A nursery fit for our three little stars!

Over the past two days, the nursery has started to take shape. After Mike completed the base coat, Debbie Dorfman and Tracy Little arrived to apply their special touch. Receiving inspiration from the "Team Darnell" and All-star sports theme Debbie's creative energy was unleashed.

Debbie and her color assistant, Tracy applied bold colors to provide a room that will be bright, cheery and sporty for the boys. Below you see them finishing the Go, Team, Go banners and a decoration that commemorates our Champs of 2008!:

Mike and I have decided on the names for the boys. All boys will have the honor of sharing the same middle name with their Daddy. Travis will be the middle name for all the men in my life. The following are the names and nicknames we have chosen:

Andrew Travis - "Drew"

Jared Travis - "JT"

Wesley Travis - "Wes"

These names adorn the wall with the closet which is the main focal point of the room. Please note the "t" in stars which is in the shape of a sword in honor of the great Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

The other features of the room include sporting gear above the french doors that join the master bedroom and the nursery:

Stars grouped in 3's can be found all around the room, including the window and door:

The final special touch is one built from scratch by Papa Darnell! Mike joined into the fun of the weekend and created a sculpture that will hang above the door. It still needs to be completed but until that time, you can see what the final product will look like here:

In addition to the wonderful decorations for the nursery we had an enjoyable weekend. I want to express my appreciation to Debbie and Tracy for making the trip to Tallahassee to make the babies' nursery so special. We all thank you!

It's time for us to take over and add some furniture and ultimately, three little people! I hope everyone is doing well and I look forward to finishing up this nursery!

Take care,

Kellie

22 Weeks

Team Darnell had a good day today! We have sailed past the 22 week mark with no problems with the babies. Once we reach the 24 week mark, we will have passed the first big milestone as babies born after this point can survive! I saw Dr. Dixon (OB/GYN) briefly yesterday for some tests and he was commenting on how I am "making this look easy." He said this while he was checking on my 9 month uterus in my 5 ½ month pregnant body. I am still struggling with regular pregnancy symptoms such as sleepless nights and growing more uncomfortable. However, when we have days like today, I am quickly reminded about what this is all about.

Today, we had a visit with the Maternal-Fetal Specialists to check on the babies. All three boys (confirmed again today) are doing really well. During the visit, the Dr. spent a great deal of time studying each of their hearts for potential birth defects. All little hearts are strong and look great! In addition, their growth was checked at the visit. Once again, all three are growing on target. As of today's visit, Baby A weighed in a 1 pound 5 ounces, Baby B weighed in at 1 pound 4 ounces and Baby C weighed in at 1 pound and 1 ounce. They are all growing together and no one is hogging up any of the resources. It is so nice to see that they have already learned to share :-)

At our last visit, we inquired about the 3D/4D ultrasounds. The ultrasound tech discouraged it for triplets as it is too difficult to get good images due to the cramped conditions and we would not get our money worth. She also indicated that because I will have frequent ultrasounds, she would try to get some good pictures as we go along. At the conclusion of today's visit, she switched to the 3D view and here are the results....

As has been par for the course, Baby A was uncooperative for this photo session. We were unable to get Baby A to move his arm from in front of his face and it appears he just did not want to listen or, maybe he was just showing off his muscles!

Baby B was a little more cooperative but was only willing to provide his profile. He was also covering his eyes initially but then moved them so we were able to get a decent shot. This led to a joke about Baby A being "hear no evil" and Baby B being "see no evil."

Since we already had "hear no evil" and "see no evil" we moved on to see if Baby C was positioned like "speak no evil." As has been the case in the past, Baby C was the most photogenic of the day. We figured this picture stands for "do no evil." Check out this sweet face...

The best part of today was learning that all babies are still healthy, however seeing these faces was beyond exciting. I look forward to meeting these little people and kissing those cheeks! We continued to do so well, our next appointment with the Maternal-Fetal Specialist is set for 4 weeks from now. We still have an appointment with Dr. Dixon again on Monday but as of today's appointment, we are all doing really well.

Take care,

Kellie