Day 1 - Happy Birthday Team Darnell!!!

Good evening everyone! I want to thank Heather for sending out the e-mail announcement to everyone. As she indicated, at 1 am I woke up and had the sensation that I needed to go to the bathroom. Prior to getting out of the bed, I realized I REALLY needed to get to the bathroom. The symptoms were more of a slow leak than a gush so Nurse Kim was not sure if it was urine or amniotic fluid. She completed some tests and I was encouraged to wait an hour and see what happens. After that hour, let's just say we were able to determine that it was amniotic fluid and Dr. O'Bryan, the on duty doc, decided not to play with fire and it was time to deliver.

WOW! It was fast from that point forward. I was first moved to a Labor and Delivery room to be prepped for surgery. We decided to take one more picture of the baby mountain that had amassed on my body. In this photo, you can see the baby mountain plus some of the swelling that had accumulated in my face and arm.



Once prepped for surgery, I was moved to the operating room where in less than one hour, the room was filled with a beautiful "song" sung by Team Darnell.

At this point, all three boys were doing very well. As they were finishing up with me, the boys were taken to my recovery room for their assessments. Once arriving, in the recovery room, Wesley (Baby C - on the left) was grunting and needed to be taken to the NICU for additional oxygen. Andrew (Baby A - on the right) and Jared (Baby B - in the middle) were doing well and remained in the recovery room until they were moved to the well-baby nursery. They remained there throughout the day and were observed during all routine activities.

I attempted to breastfeed both boys without success so far so I fed them both bottles. They were then taken from my room back to the nursery so I could rest. When I woke up later that day, the nurse came in to tell me that Jared was a little cool and they were struggling to warm him up. We then proceeded to spend some time as mommy and son with him laying skin to skin on my chest. I was just in awe at this point of this little life that grew inside of me, along with his brothers. Here is Jared trying to warm up:


We were unsuccessful in getting him to warm up and around 7pm, the doctor decided that Jared needed to go to the NICU. Not only was he not maintaining his temperature, he was having difficulty keeping his food down. When they told me they were going to move Jared to the NICU, they proceeded to tell me that it would be best to also move Andrew to the NICU along with his brothers for observation. So, all three boys are now down in the NICU.

Prior to the big move, we were able to spend some quality time with Andrew and Jared. Here is Grandma Sally and Andrew:

And the proud Papa with Andrew:

Maria Leon also visited to spend some quality time with the babies. Here is a moment she shared with Andrew and Grandma Sally:

I am doing pretty well. I have been removed from the IV fluids and my catheter as been removed. I have still not gotten out of bed but plan to do this very soon. Other than being tired, I seem to be recovering well so far. The nurse was just in and she is going to give me some pain medication now so when I actually get up to go to the bathroom, it should not hurt. That sounds like a great plan to me!

Now for the million dollar question, was I able to get my nails done..... no. Andrew's decision to break out of his confined space impacted the rest of us. Oh well, I am glad they were all born so big and healthy. We do not anticipate they will spend much time in the NICU.

I want to thank everyone that has supported us in any capacity throughout this pregnancy. It has been enjoyable keeping everyone up to date with what is going on with our pregnancy through this blog. We will continue to keep everyone posted on the joy of raising triplets from the Team Darnell perspective!!

Happy Birthday Team Darnell!!!

Take care,

Kellie