The first week at home

It's been a very eventful first week at home. I'm happy to report that the three boys are doing very well. The first few days they mostly just slept and ate. The last couple of days they seem to be staying awake a little longer in between feedings.

Michael is steadily becoming a better eater. He's now regularly taking 45-50ml per feed and keeps it all down. He is gaining weight and is closing in on his birth weight of 5lb 3 oz. Twice, once in the hospital and once at home, he has thrown up an entire feed and parts of subsequent feeds after taking his vitamins. We've stopped giving him the vitamins for now and he seems to be doing much better. He is the most alert of the three and as Christina said today, he would melt your heart. He just seems to have a very placid and peaceful demeanor.

Cian reminds me of the guy Rocky fought in the Rocky IV movie. He's absolutely clinical when it comes to eating. He takes 60-70ml per feed and never spills a drop. He's a man on a mission and is gaining weight hand over fist, already well ahead of his birth weight. He's also the only one of the three who doesn't cry when he's getting his nappy changed. He's definitely the tough guy amongst the three.

Tighe is the funny guy. His facial expressions are classic. When lying down he adopts the pose of cupid having just let the arrow go. He's always the first to wake up for his feed and is taking 55-65ml. He's also well ahead of his birth weight now.

We were very lucky to have Jennifer (Gigi's friend from high school) stay with us last week. She was a tremendous help and lots of fun. I don't take direction very well and Jennifer is one of the very few people I've ever met who manages to let me know when I'm doing something wrong without actually annoying me. She put together some great meals for us, carried the load on the feedings and turned into one of Clara's best friends. Clara is another member of the family who doesn't take direction well, but again Jennifer had her number. So, a very sincere thank you to Jennifer.

The boys had their first outing last Wednesday night when we took a walk down to the local Frozen Yoghurt store. The above pic of Clara and her friends Ryan and Sienna was taken that night.

Thursday was a big night. Jay (Gigi's brother) and Rachel (one of Europes greatest chefs) brought us a great dinner and good beer. Clara was very excited to have her cousins Sarah, Jack and Joe over and she had a lot of fun. We had dinner outside as the kids played in the garden. For those of you who don't know Jay, he's the one holding the three lads in the above photo. For some reason I don't have any good photo's of the kids that night so Rachel or Marge please send me some so I can include them in my next post.

Friday saw the opening of the Olympic Games. I've always been a big fan of the Olympics and remember staying up every night during the 1984 LA Olympics to watch the events live. If someone had told me then that 28 years later I'd also be up through the night watching, but would be feeding triplets in California, I'd never have believed them.

Marge arrived down last Wednesday night and has also been a tremendous help. On top of helping with the triplets, Marge is like the energizer bunny when it comes to getting stuff done around the house. Gigi and Marge are running the show at home this week as I am back in work and taking Clara to and from pre-school each day.

Thanks to our neighbor Ann-Marie for preparing an excellent dinner for us last night (which included possibly the best mashed potatoes I've ever had). Ann-Marie was also responsible for some very cool banners and balloons on our house when we arrived home with the boys last week. It was a very nice touch, one we really appreciated. We continue to get many offers of help from our neighbors, from watching Clara, to shopping, to making dinners for us. We are extremely grateful for all these offers. Ann-Marie has been co-ordinating our neighbors wrt dates when they will prepare dinner for us. I think partly due to that Irish/Catholic guilt that never goes away, I actually feel uncomfortable accepting so much help, and hence uncomfortable saying how many dinners have been arranged for us. All I can say is that we REALLY appreciate the help and hope we can return the favor one day.

Michael and Tighe join Cian at home

The above picture is the three lads just before we left the hospital to take them all home today. I think it is very easy to tell them apart. Can you? Let's have a little fun, please post a comment and let me know who is who in the above photograph, from left to right...

We were extremely happy to bring all three home today. We are excited and looking forward to the logistical challenge of keeping them all fed and happy.

A bunch of our neighbors dropped by in the early evening and we had a nice gathering in front of our house. It was great to hear the words of congratulations and encouragement, and the offers for help. We really appreciate the offers and will certainly be taking any help we can get :-)

It's 10:30pm and we are preparing for our first night of looking after the boys without the help of a team of nurses. It's all down to Gigi, Jennifer and I tonight. And we actually have a plan :-)
The 10:30-11:30pm feeding is being taking care of by Gigi and Jenn (and I'm supposed to be sleeping now)
The 1:30-2:30am feeding is being taken care of by me and Jenn (Gigi sleeps)
The 4:30-5:30am feeding is being taken care of by Gigi and I (Jenn sleeps)
The 7:30-8:30am feeding is Gig and Jenn, and I will get Clara ready and off to pre-school.

Then the three lads have their first check-up at the Doctor at 930am in the morning.

Let's see if our carefully laid out plan can be executed...

Cian comes home

At 9 days old, Cian came home with us this evening. He was the biggest of the three at birth. He was a bit of a lazy eater for the first few days but has really come on great in the last 4-5 days. It was really great to get him home. He's sleeping at the bottom of our bed right now. Clara had a lot of fun helping us get him ready to come home.

It looks like Tighe will come home tomorrow (Tuesday). He has also been doing great.

At one point today the doctors said Michael might also come home with Tighe on Tuesday. However he did have a couple of very large spit-ups today. This will probably affect how much weight he puts on today so thet may keep him a little longer. Michael has been eating great the last few days but doesn't seem to be getting the same weight gain as Cian. One of his large spit-ups today was right after they gave him liquid vitamins and iron. They said it's not uncommon for some of the babies to throw up after being given this. And I think it's fair to say that Michael has the most sensitive stomach of the three.

We've had Gigi's friend Jennifer (friends since high school and Maid of Honor at our wedding) stay with us the last few days. It's been great having her here. She's been a great help. Clara really loves her. It's been fun to see Clara do things that she's learned from Jenniferduring the last few days.

The Van:

Seven months ago, as we left the doctors office, still in shock after finding out we were having triplets, Gigi was opening her car door and out of the blue said "by the way, there's no way we're buying a mini-van." I concurred before she even finished the sentence. Well, after looking at many different options, including a double-decker bus, we now own a mini-van (picture above). It'll be hard on Gigi to give up her beloved beast, the 350 BHP VW Touareg. But she is being very brave. :-)

The Nutcracker

Clara was very insistant this morning that she wanted to bring her ballet clothes to the hospital so that she could put on a show for the three boys. And it was quite a show indeed. It was the first time in recorded history that The Nutcracker was performed inside the Special Care Nursery at Stanford.

The three boys continue to do really well...

Tighe's appetite for food is becoming legendary. He is the guy that every nurse wants to look after. Whereas most babies take 20-30 minutes to feed, Tighe is done in about 3-5 minutes. His facial expressions are also very interesting. He is the closest to returning to his birth weight, now just 2.5% below it and already on the way back up. He is still inside the isolette/incubator. This is to help him maintain/regulate his body temperature. I'm not convinced he really needs this anymore but they are being very conservative/cautious. The big advantage of the incubator is that the babies don't have to work much or spend much energy to keep their body temperature up. This helps them maintain and grow their weight.

Cian is also an interesting character. He too is eating well. He is 7.0% below his birthweight but also above his lowest recorded weight and on the upslope. All three are on monitors which check

1. Heart Rate

2. Respiration Rate

3. Oxygen Saturation.

One of the funny things about Cian is that as he gets closer to his feed time you can see his heart rate creep up and up. He starts from a content 125 bpm, then rises slowly over about 20 minutes to 200 bpm. At this point he starts to cry and then hits the 225 bpm before he gets changed and fed. He is also in the incubator still, but again is very close to coming out.

Michael had a really great day today. The doctors had been saying over the last day or two that they were concerned about his weight drop (now down 8.4%) and were thinking of fortifying his milk. He had been averaging less than 30ml per feeding whereas Cian and Tighe were up in the 50ml range. And Michael was throwing up more than the other two as well. In addition they suspect he is suffering from reflux (acid surge from his stomach back up into his throat) as they noticed he is scrunching and holding his breath sometimes when he is eating or shortly afterwards. I fed Michael at 8am this morning and again at 11am. After each feeding I held him for over and hour in an upright position to see if it helped the reflux. I'm not sure if it helped but he took 35 and 38ml and didn't spit up at all. Then later today he took over 40ml from Marge. I don't know if holding him upright helped, but there was certainly a corner turned today and we are hopeful that Michael really starts to gain weight from now. The other interesting thing is that

Michael is the only one of the three who has not been in an incubator. He manages to regulate his body temperatur very well, but this is probably another reason why he has lost more weight, the extra energy to do this unassisted.

Gigi also made very good progress today. She had much more pep in her step and had to take far less pain medication than in recent days. She's doing a great job with the nursing also.

Still no firm date on when they will come home. Honestly, if they told us tomorrow morning that we could take them home, I'd be very comfortable doing that.

We're looking forward to seeing Jennifer, Mike and Giuseppe Criscuolo tomorrow. Jennifer is currently on her annual trip from the east coast to see her family in Healdsburg and has extended her trip by a week so that she can stay and help Gigi out. Mike needs to get back to the east coast as he has a try out for the New York Mets on Monday. They've been struggling with pitching so far this season and Mike is getting a chance after throwing 5 perfect games in his Wednesday night league.