Thinking Back

Josie at one month old.

Audi at one month old.

Gabby at one month old.

My trio top left Josie, top right Audi, bottom Gabby.

I took pictures each month with this doll to compare

size. The girls are one month here.

Here the girls are just over two months. It looks
like I may have had a nap.

Here the girls are three and a half months.

They are in bed with Papi, but they are not sleeping.

Thinking back to this time in my life is a blur. I was so sleep deprived that I often confused dream and reality. I would dream (during my fifteen minutes of sleep each night) of caring for babies. So it wasn't really restful. I would wake to find a baby in my bed and not know how it got there, or worse, I would wake and frantically search for a baby in the covers that I thought was there and wasn't. I would always find them safe in their cribs. Caring for three preterm infants was the hardest thing I have done so far in my life. With premies you have to wake them to be fed every four hours (every three hours the first month). You would have to force feed them the 3oz. bottle and try to keep them awake and eating. After a half hour you give up and go to the next one. I was also pumping milk at this time and that would take a half hour also. So you do the math. I'd spend two hours feeding and pumping, than take a two hour break for rest. Then I would start all over again. If nobody woke me up in that two hours. If I was lucky Chino would help out some nights. And my mother and sister would come over after work and care for the girls while I got an hour or two nap. I wouldn't do this again if you paid me.

I was dreading my fourth child's infancy, thinking of how it was with the girls. But he was full term and single birth so it was a breeze. Getting up twice a night was nothing. Of course he didn't completely sleep through the night until well over a year old. One at a time is the way to go.