MoreThanWeExpected.com

So here's all the exciting news you've been waiting for!  New news and of course, new pictures!

All three of the trips are doing awesome.  They are growing wonderfully; Tess is up to 7 lbs, 10 oz and 19"; Nora 8 lbs and 19.5"; and Holden is now 8 lbs, 2 oz and 20".  In fact, our pediatrician is so happy with how big and healthy they are she is going to treat them like "big kids" (full term babies) as far as their vaccination and check-up schedules go.  They won't have shots until the next visit which is still two weeks away, thank goodness!  Because they were born late-pre-term and because they're doing so well, the pediatrician also said that by the time they're 4 months old (real age) they will have caught up to full-term babies their age developmentally.  Obviously awesome news!!

Gwen has grown quite accustomed to having them around, though they sometimes wake her up at night.  (It's hard when Tony and I are each feeding one and the other one is screaming in the crib.  Since we can't really tend to all of them at once they will have to learn early to take turns but until that happens they just scream, and wake up Gwen.  We feel bad for her and even our sitter has noted that she has days where she seems especially tired and that it must have been a rough night, LOL.)  Gwen loves to help out with the babies, either telling them it's okay when they're crying or holding a bottle in their mouths.  When they're on the bed with us she'll lie right down next to them and get face to face with them and tell them stories or ask us questions.  She has to say night-night to them every night and if she can't get in to physically kiss each of them she at least blows them a kiss.  She has even taken to burping her baby doll.  She's an adorable, wonderful kid and is going to be a great big sister!

Tony and I are fairing as well as can be expected for parents of newborn triplets.  We are only getting between 4 and 5 hours of sleep a night, which is interrupted at midnight when the kids start fussing for their 1 am feeding.  We keep saying if we could just get 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep we would be able to make it out of the zombie-like state we've been in since March 10th.  We've been planning our attack for training them to sleep through the night for a while now but nothing seems to be helping.  We might have to leave that one up to Mother Nature as they will drop the feeding when they're ready (damn it).  The whole feeding chore takes us an hour (or an hour and a half if I'm by myself) and we go through more spit cloths than diapers most of the time.  They have gotten better at not fussing in between feedings and sometimes (never during the night though) they actually need to be woken up for a feeding now.  Little by little, slowly but surely, things will get better.  Since we're starting at the bottom there's no where to go but up.

On to the pictures!!  They've lost that gross newborn look as they get older and fill out and are starting to develop little personalities of their own.  Here's a sampler:

3/10 - Nora & Holden, homeward bound!

3/17 - Tess (L) & Nora (R), showing off their identical-ness.

3/22 - In the crib, snoozing and/or fussing.

           Tess, Nora & Holden                 Tess (background) & Nora (forefront)

3/24 - Tess (L) & Holden (R), hanging out at lunch time.

3/27 - Holden after lunch, he almost always demands a pacifier.  Very high maintenance...

3/29 & 4/2 - Tess snoozing, a rare occurrence where she actually looks sweet.

4/4 - Grandma J with the girls.  Forever online for all the world to see, payback for toting around and showing off pictures of my preggo belly for the last 10 months.

4/8 - Nora, snoozing in the Boppy and spending some quality alone time with Mommy.

4/9 - Nora (L) & Tess (R) show off their identical-ness again, and how their personalities are shaping up.  Little brother Holden hangs out with Mommy for a few hours of special one-on-one time.

Big sister Gwen, showing off her  big sister skills...

With Holden

With Nora

With Tess

Over the last few weeks we've been very busy, even more so than usual.  We've had doctor appointments and milestones aplenty.  Here's a synopsis of what we've been up to and a few (lol) new pictures...

When babies are born they have a blood test to determine if they have any genetic diseases or disorders.  The state of NH tests for 32 disorders that, if caught early, a course of treatment can generally be established to help the baby thrive with their condition.  Towards the end of their stay I was spending the day visiting the kids in the NICU and the resident pediatrician informed me that from their newborn screenings, they had found that the girls tested positive for Cystic Fibrosis (Holden tested negative, and upon further research after the fact, Gwen had tested negative as well).  My heart sank knowing that CF is ultimately fatal but she assured me that 99% of the time when they test positive during the newborn screening they end up being only a carrier of the gene mutation and don't necessarily have Cystic Fibrosis.  Still, I spent the rest of the evening crying.  Tony and I did extensive online research to find any information we could on the newborn screening process, the incidence of false positives and more than the basic knowledge we had of CF itself.  We found a good deal of information online but my saving grace was my brother, a molecular biologist/protein chemist/science nerd.  I wasn't previously aware but he had worked for a pharmaceutical company that was pioneering new treatments for Cystic Fibrosis and he was a wealth of information and new hope as he had worked directly with the gene mutations and development of new treatments as well as the CF Foundation.

The girls would need to have a Sweat Test to determine if they were just carriers or actually had CF but we would need to wait until they were old enough to produce enough sweat for a good result, which wouldn't be until they were at least two weeks past full term.  We knew there was only a .03% chance that the girls would actually have CF, and a 99.7% chance that they were just carriers of the gene mutation but just having to wait for a result was killing us.  Since both parents have to be carriers of a CF gene mutation for their offspring to have the disease, but since neither of us knew of any family history of CF, we decided to get tested ourselves to see if we could at least put our minds at ease.  Tony's and my doctor set us up with the basic genetic carrier testing for the 23 most common mutations.  Tony tested negative, I tested positive.  This was fantastic news as the girls' chances of inheriting CF were diminished even further.

Last week we brought all three of the triplets (at the genetic counselor's advice) for their sweat tests.  Nora and Holden were both given clean bills of health.  Tess did not make enough sweat to provide a result but since she and Nora are identical, in theory she will be negative as well but will need to be retested next month to make sure.

On Tuesday we brought the triplets in for eye exams because preemies who have been administered oxygen can develop retinopathy of prematurity, an eye disease that can cause blindness.  Luckily, all three were cleared for any early signs of an issue and we were told that because they were born over 3 pounds and because their oxygen treatment was limited, we do not need any follow ups.  Yea!

We just brought the kids home from the doctor for their two month well visit.  They did awesome, despite getting their first round of vaccinations since leaving the hospital, and they even did fairly well with that.  As you might assume, the girls were quite whiney about the whole ordeal and afterwards, but Holden was a little Randy Savage Macho Man and only cried when he actually got the needle.  Tess is now 9 lbs, 5 oz and 20.75" long; Nora is 9 lbs, 12 oz and 21.75" long; and Holden (aka "Moose") is a whopping 9 lbs, 14 oz and 22" long.  In order to stay sane and get some sleep I've stopped nursing/pumping but the kids are obviously still thriving. 

Last week Holden smiled and rolled over (belly to back, and has done so three more times).  Nora has started cooing and reaching for toys and just this morning when I picked her up for breakfast she gave me a big, squinty-eyed, toothless grin.  Tess has made smaller strides because she's too busy being fussy; besides cooing a couple of times she's noticed her hands, and found one of them while she was trying to focus on and reach for a hanging toy; instead her own hand grabbed her attention on the way to the toy and she popped it in her mouth for an exploratory taste.  All three of them are lifting their heads up while having tummy time and holding it steady for a little bit unassisted when we hold them as well as turning to find us when they hear our voices.  We've changed their feeding schedule, feeding them more per feeding but stretching the feedings apart, and have been keeping them up during the day in bouncy seats and swings and play mats, in an effort to try and get them to sleep through the night.  No dice.  They have started sleeping a little better, about 3 hours at a time, but still sleep better during the day than at night (of course!).  Things will get better, hopefully sooner than later.

Here are some pictures, the proof that we take good care of them, most of the time anyway...  :-)

4/14 - Co-sleeping all lined up, (L-R) Nora, Tess, and Holden

4/16 - In the car seats, (L-R) Tess, Nora, and Holden

4/21 - Holden having some tummy time and working out those neck muscles; Tess being angelic (so unlike her)

4/23 - A smattering...

           Nora having tummy time         (L-R) Holden, Tess, and Nora just hanging out

    Saint Tess (how very ironic)                    Tired Tess

Little man Holden, just being cute

(L-R and bottom to top) Nora, Tess and Holden in bed, crashing into one another (as you can tell they have quickly outgrown the novelty and space saving "all in one crib" tactic)

4/25 - Nora in the rocker seat and Tess modeling big sister Gwen's hat

4/29 - Nora (L) and Tess (R), having a friendly conversation

I don't have dates for these (taken by my mom, somewhere around 4/12) but they're cute so I figured why not throw 'em up here...

      Holden & Nora

(L-R) Tess, Holden, and Nora

Not to be outdone, here are a few pictures of Little Miss, coming into her Terrible Twos but still making us laugh and keeping us in awe every day.  She uses a multitude of words, her vocabulary is expanding every day, and she's started putting together simple sentences and commands us all over the house to see what she's done, what she needs help with or to show her what we're doing.  She almost knows her ABC's, can count to 15 (occasionally), and knows all the characters in Dragon Tales, Super Why! and Curious George by name.  She loves to read and will sit down with a grown up book and make up her own story to it based on the cover illustration.  She's so smart and funny and is growing up so fast.  She cracks us up...