Are They Triplets?!

Today we went to the lab near our house for a routine blood draw for Jack. We have been going in the late afternoon so that there isn't much of a wait since waiting is hard for 3-year-olds. Unfortunately, today the wait was a little longer than usual due to one patient holding up the line, but during our 20 minutes we managed to make the day of three older ladies.

Since we go to the lab every one to two weeks, the kids know the routine. After pulling our number from the machine, they all grabbed a magazine from the table and quietly sat down in seats in near me. Immediately the first older lady asks me, "Are they triplets?" I tell her that they are and then she goes on to say how beautiful they are and such. After our short conversation, she sits and watches them while we wait.

Apparently the second older lady, who was sitting only a few seats away from the first, didn't hear our brief, but loud, conversation and a few minutes later she asks, "Are they triplets?" I respond that they are and she goes on to tell me that they are beautiful. She then asks how old they are and when I tell her they are 3-years-old she starts telling me that she can't believe how well-behaved they are and how sane I am (it is not the first time someone has used this word to describe me when they find out I'm a triplet mom!). She continues with the compliments and then the kids start realizing that they have the spotlight.

At first the girls get up and start doing some twirls (they are really into dancing these days). Both older ladies are delighted by the entertainment. The second older lady asks me several more questions about them and the girls talk to her a little, and then a third older lady sits down and asks me, "Are they triplets?"

All of a sudden, the kids have an audience of three and Faith starts singing, "If You're Happy and You Know It." It was adorable, and I couldn't help but smile and laugh to myself, while at the same time I was starting to get worried because our wait was getting long and I know my 3-year-olds pretty well.

As I feared, all of the attention got the kids a little excited, and suddenly my "well-behaved" children were running around our section of the waiting room in circles giggling. I was afraid this would end in disaster quickly as someone was bound to fall, plus I'm pretty sure all three older ladies didn't approve of this behavior in a waiting room, so I quickly stopped the kids and suggested that they sing another song.

Much to the delight of the three ladies, all three kids sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" together. By this time I was sweaty and nervous as personally I don't enjoy all of the attention in public and I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep the kids relatively calm. Thankfully, at this moment our number was called and Jack quickly had his blood drawn.

We wandered out to the car afterwards and one of the kids announced that they had a poopy diaper, so I had to change that in the parking lot (one of them is still giving us a hard time with poop potty training). As soon as I finished that another kid announced that they had to poop and they could not wait until we got home, so I had to break out the travel potty.

This bike rack outside of the building is part of every single visit to the lab as the kids are convinced it's a jungle gym

Most of the time our trip to the lab is quick and easy, but today was a bit out of the ordinary. I'm glad that the kids behaved fairly well for the short time we were at the lab so that they could make the day of at least three people, but I'm also glad that their being triplets is becoming slightly less obvious as they get older since the questions and attention get old fast!

P.S. I'm excited that I'm finally getting some energy back after being unable to do anything in the evening for the last couple of months! I'm hoping to post to my blog more regularly again, but I also need to motivate myself to get things checked off of my very long "To Do" list as it kept growing despite my being exhausted.

Pregnant with a Singleton!

Although many friends and family know, I've never written about our infertility journey. Without getting into too many details, after trying to conceive on our own for awhile for our first baby, we saw a fertility doctor. After a variety of tests, it was determined that IVF was our best option.

We were both wary of IVF for many of reasons. We wrestled with the idea for many months, and talked with our pastor and close friends about it, before deciding that it was the right decision for us. We started our first IVF cycle on November 1, 2012, and our lives were changed forever.

Although many fertility doctors want to produce as many eggs as possible from an IVF cycle, we had determined that we only wanted about 10 eggs. Based on statistics at the time, this would result in about four healthy embryos since not all eggs are able to be fertilized and not all embryos develop properly. Although at one point our doctor wanted to increase my meds so that there were more eggs, we held strong to our original plan. In the end we had 10 eggs and four became healthy embryos (we had done our research and the math!).

The reason we didn't want more embryos than this was because we were committed to using ALL of our embryos. In our "dream family" we would have three children, and statistically four embryos would result in three babies, but if all four miraculously resulted in children we would be okay with that as well. Both Micah and I are planners, and we thought we had it all worked out.

When we were ready to do our first embryo transfer in mid-November 2012, we decided to transfer two embryos instead of one. Although the national recommendation for a 29-year-old female (my age at the time) was one embryo, my doctor suggested that we transfer two since they weren't considered to be "high grade" embryos and he wanted to increase our chance of success. We were told that there was a chance of twins, and a "less than 5% chance of triplets" if two embryos were transferred, but all we could think about was that we really wanted this first transfer to work and we were hoping for one baby. A few weeks later, though, we found out that both embryos did take and one actually split, so I was pregnant with triplets.

We were in shock for weeks, maybe even the whole pregnancy! We wouldn't change anything if we could go back because we can't imagine our life any other way now, but obviously triplets changed our lives completely.

During my pregnancy and after our triplets were born, our two extra embryos were in the back of our minds (even more on my mind than Micah's since I am the primary caretaker of our kids and I am the one that gets pregnant). Since we had so much success with our first IVF transfer, it was hard not to wonder if both remaining embryos would become babies, or if any would split and we would have multiples again! These thoughts were overwhelming as we cared for our three new babes, and then as they became toddlers and things got challenging in different ways. We didn't want our kids to be too far apart in years, yet it was hard to fathom how I would manage being pregnant while caring for our triplets.

Eventually, though, things started to feel a little bit easier with Alexis, Jack, and Faith. By age 2 they were no longer considered delayed and they were becoming more and more independent every day. The thought of being pregnant and having a baby became (slightly) less daunting, so this past January, when our trio was 2 1/2 years old, I started the IVF meds again so that we could transfer ONE embryo.

When I received a positive on the pregnancy test from that transfer, Micah and I were a little freaked out. That meant that we had the potential of having FIVE children (or more if any embryos split) because we still had one frozen embryo. It was overwhelming to think about, but in the end we knew that God had a plan and we would just take it one day at a time. Unfortunately, at about five weeks gestation it became clear that my HCG level was dropping and it became obvious that this was not a viable pregnancy. I miscarried at six weeks.

We were sad that my second pregnancy resulted in miscarriage, but we still had the remaining embryo to transfer. Although my six week pregnancy was short-lived, it takes about six weeks to prepare a woman's body for a frozen embryo transfer, so the first two months of 2016 were quite stressful as I pumped my body full of hormones and experienced the beginning of a pregnancy. I definitely felt like I needed some time off from IVF meds before we transferred our last embryo, so we decided to wait until late summer so that I could focus on a running goal and enjoy my summer with Alexis, Jack, and Faith.

In late June I started the hormones necessary for an IVF transfer and we transferred our last embryo on August 5, less than one week after I ran / hiked the 26.2 mile Sandia Crest Trail with Micah. I was happy that I had accomplished something on my bucket list, and I was ready to see what happened with our last frozen embryo from November 2012.

Thankfully, the embryo transfer worked and I am currently 13 weeks pregnant with a singleton! It is hard to explain all of the emotions involved in IVF because the process puts a huge strain on the mother both physically, mentally, and emotionally. In addition to the stress of IVF itself, it is crazy to realize how much time I spent thinking about our two frozen embryos and wondering how I would ever manage taking care of Alexis, Jack, and Faith plus another child or two. Although I still wonder what that will look like, I now feel much more at peace with it all and I am excited to experience a singleton pregnancy, birth, and everything else that will (hopefully) feel much simpler with one than it was with three.

Camping at the Great Sand Dunes

My parents have been traveling in their RV for several weeks visiting numerous national parks, but this past week they took a break from the parks and spent time with us in Albuquerque. When they were planning their trip we decided that we should camp at the Great Sand Dunes National Park at the end of our week together as they have never been there and it is about 4 hours from our house. Unfortunately, my 4Runner was rear ended the Thursday before my parents arrived, and my car was at the shop for an entire week getting a new tailgate and rear bumper. Because our only vehicle that holds three car seats was in the shop, and we weren't sure when it would be finished, we didn't know if we would be able to camp until the last minute. Thankfully, our car was finished on Friday at 5:30 p.m., so we left Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m. for the Sand Dunes.

We gave the kids sleeping bags for their birthday so they have wanted to camp all summer, but for various reasons a camping trip hasn't happened for us. The kids were really excited to camp, but we weren't sure if they truly understood what camping was since they haven't been since they were 16 months old (we went once when they were 13 months and once when they were 16 months). Luckily, they were still excited once they saw our tent set up with their sleeping bags inside! After spending some time setting up our campsite and eating lunch, we headed over to the dunes.

Alexis

The rock wall around the campsite made a perfect road for their cars

Faith and Jack outside of our tent

Alexis testing out her sleeping bag

No camping trip is complete without a ukulele

Micah's parents joined us for the dunes and dinner as they live less than an hour from the park. The kids were ecstatic to have both sets of grandparents in one place as that has only happened a handful of times. They enjoyed running around and playing in the sand, and we went on a short walk up the dunes (they go on for miles so going to the top would take about five hours). 

Alexis left, Faith right

Walking towards the dunes. In the past we've been to the park when the water was flowing down from the mountains so the kids didn't want to leave the stream, but the ground was dry this weekend so we explored further into the park for the first time.

Sitting on top of a small dune

Trying to make sand angels (it was impossible to keep their heads out of the sand so I finally gave in)

Everyone enjoyed a simple dinner followed by s'mores on the campfire, before the Howard grandparents left for the night and we got the kids ready for bed. We tried to put the kids in the tent by themselves, but they were much too excited to settle down and sleep. So Micah and I went to bed fairly early and once we were in the tent the kids fell asleep within minutes. 

Dinner at our campsite

A campfire is slightly more enjoyable with 3-year-olds than 2-year-olds, but they still have a lot to learn about the dangers

The view of the sunset over the sand dunes from our campsite

The kids enjoyed the elements of s'mores one at a time instead of in sandwich form (less mess that way!)

Faith and Alexis tucked in for the night

Jack was excited to sleep in his sleeping bag!

The nighttime low was in the upper 30's, so we were prepared with layers and warm sleeping bags. Although I was worried about the kids during the night, they seemed to be warm enough and I was the one that was cold. Next time I need to dress myself warmer!

Overall, everyone slept well in the tent and we woke up around 6:45 in the morning. A major perk of sharing a campsite with my parents was that we could hop into their warmer RV in the morning instead of trying to eat breakfast outside in the cold. We were also able to use their bathroom instead of walking to the public one, which is a huge advantage when camping with three 3-year-olds.

Breakfast in the RV with a view of our tent

After a morning walk around the campsite and taking down our tent, we headed over to Micah's parents' house for a late breakfast (and a shower for me!). In a way it feels like we "cheated" at camping since we took advantage of the luxuries of my parents' RV and we had a hot breakfast waiting for us at Micah's parents' house, but we DID successfully spend a cold night in a tent with our 3-year-olds so I think we can say we camped for the first time with the kids in two years. We look forward to more camping trips with our camping loving kids in the future.

The view from our campsite in the morning. It was a chilly morning and we were thankful for our winter clothes!

Alexis spent hours sweeping the dirt at the campsite...haha.

The kids burned some energy playing with the balls at Grammy and Grandpa's house

One last pic before we started our drive back to ABQ

Things Kids Say, Big Kid Beds, and Preschool

Since we started potty training six months ago, our kids seem to have grown up by years. Just today when I was in the church restroom with Alexis and Faith they both insisted on going into their own stalls and doing everything by themselves because, in Faith's words, "That is what my teacher lets me do at school." Wow. You are 3-years-old and suddenly you don't need help getting onto the big potty or pulling your pants back up? Of course, this isn't how they act all of the time as they are only 3 and sometimes they want help with e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g., but I almost felt sad sitting in my bathroom stall alone as the girls seemed so independent (but then I realized I was using the bathroom alone...amazing!).

When Alexis, Jack, and Faith were babies I couldn't wait for them to grow up. We felt like we were in the baby stage forever since they were born two whole months early and they were slightly delayed in some areas during their first two years of life. Looking at them and listening to them talk now it's hard to imagine that they were ever delayed, and we are very thankful for that, but some days I want time to slow down as our three babes have become kids.

All three kids say surprising, thoughtful, and funny things all of the time, and I haven't been very good at writing it all down, but here is a question they each asked recently:

• Alexis asked, "Is it Thursday or Friday?" while eating dinner one day. Suddenly time has become relevant to her since she goes to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Micah and I were both shocked when she asked this question as it made her seem so much older than 3!

Alexis looking really grown up at lunch

• Jack asked, "What's this?" while pointing to his hair after I mentioned that a classmate had black hair. He wanted to know what color his hair was since I was describing someone else's. Blonde isn't a word we say very often, so it makes sense that he wanted to know.

Someday Jack will grow into this guitar that I bought for $3 at the multiples club garage sale

• Faith asked, "Can I sing Baa Baa Blacksheep with a girl in the song?" She realized that we were always singing about the "little boy that lives down the lane," but she wanted it to be a girl like her. I told her she could sing it however she wanted. Wow. Such deep thoughts for a 3-year-old! 

Faith loves to say, "Mom, take a picture of...." This time she wanted a pic of her doggies but I insisted that she was in the photo as well.

In the last few months, all three kids have transitioned from their crib daybeds into twin size beds. Jack inherited Micah's childhood bunkbed set and we bought the girls twin beds from Pottery Barn (we got a great deal as they were 50% off after a sale and a coupon!). They LOVE their "big beds" and I honestly think they sleep a little better in them. We love that we can lay down on their beds with them when we tuck them in at night or when they are having trouble sleeping during the night.

Jack was so excited for his bunk beds (his guitar blanket was made by his Grammy).

Faith got her bed once she was almost 100% potty trained, and she was so proud.

Alexis was thrilled to get her big bed as she was the last one to get it. We used potty training as an incentive, although she has regressed a bit since then. Such is life with kids sometimes.

Micah let the kids go on Jack's top bunk for the first time last week and they thought it was the greatest thing.

The kids started preschool a month ago. They are going on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9-12. I know many moms are sad when they drop their child off at preschool for the first time but, although I felt a twinge of sadness on the first day, mostly I was excited. It's been harder and harder to get things done around the house since the girls rarely nap, so I don't have a chunk of time in the afternoon like I used to have, and it's difficult to run errands with three kids no matter what their ages. So although preschool is a sign of our kids growing up, I mostly see it as an opportunity for our kids to learn to listen to other adults and interact with other children while I can get a few things done. Also, I am better able to focus on our kids if I don't have things hanging over my head like the grocery store and my volunteer accounting work.

Alexis

Faith

Jack

This was taken on the first day right before they walked into their classroom, so they were all a little nervous. Their backpack cubbies are behind them.

The first day...the girls are in yellow and pink and we were still convincing Jack that he was going to have fun. 

Tuesdays and Thursdays are very similar, except that on Tuesday they have Chapel and on Thursday they have music. The school also has special events and last week a petting farm came to the school. The kids loved it!

All three kids seem to enjoy preschool and they are learning a lot. Faith has been 100% confident from Day 1. She has not shed even one tear upon drop off and she has comforted her siblings when they were having a harder time. Jack was pretty teary for the first few weeks and there was even one morning that I had to pick him up from school 90 minutes into the 3 hour day because he wouldn't stop crying. I was nervous that he wouldn't want to go back to school after that, but this past week he has not had any issues. In fact, he walked into the classroom both mornings with a smile! Alexis has been a little emotional many mornings, but her teachers tell me that she calms down very quickly after I leave. I'm hoping that she will soon be as happy and confident as Faith and Jack. I know that they are all having a great time as they tell me many stories and they are very proud of the artwork that they bring home.

His teacher told me that she repeatedly told him, "Jack, paint over the tape," so that was the inspiration for his title.

One downside to having triplets in preschool is three times the snacks. Each child is assigned a day to bring the snack for the whole class (they also get to be line leader and bring show & tell on their day), but there are only 11 kids in our preschool class so our kids make up over 25% of the class...which means I get to supply over 25% of the snacks! I'm sure once we get into the routine of bringing the snack almost every single week it won't be that big of a deal, but right now the thought of it is a little daunting.

Although 3-year-olds are tough in many ways, we are really enjoying this stage too. It's fun to have conversations with our kids and we are truly able to enjoy some activities with them now. I'm sure that Alexis, Jack, and Faith will continue to grow up at an astonishing rate from now until they are adults, which is overwhelming to think about, but it also makes me excited to see who they each become in the future.

They all love to take photos of us, and this was taken by Jack on our anniversary.

The last gate was taken down in our house.

Gate free!

We won't be able to do this forever, but for now we still bathe them at the same time.

In August the kids started taking a gymnastics class for 30 minutes on Fridays. All three love it and it's fun for me to watch.

On Labor Day we drove to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument and did a short hike. It was super hot, but the kids were troopers.

If Alexis or Faith get upset about something, they often hang their head and sulk. It's quite dramatic so it's hard not to laugh sometimes, but it's also quite frustrating as they'll do this for the silliest reasons.

Right now they are all enjoying their "new" tricycles. If only our backyard patio was bigger for riding.

The kids were really excited about the hot air balloons at the Balloon Fiesta on Saturday, although they did seem to enjoy them more from afar as it was less overwhelming and they could see so many at once.