Thankful for...

This year we have been SO BLESSED!!!! and we have SO MANY things to thankful for!! the year didn't start up very bright for us. Back on February 02, 2008 I was admitted to the hospital at only 19 weeks of gestation with our triplets. Back then, I was so full of fear and I thought that this year was going to be the worst year of my live. But GOD is great and awesome! He helped me stay pregnant for 10 more weeks and our three little bundle of joys made it safely into this world. So I'm VERY THANKFUL for three beautiful and healthy babies that fill my everyday live with laughs, silliness and poopy diapers (ha ha ha ha) here they are! aren't they cute?! (of course I'm biased ha ha ha). This thanksgiving was extra extra especial because it was on our 9th anniversary! 9 years?! wow! it feels like yesterday! so I'm also VERY thankful for a WONDERFUL husband and wonderful daddy that loves his family like nothing in this world! Te amo muchisisimo:) (back then digital pictures weren't as popular so I try taking a picture from our wedding album and yes the background is real! that's back in my home country Dom. Rep.).

I'm also thankful for a WONDERFUL grandma that has devoted herself to her grand kids day and night she takes care of this 3 little ones. Marlyce THANK YOU!! we couldn't do it without you! We love you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

For a wonderful sister Alpha that was able to come visit and help for 2 weeks and meet for the first time her nieces and nephew! Alpha muchisimas gracias por haber venido a pasar 2 semanas con nosotros! te lo agradesco muchisisisisimo! me hizo muchisimo bien tu visita! creo que a los bebes tambien! y te extrañan al igual que yo!! te quiero mucho hermanita!! espero verte pronto!

Auntie Alpha and the babies:)

For somebody with CrAzY hair just like you:)

For all those aunts and uncles that love our 3 bundle of joys:)

Also for Mary S. that has been helping us with the babies every week! thank you Mary for all the wonderful things that you have done for this family!! thank you, thank you thank you! And for so many more things! for all our families, friends and for our church that has been a WONDERFUL support to us! Happy belated Thanks giving every one!!!

Growing and growing!

Yesterday the babies had their 2nd RSV shot:( ouch! and they got weight! here are the numbers
Arianna 12lbs & 11Oz
Alea 13lbs & 04 Oz
Armando 14Lbs and 4 Oz

We've been having fun with auntie Alpha for the last week, but she will be leaving next week Wed:( We've been doing a lot of cooking! (she loves to eat ha ha ha ha) and the babies have try hard to keep her very busy!

Alea decided that she is interested in rolling over and she has been rolling over with help when she is in the mood. Arianna as well rolls with help, but lately she hasn't been in the mood for that. Armando is a pro now so nobody can keep him on his tummy. We continue to do their exercises to help them achieve their milestone. Hopefully they will be all rolling without help soon. Here are a couple pictures because I can't post without pictures ha ha ha
Arianna and Alea wrestling on the floor

Auntie Alpha with all 3 babies from left to right Alea, Arianna and Armando

Finally!

Finally Armando rolled over today with no help! yay! he is the first one! our babies will be 7 months on the 12th, but they are 4 1/2 months adjusted age so all their milestone and medical check ups go by their adjusted age not actual age. The girls are hopefully in the way to roll soon. Arianna rolls with help (I trick her with a toy and position her arms) and Alea right now doesn't want anything to do with rolling, even though she rolled in the swing a long time ago from back to tummy. She is the best one at tummy time and I thought she would be the first one to roll but Armando proved me wrong. We've been doing some exercises to help the babies reach their milestone:) and thank God we are seeing very good progress:)

Finally Alea is "talking". Armando has been "talking" for a loooooonnnnnngggggggg time. Then Arianna got started a few weeks ago and last week Alea out of the blue started "talking" and very loud! Now we can't keep her quiet:) The girls made little noises here and there but never as loud and conversational as Armando, I think they were just satisfy listening to him and finally they decided to do their own talking:) so now they play and yell under the mobiles, ha ha ha

Finally Alea is having more regular BM, we got the Ok. from our GI pediatrician to give her juice every day to avoid constipation.

Finally a member of my family will get to meet the babies:) my dear sister Alpha is coming and she flies in on the 12th:) All my family is back in my home country Dominican Republic so I hope Grampa and my sister Wendy can come soon! as well as the rest of my extended family (Tony and niece and nephew).

Finally I took some time to post:) and upload some pictures!
Now you can see why my post is called "finally" ha ha ha

Here are some random pictures
Arianna with her HUGE smile

Alea playing under the mobile

All 3 babies crowded under the mobile (from left to right Arianna, Armando and Alea)

Armando can sleep through anything! (from left to right Alea, Armando and Arianna)

I finally have a picture of both girls smiling at the same time:) Alea on the left and Arianna on the right.

Alea holding her bottle with juice to help with her constipation:)

Enjoying fall:)

We decided to have some fun in our backyard this afternoon! Well the babies didn't know what to think of all the leafs!! In order from left to right Arianna, Armanod and Alea. They are studying the leafs:)

But very soon we had some melt downs;)

Then I try riding around with them to calm them down! NOOOOOO I'm just kidding! so we had to go back inside because all they wanted to do was to eat the leafs!!!

Happy Halloween!

As promised here are some pictures of the kids on a Halloween spirit:) Funny story we got the kids costumes a long time ago. However, we decided to use them for our Christmas cards because they look just darling and cute! Soooo I won't post those pictures until I mail those out. Daddy wanted wanted to have some Halloween pictures today not later. So he got this hats at a pet store! (ha ha ha)

Here is Arianna with a beautiful smile!
This is Alea trying to put on a evil witch face (ha ha ha)
And here is Armando with his pirate look:)

Frankie wanted to play too so we took some pictures of him as well.

First family portrait

Here we are!! finally we have a decent family picture:) This is the first time we take a professional picture of all of us and it turned out very good:) Happy Halloween everybody!! I'll try to post some Halloween pictures later today (if babies allow) ;)
Alea in yellow, Arianna in pink and Armando in green:) and of course the VERY HAPPY and tired dad and mom:)

What's RSV?

Ok. this is going to be a boring post, BUT very informative and important for the sake of our babies health! I got all the info from http://www.synagis.com/
RSV stands for "Respiratory syncytial virus (sin-SISH-shul VI-rus), or RSV, is a common, seasonal and easily spread virus. You’ve probably had RSV and thought it was just a bad cold. In fact, nearly all children will get their first RSV infection by age two.

Most people with RSV suffer moderate to severe cold-like symptoms. For some babies, RSV can be more serious—it's the #1 cause of hospitalization in infants. Preemies and babies born with a heart or lung condition are at higher risk for severe RSV disease, which could lead to serious lung infections like pneumonia and bronchiolitis. It is estimated that the annual infant death rate due to RSV is 10 times greater than that of the flu, with up to 400 infant deaths from RSV each year in the U.S."

Just by reading this from the information that I received in the NICU, it didn't really hit me how how vulnerable my babies are to RSV, until I saw the following picture comparing the lungs of a preemature baby to the lungs of a full term baby. Please take a look (if you click on the image it will get bigger and you can see it in better detail): This is why we CAN'T forget the vulnerability of our babies lungs. Even though they look big and healthy now, we can't forget that their lungs are still developing and we need to be as careful as possible, especially now during RSV season.

This is another shocking comparison between a term baby's airway and a preemie baby's airway.

So you are probably wondering what kind of precautions are we taking to prevent the babies from getting RSV and what kind of precautions visitors need to take:

1. If we are starting a cough/cold/flu we wear a mask, BUT if you are starting one of those please stay away (we love you, but we need to be careful).
2. We wash wash wash wash wash wash our hands as often as possible (my hands are VERY dry and rough from all the washing 24/7). This is one of the best ways to prevent any germs from spreading (sometimes we don't know that we'll be getting sick so it's important to wash our hands as often as possible). So please don't feel offended if you come visit and we ask you to wash your hands.
3. Also the babies will receive the Synagis shot once a month.

Thanks for taking the time to ready this mini-informative post about RSV and for caring SO much for our babies:)