Friday, January 11, 2008

I am so tired. Demons inhabited my sweet babies last night. I know they couldn't be responsible for the madness that occurred. Dear sweet gentle Ben who NEVER cries wailed for hours last night for no apparent reason. I changed him, I tried to feed him, I gave him gas drops, but nothing worked. The only thing that did work was to hold him...for hours...and hours. What happened? Who was this child? Has Jack been telling him secrets? Is Ben switching over to the dark side? NOOOOO! I rely on my two easy babies to be able to handle Jack the fusspants. What if being a fusspants is contagious? What if it slowly spreads to all of them and I never get to sleep again? Then they will see the real fusspants!

Ben finally took a bottle at about 1:15 but was so tired from crying that he could only eat about 2/3 of it which I knew would be a big problem about 4:30 or so. He was so worked up he couldn't coordinate sucking and breathing...he was more sucking like this was the last bottle ever then gasping for breath. I reassured him that I would make more and that he would never go hungry...but I guess he didn't get it. He fell dead asleep FINALLY before he finished it.

Then fusspants woke up. He was totally fine when I fed him, then all hell broke loose and he CRIED and CRIED. He is so loud. My head hurts just thinking about how loud he wailed. At least Ben's cries are pretty soft and pitiful. Again, I tried everything to no avail. He finally cried himself tired and fell asleep at 4:00 and then I got to sleep...for an hour until Lily woke up screaming!!!! Which woke Jack up screaming!!!! Which woke Ben up screaming!!!!

I hid under the covers and plugged my ears.

Brian got up this time to start feeding Lily. Ben and Jack continued to cry. Loud.

I got out from under the covers and surrendered, knowing it was no use to hide from them because they were not going to stop until Someone fed them. My name is Someone.

I put them on the couch with Lily to warm their bottles and a chorus of screaming and crying ensued. All of them at once singing an evil melody trying to drive the sanity out of my clouded mind. I gave up and just laughed, it was all I could do...the last of my sanity slipping away into a puddle of fatigue.

Who are these children? Where did my sweet babies go? Where did my sleep go? How am I supposed to function on less than an hour of sleep? I am so tired...so very tired...

7 comments:

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Carole said...

i'm tired just reading that stef. I don't know how you do it, but I know it will get better! I'm sending you prayers for sleep!

Anonymous said...

Oh my! Don't they know that they're supposed to be on a...schedule? Is that even possible with triplets? You are a trooper. And they are so big and gorgeous...the pics really show how much they've changed in such a short time!

Jeni said...

Well, Stef, I never had three at once, but John screamed enough to have equaled three babies. He had colic SOOOOOO bad. I had to laugh just reading this because I had so many nights where I actually did not lay down to sleep until after 5 am. It's ridiculous how little sleep you can actually function on. The bad news is, there will be more nights like this. The good news is, it doesn't last forever – even though it feels like that today. They will get bigger and they will sleep all night and you will sleep again! I promise! Eventually they get old enough to tell them to go back to bed and leave you alone! I now understand why my parents didn't cry when we moved out.... =)

Karen (Johnson) Turner said...

Hello, Congratulations on the birth of your triplets. I wish I would have known that you were pregnant. I have had three very complicated pregnancies and spent six months total in the hospital on complete bedrest up at Harris. I have a five year old that was born at 36wks, a three year old that was born at 35wks and a two year old that was born at 33wks and spent time in the Harris NICU. I too have had many sleepless nights with a preemie. They aren't fun because you have to make sure they get in the calories or else they don't gain and get what they need. I have had a horiible first year with my two year old. He was in the hospital for a week at four months due to RSV and he quit breathing, he had three surgeries, on medication seventeen times a day for reflux and diagnosed with failure to thrive due to constant vomitting. I know I have been reading a lot about how fussy Jack is. Does he have reflux at all because he sounds a lot like Blake was. He would cry nonstop all day long and then anytime I would lay him down. He was also quit fussy in the NICU so they started him on Zantac, and that really seemed to help him settle down.

I will pray that you don't have too many sleepless nights. I know when I brought mine home it was so much nicer than Kim had it because hers was full term and had no concept of feeding schedule. With mine, preemies are the best babies because from the NICU, they have such great feeding schedules that we as parents get used to so when they get off their schedule it really throws our sleeping pattern off (although we never seem to get enough sleep and I can just imagine you and I really feel for you because I know how tired I was with one). I never seemed to get any sleep with any of mine because I constantly had stuff going on having three under the age of two and a two year old who never took naps. It was truly awful expecially when the baby was up all night screaming because he couldn't hold any food down and what food he held down would come up at the next feeding. I had this until he had his first surgery for his stomach at six months because of his failure to thrive.

Well, I am not going to go on, but if you ever have any questions feel free to e-mail me or message me because I have been there with my preemies, just not so many at the same time. I will pray that you get some great nights and maybe some nights of them sleeping through the night. I know my 35 weeker started sleeping through the night at around eight weeks and she weighed around eight pounds. She was truly my best baby because my oldest started sleeping through the night at nine months and my 28 month old very rarely sleeps through the night now.

Anonymous said...

Hello. I have heard about this blog from one of your immediate family members. This particular post on your blog almost makes you seem ungrateful for your children. I don't care how overwhelmed you may be, you don't exploit it in such a way. How hypocritical and satanic! On one post you are bragging about how God has blessed you all and here you are blogging just the opposite. You did however, play with fire by intervening with the truly blessed works of God by having in vitro. Do you really consider that a blessing or you just taking matters into your own hands?! Spending money on something that should be free of charge, a TRUE Blessing from God! You need a reality check in more ways than one.

Sara said...

Hi Stephanie,
I know you through college sorority - Sara Sadousky,as I was known then. Congratulations on your babies. I have one of my own and everyday I would remind myself, things don't last forever. Whether it be the bad (colic, not sleeping) or the good (the cooing, the cuddling). I don't have to tell you that you are truely blessed and those kids are very lucky to have you as a mom.