Charlie and Reece Join Their Sister

That's right......Reece and Charlie are home from the hospital after 90 long days in the NICU. Today, October 30th, was my actual "due date"!! To have all three 27 week old babies home by their due date is "incredible", according to their doctors. That just goes to show you what amazing doctors they had. As for their nurses...........AMAZING! I can't even talk about the babies nurses without getting teary eyed. To tell you the truth, I am going to miss the NICU.

Now it's time for the REAL adventure to begin !!!!!!! We are anxious, nervous and mostly excited. As for the babe's 1st night at home.....there was not a dull moment. Like Ben and I like to say "better busy than bored."

Here are some pictures of the homecoming and our 1st night.

Reece and Charlie getting ready to leave the NICU

With Daddy



Charlie

Reece (slightly stunned by the flash)

All packed up and ready to go

Reece's 1st car ride

Charlie's 1st car ride

Home at last!!!!!

And the work begins

We survived our 1st night!!!(just barely..... as evident by Mama's appearance)

We couldn't do it with out "Junebug"

Poor Daddy (long night)

And today, the babies watched their 1st UGA game.
And developed their dislike for Florida!!!

Welcome Home Louise

We are so very excited to announce that Miss Louise Grace Boland is home from the hospital!!!!!! Here are some pictures from the big day. She has been through a lot and it was pretty emotional bringing her home.To sum it all up...........Life is Good, God is Good and we are thankful.

NICU Day 82

Thanks to everybody who thought about and prayed for our little Reece last Thursday. She did great! She came off of the ventilator about 24 hours after surgery and then was off oxygen shortly after that. The doctors made the call to not feed her until 5 days after surgery to give her intestines time to heal. She is a very VERY hungry girl!!

Now.....to the biggest news of my LIFE...we may have a baby come home by the end of the week. That's right, our little Louise is doing her very best to prove to the doctors that she is ready to come home. She is taking full feeds breastfeeding and by bottle. Ben and I are so excited but the nerves are beginning to set in. I will have to figure out a whole new schedule, but it will be well worth it. Who would have ever thought that Louise would be the 1st baby to come home........not me! She was a very very sick little girl for the 1st month of her life and we are so proud of how far she has come.

Now, many people have asked when they can come and visit the babies when they get home. Ben and I have decided to take the advice of the perinatologist and not take visitors until the end of RSV season (March or April). These babies did not get the benefit of being able to take the antibodies from me during my third trimester because I was only in my 3rd trimester for about 18 hrs so needless to say they have extremely weak immune systems. Once we have all 3 babies home we will be going on complete lock-down trying to protect these peanuts. It will be a very long winter for Ben and I. Trust us, we can't wait till these babies are healthy enough to make their public appearances!

I'm going to try to take some videos at the hospital tonight and put them up tomorrow. Its crazy how much these babies are changing on a day to day basis!

Prayers for Baby Reece

Tomorrow is Reece's big surgery to reconnect her bowels. As many of you may remember, Reece had to have emergency surgery when the nurses noticed her little belly becoming very tight and distended when she was only 1 week old and weighing slightly under 2 lb. An X-ray showed a tear in her intestines that was causing air and debris to escape into her abdomen (very dangerous).

Tomorrow is a day met with mixed emotions for Ben and I. We know that this surgery is one step closer to getting Reece home. However, it will be very hard on us to watch her have to "start over" when she has been doing so well. She will have to go back on the ventilator and stop feeds. The nurses have also warned up that she will be kept "knocked out" during her recovery to prevent her from tearing anything else. Please help us pray that our sweet pea's surgery goes well and that she has a healthy, speedy recovery.

***** Sorry I have been so slack on blogging lately but it is with good reason. I am very happy to report that I am successfully breastfeeding triplets (at the moment)!!! Its very hard work and keeps me at the the hospital most all the time. So my time for blogging has been limited. I plan on doing a blog post on this subject sometime later because I just have so much to say about it.....its amazing!!!!!

Our 1st.......

.......Family photos!!!!!! They finallly let us get all three babies out for a picture. I can't quit looking at these pictures. I love them so much!!! Honestly, I still have a hard time believing all these perfect little babies are MINE!!!!!

Reece

Reece has been doing great lately! She finally began taking her bottle well about 2 days ago, and she is now up to 4 lbs. 2.5 oz.. Once she reaches 2000g (She is 1894 now), Dr. Chandler plans on performing the surgery to put her bowel back together. We are so ready to get rid of that bag on her side!!

We think that Reece is going to be our sleep fighter. As you can tell from the pictures, most of the time she is bright eyed and bushy tailed, and when she's not she's squirming around and trying not to fall asleep.

We also got some good news from her eye doctor (Dr. White) on Monday. She said that Reece's eyes are doing the best out of our trio, and that she's not even stage 1 ROP anymore. We think that Reece healed those eyes because she hates the eye exams so much. No more of that!!!

Reece is just so sweet and we pray that she continues to do well and comes home soon.

Clean Girl!