Year One

You know the saying, “Time Flies When You’re Having Fun”?  Well, time has certainly flown this past year, but I can’t say it was all fun!  I honestly can’t believe we made it through this past year.  From the day the boys were born, one year ago today, life has been an absolute whirlwind.  When Brennen, Graham and Liam were in the hospital, I thought it was hands down the hardest thing I had ever had to endure.  Then when we brought the boys home and they were eating every three hours, had feeding tubes and struggling with feedings, I thought that was the hardest thing I ever had to get through.  THEN, when the boys stopped sleeping much at night and hardly at all during the day, I thought that was the hardest thing ever.  I guess what I have come to realize is every phase we have been through this year has been hard in very different ways.  From the emotional toll the hospital stay took on us, to the physical toll sleep deprivation took on us it’s amazing we made it out in one piece! 

But I can also look back and take so much joy in all the good moments.  The days we brought the boys home; Liam on June 29, Graham on July 4 and Brennen on July 4 were euphoric.  Just knowing our little guys went through so much and came home to us healthy was a miracle.  Every first we had with them was something not to be taken for granted….First full bottle feeding, first (and every time) they all slept through the night, first smiles, first teeth, first crawls…I could go on and on!  We are so incredibly lucky to experience all of this three times over!  Not only that, but the boys are the happiest little dudes ever, and I love watching them learn, explore and interact with each other.  We have had our fair share of grabbing, pushing and pacifier pulling already, and I am sure that will continue.  I know they say you shouldn’t wish one phase away too fast for the sake of a new phase, but I am so excited to keep watching these guys grow and have so many more firsts.  I feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel that has just started to appear this last month or so, and things are beginning to get slightly easier.  I am sure life will continue to be chaotic and we will still have our ups and downs, but such is life with four kids, and we’ll just keep calm and try not to freak out!

I sang happy birthday to each boy individually tonight and smothered them with hugs and kisses (happy they’ll let me do this for a few more years), and I realized that one year ago today I could not even hold them and just had to settle for holding their tiny hands.  This realization to me was what really brought the whole year into perspective and make me feel like I’m the luckiest mom in the world!

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY Brennen, Graham and Liam, we can’t wait to see what year two brings! 

P.S. I am having technical difficulties and will post photos when I am able! 

Blog? What Blog?

I seriously blocked it out of my mind that I even had a blog, if only to simplify my life and eliminate one more item from my to-do list. As you can imagine, life has been insanely busy with all the kiddos.  Plus we decided to pack one more giant change into our lives to end 2012 with a bang...we moved to a new house! 

Our new "Crib" to fit all our cribs

Let me back track a bit and give a brief summary about why I have been M.I.A.  See things had been going pretty well with the boys and I was like, "I got this", but then...dum dum dum, they started teething.  Gone were the nights of 11-12 hours of sleep, they began to wake up, sometimes every hour, leaving Brandon and I utterly exhausted.  Teething was followed by illness followed by teething, it was like a vicious cycle.  I would like to say we're back on track with the sleeping, but it's really hit our miss.  Some days we wake up at 6:30am and realize a miracle has happened, all the boys slept through the night.  MOST days we wake up at least once during the night.  It has made for two very sleep deprived and cranky parents. Despite my best intentions to sleep train them, I have not gotten very far.  Mostly because we like to swoop in fairly quick to keep one boy from waking up the others with his crying.  Again, another vicious cycle!

Despite all of our little "issues", the boys continue to thrive.  They are 10 months old today, as a matter of fact, and are happy little dudes...most of the time.  

Brennen

Brennen is still our little peanut weighing in at 14lbs. 2oz.  He is so incredibly sweet and has the best, widest smile.  It is a hard earned smile, but the reward is so worth it!  The laugh is even better, and best brought out by a couple of raspberries on the belly.  He is pretty quiet, letting his brothers do most of the talking, but you can see the wheels turning in his head. He will hold on to toys and examine them for the longest time, as if to figure out how everything works (like his dad). Don't let him fool you though, because when he gets mad, he gets MAD!  I have the hardest time letting him cry it out, mostly because he is so loud, but also because he's still my tiny little guy.

Graham

Graham now weighs 16lbs. and he is such a charmer, quick to smile and definitely a little ham. He has had to go to the children's hospital several times to be treated for a hemangioma under his eye, and he has all the nurses wrapped around his little finger.  On one particularly hectic day, it was 3:00 and I hadn't had time to eat lunch, so our nurse "watched" him for me while I got a bite to eat in the cafeteria. She really just walked him around to smile at all the other nurses!  He is rolling all over the place, sitting up a little, and always seems to be in cahoots with Liam.  I have a fear of what the two of them will get into when they are older, and am counting on Brennen to be the voice of reason!  

Liam

Liam, oh Liam...where do I start.  He is 15lbs. 11oz and I believe we have a trouble maker on our hands.  He started crawling a few weeks ago and it's been crazy.  Crawling, however, was not a enough and he is now pulling himself up to a stand on whatever he can find.  I think he has a bump and bruise on his head for every day that he has been mobile, mainly because he still thinks the best way to get down is to let go!  He is definitely an inquisitive little guy, and I predict the first one we'll have to take the ER to treat an injury.  I also call him my crying crawler.  They are going through yet another round of teething, and he will crawl after me and cry in my leg until I pick him up.  He has also recently started to head butt me in the leg if I don't pick him up fast enough! Today that resulted in a bloody lip when I moved to pick him up and he face planted on the kitchen floor.  Mom fail!

Addie

Last, but not least is our big 4 1/2-year old (as she's quick to remind you) Addie.  She has grown up so much!  I think this big sister gig is getting easier for her.  She especially loves to play with Liam now that he'll crawl after her and laugh.  She has also begun to take an interest in feeding them their baby food.  Not only that, but she is often my voice of reason, reminding me when I start to freak out about the house not being clean, or toys being everywhere, that I have four kids now and that's just how things are going to be!  Addie started attending Montessori school and is really thriving.  It makes me so happy to see her doing so well because we had a really tough time with her at her old daycare when the boys were born. She astounded me last week by making her own turkey sandwich for lunch before school.  We were running late, as usual, and I was running around like crazy trying to get the boys bottles, as usual, when she just said, "I'll make my sandwich mom."  She then proceeded to make a really yummy looking turkey and cheese sandwich, complete with mustard and mayo, cut in half and put in plastic bag to eat on the road!  As proud as I was of her independence, I couldn't help but selfishly think how this bodes well for Brandon and I in a few years when we can send her down in the mornings with the boys to get them breakfast and turn on cartoons while we sleep in! 

So finally, we made a big move in December and purchased our very first home in Zeeland, Michigan.  I can't even begin to describe how good it feels to be out of our "crappy rental", as I affectionately called it.  Our new home has 4 bedrooms and a finished basement, so plenty of room to grow for our busy family.  It is also really close to Brandon's work, allowing him to come home at lunch and give me a little relief.  It was tough to leave Rockford, especially the wonderful support system we had built there, but we have begun to meet people in the community and I have a feeling we're really going to like it here.  

I can't make promises to anyone these days, but I hope to hop on here more often, if only to relate funny stories that happen throughout the day, instead of big crazy updates that take hours to read! 

Addie feeding the boys veggies...yuck!

Just waiting our turn

Entertainment for all

 

 

Christmas!

Graham is a good sport about being a speed bump

May I Speak Freely?

I have found when raising triplets and a 4-year old, there is not much time to stop and reflect on what has happened lately.  I have also found that is absolutely essential to MAKE time to reflect or you risk not truly appreciating what you have. 

The boys will be 6 months old tomorrow, home for 3 months of that, and most days I feel like I'm drowning.  I'm sure I am not the only mom to feel this way, and you don't have to be raising four kids to feel this way either,  but I have to say, this is the hardest job of my life!  When I was pregnant people kept saying, "oh, you'll have your hands full."  But I was blissfully chose to ignore all these comments, believing I could handle it.  Frankly I'm glad I didn't listen, or I probably would have gone into early labor caused by sheer panic!  

I am "handling" it, but only just barely.  I am thankful to have help from people in the community, but there are a lot of times during the week that I find myself alone with all the kids.  At those times I seriously count the hours, minutes and second until someone is there to help again!  

The boys are incredible sleepers at night, and rarely wake up in the middle of the night any more, but the trade off is they do not like to sleep for me during the day. As the day wears on, they get crankier and crankier until about 4 o'clock, when we reach full meltdown mode with three babies screaming and wanting to be held!  Meltdown mode also includes me and Addie, as my nerves are usually shot by this point, and Addie is bored out of her mind!  I TRY so hard to give her the time she deserves and get little things done around the house, but some days it seems impossible.  There are a few essential tasks I have to get done throughout the day.  Aside from making sure the kiddos are fed and diapered, I have to wash bottles 2-3 times a day and whip up massive amounts of formula...we're talking like 90 oz. these days!  So with all of this going on, is anyone really surprised to hear that I sometimes end up in tears by the end of the day (sometimes multiple times)?  

Ironically enough, amidst all of this chaos, is when I find the perfect time to reflect.  When I am feeling so overwhelmed that I want to curl up in dark corner for a few days alone, my mind starts flashing back to the early days when the boys were born and fighting for their lives in the NICU.  When Brennen (he's the loudest) is inconsolably screaming his head off, all I have to do is think back to the days when he was sick with a staph infection.  I have this clear mental image of him in my mind from that time and just that one thought totally changes my mind set about my screaming little guy.  It makes for feel overjoyed for his spunk and spirit. Honestly, a lot of their time in the NICU was a blur, but for each boy I have a vivid mental picture of a key event that puts it all in perspective.  For Liam it was when he was days old and struggling with a collapsed lung.  For Graham it is being there with him and holding him as best I could as he was having one of many echo cardiograms done to check his heart. 

I also have to stop and reflect back to the days when Addie was an only child.  That gives me empathy for what she is going through.  When she is asking me to do a million things that I know I am not capable of doing and I feel myself getting frustrated, I just have to put myself in her little shoes. Through all of this she is becoming more and more kind and thoughtful and brings me a lot of joy, especially on the bad days.

I'm sure there will be many more tears shed before things start to get better.  I'm sure "better" will probably continue to be relative. But I know that if I keep making time to stop and think back at all we have been through as a family, I will always be thankful. 

That's a handful

WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!

Helpful Big Sis

Liam and Brennen hanging out

Paging Dr. Addie

Liam is a smiley guy

Graham found his thumb

Brothers: Graham and Brennen

Brennen is all smiles

 

Welcome to Crazytown!

It's been a LONG time since I've been able to write.  I knew I would be busy and not be able to write a lot, I just didn't know it would be this long!

Today marks the 2 month anniversary of Liam's homecoming, with Graham and Brennen following shortly behind.  Let me tell you, looking back, the few short days with just Liam seem like bliss.  Even when we added Graham to the mix it seemed doable, but when Brennen came home, all bets were off...our house is now Crazytown.  Followed by (as my friend Kim, mother of twins puts it) Zombieland!

I am so blessed to be surrounded by a wonderful support system of family, friends and people in the community who have volunteered to help.  My parents and Brandon's parents have all been up to serve at least one a tour of duty.  I keep joking that I am going to get shirts printed that say, "I survived a day (or week) with the Reddick triplets!"  I also put out a call for help in our town of Rockford and was completely overwhelmed (in a good way) by the response.  Most volunteers are from the Methodist Church down the street from us.  A member of the church, Laura, is a total go-getter and just asked me what I needed and got it all lined up.  Now we have people there to help at least in the mornings and in the evenings.  Those seem to be the craziest times, especially the evenings because of trying to meet not only the boys needs, but Addie's as well.  

Addie has been having a very hard time with this transition, as I'm sure anyone can imagine.  Often times I pick up one of the boys to feed them, only to hear, "Hold me mommy" almost immediately.  I am constantly filled with mother's guilt, either because I have to tell her "not right now" so many times, or because I have to hear the boys cry for a bit so I can give her the attention she needs.  Dinner time and bedtime have become a thing of the past...it's more like survival of the fittest!  Brandon walks in the door from work at night, I pass off the kiddos and frantically shove food in my face and make sure Addie gets fed, then it's back to the grind!

The boys are still eating every three hours throughout the day, but then they'll give us a break at night and go 6-9 hours so we can get A LITTLE sleep!  I am dreaming of the days when they are going four hours between feedings or more...someday! 

Me and the kiddos have been in Indiana for the past week and a half, staying at my parents house.  It's a welcome relief to have the built-in help and I can be as cranky as I want to be and not have to worry about scaring off some volunteer!  My dad is retired and he is truly super grandpa.  He just swoops the little guys up when they are crying and soothes them, changes dirty diapers like no other and feeds them right along with me at every feeding (except the middle of the night or early morning, the guy has to have a break sometime).  In fact a few times he has been so bold as to keep the boys by himself so Addie and I can get out of the house...even I am scared to do that most of the time!  My mom cracks me up because she is constantly getting the boys confused!  I give her a lot of grief, but tonight I had a serious moment of panic when I thought I had mixed up Graham and Liam (I hadn't, she had)!  We get by with a lot of color coding...Brennen = Blue, Graham = Green and and Liam = Orange.  This does not always work, especially with clothing, and often times it's easiest just to throw them in the same outfit, but we try! This really confuses Addie, but she is getting better at telling them apart now. 

We have had a few outtings with the boys, a few times with my dad's help, a few times on my own, and a few times with Brandon.  My moment of triumph was getting the boys loaded into the stroller and out the door by 10:30a.m. so we could walk down to the toy store in town.  We got A LOT of attention and Addie got a little treat at the store for good behavior! The trip down to Indy was quite comical, as we had to stop twice for feedings (at an hour a pop), so a 4 hour trip took us over 6 hours.  It is situations like that when you just have to laugh to avoid crying!  

Brennen (I Think...)

Addie and her buddy Graham

Sweet Brennen with a paci as big as his face!

First outing, a walk to the park!

Smiles from Graham

Trying to keep everyone happy

Sleepyhead Graham

Sleepyhead Brenen

Down by the river with Papa

Hmm, I think I'll nap (says Liam)

Daddy with Liam and Brennen

The Trifecta of Trouble

I am including a few pictures we have taken the past two months.  I keep joking that when the boys grow up they will ask where all the pictures are of their early days.  To which I will respond, "We were too busy surviving to take pictures!"  I wish I had more, but they are all stored safely on our server at home, which of course I don't have access to right now.  It might be another two months before I surface again, and hopefully there will be some light at the end of the tunnel!

Brennen's BIG Day!

Wow, what a surprise!  Just a few days after we brought Graham home, the doctor called and said we could bring Brennen home as well! That was on Friday, and by Saturday afternoon, July 7th, he was home!  The little guy went through a lot in 92 days, some of the scariest moments of my life!  He has so much spunk to him, that even when he cries his loudest, which is very loud, I just have to laugh and appreciate his vigor, because without it, who knows what would have happened. 

It's crazy to think that our little 2lb. 2oz. baby was discharged weighing 7lbs!  He has come home with a feeding tube, like his brother, but I feel he's got all the skills and just needs to build up some stamina.  In the few days that he has been home he's already gotten better and better. 

It was very emotional to leave with Brennen.  We were obviously thrilled to bring him home and complete our family, but there were tears shed looking back at the entire journey.  I learned so much about myself throughout it, and have spent a lot of time reflecting (more on that in another post).  We were also surrounded by a wonderful support system at the hospital and had many primary nurses who not only took care of our boys, but took care of us.  I can't count how many times I broke down in tears, for no apparent reason, sometimes on a daily basis!  They were always there to comfort me and assure me that what I was feeling was normal, and everything would be okay. 

I don't know if it will every happen, but Brandon and I have said that if we ever become millionaires, we are giving a huge chunk of change to Helen DeVos Children's Hospital.  

It's pretty crazy around here, so I don't have much time to write, but I wanted to thank our nurses...Miranda, Megan, Katie, Kathy, Sheri and Stephanie (our primaries), also Paul, Abby, Rachel and Holly who cared for the boys a lot, or where just there in the room supporting us.  You all made a very tough situation a lot better! We also had wonderful social workers, Julie and Rhonda, who filled out all our paper work and just said "sign this" and made it very easy for us.  Amy Nyberg, the March of Dimes NICU support person is such a kind caring person, who has lived what we were going through and was always willing to listen (we will be volunteering our time in the future).  Sue Teman, the nursing manager is was also always around and willing to listen and help us out.  Our primary doctor, Dr. Ben Doctor, who oversaw their care with the utmost thought and detail.  He was wonderful at explaining everything to us so we would understand. The NNPs were all wonderful and I don't even know how many times Collette and Alicia listened to me vent late at night on the night shift! To all those that we have met along that way that I might have forgotten, thank you for everything. 

I also want to thank our friends and family who supported us through all of this, and continue to do so....we know it will take a village to raise this brood! 

Now we're moving on to the new phase with our family, which is sure to be filled with much excitement (already is)! 

Graham's BIG Day!

I've waited 88 days to write this post and tell everyone that Graham is home!  He was discharged on the 4th of July.  We were very excited to bring him home, but it was also very emotional to leave little Brennen behind.  He looked so lonely in his little corner of the unit without his brothers to keep him company, and I cried this time when we drove away.  But I know it's only temporary and he'll be home with us very soon! 

Graham has come home with a feeding tube because he still hasn't figured out the whole bottle thing.  I've never seen a kid so big who doesn't like to eat!  We have learned how to feed him by gavage, after first attempting to bottle feed him, but we're hoping the whole feeding thing will click soon and we'll be able to take it out.  

He is just such a laid back guy...the first night home he just chilled out in Brandon's lap for a few hours, just taking in his new surroundings! Most of the time, however, he sleeps!  I was laughing today because Liam had been up for a few hours and Graham had been asleep for a few hours.  I'll enjoy the moments when they all sleep at the same time!

This is a very short post because it's almost feeding time again!

Family picture...Addie ran away!

The only pic Addie would take

Graham is SO excited to go home

I'll be home soon guys

Waiting on my brother

 

Liam's BIG Day!

All Ready to Go Home!!!

I have been waiting so long to write this entry....84 days to be exact!  Today Liam (baby "C") was the first to come home!


Tuesday we met with the neonatologist to discuss the boys' discharge and we settled on today as Liam's discharge date, with or without a feeding tube in place.  We were nervous to tell too many people he might be coming home, as it's common for discharge dates to be moving targets.  But we were lucky and there were no issues to prevent him from leaving. 

The doc decided to let Liam and Graham try "In Demand" feedings instead of every 3 hours, and low and behold, Liam took off like a champ with his bottles and got his feeding tube out the next day!  So he was able to come home without any "accessories"! I'm not sure what the in demand feedings will mean for our schedule; probably one little guy will run the show and the rest will follow!


The doctor in charge of discharge went over Liam's whole history with us before we left, and I have to admit, it was very emotional to rehash all that he had been through. He was intubated for a few days, had a collapsed lung, and a hole in his heart.  Now he is a healthy little "newborn" weighing in at 7lbs. 12oz.

Happy Mom and Dad!

It was also tough to leave Brennen and Graham behind, but as the nurse said, Liam is the Scout, going to check things out and report back to the other guys that things at home are pretty nice! Graham will probably be home this time next week, and we'll have to wait and see about Brennen, he might have a few more weeks.  It's hard to know how the next few weeks will go until they are all home...I imagine it will be even tougher than having them all in the hospital.  We'll probably be very busy!

Don't Forget About Me!

And Me Too!

Snuggle Time at Home with Dad

Crazy Big Si

Liam has gone pretty easy on us today and Addie is doing okay with the change (so far). Our biggest problem is deciding who gets to hold him! Now I am enjoying some quiet time while him and Addie sleep and Brandon is at the hospital.  I'll enjoy it while it lasts!