Bears!

Just because it's so darn cute:

This past Monday Rosemary had her hernia surgery, which went very well. We had intended to wait until November, but the hernia was getting worse so the pediatric urologist thought it would be best to move the surgery up. As previously promised by the doctor, Rosemary recovered from the surgery before we did. She had to stay overnight only because of her age, but by Tuesday she didn't even need Tylenol. I am very glad to have it behind us, but I really hated having the poor baby put to sleep for an operation. Rosemary has just a tiny little incision scar that the doctor said will probably just disappear as she grows.

We had a pediatrician appointment on Friday, and here are the current weights for all the babies:

Piper: 8 pounds 7 ounces
Henry: 9 pounds 10 ounces
Rosemary: 5 pounds 15 ounces

They are certainly growing! I can't wait to see them get even bigger and fatter!

Just Like Daddy

To us, Piper looks a lot like Gary, and Henry looks a lot like me. We're not sure about Rosemary yet, but we think that she is a mix of the two of us. Many many people, however, think that Henry looks "just like" Gary, and that's always been a surprise to us. We think we now know why they think that. . . .

Whereas Gary has now embraced his male pattern baldness, Henry is not there yet:

And just in case you missed that the first time:

A Family Portrait!

Most of you know that we have spent a lot of time at the UAB hospital this year. I was in the hospital for 7 weeks, Piper was in the hospital for 5.5 weeks, Henry was in the hospital for 6.5 weeks, and Rosemary was in the hospital for 7.5 weeks. Gary calculated that by the time that we brought Rosemary home that he had visited one of us in the hospital for 101 straight days. Anyway, UAB Medicine has interviewed us and is considering putting us in their publication. One of the photographers for UAB Medicine came out to the house yesterday and took pictures of all of us, then e-mailed a few of them to us today. I am thrilled with our great family portrait, and the individual pictures of the babies!

Piper

Henry

Rosemary

Who is that Cute Baby?

Piper has recently discovered another baby in the house, and Piper and this other baby are spending a lot of time playing together. Piper just loves her new friend. . . .

Ready for a Visit to the Pediatrician

We had a visit to the pediatrician on Wednesday morning. We are finally starting to get the hang of getting everyone out the door! Here is everyone all lined up and ready to head out to the pediatrician's office:

As the pediatrician said, our babies are really turning into porkers!!! Piper now weighs 7 pounds 5.5 ounces, Henry weighs 8 pounds 3 ounces, and Rosemary weighs 5 pounds 7 ounces. Not bad, especially considering their due date was just one week prior to the weighing. We go back to the pediatrician on September 26 to get more weights.

Time for Bed and Wide Awake

The title says it all.


And shortly thereafter, Rosemary looks on in shock as Piper and Henry have a meltdown.

A Fashion Show

A few days ago, my mom (a/k/a Nana) came down yet again to take care of the babies while I went to work. She brought these little headbands with bows on them for Piper and Rosemary. I thought they were cute, but then it was time to feed a baby and I kind of just forgot about them. Then I came in the next day after work and Piper was wearing a little bow headband, and I thought it was absolutely adorable. It was at that point that I realized that I had real live baby dolls in my house, and that I hadn't been dressing them up for fun yet. I decided that sometime soon I would dress up the babies and take their pictures. So, today after the bath/feeding assembly line, I dressed up all three babies and took their pictures. After the whole bath/bottle thing, Rosemary and Piper were exhausted, so they slept through their photo shoot, but Henry was wide awake and being cute.

Here's Rosemary:

And here's Piper:

And here's Henry:

Today is the Due Date

Today is the due date for the babies, and today the babies are 10 weeks old. It's kind of hard to believe that they aren't really supposed to be here until now. It is truly amazing that we have ended up with such precious, healthy babies, especially after everything that we've gone through over the last few months.

I started back to work on a part-time basis last week. A lot of people ask me if I'm making it okay. I really am. In fact, work is a nice break! In all seriousness, though, after leaving my babies in the hospital for weeks, leaving them at home for a few hours a day is really not bad. Maybe it will hit me more later, but for now, this is really working out wonderfully for all of us.

My mom has been keeping the babies a lot while we work, and so far for this week, Ann (a great NICU nurse who took care of the babies in the hospital) has been keeping them while we work. Gary and I have found a wonderful nanny who will start working on September 15. Now if we can just get a night nanny lined up for a few nights a week. . . . The other night I woke up from what seemed like a restful nap, and then to my shock discovered that I had a baby in my lap and a bottle in the baby's mouth. I went through a quick assessment of the situation: What baby is this? What time is it? Is this baby supposed to be eating now? How long was I asleep? Is everyone okay? Well, it was Piper, and it was indeed during her eating time window (2:30 - 3:00 a.m.). It turns out that I had only dozed for about 10 minutes, and Piper was almost through with her bottle when I woke up. What a good baby!

We still have tons of doctors appointments for the babies. Yesterday we saw a pediatric urologist with Rosemary. Unfortunately, little Rosemary has a hernia and will have surgery to repair it in November at Children's Hospital. There is a chance that we could have to move the surgery up, but for now we are planning on November. Because she is so young, it will have to be an overnight surgery. She'll probably make it through the surgery much better than Gary and I will. Tomorrow we have eye appointments again. I've learned my lesson and will wear my most slimming outfit to that one.

For the last post, I showed you a few pictures from our photo session. We have all of the pictures from the session now, and the entire slideshow will be available for about another week from today.