Last Wednesday, the triplets had their six month check up. I’m still astounded that we’ve made it this far, to be honest. All the sleepless nights, the weeks of worry over Ellie’s weight gain (or lack thereof), the weeks in the NICU, not to mention the months of pre-term labour… I just can’t believe my babies are six months old. I gave my nanny the afternoon off and took the babies to the appointment myself. That was my first mistake. I mean, I’ve taken the babies to nearly all of their appointments by myself (I had help for their 4 month appointment, but that’s because I couldn’t stay for the whole thing because I had to leave when they started their vaccines so I could get to my first day of work). So I didn’t really think anything of going by myself to this appointment. But this time when I left the house, it was drizzling, and by the time I got to the doctor’s office it was POURING DOWN RAIN.
My doctor’s office is about to move locations, but the current location has sucky parking and lousy stroller access. The office suite itself can’t accommodate the triple stroller (the new office suite will be able to without a problem), which is fine because I hate putting the triple stroller in the car (you have to take the wheels off to get it to fit in the van, that’s how huge the stupid thing is!). I usually take the double snap n’ go and then baby bjorn the third baby, which is no problem at all when it’s not raining, but is a little trickier when it’s POURING DOWN RAIN. Ugh. It doesn’t leave me with a hand free for an umbrella (not that an umbrella would do much good with the horizontal rain that was happening that day), and oh, by the way, I don’t have a rain cover for the snap n go (do they even MAKE rain covers that fit the double snap n go? For that matter, do they make rain covers for the triple strollers?). I had to park in just about the furthest parking space away from the door that will accommodate a stroller and run through the rain with a baby strapped to my chest. Ugh! I was a total disaster by the time I got to the receptionist’s desk. For those of you who know me in person, you know this is a great travesty for me… one thing I PRIDE myself on is that despite the fact that I have four children, I still manage to keep myself together in public, at least. But I stood there dripping like a wet poodle, apologizing for being 2 minutes late for my appointment (I would have been on time, had I not been trying to navigate the parking lot puddles… I have NEVER been late to an appointment…yet another thing I’ve always prided myself on!).
But we muddled through, wet poodles are the new black, you know. For some reason, they didn’t have a nurse come back with me to take initial weights, lengths and head circumferences, but had an office aid doing that. She’s young and pretty and sweet, but not so bright and she stood there rather helplessly as I got the babies undressed. The nurses, see, the nurses jump in and help. Or at least hold a baby while I get the next one undressed. Sigh. Anyway, it was a long, drawn-out, painful task, but EVENTUALLY everyone got weighed and measured:
Sam: 14 pounds, 7 ounces; 24 inches long
Ellie: 11 pounds, 14 ounces; 23.5 inches long
Abby: 12 pounds, 10 ounces; 23.5 inches long
I put a blanket down on the floor, plopped all the babies down on the blanket and sat down and played with them until the doctor arrived. I’ve found this is the easiest way to control the craziness in the doctor’s office. They’re not big enough to crawl away, but they’re big enough that they don’t love being cooped up in their car seats for too long, so it’s a good compromise.
This was the triplets’ first well-visit with Dr. F. Sam and Ellie both saw him the previous week for an ear infection and suspected ear infection, respectively, but he’d never met Abby before. Julian adores Dr. F, so I already knew I liked him. I absolutely love his demeanor with kids and he’s great with parents too, which, to me, is the mark of a good doctor… being good with both the kids AND the parents! He was impressed that the babies are getting mostly breastmilk still. I told him I was a blubbery mess the day I first gave them their first ounce of formula and he told me not to be silly – no tears allowed – I’m doing a great job. Dr. F. has six kids and I told him I don’t know how he handles it, but he pointed out that six singletons (his range from 18 years down to I think 22 months) are not as hard as triplets. I wouldn’t know, of course, having never had six singletons.
He said all the kids look great. They’re all on target for their adjusted age… they’re roughly the equivalent of normal four month olds and they are right on target. Abby’s maybe even a little ahead of the curve in some ways – yay for her! He reiterated that Sam should be “able” to sleep through the night, but I think it’s crap, to be honest. And I don’t really MIND feeding him through the night if that’s what he needs (or wants, for that matter), so I’m all good there. The topic he DID broach that I don’t want ANYTHING to do with was… oh gosh, can I even say it?… solid food. Gah! I know, I know. There’s no good reason to be terrified of solid food, right? I should be excited to move on to a new stage in my babies’ lives, right? But I’m not ready! And frankly, I’m not convinced that they’re ready! Yes, they’re six months old, but they’re only four months, developmentally-speaking. So there!
Why am I having such serious panic attacks about this? WHY? I don’t know, but I swear to you, I’m having all-out-anxiety-ridden-complete-hyperventilating panic attacks about this. Can you imagine the logistics of dealing with spoons and bowls and solid food and messes and chairs and all that crap with three babies? THREE BABIES? My triplet mama friends CAN imagine, and I’m afraid to even ASK what kind of disaster my life is about to turn into. My house is already suffering from the neglect and I’m not sure how much more it can take, to be honest. I’m not sure how much more I can take! (I’m a neat freak at heart, even though my house is not proving it at the moment – gah!) Anyway, the doctor said it’s perfectly fine to wait until after Pesach (Passover) to start dealing with solid food, which is good, because I definitely can’t handle it before then.
The funny thing is that every time I think of rice cereal or oatmeal or anything like that, I have a serious panic attack. But if I think about just mashing up some banana or avocado, I think, “hey, that wouldn’t be so bad…maybe I’ll try that next week…” Except, I don’t know that I want to open that can of worms! Gah! I told you… it’s totally irrational, all-out panic attacks! (I never claimed to be rational. And hey, did you know there’s no medical reason I have to give my kids rice cereal? Somehow, that calms me down. I don’t know why rice cereal is giving me a panic attack, but IT IS! And so, I think we’ll be skipping rice cereal all together and moving straight to bananas and avocados and oh, other stuff. But probably not until after Pesach, because seriously… I can’t handle any more mess in my life!)
But anyway, other than the solid food panic attack that I had in the office, the visit went well. The babies look great. The doctor was impressed with how well they’re doing. He asked how we were coping. He noted that this was the first time ever that he’d seen a mother bring in six-month old triplets all by herself (score one for me! … I’m not the only triplet mama they’ve got either; they’ve got I think 8 or 9 sets of triplets and a set of quadruplets in the office). He thinks I’m doing an amazing job (I am, thankyouverymuch!). Sam and Abby don’t have to go back until June (well, Abby went back today for her last Synagis shot, but she doesn’t have to go back for a well-visit until June). Ellie needs to go back in April for a weight check.
Ellie, I noticed, had lost a little weight by Friday, which had me a little jumpy. By Monday, she was down to 11 pounds, 8 ounces. If she’s not on an upward trend by the end of the week, I’ll take her back in on Monday for a weight check, but I know if I bring her in now, Dr. B. will just tell me to keep an eye on her, so that’s what I’ll do for now. In other news, she’s a super-smiley girl and she still has the longest baby tongue on the planet. She loves to stick it out and she loves to get kisses. Lately, she’s been quite vocal and has taken to making loud, screechy noises when she’s happy.
Sunday night, Sam actually slept most of the night! He only woke up once and then went back to his crib sometime thereafter. Oh, did I mention that we recently separated Ellie and Sam? They used to share a crib, but I kept finding Sam on top of Ellie, and while Ellie didn’t seem to mind (it didn’t wake her up at all), it was making me nervous. So now they sleep in separate cribs. It’s kind of sad for me. 😦 My babies are growing up and becoming more independent! *sniff* Other things about Sam… he definitely knows who his mama is. If I come home for lunch, he gets SO excited and practically leaps out of the nanny’s arms to get to me, even if he’s in the middle of drinking a bottle. He wants mama! He knows where food is supposed to come from and he will stop at nothing to get it! 🙂 That’s my smart boy. He giggles and smiles and loves to play. He is the only one who’s even close to being on the growth charts (you have to be in the 5th percentile to be considered “on the charts”… he’s in the 3rd percentile for weight)
Abba-dabba is super-sweet. She loves to play on her activity mat and thinks that people were put on this earth to entertain her. She has a hard time drinking her bottle because she spends the entire time smiling and making googly eyes at whomever is feeding her. She will reach out to pull the bottle closer to her, but lately has mostly wanted to play with the bottle rather than drink from it. I’m shocked that she’s still growing because she eats the least of all three of the babies, and lately has been refusing to eat more and more often. Hopefully this will not be a permanent trend. She is the one baby that has me questioning whether I should be thinking more seriously about solid food, because she’s the one I think might actually consider eating it without causing me too much heartburn. We’ll see.
ChezPerky 