Tuesday

Madi is now up to two bottles a day. She is doing really well. They took her off oxygen today since she was weaned down to 21% (room air) but after a couple of hours she needed the oxygen back. She is now on 25% and will stay on that for a little while. We are working our way towards the 8 bottles!
Brody is doing well. We are waiting results from his echo and also to see how new medications are doing.
Gracie is moving right along. No new changes with her. We are waiting her echo results too.

Krista

Madi's first bottle!

Madi had her first bottle today!! She is such a champ, she did Great! Usually with her feeding tube it takes 45 minutes for her to eat. With the bottle, she finished the same amount in 15 minutes! She did so great. She would stop to breath and we had no problems. She did so well that after her first burp, the Occupational Therapist asked if I wanted to finish feeding her. She even burped well. We are so excited for this. Usually babies that are 34 weeks don't do so well with a bottle because they are so young and they don't understand the suck/ swallow/ breath. Not our Madi, she is a PRO!! The doctor asked if we should give her two bottles a day but we are going to give her one more day before we increase it. Once she has 6 bottles a day we can consider bringing her home. They would like her on the full 8 per day but it depends on the situation. I am so PROUD of her. Go Madi!!


Gracie is doing great as well. Her weekly blood tests look good. They will be doing a echocardiogram on her tomorrow. This will check her heart to make sure it is healthy since she has chronic lung disease. She was not happy about her C Pap today. She basically has to be pinned down to keep her from pulling the prongs out of her nose. I don't blame her but I wish she would just chill out for a week or so.

Brody is going with the flow as usual but he has been trying to extubate himself again. Since he is getting so big, he thinks he should be able to "help" the doctors by pulling his breathing tube out. I hope we won't have the vent by the end of the week. Brody will also be getting an echocardiogram tomorrow for the same reason.

Ricky and I will be very busy tonight; both Gracie and Brody are due for a bath. It is always so much fun because we are doing something for them. Being needed is a great feeling!

Today was my delivery goal. Although I failed miserably at my goal, I've come to terms with it. I've learned so many things these past 8 weeks and 4 days and I would not trade it for the world. I've learned just how strong my kids are. Brody has really taught me a lot right from the start. I will never forget the sound of his cry when he was first born. That cry gave me some calm in that delivery room. His first week of life will never leave me. It was so hard to see him so sick and feel so helpless. That week taught me that I have no control, his life was in God's hands. He pulled through and I thank God for that. Slow and steady wins the race. He sure is teaching me a life lesson. Gracie is a true miracle. She has taught me that miracles do happen. I didn't hear a cry from her when she was born so I didn't know what was going on. It wasn't until she was wheeled into the delivery room that I knew we really had a chance with her. I saw her leg problem one day and one day only. This little girl has fought since she was first developing so seeing her so sick with the intestine infection was heart breaking. I just didn't want her to have to go through anything else. She kicked that infection and showed it who was boss. That is my Gracie, she runs things you know. She has taught me to not give up and have faith and trust in God. Then there is Madi. She has been my calm in the storm. I've been blessed for a smooth ride so far with her. She is just moving right along almost like a full term baby, as close to a full term baby I will ever experience. I've really needed that. She makes me laugh daily. Her little faces she makes down to the terrible smell her poop produces just brighten my days. She is the sunshine in my life. I know it will be a long road ahead of us but I look forward to everyday. I am so blessed and I feel like the richest person in the world! After all, not everyone has triplets!

This blog is for the babies. Sure it updates family and friends but that really isn't the true purpose. I want to document all the ups and downs the trips have gone through so one day when they need it, they will know just how much they have and are overcoming and how strong and resilient they truly are. I want them to know just how much their mommy and daddy love them right from the start.

Krista

Happy Birthday Granny!

Hi Granny, we hope you had a great birthday!


The babies are doing great today. Tonight we gave Madi her bath. We actually got everything done in about 20 minutes! Whoo Hoo for us :) Madi is now 4 lbs 2.5 oz!!! Little Chicken has finally crossed over. Her preemie clothes are really starting to fit her good. If you have never had a chance to smell a freshly washed baby, smell one as soon as humanly possible. We both just wanted to take her home with us!

I held Gracie tonight. She did very well. This girl is going to UT because she is always giving the hook em horns sign. I keep telling her that maroon is Aggie colors and she should really work on that but there is no explaining while she is unhappy. She is such a precious little thing with the thickest brown hair. This girl has so much hair! Even all the times they've shaved it for IVs its grown back and thick. It is much easier to hold her with her central line out. That is right; this little girl has no IV for the first time in her life!! She is also doing very well with breathing so I hope they can turn down her C Pap settings tomorrow.

Ricky held Brody tonight. He did very well. He is doing very well with his vent settings. They were able to lower them even after yesterday's event so we are pleased with that. They will be taking a blood gas in the morning to see if the settings can be lowered again. The doctor told me they would try C Pap on him again in a week but this time load him up on an even higher dose of caffeine. She thinks they did not give him enough and did not wait long enough for it to kick in.

In other news, the babies will get their first set of shots on my birthday :( That means babies that can't be held and will not feel the greatest :( oh well.

Krista

Brody is back on tube

didn't do well. Had to use bag to bring him back up. Good news is his heart rate didn't drop. I'm so happy I was not there because it did NOT go well.

Brody update

They will be extubating him in about 20 minutes.

Brody

Please pray for Brody. They will be extubating him tomorrow if his blood gas looks good. This is a HUGE step for him. We hope that he is ready and strong enough to be on C Pap.


The nurse told me not to be there when they do it because if he needs to be reintubated it is traumatic and an emergency/ panic situation. She will call me when they do it and let me know how he is doing and I will see him a couple of hours after when he is more stable.

If he can get on and stay on C Pap this will help everything including his eyes. We need this to work.

Krista & Ricky

Prayer list & Wish list

Things we are praying for right now:

Brody to get on C Pap next week (fingers crossed)
Gracie to get her central line out this weekend
Gracie to go to level II by the end of next week (fingers crossed)
Madi to finally get her first bottle on Monday and that go well

Our wish list:

For Brody's lungs to get healthy and have him home before Thanksgiving
For Gracie to get to level II and come home 3 weeks after Madi
For Madi to come home mid September

We are 8 weeks old today!!

Ha Ha!! I just realized they are all sleeping in the pictures. As you can see they are exhausted from growing so much :)

Krista

Wednesday

We had a scare with Madi today regarding her temperature. It was very alarming but after tests, they ruled everything out and turns out the bed was broken. She was not able to get her bottle and was almost 2 hours late eating so now her feeding schedule is changed.
Brody and Gracie are doing very well. We have some exciting things coming up but I'm not posting it until it happens... it seems everytime I post something it does not happen that day.

Please keep praying for us.

Krista & Ricky

Play this video with speakers on...

Tuesday update

God is so great! Really He is amazing. Our babies continue to do better and grow more every day. They are almost 8 weeks old! Life has been a blur during this time. There have been many ups and downs and I know we will have other challenges ahead of us but I will find strength somewhere. God always sends me strength and I find it in odd places sometimes.
I've been okay with letting go of a lot of control issues but I still have a hard time going through life without a plan. I've always set goals and had a plan with a back up plan. I don't know when my babies will be home and I don't know what we will need to do for them once they are home. I feel very unprepared. On top of that, I'm trying to get the girls room finished. I guess I just need some stability but know that isn't possible right now. Ricky just goes with the flow, so easy going. The balance has been great during all of this.
Update on the babies:
Brody is such a cutie. He is doing well maintaining his temperature and looks so adorable in his little outfits. All of the doctors will meet tomorrow (Wednesday) to discuss his case. The main topic is do they want to change his vent out this week. Since he is getting bigger, the vent he is on isn't giving him the correct/ best support for him. The machine is different but he will still have the tube down his throat. The doctors wanted him to be off the vent but now since his surgery will be in about a month, there is no use in getting him off the vent because he will need it for surgery and a couple days later while he recovers. The hope is he will heal quickly from surgery and they can kind of "force" him off the vent. Usually a baby would go from the vent to C Pap to nasal cannula but since he is getting so big, they will probably go from vent to nasal cannula because once the babies are bigger C Pap is useless because they will literally pull the tubes out of their nose (like Gracie likes to do now). The great news for today is he passed his eye exam and won't need another exam for two weeks. This is awesome news that his eyes are healthy enough he can have a break from the invasive test.
Gracie is just precious. I am able to enjoy her more and more everyday as she is getting more familiar with me. She is being a rock star on her C Pap even though she hates it and removes it herself all day. They retaped it very well today and also try to have her very snug in her bed so she isn't as free to pull it out. She is my little butterball. I just love seeing her get chunkier. It’s so awesome to see how much she has grown in just 8 weeks! She passed her eye exam as well and won't need another one for two weeks. The doctors will also be meeting about her case tomorrow. Gracie will need to have a test done to see where we are with her kidneys. She has remained on antibiotics to prevent infection. Now that she is more stable she can journey down stairs to that department. They will be seeing if her pee is refluxing back into the kidneys. We hope and pray that this is not the case. If it is refluxing she will need a surgery but can't have it until she is at least one. Her hips, legs, back seem to be getting better. We hope to have her central line out by next week. I will be very excited for this day to come. The doctor thinks she will be able to go to level II within the next two weeks.
Madilynn is such a snug bug. She is doing really well. We had a little scare yesterday with a transfusion but all is well and it turned out to be nothing. We did have to put her bottle feed on hold until tomorrow (Wednesday) I will meet OT at 3 for her first bottle. I hope all goes well and she will be able to suck/ swallow/ breathe well. She can not come home until she can drink 6 bottles a day at least. She is doing very well on nasal cannula. She is on a eighth of a liter of oxygen and she is down to 35% oxygen even during feeds. Keep in mind room air is 23%. We are almost to where she does not need nasal cannula! She passed her eye exam too and won't need another one for two weeks.
I will be interviewing pediatricians soon. I'm just praying that God will lead us to the right one. I know He will. He did with my fertility doctor as well as my OBGYN.
The babies have two ages, birth age and adjusted age. This means they may be a year old but at 8 months old with developments. We are 110% okay with this but I wanted to give family and friends a heads up so we don't get the questions like with Gracie's leg. We understand they are just questions but our babies are perfect to us and we don't look at/ focus on those things.
Also, I will be posting rules for when the babies are home regarding visitors. What things one must do to keep us all healthy and as germ free as possible. I think I should buy stock in hand sanitizer now.

Thanks to everyone that has supported us with phone calls, cards, emails and following us on the blog. We are very appreciative and very blessed for all the prayers.

Prayer is the Miracle Grow for our babies!!

Krista

Brody wears clothes!!!

Apnea Bradycardia

These are the worse! Madi had another spell tonight while I was holding her. Ricky walked out of the unit to use the restroom and while he was gone the nurse also walked out to get supplies. Madi dropped her heart rate into the 60s and 70s (it suppose to be around 160) The other nurse in there was sitting down feeding a baby so she couldn't hurry to us. I had to yell for some help. She was not recovering with stimulation like she usally does. I just hate not being able to fix it. I'm not ready for her to come home until these are not happening anymore. I do not want to be in a situation where I need to do CPR on any of my babies. I want Madi back in level III. I will talk to the doctor about this tomorrow. The level II nurse to baby ratio is 1:4. Anyway, the nurse got her back up and put her in her bed. She was fine after and went to town on her pacifier.
Gracie and Brody are doing good. We didn't stay long after this because I was extremly upset and I don't go around the babies like that.
Tomorrow is another day or should I say today is another day. Things will be better. We have a lot of things to do this weekend. I bought Gracie and Brody's crib today so I hope that is the last $1000 Babies R Us will get. Need to see what else we still need and get it but won't know that until the rooms are finished. So much to do and not enough hours in the day.

Krista

Madi snoozing away

Gracie with her sassy bow

First time Ricky holds Brody. I love this picture!

7 weeks old today!

*we are home late its 2 am so this post is about Thursday even though it is now Friday :)

The babies are doing great! We gave all three a bath tonight. It took us 2.5 hours but all three really enjoyed it.
Madi will probably get her first bottle tomorrow. The doctor will probably call in OT (occupational therapy) to help since she has reflux so bad and tends to choke and try to throw up even with the feeding tube. She is doing great! She has very blonde hair and it looks like she will have blue/green eyes.
Gracie loved her bath. The nurse told us to look out because we would be taking her to the spa to get her nails and toes done and be pampered. I'm totally ok with this because she deserves it :) She is back to being herself and I'm very thankful for that. She reminds me a lot of myself. My dad use to try to talk to me every morning as soon as I got up and I wouldn't have it. He would then keep asking me things like, whats wrong precious don't wanna talk to daddy yet? Well Gracie is so much like this. Don't touch me and don't talk to me. It’s funny and now that she does it to us I know that dad is really laughing now. The doctor hopes to have the INO machine gone this weekend. The INO helps keep her lungs open but since she is back on C Pap and not needing very much oxygen, she won't need it. I'm ready for her to be on full feeds so she can get rid of the central line in her chest. She has two red spots on her tummy these are caused from blood forming little pockets under the skin. There is not harm and it is no big deal. She also has a bump on her forehead that is the size of a marble. The doctor did an ultrasound to check it out but it seems to be nothing. The doctor thinks it’s a blood pocket like on her tummy just deeper. He said that it may get bigger before it goes away and it may not go away until she is 1. We don't care since it does not bother her. She now weighs 3 lbs 5 oz.
Brody is being our calm little man. He is still on the vent but they are still able to wean him on his Os (oxygen). He is such a big boy. He has very broad shoulders and is steadily growing every day. He gains about an ounce a day. The doctors increased his calories and feeds. They want him to get big quickly so it can help his lungs. He won't be fitting in any of the preemie clothes we bought him but I don't care, that is a good problem to have :) We have about a month to go before his surgery to reconnect the intestines and his circumcision. I hope that we can get him off the vent before his surgery. It is a good goal at this point.
Ricky and I are doing well. Ricky worked 91 hours last week so he is pretty exhausted right now. They are very busy at work as they always are. I spend the days at the hospital and then either Ricky meets me there or I drive home then we drive back together. I know that I won't sleep when the babies are here but I think it will be a little more restful when they are home so we don't have to make the long drive back and forth. The trip is longer and longer every day. I've put a thousand miles on the car Thursday to Thursday. Anyway, Ricky is off work this weekend but we have so much to do since we are still not prepared for the babies to come home. It seems like there are not enough hours in the day. I've taken all the popcorn texture off the walls in the girls’ room as well as the hall and entry way. That texture collects a lot of dust and the babies need the cleanest air possible. I need to finish painting the girls’ room, get it completed and start on Brody's room. I think I have about 4 weeks to complete all this.
God is great! We are so blessed and loving our crazy life! I don't think we will ever be bored again ;)

Krista

Ok, we have a handle on the mean person trying to do bad things. I'm starting the blog back.

Brody is able to be held everyday now. Ricky held him for the first time last night. It was really great! They both did really well. It is really cute because Brody's hat matched Ricky's shirt. Brody is doing good. His lungs are still not strong enough to get off the vent. He now has no IV! I'm so excited about it and I know he is too. He is a big boy now, weighing 4lbs!
Gracie is doing wonderful! She has recovered from the infection she had and so far it seems there is no damage from it. She is doing well on C Pap although she reallly hates it. She can be held everyday as well. As soon she is on full feeds her central line will be taken out.
Madilynn is rockin and rollin. She is in NICU II now (she will go home from there). I love it there! I can hold her 2-3 x per day and can get her in/out of her bed by myself. The other exciting news is she can now wear clothes! Its really fun. There is major importance to this because she now has to maintain her own body temperature which she is doing. The other exciting news is we are going to try bottle feeding her this week. This is a huge task for her because she will have to learn how to suck/swallow/breath all at the same time. She is well on her way to getting home. She is still having the As and Bs (apnea bradycardia) this is where her heart rate bottoms out as well as her oxygen intake. She turned blue in my arms the other night during an A & B but luckily she came right back up after stimulation. The doctor thinks this is because of her reflux. In order for her to come home, she will need to have no As and Bs for 5 days. Madi is now 3 lbs 7 oz.
All three babies have reflux but they are giving them medications to help. All three have passed their eye exams this week so we just wait for next weeks results.
It is a great week!
Krista

Blog coming soon with changes!!

We are redesigning our blog so we can continue to have it. It will take a couple of days since we will need to have security set up that will track who is viewing the blog.

**Please leave a comment with your email address so I can add it to the list of people that are allowed to view the blog. Comment is under this post.

Madilynn is now on nasal cannula! I snapped this picture when the nurse was changing out her tape for the feeding tube. She is doing AWESOME so far with the changes. She is getting very little air from the nasal cannula. She is a different baby now, she seems much happier. C Pap is not pleasant for the babies. The doctor said if she continues doing so well for several days, they will move her to NICU II. I'm happy and sad about this. Happy because they will go home from level II but sad because it will be very hard to split our time with the babies. Level II is on another floor. Anyway, this is a huge step forward and I'm so proud of her!

Monday

Madilynn is doing great! They lowered her C Pap setting to the lowest setting today. She is doing great with the changes, her o's are at 23% (room air is 21%). If all is well in the next 48 hours, she will be moved to nasal cannula :)Gracie is doing great! They are looking at moving her to C Pap tomorrow. WHOO HOO! They loaded her up on caffeine today to prepare her for the transition. She is being a touch me not since we have not been able to touch her in so long, we have to work on this because we don't want to make her mad but we would like to hold her hand at least.Brody is doing really great as well! He is not ready for C Pap still. The past two doctors thought they would be able to get him on C Pap the past couple of weeks but its not time. I hope he can continue to get stronger everyday and get him switched over soon.I'm getting their rooms ready. I'm very excited because I finally know how they will be decorated :) We got Ricky's rocking horse that Granny got him when he was a baby. It will look awesome in Brody's room. It needs to be repaired/refinished so if anyone knows someone that can refinish furniture please let me know. The girls room will be a princess room with green and pink colors. I will post pictures as soon as we are finished :)Krista