A week and a bit on...

Well it has been just over 1 week since we became parents of 4 overnight.  The shock has finally settled and we are all slowly recovering.

I am still a little sore from the ceaseraen, but slowly improving each day.  I personally wouldn't choose to have one again (haha).  Initially the day after birth I had a good 8cm+ of abdominal seperation, which for a few days was quite when I was up moving around.  Today after a quick visit to the hospital physio that has now gone down to only about 3cm, phew!  Since being discharged from the hospital I have been staying in a motel nearby to the hospital to rest up and recover a bit more before heading home.  This has been really nice as I am still extremely tired and I have also wanted to make sure breast feeding is well established. 

I am a big fan of the benefits and the pracicalities of breast feeding and at the moment I am just managing to keep up woth my trio's needs.  Nine days in and between them we are going through 33ml of breast milk per hour and this is increasing almost daily.  Initially my goal is to at least ensure they are exclusively breast fed while they are still in hospital.  I would love to continue this once I get home but I am also a realist, and realise that trying to twin feed 2 babies, and chasing a toddler with one more hungry mouth to feed might not work and be more trouble than it's worth.  At the very least I will endeavour to feed a different baby each feed so they are at least getting 2 one on one cuddles and feed with mummy per day. 

As for the magnificent trio all are generally doing really well.  They were all of the CPAP within a few days, and moved from the NICU to SCBU (special care baby unit).  All have been under lights at least twice but at the moment they are okay.  Again all three are breathing on their own and are not on any oxygen, all are being fed by a continuos syringe through a nasal gastric tube.  Hudson has generally been a few days behind the others as he did not get any surfactant when he was born, but in hindsight probably would have benefited from it.  He also had an umbi line(?) in for a few days so was initially grumpy as he started his food a little later.  All 3 are about 50ish grams off of their birth weight so doing well in that respect.  Poor little Hudson had a little swelling under his chin this morning so had to go back on an iv and have some tests done but all appears to be nothing thankfully. 

Tomorrow they will be 32 weeks gestation and we are hoping to have them all home between 37-40 weeks gestation so sometime in mid to late August.  Mr TAN and I have been overwhelmed with all the love and support people have shown us.  As for their big brother Ollie he is missing not having his mum at home but has still been having some visits with us all and loves patting his sister and brother's heads and holding their hands.  I am looking forward to being home with him next weekend.  I can also see many similarities between all 3 and their big brother including their dad's worry lines that Ollie was also born with, just 3 much smaller versions.

I have had lots of cuddles with all three including lots of skin to skin and including some double cuddles which was the most amazing feeling and I didn't know who to look at.  It will probably be another 2 weeks or so until they are all of their monitors when I can have triplet cuddles. 

Lastly I will leave you with some pics from the last week.

Addison 1 week old

Hudson 1 week old

                               Hudson on left and Spencer on the right Mum's first double cuddle

Spencer 1 week old

                                                 Double cuddle with Spencer (L) and Addison (R).  Lucky Spencer gets all the double cuddles as his cot is in the middle