Zero to Three in 40 Weeks: Melissa

This post is a little late but, that's how it goes in this family. Last weekend, Meg and I decided to get away for a Saturday night. Meg had purchased a hot air balloon ride on LivingSocial for my birthday present. I'm not going to lie, I went back and forth several times about actually going up as I couldn't shake this concern about something happening to Meg and me. I've never looked up statistics on fatal accidents due to hot air balloons (and probably never will), but I was worried about something happening to us and leaving the girls without either parent. I can, literally, see the eyes rolling in everyone's head right now.

Well, I got over it and we decided to go. After all, it was our first night away from the girls, together, since they were all in the NICU. Meg booked a room on the water in Lake Geneva, WI. She had planned it out so that Melissa and Felicia would come over on Saturday morning and watch the girls through Sunday afternoon. We wanted to make sure everything around the house was as ready to go as possible so that they could "relax" and just watch the girls...and we thought it was.

Melissa and Felicia arrived and we gave our mandatory status update to anyone that comes over to watch the girls. I was sitting on the floor and had noticed a fly circling around the girls, but didn't think too much of it, except to notice that it was in the house. We soon discovered that its intentions were more purposeful.

We were also feeling a little bit guilty because Maddy and Sophie had picked up colds over the previous week. Fortunately, it skipped right over Izzy, but we ended up needing to give Sophie neb treatments and Maddy spent the better part of the week blowing spit and snot bubbles from what was dripping down in to her mouth. We gave Melissa an opportunity to back out, but she gave us the typical, "I'm a NICU nurse line," and told us to get going.

We began making the good-bye rounds, kissing and squeezing all of the girls. Meg then moved on to Maddy, who had a magnificent surprise waiting for whichever parent got to her first. Words can't begin to describe what she had in store, so I won't even try, except to say that, at that moment, the fly being in the room made perfect sense.

After we cleaned her up, we hopped in the car. No more than 30 seconds passed by when Meg received a phone call from the balloon company, letting us know that they were canceling the ride due to a storm front in the area. That wasn't going to stop us. We had sitters for the girls, a non-refundable room on the lake, and 24 hours of freedom staring us in the face.

We spent the afternoon golfing then went out for dinner at the Baker House. This place was phenomenal. It was built in 1885 as a family home. It's a 17,000 square foot Queen Anne mansion that is now both a restaurant and a hotel. It's right on the water with a great view. There's too much history for me to describe, but they have all of these hats that everyone gets to choose from when walking through the door (they promised they cleaned them multiple times per day). At sunset, a gentlemen with a top hat stands at the top of the stairs to the yard, a bell is rung, they provide everyone with champagne, and then we all toasted to the beautiful sunset. We missed the girls tremendously, but had an amazing time. When will we get away again, just the two of us? Probably next year but, it's great to have something to look forward to!

Thanks Melissa and Felicia!

Well, we're about a week and a half in to REALLY having triplets. Izzy came home on 12/19 and our lives will truly never be the same. It's been an incredible 10 days (yes, I'm counting days at this point). Everything that I thought about how life would be with three, got blown out of the water the day after Izzy came home. We've basically gone from playing man-to-man to needing to play a zone defense. I've tried to explain it to people, but it's an experience that can never truly be explained to its fullness or understood in its entirety by folks who don't have triplets.

Our departure from the NICU last week was pretty uneventful. After a four month stay, I thought I might be a little more emotional. To be honest, we were ready to leave and not come back. We'll surely miss all of our nurses and doctors and will be forever thankful for the care and love they gave our daughters, but I won't miss having one of my babies at the hospital with the other two at home. We've been trying to ween ourselves off of the care that the NICU provided and have only called back a handful of times for help with some of the inevitable questions we've had. It doesn't matter who answers the phone, they're always willing to help and ask for updates on how all of the girls are doing. Even our favorite nurse, now friend, Melissa, came by last week and spent several hours just holding the girls. I can see how they might get attached :) We love it!

Izzy, buckled in and ready to get home and see her sisters!

Meg and our smallest girl

Happy to be leaving the hospital

Meg, glued to her baby. Wait, if I'm taking this photo, who's driving?

Saying that we are utterly exhausted would still be a huge understatement. Everyone says that "it gets easier." I sure as hell hope so. We're running at an unsustainable pace, and that's with help! Don't worry about us though. We'll get through it. We're already adjusting to even less sleep and we're really trying to be diligent when it comes to keeping the girls on a schedule. They're adjusting, too, which makes this transition much more manageable.

We're learning on the fly and adjusting our behavior based on how our girls respond. They're pretty good at letting us know when they've had too much to eat, when they're getting bored, and when they just need to be held for a while. I'm not sure how aware of each other they are yet, but I definitely think they use crying as a way to communicate with each other. If they're even semi-awake and one starts crying, the other two easily chime in, even to the point where it sounds like they're singing the same tune. Even though it's extremely loud, it's hard for Meg and me not to look at each other and smile :)

Bottle washing and formula mixing absolutely take up too much of our time. I don't see us getting away from it anytime soon though, so we're just trying to get faster. What's really time consuming is calculating everything that you need for the next day. All of the girls are on different formula. The breast milk-to-formula ratio is different for each girl. Plus, they're all on a slightly different calorie make up. Add to that the fact that their volume requirements seem like they're constantly in flux. If you're not good at mental math, forget it, your toast! So, it's probably a good thing that I'm doing the bottles (sorry babe).

Let's see. What else has been really exciting this week? Oh yeah, Izzy pulled out her NG tube three times on Christmas night, Maddy has been extremely constipated, and we're trying to switch Sophie from sleeping on her stomach to her back (not fun).

Believe it or not, I've been working on this post for five days. I just can't seem to get enough time to put a complete thought together and write in a way that flows. I'm sure I've complained about this before. So, if I don't hit "Publish" now, you may never see this post! There's definitely more to come!

Sisters, Sophia and Isabelle, spending some quality time together for the first time!