March For Babies: My Triplets

Every year we walk in the March for Babies to support the March of Dimes.  This organization is near and dear to our hearts, they saved my babies lives!!  They have funded research for a lot of the medications, equipment, and procedures that made it possible for us to spend 8 precious days with our Colin William, and for us to bring Gavin and Owen home with us.

Please consider making a donation to our team to help support more groundbreaking research for babies!  Their goal is that one day all babies will be born healthy!

My triplets were born at 31 weeks and 3 days.  This was after finding out at 24 weeks that my identical two had very low fluid surrounding them.  (this fluid is used for the babies to practice breathing and stretch their lungs so they can breathe unassisted when they are born)  I was then put on bedrest at home.  This was not an easy thing to do with a very active 2 year old running around.  Thanks to our family and friends I was able to stay off my feet and let the babies grow.  I then went in for a routine exam at 27 weeks and never came home until after they babies were born.  I spent 4 weeks on strict hospital bedrest because my water had broken with my identical babies.  This was a very difficult time for me, I had to leave my 2 year old at home.  Again, with the amazing help of our family and friends the only thing I had to worry about was letting my babies grow.

When I reached 31 weeks and 3 days Colin decided it was going to be their birthday, September 18, 2006.  They were born at 5:30am weighing 2 lbs. 14 ozs (Colin), 2 lbs. 8 ozs (Gavin) and 3 lbs. 13 ozs. (Owen) and they were all about 15 inches long.  To give a point of reference, Rees was 7lbs 5ozs and 21 inches long when he was born at 39.5 weeks.  They were little and needed a lot of help. 

Colin needed the most help and within the first 24 hours had to be revived and placed on more life support to keep him alive.  Thanks to an oscillator ventilator, nitric oxide, and lots of medications we were able to spend 8 days with Colin before he went to heaven.

 

Colin right after he was born... before he was hooked to ALL of his machines

Gavin needed the help of a ventilator for 24 hours until he pulled out his breathing tube (he has been feisty from the beginning!).  They then tried to put him on CPAP but he didn't like that either and pulled it off.  They finally gave up and put him on a nasal cannula where he stayed for 10 months.  He came home from the hospital in November at 6 weeks old.  He was on oxygen and a pulse oximeter.  He had many medical problems: double hernia, dislocated hip, preemie lung disease, reflux, aspiration, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something.  

Owen was our least needy baby in the NICU.  He spent a little bit of time on CPAP but he was mostly what they call a "feeder and grower".  Meaning he needed to learn to eat from a bottle (not a natural instinct for babies born early) and gain weight before he could come home.  He came home after 4 weeks in the NICU.  He looked like a little tiny baby doll!  I'll never forget how tiny and perfect he was on the day we brought him home!  He came home on a heart monitor because preemies can have problems with their heart rate and remembering to breathe.  But he never had any alarms in the 3 months he wore it.

Gavin and Owen shopping at BJs with mommy

 Gavin and Owen are now 4 1/2 years old and thriving!  Owen is physically and developmentally just like other children his age despite his early arrival. Gavin still has some lasting effects of his prematurity but overall he is doing amazing!  I am so proud of my babies and all they have gone through.

Daddy with all of his boys...Gavin, Rees, Owen

 They are both in preschool and excelling!  Gavin still receives some therapy to help him eat like his peers, but he is making progress everyday.  He has a feeding tube in his belly that we use to give him extra calories at night.  He also has asthma because his lungs are so damaged from his early birth and lack of fluid while he was inside mommy.  Gavin has had at least 6 procedures under anesthesia since he was born.  Three of those procedures were surgery; hernia repair, hip repair, and tonsils and adenoids removed.

All of my babies eating lunch...Rees, Gavin, and Owen

 Gavin has also been diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (very mild) and has received physical and occupational therapy since he was 3 months old.  We added speech therapy around 9 months of age to help with his eating.  Since then he has been discharged from physical therapy (which just amazes me since he didn't walk until he was 2 years old!).  He still receives limited occupational and speech therapy because of his difficulties with eating.  I'm hoping we will have those issues pretty much resolved by kindergarten.  Once he is eating well he can have his feeding tube removed and probably get rid of his IEP.

Owen playing on the airplane

 The progress that Gavin has made over the last four years is nothing short of amazing!  Without the March of Dimes there is a good chance he might not be with us today.  He and Owen both had a rough start to life, but have overcome all of their obstacles with flying colors.



Gavin:  www.marchforbabies.org/gavinkennedy
Owen: www.marchforbabies.org/owenkennedy
Rees: www.marchforbabies.org/reeskennedy
My page: www.marchforbabies.org/jmkennedy

Look what I found!

I was going through some old pictures so I can put together my March for Babies post and I found this gem!  Enjoy!!

Back Again!

So much for keeping up with the blog.  Sorry guys!

The boys are doing great in school and still love going, hope it stays that way for another 15 or more years!

Gavin and Owen had their first swim lessons at the YMCA and are getting used to the water.  Owen is in a higher class than Gavin because he is much more comfortable in the water than Gavin.  But Gavin is making progress!  I thought that on the first class poor Gavin's teacher was going to go home with bruises on her arms from his fingers digging into her arms :)  He's not holding on as tight anymore.

Gavin and Owen are also playing soccer on Saturday mornings.  They love running after the ball, can't say that they get to kick it often :)

Rees is going to start swim lessons again tomorrow.  It's been a year or more since he has had a lesson and he is very excited!  Now he will have karate on Mondays, swim on Thursdays, and soccer on Saturdays.  Lots of taxi driving for mom, but I love watching them have fun with other kids their age!

Rees tested for his Tiger Belt

On the medical front:  Gavin had his tonsils and adenoids out on Feb. 2nd. He did great with the surgery and got to come home the next day.  He has been oxygen free ever since!  I'm pretty sure the surgery "cured" his sleep apnea, I don't think we are going to torture him with another sleep study to confirm. 

This is the oxygen we were able to finally get rid of!  Hopefully, the feeding pump goes next!

Gavin the night after his surgery, we were released the next day

Post-op appt.  He is doing great and we don't need to see the ENT again unless there is a problem

Today we met with Gavin's orthopedic surgeon to have his yearly check-up.  The x-ray showed that the bone in his hip still isn't growing at the rate we would like it to grow.  Some of this slow growth is because he had such poor nutrition for a long time.  But now that he is well nourished we hoped it would speed up the growth.  This has not been the case.  At the top of the femur (where the thigh bone goes into the hip socket) there is also a little bit of necrosis (where the bone has died).  I asked the dr. what we need to do, and he said "keep him moving".  This is not a problem!  My little man hardly ever sits still :)  I also asked about surgery, and he said not right now but he can't rule it out in the future.

Then he checked out his leg length and there is still a small discrepancy between the length of his right and left leg (right is a little longer), but this is from the hip issues.  He also compared the muscle mass in both legs and both arms.  There is also still a discrepancy in the right and left side.  His left side is still a little weaker :(  This is a result of his Cerebral Palsy.  The dr. seems to think this will eventually even out a little more, but we do need to keep an eye on his muscles to make sure they don't tighten up on the left side.

So we follow up in 6 months (instead of a year :( )  But I'd rather keep an eye on it and get all of this taken care of while he is still in preschool. 

That's all I have for now!  Look for another post in the next few days about our boys, the March for Babies is right around the corner and we are still a little ways from our goal.  Every dollar counts...please consider making a donation to our team www.marchforbabies.org/jmkennedy