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!