World Prematurity Day.

March Of Dimes is making a call for support again this year. Today is World Prematurity Awareness Day! I wore purple in support of premature babies everywhere, who were born too early to fight for themselves. I am a proud preemie Mom!


The triplets are so big and strong and totally healthy today, thank goodness, that their NICU journey seems almost like it happened to some other kids, some other family. Though there are little keepsakes and memories and photo's that remind me, it was my kids.


I was thinking back on one day in particular. Not sure if I already told this story...hopefully I am not boring y'all. The triplets were born at 31 weeks 2 days, and though 2 of them were pretty big for 31 weekers they still ended up going on CPAP to assist their breathing. They needed the extra help for 4 days. During that time we couldn't hold them, and they usually had their eyes closed and/or had their eyes covered. I was a pretty strong Momma, I kept it together almost the whole month + my babies were there. Except for one day. The babies were maybe 2 days old, so still on the CPAP and we still weren't able to hold them. We tried to spend every waking moment in the NICU with them and on this day we happened to be there when they were doing their daily weights and tests to see if they were ready to ditch the CPAP. They would uncover/unwrap them one by one, take off the CPAP head gear and weigh them then give them a few minutes of freedom to test to see if they started working too hard to breath on their own. I was sitting in Hayden's NICU room watching them do this with her...wishing I could hold her. I don't know if it was hormones, the build up of all that had happened to us, or the fact that I could actually see my daughter's face without all the CPAP tubes and other stuff all over her or what, but when she opened her eyes and looked around the room with this almost bewildered, even a little scared look...like where the heck am I and what the heck is going on look on her tiny face I lost it. I cried, hard. One of the NICU nurses who was just coming on duty asked Jason if something bad had happeded that day because I am not a crier and was just a mess.
There was a volunteer group that came and played music for the babies...and maybe for their sad Momma's too LOL. It just happened that on this day a really nice lady, who played the violin beautifully, was there. She played and it really did calm both Hayden and me down. It did feel good to cry though...I am sure it did me some good. The woman moved on next door to play for Lily, I think, but before she left she gave me her card and said to call anytime I thought the babies could use a little music lesson.

I am so lucky we didn't have any real bad days compared to some...but we didn't have a truly good day until the day all three were home with us.

A little mood lightener... Day 17: I am thankful for Jericho's boobie addiction. Breastfeeding is really helping me shed the baby weight. I am now under where I was before I got pregnant with the trio. Still not down to pre-fertility meds weight but I think I just may get there too!