NICU Wk 2 ~ More Milestones

Since there is so much to remember because each day is filled with new progress, this blog will be in the form of a week at a glance...

Monday
New doctor on call... now I was told that this doctor would be much different than the doctor then boys had been seen by the previous week and boy were they right!  I'd say this new doctor is to mud as the other doctor is to concrete... He is so much more easy going and going with the flow as the previous doctor was more to the point and scientific... I'm glad I had the concrete doctor the first week because I think I needed hard facts about my babies' health and I needed to hear scientific data behind all of what was happening and the reasons why.  Since I'm a little more relaxed and a little more accustomed to the noises and hustle and bustle of the NICU, the easy going mud doctor is ok.  He came in on his rounds on Monday morning, asked me a few questions about how the boys were doing and he was glad to see that the boys' incubator temperature was finally matching the outside air.  He looked down on Zachary and said "Do you want to come out of there little man?", I'm sure Zachary shook his head yes (I wasn't beside him, but that's what I tell myself! HA!).  Normally, they would have waited until their incubators were due to be changed, which was Wednesday, but I was there and I heard the doctor say they were ready (Yes, even little Jacob he said), so there was no way I was waiting until Wednesday to see my boys in their big boy beds!!  The nurse wasn't too happy, but she was fine after a while, I mean, they look so friggen adorable in their new beds!!  They even got a little graduation certificate!!  

It's so much easier to get to them now, I am even feeling comfortable taking them off their heart and lung monitor long enough to cuddle.  Of course, I always have to watch them for signs of any distress when they are off their monitor because they are still too little to always remember to do everything that a body is required to do so the nurses make sure to remind me to plug the monitors back in if I end up falling asleep with them on me.  Samuel has been showing signs of sucking so we decided to see if he would take the bottle, and he did!  He didn't get too too much out of it and was pooped out after 10 minutes, but it's a start.  They say the requirement for them to get out of here is they all have to have 48 hours of bottle feed at every feed.  I don't know how we're going to get there with Sam being pooped out after 1/3 of his bottle gone but they say they'll get there soon than I think, so I just gotta keep trying!  I went to visit my friend Josée in the E.R. tonight as her little girl had hurt her finger.  Gabe and I sat down for about a 5-10 minute conversation and all of a sudden her little girl coughs and I ask her if she is sick and then my heart drops as I lift my head and look around... GERMS GERMS GERMS EVERYWHERE!!!! What in the hell were we thinking???  We were currently sitting in the most infectious part of the hospital with babies in the NICU!!! We hightailed it out of there as quick as we could... First of our stupid parents moment, I'm sure there are more to come... Had you asked me a month ago how I felt about germs, I would have told you that germs are good for people, it builds up a strong immune system, that it's the reason why I hardly get sick as my mother was never paranoid about germs.  I guess to a point this is true, but not when your babies are 9 weeks premature!  In the NICU, you drop something on the ground, you can't touch it.  I've gotten so used to that that now, if I drop something on the ground outside of the NICU, I think it's lost to me forever.  We were walking up some stairs the other day and I dropped a pen and I looked at it in defeat.  Gabe asked me what's wrong and I said "I lost my pen!" and then I'm like oh yeah! I CAN pick it up!! Hand washing will never be the same again...

Tuesday
First 24 hours out of the incubator and the boys passed! They are all maintaining their temperatures which means that they can stay in their big boy beds!!! Go boys!!! The doctor tells me today that the boys may come home in 2 weeks... scary stuff!  I will have the NICU on speed dial!  Do you think they'll mind if I kidnap three of their nurses?  I promised to feed them well!!  It's also scary because I know that people will say "Well they're home now, why can't we visit?", well just because they're ok to be out of the NICU doesn't mean they're ready for the real world.... the doctor said that I had them at the worst possible time because it's cold and flu season and their bodies are not going to be ready to fight those nasty microbes.  I will just have to put my foot down and hope people understand that my boys come first.  We are told that they should be ok to accept visitors around their due date (Jan 18th) so that's the timeline we're going to stick with... It'll give us time anyway to establish a routine at home so by the time their due date comes around, we should be triplet pros... (hahahaha, now that's a laugh!!)  I had a small scare today when Jacob sounded like he had trouble breathing but our wonderful nurse Michelle gave him some saline and sucked some boogers out of his nose and he sounds a little better.  They say his lungs sound fine and the physiotherapist tells me his tone is that of a healthy baby so I shouldn't worry too much.  I'm told it's because the air is so dry out of their incubators that it's normal.  It's true that it's dry, Gabe lost his voice being here last weekend and I'm always clearing my throat....  Samuel took the bottle again, taking a bit more in everyday, his brothers are showing signs of sucking, so we'll try them later this week. 

Samuel's first time at the bottle... his face says "Milk Drunk!"

 I'm starting to feel more at ease here, I know most of the nurses and I try to create rapport with all the nurses so that I don't feel like I'm leaving my kids with strangers.  It works as most of them are no longer strangers to me and I try to make sure I know who is with my babies overnight so that I can feel comforted by the fact that I know that they'll be well taken care of.

Friday
Here I skip to Friday because Wednesday and Thursday were just a blur... I'm becoming the primary care giver to my boys and the fact that they are starting to take to the bottle just makes my days busier and busier!  The boys turned 2 weeks on Thursday!  

Aren't they sweet?  They are eating more and more everyday!  As their weights increase, so does the amount of food they can take in.  The doctor decided to calculate their food intake based on the biggest triplet's weight so poor little Jacob has to take as much as his big brothers!  He's taking it all in though!!  I was visited by a mom who had been in the NICU with her twin girls for a really long time.  She's part of the support team in the NICU and she was really nice and she really understands all that we go through.  I can't wait to talk to her again because when she was there, it was so busy and I wasn't able to really talk to her.  We were informed that day that we were going to get interviewed by the local French news station.  I wasn't sure how I felt about this as they wanted to come in the NICU and take pictures and videos of us and the boys... I don't allow my extended family nor my best friends in the NICU so I wasn't too keen about letting complete strangers in but then I figured it would be a good memory for the kids to have when they are older.  We went to visit my aunt on Friday night as my cousin had won the "when will the triplets be born?" BINGO from my shower and we wanted to drop off the money.  To my surprise, my uncle and aunt from Campbellton were also there as their daughter was playing volleyball.  What was meant to be a quick visit/money drop off turned into a really good and fun evening with family.  Every time I leave the hospital, my heart and head remains there so it's nice sometimes to let that go and have a good time without always being NICU focused...

Saturday & Sunday
The boys are continuing to thrive!  Zachary and Samuel are at a constant battle of the biggest.  Every day they pass each other with their weights.  One day Samuel is the biggest and the next, it's Zachary... they are currently hovering around the 4lbs 4oz.  Jacob hasn't hit the 4lbs mark yet, but he's getting there little by little.  His little cheeks are starting to fill out. He's still feeling a little under the weather... this of course makes me quite nervous as I'm always scared that it'll start getting into his lungs and then that would be cause for concern.  The doctors and nurses all tell me that he's ok, that his breathing is not laboured, his tone is not different and there is nothing wrong with him except for a little bit of congestion, which is normal.  Tonight I didn't want to leave his side as he didn't sound too good... I went to the nurses desk and I just broke down.  The nurse who had been taking great care of the kids all day and saw my confidence and my "easy goingness" got worried right away and I was trying to tell her that I was worried about Jacob and all I could get out was "Jake...Jake...Jake..." between sobs and tears so we quickly head to Jacob's cot and of course, he stopped making his worrisome noises.  After a while he started again and she saw what I was talking about but she reassured me again that it was all normal and he may just have a sore tummy... I hope that it is all normal... my poor little man...
Last night it was Gab's xmas dinner.  I wasn't sure at first I wanted to go but between Gab, my family and the nurses, I was convinced that I needed a night out so I went.  The fact that this dinner was at The Keg and I could eat a medium rare steak and drink some wine was very appealing as well.  I only cried once...haha!   Of course the night and the food was great, but the hot topic of conversation was of course the boys so you can't fault me for being a little emotional!  I did have a really good time though, it actually felt good to let go and the wine helped of course!  Today was our interview with the local news station so we dressed the boys us in their best Christmas gear. 

Jacob is waiting for his kiss!! 

Samuel looks like a little elf with that hat (it's normally in his face...hehe)

Zachary is chillin like a villain... this is how he loves to sleep...

A shot from the interview

 It's a good thing we got picture when we did because the moment I changed Jacob after it was all over, he peed all over his new outfit!  Of course, Jacob is my pee guy, I swear he pees every single time I change him, it never fails!!  Anyways, the interview went quite well, they got a lot of good pictures and we got to say a lot of, good information.  Of course they didn't put it all in the segment like the program that the hospital runs that lets parents do most of the non-medical caring and all the benefits of this but it was still a good report.  If you've seen it, remember that the camera adds ten pounds and even more important, a triplet pregnancy adds 90! haha...  I've lost about 50 of it so far, mostly water weight from my tree trunk legs.  I actually got to put my normal boots on this week!! Score!!! 

Well this is the end of another eventful week in our lives... everyday feels like a week, so many things happen and every day is so important in their development so my book long posts shall continue next Sunday!