Tripletville Adventures : First Week Home

Well, we made it through our first week home with our boys... if I thought the NICU was a roller coaster, being home with the boys is something else! If I'm honest, right now it's not too bad as the babies eat and sleep and that's about it, we don't really need to entertain them right now so it's a good way for us to adjust to being home. After the first few nights, I looked at Gab and said "WOW! How much easier would it be if we had only one right now?" We would be able to take turns?!? We would be able to sleep more than 2 hours stretches?!? Right now we both have to get up for every feeding (every 3 - 4 hours) and even then we have one leftover. Once the two first ones are fed, one of us starts feeding the third (who has been crying for a while by that point), and the other one of us has to either wash, sanitize or prepare bottles. Amidst all their different feeding personalities and our tiredness, we still manage to get them all done within a little over an hour, well most times. Sometimes they wake up quite ahead of time and we cuddle them until they reach at least the three and a half hour mark. The babies, thankfully for now, go down pretty easily and we don't have to rock them to sleep (like I said... for now), we can put them in their crib awake and they normally fall asleep (most often anyway). After a week, I've come to terms with the fact that my primary needs have now become secondary to my babies. I was telling Gabe that every time I feed the babies, I'm either super tired, super hungry or I need to pee and it's not like I can stop to make myself a big steak (not that I did before...haha). They're lucky they're adorable... I mean, c'mon look at this:

We tried to feed two at once, and they're still a little too little, but it was cute... one day it might work!

I realize Jacob's feet look like they're broken but there are no feet there, the pj is still quite big on him.

This week we also had our first outing to the hospital's discharge clinic; one of many appointment we have with the boys. They all gained weight, at least 3 oz in the 3 days since they had left the NICU, and Jacob is very very close to 5 lbs (he must be there by today). The nurse there wasn't the most welcoming of nurses and made us feel like we weren't doing what we were supposed to be doing... We had been feeding the boys every five hours, making them wait by cuddling them and apparently we hadn't been supposed to do that but they're gaining weight so we must have been doing something right, right? We realized after that visit though that we had been focusing more on our sleeping needs rather than our boys' feeding needs so we re-adjusted our schedule to match theirs. We sleep less, but they eat better... and that's what the important thing is!!

So on our hospital outing, we got to experience a day out with our triplets with our stroller and how many looks we're going to get every time we step outside of our home with the boys. We went upstairs to the discharge clinic and we immediately got surrounded by all the nursing staff up there, some who had been in the NICU with us.

We have been told by our friend Matt who has twins and is in a wheelchair (so he has double experience with people looking and commenting...) that the key to avoiding the questions is NO EYE CONTACT. It's hard for me as I like people and I like to talk with people but if I start when I'm out with the boys, I will never get anything accomplished!!! My friend Mel, who had been in the hospital with her daughter and husband (aforementioned Matt), found out we were there through a nurse friend of hers, texted me to find out where I was and asked if I'd let her come look at the boys from afar. Of course I let her! There had been strangers looking at my boys, so why would I stop one of my best friends? Of course this made other friends of mine quite jealous and one of my friends, Alicia, also joked that she would stalk the hospital at our next appointment! haha... I am having a hard time not letting my friends come visit because the boys seem to be doing so well but I have to keep reminding myself that they're technically still supposed to be in my belly (although it seems unreal when I look at them) and they're still very vulnerable to all sorts of germs. I will keep to my original plan and wait until their due date... even then it's going to be quite something because we have about 50 people who say they can't wait to see the boys! We're going to have to have a visiting schedule to allow all those people who want to love our boys!!

We had our first adventure with the boys this week when the power went out. I immediately imagined the boys not being able to get warm and after 15 minutes and the power not returning, we started scrambling in the dark to get the boys to heat (as if the heat dissipates the moment the power goes out...). I have such a hard time with them being in their car seats as they look so little and fragile in there and I always think they're choking so having to put them in there in the dark was really hard on me. We get in the van and I start having a legit panic attack... un-warranted, I know, as they were going to be fine and they weren't going to freeze. I realize that it was a tad overboard to panic as I did but I couldn't stop imagining the boys choking or having an accident or this or that blah blah blah... but hey, leave me alone, I'm a first time mother! We ended up at my in-laws, hung out for a while and tried to figure out a place to go sleep if it came to that. Thankfully I had been texting my friend Alicia who started searching for us (she would have taken us in herself but she has this weird lung thing that is contagious). Anyways, she thankfully alerted our other good friends (Matt and Mel) of our situation and as you all know we have great friends and they offered to take us in and as we were ready to head over, we got word that our power was back. Funny enough, about 1 hour after we left our in-laws, their power went out until 4pm the next day!

So I was told that Christmas happened this week... really?!? haha... it flew right by us and so did Santa! We spent Christmas Eve night re-sterilizing everything as I had forgot to wash everything before I sterilized... this is what it all looked like:

We had some visitors for Christmas day and that was nice, the boys got their first Hot Wheels dinky cars from Matante Cindy & Mononcle Eric. They got teddy bears from Mononcle Joel and money from the grand-parents. It really didn't feel like Christmas but it was nice to have family with us!

Gabe had his first encounter with projectile baby stuff this week... and most of you are thinking: Oh No! He got puked on! No no no my friends... he got pooped on! haha... He was changing one of the boys and all I hear is: "MC! HELP!" so I run in from the kitchen and Zachary had apparently not finished pooping and Gabe was helpless as (skip ahead if you're grossed out by poop stories) poop kept coming out of our son's bum like soft serve ice cream! I just started laughing my butt off as I couldn't really do anything to help... he cleaned it all off and I went back to the kitchen to finish what I was doing. Then all I hear is: "AH!!!", I come back in the living room to find Gabe in a semi-matrix position looking all grossed out. Zachary had farted and out came projectile poop aimed right at Gabe's chest. He managed to shift his body to the side to avoid a poop shot to the chest but he got some on his arm and there was some on the floor. We took out the measuring tape to find that our son had reached three feet with his poop fart... HA! One of many projectile things to come out of our sons!

Things we realized this week... how really expensive it's all going to be, formula alone is going to cost us around 300$/month (more and more as they start eating more and more) but thankfully we got our Jean Coutu gift cards that'll help tremendously. We also realized that tiredness can make you do/think crazy stuff. For example, Gabe often takes naps on the couch with one of the boys on his lap and now every time he wakes up, he's sure he's got a baby on him and panics when he can't find them. I very often can't find my words and have to resort to sign language (or charades really) and sound effects in order to get my words across. At least Gabe and I should now start winning every charade game we play! We also realized that help is amazing! My mother is back from Florida and just having her here has made our lives that much easier, we've even gotten out to do our own errands. This is how we left her today...

Go Mamie Betty!!! Should we feel bad for leaving her like this?? She doesn't seem to mind one bit!

All in all, it's been a blast, they're a handful (which will get bigger and bigger) but we laugh often, and try to take in every moment. We are so in love...