Claire's Hair...

Claire is starting to look more and more like a redhead...or will it be strawberry blond??

Tuckered Out...

Well Miss Ella decided that the whole room air thing wasn't the right thing for her right now and was put back on her cannula late last night. She just had a few too many heartrate drops and they decided it was early and she didn't need to be pushed quite yet. Otherwise she is doing great and finished her entire bottle today!

Slade is breathing really well on his cannula and we are so happy he's enjoying it! He did not however enjoy his feeding today with the specialist and they've decided to stop his bottle feeding until he is off his cannula. They figure his trouble is due to his acid reflux and the stress of swallowing just adds to the pain and makes it too hard to breathe. But 33 weeks was really early to start feeding anyways so he will try again in a week or so.

Claire continues to breathe perfectly off of her cannula and its great to see her full face once again today. She ate half of her bottle and is handling it well, just has trouble staying awake for the whole thing. Sleepy girl:)

So all in all, still doing great, even if our babies are tuckering out a bit. We have high hopes of getting to try bathing them this weekend and will post a lot of pics if it happens!

Here are the babies in their crib with a blanket up to block out the sunlight...

Eyes & Nose

First off, we were amazed to see that both Ella & Claire were taken off all respiratory support today and are breathing 100% on their own with no tubes! As of tonight they've both had a couple heart rate drops but are still off the cannula's. All they have left are their feeding tubes and once we get them eating all their bottles per day, that will be gone and they can come home! As for Slade, he is now on the lowest setting the cannula offers and is doing well on it. Hopefully in the next week, he too will be on his own! Breathe babies breath!

Also today the merchant of pain came to visit our sweet little babies. He is otherwise known as an opthamolagist. We were at the babies late feeding and didn't expect to see him, but he was running late and we were just in time to hear the cries of pain. Brian was already there and had to stay to feed Ella but I was due for a pump session and retreated into the storage closet. I like to think I'm not a horrible mom for not going to watch but I've already been warned by the nurses of the clasps that hold there eyes open and the drops/lights that are put into there eyes. In my room I could still easily hear the cries and ended up plugging my ears and humming. I thought I should be stronger but turns out I'm still a wuss. Brian told me I made the right decision as he would never watch that again. He figures the only job worse than what that doctor has would be a puppy smasher. But we are glad he exists and this week everyones eyes were the same except it looked like one of Claire's had gotten a bit better.

Goodnight!~

Our 4lb Babies!

All three babies have now hit the 4lb mark at there 2 month weigh in! They are also all over 16 inches now! They are starting to just be little babies,not so tiny anymore! Slade did great during his first bottle today! He had a couple heart rate drops but overall did well. Brian fed Ella a bit more aggressively today and she ate all but a couple cc's. Claire too ate a ton! I'm going to try a bit harder to challenge them to eat more today but its soooo scary when they start choking an their alarms go off so I really have to pace them... It truly is a learning experience for all of us!

Claire not liking that her diaper is about to get changed...

Is it me or does Ella seem bored???

Mr. Slade has hiccups...

Best Caption Award...

So Slade's feeding appt with the speech therapist was moved to Monday so he got the weekend off. Ella and did Claire did ok with just me feeding them although they are still not quite sure if they should suck, swallow or breathe. As I said in the last post, its not ingrained and if given a chance they will literally drink themselves blue (milkaholics). Although that wasn't an issue today as Ella refused to wake up to eat and after about 20 min. I finally got her to drink about 3ml and she had to be tube feed the other 40. Claire however was very alert and did much better than the other day drinking a lot more of her bottle than expected. Progress is great!

Ok, so this is my favorite picture of the year! Any ideas for a caption?

Back Together Again!

Oh there is just so much exciting news on the Milligan trio front today!! So as you know the girls were moved into their own bassinets yesterday as we were waiting on the triplet crib. Well...the crib came available today and ALL THREE babies were moved into it! It is so cute and so neat to watch them look at each other. I will say its hard sometime to distinguish who's alarm is beeping and who is crying but overall its super cool and we love getting to look at them all at once and compare their facial features.

Also...I was awoken by a phone call by the nurse this morning that they were in need of more milk as they were going to be bottle feeding both Ella and Claire today for the first time (in the past they have had feeding tubes). So my sweet dad quickly drove me to the hospital with two coolers of milk (my supply is dwindling fast) and we were able to watch and learn from the speech therapist how to teach Ella and Claire how to suck, swallow and breathe all at the same time. This is not an ingrained feature that preemies come with so its definitely a process. Ella did terrific, finishing so much of her bottle that they didn't have to even give her extra through her tube! She did choke a little at the end which was scary, but overall a great job! Claire too did well although had a little bit of a harder time than her sister. She seemed to want to breath a lot more than suck and seemed not to care too much about this new pacifier that shot milk. However she did eat about 1/2 of her bottle. Tomorrow I will be on my own to feed the girls one bottle and once they get that down, we will move to two a day, three a day etc, etc. Also, tomorrow at 2pm, Slade will attempt his first bottle as well. Hopefully he will prove that when it comes to eating, he is no wimpy white boy! Then next week, we will attempt the breastfeeding process..stay tuned to learn how a person does this with three babies (I'll be curious to find out as well:))

Welcome to our crib...

Ella enjoys the freedom...

Claire stretches out (check out the hand)...

Brian see's Slade's face for the first time...

Claire and I learn how to bottlefeed...

Identical Twins?

Today the nurse helped me get Slade out of the incubator and as she placed him in my arms, I looked down only to question for a moment if two of my babies had been switched. That cpap was a very good face mask as I had no idea until today that Slade and Claire just might be identical...twins? No, I'm kidding of course, there is no such thing as identical boy/girl twins but its amazing how much alike they look. I know over the next few weeks they will change but for now I'd be hard pressed to tell them apart in pictures. So suffice to say, he was adorable and it was sooooo great to finally see all of him. He smiled like Claire and stuck his tongue out a lot like Ella. Its so much more funny and less scary holding them now that you can watch their expressions and "monitor" their comfort level. Now Slade, did drop his heart rate and I had to jostle him a bit, but overall it was a good hold. He had a few issues in the morning but hopefully when Brian calls this evening he will still be on the cannula and holding strong! (update, he is doing well and still on the cannula, yeah!)

The girls are doing great in their cribs, but I'll post more about that tomorrow and include their pictures.

As for me, Brian had school tonight so I got to go out for the first time and enjoyed a long dinner with my bookless bookclub ladies. It was so nice to feel "human" again and to gossip and chat. There was a car accident (everyones ok), a mariachi singer who was cooler than a Popsicle, and a leopard print bikini so it was an entertaining night for sure. The only real pitfall (other than Kacey's poor car) was I dumped a HUGE glass of soda down my chest and into my lap leaving me pretty sticky for the rest of the night, oops. Thanks ladies for a keeping my mind off of things for an evening, I had a great time!

Introducing Slade Oscar Milligan...