Phew!! All are home and doing well!

Hi all,

Sorry it's been a while, but it's been tricky to find a moment to catch up. Anna came home on Sunday, and she's doing great! She's got such little chubby cheeks and has grown so much that it has become extremely difficult to tell which baby is which without a side-by-side comparison. We have made dots behind their ears with colored Sharpies (yellow for Anna, green for Mattie) to make sure we don't get them switched. All three are really good babies, eating every three hours, and being fairly calm between feedings. During the day, they like their bouncy chairs (thanks tons, Stormy!!), and at night, they tend to sleep pretty well. Noah has some reflux issues, we think, as he tends to wake himself up with a giant screaming fit when he's in the bed, but he sleeps well when in his bouncy chair or on someone's chest. The doctor recommended feeding him a little less, and so far, the suggestion seems to work.

Speaking of feeding, all three are learning to nurse. Noah can nurse exclusively all day long, which he did yesterday, and he no longer throws a giant fit before settling down to his task. Mattie and Anna are still learning. Mattie likes to throw a big tantrum so she is simply to tired to finish once she calms down. Anna is calmer, but she gets tired really easily, eating for only about five minutes before she just runs out of steam. I was fairly pessimistic that they would ever learn since we got off to such a rocky start, but they are all progressing nicely. One thing that is surprisingly hard is that the books on nursing are terrible for babies with special circumstances. They offer very little practical advice for what to do if you couldn't start off right away and if they had to have bottles. I've been working with each one for a whole day while Mom and Jon take care of the other two, which seems to be working fairly well. Otherwise I got very frustrated as I couldn't keep straight who could do what and what they did last.

Noah and Mattie got weighed at the doctor's on Wednesday. Noah weighs 6 lbs., 10 oz., and Mattie weighs 5 lbs., 14 oz.! Both had gained more than 2 oz. a day since the previous week, and the doctor decided that he didn't need to do more weight checks since they were gaining twice what was required. Anna weighed 5 lbs., 2oz. when she came home on Sunday, and she'll go in for her doctor's appointment on Monday. As I mentioned, her cheeks are so much fuller that I'm certain she's gained plenty of weight too. They've also been to the opthamologist, and their eyes are just fine. They have also passed their hearing tests. They qualified for the Early Start program, which is a federal program to watch for developmental delays, and the social worker came yesterday. She wrote that their milestone for February was to be able to control their head movement and track objects. I didn't tell her that all three were lifting their heads already and seemed to be tracking objects as well!

My mom, Jon, and I are doing a pretty good job of managing, but I'm not sure what we are going to do once she leaves! The hardest part will be that Jon and I have been taking care of the night feedings, and then my mom takes the first morning feeding, letting us sleep for a wonderful three hours straight. Once she leaves though, the real sleep deprivation will begin, and I'm very afraid of what will happen!

Time for baby lunch now--more later!

Courtney