2013 Ruminitions

It's New Year's Eve and my house is quiet for once. Miraculously, only one of the babies is asleep. The boys are playing and the big kids (sis and hubs) are watching a show.

2013 was an unbelievable year for our family. We love that we doubled our family size in the span of 3 minutes. The triplets have added so much chaos, laughter, and love to our house. They have the world's best big sister who is still my #1 cuddle bug.

It's definitely been a year for transitions. I, personally, have had to make the transition from working outside the home full-time to working my @$$ off at home all day, every day. Until recently, I wasn't making this transition well, but the end of this year has taught me to embrace it and discover some things about myself that I had lost touch with. It's going to be fun to see where 2014 leads me as I try to develop these new skills and interests. Mainly, cooking! I used to love to bake but hated making dinner. Now, I'm having fun with it! We are cutting the carbs this year and my new challenge is to find low carb recipes that I like and want to make. Nobody likes a boring meal plan! I went to college in the 90's, I know what that is like :)

Many of my friends had tough years this year and I can't say that ours was easy. My prayer for you all is a joyous 2014 filled with laughter, love and the desires of your heart. God hears our prayers and answers them. All you have to do is pray!

Many blessings to you all in 2014!
The Ilfrey family

Roller Coasters

A dear, sweet friend of mine delivered triplet girls last week! I am so excited for her as she is now a full-fledged member of this special sorority. Like me, she has an older child who also had some NICU time. We are not unfamiliar with the heart break that comes from delivering a baby only to leave the hospital, days later, empty handed. However, having done this before does not mean that we are immune to that heart break the second time around. It is still just as hard.

This made me think of roller coasters. Life with triplets is like riding a large roller coaster. There is the initial climbing high of finding out you are pregnant with triplets followed by the first plummeting low of the scariness of triplet pregnancies. From here on out, you are on the smaller ups and downs with a few twists and larger hills built in. Here is our roller coaster thus far:

1. HIGH = seeing THREE BABIES on our 7 week ultrasound. In case you missed it, we were quite surprised with our trio.
2. LOW = triplet pregnancy reality. Things were great until I hit the 22 week mark. It went downhill from there finally ending in 2 months of hospitalized bed rest with a constant drip of magnesium to stop contractions.
3. HIGH = April 24, 2013 our trio were delivered, healthy, into this world. After all our hard work, we finally had babies to hold in our arms!
4. LOW = April 24-25, 2013 we had babies we wanted to hold but could barely touch them. Seeing your 3 pound infant with all kinds of tubes and wires is a tough sight for even the strongest mom and dad.

Daniel

Faith

5. HIGH = April 26, 2013 got to hold our babies for the first time!

6. LOW = Leaving the hospital with out them

This list goes on and on with everything from having them all home together (finally!) to last week when both boys had the flu, I had bronchitis, Gracie had a stomach bug and Dad was getting sick too. The only one not sick was Faith :)

The triplet lane is not for the faint of heart. It is not for people who like stability and predictability in their lives. It is not for anyone without a sense of humor. And it is certainly not for those who are squeamish with bodily fluids (spit up, drool, or anything wet that comes out of the body).

The triplet lane is designed for people who love family, know that the only way to do this is to rely on God and whose sense of humor is not only well intact, but can be pretty sick at times :)

Life, itself, is a roller coaster. I think having triplets just moves you from the tried and true coaster to the super-deluxe, hold on for your dear life coaster.

For someone who doesn't like roller coasters, I'm sure enjoying this one!

Road Trippin'

Okay, so I know the title is a corny pun but I couldn't resist!

Yesterday was an exercise in patience, perseverance, and potty breaks. We decided it would be a GREAT idea to travel 500 miles, by car, to see family for Thanksgiving. As with almost everything pertaining to our family, it is much harder in the moment than when I look back. We planned to leave around 6am and get to our destination by 4pm. This is normally a 7-8 hour drive and we planned some extra time for the babies. HAHAHA! Boy, were we wrong! We didn't leave until 9am and then we didn't get to my parent's house until 9pm. What were we doing this whole time? What was the extra 4 hours spent doing? Mostly, feeding babies.

I can't believe what bottomless pits these guys have become. This is wonderful because it means they are now "on the chart" for their actual ages, not their adjusted ages.
THANKFUL THOUGHT #1: my babies aren't just surviving, they are thriving

Back to my title, let me explain the logistics of getting 2 adults, 1 five year old, and 7 month old triplets from point A to point B. Laundry - this is the bane of my existence. I HATE doing laundry and it's the one thing I have to keep up with. I didn't do that for a couple of weeks and paid the price about 3 days before we left. I think I washed, dried, folded and put away about 15-20 loads. Part of my problem is that I'm completely OCD about the clothes and don't want anyone else to do them. Once the laundry was done, I realized that the boys didn't have warm enough clothes for the 20 degree weather we were going to. Off to the store to buy more clothes (I'll blog that later) and launder those! Packing to fit everything into a minivan was the biggest challenge. We had our stuff, G's stuff, and then all the junk that infants require (much less 3) PLUS 2 strollers. That van was packed to the gills!
THANKFUL THOUGHT #2: my wonderful husband who not only indulges my uber-organized  packing, but takes it all out to the car

Finally on the road, we proceeded to realize all the things we forgot. Primarily, Dramamine for G and me. The first stop was only about 2 miles from home! We did make it to the halfway mark in pretty good time. The babies slept, I slept, and G watched movies. Our halfway stop ended up being about 2 hours (felt like 4). The second half of the trip wasn't as quiet or peaceful as the first half. We had Podee bottles for the boys so they could eat in the car. Problem is, they didnt want them. They just wanted out of their car seats. If you have never heard of a Podee, it is a wonder for feeding multiples.

Greatest thing ever!

THANKFUL THOUGHT #3: I have an amazing support network who teaches me about things like Podees and loves me through the really tough times.

Having finally arrived at our destination, I am at my fourth Thankful Thought.
THANKFUL THOUGHT #4: what an incredible family I have! My husband who is the best partner in the world, my sweet sweet daughter, my miracle babies, and my fabulous parents who are always there to help when we need it. 

Have a blessed Thanksgiving tomorrow! Don't forget in all the superficial thankfulness to take a moment to praise The Father who gave His only Son so that we may have everlasting life. And that is what I am most thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pity, Party of One . . .

Warning: this blog contains whining

If you are still reading, you realize that whining isn't really my thing, but today is an emotional dump day. School starts next week and I will be sending Grace off to kindergarten. This shouldn't be that big of a deal, she has been in full-time pre-school for the past three years but there is something very emotional about kindergarten. My little girl isn't going to be a little girl much longer! I'm coupling this with having the triplets qualify for an early intervention program today. All three have developmental delays related to their adjusted age. If you don't know what an adjusted age is, you take how old the baby is (17 weeks) and subtract how many weeks early they were (9 weeks). This makes my kiddos adjusted age at 8 weeks or 2 months. They should at least be doing things a 2 month old would do and some things a 4 month old would do. They pretty much are, but there are some things they should be doing that they are not. Hence the need for early intervention. We will have an occupational therapist and a developmental specialist to the house every other week to work with them and let me know what to do in between visits.

So that's the facts, the thoughts running through my head are, "you have the education to be a developmental specialist, why didn't you see this coming and already start working on it?" "Geez, your kid can't do that? You must really suck as a mother." And my personal favorite, "These people are going to realize I don't have it together and judge me based on my children." What they won't see is the 12 hours a day I spend making sure they are well fed and have clean diapers and clothes. They certainly won't see the 2-3 loads of laundry I have every day or the fact that I clean 20 bottles at a time and go through almost 4 quarts of formula. All while making sure they receive reflux meds and precautions and taking care of/entertaining a five year old. Let's not also forget there is the rest of the house to run. This involves grocery shopping, other errands, doctor's appointments, making business phone calls and generally trying to keep things from falling into chaos. Can you hear the whine at this point?

Some women start in their 20's (or even teens) knowing that they want to be a SAHM. This is a role they identify with early on and embrace. I envy those women. I was never one of those women. My plan was to work full-time, further my education and raise my one child. When we decided to have a second child, I accepted that furthering my education would not happen, but I was working in a job that I loved and didn't need to do more. When the triple surprise came, I realized quite quickly that my life was no longer going to be the way I envisioned it. It's like taking a flight to Paris and landing in Australia. You didn't plan on Australia, it just happened. There are wonderful things there, but you were looking forward to croissants and the Eiffel Tower. Instead of shopping and the Louvre, you find yourself with koalas and kangaroos. Today has been a day of asking myself, "How the heck did I get here?" It's definitely an identity crisis. Everything of who I was physically, mentally, professionally has been changed in a very short amount of time. I brought barrettes and purses on my flight only to find I need board shorts and flip flops.

As I wind down this party, I'm reminded of a fortune cookie I got in 2001. It read, "Your wildest dreams will come true." I kept it taped to my home computer. That fortune cookie was a beacon of hope during some dark times. After Grace was born, I removed it thinking how my fortune had come true. Never did I imagine that my life would go beyond my wildest dreams. That's what God does. He takes our dream of going to Paris and reroutes us to Australia. A place we would never have gone on our own. A place with a beauty unlike any other on the planet. God's ultimate destination for us is not usually where we see our destination. But once we are there, it is so easy to look around and say, "Wow! Thank you, God for not giving me what I wanted. I would have missed out on all this!"

So I go to bed tonight thinking I still don't know who this new person is that used to be me. But I'm at least a little more thankful she has the opportunity to be here. As my precious children sleep, I praise God that he chose me to be their mommy.

Good night.

NICU = No Income Covers Us

Ah, the (not so) fun times in the NICU. Don't get me wrong, the nurses and doctors were wonderful. But having three children in the NICU is not fun for anyone. Once the trips were born, they went straight to the NICU for evaluation, getting hooked up to all their tubes and placed in their isolets. We started in the main part with the maximum amount of care required. Throughout our stay, we had one nurse assigned just to us. Care pretty much consisted of constant monitoring, hooking up the feeding tubes, checking for signs of intestinal bleeding and a myriad of other medical issues. These nurses are highly skilled and genuinely care for "their" babies.

After about 3 weeks in the main section, we were "graduated" to the step-down nursery. This is still in the NICU department, but is an open room for feeders and growers. The babies were medically stable and were only working on their eating skills and needed time to grow some more. It was this room that became "Camp NICU." The open room with babies all around the outside made it feel like the kids were at camp and not so hospital-y. Camp NICU time was bitter sweet. We made some friends who were other multiple parents and I met a fellow SFA Lumberjack who was the roommate of one of my former students. Small world!

One thing I learned about the NICU is that it's a great equalizer. No one cares what kind of car you drive, how big your house is, or what you/your spouse do for a living. It is all about the babies. When one of our Camp NICU "friends" had a set back with intestinal issues, my heart broke for that mother seeing her baby have to be re-hooked and go back to feeding tubes. We also rejoiced when our kiddos got to go home. Since then, I have stayed in contact with several of our NICU nurses and parents.

All in all, we had 7 weeks from the time the babies were born to Faith finally coming home. I wish there was more I could tell you about this, but it's highly detailed and would be quite boring for anyone but me (and probably my mom).

Well, the never-ending load of laundry calls. Next time, I'll start telling you all about life at home with these guys.

So Much Has Happened Since Last We Spoke

Looking back on the whopping TWO entries I've posted since we found out about the trips, I realize that I have A LOT to make up for. This may be a little long or maybe done in multiple postings. I'll catch you up on what has happened since November.

I had a great triplet pregnancy until about 22 weeks. God put two amazing doctors in my path, Dr. Marco Giannotti (OB) and Dr. Thomas Rowe (Perinatologist). LOVE these two men! I could not have made it through this pregnancy without their expertise, kindness, and genuine concern for the wellbeing of my children and me. I was also working full-time until 20 weeks. This was good as it helped the time pass faster. I was blessed to be in a great work environment with people who love me. Grace Community Church in The Woodlands is a wonderful church family if you are ever looking for a church home! I'm fortunate to still be connected even now.

So, at 22 weeks, my body got a little confused and thought it was time to deliver these babies. That started a fun time of hospital bed rest for the duration of my pregnancy. I got through the rest of the pregnancy with magnesium sulfate and lots of prayer! There were definitely times that the prayer was doing more than the meds. The nursing staff at the hospital became like family. I cannot thank them enough for all they did and their friendship during my stay.

Daniel, Faith, and Matthew were delivered on April 24 at 10:25, 10:26, and 10:27, respectively. We made it to 31 weeks, 4 days. That was one busy delivery room! All and all, it was a perfect c-section delivery. Daniel inhaled some fluid on his way out and ended up intubated for a couple of hours but no harm was done. All the babies went directly to the NICU where they got all hooked up to their oxygen and IV lines. They started off with all their nutrients coming from the IV and worked into tube feeding a couple of days later.

Dr. G delivered 3!

Faith at birth

Daniel at birth

Matthew at birth

Beautiful, tiny hands

Daniel and Faith in their isolets

Matthew in his isolet

Total time spent in the hospital for me was 67 days. Once the babies were delivered, it was strange to A) not be pregnant, and B) instantly double the size of my family.

It's time to get some sleep, so I'll continue (hopefully) tomorrow with life in the NICU.

Good night!