OK, i have to tell this sad story.  Monday I put the girls down for their morning nap, i always change them before putting them down.  Well I was so busy with things, i forgot Alyssa likes to take her diaper off.  Well a big mistake.  They didn’t want to take a nap, but i had things to do, so i let them talk to each other up stairs, that was a big mistake too!  So after a about 10 min i went up there and was smelling the most awful thing ever, to my surprise Alyssa took her poop filled diaper off and threw it everywhere, I mean everywhere!  I had so much fun cleaning that up, while they were all looking at me, laughing in their own ways!  I never thought that could happen to me!  But it did!  Then everything from that point on was just getting worse.  I got them dressed and brought them downstairs, i had to go pick up Lilly early from school to take them to the Dr.  I was trying to pick up a little and i kicked a ball, trying to kick it into the playroom, boy that didn’t work, it ended up hitting my curtain rod just in the right place in the living room and hit it precisely in the right spot and took down the rod and somehow broke and snapped.  Needless to say so did I…things just got worse from there!  I was crying so hard I was laughing at all the things that were going wrong.  I had to stop and take a min out.

While my time out I called aunt elayne.  She is always there for me!  She had some great words of wisdome!  She always seems to calm me down and help me.  She is also coming to my rescue!  She is helping me this weekend.  THANK YOU!  I cant wait.

Then I also have my cousin Lea!  What can I say about her, well what cant i say!  She also is always here for me.  She is my best friend.  She goes to school full time and works part time, but some how she found a way to come over yesterday to help me clean up and take care of the girls.  It happen to be the right day because I cant believe i actually forgot my anniversary with Kerry!  Yes i have been so wound up with things, I forgot.  Its been 5 years that we have been married, but can u believe its going to be 14 years that we are together.  Dec. 27th this year!  Kerry is the best father and husband anyone can ask for!  We are so blessed to have each other and our 4 beautiful baby girls.  So back to my story.  Lea came to our rescue and helped with everything.  After we got them to sleep she stayed here so Kerry and I could go out.  We had a lovely dinner.  And Kerry surprised me with a dozen beautiful roses.  Thanks Kerry!  Thanks Lea.

Also to my rescue are some great women i never even met.  I belong to a wonderful moms of multiples group.  I had posted some of my problems and stated I dont know what to do anymore, so these women wrote the best advice and help anyone could offer.  They are all parents of multiples so they understand where I am coming from.  Most of them offered to come and help me out and stay with me for a few days!  What some wonderful women!  If I lived close i would take them up on their offer!  So thank you to all of you!  We have to meet some day!  Thanks, im doing better with all the support and help!

Katie who has always been the lightest was the heaviest last week, now Emma is the heaviest. Alyssa looks the biggest, but believe it or not she is the smallest now. We had to switch her to a different formula because she was not doing well with the carnation.  She is eating less, but feels a lot better now.

Today the Nurse came (I love her, she is the best). She comes once a week and weighs them. Alyssa is now 9#9oz, Katie is 9#15oz and Emma is 9#11oz and Lilly is a whopping 38#…So my girls are getting bigger and cuter each passing day! They are also smiling sooo much, its so cute, especially Alyssa, if you smile at her, she gives you the biggest smile ever. They are such happy babies. Well, that is all I have time for…Got to go back to work. I hope to write again soon.

P.S. I wanted to say a special THANK YOU to my very good friend and wonderful volunteer Robin, I don’t know what I would do with out her! She is so special to all of us! Thanks Robin

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We are doing great so far. Katie completes the trio on Wednesday. We anticipated this would be much more dificult than it has been so far. But we realize it’s very early.

The girls are wonderful. We took them in for their first appt with the pediatrician today. Everything checked out great.

We change the girls and feed them every 3-4 hours. We feed both of them at the same time. We burp them and then they usually go back to sleep. The amount of diapers, dishwasher runs- and laundry has been pretty unbelievable. Lilly is doing great- she loves her little sisters and she is really helping out where she can. So overall everything is great.

It was interesting taking the girls out in public for the first time. During the 20 minutes or so we waited in the waiting room at the doctors office- we received like 4 comments. It’s funny, people say and ask such stupid things when the encounter multiples. I’m proud and happy to talk about my triplets but I just get annoyed by people’s rude comments, and usually I just ignore them. I had one guy looking at us- and I knew he was going to say something… sure enough “So you got twins?” … I said “Yep, twins” and kept on walking. Jenell was like – “Why didn’t you tell him triplets?” I don’t want to talk to 85 strangers a day about how amazing it is we have triplets- and they all just say stupid comments.

I heard this today:

“You must have your hands full”

“Wow Twins”

“Geez you must not get any sleep”

“Sorry”

Just in a matter of 20 minutes on the first day ! I can only imagine how it will be with all three girls. On my new site- www.MultiplesNetwork.com , a person wrote a really funny (and disturbing) blog post regarding 25 “dumm” comments from people. Read it here – Dumb twin comments

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Jenell delivered Girl,Girl,Girl triplets on 7/9/07 ~ 10.36pm.

1. Alyssa Lynn Mann 3 lbs 13 oz & 16″
2. Katie Susan Mann 3 lbs 1 oz & 15″
3. Emma Elizabeth Mann 3 lbs 10 oz 17″

I will try to put together a better post after some more sleep… Jenell was forced into labor at 32 and 5/7 weeks- because she had preclamcia – very high blood pressure among other things… she delivered fine although premature. Jenell still has preclamcia and high blood pressure as well a severe pain from the C-Section. As a result she was put on a lot of meds that make her very drowsy. It’s sad that she was not able to see her own babies until today… nearly 2 full days after delivery. More on this-

The delivery was amazing- literaly 30 people running around and attending to each baby. I watched the entire C-Section and followed the babies into N-Intensive Care….

The babies are beautiful-(pictures to come)

They are doing well so far for premature babies. They are so small ! The babies are in a room lined up next to each other in incubaters– The nurses taking care of them are amazing.

Emma is a little cutie relaxed and laid back.

Allysa and Katie are a little more fussy.

Sorry I dont have time to write more- Lilly is Crying !- Quickly

Thanks so much to Jenell’s family- her Dad and Grandma Sue have been so helpful WE COULD NOT OF DONE THIS WITHOUT THEM !

The problem is Lilly cant be alone with Jenell- Lilly cant be with me and teh triplets- Lilly cant sleep at the hospital. So I am stuck with Lilly , Helping my wife, and enjoying the first few days of my 3 girls lives ! Warren and Sue (who live 6 hours away) have been helping out and taking Lilly at night. Jenell’s Aunt Elayne has also been amazing with Lilly and letting us live at here house before we delivered.

Thanks to my Aunt Mary and Aunt Margie for stopping by-

Anyways- really tired. We hope to get a room at the Ronald McDonald house( they house families with sick children near hospitals and Lilly can stay there with me )

Lastly- My wife is amazing . She went nearly 33 weeks with almost no bedrest- all of the specialists are telling her she has done awesome. And today – with no sleep , gallstones, preclamcia, high blood pressure, shortness of breath and on and on– She was in so much pain, literaly bleeding , her stiches were coming apart she had to stand up so she could get in to a wheelchair so we could take her to see her babies (after 48 hours of waiting) The nurse kept asking if she was Ok and she kept saying YES im ok- But I knew she wasnt.. She told me later she was in the most pain of her life- But the reward was well worth it- Im a big baby myself – I held back a few tears as I opened the door for Jenell to see her babies- the babies are beautiful….

I don’t know how I’m making it, besides Kerry, Lilly and our supportive family. My Aunt Elayne is taking such good care of us as we bunker down at her house for the weekend until our appt on Monday. I’m on 100% full bedrest- I can only get up to use the bathroom/shower.  Kerry is working from home now until we deliver- He is going to work and help with Lilly throughout the day. The company he works for has been overwhelmingly supportive as well.

We still need to go in on Monday for a checkup again. Today they checked the babies again, with an ultrasound. They said I’m doing great and should be proud of myself, which I am in a way I guess. He also said that the babies look really healthy, they have good fluid around them, there heartbeats are really strong and they all are practicing breathing, which is a miracle to watch. So thats, that, I will keep all of you updated on how the girls and myself are doing. Thanks everyone for reading.

My goal is still 36 weeks- hopefully no more surprise doctor visits.

Like Kerry said in the last post, I have mild preclamsea which could lead to me delivering any time now. My blood pressure has been high and I had high protein in my urine.  I also had two horrible, horrible steroid shots for the babies to speed up the development of there lungs in case we have to deliver early. Today I’m at 32 weeks and 1 day, we are hoping to go to 36 weeks. I’m not sure how much longer my body is going to let me go. I am pushing myself to the limit with everything, meaning this is a hard pregnancy.

I’m taking it easy though, Kerry and Lilly are so good to me and now my aunt is taking great care of all of us! I don’t know where I would be without them. Hopefully everything will go well with the rest of the pregnancy.  I’m holding in as long as I can, but each day is getting harder.

Thank you everyone for supporting me, especially the girls on my yahoo groups! Some of them had called me at the hospital to reassure me that everything will be OK. I’ll write again when I can, our next apt is on Monday and hopefully they will tell me some good news! So good bye for now! Continue to pray for us! Thanks

I have 2 minutes to write this post quick -

We had our ultrasound yesterday- Everything looked wonderful and signs indicated that we may go a few more weeks. Then Jenell’s urine test came back and it showed a high level of protein- this along with the fact that her blood pressure was higher than normal means should could have preeclampsia.

Click here to read about preeclampsia –> http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/pregnancy/pregcomplications/257.html

Jenell stayed the night at the hospital as they monitored her blood pressure and urine.  They are running some tests today to determine the next steps. If she has severe preclampsia which could lead to seizures- the only solution is to deliver.  Hopefully it wont be severe, because besides this the babies and Jenell are doing great and we could probably go a few more weeks. If we’re forced to deliver- we are at the average date for triplets to be delivered- actually in 6 hours based on the countdown timer I have on the website.

The babies are doing great, they are constantly moving around and bruising my insides. We have a Dr appt tomorrow and I will be sure to update on hpow it goes. I am constantly growing and so are they, hopefully growing more and more each day! I am more than sore and tired than I can ever describe. Lilly and Kerry have been so helpful to me each and every day.

I am going to try to hold out as long as I can but right now I understand why the other triplet moms beg for a c-section! I don’t know how much longer I can last, its just hurting so much more and more each day, its getting so hard for me to walk and stand, I think if the Dr doesn’t put me on bed-rest, I will do it myself or beg for a c-section soon!

That is how I am doing today, we will see what the ultrasound and the Dr says tomorrow. Pray for the best. Thanks everyone for all the support and care packages. Talking about care packages, our Aunt Mary’s co-worker, who we don’t even know had sent us a care package for the three girls, three beautiful onesies. Thank you so much for thinking of us, we appreciate it! Well good bye for now, I will update how the apt goes tomorrow.

We went in Tuesday (we go in every week now) and the first thing the Dr said was “How is my superstar triplets mom?” Hewas surprised on how well we are doing. Everything looks great! We even got to see Baby B & C try to take breaths of air. The tech told us they practice and you can watch their chest move in and out. That was so neat to see.

The babies grew ! The sizes aren’t exact, but Baby A and Baby B grew a pound a piece, little peanut baby C grew about 3 oz. So they now are A 3#6oz B 3#8oz and peanut C is 2#13oz. The Dr says everything looks great and if I keep up what I am doing we will hopefully go until 35 weeks, which would be Aug 4th or so. So lets hope for close to that date.

I didn’t sleep really at all last night so I better try to take it easy, right now all three are moving around in there! Weird feeling, I am so blessed to be able to feel that. I will update next week as we have another Dr apt. Take care!

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I plan on staying in touch with Holly- and I hope to pass on some triplets goodness to another triplet mom some day like Holly did for us.

It was so nice meeting her and her family. Her triplets are just beautiful. She has boy,boy, girl.  Lilly had fun playing with the little ones in the sand box. It gave us an idea of what to expect. Thanks again Holly !

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