Been awhile...

Sorry for not posting updates in awhile but it's been crazy at our place.  Emma and Lily were experiencing some pretty bad reflux so we had to put them on Zantac and go back to feeding every two hours.  Thankfully the medicine seems to be keeping the pain of the reflux at bay and we were able to go back to every three hours.  Let me tell ya...every two hours is rough something fierce.  Now we are eyeing the move to every four hours...what a blessing that will be.  Other than that it's been pretty smooth if not tiring sailing.  For those of you not on Facebook below you'll find some new pix.

Abby thinks this bottle is A-Ok!

Emma thinks Lily has a flavor.

Groovy pants Emma!

I'm one tough dame see, you'll never get me copper!

Lily loves her catapiller.

Emma groovin'

I'm gonna eat your head

Mmmm Brains...Delicious.

Abby!

Emma!

Abby, Emma & Lily

Lily!

Tummy time is hard!

Team Photo

The Girls

Some pictures

Lily!

Emma!

Abby!

They're here!!! Well two weeks ago.

Sorry for the delay in this post, but we've been a little busy!

The girls decided they had enough of the womb and made up their minds to enter this world a little early.

Megan delivered on 8/9/10 (pretty cool birthday). Lily was born at 2lbs 12oz, Emma was 2lbs 6oz and Abby was 2lbs 7oz. For their gestational age of 28weeks 5 days we are told those weights are great.

Everyone came out screaming with nice healthy lungs that needed no ventilation or additional oxygen. They all had CPAPs for about a day and a half and then moved to nasal cannulas, again without additional oxygen. The fact that they didn't need oxygen or any real help breathing is HUGE for preemies. That's one major test we can mark as passed! A huge sigh of relief for Mom and Dad.

The next test was their digestive systems. The doctors and nurses start them out slow 1cc over an hour every hour, then 2cc over an hour etc... This goes one for a little over a week until the were up to 8ccs. Everyone passed that test with flying colors (of course they can eat...I am their Dad after all). Now everyone is on what they call bolus (sp?) feedings, where they get 25ccs over an hour every 3 hours. Everyone is passing that test too!

One concern for preemies is a condition called PDA...basically it's the special valve in the heart that allows the babies to switch from getting Mom's air/blood to using their own lungs. In preemies this valve sometimes doesn't get a chance to close properly prior to needing use. If it's not closed properly they can have a murmur and all sorts of bad stuff, often treated with medicine or surgery. Our girls have all passed that test too. No surgery or medicines. Yay!

Another preemie issue are brain hemorrhages. The check for this is an ultrasound of the head. A small bleed would not be unheard of and probably not a long term problem, a large bleed would be worrisome. Our girls all passed that test too with no bleeds at all!

Emma and Abby are still experiencing the occasional "Brady" spell. This is where the heart rate drops below 80 normally these are all self resolving lasting only a handfull of seconds. This is not uncommon in babies especially preemies. One thought behind it is that since they are little, they are probably having some reflux which hurts a little...then they bear down to ride out the pain and as a result everything slows down. The doctors and nurses are not concerned with this too much as they are trending to having fewer and fewer.

We're hopefull that the girls will be moved over to the feeders/growers room in the next several days. This will be a really big step for them.

I hope we haven't overloaded you with info. We will be posting some pictures once they move over to the feeders/growers section. We are just wanting to keep some of the early pictures off the interwebs, for the time being.

*UPDATE* : Forgot to mention...PICC lines came and went...The End.

Closer to home...breathing a little easier.

Megan was moved to the Kaiser closer to home now that she's in their delivery window. While I have no doubts the Hollywood Kaiser would do a wonderful job birthing these babies...it's comforting to know she's only about 20 minutes away from work and 10 minutes away from home.

The awesome plus side, is her friend Norma is a mid-wife for Kaiser and often is working at that hospital. It's also nice that she's close enough now that visitors don't have to fight the crazy traffic.

Not much else is new on that front. I'm still trying to get the house in order for their eventual debut, but I don't think any amount of prep I do will be enough.

Back in the hosbrutal.

Hollywood, CA - Continuing their whirlwind tour of southland venues such as the Kaiser Permanente in Anaheim and then a follow up show at Kaiser Permanente in Downey, The Smiths are now playing a (hopefull) limited engagement at the Kaiser Permanente in Hollywood right on the Sunset Strip. Seating is limited to dad and two adult guests and there is a no drink maximum...for anybody.

[facepalm]

Scary Stuff

I realize it's been awhile since I've posted, please forgive me.

On Wed, June 24th we took our pre-term birth class, where we met Amy one of the OB Nurse people responsible for looking after the patients outside of the hospital. (This becomes important later)

On Sat, June 26th, I took Megan to the hospital because she was having contractions and had an infection. They gave her a shot of Terbutaline (not sure if I spelled that right) which didn't do a lot for the contractions, but they were already pretty irregular. They also started her on Flagyl for the infection. At that point she was pulled from work and sent home, put on modified bedrest, which meant potty breaks and the occaisional trip to the fridge.

On Wed June 30th, Megan gets a welfare check phone call from Amy. After Megan updates Amy on the previous weekends activity, Amy insists on putting Megan on home uterine monitoring.

On Friday July 2nd, the nurse arrives at the house to setup the monitoring system. Megan is to record 2 hour long sessions, one in the morning and one in the evening. After each session she is to upload the data to them for the nurses to analyze. We were told from the beginning that the home uterine monitoring would lead to more trips to L&D (labor and delivery) as they tend to be extra conservative with that stuff.

So on Megan's first monitoring session that evening the desk nurse gives us a call within a minute of uploading the data. Drink a boatload of water, relax and do another hour long monitor starting in about 30 minutes. They called us back again after that hour and uploading the data, and said do it one more time, more water relax and start over. After the third upload the nurses advised us to go to L&D.

At Lakeview, they gave another shot of Terbutaline (here to fore called Terb) and proceeded to check her cervix at which point she measured about 1cm dilated, and had shortened to about 2.5cm (down from 3.2 at our last ultrasound about 2 weeks prior). At that point the Dr. admitted her for observation.

We stayed the night and over the course of the rest of the night she continued to have contractions. They gave her a catheter (spelling?) so she didn't have to keep getting up every 20 minutes (which is not good for a pregnant woman in contractions). They switched her to Magnesium Sulfate (Mag) and rechecked her cervix and now she measured about 2cm. Since she's only 23 wks 3 days at this point (too young for Lakeview) they moved her to Downey who can handle the younger ones (24 wks is considered viable).

The ambulance ride over was kind of bad for the contractions and they seemed to get worse. However they slowly started to subside.

After an uneventful Sunday morning and afternoon, we had a waterbreak scare. After a nerve-wracking hour, and an ultrasound, what we thought was a water-break was residual infection. The ultrasound showed the fluid levels were still great.

Contractions are still under control and now we're in the waiting game, each day is a goal.

Hands down the worst weekend of my life.

We drew a flush!

Three Girls!!!! Holy moley! I'm gonna have to put a T.V. in the garage one day I just know it.

In other news....the nursery is done...though...now looking at it, we might have to add a little more pink.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/webjedi/sets/72157624068846310/show/

They say it's not 100% certain, but from what I could see (or rather not see) it looked pretty convincing to me.
:-)

PS. I was going to title this post "Girls, Girls, Girls" but after just finding out I'll be the father to three of them....I thought better of it.

A crapload of water...

So last Friday we had an appointment, this time with a new OB. We seems to have met the entire staff ovder there.

So Megan and the doctor are discussing diet etc, and the doctor tells us how important water is and how proper hydration can stave off contractions. She advises Megan to drink 'a crapload of water'. Kind of funny to hear your doctor use language like that. :)

In other news, at the time of the appointment Megan was 14 weeks 4 days, but was measuring 18 weeks. Hold the phone!

So far, what they say about the 2nd trimester is true, the nausea has subsided quite a bit. That is good news indeed.

The first trimester is over (almost)!

Technically we're in week 12, but whatever close enough for government work I say.

We're now in the thick of the every other week appointments. This week it was back to the perinatologist and the awesome equipment.

Everything is proceeding normally, babies are all the right size plenty of fluids etc...

Today we saw even more movement, still to early to feel, but amazing to watch on screen. I recorded some video on my phone, which I'll upload to Facebook tonight. It's not great footage (camera phone) but you can hear the heart beats and a get a sense of what we see. Very excited now!

Another Appointment

Today we had another appointment, this time with an Ob-Gyn, our previous visits were with the Perinatalogist. Pretty routine stuff, all the normal questions. Then they busted out the Ultrasound...*sidebar* Each one of these ultrasounds brings a new experience. This time it was seeing a little squirm from Baby A. At first we thought we were seeing things, then the Dr. pointed it out.

With each visit and glimpse of the babies it gets more and more real...

Sidebar:
The perinatology department has waaaay better equipment. It's like going from HD to rabbit ears.

It's getting pretty real now.

Today we had our first appointment with our OB who'll be the one in charge of us for a bit.

But first it was the ultrasound technicians turn. The equipment that this tech had in comparison to our RE's equipment was amazing. This thing looked like a video production panel...faders, knobs...a trackball. It was impressive.

It was at this point they labeled the babies, Baby A is on Megan's right side, Baby B is on the left and Baby C is kind up top. Baby A measured at 8 weeks 2 days, while Baby B and Baby C were both 8 weeks and 1 day. Right on track as we are 8 weeks 1 day.

Something that was amazing and unexpected was with the same ultrasound equipment, they were able to let us hear each of the heartbeats. We had no idea this was coming, Megan and I looked at each other with shock and big grins.

If you're a parent and reading this, you probably know the sensation we felt. If you aren't, let me just say that hearing your baby's heartbeat has this uncanny way of making life stand still.

*Warning Schmaltzy Sappyness Ahead*
Hearing your baby's heartbeat is seriously a life altering event. I suddenly went from having this self image of a happy go lucky, free wheeling dude, to expectant father of three.

And now comes the task of planning everything....need a new car in April...mini-van? Erp.

Follow Up OB scan....just to be sure again...

So today was our follow up OB scan, just making sure one of the little ones didn't make a run for the exit.

Yup still three in there. We got to see a faint little flicker on each baby that was the heartbeat. That was pretty cool, hard to discern, so we had to take the trained professional at her word.

There wasn't much to this visit but just to check. However we were referred to who will be our actual doctor going forward.

Next visit 3/18/10.

We're pregnant, pregnant, pregnant!!!

Hey…Ryan here…
You know how sometimes you envision how an event is going to go? Athletes and actors use the visualization technique to help them in situations…they visualize themselves hitting the perfect pitch, throwing the perfect pass or delivering the perfect soliloquy. It’s a very useful tool. So once we found out we were pregnant I started picturing that first ultrasound, what the baby would look like on the monitor, the look on Megan’s face…everything. It’s a very useful tool, however sometimes life doesn’t see things the way you do in your mind’s eye. Sometimes life is funny.

So when the Dr. performing our ultrasound today, issued this *hilarious* statement: “Oh my.”, life got funny, really funny. At that moment, I realized my skills at reading an ultrasound were better than I would have guessed, you see I was standing behind the doctor, looking at the screen and was confirming what I thought I saw.

I glanced at my wife, whose eyes were fixed on the monitor, she had a look on her face that I’ll never forget.

Then the Dr. said it again: “Oh my.” Ok lady! You better dig deep and pick some new words and be quick about it. “Well…I’m counting three….”

So like that, all my visualization went right out the window…and I stood there slack jawed and amazed. It was all I could do to put my hand over my mouth and just take it all in. In retrospect I know my demeanor didn’t properly convey my joy or the proper reverence for such a moment, but hey I’ve never been told I’m going to be the father of triplets before.

Megan and I had been praying really hard about having a baby…I guessed we overdid it a little. Here’s a warning for anyone interested in the prayer of Jaybez…USE WITH CAUTION. Megan hoped for twins because it’s clearly more efficient use of a parents time.

In a blink I went from being the father to be of one…to father to be of three. Yeah…life is funny.