Crazy days and little Hector's trip to Jacksonville

It's been a crazy couple of days and I finally have a chance to sit and write. All last week we had dr. appointments and we were so busy. This week was also really busy and I'm so glad it's over! Doctor appointments went well last week! Delilah was checked by the ophthalmologist and he said she looked great! Yay! Their pediatrician appointment also went well and their doctor was really happy with their weights! They're finally in the charts!

This past Monday was so awesome! I was invited to be a guest speaker in a Child Development class by my former college professor. She wanted to talk about Multiples Awareness and about our story. I was able to also take the babies with me and it made it even more exciting! It was great being back campus and I actually really miss being in school!

Yesterday was a big day. As most of you know my son has profound hearing loss. After failing his hearing test in the NICU, we've been following up with audiologists, ENTs, and a Cochlear implant specialist. He wears hearing aids but they don't show much improvement. The cochlear implant specialist requested a more in depth hearing test in Jacksonville (which is where his clinic is located). Hector was already diagnosed with auditory neuropathy, but his specialist wanted him to have the testing done to confirm the previous diagnosis. Well we drove to Jacksonville for his test and everything went well. He had to be under general anesthesia for the test and there were no complications. The audiologist explained to us the diagnosis and it correlated with the previous diagnosis of Auditory Neuropathy.

Auditory Neuropathy: Auditory neuropathy is a condition in which the cochlea appears to function normally, but there is a problem with the nerves so that sound can not be normally processed and the auditory brainstem response (ABR) is missing or abnormal. A child with auditory neuropathy may appear to hear one day and not hear the next. This can frustrate parents and make a definite diagnosis more difficult.


Now that we have this diagnosis confirmed, Hector is eligible for a Cochlear implant evaluation. They called me today and scheduled his evaluation for March 18th! After his evaluation is done it takes 8-12 weeks for our insurance provider to approve the surgery. God-willing this will not take too long and we can get his surgery done by this summer. That's our goal. Please keep this situation in your prayers...

The babies are doing great. They seem to be more active and they interact and play with each other a lot. It's exciting seeing them play with each other and "talk" to each other... it's so cute! My husband and I created a play area for the babies with a little house with slide, toys, and a gated area. I LOVE IT!!! Here's some pictures of them in their new play area. :-) <3






Next week won't be as busy as these past weeks.... Although Valentine's Day is coming up! :-) The babies have a neurology appointment on Wednesday and then my hubby has a neurology appointment as well on Thursday. He has been complaining of major headaches after his accident... :-/

Hope you all have a great weekend and I'll continue to keep you all updated. :-)

Busy week and 2 milestones!

Well this week will definitely be the busiest week of the year thus far. We have doctor appointments every day this week except for Friday. Tomorrow we actually have 2 appointments that are just 2 hours apart... Hopefully they won't conflict with each other....

Well the weekend went well and Delilah's eye surgery recovery has been outstanding! Her eyes look great and thank God there have been no complications. *Cross fingers* it will stay that way. :-) Tomorrow we have a Post-surgery appointment for her and then right after that we have a pediatrician appointment for their 15 month shots (no fun!)... The pediatrician had mentioned to me that after this appointment she will be changing Hector's and Melody's formula to regular whole milk and pediasure. I'm actually quite excited about this new feeding milestone.... Hopefully they'll have no problems adjusting to it. Delilah has been on a partially digested formula for over a year and although she hates the taste, she's learned to get over it and eats it. Well we've been giving her some pediasure to see how she tolerates it and she LOVES IT! I called her gastroentologist on Friday and asked her if we can switch her to full pediasure... SHE SAID YES! We're really excited about that and Delilah is even more than we are!

I have 2 big things to announce that happened since my last post... Thing #1: Hector is pulling up to stand in the playpen all by himself!!! YAY!!! So now all three babies can pull up to stand on their own holding on to the sides of their playpens/cribs. :-)
Thing #2: Melody took 2-3 steps all by herself today!!! It was so exciting!! I definitely need to be ready with the video camera this week in case she decides to take more steps! :-) I can't believe I'm gonna have a walker soon!

No pictures with this post, but I promise that with my next post I'll put some recent ones. :-) HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYONE!!!

It's been 2 months since my last post... Here's our update! :-)

Ok So I know I'm a TERRIBLE blogger! It's been 2 months since my last post and lots of new things have been going on. Ok, so where do I start?

We had a wonderful Christmas! The babies got so many gifts and actually had lots of fun opening the presents. It was funny to see them play more with the wrapping paper than the actual gifts! Here's a photo of them playing and opening gifts:

On December 29th my husband got into a terrible car accident. He was impacted by another vehicle in the front right side of his pick-up truck and lots control of the vehicle. His truck then flipped a couple of times and he went unconscious. They had to cut the roof of his truck and take him out from the top. He was hospitalized and very, very hurt. It was a very scary moment for me because I really thought I had lost him. He had a huge laceration in the head from the side of his right eye to the back of his head. It was a deep cut but thankfully he had no brain damage. It's been almost a month and he's still recovering. He's still in a lot of pain and has been complaining about migraines and body aches. :-/ It's been very difficult for me because in the first weeks I had to not only take care of the babies and the house, but also my hubby. Thank God for family because without their help I don't know what I would have done. :-/ Here's a picture of how his truck looked after the accident:

So on to the babies... They have been doing wonderful!! In just 2 months since my last post they are doing so much more! All three of them are now crawling and sitting upright. Melody is already taking some steps too! Melody and Delilah are eating Stage 3 baby food and are eating some other solids like puffs and cookies. It's so exciting! Delilah started pulling up to stand on her own holding on to the sides of the crib and play pen. Hector is almost there too... and Melody has been doing it for a while now. :-)

I'm not sure if I mentioned it in my last blog (since I didn't read it before I started writing this post) but the ophthalmologist decided Delilah should have eye surgery to correct her strabismus (crossed eyes). We were actually really excited about that because we really wanted her to be able to focus a little better. Well yesterday she had her eye surgery and it was a success!! Surgery started at 9:45am and we were already discharged at about 2:00pm. She recovered very fast and we can already notice the great results! The doctor said her eyes will be red and a bit bloody for the next couple of days. We also have to watch her that she doesn't rub her eyes (although she fights us to do it). :-/ I'm just happy we're done with this part of our lives and we're moving on... Here's a photo of her "before and after surgery":

Next stop is little Hector! Now we have to work on getting him to hear and talk!!! We have an appointment for an ABR under general anesthesia in Jacksonville on the 10th of next month. He already started seeing the speech pathologist since he needs at least 2 months of it before we're even considered for the cochlear implant. We're almost there and I'm so excited that we're getting closer and closer... Please keep this situation in your prayers... We really want God's will to be done and we need direction to see if this is what he really needs.

I will keep you all posted about little Hector's hearing loss and our near future plans with the implant. I will leave you with some of our professional Christmas photos since I wasn't able to update my blog until now. :-)

Hector Jr. <3

Delilah <3

Melody <3

My Babies <3 <3 <3

UPDATED PICS. :-)

Delilah Marie enjoying cake! yum!

Melody Grace and Hector! lol

I know, I know... It's been FOREVER!!

Wow! I can't believe it's been over 6 months since my last blog update!! Well, I must say that a lot has happened since my last update. My triplets turned one and are thriving! There's lots going on right now and I'm really excited about some of the things that are to come. I'm still a stay-at-home mom and I love it! Although it's always nice to go out by my self and take a break... :-)

Ok, so where do I start? Delilah officially has no more central line and no more g-tube, an no more NOTHING! It feels really great!! She's eating by mouth and doing great. She's receiving some PT and Early Intervention and she has shown a lot of progress these last couple of months. Our only little problem with her right now is that she has lazy eyes due to an ROP surgery when she was in the NICU. Her vision is good though so there's no need for glasses. Right now we're just patching her better eye so that her lazy will make an effort to stay straight. Her ophthalmologist recommended surgery for her in January to fix the lazy eyes and we are quite happy about that. He says that the problem should be fixed and he has no major concerns. Yay!! :-) Overall she's very healthy and we're blessed to have her here with us today. She also has two teeth and loves bitting into everything. lol

So now let's talk about little Hector. He was our main concern developmentally because his legs were a bit stiff and the pediatrician was having some doubts about possible mild CP in his legs. Well let me just say that he's now crawling and almost got sitting down! The physical therapy has really helped and he's doing great! Our main concern with Hector right now is his hearing. Hector was diagnosed with hearing loss after failing all his hearing test. He had ear tubes placed last April and they found out his problem is a nerve that didn't fully develop... probably from his prematurity. He's been wearing hearing aids, and although there are times when we think he can hear us, we still have our doubts. We took him to see a cochlear implant specialist this month and he sent him to do some preliminary testing to make sure his ear anatomy is normal. They did and MRI and CT Scan and so we're waiting on those results. If all is well then he qualifies for the implant. The specialist has his office in Jacksonville and only comes once a month to Nemours to see his patients. So we will have to go to Jacksonville for his pre-op testings and the surgery. They want Hector to have some Speech Therapy for at least 2-3 months before we take him up for surgery. They want to make sure that his hearing loss is profound before they go ahead and perform a cochlear implant. We are really excited about the implant because after making a lot of research on it, we learned that a lot of babies that have a cochlear implant go on to having normal lives and talking. We really want that for little Hector and we're hopeful that he will be one of those children that succeed!

On to Melody... Oh Melody, Melody, Melody!! She's definitely the leader of the bunch. Melody is doing absolutely great. She's sitting, crawling, walking holding on to things, and just thriving! She's very curious and quite the funny character. We know that she will be the one pushing her siblings to catch up and thrive along with her! Because she's the leader of the group, she also has the attitude to go along with it... lol She's very observant and will stare at you without blinking for a long time. She puts everything in her mouth and she's very energetic. She also got her first tooth coming out... so that might be the reason for her putting everything in her mouth. lol She's very healthy and doing great! We're truly blessed!

Well that's all in a nut shell... I know this is a long blog, but it's been forever since my last blog so I had a lot to update! :-) Hopefully I will be blogging a little more now that the babies have gotten bigger and have way less things to worry about now than before. Hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving! Until next time... :-)

Oh and I will leave you with some recent pictures of them... :-) Enjoy!

Sickie babies, Mother's day, and triplets' 7 months! :)

This past week everyone in the house got sick. I took the babies to the pediatrician and she increased my son an extra nebulizer treatment a day. I was only sick for about 4-5 days so it wasn't that bad. I was mostly congested. The babies are doing much better and the only one coughing now is my son and it's not too bad. My husband called off from work those days and stayed home to take care of us :) He's too sweet!

Mother's day was amazing!! Yesterday was my first mother's day and it was an unforgettable one! My husband got me roses and a much wanted necklace that I've been wanting for a few months now. He took the most care of the babies all day and was giving me the day off. We went to church in the morning with all THREE babies... If you have multiples you can just imagine how crazy that was! It was an adventure just getting them ready for church in the morning. It was the first time I took all three babies to church! After church my whole family met at my mother's house and we had dinner and spent time together. The men served their wives and we just relaxed and talked to each other the whole time. It was the first time that I took the babies to a family event. I usually try to keep them out of crowds as much as possible.

Today is Monday and I'm back to reality. I'm home alone with my three munchkins and even though I love being home with them all day, it can be very exhausting. This week will be a busy one since we have a few appointments for the babies. All three of them have an ophthalmologist appointment tomorrow, Delilah has a gastroentologist appointment on Thursday, and Hector has an audiologist appointment on Friday. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but my son has some hearing loss and requires the use of hearing aids. Thankfully he is responding wonderfully with the hearing aids and appears to be hearing well with them on. The hearing aids are at a very low setting which is great because it means that his hearing loss is not severe.

The babies turned 7 months old today!! Time really flies! It feels like it was yesterday they were in the NICU. I am so thankful for every month that passes and God allows me to have them with me. I love them so much and I always look forward to their full recovery and well-being! Happy 7 months my beautiful triplets!!!

I will post some pictures of Mother's day later on. I have to find my camera usb cable to download the pictures and I have no clue where it could be. Until then, have an amazing start to this week!! :)

Triplets' first time at the beach.

This past weekend I took the triplets to the beach for the first time. We were supposed to present the babies at church, but unfortunately my grandmother got admitted to the hospital and we were unable to. Since my husband had the weekend off for the event, we decided to go to the beach and stay overnight. We had a lot of fun, but it was oh so difficult!! It felt like the babies were eating all the time, since time flew. My aunt, her husband, and my cousins joined us for this overnight stay, and my mom and her hubby met us over there just for the day. It was a beautiful day for the beach, but I was worried about the sun and we decided to stay in the hotel room until the sun went down. Overall we had a good time and now we have a better idea of how a mini vacation with the babies would be like.... One thing we definitely know is that WE NEED HELP if we're gonna do this again!!! :)

Here are some pictures of the triplets' first time at the beach:

Our pretty little family:

My mommy and my aunt with the babies.

Hector Manuel Jr. with his hat and bathing suit shorts!

Melody Grace showing off her bathing suit. :)
Delilah Marie with her big bow and her blanky.