Boland Babies: November 2010

Today, November 17th, is Prematurity Awareness Day. 1 out of 8 babies in our country is born too soon. The US has a higher rate of premature birth than most other developed countries. In an annual Premature Birth Report Card put out by March of Dimes, the US scored a "D" and South Carolina scored a depressing "F". Talking about premature birth is the 1st step to understanding this common and serious problem. Wear purple today to show your support! I will be wearing purple in honor of my beautiful Reece, Louise and Charlie.

Today is also our 3rd wedding anniversary. The number 3 seems to be a common theme this year. I would say the past year has been the most eventful thus far. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BEN!!!!!! You have been such a good husband through my pregnancy, bed rest and those scary NICU days. I feel so proud to be your wife. I love you...or I guess I should now say...WE love you!

Here are some pics of the past few days........................

Reece

Louise

Charlie

1 of our many doctors appointments

Aunt Spencer and Louise

Daddy and Louise

Uncle Jake and Reece

The girls!

Charlie

Three years ago today! Life has changed quite a bit!

What have we gotten ourselves into?????Babies have taken over our house and are holding us hostage. HELP!

Just kidding:)............its not so bad. There are aspects of this that are harder than I expected and aspects that are easier than I expected. For example, its not so hard to care for 3 babies (as long as you keep expectations low). I just sit them on their boppies on the floor all in a row and sit Indian-style in front of them and care for each baby as needed. Simple enough. We also stick to a strict three hour feeding schedule, which makes things easier on us.

Now for the part that is harder than I thought. The LACK of SLEEP is crippling. By the time we feed all 3 babies, burped them, changed them and I have pumped we have about an hour before its time to start over. Now, it would seem that I could sleep during that hour window but that rarely happens. I'm working on being able to sleep through "crying babies" but I'm just not there yet.

As if we weren't tired enough, the babies have doctors appointments ALL THE TIME. It is quite a process to get all these babies dressed, loaded up and out of the house in a timely fashion. By the end of this week we will have had 11 scheduled doctors appointments since Louise has come home from the hospital. Lousie goes to see the neurosurgeon regularly. All three have weekly eye appointments....Charlie has to go twice a week. Not the mention the pediatrician and weight checks. Oh did I mention that about half of the appointments are in Greenville.

Even though life is challenging right now, I'm having fun with it. I'm patient and high energy and I think it is working to my advantage.

Here are some pictures of the past week and Halloween............if this post seems crazy its because I did it in 3 minutes segments over the past 5 days.