How Do I Pack?

A few of my friends have asked the question "where do you start with your vacation packing Gayla"?  Now please remember that though I have not been diagnosed by a doctor I consider myself very OCD when it comes to organization, so some of this may be overwhelming to you.  Joe even jokes on me because of my ways but like I always tell him..."God blessed us with triplets plus one because of my ways"! Haha!  Depending on how long we're going away for I tend to start the packing process AT LEAST a week out.  Yes, I said 1 WEEK!  Just imagine all of the bags okay...between 3 toddlers, 2 dogs and us!  I have found the easiest way is to have a running checklist that I have saved to the computer and I can change the list as the kids get older.  Here is my current list (click on picture to enlarge):

When we're visiting my parents or staying in a hotel with a kitchenette I tend to not pack as many snacks and just go grocery shopping while we're there.  To organize the clothes I group them by day and put them in Ziploc bags with the kids names on them (Gavin is a different size) to include any hair accessories for Ava (the kids also have their own luggage bag separate from mine and Joe's:

Ava, Brayden and Gavin's daily outfits (with a bag of extras for emergencies)

Their swim gear including hats!

Since most of the time the trio are sleeping in a different room than us and they're not in pack 'n plays anymore we bring along our travel monitor to keep an eye on them.  We also pack our Ipod with white noise on it along with a travel docking station to play for them during nap and bed time to help drown out any outside noises as well as make them feel more like they're at home!

The rest of the bags are by category.  For example I have a toy bag, dog bag, diaper bag, food bag, etc.  That way I'm not searching in random bags for something specific!

I hope this helps some of you out there with or without multiples.  If you have any ideas of your own I would love to hear about them in the comments section!!! HAPPY SUMMER VACATION...we're off to Virginia Beach for 10 days!

THE FINAL PRODUCT IN OUR DRIVEWAY:

New Link!

I've had a lot friends ask me for suggestions On what to register so I created a link at the top of this page called Registry Must Haves for people to refer to for ideas when expecting a little one.

ENJOY!

Featured Blogger

There's a great website out there called Multiples and More and they have featured bloggers every week. I was fortunate enough to be the featured blogger this week. Here's the link to my interview:

Multiples and More Interview

ENJOY!!!

A Taste of Our Chaos

A lot of people ask what is it like now that they're all mobile?  I can't really explain it so here's a small taste of our morning after breakfast when I "turn them loose"...

What They Eat!

Since Gavin, Ava and Brayden have been eating solids I've been getting the question "so what are some things that they are eating"?  Their feeding schedule has changed a lot since I last posted the daily schedule.  They no longer have 10:00 or 3:00 "snack" bottles.  We knew that it was time to get rid of these because they weren't finishing their bottles and they were starving come time for lunch and dinner.  Here's an example of their daily feeding schedule these days:

7am: Breakfast (cut up pears, pureed fruit mixed with cereal and yogurt, graham crackers, 3 oz milk)

(nap from 8:30-10)

10am: Snack (cut up mozzarella cheese, cut up carrots, 3 oz milk)

12pm: Lunch (cup up vege burger, mandarin oranges, 3 oz milk)

(nap from 1-3)

3pm: Snack (cottage cheese mixed with pureed fruit, vanilla wafers, 3 oz milk)

5:30pm: Dinner (cut up turkey burger, peas, cut up peaches, 3 oz milk)

6:30pm: 6 oz bottle of milk during bed time routine

Some other foods that they like and are eating are:
mango
asparagus
green beans
squash
mashed potatoes
apples
bananas
lima beans
broccoli
sweet potatoes
blackberries
blueberries
strawberries
cherries

Turkey burger

They were  holding hands (or stealing eachother's food)!

They LOVE to eat!!

Most of the foods we are just steaming to soften and cutting them up for them to eat.  Fruits like blackberries or any others that have a tough skin we're still pureeing and combining with yogurt or cottage cheese.  There's really not any food that they don't like yet.  We love using the Morning Star Vege Burgers.  They're all organic and have a ton of protein in them.  We buy as many fruits and veges fresh but we haven't had the best experience up here with finding good quality produce so we also buy a lot that are frozen and some canned.  So hopefully this gives some ideas for all you Mommy's out there that are beginning the solid food stage.

We did a ton of research on when to begin solid feeding.  Our doctors were telling us to begin around 4 months but I found a great book as well as asked another mom of triplets (who is also a nutritionist)  her opinion on this.  Between the two there were a lot of statistics showing that it's better to wait until 6 months of age to avoid any increased links to childhood obesity.  Rice cereal is always the first "food" that doctors tell you to start with; however, a lot of people make the mistake of using it as food.  If you look at the nutritional content there is none! It's just empty carbs.  Really rice cereal should be used to teach them how to eat off of a spoon...NOT IN A BOTTLE! Putting it in a bottle can cause them to aspirate!  If you do start rice cereal at 4 months make sure you don't use it to replace a milk feeding so that you don't lose any nutritional value.  Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion on this topic but this is ours based on lots of research, professional guidance and now our own experience. 

Great book full of research and sample menus!

Questions and Answers About Triplets! (It's a Long One)

I thought it would be fun to have a question and answer session as we quickly approach one year with our sweet triplets!  As you can imagine we are approached in public by many strangers with common questions as well as bizarre and intimate questions about my pregnancy with the babies and raising triplets.  So I thought this would be the perfect place to answer the top ten questions that we get.  Hopefully some of the answers will also help other mommy's out there (whether you have multiples or not)!!

1. What was your reaction when you found out you were having triplets?

A week before we went in for our first ultrasound the fertility specialist had called to give us the good news that we were pregnant, he had told us that my hcg number (pregnancy hormone) was really high.  This can be a sign that you are further along with your pregnancy than you think or a sign of multiples.  We knew exactly when we had gotten pregnant because of the scheduled fertility treatments so we knew that couldn't be why.  But we also had been told that at the most our IUI would result in twins! 

When we finally went in for our ultrasound the doctor, very calmly, said "There's baby A, there's baby B and...there's baby C"! Joe said "Are you being serious"?  I immediately began to cry because, if any of you have gone through fertility treatments, doctors are not excited for multiples because of the problems it may cause for the mother as well as birth defects/prematurity/mortality rate!  I had been told about these possibilities and had read about them.  The doctor told us what our options were, carrying all three or  not, but there was no option in mine and Joe's mind.  God had given us these three miracles because he knew we were strong enough and would love these children unconditionally!  After we walked out of that doctor's office I began stuffing my face with lots of high caloric food to start fattening these babies up!!

Our three sweet ones!

2. How big did you get?  How did you lose the weight?

My weight prepregnancy was 125 (5'4") and by the time I delivered I was 195 lbs!!!  If you had the opportunity to see me in my last weeks (around 30 wks) you can attest to most of that being fluid in my legs.  I'll never forget the time I had to meet with a nutritionist and she told me that I had to consume, on average, 4,000 calories a day.  So you can imagine what our grocery list looked like on a weekly basis. 

One of my legs at about 28 weeks

After shopping for 4,000 calories a day!

One of our last ultrasounds at 31 weeks and 4 days!

Once the babies arrived I really didn't have much time to think about how to lose the weight.  But since most of it was fluid, I did lose 45 lbs in two weeks!  I was also nursing every three hours so that burned a lot of calories.  I'm currently ten pounds away from my preweight so I'm sure now that I'm chasing after three crawlers, soon-to-be walkers, that will definitely help me lose that last little bit!

3. Do multiples run in the family?

Although some of you (including me) may think this is a pretty personal question, others, even strangers, do not!  This is probably one of the most common questions!  So onto answering it...NO MULTIPLES DO  NOT RUN IN OUR FAMILY!! I've actually found that talking about it has helped other women who have struggled with this same thing in their lives.  Joe and I tried to conceive for a year and a half with no luck before seeing a specialist who performed multiple tests on both of us.  10% of infertile couples (6.1 million couples) are told that the problem is unexplained infertility.  I fall into that percentage.  There was no known reason that I couldn't get pregnant because there were no problems with any of my hormones, eggs etc.  This is difficult to hear because it's difficult to treat since you don't know what the problem is, so trial and error is the only way to go.

We tried 3 months of Clomid, a drug that you take daily that induces ovulation (egg production) in women who do not produce eggs to increase the number of eggs my body would produce, giving us more than one chance to get pregnant each month.  No luck there!  We then did one month of Clomid with IUI,  a procedure which places "soldiers" (what Joe calls them) into the uterine cavity.  This is not the same thing as IVF (what octomom used).  At no point were my eggs taken out and put into a tube or frozen (another question people ask).  It was all done internally.  Unfortunately that did not work either.  So we then went onto gonadotropins injections in my stomach twice a day performed by Joe!!  This treatment is often compared to a "puppy mill".  Most dogs that have puppies have them in liters, aka more than one.  The reason is because they have a high level of gonadotropin.  So by injecting this "hormone" into me I increase my level of that so that I produce more than one egg, increasing my chance of getting pregnant!  Of course with this procedure we knew there was a chance of multiples too! We went with it along with IUI.  At one point I had 7 good size eggs in there so the doctors coasted me and decreased my injection amount the last 2 days.  That Monday they did the IUI procedure (there were actually 4 good size eggs in there) and then we had to wait 2 weeks to find out if we were pregnant.  November 4, 2009 (also when the Yankees won the World Series) is when we found out IT WORKED!! 

Dr. Bateman



Dr. Williams

The doctors at the Reproductive Medicine and Surgery Center of Virginia made our dreams come true!

4. "AWWWW, three boys"?!

Though we don't get this question as much, I cannot tell you how many times people asked this question when we would take them out in the strollers.  I wanted so many times to ask "did you dress your son in pink and bows"?  I realize she doesn't have much hair, but really? She doesn't even have a boyish face!! I was never into the big bows for Ava but I got so tired of people asking this question I gave in and started putting them in her hair and dressing her in all pink. Thanks to all of you that insisted on buying pink for Ava even though I didn't want it!  So based on my experience, to all of you out there that see multiples (or even a single) DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT blurt out boy or girl if you are unsure!!! Just ask what their name(s) are to cover yourself!

5. Are you all by yourself? Do you have any help?

Yes, we have so much help from friends and family.  We are so fortunate to have Joe's family (and friends) right across the river (20 minutes) to help us as well as my parents down in Virginia who visit often.  I cannot tell you how many times Joe and I have been in a jam whether it be doctor's appointments (I can't really go by myself with all three just yet, while they're still crawling), Joe's work meetings, etc. and we have called on family and friends to help us even with just a days notice.  There is absolutely no way we could have gotten through this past year without ALL of you! So thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedules to help us.  Words cannot express how much we appreciate it! 

Just a few of our MANY helpers!!

Aunt Jen and Gavin

Nanna and Ava

Uncle Tommy and Gavin

Aunt Kara and Gavin

Poppy and Ava

Meme and Brayden

"Aunt" Chelsea and Ava

"Uncle" Rick and "Aunt" Megan with Brayden and Gavin

Papa and Gavin

"Uncle" Jeff, "Uncle" Zach and "Uncle" Rich with all three!

As far as daily help, no, I chose not to have a Nanny even before the babies were born.  Though some days it would be nice to have those two extra hands I prefer to do it by myself thanks to my obsessive compulsiveness with having to do things MY way!  Joe does come home every afternoon though at lunch which is a huge break for me!  On the weekends he is also amazing at "making me" get out of the house baby-free! 

6. How do you do it?  (This is my opportunity to share some of my favorite products)

Of course the first thing I have to brag about is my amazing hubby! We make an incredible team and without the two of us together there's no possible way we would be the parents that we are! 

He's even become a multi-tasker!!

But I also need to take the time to tell you about some of my favorite products that got us through this past year (multiples mom or not)!  And most of these are listed under the tab "My Favorite Things" at the top!

Bottle holders to help with extra "hands"

We have a calendar on the 'fridge and write EVERY appointment, holiday, etc on it!

Pampered Chef has a family size pitcher that we mix our formula in every day!

We turned the "beer 'fridge" into the "milk 'fridge".  This especially helped during those middle of the night feedings so we didn't have to stumble downstairs half asleep.  We kept it upstairs in the office along with all three bottle warmers!

One of my pet peeves is seeing a family out and the parents getting irritated with their children when they misbehave.  Usually they have NOTHING to entertain them because the parents do not come prepared...how can you get mad at a young child and expect them to sit in a restaurant for 2 hours with nothing in front of them to do?  We ALWAYS have a packed toy bag that we leave in the car for moments like these!

GET OUT! I can totally see the difference in the weeks that we can get out even for a walk around the neighborhood and those weeks (because of our beautiful snowy weather here) that we have not been able to get out of the house.  It is important for you and the babies to get some fresh air!

You NEED a play pen! It has been such a life saver during this "movement" stage to put them inside of and contain them from those "dangerous" moments when I have to run upstairs, prepare food, etc!

Last but NOT least...humor!  You must have humor, like these moments.  You don't want to look back and only remember the frustrating and trying times.  Enjoy these innocent and fun days...they will pass VERY quickly!

So these are few things that helped and continue to help us "do it" on a daily basis! 

7. Do they all sleep through the night? Same schedule? Same room?

I think that even if we had, had one child we probably would have stuck to a schedule but especially with three at once!  Can you imagine having three babies the same age all on different schedules? You would have a nervous breakdown after the first week of trying that! And if you know me, you know that I have this sickness of NEEDING to plan ahead and have a routine/schedule for everything!  So before the babies were even born I wasn't reading your basic how to raise a child books...I looked for those that focused on routines.  The winning book was:

I have to also give credit to other "multiple moms" blogs that I stole some schedule ideas from!  When the babies came home from the NICU they were already on a 3-4 hour feeding schedule so it was pretty easy to continue that for the first few months.  Gavin was the first to sleep through the night around 4 months of age, then Ava close behind and then Brayden around 6 months.  It seemed as though once we started to really focus on solid naps during the morning and afternoon this really helped them at night.  We had to especially focus on not allowing them to become overtired or they were overstimulated and had a hard time falling asleep.  I have to admit it was a lot of work for Joe and I in the beginning but it has paid off now since they sleep from 7 to 7 every night!  Another thing was to make sure we put them to sleep awake especially during naps so they could put themselves back to sleep even if they woke during the nap or night.  People always ask when they come over during nap time or bed time "you just put them in their crib wide awake and they will fall asleep"?  
Lastly, their nap times are from 8:30-10 and 1-3.  Even if they wake up early (as long as they're not screaming crying) we DO NOT go in and get them until the end of those times.  We put what we call "quite toys" in their cribs such as glow worms or teethers and they know that they can play with those if their siblings are still asleep.  If all of them do wake up it's hilarious to see them laugh and talk to each other across the room! 

Their "quite toys" in their cribs

8. How do you have time to blog, clean, etc.?

I usually get this question following a new post on the blog.  But one of those perks of having the babies all on the same schedule is that they also have the same nap time so I definitely utilize that time of the day to do the little things around the house including blogging, downloading pictures, laundry, cleaning, etc.  They have three different play time during the day so I always make sure that one of those is independent play.  I think this is really important for them to be able to use their imagination and have time with each other to play without me there to distract them.  Usually this is when I do the noisy things like make baby food, vacuum, etc.  I'll definitely miss that morning nap when we drop it around 15 months of age so I'm trying to convince Joe to get a housekeeper once a week to help me out a little!! 

9. Do you ever get "me" time?

I have one person to thank for this and that is Joe.  He has been amazing from the very beginning with "making me" take time out for myself.  While a lot of husbands stay at work and do things around the office in between classes and at lunch, Joe comes home at lunch so that I can go to the gym every day.  He goes in early in the morning to do those administrative things.  He also gets up at 5 every morning, unloads the dishwasher, sets up bottles for me to make, laundry etc. so that I can get an extra 2 hours of sleep until 7.  This really helps me!  Lastly, on the weekends Joe many a times will literally push me out of the house to go shopping (for myself), get a pedicure or get lunch/dinner with the girls.  Just these little breaks every week give me that time to re energize and do something for myself. 

10. Are you done or do you want more children?

I started getting this question while I was pregnant with the babies.  I think people just assume that we're done because we were having three at once.  Though you may think we're crazy Joe and I have actually talked about this and would love to have one more child.  This time though we would not use fertility treatments (don't want to chance quads next) but let it just happen.  If we get pregnant then great but if not we're are perfectly happy with our three beautiful babies.  It would be nice to have the big brother/sister relationship though!  And hey, it would be a piece of cake having one after doing it with three at once right? Haha!! We'll see about that! 

So I hope that my answers for these questions helped you and that you have a better understanding of our every day life with Brayden, Gavin and Ava!

Preeclampsia Awareness Month

May is Preeclampsia Awareness Month.  And most of you probably say to yourselves "what is preeclampsia and could it really happen to me"?  That's what I used to say when I would hear the term before I was pregnant.  Here's my story:

My husband and I had been trying to conceive for a year and a half with no luck so we began fertility treatments and became pregnant with triplets via IUI. I had a perfect pregnancy (considering it was times three) up until 30 weeks. I began to swell a lot and the doctors ordered ultrasounds on my legs to check for blood clots. My blood pressure was not yet high at that point so they didn't take it too seriously. At 32 weeks and 3 days I began to cramp horribly and told my husband that I had to go to the hospital. As soon as I arrived they inserted a catheter and began monitoring my urine and blood pressure. I was admitted on a Saturday and since there is less personnel on the weekends they really wanted to hold off on delivering until Monday since triplets require a lot of people. Monday morning came and my doctor said he had no choice but to deliver for the safety of me and the babies due to my blood pressure going through the roof.

I'll never forget the nurses continuously telling me to roll on my side when they would check my blood pressure because apparently that position helps to lower it. I finally said if my blood pressure is high then there's a reason so let's do something about it, not hide it!! After the delivery the next morning they wanted to take me off the magnesium sulfate but they quickly realized that something was seriously wrong with me! The entire right side of my face was not moving! They did cat scans, MRI's, poking and prodding until they found fluid on my brain. They sent in a neurologist team and diagnosed me with Bells Palsy. On top of that my preeclampsia had turned into HELLP syndrome which explained why my blood pressure was still through the roof after I delivered.  I of course didn't realize the seriousness of this disorder until the nurse pulled the curtains shut to my friends and family and simply said "she's very sick".  HELLP can cause seizures, excessive bleeding and kidneys to shut down if not caught in time. 
They wanted to do an immediate blood transfusion because I had become anemic during the C-section. While waiting for the blood I had to use the restroom for the first time so Joe and the nurse on either side walked me in. Because of the loss of blood I had become so weak that I actually collapsed onto the floor. They believe that when this happened I created a hematoma on my incision (along with everything else). Finally I received the transfusion in hopes to be on the mends after! Not so much! My blood pressure was still high so I had to get a platelet transfusion.
The hardest party was not being able to see my three beautiful children for the first 3 days of their lives because I couldn't go down to the NICU since I was so sick. I had to rely on my husband to take pictures of them and show me.
Finally after a week of being in the hospital I was sent home with blood pressure medicine that I had to take three times a day for a month until my pressure eventually came down as the swelling lessened. It took about a month for the Bells Palsy to go away as well.
We now have 3 11-month old triplets, Ava, Gavin and Brayden. I thank God every day that he got me far into the pregnancy so they were delivered at a healthy weight. I also thank God every day that he got me through that week while I lay in the hospital bed thinking "what if I don't make it..."?

I share this story to those out there that have suffered, may suffer or know that someone that has suffered from this disorder as support and information.  I have recently signed up with the Preeclampsia Foundation where I can volunteer even just one hour a month of my time creating awareness for people out there as well as organizing fundraisers to help with the research of Preeclampsia and HELLP. 

My New Toy!

I'm sure any of you that have children have experienced the excitement when baby food is on sale at the store because it is normally quite expensive!  Well even with those sales it adds up to be a ridiculous amount of money when you're feeding three 7 month old mouths!  So I decided to make our baby food!  With this though came lots of opinion based on experience (thank you) and research by Mom and me on the right equipment to use!  I also used a great book given by Rick and Megan with some good recipes (definitely recommend).

So guess what I got for Christmas from my parents this year?  YUP a 19 cup food processor and a 2 tier steamer! Never did I think the day would come that I would be this excited to get a food processor and steamer as a gift! 

My setup:

So we buy some veges and fruits frozen depending on the time of year and we steam everything first.  Then it goes in the food processor and is pureed.  Next I scoop it into cubed food trays and freeze it.  Once it's frozen the already measured (1 oz or 2 oz) cubes go into a labeled zip loc bag.  When it's time to eat all we have to do is take out the amount of cubes we want, microwave them to thaw them out and then add cereal.  So far the babies have liked everything and we've started doing combinations of cubes to make it more fun!

Can you tell by their faces how much they like it?