August 17, 2011~Flashback Friday

Here is Marcos last year. 

August 17, 2011

The trio is 15 months actual age today.

 He was the first one to be tubeless, no nasal canula, no feeding tube.  I remember I couldn't wait until everything came off.  All of this meant we were getting so close to bringing them home.  And so I took a few pics of what my view was for months. 

Marcos's monitor satting at 96 with no assistance.  A glorious day.

After 24 hours the tape comes off.  And the 5 day countdown was on!

Daddy holding Marcos.

Not sure why I don't have any pics of Carlos on this day.  I will need to look back at my notes to see if he was already co-bedding with brother and sister.  I'm pretty sure he was.

Sofia was also getting close.  It became a race.  Here is a note I found one morning on Sofia's crib.  Nurse Nuna trying it out and challenging my girl. She did it! Her countdown began as well.

The bullet~Flashback Friday

Remember this?

This is how it all began...

Breast milk in a bullet

It's been almost 14 months of pumping.  When they were born, it was every 2 hours during the day, every 3 at night.  During the first 2 weeks, not once did I miss a pumping session.  I was one dedicated mama.  After that, I started sleeping through the alarm but during the day, I was a pumping queen.
  
One of the nice things about the NICU is having a super supportive staff.  Nurses that reminded me it was time, nurses that brought me food and snacks, no way could I have done this without them.  It's getting tougher and tougher with three mobile kiddos.  Yes, they are all over the place.  So this week I made the decision to only pump twice a day.  Lots of mixed emotions, I know its coming to an end soon...Around their birthday in May, I went down to three times a day.  I can no longer keep up with that, big sis and mostly the house and the laundry.  It will be a bitter sweet moment when that pump is put away.  Part of me will be doing cartwheels for sure.  My goal is their due date...August 28, 2012.


The trio is still on breast milk and formula.  I tried to make their foods with whole milk and it resulted in lots of spit up.  We are trying again in August.  Only about six more weeks until the anticipated due date.  I'll have to start thinking of how we will celebrate the big due date (adjusted birthday) and those homecoming dates! 
A little late...but hope you Friday the 13th was great.

A very belated Birthday Post

Finally...The babies turned one on May 17, 2012.  It's already been a month! I will admit that I went back and forth on my decision to have a party for them.  It was a tough thing to decide.  I was really scared of all the emotions that come along with the first birthday.  Reality is the day they were born (at 25 weeks) was not exactly a joyous day.  It was terrifying to say the least.  Luckily I had started skimming the big preemie book.  I knew our odds but here we are, a year later.  I am so happy that we did.  I've come to accept everything we have been through with them and their birthday party turned out to be quite a celebration!  We had a few friends, a few kiddos and their teams of nurses were for sure represented.  

The party was planned for 11:30am and it worked out perfectly.  The babies napped from 9 to almost 11 that morning.  Here is Marcos.  Breathing treatments just part of the daily routine.

Sofia ready for the party and playing with Nurse Monica.

Carlos hanging out with Nurse Jacqui.

One worry about every party is being able to keep kids (and adults) entertained.  I knew I had no energy to do any games so after some brainstorming and a few calls I found someone who teaches drumming classes for kids.  And what do you know... she does birthday parties as well.   She was a hit and the our whole family enjoyed it.  The babies had a blast! 

A few of my favorites...

Soon after our drumming session, the boys had their lunch....

Sofia did not miss it. A month ago, she was just fine with her bottles. 

Almost nap time...I swear sometimes these babies are my clock.

We hurried and sang Happy Birthday!

The boys went for the cake.  Sofia does not like to get dirty! Oh the little princess!

Right before nap time...

I had to bring out their very special name tags from the hospital.  

They went perfectly with our ZOO theme!

Thank you Nurse Isabel, we will keep them forever!

After everyone left, my friend whom I met in the NICU, stayed and visited.  It was so nice.  Look at these precious babies.  Josie is a 26 weeker and doing exceptionally well!

As for their progress, the babies are now 13 months.  We finally have 3 sitters. Carlitos was the last one to do it and we are so happy he reached this milestone. I am feeling like the babies are much happier sitting up. They had a big developmental assessment at the end of May and case workers, home visitors, and our physical therapist are all very pleased with where they are at. Sofia is very close to crawling!! And she gets into everything!  Marcos has one HUGE tooth on top.  And the bottom ones are coming in.  Everyone is teething.  This often messes with our nap schedule.  As far as foods, all three are eating well 3 x a day,s till taking 3-4 bottles, most nights they sleep 6:45pm to about 6am, and they are all working on their pincer grasp.  They love puff, yogurt melts and mum mums.  Today they tried shredded cheese and like it. All very exciting.

Their doctor is also happy with their weight gain.  For their one year check up on May 24, their weights were:
Carlos 15.11
Marcos 17.6
Sofia  15.8

Now that this is done! I hope to get back to blogging a bit more.  Wish me luck!
Hosted by Krystyn at Really, Are You Serious?

One post way overdue

In April before illness number who knows what began, the hubby and I got a much needed break!  We had amazing babysitters, three of our NICU nurses came to visit and watched the babies, while Isabella went to the city with my sister who was visiting from Arizona.  It felt like a real date! A nice, quiet and relaxing lunch, some good wine later followed by a good cup of joe.  Thank you nurse Jacqui, Jen and Monica!!

We loved our team of nurses. One of the many blessings since the babies were born. We often felt like the trio had their own dream team who took care of them.  We started with three different teams of primary nurses and as the trio got bigger, healthier, started co-bedding and closer to discharge our teams merged.
This always kept me guessing who would take care of the three.  I even heard rumors that the nurses would try to sign up for them, and they would take turns.  It was the greatest feeling knowing that our babies were well cared for and loved.  And now we are so lucky to have quite a few of them visit once in awhile.  I love it!
As happy as I was to have all three babies home, it was weird not seeing our nurses and visiting the hospital every day.  I think well into month 2 of our NICU stay, we had a pretty good routine, I knew what my day would look like everyday starting with the long commute. Visiting our babies in the hospital became our norm.  It makes me so happy to still see our nurses.  We love the entire ICN staff at Kaiser San Francisco and our babies would not be here without them. I can't believe this micro preemie triplet journey began exactly one year ago (tomorrow).

Some pics of their day:

Previous visit with Nurse Jacqui and Nurse Monica back in November:

 I think Sofia was sleeping...

And our most recent visit..thank you ladies! My massage was wonderful.

A memo to Carlitos

We had some wonderful visitors this past Tuesday! Two of our NICU nurses offered to babysit the triplets in the morning allowing mommy and Tita to do some Christmas shopping.  I was so happy to see Jen and Jacqui and so grateful for their help.  I've said it before and I will say it again....we have been blessed in so many ways and the staff at Kaiser, San Francisco hospital is one of those blessings.
Some of their nurses saw me at my worse, my lowest ever in life but the support our family received from them helped us get through many, many long days.  Their love and care for our babies helped them thrive and it is now so wonderful to share our little miracles with them in our home.

One of Carlitos primary nurse surprised me with the following memo.  So funny! This was after she saw my facebook update that morning that said:
 Another night we have 2 babies waking up only once instead of 2 x! Carlitos has not seen the memo!

Thank you Nurse Jacqui, I'll be sure to read this to him every night!!

MEMO

To:	Carlitos Sanchez
From:	Angelica Sanchez, President & CEO (Mommy)
CC:	Sofia, Marcos, Carlos, Bella
Date:	December 12, 2011
Re:	Triplets Night Time Sleep Schedule

I would like to remind you all that it has been over six months now since Sofia, Marcos, and Carlitos were born.  Wow that is amazing and everyone has done such a great job working together to get to this point.  I would like to tell you that it has been decided by upper management that it is time for the babies to sleep almost all night through.  One feeding is acceptable but as you all know times are tough and sleep has been a commodity that is hard to find.

 I commend you all again for all of the hard work you have done to get to this point. Bella, you have been such a wonderful big girl and big sister and have helped so much!  Carlos, Marcos, and Sofia, you have all been so strong and have really gone through so much with such success!  Carlos you have been a great Dad, providing for us all.   But, we must keep on schedule so please note the change as mentioned above.  I appreciate you all and thank you in advance for adapting to this change.

PS:  Please see attached memo from earlier this month re:  Santa’s Naughty & Nice List for further motivation!

Our first entry…

The first time I held one of my babies, I was scared out of my mind. Sofia was first. She was five day old. I was afraid to hurt her little body, but I did just fine. Sofia is the smallest but the strongest. At birth, she only weighed 1 lb 2.3 oz. She was the last one to be born but she was the first one I was allowed to hold. At 9 days old, the doctors decided to take her breathing tube out. It was painful to watch. I heard her whimper for the first time. I cried. I wanted to help her but I couldn’t. I felt so helpless. I was afraid she would stop breathing. It’s been over 24 hours and the tube is still out. Today, Sofia is the first one to get some of mama’s milk through a feeding tube. I also took Sofia’s temperature for the first time and changed her diaper.

Marcos was second to be held. Weighing more than his sister, 1 lb 4.8 oz. He did not handle it as well as his sister and the team of nurses had to take him off my chest and put him back in his isolette. I was sad. A few days later we tried again, and it was a bit more successful. He was the next one to be extubated. Deep down, I knew he wasn't ready but his doctors wanted to try. He struggled. I could see his little chest and stomach move up and down. It hurt to watch. During these moments, I cannot stop my thoughts. I failed my little guys. I have asked myself a million times, why? This is not the way it was supposed to be. I was so confident that this would not happen, not this early, but we must accept God's plan.

Today I held Carlos for the first time, 9 days after he was born. Carlos weighed less than his brother, 1 lb 4.1 oz. First to be born, and last to be held. It's getting a little bit easier to have a team of nurses around me disconnecting and reconnecting all the lines and tubes that are on their little bodies. Today I tried so hard to ignore the beeping noises from all the machines surrounding his brother and sister. Today, Carlos and I took our first nap together. I felt stronger.

All three babies have a large PDA. An open heart valve that usually closes during a baby's first few hours of life. All three got 2 rounds of indomethacin, a medication to help close it but it did not work. The boys' PDA is larger than Sofia's and there is a possibility of heart surgery, especially for Carlos. Today I did not cry when I found out Carlos's blood pressure continued to drop and the medication was increased. Today was a good day.