Happy 3 weeks, babies!

Tobias, Eleanor and Callista are now a day over three weeks old. Really? I thought being in the NICU would make time creep, but it really hasn’t. I can’t believe our sweet trio are just eight days from celebrating their one-month birthday.

Invitations are in the mail. The cake has been ordered. A clown is on standby. It’s going to be the bash of the century.

I kid, I kid. I don’t have time for that ish!

We all had a fabulous last week. All three babies showed major improvements with their breathing and general lung function, thanks in part to those devilish bubble CPAPs. As of yesterday, all three are now back on high-flow canulae (those simple, in-nose oxygen pieces). The girls have been without their CPAPs for a couple days, so they were bumped down a bit on their oxygen pressure yesterday, from 4L to 3L. All three are on room air!

Another room-air celebration came a few days ago, when the night nurse announced that it was time to start letting the babies try to regulate their own body temperatures. They’re all in pajamas now, and the nurses are slowly bumping down the beds’ temperatures. They started around 32 degrees Celsius and need to get down to 27 degrees before they can come out of their isolettes and hang out in open-air beds. Callista got her bed down to 29 point something last night!

Our big babies are doing so wonderfully. Callista is super close to reaching 3 pounds. Last night, she was only 10 grams away from 2 lbs. 15 oz. She’s going to hit 3 super soon! Toby yesterday was at 2 lbs. 14 oz., but he may have a setback due to his feeds being stopped to allow the blood transfusion he needed yesterday (his red blood cell count was too low for comfort). Eleanor is trying her hardest to catch up, and she’s hovering around 2 lbs. 8 or 9 oz. over the last two days.

Being in the NICU is hard. There’s a lot of mental balancing and rechecking of the traditional newborn experience, and with that comes a constant need to practice grace and mercy. It’s difficult to feel like others are treating our situation as a 24-hour babysitting service. Some people seem to expect us to be relaxed and enjoy as much free time away from the babies as possible.

It might feel different once we cross the threshold into post-NICU life and are desperate for a few moments of quiet alone time, but right now, being told to get away from my babies is like a slap in the face. I am away from them enough thanks to the miles that separate us and the fact that I can’t be in the NICU 24 hours a day. Many parents don’t leave their babies until they’re several months old, and it can be years before they spend the night away from them. I walked away from mine at 4 days old, and I’ve never slept a night just within feet of them.

What people don’t understand about the difficulty in that is beyond me.

And those who like to tell me (us? not sure if Rob hears it, too) that I need to just be thankful for what we have? They can kindly fuck off. If you don’t think I know how fortunate we are, if I don’t understand all that has been and all that still is at stake, then you have zero business directing any words toward me. I was there for the NICU consultation at 25 weeks, 3 days gestation. I disconnected my emotional wires their entire first day and lived only on fact.

I’m thankful for each and every breath, but if I want to grieve the difference between what I expected my whole life and what I’m experiencing now – well, I think I’m entitled to that now and then. There’s no time for it to consume my thoughts, but those thoughts have every right to creep in and attack sometimes. What’s important is that our actual experiences take over the ones history has set as expectations.

Each memory we make is infinitely greater than any expectation I’ve ever had.

Gah. I didn’t mean to get all ranty, but I guess it needed to come out.

Let’s turn this happy again, shall we?

The chickadee who did Eleanor’s echocardiogram (nothing for concern) yesterday told me I don’t look at all like I gave birth to triplets three weeks ago. I almost kissed her.

I look fluffy and have joked with Rob that I want to wear a shirt that says, “I’M NOT FAT – I JUST GAVE BIRTH TO TRIPLETS. YOU THINK I’M SKINNY NOW, DON’T YOU?”

I’m half serious. Especially during times in which my meals are on display (holy appetite while providing breastmilk for three, batman).

What do you think?

taken at 27 weeks, 6 days pregnant – just two days before giving birth

taken yesterday, 3 weeks after giving birth

Fluffy, but not terrible, right? Especially when you consider that my uterus is still giant-sized thanks to my trio. It’ll go down eventually. Or so they tell me.

Ahhh, I have no appropriate segue and am running out of blogging time, so here goes a transition fit for people with short attention spans. Look! Something shiny!

Not shiny, really, but definitely cute: Babies in jammies! (17 days old, the trio’s first clothes)

Toby

Eleanor

Callista

And the pièce de résistance, Rob and I got to hold the babies in our arms, standing up, snuggled in blankets – just like regular parents – during the Sunday night bath routine.

It was AMAZING to get real face-to-face, not-through-a-plastic-box time. We both hold the babies for skin-to-skin (kangaroo care) sessions, but the babies are always snuggled into our chests, not really ever in a position for us to stare and enjoy.

Amazing really doesn’t cover how it felt.

Mommy and Toby (and portable oxygen tube thing since his bubble CPAP was removed for the bath)

Mommy and Eleanor (on high flow! no more CPAP!)

Daddy and Callista

On that note, I’m off to vacuum, dust, do some laundry and head up to the hospital. Maybe not quite in that order, but one can hope for plans to play out, right?

As always, thank you for the continued thoughts, well wishes and prayers!