Triplet Photo Shoot!

Maddie, Hunter, Molly

On Friday my awesome cousin, Haylee, came and did a photo shoot of the triplets. To say it was a LONG day doesn't even describe it. Thank you to both my sisters, Nat and Kris, and my mom for all of your help. The babies' Mommy was tired by the end of the day and couldn't have done it without you guys. A HUGE THANK YOU TO HAYLEE!!! You are an amazing photographer!! Thank you for being so patient. Just the few pictures I have seen have made it all so worth it to me. She truly captured the babies just how I want to remember them at this age. So precious! So if you are looking for a good photographer I would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend Haylee Bean Photography. Check out her website to see a few more pictures until I get the disk :) www.hayleebeanphotography.squarespace.com

1 Month Old!

Yesterday the triplets turned 1 month! I cannot believe they have already been with us for that long. Although it seems time has gone by fast, I also feel like these babies have been a part of our family forever. They have now been home with us for almost 2 weeks and we are starting to get use to how things are going. We are getting on a schedule and continue to learn more and more about each baby. One thing we know for sure is that we are unbelievably and completely IN LOVE!!! Here are a few things we have been up to lately:

Hunter is our laid back little guy. Most of the time he is just chilling. He does have the habit of crying out in his sleep and by the time we get to him he's done and fast asleep. He is growing like crazy and has become quite solid for a little guy. We have been to the pediatrician two times since we have been home. We went the day after bringing them home (for weight check and meet the doctor) and again a week later. As of Thursday this week he weighs 5 lbs. 2 oz.!!! Good job buddy! He gained 11 oz. in a week. The doctor was pleased and Mommy and Daddy are so proud of him. He eats like crazy and is such a good boy for us.

Hunter had his first bath the night before he left the NICU. He did great! He was relaxed enough to even poop ;)

Day he came home.

His favorite place to sleep is in the pink bouncer....poor kid. We have now got him use to the blue one so he doesn't hate us later.

And lots of snuggling, even with sister Molly.

Madison has a lot of personality. She always lets us know when she wants/needs something. She is usually the first one ready to eat at feeding time. She has the most kissable cheeks in the world, you can't resist them! She also has been growing great. As of Thursday she weighed 4 lbs. 8.5 oz.! Again, the dr. was pleased. We call her our "drama queen" but we are loving her drama.

The day Madison came home.



Maddie's first bath at home. She did great!

We have learned that Maddie has quite the scream! So we have a lot of this going on from her...

Snuggling time - Molly, Hunter, and Maddie

Molly is our Peanut. She is our small, fiesty, fireball. (Just like she was while inside me.) She may be small but she is probably the strongest, toughest, and most determined of the 3. She has the hiccups almost 1000 times a day and I'm pretty sure she dislikes them as much as I do. She doesn't cry or scream much, just fusses around and then lets out a little cry and back to fussing. She also has been known to pull a few near all nighters. She may be tiny but she is a great eater, eating just as much as her sister most of the time and sometimes as much as her brother. She too gained great and has finally made it over 4 lbs., now weighing 4 lbs. 3 oz. Good job little girl!

Molly "Peanut" on the day she came home.

Molly's first bath at home. This is a classic Molly face. She makes lots of different faces that keep us laughing.

Sweet face.

Snuggling - Molly, Hunter, and Maddie



Below are pictures on their 1 month birthday...Happy 1 Month Babies!! WE LOVE YOU!

Molly, Hunter, and Madison

Molly

Hunter

Madison

Molly, Hunter, and Madison



It isn't easy to get pictures of 3 rolly polly babies but they are still cute. I'm starting to get use to life with the babies all here and I love being a Mom. Bracken goes back to work on Monday and I'm nervous. I will miss him like crazy and hope I don't lose my mind without him here. We have had A LOT of help from fiends and family already and cannot thank them enough. Needless to say, we are so very blessed! I'm going to get back to snuggling but I'll continue taking pictures and loving these 3 babies!

3 nights down...

and all I can say is WOW! We are so in LOVE with these 3 babies, enjoying getting to know each of them, giving LOTS of kisses, doing more feeding and changing diapers than we ever imagined, and getting very LITTLE sleep. Welcome to parenthood of 3 new little ones I guess. I haven't been good at taking pictures since they have been home (my hands have been full) but I will be better this weekend and post soon. Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. We really appreciate it!

Guess who is coming home....

OUR 3 MIRACLES!!! They are coming home tomorrow (Tuesday August 18th). We are so excited!! Updates to come.

2 Weeks Old!

Our first family photo. It was a shock when the nurse offered to help us take a picture of the 5 of us...August 6, 2009


Yesterday the babies turned 2 weeks old! I can't believe how fast the past two weeks have gone by, well except the hospital stay which seemed to last forever. Sometimes I still just can't believe that my babies are actually here already! There was so much anticipation for them to come and they are actually here.

Pictures of Hunter:

Mommy feeding Hunter his first bottle

Daddy feeding his baby boy

Sweet boy

It is so hard to get a picture of him with his eyes open, he doesn't like the camera.

Another try to get his eyes open.


An update on the babies. After birth they all dropped weight which is normal. As of today all 3 are at or pass birth weight. Hunter is 3 lbs. 11 oz., Maddie is 3 lbs. 8 oz., and Molly is 3 lbs. 2 oz. They have been growing great, gaining daily so that is good. They are all still on room air and have been since birth. I cannot believe how strong they are! About a week ago they decided to have Hunter try taking a bottle. The first time he took it from me he took his full feeding amount! He is such a trooper. The next day they decided to try Madison on a bottle too. She was a champ and took the whole thing also. For the next few days they tried one bottle each 12 hour shift and both took them. They were holding back on giving Molly one because she is just so small. Of course when they tried it with her she took the whole thing. She LOVES to eat! Now they are all having at least 4 bottles a day out of their 8 feedings. Molly is a stinker and wakes up way before her feeding and screams. She doesn't like to wait her turn. She is now taking as much as her brother at each feeding because she just chugs it all down. We are so proud of them and how well they are doing. We were initially told that they wouldn't try a bottle until the babies were 34 weeks because that is usually when they can figure out how to suck, swallow, and breathe. They still aren't even 34 weeks and started bottles at 32.5. They are awesome!

Pictures of Maddie:

Maddie's first bottle

She has her eyes open the most so we have lots of poses from her.

Funny face but pretty girl
Her favorite sleeping position

It is so fun to go and see them everyday and see how much they have changed. Their looks change all the time and we still do not know who they look like. Hopefully as they start putting on some fat we will be able to tell better. They all definitely look different from each other though and I love that! They also are having more awake time which makes it very enjoyable to see them. It seems like as soon as me or Brack pick them up they want to wake up and look at us. They try so hard to see us and stay awake through the hold feeding. I love it because they will be dead asleep but as soon as I talk or pick them up they want to see their Mommy. It's the best feeling in the world!


Pictures of Molly:

Daddy's first time feeding Molly

Just snuggling

Our sweet little one

Our first picture with our eyes open, so pretty!


Other than that not a whole lot is new. They are still in the isolettes but they are starting to slowly decrease the temperature in there to teach them to hold their own body temperature. They usually don't move them out of isolettes until they are around 4 lbs. to be sure they can hold their own body temperature. So we'll see how things go. There are still days that things are not perfect but we feel so blessed with how they are doing. I know we can attribute that to a lot of peoples prayers and couldn't be more grateful for those. Thank you to all of our family and friends for thinking of us and praying for us. We are loving being parents and having our time with our babies. We couldn't be happier!

(P.S. you can find the birth story below...it is very very long. Sorry about that.)

The Birth Story

This is a REALLY REALLY LONG story. I am not good a journaling and want this documented so it's pretty long. Read at your own risk :)

On Monday, July 27th, I went in for a regular doctor's appointment. I was 31 weeks and 1 day along. The night before I had packed a bag in case I had to stay for monitoring of the babies. I didn't feel much different, still huge with fluid but my blood pressure was still normal, etc. Normally I saw my doctor on Wednesdays but the previous week he had told me he wanted to see me on Monday to do a doppler on baby C (Molly). She was measuring smaller than the other 2 and he wanted to make sure the blood flow and things looked okay. Luckily everything looked great, she's just a small one. After the doppler, I went in to my clinic with my doctor. In the past 5 days I had gained 7 pounds of fluid and the protein in my urine (sorry TMI?) went from 1+ to 4+. Both of these are signs of pre-eclampsia. At that point my doctor just walked me over to Labor and Delivery and said we needed blood work done and monitoring. After a few hours I was officially admitted to the hospital. Luckily I had my mom with me the whole time. I think I would have been more nervous or scared if she hadn't been with me. She is so sweet to stick with me. I was starving though. I hadn't eaten since 8:00 am and they kept telling me I couldn't have anything to eat "just in case". The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful. They started me on IV fluids and magnesium sulfate for the pre-eclampsia. I didn't have much of a reaction to the magnesium sulfate, which I was grateful for because most people do. I did have a headache so they decided to give me some compazine. Bad idea. Little did I know I am allergic to the stuff. I started undressing myself, sweating and freaking out. It felt like every nerve in my body was on fire and I could feel everything. I even made them take the catheter out because I couldn't handle it. Brack thought it was pretty funny watching me freak out. Luckily it didn't take too long for that to wear off. After that things were pretty calm. My doctor ended up coming in that evening and telling me that he wanted to give me another round of steroids for the babies lungs (I had one set at 28 weeks). So that meant a shot that night, another on Tuesday, and then he wanted to deliver me on Wednesday. Pretty crazy that we had a date set but we knew the pre-eclampsia was going to get worse. Brack stayed until late and then decided to go home and go into work Tuesday so we were ready for Wednesday.

That night was rough. Before Bracken left, I started shaking really really bad. I called in my nurse because I didn't know what it was (pre-eclampsia can cause seizures) and soon we had 4 doctors and 5 nurses in my room surrounding me with foam and prepping me in case I had a seizure. After a few minutes of monitoring they decided I wasn't going to have a full seizure but left everything set up in case. It was quite scary for me because I honestly could not control the shaking. After Brack went home I had a few more shaking episodes. I had the sweetest nurse ever though. She would come in and talk to me and distract me trying to get it to stop. I tried to get some sleep but sleeping with 4 monitors on your belly and moving babies who kick off the monitors was quite hard. Sometime in the middle of the night a doctor came in and said that I needed to go use the restroom. Moments later he came back and said I had to have the catheter put back in. Second time wasn't as bad :) Early in the morning my nurse came back in and we chatted for awhile longer. She even rubbed my back because it was hurting so bad. Seriously, they were awesome there.

Finally my mom got there early Tuesday morning. I was very ready to see her. I was getting so uncomfortable because they continued to pump more and more fluid into me. I wondered how I was going to last another day. After the early morning shift change of nurses, my new nurse came in and gave me a hint that it sounded like I might be delivering that day! I called Bracken at work and gave him a heads up. He was so torn as to whether or not to just head in or wait. I told him to wait until I talked to the doctor. Minutes later 2 doctors came in. They informed me that my pre-eclampsia had gotten much worse over night and that my kidneys were shutting down. All of the fluid that they were pumping into me was staying in my tissues instead of going through my kidneys and coming out. I was a balloon! The doctor said at that point he didn't feel safe waiting for the 2nd steroid shot and we needed to deliver in 30 minutes! WOW! I was overwhelmed with excitement, some fear, joy that I was done, etc. I hurried and called Brack and luckily he had already left for the hospital. At 11:00 they wheeled me off to have my babies. In the operating room I was shaking very very badly again. The anesthesiologist did a spinal block (very similar to an epidural). He was very concerned about me and kept saying how we needed to deliver. He couldn't believe the amount of fluid I had in my body and the shaking that was going on. I think because of the fluid it was a little harder to do the spinal block because I have a HUGE bruise from it. Oh well, I didn't feel ANYTHING so I can't complain. Soon I was prepped and Bracken was brought back. I couldn't wait to see him!!! Next door they were delivering twins and wanted to wait until both babies were out to get me started (because we bombarded the NICU with new babies). The doctors then decided it could not wait and got started. I was told I would feel pressure but I didn't feel anything! One by one my babies were born. At 11:40 Hunter joined our family. Next, at 11:41 Madison joined us. After a little tugging, at 11:42 Molly arrived. None of them made any sound when they were born. I was just told one by one that baby A, baby B, and baby C were born. I was very drugged at this point so I didn't worry too much about them not making a sound. I also knew it was a possibilty for how early they were. Not much later I was sewed up and taken back to my room with Bracken.

After a c-section, because of all of the medications you have pumped into you some people shake a lot. That was me. It was pretty bad and scared my in-laws but there really is nothing you can do about it. I felt like I was on cloud 9! It felt so good to have the babies out, to breathe, etc. I was on serious adrenaline. I was still so hungry because I hadn't eaten since Monday morning. So I begged for food! After a c-section you can only have ice chips, then water, then broth. Man was the broth good!! It was hard though because I just kept waiting for someone to come and get Bracken to go see the babies. I was dying to know how they were doing. Soon a nurse came in to give us information. At birth all 3 were put on CPAP's to help breathe. Within about 30 minutes our little Molly scratched and scratched at hers until it was off and started breathing room air. Their Apgar scores at 1 minute after birth were 6,7, and 6. At 5 minutes all of them were 9's. What strong babies! The rest of the day is quite a blur. I know that soon Brack was able to go back and see our sweet babies and brought back pictures. He then took his parents, my parents, and my two sisters back to see them. I couldn't believe how beautiful they were! I was dying to see them. It wasn't until that evening that they finally wheeled me back in my bed to see them. I was so overwhelmed by them. By the time I went back to see them, Hunter was already off the CPAP. As we were leaving the NICU we were informed that Madison was also coming off the CPAP. That means that within hours of birth all 3 were breathing room air! What a blessing. I was on more magnesium sulfate and finally was very tired. I hardly remember the rest of the day. Sorry to any visitors or anyone who tried to contact me that day because I was quite out of it. That night, Brack stayed with me.

In the middle of the night I was moved to a recovery room. I wasn't put on in the postpartum unit because I had babies in the NICU. That night was pretty rough for Brack and I. Because of my pre-eclampsia I was woken up every 4 hours or less. It was pretty rough. Wednesday morning I woke up and was starting the recovery process. The pain was definetely there! So once again, things seem to be a blur but I will do the best I can, I'll just blame it on the pain meds. That day I had a visit from my Mom's old OB. Long story short, he's a family friend who does research on our family because, well we aren't normal :). He ended up looking at me and realized I had an ileus. An ileus is an obstruction of the intestine. Basically my intestines were paralyzed and were not working at all. Great. My stomach was distended, bloated and huge. The worst part about it is the only way to treat it is to withhold food. I was only able to eat ice chips and water. Needless to say, I felt like crap! A few different doctors kept coming in to check on me and sure enough it was an ileus. Bracken was going back and forth from seeing the babies and coming in to see me. In the afternoon he ended up heading home and letting me rest. That day I know my mom came in but I can't remember much else. I just remember that everyone but me was able to see my babies again. I was too sick to get up though. I did start walking that day, it is important for the healing process but it was hard.

The rest of my recovery just seemed to get worse. I was not able to eat food Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. On Friday I was then diagnosed to have an infection in my colon called C. Diff. This was on top of the ileus. Basically my stomach and GI tract were just not working. It was horrible. To top it off, I wasn't being able to see my babies. I did realize though that I had the best husband in the world. I have always known this but watching him care for me and our babies at the same time was huge. He is such a good daddy. He would bring me pictures and things that the babies were using so I wasn't left out. Once I was on antibiotics I was finally able to see the babies on Saturday. I also was able to have my first food too! I enjoyed the best bowl of Rice Krispies I have ever had!!

Saturday was the best day because I not only got to see the babies but was able to hold them. Bracken had held all of them but I hadn't. It was the best feeling in the world to hold these special spirits. I instantly knew that they were mine, that they were meant to be with me, that they were supposed to come together as the 3 of them, and that I was the luckiest Mom in the world! Oh they are so sweet. I was feeling much better that day and even better on Sunday but they were not ready to let me go. We continued to have visitors, mainly family, that week and appreciate everyone who came and saw me and the babies. I'm sorry I was so sick and out of it. I truly enjoyed talking to nurses about my babies though because they were so proud of me making it to 31+ weeks and carrying those babies that long. Also, everyone was just so surprised at how well the babies were doing and that always gave me a pick me up like I needed. The next few days I was finally feeling better and by Monday they told me I could be released! I was so ready to be going home. To leave my babies was the HARDEST thing I have ever had to do but I needed my rest and was ready to start a real recovery. Throughout my stay I was put on and off fluid IV's and instead of my fluid going down it seemed to continue to increase. I was ready to come home to get that fluid to start falling off. Although things didn't go as planned and I was so sick before, during, and after delivery I couldn't be happier. I still have a lot of healing to do. My c-section has been healing great and I'm starting to have my strength back. My body is still recovering from the pre-eclampsia, I still have high blood pressure and other issues that just take time to clear out. I'm almost off my antibiotics and am happy to say I can eat normal again :)

What a blessing it was to be able to carry and grow these 3 beautiful babies. It definetely was not an easy thing to do, none of it was, but I would do it all over again to have these blessings in my life. They are so strong and I know we can contribute that to many people's prayers and thoughts. Thank you so much for that. We couldn't ask for a better turn out in how things have been. We are so lucky to have these 3 babies here safely and to have them in our family! We are so blessed! I love them so much and cannot wait for them to come home.

I'm home and pictures

First off, how cute is Bracken? He figured out how to blog and did it while I was half dead in the hospital bed. What a sweet post it was too. I love him so much. I'm so lucky to have him and so are our 3 miracles.

I have A LOT to write. I will try to write about the birth story and give a good update on the babies this week but first off...I think we need some pictures :) We tried to upload some in the hospital but it wouldn't work. They have already changed so much so I'll add a few. Plus I think they are beautiful, but I might be biased.

INTRODUCING:

Hunter John Ricketts

Happy Birthday...July 28, 2009

First time Daddy held his little boy...July 29, 2009

Favorite sleeping position....August 1, 2009

Sleeping boy...August 1, 2009

Madison Ricketts

She always had her hands up by her face....July 31, 2009

Sucking my big binkie...August 1, 2009

Aren't I beautiful?....August 2, 2009

Looking pretty...August 2, 2009

Molly Ricketts

Birthday girl....July 28, 2009

First time mommy held me....August 1, 2009

Snuggling mom...August 1, 2009

Precious baby girl...August 3, 2009

Hope you enjoy. I'll post more later. Love love love them!