He said that he can’t really tell how big it is for sure, but that it is fairly sizeable. He also wants to make sure I don’t have more pulled stitches elsewhere. All because I am a stubborn cow who had to pick up very very heavy suitcase while her children were in the hospital. OK, I didn’t really have a choice as I was alone. I still blame myself. It’s easier that way.

Thursday morning I am going in for the surgery to repair it. My mom will be minding the children - or rather the children will be taking complete advantage of their grandmother. It’s what grandparents are for, right?

Recovery will be something similar to that of a c-section. I am hoping that they can make my incision scar look as pretty as it does now. It used to be a 1/2 inch wide purple line that went from my belly button on down…… now it just looks like a whole lotta saggy skin.

Savin’ up all my spare change for that tummy tuck.

There are some advantage to having a hernia. Like I mentioned before, it holds up my jeans - on the right side anyway. Also, when I lay down and cough it pops up. I have yet to show James this little trick since it totally grosses him out in the first place. Yeah baby, my hernia is so sexy!

VOTE!!!!!!

I’d make it blink too, but I think that might be taking it a little bit too far.

When I was pregnant with Ethan I tried to Google what was going on but I had little luck finding out what exactly was going on. I trusted my doctor to give it to me straight and inform me completely. I should have trusted in Dr. Google more. I educated myself as much as I felt I needed to about Rh incompatibility before we got pregnant with Abby and pretty much trashed it the second the triplets were born.

Last week as I was getting ready to take a shower I did what I usually do, I made fun of the apron of skin that now hangs down under my belly button. James says he loves it because it’s a part of me, I think he’s a really bad liar and a jar has been set aside as a tummy tuck fund. That night, though, James was looking at my apron a little funny. His eyebrows furrowed like two little caterpillars. I reached down and I felt it. A lump.

There was a baseball sized lump on the side of my c-section scar. Thoughts zoomed through my mind, mostly screaming CANCER while others just muttered and told me that it was nothing and I was making a big deal out of nothing. I thought it might be period related (sorry for the men reading this) since I had noticed that my uterine area got hard-ish around the time of my period. I had self-diagnosed myself with one big ass ovarian cyst that would hurt like a S.O.B. when it would finally burst and delayed making a doctor’s appointment.

Last Friday I talked to my mom on the phone about this and that when she asked if I had made my appointment yet (I had let her and my sister feel the freaky lump on Saturday - she declined to feel the lump .. wuss). I admitted that I hadn’t and she gave me a lecture that included a story about a friend of the family who just had a cancerous lump removed from her neck and how she has a young baby too and how we mothers need to take care of ourselves.

It’s funny how quickly they can get you in to see a doctor when you tell them you found a weird lump in your body. It took us a month and a half to get the triplets in for their check-up appointment, but I called on a Friday afternoon and got an appointment for Monday morning.

I, too, will have surgery. It wasn’t a huge cyst on my ovary but a hernia probably caused by my inability to heed doctor’s orders and not pick up heavy things after my c-section. After the girls were born and I was discharged from the hospital I stayed at the hospital with them. Each morning i would lug my huge suitcase into the Special Care Nursery and then at night I was haul it back to one of the parent overnight rooms, picking it up to slide it behind and isolette or to put it up on a chair so I could get inside of it.

So, that lump is my intestines poking out. Now that I know what it is, it grosses me out. Intestines are kinda gross things and being able to poke at them is one of those grosser than gross sort of things.

I have another appointment on Monday to meet with the surgeon and schedule the surgery. He’s the same guy who ripped my massive thyroid out and I am already preparing myself for his larger than life personality.

Anyone wanna feel my lump?

(BTW I am totally messing with my theme on my site, so things might look a little funny as I try to situate the furniture. I usually only have time to slide the sofa 3 inches that way before a baby wakes up or a diaper needs to be changed. So don’t stub your toe on anything. Talking about www.moxygen.net for all of you LJers reading this.)

For the first time, in what seems like months, it’s silent in my house. There is always noise of some sort and it can drive me insane. I am driven even further today with the lovely arrival of the headache which will not leave. Sure, it’s not completely silent. The dogs’ claws click and clack on the hardwood floors that cover our home and the babies grunt and sigh as they drink down their stinky formula.  Uh oh, I think the grunting might be a predictor of what’s to come when I change their diapers.

Speaking of babies…. something I forgot to mention  yesterday in my cavewoman post was the task of cleaning out my childrens’ fingers and toes of the sticky sweaty lint that accumulates there. This is a task that is done several times a day while I only clean their necks but once a day. Is there a reason why babies have these little nooks and crannies where lint loves to hide? Or is it someone’s bad joke on parents, because nothing says love like peeling sweaty lint off your child.

I have found that I am not only getting older (I’ve begged the kids to close the damn fridge door no less than a dozen times today) but I am also regressing and starting to resemble a caveman .. err woman. I haven’t started using bones as fashion accessories, but I far it’s not too far away.

My days are filled with grooming. I am clipping finger and toe nails on a near daily basis. The stash of q-tips is dwindling as they get used up caring for tiny ears and belly buttons (those suckers get dirty!). I often use my fingers to comb out Abby’s hair since I am too tired to run up the stairs to grab the detangling comb.

I knew I dipped further into the land of cave when I found myself answering in grunts instead of yes and no. Abby has picked up this nasty habit now as well. See, I don’t get a whole lot of adult conversation during the day. James tries to call me on his lunch break for 5 minutes. In those 5 precious minutes I try so very hard not to whine about how his daughter (she’s “his daughter” when she’s not an angel) peed on the floor 2 seconds after telling me she had to go potty. Instead, when he asks me how my day is going I just … grunt.

When I talk to the babies I am not talking so much as I am making vowel noises in varying pitches. They are forever entertained by this and have started to immitate me. Megan does an awesome OOOOOOH!! While Katie’s got the AHHHHHHHH!!! down perfectly. Lauren is the conversationalist and just babbles happily whatever her little tongue will allow.

Once upon a time I was a driven career minded woman. I went back to school to further a career so I could care for my child. Along the way I got married and became a stay at home mom. Some think that being a stay at home mom has changed me, that I am somehow not the driven independent woman I once was. I’ve been blown off as boring because I am “just a mom.” I have stopped evolving, sacraficing it for the sake of caring for my children.

I wouldn’t change a damn thing.

I am still just as driven as I was before. My mind isn’t wasting away as I roll on the floor with the babies or as I try and try and try again to teach ABby how to write her name. I think I am lucky to have the chance to stay at home and care for my children, no matter how insane it may make me. This is just another phase in my evolution.

I cringe when I hear the distinct BOOM BOOM BOOM that announces a teenage driver from 3 blocks away. I roll my eyes at the high school girls who walk past my house to the local grocery store for lunch wearing nothing but a short little t-shirt on a 30 degree day. I wince when I see a girl bend over to reveal a gigantic plumbers crack because  who the hell would want to wear jeans that cover their ass?

I am getting old. My knees creak when I go up and down stairs. A combination of a freak dancing accident while on choir tour in high school and my inability to lose weight. Lines are starting to form under my eyes. Stress and lack of sleep the culprit there. My back is in constant pain from a spinal block gone bad.

Wanna know how I really know I am getting old?

I’ll freely complain about any of these things to who ever will stop and take a moment to listen.

I don’t know why the picture in the last post looked like ass so much. I am blaming the uploader in WordPress for that. I usually use Flickr but was in a rather jumbled state of mind.

Our only concerns going in to the appointment were their slightly flat heads. Our doctor said that they were all mild, but to put a rolled up towel or blanket under Lauren’s left side since her flat spot is off to the side a bit.

Important things … Katie, the smallest at birth, is now the biggest baby at 13 pounds 8 ounces. Megan and Lauren are each 13 pounds 5 ounces. They are all in the 50th percentile for their actual age for weight. Katie is in the 50th percentile for length for her age while Megan and Lauren are in the 10th percentile for length for their age. If you compared their length to their adjusted age they would be in the 50th-75th percentile.

That’s the quick and dirty. Time is still at a premium here. I feel guilty using the computer whenever we do have a grandma here to help and even more so when James is left to take care of all 3 by himself. You’d think I was Catholic with all of the guilt I carry around with me.

Time to feed them! Again! and Again! When do they start holding their own bottles again?

Megan, Lauren and Katie. Four and a half months old.

(edited to change the photo to the one on Flickr which is slightly less craptastic)

I started this post when it was sunny and warm out. It’s now pouring down rain and St. Pete and his buddies are playing Wii Bowling upstairs. Fitting for what I am going to talk about … depression.

This is not my first date with postpartum depression. I was first diagnosed after I had given birth to Emma. I was a young single mother living in a state where I had no family other than my sister; who brought me there with promises of a cool job and apartments with multiple pools. Emma’s biological father wanted nothing to do with her or me from the beginning of the pregnancy, and so I knew for 9 months that I was on my own.

Shortly after Emma’s birth I quit my job. I wasn’t making much at my “cool job” and when you’ve got a baby to take care of it doesn’t m atter how cool other people think your job is - it’s not going to cut it when you have to pay the daycare center. The cool job was with one of those international radio networks with a name that consists of the first three letters of the alphabet.  One of the perks of the cool job was 4 tickets to Disney World/Land every year at Christmastime. Not to mention the hundreds of cds I collected from the program directors.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I quit my job. Moved from Dallas back up to Minnesota where I had a safety net of sorts. I was treading water, barely. There was panic and the feeling that I was eternally messing Emma’s life up. It took me many months to get into a doctor to talk about what was going on. I needed to get my shit together not only for me but for Emma. At that stage it was more for Emma than for myself, so in a way that little kiddo saved me.

Sappy.

When Ethan was born and died I immediately went on anti-depressants. We knew it was a risk that I would experience PPD again but more than anything I needed those pills to keep me from burying myself next to my baby. The pain was still there, a pain I can’t describe to anyone but to say it constantly felt like there was an elephant standing on my chest and I couldn’t breathe. Even with anti-depressants I still spent the majority of a year in my bedroom, afraid to leave.

With Abby came … nothing. I knew what to look for and my OB/GYN kept asking me if I was feeling all right. I was elated and handling things very well. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. Not to say that there were rainbows bursting out of my ass, but things were good.

I thought I had dodged the bullet once again when the triplets were born. I spent two weeks in the hospital with them after they were born. I only left when James came down on the weekends and forced me to leave the hospital. My entire life focused on getting them well enough to get out of the hospital and I really didn’t pay much attention to myself.

Once we got home I knew I was in for it. It was now up to James and myself to take care of these three little beings all on our own. Although James is a huge help, I take care of all 5 of the children the majority of the time. People would ask me how I do it and I confessed that I really didn’t know. Soon enough I would see that I wasn’t coping as well as I would’ve hoped.

PDD can come in many forms. This time around was much different from the first time with Emma. I was suddenly a very angry person. I would shout at James for no reason. I would lose my temper with Emma and Abby for trivial things. I would never lose it with the babies, but every one else around me would feel my wrath.

Whenever we go out in public we are stopped dozens of times so people can see the babies. The majority of the people who stop us are older women while the men tend to stay far away and give James looks of pity. It amazes me how much people think they can get away with when it comes to questions. One woman had the balls to ask me how I got to be so lucky to have triplets when most people just get twins. They way she worded it made it sound as if I was not worthy of having three healthy babies. Others ask if triplets run in our family but most know we used fertility treatments. All of them bring up Jon and Kate plus 8.

I went to our family doctor and was promptly put on some medication to help the anxiety and anger issues. There was a small part of me worried that I might go off on one of those old ladies who stop us when we’re trying to get groceries. A bigger part of me wanted to keep my marriage together.

I’ve suffered through all of the side effects and seem to be coming out ok on the other side. I am still not where I’d like to be mentally and, on Monday, will ask my doctor to increase the doseage. I am hoping that this will take away even more of the feelings of being completely overwhelmed by everything.

Since I’ve been through it before I know it will pass. I know things will settle down and I know my mental state of mind will get a little less crazy. Come on, crazy runs in my family.

I am finally wrapping this up after watching the debate between Obama and McCain. There was loads of “pfft!”s and bad jokes about McCain’s age made between James and I. James made me proud tonight and came out as a Democrat to one of his friends. I have yet to hear if his friend admitted who he was voting for. I wonder how many people in the military end up voting for a Democrat. Where are those sorts of polls

I haven’t posted about our “new to us” vehicle and how it was broken into recently. There’s still a lot of anger bubbling beneath the surface and I am afraid if I wrote it all out that it would spew everywhere. Maybe with an increase in my medication I’ll be able to handle my anger issues a little better, although I’ve considered taking anger management classes … and then I remembered I have absolutely no free time.

Crap, I am bitching again. Breathing in and out.

Instead of taking pictures of rotting leaves I am planning on moving onto the next time suck in my life (behind the kids and the camera of course) …….. knitting. Exciting stuff!

To begin this knitting season I am starting small. Very small. Baby booties! Cute baby booties! (warning: opens as a pdf file) I need to get the correct size needles first.  Here’s hoping I can finish one bootie by New Years! Woo!

Sometimes I should kill a post before I post it, but I don’t. Instead I let the crazy train go free and ravage the internets. You guys who stick around to read this ought to get medals. Really.

After Ethan had died I used my blog as a way to get out the mess that was cluttering my brain. Even though I was in therapy at the time, my blog proved to be a much better way of getting through the fog of losing a child. I connected with so many other women who had experienced the same thing as I had.

Slowly my blog turned into a pregnancy journal to work through any fears that I had of losing Abby. I worried outloud things that I couldn’t burden James with. We were still so lost in the unknown that asking questions that had no answers did nothing but to stress us both out. So, I left that for my blog.

Things turned out great and then not so great when trying to get pregnant again. We all know how that ended as my blog then turned into a place where I constantly bitched about being so freaking uncomfortable that I was thinking about performing a c-section myself or inventing some sort of device that would make a woman who is pregnant with multiples’ body weightless.

Oh if only I could live the life of a blog of Tang floating through outer space.

Recently, things haven’t been as great as we would like them. Emotional pressures and physical strain have taken their toll. Where I would once blog about whatever I so pleased, I now edit to the point where there is no point in blogging at all.

My family knows about my blog. Not just my mom and siblings, they always have, but my dad and his entire side of the family. Part of me froze in utter terror trying to remember everything I’ve ever written wondering if I had ever said anything that someone could take the wrong way and be deeply offended. Luckily with the move to a new server my archives are pretty much gone (I have them backed up but haven’t restored them. See triplets.) and so there isn’t much fuel to add to any one’s fire.

I haven’t mastered the art of taking one tiny bit of time in my day and making it into a great ornate story that would be worthy of reading. I am working on that. I swear I come up with the best blog stories to tell just as I am drifting off to sleep. By the time I wake up to crying, hungry babies I’ve forgotten them all.

People keep asking how the babies are. They are great! Thanks for asking! Well, great in that they are gaining weight and sleeping through the night (I’ve totally jinxed myself now). All three of them currently have colds. I knew this would happen, but I was hoping that they could cope better. Megan sees the bulb syringe coming for the snot in her nose and she immediately tosses her head from side to side while crying. Katie finds the snot that she sneezes out of her nose to be rather tasty. Lauren is just pissed off and wants this whole cold thing to go fuck off immediately.

With that said I did manage to get a few great pictures of them today. So, here’s the thing you’ve all been waiting for……..

Megan, Katie and Lauren. 3 months & 3 weeks old.