Where do I start?

My last blog post was almost exactly 2 months ago. I'm not sure where to begin and where to end this post. There is so much to say.

I'll start with Casey, Britton & Liddy. I mean, my day starts and ends with them, so it seems right that so should this blog.

Casey & Britton were 8 months old last week. I can't even believe where the time has gone. They weight 21 pounds 7 ounces and 21 pound 8 ounces. They are the sweetest, most loving little guys I could ever ask for. Their smiles when they see T or myself melt my heart. For the first time in my life, I know absolute unconditional love from a child. (well, 3) And it truly is the best thing in the world.

Liddy is 3 months old and is going to quickly catch up with her brothers. She does everything faster. I'm sure because they were preemies, and maybe because she sees them? She's already rolling over. But that could be because she hates tummy time that much, that she had a bit of motivation. She's currently 13 pounds 12 ounces. She's such a content baby. So long as someone is in the room with her, she is happy all day long. You'll never hear a peep. When she's hungry, she just starts gnawing her fists.

Our house has been full of snot, coughing and major congestion for the past month. Ear infections galore. It's been pretty miserable for all involved. The boys see an ENT tomorrow because after 2 rounds of antibiotics, the infections are still there and getting worse. My poor, poor boys. Nothing worse than seeing them struggle to breathe because they are so congested or coughing fits that lead to them throwing up their bottle.

Liddy has had a few sniffles, but hasn't gotten it quite like the rest of us. Hopefully that's because she's being breastfed? At least, that's what I'm going to say it is. I never thought I'd love breastfeeding as much as I do. I thought it would be hard, especially with infant twins. But Liddy and I are pretty awesome at it. So yeah, I'm a happy, breastfeeding mama. I have a good supply. I bit of a forceful letdown that we've had to find different positions for, but she's a chunky, happy baby, so we're figuring it out. I did have a yeast infection in my nipples back in January that was almost the death of me. Talk about toe curling pain! Ouch! Thank goodness I was able to muster through all of that (without passing it on to Liddy) and didn't give up.

Yesterday was my first day back to work. Not many have the unique situation of a second maternity leave during their child's first year of life. I feel so grateful for not just the time home with Liddy, but the additional time with my boys. To see them change so much and become so active these past few months was an absolute joy and something I'll always cherish. I wish more than anything that I could just stay home with them. But I know that my working will benefit them now and in the long run. I'll be working out of my house 2 days a week, so really, I'm pretty blessed with a great company that is offering me quite a bit of flexibility.

I have a lot more to say and so many feels going on in my head and my heart, so I promise that's coming very soon. But for now, that's my update on my triple miracle babes.

6 months of joy

It blows my mind that it's been 6 months since these little guys came into the world. To say they are a delight is putting it mildly. They are an absolute joy and bright up my whole world every day. Their little personalities are really starting to shine now.

Casey (aka Twin A)

Casey is my sensitive soul. I simply have to walk in the room and he smiles at me. He's laid back and super chill. Unless he's hungry. My little man loves to eat. Which should be completely evident by looking at those sweet cheeks of his. He is 18 pounds 9 ounces. Preemie NO MORE! He's started eating solids and is a huge fan. He's of the "Get in my belly NOW", mindset. He sleeps 11 hours a night and has since he was 4 months old. He's a wee more serious most of the time, but when you get a laugh out of him, they are of the down deep in the belly kind. It's pretty awesome. He rolled over a few times around Thanksgiving, but then decided he was done with that (or just got to fat) and is now just content to lie on his belly or back. Though he's started doing crunches recently, so I'm guessing he'd like to sit up soon. He wears size 9 month clothes and size 4 diapers. He is without a doubt going to be my little mama's boy. He totally gives the best snuggles I've ever had.

Britton (aka Twin B)

Britton is going to be the life of the party, the instigator of all things naughty and will keep us laughing for the rest of our life, I have NO doubt. He wants to be walked around so he can see what's what. His daddy is happy to oblige him and does a lot of baby wearing around the house. Pretty sure it's his favorite. He also likes to squeal, squawk, and holler as loud as he possibly can. It's quite humorous. And maybe one of my top 3 favorite sounds. He laughs with his mouth wide open and is very ticklish! He's rolling from back to belly and belly to back regularly and also working on his core. He also loves to stand up (assisted of course). He's wearing size 9 months and size 4 diapers and is 18 pounds 8 ounces. He'll eat, but it isn't quite as much of a priority as it is with Casey.

I think about our life just over a year ago and how much it's changed. Three infants is not easy. It's exhausting, it's hard and it's chaotic. But it's the best kind of chaos and every thing I dreamed being a mother could be. We had so many hard moments the past 4 years, this is what dreams are made of and make it all worth it.

Liddy Rose...Her Story

She's HERE! I have to apologize for the delay, but it's been a heck of a week and a half.

But...my little girl arrived on December 11th at 8:07 pm. She weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 21 inches long (I question that length being accurate as she was about 19 inches a few days later). I was 36 weeks and 4 days.

My water broke (at work of all places) on Thursday, December 10th around 3:45 pm. After a tiny bit of mayhem, I made it to L&D only to find out I wasn't dilated. They wanted to see if I would start on my own, but nope! Around midnight I was put on Pitocin. An hour or so later, they administered the epidural.

Now, I always assumed I'd get the drugs for labor and delivery of a baby. And many people on that day said, "don't be a hero, get the drugs". I will tell you right now that is my biggest regret. The epidural made me the most miserable of any other part of my labor. For this reason. I got "wet tapped". Google it. But it basically means that they went to far. They punctured my dura. This meant that they had to give me the meds for the epidural very slowly because of the intense effect it would have. My lower body was complete dead weight. I couldn't feel them at all and even worse, for about 8-10 hours my legs felt asleep. Like the pins and needles asleep feeling. It pretty much drove me insane. To the point that I finally told them to turn the epidural meds way down so I could have feeling back.

By around 5 pm, on Friday, December 11th, I was finally dilated to a 10. We pushed for over 2 hours but she wouldn't budged past my pelvic bone. The doctor didn't think she was going to be able to get past it. She said I could push for another hour, but she just didn't see it working. So c-section it was. 

At 8:07, my beautiful Liddy Rose arrived into this world as perfect as she could be. I will never ever forget those moments. The moment in which we became a perfect family of five. When my family was officially complete.

The next day, my cup runneth over when my boys "strolled" into the room. It was in that moment that I broke down in tears. One, I'd been away from them for 2 full days. Two, I had all my children together, in one place for the first time. 

I wish I could say that things were super easy and smooth sailing from there. They weren't exactly. We were discharged on Monday, December 14th. But on Tuesday, Liddy was looking a wee too yellow and we had her bilirubin checked. It was 19. WAY too high. She was immediately admitted into the NICU and put under lights. That same day, my headaches from the last 2 days intensified. This was something I was told to watch out for from the anesthesiologist. I was told to go to triage (2 floors down from the NICU) and it was confirmed that I was having spinal headaches from the wet tap. So in between feeding Liddy in the NICU, I had to have a blood patch to try and fix the wet tap. Luckily it worked and the headaches went away immediately. But having a second epidural knowing that the same thing could happen again...was NOT fun.

The next two nights. I stayed at the hospital. Walking the halls at night (less than a week after my c-section) every few hours to feed my little girl. Luckily my milk had come in around the same day she was admitted. I like to think that I helped in a small way with getting her out of there and home quickly. On Thursday, December 17th, we finally went home for good.

It was so hard being away from the boys for so long and especially hard knowing I couldn't pick them up. The restrictions from the c-section AND the blood patch were pretty clear on that. It sucked. I won't lie.

The past 5 days have been a bit of a blur. We have 3 babies age 5 months and under. Pretty freaking amazing, but pretty exhausting too. Especially while recovering. But I'm doing great...and so is she. And so are my boys! We're finding a decent little rhythm and luckily have had family in town to help us.

My husband was my hero through all of this. Everything he's done and continues to do makes me realize how lucky I truly am to have him. I look at him and these beautiful children and trust me, I know how blessed we are this very special Christmas. 

Good news

Yesterday was a big day. We had our ultrasound with our MFM to look at a particular part of my placenta to see if it was or was not placenta accreta. 

It was not. 

My placenta looks great. Go figure. After all these years of calling my uterus "crap", I feel a little guilty. It's doing it's thing. What more could I ask? 

Her bowels also did not look echogenic at this appointment. Which is awesome. Further reassurance that it was just another fluke that backs up all the tests that we've gone through to rule out any abnormalities. 

What they DID find was that this little gal is a whopping 6 pounds and 1 ounce at 34 weeks. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. I'm a 112 pound girl (pre-pregnancy) and was only 6 pounds and change when I was born at 39 weeks. Granted, Trevor was a 9 pound baby and if you've seen pictures of our twins, there is no shortage of cheeks, chins and fat rolls at our house. So apparently, she's taking after them and will be a little chunk. Her head was 98th percentile (WTF people) and her tummy is 87th percentile with her femur measuring around 85th percentile. 

My doctor seems pretty against inducing early, which is seriously stressing me out. She's also very low. They had trouble getting her head measurements because she's so far down in my pelvis. However, after a little reading, that doesn't really mean much about going into labor early. 

Speaking of...I spent Saturday night in the hospital. I have been having Braxton Hicks contractions since week 28. On Saturday, they were coming about every 7 minutes for several hours and by the time I was hooked up to monitors at triage, they were every 5 minutes. She was doing great, so I received a Terbutaline Injection which stopped the contractions and I got to go home. They weren't painful and my cervix was not affected. 

I have a lot of back pain, pelvic pain, carpel tunnel issues (my hands go numb at night), acid reflux and most recently, my hands and feet are swelling. And, I would take all of these things and much much more to get to be these little ones mom. It's 6 more weeks. I've got this.