This is Emily here. I wanted to take a moment and write down my own thoughts on this amazing miracle that is happening/has happened in our lives. Looking back now I can see how unique and fun the pregnancy experience was. When I was in the midst of it I was either way too uncomfortable or way too scared out of my mind to appreciate it. I wish now that I had taken more time to enjoy the experience and realize what a miracle my body was producing. I already can't remember what it felt like to feel all 3 of them moving inside my body. I have already forgotten the pain of it. Actually, if I could I would do it again...in a few years, but I would absolutely do it again. It was a "one in a million" type of chance and I wish I had cherished it more.
Hindsight!
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| Bennett, Anderson, Taya and Mom |
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| Anderson, Taya, Bennett |
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| Bennett, Anderson, and Taya |
Now, the most amazing part of all of this is how much fun I am having! Totally unexpectedly, I am LOVING this experience! I feel like I just cannot get enough of the babies! For those of you who know me well you will know that I have always had a hard time connecting with my babies--usually I am far enough off of my rocker or I just take a while to adjust to letting someone else into my emotionally constricted heart!! I was really worried about connecting with the babies since there were so many of them and since I knew they would be in the NICU for a while so it would further impede my ability to bond. Wow! Just the opposite! The minute I saw the babies in their little cradles in the NICU (about 9 hours after delivering) my heart just melted. I felt an instant bond with all of them with a little less of a bond with Anderson--let me explain. He looked so different! He was not familiar to me at all. Bennett and Taya both looked like they fit into my family, Taya looking almost identical to Ethan as a baby. Anderson looked like my Grandpa Heninger! I don't even look like that side of my family! It took me a while to really warm up to him but since we got to take him home first from the NICU I had a lot of time to bond with just him and, conversely, grew the greatest bond of all with him!
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| Anderson |
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| Luke, Bennett, Ethan, Taya, Anderson |
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| Taya, Luke, Bennett |
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| Jake Changing Taya |
So, now they are home and I am expecting to be scared out of my mind and crazy busy and up to my knees in baby barf and stinks. But, no! It has been so much easier than I thought and so much more enjoyable. I can't wait to wake them up and feed and snuggle them. I can't wait for them to recognize me and give me that smile--you know, the one reserved for MOM. They have started doing it a little this week and there is no greater reward for a mother. I love that if they are crying I can pick them up and they will, without fail, stop crying in about 10 seconds. I hate that I can't give each one of them enough time. That is my biggest struggle-will they receive the emotional/physical love and touch that they need? I literally cannot hold each one of them enough to adequately feel like I am giving them enough attention. But that's okay. That is just a natural effect of having triplets and they will survive! I try to put them with each other a lot when they are awake so they feel some human contact! Yes, they all sleep together but they are swaddled and I just want them to have human touch more!
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| Taya, Ethan, Bennett |
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| Luke, Bennett, Taya |
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| Taya, Bennett, Anderson |
I have been having these terrible dreams lately that all end in someone dying. This is not irregular for me as I have always tended to have morbid dreams (no, I don't know why so don't psycho-analyze me!!). However, since I have been sleeping in short bursts instead of a long uninterrupted sleep I am remembering my dreams much more vividly. Last night I had a terrible dream! I dreamed that in the first few days that I had the babies home I had a breakdown and realized that I couldn't take care of them all and decided to give one up for adoption. The weird thing was that my mom was there and totally supported the decision. We had neighbors 2 houses down (not my actual neighbors but my dream neighbors) that was going to adopt one of the boy babies but I hadn't decided which one. Well, the adoption took a few weeks and so it was just now (as in when they are 7 weeks old) that they were finalizing it and I had to choose which baby to give away. Well, in my dream things had gotten mentally better for me and there was no way I could give away a baby let alone make a choice on which one. Somehow the adoptive family sensed that and decided to kidnap baby Taya in the middle of the night. For some reason they called me about 4 hours into the trip and said their car had stalled and they needed me to come rescue them. I flew down the road so quickly that I drove straight off a really high bridge into raging waters and woke myself up right before I hit because I knew I would die. My only thought while flying down into the water is "they will never get my kids" and I felt this overwhelming motherly bear instinct and sadness that I wouldn't be there to raise my children. Okay--there is a point to this! Partly because of my dream and partly because we just watched the movie Taken 2 and partly because I am reading the book by the Eyre's Joyful Mother, when I woke Taya up to feed I just held her so tight and told her that "I would never ever let anyone take you away from me!". I know that is so cheesy but my dream was so emotionally powerful and I felt this need to just hold each one of the babies tight to me and tell them how much I love them.
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| Taya, Bennett, Anderson |
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| Bennett and Anderson |
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| Anderson, Taya, Bennett |
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| Anderson and Taya |
This is what being a mother is all about. These feelings of "I would do anything in the world for you and I am the luckiest person in the world to have you in my life" are the most wonderfully God-sent urgings you can have. I am so grateful to have this experience. I almost feel like I cheated myself by not relishing in the joy of each moment with my other 3 children. With the triplets I feel like each moment lost with them is irreplaceable and each moment spent with them is a little part of heaven. I have never felt so fulfilled and so content in my life. I am actually happy to spend my day at home which is crazy for me!
Here are some of the things that I am loving and enjoying about each child:
Anderson-I love that you slept from 10 to 7 last night. I hate that it makes me feel that you are getting way too big way too fast! I want to slow down the clock and just keep you tiny. You are so solid. You feel twice as big as Taya (the smallest) even though you are only about 2 or 2 and a half pounds bigger. I love that you are different from my other children. I have loved looking at you and trying to figure your features out. I love your pointy nose and luscious lips. I love that your tongue is too big for your mouth and we have to make sure the bottle nipple goes over your tongue and not under. I love your huge eyes. I love watching you observe the world. You love to open your beautiful eyes and just stare at everything in the room. I love that you were the first one to really recognize me and smile at me. It made me feel so special. I love that you are Ethan's baby buddy. He loves to take care of you and make sure you're happy. If you are crying he will pat your tummy-usually too rough but he means well. I love that Ethan felt so good about himself when he fed you your entire bottle yesterday by himself. I love that he dressed you up in a batman mask and a star wars gun when I wasn't looking. I don't love that he tries to feed you all kinds of things and sometimes presses on your stomach way too hard when trying to kiss you. I love that you are almost always content. You are the least fussiest of the babies but when you cry it sounds like a seagull. I love that you are getting use to diaper changes and baths and don't scream the entire time anymore. I don't love that you are almost too big to swaddle now. I love to think about you smashed into the bottom of my tummy and you just sitting there all lazy and getting really big because you didn't have anyone kicking you in the head for space! I love you!
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| Anderson |
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| Ethan and Anderson |
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| Mom and Anderson |
Bennett-I love that you have red hair, blue eyes, and a ruddy complexion. I have no idea where that came from! I love that you are out of my tummy because I always felt so bad for you in there! You were so smashed with your knees to your head for most of the time. You were so far over into my side it amazed me how much of my stomach was filled with baby. I love that I felt so connected with you in the NICU. You were so complacent there. All of the nurses talked about how you were just so chill and okay with anything. You are the opposite now, which is okay. I love that you typically wake up early from your nap so I can snuggle just with you--though sometimes I wish you would sleep for the whole nap! I have loved watching Luke take care of you. He has shown me how responsible he can be! He is very protective of you and gets so concerned if you are crying. He likes to pat your stomach if you are upset and is so gentle and loving with you. He likes to lay down next to you and put his arm around your head and kiss you and snuggle you. It is so sweet. I love how you constantly look like a deer caught in headlights with your wide open eyes. I love how much you smile in your sleep. You are a happy dreamer. I love that when I woke you up from your nap 4 days ago it was really the first time that you seemed to recognize me and you gave me the biggest smile. It made me so happy. I love that you put your legs up on Taya for the first nap after you got home from the NICU. Then the next nap you moved your head right next to Anderson to fall asleep. It was so sweet. I love that you always act so famished when it is feeding time and then fall asleep about 10 seconds after you get the bottle in your mouth! I love you!
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| Luke and Bennett |
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| Luke, Bennett, and Taya |
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| Luke and Bennett |
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| Bennett |
Taya-I love that I finally got my girl and she is sweet and petite and dainty and pretty! I love that I can finally dress someone in pink and put cute hair bows on a little head! I love that I see a different kind of bum when I change diapers! I love having more estrogen in the house! It's you and me, baby girl, against all these boys. I love that you have 5 older brothers who will fiercely defend you but that you will probably rule the roost! I love that you were closest to my heart in my tummy. I didn't love how you were constantly in my ribs and how you loved to tumble around in there! I love that your head was almost always right by Bennett's in my tummy and you had a lot of bum wars with Anderson. I love that your head is so tiny but your cheeks are so massive! I love that you are probably the embryo that hid from us until I was 10 weeks. You are the one that gave us triplets instead of twins! I love that you fought your way to life--the Perinatalist didn't think you would make it! I love your tiny body and that you are our smallest even though you weigh almost twice your birth weight. You feel so light when we pick you up. I hate that you are getting so big so fast! I hate that you are drinking 4 oz at each feeding now. I just want it all to slow down! I love your passion cry! There is no prelude and building up to your cry, it is just immediate and full force and then over. It really scares us some times and then we just have to remember that that is just how you cry and it does not mean you're dying with pain! I love your sweet, sweet smiles and how they have increased dramatically just as of yesterday. I love watching you wake up to the world. I love that you love me to hold you! I love that no one held you in the NICU until I got a chance to hold you. They all knew how special you were to me and wanted me to have that first experience with you. I loved that you smiled even in the NICU. I love that you were such a fighter your first days of life and then you just tuckered out. You amazed everyone with your vigor and health and then you just decided it was time to let the brothers shine and decided to get on oxygen for the first time and stop feeding. You little stinker! I love that Cooper picked you to be his baby buddy. He loves you so much. He didn't see you for almost 3 weeks but would ask about you every day. He couldn't wait to have a sister. I love knowing that he will be the best big brother to you. He will always make sure you are happy and he will always take care of you. He loves to hold you and can even pick you up all on his own--it scares me to see him do it but he loves to be independent! I love that he is so gentle with you as if he senses you are a girl and more delicate in nature. I love that he can help feed you. I don't love that you are constantly dribbling spit up from your mouth because I want you to always smell good but you always smell like throw up. I love singing to you. I love your big beautiful eyes. I love that you look like Ethan because I know that you'll be really cute--hopefully not as much of a pest but with his sense of humor. I love that you might have my color of eyes! I love you!
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| Taya |
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| Taya |
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| Taya |
Oh my goodness, I am so glad I got all of these thoughts written down! This has been an amazing experience so far. I know it is destined to get harder as my help stops and I have to actually put you all in car seats and take you places. It is like a circus show when we take you out. Everyone stops and stares and we still feel pretty inadequate at figuring out the logistics of carrying all 3 of you around places. That is part of the fun and part of the adventure. And, yes, I would absolutely do it all over again in a heartbeat! It is so amazing to feel like our family is complete. Finally complete...for now at least! (Jake just got scared!)
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| Bennett, Anderson, Taya |
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| Jake, Anderson, Bennett, and Taya |
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| The Family! |
