper bag with a plethera of diapers, in two sizes, and settled in for my four hours of sleep. We woke up and started the assembly line: diaper changing, bottle feeding, and in Charlie’s case another diaper change. We loaded everyone up in the car and made it to church…only ten minutes late!! We are on a roll. Again, I did have two other people there helping me…and I didn’t shower, and I brushed my hair and attempted to put make-up on in the car. But who cares what I look like, right? You’re all just staring at the babies anyway!

On Monday we tried running an errand to Babies’ R’ Us. I had registered for some bottles and unfortunately they weren’t the bottles that the doctors in the NICU recommended we use for the boys. So I needed to return the bottles people had given us and get the new ones. Once again, we loaded everyone up in their car seats and headed out. The double strollers we got work great, but Emmy doesn’t want to sit in it….EVER. Thankfully my sister Jana came with us. She got to be on chase Emmerson around the store duty, and put everything back on the shelves that she throws off duty, while Justin and I exchanged the bottles. Of course it always takes longer than you think, and by the time we were done it was dinner time and Emmy was about to have a giant melt down. Therefore our last act of insanity for the day was dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. That’s right, I took all four of my children out to dinner…in public! It actually wasn’t that bad. The boys are still so quiet and sleeping all the time that it was just like taking Emmy out to dinner, which is a job in and of itself! We got plenty of stares as we walked by with car seat after car seat full of sleeping babies and then Emmerson toddling behind us.

Overall the day and dinner went well and who knows…maybe tomorrow I’ll get to shower.

Finally, after 6 weeks of driving back and forth from the hospital between bed rest and the NICU…WE ARE HOME! And it feels so good.

The homecoming day didn’t start off so well, however. Justin and I decided to stay at the hospital with the boys for their last night in the NICU…it’s a good thing we did. It started around 3:00 am, I was sleeping and suddenly had super sharp pain in my tummy and back and started throwing up. Since I was already in the hospital, they wheeled me down to the ER. I also had a fever and couldn’t stop shivering. I was basically convulsing because I was shivering so hard and writhing in pain from my tummy. The Dr. decided to run a battery of tests to figure out what was wrong. 9 hours, a CAT scan, 2 Ultrasounds, a MRI, 2 rounds of blood work, 2 bags of IV fluids and antibiotics later, they decided that I had a kidney infection and had possibly already passed a kidney stone and sent me home with antibiotics and pain meds. Around 1:30 in the afternoon we were able to head back upstairs to see the boys and get them all packed up and ready to go home. It was a pretty crazy and stressful morning.

We got upstairs to the boys room, checked out with the neonatologist and got the OK to take them home! This was the best news we had heard all day! We quickly packed up all of our stuff that we brought in, said goodbye to our nurses and goodbye to the place that had been our second home for the past three and a half weeks. We proudly walked our boys out to the car with people looking on in astonishment as we walked past them. We loaded them in the swagger wagon and we were on our way. I am pretty sure Justin has never driven so slowly before.

We got home and because my sisters are awesome, they had decorated my house with balloons, streamers and a welcome home sign for each of the boys. Emmerson was so excited to see us and her brothers. She was all decked out in her big sister dress and cute little pig tails. When we pulled up she started clapping and and waving and saying “brudders, brudders”!!! It was so sweet. We unloaded all of our kiddos, Justin carrying a car seat on each arm and me carrying a car seat in one hand and Emmerson with the other. We made it inside and set the kids down and Emmerson went around to each boy and kissed them on the head and gave them a not so gentle pat pat pat on the head.

My parents and sisters as well as Justin’s mom were all at the house to welcome us home. We were all talking excitedly and taking pictures to document the day. Needless to say it was kind of loud and chaotic, which we all know by now is the new word that describes my life. But amongst all the craziness and busyness of everything going on, there was a moment where I was so overwhelmed by happiness and love that I had to fight back my tears. I was sitting next to Justin looking at my three amazing boys and watching my beautiful daughter going from car seat to car seat kissing and hugging on her brothers that it finally hit me…we were home…we were ALL home…and I am here to tell you…there is no place like home.

This is a moment I will never forget.

Boys are 3 weeks old…and they are SO CLOSE to coming home! Is it possible to be so completely excited and overwhelmingly terrified at the same time? I can’t believe the time is here to FINALLY take my boys home and try and start some kind of normalcy. Although I don’t think that word will ever mean the same thing to us again. What is normal for a family with triplet boys that are 3 weeks old and a daughter that is 18 months? Pretty sure we are going to have to make up our own version of normal from here on out. And let me just say that I am perfectly fine with that!

I was a bit surprised when I got to the hospital this morning and the nurse said that it is possible they could go home TOMORROW!!! I knew they were doing so well and that they were taking most of their feeds by bottle or by nursing, and that they have done a great job maintaining their body temps and gaining weight, but was thinking that they would get to come home this weekend…but she said it is possible I will be bringing them home tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then Thursday. Don’t get me wrong, I am ecstatic about this news…I was just thinking they would give me more than 12 hours notice! I still have some things to do to get ready for them at home….because I am a procrastinator, or because I was on bed rest and then at the hospital for the last month..either way, I am not quite ready for the little guys. You better believe that I will have everything done tonight though!

I am just so so so happy! 24 hours from now the permanent chaos of our new lives will start. We will all be at home, together, under the same roof. I have been waiting for this day for so long…I can’t believe it is finally here!

This picture pretty much sums up how I have been feeling these days. It has only been two weeks and already I am exhausted. On one hand I can’t believe my boys are already two weeks old, and I also can’t believe it has only been two weeks.

One tired mommy

My day starts at home. I wake up at 7 am with my daughter Emmerson. We come down stairs and eat our breakfast together, and then play with some toys, read some books, climb up and down the stairs a few times, and take our baby dolls on walks down the street. Then its time to get Emmy dressed and get mommy dressed. I hand Emmy off to whoever is here to help me with Emmy, this week its my mom, and I head to the hospital to see the boys. I usually get there around 10:30 or 11:00. Once I am at the hospital I help the nurse with all of the boys check ups and diaper changes…which is a lot harder to do on such a tiny baby. I feel like I am going to break them. Then I try to feed them one at a time. This takes some time…obviously, because there are three of them. I am there most of the day taking care of the boys. Around 6:00 I head home. I meet Justin there when he gets off work, we have dinner as a family, then we give Emmy a bath and put her to bed. Justin and I try to spend an hour or so together then he is off to the hospital to stay with the boys. I stay here at home so I can be here in the morning when Emmy wakes up. I try to get some sleep, but now that the boys are born I have started the fun business of pumping…which means I get to wake up every three hours. Hence the huge yawn in the picture. I have literally fallen asleep ten times writing this already!

It is all pretty tiring and overwhelming. Going back and forth to the hospital is really hard. I feel like a bad mother when I’m not with Emmerson, and I feel like a bad mother when I am not with the boys. It is a really hard balancing act. Emmerson is actually not really handling the change very well. She has had so many different people taking care of her between me being on bed rest and now me at the hospital she is really starting to show signs that she is missing her mommy…and it breaks my heart. My goal of the day is to try and spend at least an hour a day with each of my kids…if I can do that then I feel like I have accomplished something for the day. I have to try and remind myself that this is only temporary chaos. I am looking forward to when the boys come home so that we can all be under one roof again, I can actually spend time with my husband and I don’t feel pulled in ten different directions. I know that it will still be chaos when the boys are home…I am pretty sure the rest of my life will be chaos, but a different kind of chaos than it is now. I am ready to settle in to a routine with all of my kids in one place.

Temporary chaos…right? I sure hope so.

Sorry it’s been so long since the last update…I’ve been kinda busy and a lot has happened. The boys are now TWO WEEKS OLD! I can’t even believe it…and I have got some funny little men on my hands. Their personalities are already starting to show. Charlie is my super chill guy. Nothing really bothers him…not even when he has a poopy diaper. He is perfectly happy to just lay there and sleep all day long. Oliver is my wild man. He was also the wild one in my belly. He was constantly moving around. He is the same on the outside too. In his little bed he will always find a way to wiggle out of his swaddle. Sawyer is the comedian of the group. Constantly smiling and looking like he is planning his next joke or prank…I think it the dimples that give him away. I love these boys like crazy…and I am actually starting to be able to tell them apart…which is always a good thing.

Here’s what has happened since my last post… Charlie is now off oxygen! So now all three of my little men are tube free! All they have on their little faces now is their feeding tube. The hard part for them is over. They know how to breathe and can breathe all on their own without any help! YAY boys! Now starts the long process of them learning how to eat and breathe at the same time…kind of an important skill to have. I started trying breast and bottle feed the boys the other day. It actually went pretty well. They don’t really know what to do when I put the bottle in their mouth, but they will get the hang of it I’m sure. They have actually gotten a lot better just in the last few days. They can all three eat about 15 ml from a bottle, and just today Sawyer was able to nurse! That is a huge step!  I am told this is the long and boring part of them getting out of the NICU. All they have to do now is learn to eat and keep growing…which is harder than it sounds. With all of they calories they burn trying to stay warm and digesting their food, it is easy for them to lose weight. After a few days of them losing weight they are finally starting to put on the ounces. Everyone except for Oliver is back up to their birth weight, and Oliver is only an ounce away. They have to be able to take all of their feedings by breast or bottle, each feeding is at least 45 ml, and they have to continue to gain weight.  So pretty much from here on out we have to wait for them to learn how to eat and how to gain weight and how to grow. Once they have mastered that they can come home!

They boys are all also all out of their isolettes! They are now is bassinets and wearing clothes try and maintain their body temp. So far they are doing so great! And it is so cute to see them in their tiny little clothes. They are actually already almost too big for the preemie clothes I got for them. Which just means that my boys are already getting so big. This also means that we can hold them now whenever we want! That has got to be the biggest perk…I love knowing that I can just walk over to their bed and pick them up and kiss their little faces whenever I want! They are seriously getting cuter and cuter everyday.

Emmy is also doing much better understanding the fact that she now has 3 brothers. She comes to the hospital everyday to see her brothers. She is so cute with them…although she still hasn’t mastered the art of being gentle. She has a little baby doll at home and the other day she picked up the baby, put it on the floor and then proceeded to turn around and sit on top of the baby. Awesome. Hopefully I will be able to teach her not to do that before the boys come home.

Well there you go…you are all caught up. I’ll try not to take another week to make another post. Thanks for caring about my boys.

I haven’t written in a couple days and a whole lot has happened!

1. All the boys are off their IV’s now! Woo-hoo…no more little pokes in their hands and feet. They are now getting all of their nutrients from me alone.

2. All of the boys have finally passed the jaundice test and are out of the lights. They don’t have to wear their sunglasses anymore!

3. They are all up to full feeds…they get 40 ml every three hours. That is about 1 1/2 ounces. So that means each day I need to produce at least 30 ounces of milk each day…and that is only with them eating 1 ounce!!! YIKES!

4. Oliver and Sawyer are off of oxygen!!! They got their nasal cannula taken out today. Hopefully Charlie will be close behind. Right now he is still needing oxygen to help him breathe.

5. Oliver is on a trial run of getting out of the incubator and into a crib where he can wear clothes and try to start regulating his body temperature.

That is a lot of things to check off their list of things to complete before they can come home! Needless to say they are doing great and things are going really well for my three little boys.

Also today was such an amazing day! I got to hold all three of my little boys at the same time. It was the first time the boys had been reunited since they were born…and they are already a week old! It was such an amazing experience to hold them all at the same time. They are all so sweet and so tiny and they already have their own personalities. It was so crazy to look down in my arms and see three little babies there. Justin and I just kept looking at each other and thinking…we did it! We made and delivered three happy and healthy baby boys, and here they are…all together again. We are so blessed and so fortunate that they are so healthy and they are doing so well. Thank you GOD!!! Emmerson came in when I was holding the boys and she got really excited to see her brothers. She even said Charlie’s name! It was really cute.  I couldn’t have been a happier momma than I was today.

Today I finally got to told Oliver! He is off c-pap and only on the nose oxygen. They also took out the IV from his belly button…so I finally got to hold my sweet baby Oliver! It was so great. He opened his eyes and we just sat and looked at each other for about 10 min…then we took a nap together for about an hour! It was the perfect way to end the day. Justin got to hold Charlie again and I also got to hold Sawyer. So it was a good day here in the NICU for the Geels.

Mommy and Oliver

Sweet Oliver

Oliver

Their NICU doctor came by and said that they were all doing well, but that there was still a long way to go. Here is the checlist the boys have to follow in order to make it home.

- Breathe on their own: Right now they are all using nasal oxygen in the 25-30% range. They need to get down to 21% before they can get taken off oxygen.

- Maintain their own body heat without having to be in the isolette. Right now the boys are still under warmers to keep the right temp. When they can move out of the isolette and into a crib we can put clothes on them and then see if they can maintain their body temp.

- They have to be out of the crazy jaundice lights. Right now none of them are scoring low enough on that scale to be taken away from the lights.

- They have to be able to eat 1 oz of milk on their own from a bottle. When they get to 1 oz then they can be taken off IV fluids and just eat milk. They also have to be able to nipple or bottle all of their feedings. Right now they are still all using their feeding tubes and only eat 11 ml at a time.(which is not even half and ounce)

So even though we can’t check anything off the list yet, we  are getting closer everyday. I am so incredibly proud of my boys and how hard they are working to get big and strong so they can go home. I am have been blessed with these boys God has given me and my daughter as well. I am getting more and more excited everyday about the chaos that my life will be when they are all four at home. Crazy days are ahead for sure…but I couldn’t be more excited about it! I love my family!

A lot went down here in the NICU today…all good things too!

Charlie, the stud who has been toughing it out on his own this whole time, continues to do well! All he is on the the little bit of oxygen through the nose. He has dropped his weight some. He went from 4 lbs 9 oz to 4 lbs 5 oz,  but now that they are starting to get some milk from me it should go back up. Justin got to hold Charlie today too! It was so sweet to see daddy with his first son. They got some good cuddle time in together. I am pretty sure Justin was in heaven.

Daddy and Charlie

Charlie's sweet face

Lovin his little man

Sawyer, the littlest one of all of them was born at 4 lbs 6 oz and is now 4 lbs 4 oz. He got off his ventilator today so that is great news! They actually took him off ventilator late last night and moved him back to c-pap, and then this after noon they took him off c-pap too! So now Sawyer is rocking the nose oxygen too! It is so nice to see their little faces without all the straps and bands and tubes everywhere. They really are quite handsome men. One scary thing that happened with Sawyer late tonight is that he started throwing up green liquid. This is not a good sign. What is most likely means is that bile is getting into his stomach and then making him throw up. It means that he is stressed out and working too hard to breathe and digest food, so we might have to stop his feedings for a little while until he can recover. I also got to hold Sawyer today for about an hour. He is so little I am afraid that I am going to hurt him, but it was so much fun to hold him and sing to him and tell him how much I love him.

Sawyer and mommy

Mommy and Sawyer

Sawyer

Then there is my little Oliver. Even though he was born the biggest he is having the hardest time with his breathing. He was born 4 lbs 12 oz and is now down to 4 lbs 8 oz. He was on ventilator and they took him off that this morning and put him on c-pap. He hates the c-pap contraption! He is always fussing and trying to pull the tubes off his face which just gets him all worked up and makes it harder for him to breathe. I am hoping that they will take him off c-pap tomorrow and try him with just the nose oxygen, because I think he would be so much more comfortable. He is the only one that we haven’t gotten to hold yet too, hopefully tomorrow will be the day for that as well.

momma:  I officially got discharged from the hospital! Woo-hoo….now I can come and go as I please. Not that I am really going anywhere, but it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to. Also, as the doctor was checking my bandages and belly to see if I was ready to be discharged he was pressing on my belly and said it looks like we left one of the triplets in there! Awesome….you can never really hear that enough. Especially 3 days after giving birth to triplets. Who, by the way, when you add all of their weights together I had 13 lbs 11 oz of baby in my belly!!!! Apparently it is supposed to go away in 3 days. It wasn’t my normal doctor by the way who said that, it was the male doctor on call. Also my hubs bought me the an awesome necklace that has all the names of all our kids. Wow, that is weird to say…all our kids…all four of our kids! Needless to say I will NOT be needing to add anymore charms to this necklace!

My new necklace

If you could all do me a favor and keep praying for not just the boys but for little Miss Emmerson. I am really worried that she is going to feel left out. I can tell she is already so confused about why mommy and daddy are never home, and when we bring her to the hospital she get bored so fast, which I don’t blame her! So if you could just please pray that Justin and I will be able to find some way to balance being at the NICU with the boys and being at home with Emmy. Right now either place I am I feel like I am letting one of my kids down. And the babies aren’t even home yet, that is going to be a whole new situation to figure out. But for now please pray that we can find a way to balance the hospital life with our boys and home life with our Emmy.  Being a mom of four is tough stuff already.

The boys: 3 days old

Yesterday felt like a couple steps backwards because Oliver and Sawyer had to be intubated, and it looked like Charlie was on his way there as well. However, today we woke up to find that Charlie was continuing to tough it out and was getting much better at breathing on his own. He is still hooked up to oxygen, but it now seems as if the doctors are leaning away from intubating him. The doctors also said that Oliver and Sawyer may be able to get off the ventilators today or tomorrow. They are starting to need less and less oxygen from the ventilator, but we will know for sure by morning. The other piece of good news is that they got some of my milk today. I got to change their diapers and give them some milk through a syringe. It is so crazy to see how little milk they need right now. It’s also probably a good thing they don’t need much right now because trying to get enough for all three of them is going to be tricky. But I am going to try! They also put the boys in what I like to call their own personal tanning beds. They even get to wear cool shades for their eyes. Actually the light is to help their skin with jaundice.

I'll be back!

I wear my sunglasses at night

Too cool for school

Momma:

I am also feeling so much better today. It still hurts wicked bad to get up, but once I am up I can walk around and see the boys. I don’t have to stay in my wheel chair the whole time anymore. I even got to get up and take a shower! There was no puking today either, and my sister brought me donuts…which is always a great way to start the day!

The highlight of my day so far…or of my whole pregnancy really…was that I got to hold Charlie! It was the sweetest, most amazing hour of my day. He is so so tiny and makes the sweetest little grunting crying sounds. I got to hold him up to my chest for over an hour and kiss his little bitty head and hold his tiny little fingers. It was absolutely incredible…I’m hooked! Hopefully if Charlie is continuing to do well then we will get to hold him tomorrow too.  AND if Oliver and Sawyer get off their ventilators we can hold them too! It was such a great feeling to finally hold my sweet little boy that has been working so hard to breathe. I got to hold him in my arms and sing to him and tell him how much I love him…I really hope I can do the same thing for Oliver and Sawyer tomorrow.

Emmy also got to see her little brothers, she is still a bit too young to understand what is happening, but she will say “baby baby” and point to them. I will be so fun to see how she interacts with them as they get bigger. Right now she still needs practice with her dollies because she will pick them up and then throw them on their heads and say “uh oh”. So I think I will just stick to her dolls for now. 

Some people have been asking if they are identical triplets or if identical twins and then a fraternal brother…the answer is…I have no idea! It is actually really hard to tell exactly what they look like now because their faces are all covered with tubes and masks. Even when they don’t have masks anymore we still won’t really know for sure. The only way to know for sure is to do a DNA test…that is something we might consider down the road, but not what we are focusing on right now.

The boys:

Oliver and Sawyer are doing much better now that they are on a ventilator. I can tell that just having that little bit of help breathing is helping them to relax and sleep. Charlie is starting to struggle now as well, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they have to intubate him by morning. It is incredibly hard to see them all hooked up to tubes and monitors, and even harder that we still can’t hold them. All we can do right now is put our hands through the side of their isolettes and hold their little ity bity hands. They are such strong boys  fighting for every breath. I am so proud of them already. They are so tiny, but they are doing so well. The neo-natologist was telling us this morning that it is common for preemies to do well at first and then kind of take a few steps backwards. I am hopeful that they can start taking some steps forward! They are thinking all three of them will be in the NICU for at least two weeks.

Momma:

I am also starting to do better. I was so out of it yesterday I couldn’t keep my eyes open for more than 20 min at a time. I was also so nauseous all day yesterday and throwing up that it was hard for me to get out of bed. And puking when you have just had abdominal surgery is no fun at all. They kept giving me anti-nausea meds but that was making me so sleepy. I would go to the NICU to see the boys and fall asleep sitting there in front of their beds. Today was a much better day for me as well. I got a lot of rest yesterday, and didn’t feel nauseous all day today! Hooray for not puking today! It looks like they are going to send me home tomorrow, although what that really means is that I will move from my room down the hall to NICU and stay with my boys in their room until they are ready to come home.

I’ll give an update everyday on their progress. I love my little guys so much already…and I think they might actually look like ME!!!

Oliver says hello

Sawyer Alexander says hello

Charlie Russell says hello

Oliver’s tiny feet in my hand

After 2 months of bed rest and 2 weeks of hospital bed rest I can finally say that MY BOYS ARE HERE!!!

The day started off with Justin and I headed to the hospital at 6:30 AM. We got there and signed all of the consent forms that were necessary, got all suited up for the surgery and then just anxiously awaited our turn in the operating room. The OR is so overwhelming! There were tons of people around, each one of them with a different purpose, but it was a zoo. And seeing as how this was the first time I have ever had surgery i was getting a little freaked out with all the commotion. However, once things started happening it was over very quickly. And at 9:01 AM my first little one joined the world. Charlie Russell. Then not even 30 seconds later his little brother Oliver was born, and then shortly after, and I mean really shortly, Sawyer was born at 9:02 AM.

Charlie was 4 lbs 9 oz

Oliver was 4 lbs 12 oz

Sawyer was 4 lbs 6 oz

They were all doing great yesterday, but as the day went on they all slowly started having a more difficult time breathing. They all ended up needed to get a c-pap machine to help them breathe. Then as the day progressed Oliver and now Sawyer had to be put on a ventilator to help them breathe. They were just having to work too hard to get any air. It is such a hopeless feeling to sit next to my boys in their covered beds watching them struggle so much just to breathe. The NICU nurses her have been excellent though, so I know they are in good hands. It is still so hard to see them with all these tubes everywhere and all over their body.

Picking just the perfect name is really hard to do. I think we found just the right name for Emmerson Alice. Emmerson is unique and different, just like she is. Her nickname Emmy is beautiful just like she is. And her middle name Alice is after my grandmother, who was spunky and independent, and so is Emmerson. So I’m pretty sure we nailed it with her name!

Now the pressure is on…we have to find the perfect name for three more little guys! Our list started with about 25 names. We thought about doing names that started with A, B and C, or names that all start with the same letter, or names that rhyme. But we decided against all those ideas and over the months the list dwindled down to three names.

Baby A= Charlie Russell Geel: Charlie not Charles…and yes spelled with an ie not a y. Aside from the fact that Charlie is just a really cute name, it means Valiant and Trusting. He gets his middle name from my dad. I am hoping that little Charlie will take on some of my dad’s characteristics. My dad is smart, kind, gentle, calm, dependable, and a great provider for his family. If Charlie even picks up on one of the great things my dad is I will be a happy momma.

Baby B= Oliver Zane Geel: Oliver again aside from being a cute name, means bringer of peace. Since his initials will be OZ we thought about calling him Ozzy for a nick name. I looked up Ozzy in the name book and it means overcommer. This name fits perfectly because he has already had to overcome some trials in the womb. His cord attached to the thin membrane separating B and C instead of to the placenta. He is having to work extra hard to get his nutrition, and so far he is doing great! He gets his middle name from Justin’s dad. Zane is also very kind, a hard worker and provider for his family, smart, and tall!!! Maybe Oliver will get the tall genes in the family! Here’s hoping!

Baby C= Sawyer Alexander Geel: Ok…we’ve established the names are cute. But Sawyer means woodworker. Now this might not seem glamorous, however woodworking has been a way of living in my, as well as Justin’s family, for generations. My grandfather and my dad worked at a saw mill. Justin and his dad built houses for a living, and Zane likes to build wooden boats. So Sawyer is definitely a fitting name for this family. He gets his middle name from my Grandfather. It has also been used as the middle name for my nephew and my cousin…so I am keeping the tradition going.

And there you have it…my three boys…Charlie, Oliver and Sawyer Geel.

Charlie with c-pap

Sawyer with c=pap

Oliver with c-pap

More pictures later on today for sure. Please keep my boys in your prayers. I am hopeful they can get off the ventilators by the end of the day and that I will get to hold them soon!

34 weeks 4 days-

The day has come…my last day as a pregnant lady! The last day as a mother of one. The last day with some sanity! I probably should have spent more time resting since I won’t be getting much of that the next few years, but I had way too much to do. I spent the day running last minute errands, cleaning the house, nesting in the boys nursery, sewing some of the boys bedding, and getting a pedicure.

It’s hard to know what to do on the night before your life will change forever. I decided to spend the night with my family. I had Justin’s parents, and my sisters and parents over for dinner and we talked and ate and talked some more. We talked about the days that each of us were born and how different and special they were. We talked about Emmerson and how she is going to be such an amazing big sister. We talked about how crazy it is that for some reason God chose Justin and I to have these three boys, and how incredible they are going to be. We talked about how nervous I am about my C-section, since I have never had surgery before. And we talked about how if I had to wait one more week to have my boys that I would go crazy! I made it further than I thought I would and I can honestly say that I don’t think my body could handle one more day!

My bags are packed, the boys bags are packed and now I am just sitting in bed with a million thoughts running through my head. Again, I should probably be sleeping and trying to get some sleep seeing as how I have to be at the hospital in 6 hours, but I just can’t sleep. Too many questions…is the surgery going to go ok? Are the boys going to be healthy? Breathing? How big are they going to be? How long will they need to be in the NICU? How long will I have to wait until I can hold them? How bad is my belly going to hurt? How is Emmerson going to handle all of this? Am I going to be able to handle being a mom of 4?!? What in the world did I get myself into? As I am thinking all of these thoughts I remember the prayer that my dad said tonight before everyone left. He said that we are confident in the Lords care and love and protection. So I pray tonight for my boys, for their health and their safety. I pray they will be big and strong. I pray that surgery goes well for me. And I pray that my sweet little girl does not feel neglected. And most of all I pray that I will be a great mother to these 4 children that I have been blessed with.

Tomorrow starts a new journey for my family. It is doubling in size! I am nervous, anxious, excited and grateful for what lies ahead. Tomorrow is birthday day for my three precious boys…it is going to be a great day!

Here are some pics of my last days as a preggy person.

Check out my big belly

Mommy and Emmy

I will keep you all posted tomorrow about the boys. They will be here around 8:30 tomorrow morning…I will try to get pics posted by tomorrow evening.

Making room for triplets is no easy task. Just finding room to put three cribs and three babies worth of stuff is going to take some creative thinking. Thank God we have a house big enough to house 4 children!

We were trying to think about where we were going to set up the boys nursery, but the only room that wasn’t Emmy’s room or the guest room was the office. The office is the smallest room in the house and there was no way three cribs were going to fit in that room. And so began the great room shuffle. The office was now going to be in the corner of my room, the old office would now be Emmerson’s room, Emmerson’s room will now be the guest room, and the guest room will now be the boys room…are you still with me?

That is a lot of furniture to move around and a lot of cribs to set up. Thankfully, since I am on bed rest and Justin is at work all day, Sharon came up from Portland to do all the shuffling of stuff. It was so incredibly hard for me to not jump in and help. I don’t like just sitting around and watching people do things for me. Plus it just makes me feel like I am being lazy and making everyone else do my work for me. It is really hard for me to get used to asking for help. But I have a feeling I am going to need to get better at that, especially when the boys get here!

Day one, the old office was re-painted to fit the colors of Emmy’s bedding. We also painted a chalkboard wall for her…and when I say we I mean Sharon! Hopefully one of these days Emmy will stop putting everything in her mouth so I can actually give her a piece of chalk and she will use it to draw and not think it is a cracker! We also moved the office stuff into our room and got that all set up. Here are some pics of Emmy helping paint the wall, and of mommy putting the crib back together.

Emmy the painting helper

Putting a crib together

Emmy painting the wall

Day two, moved all of Emmerson’s stuff from her old room to the new room, and got all of her things hung up on the wall. We then moved the guest bed and pictures that were on the wall into Emmerson’s old room…and again when I say we I mean Sharon and my sisters! Are you confused yet? I of course was forced to just sit there and watch them all do this for me. Here are some pics of Emmy’s new room, and the new guest room.

Emmy's new room

The new guest room

The chalkboard wall in Emmy’s new room

Day three, set up the cribs and a changing table in the boys new room, and started to hang up some of the clothes that I have gotten for the boys. It is a tight fit, but we got them all in there…and with that the great room shuffle is complete. As Justin was putting up the last of the cribs I was sitting in the rocker, watching as everything was coming together…and I started crying. Justin of course asked what was wrong…and as I sat there and looked around the room I just started saying “this isn’t normal!” Seriously…who has to put up three cribs in one room! One in 8,000 people that’s who! It was just a momentary rush of pregnancy hormones…but overwhelming nonetheless. Here are some pics of the boys nursery.

Changing table and closet

The Owl Tree

I also just need to add that Justin and I have been blessed big time by all of our friends. We had 3 infant car seats given to us, 3 cribs, a changing table, some swings, a high chair, and a ton of used boy clothes all the way up to size 24 months! I still can not believe the generosity we received. We did not have to buy one crib or car seat! Thank you so so much to everyone who donated their used goods to us…you are all incredible, and we would not have been able to do this without you!

Putting the nursery together is definitely making it feel more real that I am having these babies soon. So is the fact that my belly is getting huge, and I now have to have help sitting up if I have been laying down. It is kind of crazy to be doing this all over again…and then I look around the nursery and see three cribs and it really still blows my mind. I really am going to have three babies…all at once…as in at the same time…that is just crazy.

But I can at least rest assured now that I have a place to put all of their little heads…now I just need lots of diapers for their little buns!

(I wrote this post a couple months ago before I was put on hospital bed rest…it just took me a while to get the pictures loaded so I could post it)

Welp, it’s official…these sweet, healthy, happy, active, baby boys of mine will enter this world on Monday morning March 28th!!!!

I had another check up today, and while the boys are all still healthy and there are no major concerns, Baby C hasn’t grown in the last two weeks. The doctor decided that it would be best to deliver the boys early…and to think this whole time we have been worried about Baby B’s growth. Actually he hasn’t grown very much either, but he is now bigger than C. So I started another round of the steroid shots to help develop the babies lungs. Which if you remember my post from when I was in the hospital those shots burn like crazy. They seriously make my butt feel like it’s on fire for 10 minutes. I had my first shot today and the second shot will be tomorrow, lucky me. On Saturday I will have one last appointment just to check on all the babies heart rates to make sure they are still doing well, which there is no reason to think that they wouldn’t be great. If the appointment goes well on Saturday then we will have the boys on Monday, one day earlier than the original date. The doctor doesn’t want to wait too much longer than that since Baby C has not made optimal growth. If for some strange reason the heart rates don’t look right or there is something to be concerned about then they would do an emergency C-section on Saturday, but again there is no reason to think that would happen. It is just a precaution.

So Monday is the big day…the day I have been waiting for for a very long time. It was such a strange feeling as I left he doctors office today knowing that in 4 short days mine and Justin’s and Emmy’s lives will be forever changed. I almost started crying, but instead my head went immediately to all of the things that I still need to do and the things I need to get to be ready for these boys. I lost a lot of time on hospital bed rest…I have to catch up! I of course made a list. I have my to do list and I made a honey do list for Justin, guess which one is longer. Hopefully all get done this weekend. Included on that list of things to do is try to enjoy and remember every last second I have with my sweet baby girl being the only child in my life. She has been the center of my world for the last 17 months…there is a huge part of me that is going to miss that. There will be lots of hugs and kisses and crying I’m sure. I love that girl so much.

I am so thankful that I don’t have to wait until April 5 to meet my boys. My doctor said this was their way of telling me that they are done cooking and ready to join the world…and I couldn’t agree with them more. Monday is going to be a great day…and I can’t wait!

33 weeks-

I had another doctor appointment yesterday. This time they checked all the babies growth to see how they are doing and to make sure that Baby B is growing ok. Well, let me tell you…they are all definitely growing! They are now all over 4 pounds each! I am now carrying a whopping 13 lbs of baby in my belly right now! Needless to say I am getting bigger and more uncomfortable by the day. Here are some examples of things that weigh 13 lbs…

- 2 gallons of water

- 7 bags of sugar

- 108 Large eggs (9 dozen)

- 130 golf balls

- 30 oranges

- 83 jars of baby food

- 7 tubs of ice cream (regular sized containers)

But it is all good news for the boys. Baby B and now Baby C are 9 oz smaller than their brother Baby A…which makes sense because Baby A has the most room to stretch out. Baby B and Baby C are still trying to duke it out for who will get the second most comfortable spot…which is not very comfortable for mommy. Every Thursday I will have another growth scan to check on B and C. If at any point it looks like A is taking over in the growth department, and B and C have stopped, she will go ahead and take them out.

The good news is that she said we are now past the scary part…and that if anything happened and I went in to labor now she is confident that everything would be fine. She is happy with the boys weight, she is happy with how well my body is handling the pregnancy. In fact, she is so happy with how things are going she moved my C-section back a week. So you know that date we have all been shooting for…MARCH 29…yeah well now that is apparently April 5. I guess we were all praying a little too hard! Of course anything could still happen between now and then and they might come early, but she said if March 29th comes and we are all still doing well that she is going to push it back another week. I am not super happy about this, but only for selfish reasons like I am ready to not be pregnant anymore!!! But on the bright side that means my boys are healthy and it is less time they will have to spend in the NICU.

Another piece of good news is that she is starting to relax on the super strict bed rest stuff. I can’t go crazy or anything, but she did say that Justin and I can try to go out one night before the babies come. We will actually be able to leave the house together and spend some much needed time with the two of us, because once these boys are here guaranteed we won’ t be getting a lot of that. So we are planning a date night! I can’t tell you how nice it will be to get out of the house for a bit! Even though my house is 100 times better than the hospital, it is still no fun being cooped up all day long. Oh yeah…and we are also going to take Emmy out to the Children’s Museum for one last Geel family of 3 hurrah. I can’t wait!

Thanks for the prayers folks…Babies all are doing well and that makes for one happy and less stressed out momma!

32 weeks-back at home on bed rest!

I am actually going to have three baby boys! SOON…like within the next two weeks kind of soon! Two weeks from tomorrow…that means we only have one more Tuesday where we only have one child. We only have two more weekends that it is just the three of us, and then our lives are forever changed. I know I am on strict bed rest and all, but I feel like I need to take one day either this weekend or next and do something one last time as a Geel family of three. Up until now I have always just said I’m pregnant with triplets…now I am actually starting to think about the fact that in 15 days I will HAVE triplets! It is just still so crazy to think about.

Although the thought of having four kids under the age of 18 months is really a scary thought, I am so ready to not be pregnant anymore. Mainly so that I don’t have to be on bed rest and I can actually get up and walk around, but also because I am starting to get so uncomfortable. My belly is huge, I can hardly sleep at night now, my heartburn sucks, I waddle like a pack of penguins, and the boys are so active it is like a constant boxing match in my belly. So while the thought of having triplets and a 17 month old daughter is hugely overwhelming, I am ready to go there so that I can not be pregnant any more!

Doctor update:

Today went great! Everything is still holding steady so she let me go back home. I have another appointment on Thursday that will check the growth of Baby B. She is saying now that pretty much the only reason why I would have the babies early is if Baby B stops growing. She thinks that I will make it to my due date of the 29th…she even threw out the idea of pushing the C-section back another week. I don’t really know how stoked I am about that idea, but I do like knowing that things are going better than they were two weeks ago. It all depends on Baby B now, if he stops growing she will take them all early. So let’s cross our fingers for a good growth update on Thursday.

I also just want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has brought us a dinner or made a donation! You really have no idea how much it means to us to know that so many people care about us enough to read our blog, pray for us, cook us dinner and donate to the diaper fund. You are all truely amazing people and we are being blessed by all of you!

…HOME!!!! That right folks…you read that right! After two extremely long, frustrating, boring weeks I am finally back at HOME! WOOOO-HOOOO!

I am so excited to be sitting back on my own couch, watching Emmy run around, and best of all…I don’t have to be hooked up to monitors 5 hours a day! Its kind of crazy that just as I has resigned myself to accepting the fact that I would be in the hospital for the long haul my doctor gives me the news that since I am doing so well and the babies are doing so well that I can go home! Needless to say I was in shock. At first she said that I could go home tomorrow. Then she said…unless you could have someone come get you today. I jumped on that and had my dad and sister at the hospital with a suitcase for all my things within the hour! They started paking up all of the stuff that I had managed to accumulate over the last 2 weeks. It took 3 carts to get it all out to the car. Then two hours later I said peace out to the most uncomfortable bed in the world and took my first breath of fresh air that I’ve had in two weeks! And it was glorious.

So heres the deal, the boys are all doing great. Baby B, aka Budsy, had a great growth week and his heart echo came back with good results. Chunk and Giblet are both growing and doing great as well. My cervix has gotten longer and I haven’t dilated any further. I am home right now on a trial basis. I have another doctor appointment on Monday morning, and if everything stays the same I can continue to finish my bed rest at home, if anything has gotten worse then it is back to the hospital I go. So as long as I keep my buns on the couch and don’t try to do anything around the house I should be good. And Believe me…all I have to do is remember how horrible the hospital was and that will be enough to make me behave.

My doctor and all the nurses actually said that they are so impressed that I have made it this far in my pregnancy and that I am doing well enough to go home. She very rarely sends patients home after they are admitted. She said that I win the award for being the best at handling a triplet pregnancy…so I guess I have regained a little bit of my rock star status! I’ll take it!

I am so incredibly happy to be home! Please keep praying that I can stay here. Thanks friends!

Here are some pics of my lovely room at the hospital.

Who are they you might ask? well…its a funny story.

It started when I thought I was only having twins. I was for some reason convinced that it was a boy and a girl. So I had a boy name and girl name all picked out and ready to go. One day my sister Jana sent me a text asking how the babies were doing. She typed in their names and her “smart phone” used it predictive text to change the names to Budsy and Chunk. Because who doesn’t use the word Budsy at least once every day right? Anyway…so that is how Budsy and Chunk came to be.

Then came the crazy day we discovered it wasn’t twins in was really triplets…so I needed another name. At this point I didn’t know that they were all boys so I was just thinking of both boys and girl names I could use. The day came when it was time to tell my class about the fact the I was pregnant with triplets because up to this point I hadn’t told them yet. So I sit my class down on the carpet and tell them that not only am I pregnant but that I am going to have three babies. It was so funny to see their reactions…and then they of course had to tell me every person they know of that is going to have a baby…and apparently one girls mom was going to have 1,000 babies. Gotta love kids and their stories!

So, the next day after school one of my student’s mom came in to talk to me. She kind of hesitantly asked if I was pregnant, so I told her yes I was. And she even more hesitantly asked me if I was pregnant with triplets. Again, I told her yes I was. And she got this look of clarity on her face. She said that made way more sense because her son came home and told her, “that Mrs. Geel is having giblets!”

And thus, the third nickname was born…Giblet would now join Budsy and Chunk.

Baby A= Chunk

Baby B= Budsy

Baby C= Giblet

31 weeks- 11 days on hospital bed rest

I think it is safe to say that I don’t relax well…and I don’t enjoy just sitting around doing nothing. So, what did I do this weekend you ask…I threw a birthday party for my wonderful hubby…cause who doesn’t always dream of one day getting to celebrate their birthday in a hospital lounge right? But since I am suck here that is what we did. And it went well…if I do say so myself. I ordered a bunch of good ‘ol Dicks burgers and fries, we had some tasty beverages, and of course some birthday cake. Although, I did forget the birthday candles. Good thing we all have iPhones…just download the birthday candle app and all is well. Just a fun fact…Emmerson and I share the month of October for our birthdays, and Justin and the boys will get to share March….again hoping for March 29th!

Now its back to another start of another week. Thankfully I had a great weekend with my friends and family coming to visit and a fun birthday party. That should be enough fun to get me through the next couple of days. Only 21 more days to go…and you better believe I’m counting!

31 weeks- 11 days on hospital bed rest

Well…I made it through my melt down from the other day. I am doing much better today. I can do anything I set my mind to, and I think the problem was that I had set my mind on going home after a week. Now that  I know that isn’t an option I can adjust my mind frame and know that I’m here for the long haul. Time will go quickly and soon we will all be in a rhythm of what our new life is like here in this grand hospital room. And before I know it…the boys will be here…and we will be all together again at home! That is the day that I am most looking forward to!

Another thing that helped lift my spirits is that Justin and Emmerson spent the night at the hospital last night. So I got to “help” with bath time and give her a kiss before bed. Then we put her down for a restful nights sleep….in the bathroom! Of course we had the pack-N-play set up, but in order to have a quiet place where she wouldn’t wake up every time a nurse came in we put her in the bathroom. This all works well…until I actually have to go to the bathroom. Justin went to ask the nurse if there was a wheelchair around that we could use and he would just wheel me down to hall to the bathroom. But they couldn’t find it. Get this…the nurse said I could just walk there!!!!! WOO-HOO! I got to walk a whole 20 feet to the bathroom…and back…all by myself!!! I was so happy I could have done a little jig, but I didn’t want to press my luck.:) You know it’s bad when you get excited about walking to the bathroom…but its the little things that keep me going.

I have gotten to spend all weekend with my Emmy girl…and she was just what my soul needed. We got to read some books, and play with her toys, and take a nap, and I have gotten lots of kisses and hugs. Just enough love from my girl to get me out of my funk, and make it through these last 3 weeks.

Actually is sounds shorter to count down the days. So I have 23 more days to go….let the countdown begin!

31 weeks- 8 days on hospital bed rest.

I have been having a really really hard time with this whole hospital bed rest thing. When I was first admitted I was hopeful that I would get to go home in a week. So I have been putting on a happy face and finding the positives to get me through the week. Welp…I got the bad news today that I am not going home. I am here until the babies come…which we are still hoping is March 29th…and just in case you are counting, that is still 3 weeks away. Seems like forever!

Needless to say I am heartbroken. I have been pretty much been crying all day. I knew staying at the hospital would be hard, but I didn’t realize it would be this hard. I miss my family so much…and only seeing my sweet girl for a couple hours a day has got to be the hardest part. I miss her, I miss being home, I miss my husband, I miss my dog, I miss good food, I miss my daughter! I know I won’t be here forever, I know it could be worse, I know it is what is best for my boys…but it doesn’t make it any easier to be here.

I should let you all know that the boys are doing just fine. They all weigh over 3 lbs now! Baby B had a good growth week and now that I am off the ibuprofen their hearts are all back to normal too.  This is am very thankful for and happy about, but it also just makes me feel like I should be able to go home since they are all doing great! But no such luck…I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up cause it made it even harder to be happy to be here.

Sorry this post is such a debby downer…I’m just feeling pretty sad today. I’ll try to be back to my charming, witty, funny, postive self  tomorrow…stay tuned.

30 weeks: 7 days on hospital bed rest

Bed rest isn’t as restful as it sounds…

6:00 am: wake up call with medicine. With any luck I will fall back asleep, but that is easier said than done. This bed isn’t exactly what I would call comfortable.

8:00 am: Room service, breakfast. Don’t get too excited…it is pretty nasty. I usually just eat the yogurt and the fruit.

9:00 am: Nurse comes in with more meds, 9 more pills total.

10:00 am: Now begins the fun process of monitoring all the babies heart beats. This is actually very difficult. They have to find all three heart beats make sure that they are all coming from different babies, and then try and keep the babies on the heart monitor for an hour. This is virtually impossible because for some reason there is still enough space in my belly for Baby B and Baby C to move around like crazy. So they are very hard to find…and even once they finally find them, they aren’t still long enough to track their heart beats. The process of finding them and keeping them on as long as possible can take up to an hour and a half. This gets to happen three times a day too! That is almost 6 hours of my day just laying in bed with at least one sometimes two nurses searching on my belly with the heart monitor for my squirmy little boys.

12:00 pm: Monitoring is done for now, they will be back two more times however during the day to torture me. Now I finally get an hour before they bring lunch that I can take a shower or take a nap.

1:00 pm: lunch and more meds. In between monitoring different people from the hospital are coming in to talk with me. The physical therapist, the diatician, the NICU nurse, the neonatologist, my doctor, and of course my nurse comes in at least two more times with more medication for me to take. I think it is pretty funny that they call it bed rest, because with all the activity of doctors and people in and out I sure haven’t been able to do much resting! I did also get to go on a field trip once so far. My parents wheeled me down to the cafeteria. The days of the regualr wheel chair are gone. My wheel charir now is this giant purple reclining chair on wheels. I have to use that chair because I have to be reclined at all times. Here’s pic of my dad wheeling me down.

3:00 pm: More meds and round two of monitoring!

This is the best part of my day…when the monitoring is over because my sister brings Emmerson in to see me!!!  We brought in a bunch of her toys from home to keep here and snack for her so hopefully she can start to get used to this place. There is also a fun play room down the hall that she likes to walk to and play.

6:00 pm: Dinner and more meds. We are trying to find ways that we can all eat dinner here at the hospital together. Justin comes to the hospital straight from work since Emmy is already here. The hard part is figuring out what to do for dinner. I get dinner delivered, but it is already getting old having Justin have to go buy something…which usually ends up being fast food. That is getting old real fast. So I think we are going to have to just cook a meal at home and then have Justin bring it to the hospital. That way we can all eat together.

7:00 pm: At this point Emmy is very ready for bed. She has entered melt down mode and Justin has approx. 20 more min to get her and her things loaded in to the car to get her home for bed.

This is the hardest part of my day…my hubby is gone and my baby are gone for the night.

9:00 pm: More meds and the third round of baby monitoring. This is usually done around 10:30 pm.

12:00 midnight: They wake me up for more meds and then my day starts all over again in 6 more hours.

So bed rest…not so restful, but it is doing it’s job. I had a check up today, and my contractions are almost nonexistent now and cervix holding steady. I was waiting and hoping that my doctors next line would be…”So you can go home now cause things are looking good.” However what she really said was that I need to stay here because the hospital bed rest is working. So it looks like I am here until I deliver, which we are all hoping, for the boys sake, that is on March 29. Thursday is another big ultrasound because that will tell us if Baby B has grown since his last scan. If his margin of growth isn’t high enough then she would deliver all the boys early because at that point it is more beneficial for Baby B to get his nutrition out of the womb rather than in it. I will be sure to keep you all posted on what happens Thursday.

Until then…thanks for the encouragement and prayers! They are working…keep them coming.

The things I miss…

1. Being able to see my feet.

2. Putting on my own shoes

3. Doing at least one sit up

4. Laying on my tummy

5. Going for a walk

6. Being at my own house

Things I will not miss…

1. Heartburn

2. Sleeping sitting up

3. Being stuck in bed all day

4. Weekly doctors appointments

5. Feeling gigantic

Things I will miss when the babies are here…

1. Feeling them kick in my belly

2. Sleep

3. Only having to find one baby sitter

4. Sleep

5. Sleep

Things I have to look forward to…

1. 3 more precious little lives to take care of and protect

2. 3 more babies to get hugs and cuddles from

3. Lots and lots of diaper changes

4. Watching Emmy being an amazing big sister

5. My family being complete, happy and all together under one roof again.

Ok…in order to keep myself from crying because I am stuck in the hospital now for who knows how long…I am going to think of 10 good things about my stay over the last 24 hours.

1. My sister brought me donuts for breakfast! Thanks Jill.

2. The doctor said that I am allowed to get out of bed to take a shower once a day!! Thank the Lord!!

3. All of the nurses here have been fantastic so far!

4. I got to take a tour of the NICU and see where my babies will be for the first couple weeks of their lives.

5. My parents and Justin’s parents came to visit and help take care of Emmerson…YAY!

6. My sister brought my sweet Emmy girl to see me this afternoon. When she walked in my room she gave me the best smile in the world.

7. I had some time to work on my National Board Certification…boring, but necessary.

8. I had a ton of lab work done when I was admitted, and they all came back with great results!

9. I bit my tounge so hard today that it bled for about 15 min…maybe not so much a postive thing, but kinda crazy so I thought I’d share it.

10. I got a new thing of chap stick and now my lips aren’t chapped anymore!!!

And one more just for good measure….

I think it is safe to say that I have the most amazing friends and family ever! The amount of people that have responded with their encouragement, prayers and positive thoughts has been so incredibly overwhelming that I have been close to tears all day. Thank you so much to all my friends and family, and friends of friends that I don’t even know, that are taking the time to think of my family right now. It really does mean the world to me.

29 weeks-

Today was not a good day. Apparently I only got to be a rock star for one week.  Don’t get me wrong….it was nothing serious or scary. The boys are all still healthy and doing fine, but there were several things that happened today that I had been trying my hardest to avoid.

I thought things were going to go well because I hadn’t had many contractions this week, and for being almost 30 weeks pregnant with triplets I was actually feeling pretty good. I was just feeling your typical I have three babies growing in my belly and my skin feels like its going to stretch off and my joints and ligaments are stretching so much its hard to walk and I have heartburn so bad I have to sleep sitting up and wake up twice in the middle of the night to eat more tums…you know…the usual.

I get to the doctor today and things are starting well. I always start my appointment off hooked up to the contraction monitor. I had zero contractions in 30 min! That was positive number 1!

Then I head to the ultrasound portion of the appointment. Because of a heart abnormality we discovered in Emmerson, my doctor decided to do fetal echo cardiograms on all of the boys to see if they have the same defect. Let me pause here and let everyone know that Emmerson is ok. She does have a funky thing going on with a blood vessel in her heart. We took her to Children’s hospital last week to have it checked out and she is going to be just fine. It will not cause any health issues or require surgery. So today they did the echo on Baby A, and his heart looks great! No defects that they can see. They will do an echo on the Baby B and C next week. That was positive number 2!

Here is where things started to turn. They checked Baby B’s growth today and he has dropped off. He was just two weeks ago able to keep up with his brothers, but now not so much. He is down in the 20th percentile for size now. So negative thing number 1. Then they checked my cervix….it went from 2.2 cm last week down to 1.6 cm today. Negative thing number 2. I am also dilated to 1 cm….negative thing number 3. Because of these things my doctor admitted me to the hospital today. Also my chances of preterm labor are higher now as well. I am taking steroid shots to help quickly develop the boys lungs, the shots stings like crazy too by the way. I am also on some medication to stop or slow down the contractions. As well as an antibiotic and the whole slew of pills I was taking before.

I am not trying to throw a pity party for myself. I am trying to keep a positive attitude, I knew this day would eventually come. I actually feel pretty lucky to have made it  30 weeks out of the hospital. I know that there are so many other women who have had multiples and have been in my same situation and they survived. I also know this is what is best for the boys…but it doesn’t make it any easier to be here and away from my sweet baby girl.  My family is amazing and they are going to help take care of Emmy while I am gone and bring her in to see me everyday.

Here is what I need from you….a little bit of reader participation! Can you please all pray!!!! Mainly that I can make it to 34 weeks… March 29 is the goal date. Also there is a chance that I could go home next week if my cervix doesn’t get any shorter or I don’t dilate any further. I realize that this is a long shot…but I’m hopeful that maybe I will be able to go home next week sometime. Also please post this to facebook or forward this post on to others who would be willing to pray for me.

I have 4 more weeks to cook these boys and I would appreacitate the prayers that I can hold them in that long! Thanks friends.

28 weeks-

Yesterday was my weekly check-up at the doctor. The appointment starts off with me sitting in a room hooked up to a contraction monitor so they can see how many contractions I’m having in a 45 min period. I spend the whole time afraid to move, cough, sneeze, or talk because I don’t want make it look like I’m having a contraction. Luckily, yesterday I didn’t have that many!

Next step is to weigh in…every woman’s favorite thing to do. Just in case you are keeping a weight log for me…I have now gained 31 pounds. I am halfway to my goal of 60 pounds. I only have 5 weeks left, wonder what the record is for most weight gained in 5 weeks. Don’t think I will be able to gain 30 more pounds by the end of March, but that’s OK cause the babies are growing.

Then it is off for the ultrasound. Good news is things looked GREAT! Everything stayed the same even though I hadn’t been taking Advil all week. The doctor came in and said  that I AM A ROCK STAR! Babies look good, hearts are good, cervix looks good. She said to keep doing exactly what I have been doing…which is a whole lotta nothing! But if that is what is keeping me out of the hospital…then that is what I will do! She also said that passing week 28 was a huge milestone in a triplet pregnancy, because if something were to happen and they were born now they boys are big enough now that they would survive!

So here’s to another week out of the hospital! 28 down….only 5 more to go!

27 weeks-

Well, today was the day I have been worried about since last week. So many questions needed to get answered today. How short was my cervix? How was Baby C’s heart? Was Baby B growing? Was I going to have to go to the hospital?

Let’s start with the blah news. I am sick. I woke up yesterday morning with a horrible cold, and my head felt so stuffed up I thought it might explode. I can’t take any cold meds so I still feel really awesome. And when I say awesome…I mean the opposite of awesome. I have a slight fever as well…so hopefully that won’t get too out of control. It’s nothing serious, and I know it will pass soon…just feeling crummy. My sweet hubs, who is also not feeling well, made me soup and brought it to me in bed.

Now on to the bad news. Because of how short my cervix was last week my doctor told me to start taking Advil again. Well this had the negative effect on Baby C’s heart I was hoping to avoid. His heart valve is now in the risky zone of closing prematurely, so I am off the Advil. This is a catch 22 because the Advil is what is slowing my cervix down from shortening so much, but it is also what is causing some problems for my little guys heart. SO…I am off Advil again for the week. Let’s pray my cervix can hold steady without the Advil because it is just too dangerous for me to be taking it. Also some bad news…I’ve been having a lot of contractions in the last couple of days. Not super strong painful ones, but consistent ones. So I have to keep track of how many I am having and if I have more than 6 and hour I need to go to the hospital. She also gave me some medication to slow the contractions down.

Now, on to the GOOD NEWS…my favorite part. First, I didn’t have to go to the hospital today! YAY!!! Second, Baby B is growing just as fast as his brothers…YAY, YAY!!! And my cervix….drum roll please…..it stayed the same! YAY, YAY, YAY!!! Oh and also…I gained 7 pounds this month! Ok, actually I gained 7 pounds in one week, but I hadn’t gained anything previous three weeks…so I needed to have a big week this week. Thanks to the donuts, twix, milk shakes, pot roast and tacos I gained 7 whopping pounds! More good news is that all the weight went straight to the babies.

Baby A = 2 pounds 13 ounces.

Baby B = 2 pounds 8 ounces

Baby C = 2 pounds 5 ounces

They are all up over a pound from last month. I now have 7 pounds 10 ounces worth of baby in my belly…that is as big as Emmerson was when she was born. And I still have 6 weeks to go and grow!

All in all it was a good day! Thanks for all the prayers friends! Keep them coming…every week from this point on is going to be a critical week.

Last weekend my amazing sisters and my fabulous friend Kelli threw me a fantastic baby shower! They did such a good job and it made me feel so spoiled and loved. They made Mexican food, my FAVORITE…and they got a bunch of churros!!!!!  Now for anyone who knows me, you know that I LOVE churros…they are the best at Disneyland, but the ones they got for my shower were pretty good too! My friend Kelli handmade my boys some pretty fantastic hats and name banners to use a decorations…so my house was looking baby shower festive.

The other thing is, if you know me…and they do…that I HATE silly shower games! I don’t need to smell the candy in the diaper, or eat baby food and guess what it is. I just want to be able to hang out with my friends and eat good food. And that is just what we did. I had so much fun getting to see so many of my friends that I haven’t seen in a while…especially since I have been on bed rest and don’t get out of the house much. I am so grateful to everyone that was able to make it!

Another cool thing they did for this shower was to ask people to bring a pack of diapers to help out with the insane amount of diapers we are going to need. Here is a pic of all the diapers I got at the shower! Crazy thing is…this will last us 9 days! YIKES!!!

So a big thank you to my sisters, and Kelli for throwing the shower and to all my friends who came! I had been looking forward to it for weeks! It meant a lot to see so many people there, again showing their support for Justin and I and my boys. They are already so loved…and after that shower they are going to be very well dressed! Thanks again friends…I love you all!

Here are some more fun pics from the shower….

I’ve been talking so much about me and the triplets and sharing pics of the boys that I thought I would talk about my amazing daughter for a post.

Emmerson Alice, named after my grandmother, is the most incredible little girl in the world, and sure I might be a little biased, but she really is great! She is 15 months old right now, so that means when her brothers get here she will be the ripe old age of 17 1/2 months. Apparently I don’t waste any time between kids.

She is smart, stubborn,  a great cuddler and a great dancer. No joke,  she is hilarious – whenever she hears music she immediately starts bouncing up and down and puts her hands up in the air. She can also do a wicked booty shake. She loves to sit and read her books to herself. She will sit down in her chair, open a book and start talking like she is reading it out loud. Every so often she will look up at me and laugh, like what she just read was super funny. She is not walking yet, she could if she wanted to, she just prefers to hold someones hand. I think she knows how much I want her to let go of my fingers and take a few steps on her own , and that’s why she won’t do it! Hence the whole stubborn thing. My favorite thing in the world is when she is sleepy and I pick her up and she lays her head down on my shoulder. Then with her sweet little hand, she rubs my back. It just makes my heart melt and makes me wish I could freeze time in that moment.

One thing that kind of put the whole being a parent thing in perspective was this: Emmerson was probably 2 months old, and we had driven to Port Angeles to visit my parents. It was super late at night and my dad was still at work, so we stopped in to say hi before we drove out to their house. I get Emmy out of her car seat and take her in to see her grandpa. She is all of 9 or 10 pounds at this point, just a tiny little thing – still brand new. My dad is holding her, admiring her, then he looks at me and says with tears in his eyes, “You know how much you love her? That’s how much I love you.” In that moment that I began to truly understand how much my parents loved me. My response to him was, “I hope one day Emmerson loves me as much as I love you.”

I really had no idea how much I could love someone else, but I love my sweet Emmerson Alice more than anything in this world. Being her mom has been the best thing I have done in my life so far. I know that she is going to be an awesome big sister and help me keep those boys in line. I am so excited to see who she grows up to be, and what she accomplishes in life, but for now I am going to enjoy my time with my little girl and try to remember every second, because she will be all grown up before I know it.

26 weeks-

…It also could have gone worse. All the things the doctor said would eventually happen are now starting to happen.

Just a heads up for any men reading this post, I will be using words like cervix and urine – read with caution!

I had another appointment today, like I do every week, and there were several things that caused my doc to worry. First, my cervix is continuing to shorten. It is now down to 2.2 from a 2.7, if I get below 2.0 I will most likely be admitted to the hospital to serve the rest of my bed rest there. This, as I have said before, would be HORRIBLE!!! In order to try and slow the shortening down she wants me to start taking ibuprofen again. I was on ibuprofen before and had to stop because it was starting to have negative effects on Baby C’s heart. So it makes me nervous to have to start taking it again. They are going to have to watch his heart very closely again.

Secondly, I am apparently having contractions already. What I thought was just normal routine baby movements are in fact small contractions. Awesome.

Thirdly, my cervix is softening, also not a good thing.

Fourthly, one of the tests they ran a few days ago showed that I have too much protein in my urine – like way too much. This could mean the beginnings of a condition called Preeclampsia, or it could just mean that something is up with my kidneys, either way it is not a good thing. Because of all of this I am now on strict at home bed rest. I can maybe get out of the house twice a week if I use my handy dandy wheel chair. But if things don’t improve by next week I am looking at an eight week sentence of hospital bed rest.

I don’t know who all of you out there are the praying type, but if you are, please, please, pray for me. If you’re not, throw a penny in a well, cross your fingers, think good thoughts, do whatever you do so that I will have a great check up next week, my cervix will stop shortening, babies hearts will all be fine, and that I won’t have to leave my daughter, my husband, and my home for the hospital.

Like I said today could have gone better – I am just praying that next week doesn’t go worse!

The day after the baby shower in Portland was pretty much just spent resting. I am really surprised at how tired I am all the time. But it was a good excuse to sit and watch football all day – that’s what Sunday’s are for anyway right!

The next day however proved to be very scary and stressful for me. I spent the morning relaxing and playing with my daughter, we even took a nice long nap after breakfast. When we woke up we decided, we being my mother in law and me, to get some lunch and return the plethora of high chairs I received at my shower. Now I know what some of you are saying, “You’re on bed rest. Are you supposed to be going out of the house?” And here is my answer, “Yes and Yes.” Yes, I am on bed rest, but as of right now it is only part time. Yes, I can get out of the house, and when I do I’m typically in a wheel chair so I don’t have to walk around much. I even have a handicapped parking pass, so we can add that to the list of things that makes me feel old.

Anyway, Sharon, Emmerson and I met up with my cousin for lunch at Red Robin and I proceeded to stuff my face with fries and a mushroom burger. After lunch and we head to Target to return three of the six high chairs from the shower, and we are talking and having a great time.

Things are looking fine from the outside, but on the inside I’m super stressed and on the verge of a melt down. Here’s why:

The previous day, while laying in bed talking with Justin, I had a huge sneeze. I love to sneeze and when I do, I sneeze full force. After sneezing, I was sitting in a little puddle of liquid. Panic set in, I immediately thought my water had broken and at 24 weeks that is NOT a good thing! I also started  having a pretty sharp pain in my tummy. Upon inspecting – and smelling – it we concluded I had probably just wet myself.  You know your husband loves you when he is willing to smell your pee! If you’re not aware, peeing your pants is actually a pretty common occurrence for pregnant women, just one of the many joys of being pregnant. You can’t cough, sneeze, or laugh without spotting. This may be TMI, but it’s also true! Just being honest! Moving on – I decided not to go into the hospital because the leaking stopped, and the babies were moving, so I thought all was well.

Monday morning comes, and the cramping is still there. I tried not to think much of it, but in the back of my mind it was worrying me just a bit. I went about my day, lunch and target, but all the while I am checking to see if I can feel the babies move. They’re usually so active that I can feel one or all of them moving every couple of minutes. I hadn’t felt them move all day at this point and it was 12:00, 1:00, and now almost 4:00, and I still had felt nothing. That and the cramping was really making me wonder if my water had actually broken and now the babies were in trouble. I hadn’t said anything to anyone at this point because I kept waiting for them to move. If I could just feel one little kick, a squirm, anything. Instead I was feeling nothing.

Finally, I think my mother-in-law, Sharon,  asked if I was alright. She could tell I was worried about something. I finally told her what I was stressing about and we decided to go to the hospital check on my boys. Better safe than sorry. I just needed to know they were okay so I could stop stressing out.  There really is no worse feeling in the world than not knowing if your babies are okay. I was trying my best to hold back tears and not to think the worst on the drive in.

When we get to St. Vincent’s in Portland they wheel me in as I tell them I’m 24 weeks pregnant with triplets and I haven’t felt them move all day. I also mention it is possible my water started leaking yesterday. I get right in to a room so they could start monitoring the babies. They started with Baby A and found his heartbeat right away. One sigh of relief down, two more to go. She moved on to Baby B, but she couldn’t find his heartbeat. Next is Baby C and she is able to find his right away. Another sigh of relief.

But back to Baby B. He is my little guy and the one I always worry about. Please, please, find his heartbeat!! She can’t find it, and still, can’t find it. The nurse is moving the monitor all over by belly, but she can’t find his heartbeat. She either picks up mine or one of his brothers. The doctor comes in and checks the ultrasound machine to locate where Baby B is, so the nurse knows where to put the monitor. We were still looking for Baby B – and finally found it!!! Oh thank the Lord, I could see it! It took about 30 minutes, but they were all finally on the monitor and I could hear all three of them at once. Sigh, sigh, sigh. I could finally relax because now I knew they were okay.

Next they wanted to test to see if my water broke. After that they were able to confirm that nope, my water didn’t break, I just peed my pants. And I tell you what, I have never been so happy to have peed my pants!

So, after a long and stressful day, we loaded up the car and headed back to Seattle. It was a much better drive knowing that my little boys were doing just fine!

24 weeks-

Gifts are always fun to get, especially when they are for my little boys! This weekend Justin’s family threw me a baby shower down in Portland. I even bought a cute new dress for the occasion.

The drive down was a bit sketchy, however. We were driving Justin’s dad’s car back down to Portland for him. He had let us borrow his Ford Expedition until we got a car that could fit the babies and as we all know by now, we have a van. Ugh!

Anyway, it is raining super hard on the way down so we have the wipers on full blast. All of the sudden the wiper on the driver’s side gets loose and flies by the driver’s side mirror and gets stuck! So here we are driving 70 mph down the freeway, in the pouring rain, and the wiper flies to the side of the car…now Justin can’t see a darn thing. Instinctively, he slams on the brakes, puts his hazard lights on and slowly moves to the side of the road. Of course this startles me and gets my heart racing. We pull over and Justin tries to fix the wiper and gets soaked in the process. He gets it back on to the windshield, and we get back on the road. Two minutes later the same thing happens again, and again I just about have a heart attack. We pull over again, but this time we were close to an exit that had a gas station. Justin gets out again to fix it. Luckily he was able to buy a wrench at the service station and tighten whatever screw was loose on the wiper hinge. We should be good to drive down the freeway now without the wipers flying away.

We get back on the road and things are going well. So I figure I am going to try to take a little nap in the car before I get to the shower. I close my eyes and about five minutes later a truck drives past sending a huge gush of water onto the windshield. The sound of it alone freaked me out and made me jump two feet out of my seat, but it also made it impossible for Justin to see again. The wipers did their job and actually stayed on the car and within seconds the water was of course cleared away and we could see. But after having three scares and three separate times that made my heart start racing I am surprised I didn’t have these babies in the car!

Okay, back to the gifts! We arrive at the shower, which of course Justin’s family did an amazing job setting up! The food was delish, the decorations were super cute. My cousin even made owl cake pops! I am decorating the boys nursery in an owl theme so she made the cutest little cake pops in the shape of an owl. Not only were they cute, they were so delicious. I might have eaten one for each boy!  It’s a good thing I like opening gifts because there were plenty to open! The boys got some jammies, socks, books, diapers (I’m going to need a lot of those!), and the gift of the day seemed to a high chair. It was so thoughtful of people to get, but I ended up with six of them, and I do not plan on having more kids after this!

There were so many wonderful friends and family there that came to show their love and support. I couldn’t believe how many people came to bless these little boys. They are already loved by so many people it is incredible. Thank you to everyone who came, I am blessed to have you all in my life!

Along with the insane amount of food that I have to eat, there is the insane amount of pills that I have to take each day. With three babies growing in my belly they are all trying to get enough nutrients and vitamins, so I had to seriously up the amount of vitamins I was taking from 0 to  9 every day!

I literally constantly carried around 9 pill bottles in my purse. It was getting to be pretty ridiculous. It was heavy and people could hear me coming from a mile a way. It did give Emmerson some entertainment though when I would let her play with my purse. She would take a bottle out and shake it like crazy, then throw it on the ground and get another one out and shake it like crazy. Maybe not the safest things for a toddler to play with.

However, I started to feel like a small time drug dealer every time I had to take my medicine, not that there is a big market for folic acid and calcium pills. So as a joke, but also a necessity my parents got me one of those weekly pill sorters. And not just a normal, inconspicuous pill sorter. No, they got me the giant one that old folks use that can’t see and have to have everything written in size  72 font…that one!

So my purse is a bit lighter, Emmerson’s rattles are gone, which is probably a good thing, and I can just add this to the list of things that make me feel old.

pills

Most people wake up in the morning and can’t wait for their fresh cup of coffee to wake them up and get them ready for the day. I personally don’t like coffee at all – not even the smell of it – so I reach for a tall glass of cold milk. I love me some milk.

Today, however, there was no milk for me. I was on a 12 hour fast. No food and no drink other than water. And no, I did not fast because I think I’m getting too fat, I got to go to the hospital today to take my glucose test to see if I have gestational diabetes. This test takes 2 hours, not exactly what I want to be doing at 7:30 in the morning.

I get to the hospital 15 minutes late, which is typical for me seeing as I hit the snooze button way too many times, and they draw my blood. Then she hands me a bottle of lukewarm liquid to drink. It is a 10 oz. bottle of the nastiest, sugariest, most disgusting drink ever! Think of chugging a 10 oz. bottle of warm sprite without the carbonation. Yeah, nasty! Oh yeah, and I only had 5 min to drink the whole thing. So here I am, at 7:30 in the morning, desperately wanting a glass of milk, but instead I get to drink lemon lime syrup as fast as I can without puking it all up! I barely managed to keep  it all down. And I’ll be honest when the lady walked to the back to help another patient I dumped out the last two swigs! OOPS! Let’s hope I don’t have to do it all over again. Then I wait for an hour and they draw my blood again, then I wait for another hour and they draw my blood again. Luckily there was another woman there who was doing the same test as I was, so I had someone to talk to to help pass the time.

I should find out at my appointment next week the results of all the blood taking and arm poking.

My older sister, Jill, works at the hospital where I have all of my appointments, so I met up with her when I was done with my appointment. On our way to her office she had to make a quick stop at a building across the street. Seeing as how I am on bed rest Jill offered to get me a wheelchair so I didn’t have to walk all over kindgom come. We get the wheelchair and get outside to cross the street. We are cruising along, when we get to the little dippy-do in the sidewalk. When Jill tries to cross the street the feet rests jam  into the street and the wheelchair comes to a sudden halt. We of course start laughing. I’m trying to lift the foot rests with my foot, but the wheelchair is still jammed. Now we are laughing even harder at ourselves. And at this point we have an audience. There are about 5 cars lined up on our right, and 3 cars lined up to the left waiting for us to cross the street. Five attempts later we finally get the wheelchair moving again. So now we can finally cross the street, I am laughing hysterically, as are the people in the cars, and I do my best little princess parade wave. Problem. Here comes the other dippy-do. Quick thinking on my sister’s part, she decides to turn me around and wheel up the dippy-do backwards as to avoid another embarrassing display. We are finally safely across the street and the cars are on their way, their days just a little bit brighter because of what they just witnessed.

Finally back inside, she wheeled me around the hospital to show me the newly remodeled lab she works in. She is super smart and was working on dissecting many a body part while I was there. She showed me a lung node she was testing for cancer, a uterus (which is WAY smaller than I thought it would be in real life), a gallbladder, and some pictures of a previous case of twins where the baby’s umbilical cord attached to the membrane separating the babies instead of to the placenta. This is was has happened in my case with Baby B, which is again why he is smaller and why they have to keep a close eye on him. It was all very interesting to see, but also made me glad that I don’t have to look at that stuff all day. I think it would make me sick.

So, two long hours, a super nasty drink, 3 needle pokes, a wheelchair spectacle in the cross walk, and a look at some discected body parts later I finally get to go home and have my glass of milk – and a nap!

23 weeks-

I had another 3 hour ultrasound appointment yesterday to check on the growth of all the boys. I am happy to report that they are all doing great! Even Baby B – he is still smaller than his brothers, but he is growing!

Baby A= 1.5 pounds

Baby B= 1.3 pounds

Baby C= 1.6 pounds

It is so crazy to think that they still have 3 more pounds to go too! I’m going to get HUGE!

With a baby growth spurt comes a mommy’s belly growth spurt as well. I tried to wear a shirt I wore toward the end of my pregnancy with Emmerson and I couldn’t even button it up! So that’s awesome. I am only 5 months along right now and a shirt I wore when I was 8 months pregnant doesn’t fit me. My doctor even said that I haven’t hit the big growth spurt yet either…so I still have that to look forward to. Pretty soon I’m going to be like momma in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and I won’t be able to walk up the stairs and little kids from around the neighborhood come try to peek in the window to stare at me. Okay, that might be over doing it a bit, but I feel like that sometimes. Little things are getting hard to do…like put my socks on and tie my shoes. Too bad it’s snowing here otherwise I could just wear my flip flops!

Well my little boys grew 12 ounces in the last month and I gained about 10 pounds…I wonder how big we will all be in another month? Stay tuned….

22 weeks-

Well, it finally happened. The doctor said I need to stop working and put me on bed rest. She warned me this would happen eventually, and that I wouldn’t be able to work up to my due date like I did with Emmerson. So, I knew it was going to happen, I just wasn’t ready for it to happen NOW!!!

It just means that I am getting closer to actually having these boys! I don’t think I’m ready for that yet – actually I know I’m not ready for that yet! In my head if I was working then I still had plenty of time to get ready, but now I’m just 10-12 short weeks away from being a mother of FOUR! I still can’t comprehend it.  The good news is that I’m not on full time bed rest, just partial, but I’m really hoping to avoid hospital bed rest in the future. I would go crazy stuck in the hospital all day long and not getting to see Emmerson. So everyone, right now, pray that doesn’t happen!

It was sad saying goodbye to my students and the teachers I’ve worked with for 6 years, especially having to do it so suddenly. I went in on Thursday for a check up and Friday was my last day. I work with such amazing people, who have come to be great friends of mine. I’m definitely going to miss seeing them everyday.

I’m sure most people would love to be on bed rest! You get to sleep all day, watch TV, eat, and never get out of your jammies – Heaven! While yes, I do stay in my jammies until noon, I don’t just sit very well. I have always been a doer. I have actually always kept myself so crazy busy with stuff that actually sitting down and doing nothing is a rarity. I can handle about a week of relaxing and then I need to find things to do again. So it’s good thing that I’m doing my National Board Certification for teaching. That is giving me plenty of papers to write and tests to study for. I just hope now I can get it all done before the trips come! Three babies and a 17 page paper to write? I don’t think so.

So let the bed rest, boredom, writing papers, naps, Bravo TV, eating, and trying not to go crazy begin, because ready or not…here they come!

Finding a car that will fit 4 carseats is not an easy feat. So the search is on for the the next Geel mobile. I, of course, am refusing to drive a mini-van. I am only 30 years old for peets sake! I am not ready to feel like a soccer mom, wearing mom jeans, with juice stains on my shirt, and the permanent smell of spit up in my hair. No offense to any of my friends who drive a mini-van…I’m sure your pants are just fine.

I have wanted to drive a 4-Runner since I was in high school, but there is no way 4 kids can fit in that car. So, as I say goodbye to my dream car I started looking at bigger SUV’s. I set my sights on a Yukon Denali XL. I was looking for a car where I wasn’t going to have to fold any seats down or crawl around or between seats to get the kids in the car. So, Justin and I spent a Saturday looking at different car lots at Yukons. And to my dismay, I realize there was no way that I was going to be able to fit 4 car seats in the Yukon either. Maybe when they are older and can get in the car on their own, but definitely not when they are infants.

Luckily I had finally convinced Justin that a regular mini-van, while it might be able to fit the car seats, did not have enough trunk space to carry 4 kids and a dog’s worth of stuff when we go visit the grandparents. Justin decided the solution was to get a Volkswagon Eurovan MV. It has a second row seats that face backwards and a bench that will fit 3 car seats. It seemed the most practical as far as me trying to load 4 kids into the car by myself. I can literally just open the door and click, click, click, click they are all in.

We looked all over Seattle and couldn’t find one worth the money. Justin  scoured craigslist and finally found one, downside is it was in Pennsylvania! But it had only 50,000 miles and was at least $4,000 cheaper than anything we found close to home. So Justin took a red eye flight to New York, took a train to PA, bought the van, and started to drive home. The cool part about the van is that the back bench folds down into a bed, so he was able to sleep in the van. Oh good lord…did I just say the cool part about the van? uuugghhh! Anyway, three days of driving later Justin is home and we are now the proud owners of a Eurovan…or as Justin likes to call it… the swagger wagon.

So, I’m 31, will soon have 4 kids and I drive a mini-van. Let’s just hope I can stay away from the mom jeans and the juice stained shirts for a little while longer.

16 weeks-

I had an appointment today to check on Baby B’s growth. He is still smaller than the others, but growing proportionally, so that is good news. They were also able to take a look and see what gender these little ones are. It is pretty early to tell, usually they check at around 18-20 weeks, but since I go in every week I always ask to see if they can tell yet.

Drum roll please…..

Baby A= Boy!

Baby B= Boy!!

Baby C= Boy!!!

All Boys!!!!

I don’t really even know what to do with boys – I come from a family of all girls! Three sisters. No brothers. I love my relationship with my sisters, so I’m a little bummed that Emmerson won’t get to have a little sister – no, I am not having one more!!! But, I know she is going to have her own special relationships with her brothers, something I never got to experience.

With three boys on the way, I have a feeling I’m going to be one busy momma!

16 weeks-

Most people think it would be great to eat whatever you want when you’re pregnant. After all, I’m eating for four, right? Well, after telling the doctor all I had eaten today was a protein bar and a glass of milk, she promptly set me up with a nutritionist. Okay, I get the hint!

When I met with the nutritionist she let me know that with a triplet pregnancy they like to see the mother gain 50-60 pounds!! I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Sixty pounds, are  you kidding me?!? At this point I have been overwhelmed with morning/all day sickness that at 4 months I’ve only gained 7 pounds. How much food will I have to eat in order to gain 60 pounds? Well, let me tell you. I need to be eating 200 grams of protein and 4,000 calories – every day!!! This is what I normally eat in a week.

The nutritionist proceeded to give me sample menus and lists of foods that are high in protein. All the while my mind was stuck on the amount of food I needed to eat. I was actually  told, “Don’t eat veggies unless they are covered in butter and cheese. If you order a hamburger, make it a double! You need the calories.” Sixty pounds, huh? Welp, whats for dinner steak? Or steak?

15 weeks-

So one good part about being in a high risk pregnancy is that I get to have an ultrasound every week! I look forward to Tuesdays because I know I get to check in on my little ones and see how they’re growing. Today we found out they are each in their own sac, and they each have their own placenta. This means that while it’s still possible they are identical, they are most likely fraternal. Identical triplets happen one in every 800,000 pregnancies. So who knows? We were lucky enough be the 1 in 8,000 to conceive triplets, maybe we will be the 1 that has identical triplets!

The doctor also said she was a bit concerned about Baby B because of where it’s umbilical cord attached. Instead of attaching to the placenta, it attached to the thin membrane separating Baby B from Baby C. This is making it harder for Baby B to get its nutrition, and so far it’s smaller than its siblings. So we’re going to keep a close watch on Baby B to make sure that it keeps growing. We will have a growth scan ultrasound about every 3 weeks to check on Baby B.

Because of Baby B’s cord, my doctor decided it’s best that I not try to deliver the babies naturally. There is too high a risk of the umbilical cord detaching during a contraction. If this happened, Baby B wouldn’t survive. So C-section it is – which I am completely freaked out about by the way. I have never had to have surgery before, except for getting my wisdom teeth pulled. Somehow I have a feeling that this is a little bit bigger of a deal than pulling teeth. But if it is what is safe for the babies then that is what I will do.

People have used many different words when they hear I’m having triplets: exciting, fun, crazy, busy. Well, those weren’t exactly the words I used. Actually, I think I swore, started crying, and repeatedly kept asking, “How did this happen? No seriously, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?” Aside from the obvious answer of the birds and the bees, I really truly wanted an explanation. For all I knew, there were no multiples in our family, and we weren’t even trying to get pregnant. Justin looked up the statistics. Spontaneous triplets, a term used to describe our situation, only happens 1 in every 8,000 people. Just call me fertile Mertile I guess.

Here’s a quick version of how we found out our lives were about to get out of control crazy…

First, we found out I was pregnant.

Then, at my first appointment, I was six weeks along when the doctor told me I was having twins. Six weeks after that I started having some serious bleeding and went to the ER. At 1:00 am they did an emergency ultrasound to check on the “twins”. Here’s how that conversation went:

Ultrasound technician: “You know your having multiples right?”

Us: “Yes, we are having twins. So hopefully you still see two heartbeats.”

Ultrasound technician: “Actually, you are having triplets – and they all have heartbeats.”

This is when I started crying and swearing. I was definitely relieved to hear the babies were okay. I had suffered a miscarriage before and in no way wanted to experience that again, but I was flooded with emotion. Happiness that my babies were fine, but if I’m being honest, I was also angry, overwhelmed, stressed, and just plain freaked out! My mind immediately began thinking about diapers. We’d be going through 35 diapers a day, almost 1,000 diapers each month!

Then I began to ask, why me? I did not ask to have three babies at once. I did not ask to have 4 kids under the age of 17 months. I was not ready for my life to change so drastically. In one night we went from a family of three to a family of SIX! Amidst the anger, the guilt set in. I began feeling guilty for not being excited about having triplets. After all, having a baby is a blessing, and I know far too many people who would love to be in my situation. Still I couldn’t help feeling overwhelmed and scared about how these three babies would change my life. I would have to quit my job, I would need help, and a lot of it. And worst of all, I had to accept the fact that I would be driving a MINI VAN!

Now time has passed, I’ve calmed down and come to grips with the fact that my life will be forever changed – in a good way.  I am truly blessed to be getting all the things I once wished for. I get to have 4 kids, which Justin and I always wanted, and I only have to be pregnant twice! And I am extremely grateful that I was able to get pregnant again, and that the babies are doing well. It really is a blessing. It’s safe to say that I can kiss life as I know it goodbye. It’s going to be flipped, turned upside down, but it will be quite a ride! And if these babies are anything like my sweet Emmerson Alice then my life will be fantastic!

Our first look at all three babies

Well, if you haven’t heard, we are pregnant again! This time we thought we’d take it up a notch – and have three. That’s right my friends, three little buns are in the oven and expected to arrive in March of 2011.

Meet the new additions to our family!

We’re starting this blog so all our friends and family can stay updated on our lives. We’re over halfway there and busy preparing for the three little boys that are on the way!