Noah And The Trio: Babies are 16 days old

Hello, everyone! I just wanted to give a quick update on the babies with recent pictures. Mind that I am not a medical person at all and I am getting a crash course in nicu terminology :) Also, I am writing this from my small phone so mind that too :) I am always either with the babies at the nicu or playing with Noah at home so it is hard for me to get to a computer.

Cadence:
- Finally got off the mechanical ventilator a week ago an has held her own being off. We think te ibuprofen helped to seal up her heart. The echo shows it is still there but small but just the fact that she is just on a niv and hasn't had to be on the ventilator shows proves that it helped. The blood transfusion probably helped her feel better as well. She does get "disats" a lot and "surfs" down to 80% saturation with her oxygen though. She is increasing her feeding up 1ml everyday so today she is taking 10ml of breast milk every 3hours. Last night she weighed 2lb1oz so she is gaining weight. She tolerates her feeds very well. The goal is to get all 3 of them up to 15ml every 3hrs. For the most part, she is on 21% oxygen which is room air. She is peeing and pooping normally.

Aria:
- She is being the "bad" one, meaning she is misbehaving a little. She was off the ventilator the first week of life but got tired and was reintubated. She was doing better and was extubated only to be reintubated two days later. The intubation process is no fun so the goal is is next time she will be extubated will be the last time. The doctors were wondering why she needs the help and they decide that her PDA (hole in her heart) was large and she, like her sis, needed to be treated with ibuprofen, however they ran some labs right before and discovered that she was anemic and needed a blood transfusion which she had yesterday. They also noticed her white blood cells were high (26, they should be 15) so they think she may have an infection so they are keeping an eye on it and will retest her white blood cell count tomorrow. It may be due to all the foreign stuff in her body like the picc line or the ventilator though. She will be treated with antibiotics if she has an infection. She is the smallest still at 1lb13oz yesterday. She is also on 10ml breast milk every 3hrs and is tolerating it well. She is peeing and pooping normally.

-Jude, or shall I say Mr. Jude since that's what the medical team call him :) :
He graduated to a high flow nasal canulla from the niv but had to get back on to the niv because he was working too hard to breathe. So far, he's had less issues than the girls but things will probably change because with 3 one is likely to be "bad." For now, w are rejoicing that he is doing so well because boys typically are "whimpy white boys" in the nicu (my ob's term- Dr. M visits the babies a few times a week which I think is awesome). Jude weighs 2lbs3oz and is now tolerating 11ml of breast milk every 3hours. For the most part, he is on 21% oxygen which is room air. He is peeing and pooping pretty normally. He is having a renal ultrasound tomorrow just in case because his urine output was a little slow a few days ago.

Big brother Noah:
- He is adjusting pretty well considering his world is upside down now being one of four children. I imagine he will do the real acting out when the babies are home which should be around the beginning of November (around their real due date). He is going to be an excellent big brother though. He calls the babies "the trips." He is so funny. I want to thank everyone who has helped watching him for us while we visit the trips.

Mom and Dad:

Tim and I are adjusting with our new schedule with running back and forth to the hospital to be with the babies. It is very hard to see your itty bitties hooked up to wires and machines. It is hard on them, I know and that makes it hard on us. We wish we could take their places but we cannot. My ob doctor said a few days ago that they won't remember any of it but we will remember all of it. All we can do at this point is kangaroo them, put milk in their feeding tubes, change their diapers, take their temperature, and talk and sing to them. We pray for them constantly and pray that The Lord gives us strength as parents to get through this. I pray that the guilt that I couldn't carry them longer goes away. I don't always feel guilty but I sometimes feel a pitty party coming on and then I remind myself that God is in control.

Thank you, everyone for praying for my babies and our family during this time. I am so grateful for the thoughts and prayers and help. I am also grateful for the medical team at UMC for caring for my babies and nursing them to health. I just can't wait until the babies can come home with and we can begin the real adventure. I still can't believe that I gave birth to triplets.