NICU Experience

Since this is where Crystal left off when she abandoned the blog (Just kidding!), this is where I will begin to catch all of you up on our adventure over the last three months. As I said earlier, I am going to try and keep this as short as I can and only hitting the high points.

As a lot of you know, the NICU is a strange place that can often times be very intimidating and scary. Luckily for us it was a pretty uneventful experience. Not to say it was not hard as hell to leave the hospital without our Trioux, but overall it was not that bad. Ours were mainly there to grow and learn how to eat.

At first, Kate was the sluggish one to breath. When she first entered the NICU she was put on a CPAP. Jack ended up on one a few hours later. Not going to lie, that was hard to see. I know it is nothing bad, but the first time I saw it, I was a little freaked out. Addi was the strongest in the NICU. She was on room air from the beginning. They were all moved to isolettes within a few days and transferred from the Level III down to Level II. They only stayed in those for about a week and then they were in open cribs. Our hospital just changed their policy about co-bedding, so they were each in their own cribs. It was pretty cool though, we almost had our own wing in the NICU.

Just hours after they were born:

Addi

Jack

Kate

Their little "mini houses!"

And Finally, Open Cribs:

I think the hardest thing about being in the NICU is that it kinda makes you feel like an outsider in your own child’s life. You can’t be there constantly and someone else is taking care of your children. It was also hard having to drive 45 minutes just to visit our babies. Crystal was really having a rough time of it. As some of you know, she was on hospital bed rest for over 80 days! Between being sedentary for so long and recuperating from c-section surgery, she had absolutely no stamina or energy. There were days where we could only go to the hospital once (during the 4 hour visiting time) during the day. It just took so much out of her.

Like I said our NICU stay was pretty brief in comparison to what it could have been, but we had some great things come out of it. For starters, we met some of the most amazing nurses. I truly believe that NICU nurses are chosen by GOD to do HIS work. Everyone was simply amazing. We met two nurses that both have had triplets. One of them is selling us her Choo-Choo Wagon! For those of you with triplets, you know what those things are worth!!! We also met our Nicole. She was our primary nurse in the NICU and we were her first primary babies! She has become a very close friend of the family and comes to visit every now and then. We also received a donation from a former triplet family. We received a Peg Perego triplet stoller!!! I still can’t believe that someone donated that to us! There are truly some great people in this world.

Next up… Homecoming!!!