Professional Pictures

We have gotten 3 pictures from the professional infant photographer so far. We have posted 2 with this blog.

From Triplets

Left to Right: Becky, Mark, Jared

From Luke

Luke

We took the babies to the pediatrician yesterday. They passed all their screens with flying colors. They have gained some really good weight. Mark and Jared gained about 14 ounces and Becky gained about 12.

From Triplets

Picture Day

We took the triplets out to a professional infant photographer. She wants to add some pictures of triplets to her portfolio and offered us a free shoot with pictures so that she could have the pictures in her promotional material.

It was another one of those treks of putting the babies in their car seats and then in the van to take them to the photographer's home.

From Triplets

We'll have this same trek again on Thursday because we have another pediatrician appointment.

We haven't gotten any picture yet from the photographer, but we'll post a few of our favorite when we get them. We did take some pictures of our own when we got back, however.

From Triplets

They're getting bigger

We took Mark, Becky and Jared to the pediatrician yesterday. They are all doing very well. Their weights are now:

Mark: 4 lbs 9.5 oz

Becky: 6 lbs 2 oz

Jared: 5 lbs 15 oz

We took Becky and Jared a week earlier, prior to Mark getting out of the hospital. Both of them gained 11 oz in the 7 day between appointments. The Dr. is very happy about that.

It's quite an ordeal to get them ready for the trip to see the Dr. Shelley's mom came before we left to pick up Luke, then we put all of the babies in their car seats. We then propped open all of the doors that led to the garage. Robert carried 2 babies and Shelley carried 1 to the van. We have barely enough room in the back seat to fit all three car seats. We'll make sure to get a picture of them in the back seat the next time we get them in there. Jared and Becky look small in their car seats, but Mark looks exceptionally small.

From Mark

The drama of raising 1 toddler and 3 infants reached a peek this morning. We were rudely awoken by our 7:30 feeding alarm. Like clockwork, within minutes, Luke started whaling from his bedroom. Robert went to take care of Luke to help him get oriented from just waking up. He played with Luke a little to keep him out of Shelley's way while feeding the newborns.

Shelley was feeding Becky when Mark started crying. Mark's crying woke up Jared and he started crying also. Shelley finally called Robert over to help, but of course Luke had to follow Robert to help out. Since Luke was just waking up, he wanted to be held too. We got a deep realization that we were outnumbered by children.

We were finally able to resolve the problem by asking Luke to help us feed the babies. I picked up Mark to start feeding him and Luke helped to hold the bottle. If Luke realizes he is still part of the whole family, he really does enjoy having the triplets around.

Mark is Home

I know it has been a week since we have given everyone an update. Having 2 babies home and 1 in the hospital has really stretched out our spare time.

We won't have to make any more trips to the hospital now because we were able to bring Mark home today.

From Mark

Just because we don't have to make trips now to the hospital doesn't mean we have all the spare time in the world. We still have a 3 hour feeding schedule. Meaning we feed the babies every 3 hours. Since it take about an hour to feed all 3, our day, through the whole day and night is 1 hour feeding, 2 hours off, 1 hour feeding, 2 hours off. That will be our life for a few weeks until they are on a 4 hour feeding schedule. Robert returns to work on January 14, so Shelley will be doing it all by herself. We fortunately have a lot of family around to help. Thank goodness for family. Anyone out there that has given any of their help, we tank you a great deal.

We have a few pictures we've taken of all 3 together, but we plan to take more soon. Click on the "Triplets" link to see the ones we have taken so far.

From Triplets

Becky and Jared are Home!!!

Yeah!! We got to take Becky and Jared home today. They can now take 45 mL of formula every 3 hours by bottle which was their last step. Mark still has his feeding tube in, so he can't leave yet. We're hoping to have him home within a week.

Since we were able to take Becky and Jared out of their rooms, they allowed us to take them into Mark's room so that we could get pictures of all three of them together.

From Triplets

We also have more individual pictures:

From Mark

From Becky

From Jared

Merry Christmas

We're approaching the close of Christmas day 2010. We had a very enjoyable one. Our Christmas started last night. Since we had so many things already planned for today, we opened most of our immediate family gifts on Christmas eve. We weren't able to include the triplets since they are still in the hospital, but they are still too young to know what they are missing anyway.

We saved Luke's best gifts for this morning except for 1 power tool that he had to take to bed with him.

From Luke

Luke did a much better job at unwrapping gifts this year than he did last year.

From Luke

We went to Robert's sister, Stephanie's early this morning. We left Luke there to go to the hospital. We were able to dress the babies in little Christmas outfits.

From Mark

From Becky

From Jared

After our hospital visit, we went to Shelley's parents' along with most of Shelley's brothers and sisters. We all exchanged gifts there. Luke was trying to unwrap gifts belonging to others, but we were able to stop him for the most part.

From Luke

Now it's late and we need to get to bed.

Mark has moved now

Mark was moved to the CCN (Continued Care Nursery) last night. He is still in his isolette, but is doing very well. All babies are gaining about an ounce a day and they are all now in the CCN.

From Mark

Mark

From Becky

Becky

From Jared

Jared