Remember last year around this time? (not one comment on that post. what’s up with that? I guess it’s before we built our following of lovely supporters ).

I remember Tobie asking me if I was going to her weekly doctor’s appointment. I had some stuff to do at work and these appointments were becoming pretty routine so I declined to go to this particular appointment (it should be noted that I had been to every previous appointment like a good husband). At the last minute Tobie’s mom stepped in and decided to go with her. To this day, I don’t know what we would have done if she wasn’t at this appointment with Tobie. Up until this appointment, other than a few contractions, we were the perfect picture of what a triplet pregnancy could be!

I remember sitting at my desk at work when I received a phone call from Tobie on my cell phone. Know that feeling of being so distraught that you literally can’t talk? Without her even saying a word I knew something was terribly wrong. She said something about being rushed to the hospital downtown. Tobie was so taken back with what the doctor had just told her, her mother had to get on the phone and fill me in. I don’t remember asking for details, just what hospital they were going to and that I would meet them there.

I remember getting off the phone and sitting in my empty office. How could of this have happened? It didn’t make sense. How bad was it? Did we lose the babies? Why the $#@! wasn’t I at this appointment? My boss came by my office and started talking about some work nonsense. I just lost it. I could barely speak. Know that feeling of being so distraught that you literally can’t talk? Instead of running out of the office like a mad man, I just sat in my office and cried. Even in a time of crisis the practical side of me knew that I had to get it all out before I hit the road.

I remember driving like a mad man across town. I’m not saying I broke any laws, but I would have liked to see a cop pull me over. Having never been to this hospital, it represented this enormous scary place in a part of town we really aren’t familiar with. Talk about being out of your comfort zone.

I remember walking to the triage desk asking about my wife. “Sir, you’ll want to go through these doors, hang a right, then a left, spin 3 times in place, and then hit the open doors button and ask a nurse”. Do all hospitals feel like a labyrinth?

I remember finally walking into the Tobie’s hospital room. Her mom had a look of sadness in her eyes. I was preparing for the worst. There were nurses running in and out doing what nurses do. In an instance, Tobie had formed new appendages that would stay with her the next 3 weeks. We had 3 IVs, a pulse ox, and something strapped to her belly. Tobie looked terrible (sorry honey, but you did look a little worse for wear, don’t hate the player, hate the game!). How is this possible? She looked absolutely fine a few hours ago and now looked like someone who has been in the hospital for a very long time. Tobie’s face was flushed red. She had been given a shot of Terbutylene to slow her contractions. A few side effects of Terb is your adrenaline gets going and you get heat flashes. Tobie was in pain from the side effects. In addition to the Terb, she was hooked up to a Magnesium Sulfate drip which helps slow her contractions. This drug is more of a muscle relaxer that also causes you to have blurry vision. Talk about being pulled into two different directions! She was also hooked up to a contraction monitor around her belly that monitors her contractions (duh!). The readout looks like the data a seismologist would analyze. I think she was having 15+ contractions an hour or an earthquake was happening. There were so many squiggly humps on the readout, it couldn’t be good news. Only 21 weeks pregnant but we were in active labor!

To be continued…

Since Cole realized he could pull himself up on things, he’s been non-stop action (I wish we would have named him Jackson so I could give him the nickname “Action Jackson”). He climbs on everything now, pillows, dogs, couches, toys, us, Paige, everything. We have this big mirror in the baby zone on the floor. Somehow he figured out how to pull himself up even on that. Spiderman’s got nothing on this kid! The big problem is, physically, he isn’t developed enough to be pulling himself up like he is. His balance isn’t that great and he doesn’t have a lot of stabilization muscles developed. As you can imagine, he’s had a lot of hard falls. If we leave the room for any amount of time, we have to put him in an activity center. He pulls himself up that quickly on things or he goes into attack mode and jumps on Paige. Paige enjoys that for about 2 seconds and then usually cries.

Speaking of Paige, she is a champion sitter now. I don’t know when it happened, but she can sit for very long periods of time nowadays. We can leave her on the floor in the sitting position and come back and she’ll still be sitting. It’s very cool. Since Cole’s so active, he is rarely in one spot long enough to sit. All of our therapists have said Cole is hyper. Hyper doesn’t begin to describe how active he is. We got Paige’s glasses back from the store. Unfortunately she still likes to rip them off and try to eat them. She was so solid with wearing them when she was younger. Oh those were the good times.

Nap times are almost non-existent at our house. The babies just freak out when their backs hit the cribs in the daytime. If they have fallen asleep in our arms, and we lay them in the crib, they might wake up about a minute later and freak out. What’s up with that? Each day we are able to get roughly 2 nap times about 20 minutes each. When 5 pm hits, they are so tired and unhappy. We’ve tried everything, but they just don’t want to sleep during the day. On the days we start to get a good nap, something always happens, a dog barks, a knock at the door, a phone call. Once they awake from a nap, they are up for good. Our downstairs isn’t the best place for naps, but Tobie’s limiting the number of trips she makes upstairs because of the pregnancy.

I can only imagine how difficult it’s going to get when Paige becomes mobile (luckily I think we are a few months away from that). The days are definitely getting harder. Some nights the babies’ bed time comes earlier if you know what I mean.

New video of Cole standing.

Aren’t you digging the new “snow flakes” on the blog?

Enjoy

Tobie here:

Well, Cole bypassed his crib being lowered. He pulled himself up onto our sofa yesterday. It wasn’t easy and he’s only done it once, but I was so impressed. Our physical therapist was out last week on her honeymoon and she was very surprised to see how much both babies had accomplished in the last two weeks. She was working with Paige today on sitting and I swear Paige sat on her own for about 5-10 minutes. She did great!! I was shocked because when I work on sitting with her, she thinks it’s fun to let me catch her as she falls into me. Apparently this trust issue is pretty common according to our PT. I also told her that I’ve caught Paige on her tummy pivoting around when I leave the room. She seems to do this more when I’m gone. Apparently this also is common. And you would think my encouragement would be motivation not parental pressure! I know I come across pretty strong…I’d like to say it’s going to get better…but I’m going to be one of those crazy parents–I’m sure!

Well…I’m 19.5 weeks preggers now. Last year I was admitted at 20.5 weeks. This freaks me out. I can’t imagine being hospitalized next week. I couldn’t imagine it last year and it came out of nowhere. I really wish I could time warp to 28 weeks( or better yet 36 weeks) so I can relax somewhat. I’ve been revisiting the maternity ward in my mind as I approach 20.5 weeks. I know we only focused on the pertinent stuff last year..but something that sticks out in my memory was this nurse that brought me Christmas socks on Christmas day. I know that sounds silly but it was such a random act of kindness, I’ll never forget it.

So here’s other happenings in our house: Paige won’t keep her glasses on anymore. All of you that were so impressed with her willingness to wear them during waking hours and we were like “what’s the big deal?”…I now feel your pain. It takes literally seconds after I put them on her until she rips them off and starts eating them. This week she is without specs because last week I didn’t get to her in time and she took her razor teeth to them and cracked the lens. Which I was pretty upset about because this requires me to have to go to the highly esteemed optical shop (sarcasm). I’m also sad she can’t see for a week…but she’s loving it. Go figure.

Cole has discovered Moxie. Or rather Moxie has discovered Cole. Either way there’s at least one doggie rub(pull, scratch) happening during the day. Moxie has figured that if she strategically plops down where Cole might happen to crawl she’ll get some good lovin‘ in. And now that Cole is her new best friend, she’ll linger in whatever room he is in. It’s cute and scary at the same time because even though she’s a very well behaved dog, she’s still an unpredictable dog.

That’s it for now…can’t believe how late it is!!!!!