5%, 12%, 20%

Chris

Daniel

Nathan

Wow Wow Wow! That was everyone's assessment at the pediatrician's check up visit last week. The boys are doing great. They are starting to catch up to their peers at their actual age!!! The above percentiles refer to the boys' ACTUAL percentiles for weight compared to all their peers born on time in January. Chris weighed 12 lb 8 oz, Dan weighed 12 lb 13 oz, and Nate weighed 13 lb 4 oz. They are getting to be such chunks! I started moving up the boys bedtime this week to feeding them at 8pm, then bed. The boys took to it great. That means one less bottle per day (now at 4, where we will remain the rest of the year). Nathan just compensated by requesting 7 1/2 ounces at one time last night! The other two are already starting to pick up some steam as well, eating nearly the same amount of formula per day as before. All three are somewhat consistently eating about 6 ounces at a time. The other feeding excitement to come is spoon feeding. The pediatrician wants us to start on time based on the boys actual age with cereal and a few veggies over the next few months. The boys are now just shy of 5 months old.

The boys have all rolled over at least once now. Recently, we had Chris and Daniel in a seeming roll-a-thon. We would set them on their tummies and they'd both flip, then we'd set them back and the process would continue to repeat. The boys are smiling constantly, and I occasionally hear something that almost sounds like a giggle!

The boys' hernia surgery results look great as well. The fevers left them about the time we went home from the hospital and did not return. The post-op checkup showed the surgery results to be perfect. And, the boys are all off the apnea monitors (we discarded those a few weeks ago). More recently, Mary picked up a cold somewhere a few weeks ago, that just seemed to drag. The night of the boys' check up and immunizations, all were running fevers, but Daniel's was 103...and he had a runny nose. So the next day, Saturday I got him in to the doctor again, and he was diagnosed with an ear infection. Since Mary's symptoms were hanging on, I took her in Monday morning, and she had a sinus infection. At least we know what's up and have everyone on antibiotics now.

Life is starting to settle in and slow down a bit. We have returned to our monthly Rook game tournaments, and are teetering on the edge of starting to build a new home to accommodate our growing family.

We have posted pictures and videos from May here

Home again

Thanks to everyone for praying for our family this week. The boys surgeries both went very smoothly. At 4:00 this morning during the nurse's check on the boys, Chris registered a temperature of 101.1. Tylenol quickly got it under control, and then Nathan did the same thing mid morning. The doctor decided to keep us until noon just to watch and see what would happen. He says there's no infection at this point, and just to monitor the boys at home over the next few days. Otherwise the boys are doing great--eating great and fairly back to their old selves.

A few brief notes...

We have not needed to feed the boys overnight all week! Their schedule has been to eat at 10:00 pm, and sleep after that until 7:00 am. We all will hopefully be a bit more rested now.

Also, Chris and Nathan had a consultation with the pediatric surgeon in Greenville Tuesday. They have been scheduled for hernia surgeries next Thursday morning at Greenville Memorial Hospital. Because of their age and prematurity from birth, they will stay at the hospital overnight. This is a very common issue for preemies, and routine surgery, but please do keep them (and Momma and Daddy!) in your prayers next week.

A Busy Month

Jogging strollers we use to walk for exercise.




Triple stroller for going to the park, mall, etc.




Mary doing "Tummy Time" with the boys


April 15th each year usually brings a change of pace to our household. This year was no exception. In the past, the date marked the end of tax "busy season." This year, however, Mom flew home on April the 14th. Life has gotten busier in some ways, but not insanely so.

Over the last several weeks the boys have begun to sleep at night closer to a 5 hour stretch (and occasionally 6 hours). We put them to bed at night around 11 pm after feeding them at 10:00, and usually hear stirrings somewhere around 4 am. Jeff and I together feed all three boys simultaneously and stumble back to bed after about 40 minutes or so. Then the boys sleep until somewhere around 8 am. So we generally get a reasonable night's sleep, if a bit short. We certainly cannot complain, though we anticipate the day hopefully not too far off when the boys will sleep the full night through.

With Mom gone, so far I've been picking up groceries on Monday nights, and doing laundry later in the week, spread across a few days, with a bit of cleaning and cooking "sprinkled" in where possible. I've started buying more convenience food items to cut cooking time, and a good friend from church has started coming by once a week to help out with laundry, etc.

The last time we had the boys weighed, it was only Chris and Nathan checked, since Daniel wasn't being seen that day. Back on April 21, Chris weighed 9 lb 15 oz, and Nathan weighed 10 lb 7 oz. The boys are continuing to grow like weeds! They are taking their formula 6 times a day now, 5 daytime bottles every 3 and a half hours or so, and the 4-5 am bottle.

Back at the boys' two month check up in March the pediatrician thought that Chris and Nathan might have hernias, so we were referred to a urologist to have them checked. The urologist confirmed his suspicions, but based on the boys' prematurity and age he wanted to refer us to a pediatric surgeon in Greenville who has access to better facilities than Anderson has, in the off chance that there are complications. We will be seeing the surgeon on Tuesday, and will proceed from there. It sounds at this point as though the procedures for the boys will be done in the near future. Please keep this situation in your prayers.

Also, we've had the monitors "read" twice now. With the boys on Prevacid for their reflux, they have all stopped having any monitor alarms. If we make it through another week or so, we should be able to stop using the monitors soon.

With the demise of cold/flu season, we have been able to take the boys out a bit. We've enjoyed taking the boys to church, and "out and about" a little, although its a bit challenging taking three infants and Mary anywhere. We have picked up a triple stroller which we have used several times. We also picked up two double jogging strollers so we can take the whole crew out for walks that we like to take often in the evenings.

I had my first great "solo" adventure with the crew this week. I met a friend at Olive Garden, and yes, packed up everyone to go. I started getting Mary and me ready at 10:30, fed the boys at 11:30, and made it to Olive Garden promptly by 1:02 pm. :) We attracted a good bit of attention from the waitresses, and other patrons at the restaurant, but had a very nice meal together as well. The boys were seated in three slings holding their car seats opposite us, sitting side by side on a bench row. I think the funniest part of the outing was the entourage of me carrying a baby in carseat out of the restaurant afterward, followed by two waitresses each carrying one out since my friend had her hands full with Mary and her take out box.

The most interesting (and most recent) event is that Nathan has started rolling over!!! Saturday morning, Nathan had pushed up very high on his arms, and just pushed himself over. I thought maybe it was a "fluke"--it quite took me off guard. I turned him back on his belly two more times, and he rolled over two more times in a row!

New pictures from April are posted here.

April

We had the above pictures taken several weeks ago and just got the proofs. We would like to thank Anita Goodman for taking these pictures for us. Go take a look at her work here: Goodman Photography

The boys are continuing to grow and develop. They are staying a bit more awake now, and alert. I got my first real, for sure, smile last night, from Nathan. I was feeding Chris, and Nathan and Daniel were on either side of me on the couch. I looked over at Nathan and said something to him (no clue now what I said), and he just looked at me and responded very naturally with a real smile!

Last Friday we took the boys in for their third (and final) monthly Synagis dose. By the time RSV season rolls around in September, their bodies will have significantly matured. A side benefit of going in for the shots, is that we get weights in between regular doctor visits. So, (drumroll please) Chris weighs 8 lb 12 oz, Daniel weighs 9 lb 1 oz, and Nathan weighs 9 lb 2 oz.

We will shortly be "running out" of our free Enfamil from their triplet gift program, so the pediatrician was more than accomodating, by signing us up this week with Similac. He had no problem switching us to the equivalent Preemie formula produced by them. I've been told that this may last us the year! Praise the Lord, what a blessing. We've calculated, that at retail, we could be spending 15 dollars per day on preemie formula (a can a day, now!)

Last Wednesday on ebay we found a slightly used triple stroller on a great buy-it-now deal. So Jeff jumped on it. The boys have their first conveyance of their own. Watch out on the roads now!

Mom has been a great help to us over the last two months, especially in February and early March when the boys were not as great eaters as they are now. Mom is needing to get back home to Dad and her own responsibilities in Texas. Mom flies home on Monday, and then the party will really begin! ;) The boys are starting to sleep a bit longer at night (last two nights they slept from midnight to four am!), and hopefully, especially as it will be just Jeff and me, they will continue to extend that even more so.

We've all got a bit of cabin fever, since we've been keeping the boys (and Mary) away from people mostly through the end of winter/early spring. Being preemies, any illness could be especially serious for these guys. As the weather warms, we are especially looking forward to getting out and about!

New pictures for March are here.

Our "Claim to Fame"

We made the front page! Here's our article:
Anderson Independent Mail

Latest Developments and the Anderson Newspaper!

Last week on Monday we went to the pediatrician for the boys' two month checks. At that time, Chris weighed 7 lb 2 oz, Daniel 7 lb 9 oz, and Nathan 7 lb 10 oz. The doctor decided to get read outs of the boys monitors, so Wednesday the monitor company came by and swapped our machines out. Meanwhile as the week progressed, Nathan seemed to be developing a worsening spit up, even to the extent of losing half his meal 20 minutes later a few times. Also, several times on Tuesday (of course, after the check up) Nathan set off his apnea monitor, which was highly unusual for him. We called the pediatrician about that, and they said that they would look into it on the monitor reports. We concluded that since there were no obvious signs of problems, it was not necessary to bring Nathan in immediately to be seen. Well, after doing some research online, Jeff began to wonder if Nathan had reflux. We began to treat it as such, holding him fairly still after feeding and not laying him down immediately. His symptoms did improve somewhat. Monday morning we got our call back from the pediatrician. He said all three boys showed signs of reflux, and are going on Prevacid. We will see how that goes. If this works, it may help to eliminate the still occasional bradycardia, and hopefully Nathan's recent start up of occasional apnea alarms as well. That will be a huge step toward going off the monitors. We are incredibly glad to have the monitors, as the apnea/bradycardia spells have not completely stopped on their own, and they have helped the pediatrician to identify the reflux.

Also, at the doctor's appointment we got the go ahead to start playing with the boys' schedule, and try to let them sleep longer at night. I'm a great fan of BabyWise (although like anything, you have to be flexible with it). For anyone who's not familiar with the book, the idea is you compress more feeding times into the day in an effort to let the baby sleep longer at night. Last week we did our own "disaster" cross between that and a four hour round the clock schedule. After a week, we started a new daytime 3 to 3 1/2 hour schedule, and we feed the boys as they demand at night (which is generally one time between 11 pm and 7 am.

Saturday, we had a visit from Uncle Lance and Aunt Julie, along with Grandpa and Grandma. This was Lance and Julie's first opportunity to see the boys. We all had a great time visiting together. Julie was in town for her (and my) 10 year reunion from BJU. On that note, we had our first real babysitter on Friday night. Carrie Smetana, a friend of mine from church agreed (I think rather enthusiastically) to help Mom watch Mary and the boys for the evening. Jeff and I enjoyed a supper out at Olive Garden, and a visit over to BJU for a Bible Conference service, as well as my college reunion. I had a great time seeing people again that I had not seen in ten years, and going out on a date with Jeff (which doesn't happen too often right now!)

One final note, the Anderson newspaper, the Independent Mail called yesterday, and wanted to interview Jeff and I for a feature article. We had a reporter come to the house for an interview today. For anyone who is interested, we are scheduled to have an article run in the Sunday paper!