Finally all home

As of Saturday, October 5, 12 days after they were born, all 3 babies are home!  We took Tripp home on Friday and Ella got home on Saturday!  It is stressful and we are tired, but so excited to have them all home!

Emily

We have known Emily is the loudest crier since the beginning.  In the NICU you could hear her screaming from down the hall.  That didn't change once we got home. She really enjoyed her first 2 nights as an only child.  She would cry and we would pick her up, or Mark would hold her until they both fell asleep.  Now it's going to be a lot harder to pick her up every time. We realized that she was very fussy because she had gas.  She would wake up from her sleep screaming and then a couple of minutes later she would be fine.  It must've been painful gas!  We were giving her either breast milk or formula, but realized she did a lot better after the breast milk feedings.  Then I remembered that we had a sample of some formula for fussiness and gas so she got some of that and seemed to handle it a little better than the other formula.  I would love to only give her breast milk but as of right now I'm not producing enough to give to her every time and still have some for the other 2 babies.  I don't want to give the other babies nothing but formula, so we will try out this new formula and see what happens.  Hopefully with all 3 home I will start to produce more.  She is a very pleasant baby when she doesn't have gas, so I think fixing that will help a lot.  Emily went to her first pediatric appointment on Friday and everything looks great!  She is back up to her birth weight and doing everything that she should be doing. 

 I got out of the shower one morning and my heart melted when I saw this: 

Mark

Mark was the 2nd to come home.  This little boy is amazing!  He's so calm.  Emily was right next to him screaming the first night home and he didn't budge.  He just eats, sleeps and dirties his diaper.  There isn't much to report on him because he's just so good and a very sweet boy!  When he cries it's very quiet and kind of raspy.  It's so cute!

We got this picture of him today and couldn't stop laughing.  He looks so much like a tiny old man.  He makes the most serious faces and we have this old man voice that we do for him when he makes the faces.  Mark usually has him saying things like, "I'm a little worried guys, the Nasdaq is down today!"  He makes us laugh with his funny faces and Mark makes it so much funnier by giving him a voice!

Ella

Ella was the last to come home.  She came home on Saturday.  It was so nice walking out of the NICU and knowing that we wouldn't have to drive to the medical center everyday to see babies, they are in our living room now!  We were kind of nervous to take her home because she was eating so fast that she would forget to breathe and then her heart rate would drop.  We did 2 last feedings at the hospital before we were comfortable taking her off of the monitors and bringing her home.  She still makes me nervous every time we give her a bottle, but we just make sure that whoever is feeding her is watching her very closely and if she isn't breathing they take the bottle out of her mouth.  We also have to burp her more often than the other 2.  Other than that, she is a very happy baby.  She just smiles all the time and looks at you.  After she eats she usually stays awake for a little while and just looks around. 

Having 3 babies at home hasn't been easy.  We had to come up with plans for feeding and sleeping and of course we usually need extra hands.  My mother in law has been sleeping over at night to help with feedings and then in the morning my mom has come over to help during the day.  We are still working on figuring out the feeding situation, it has changed quite a few times.  It's very confusing having one baby on a different formula than the other 2, and not having enough breast milk for all of them so having to decide how we are going to split it up between the babies each time.  It's getting easier every day, but we are still learning.

At night time we have them in their cribs in the nursery.  It just didn't work out having them all in our bedroom.  So now we watch them on the video monitor as we go to sleep.  We have 2 cameras, one looking at Mark and the other is between the 2 girls so we can move the camera from the monitor in our bedroom to see each one.  Technology is amazing!  If one of them has the hiccups we can hear it and see which one it is.  Last night we started playing a game where if someone cries, we guess that baby.  I'm really good at the game!  I can already tell their cries apart.

This morning was our first time out of the house with all 3 babies.  We took them all to the pediatrician.  My sister came with us because we needed extra hands.  They are doing really well!  The doctor seemed to be very impressed with their weight gain and their progress in general.  Emily and Tripp are each 5 pounds 8 ounces and Ella is 5 pounds 10 ounces.  Their growth charts are looking great!  We will take them back when they are 1 month old.