Three Babies under one! - How do you do it???

I have been following Michelle's blog Our Little Monkeys and left a comment on her blog and mentioned that at one point we had three babies under one year old. She responded about a week ago with this comment:

Thanks for your comment on my blog. I can't believe that you had THREE under ONE for a little bit. How in the world did you do it? I thought it was difficult having two under two- haha!

I am finally getting around to answering her question and thought it would be interesting for others to know as well - we get asked this question all the time!

Here is our story. Sam was born in the middle of Nov-05. I found out in Feb-06 that I was pregnant again - oops! I had peed on a stick and it was positive, this happened on my birthday. My hubby was away for a couple of days so I took a picture of the stick and when he got home I asked him if he wanted to see what he got me for my birthday and then showed him the picture. He started to laugh! I immediately told him it was not funny because I had figured out that this baby would be born before Sam turned 1 so we would have 2 under 1. Good Grief!!! And so, I started to tell myself every day, several times a day that God does not give you more than you can handle. It is a good thing that I had been saying that to myself because I could never have imagined what was to come!

I told myself this for a month, it was exactly one month from when I peed on the stick to my 8 week OB appointment. Because I had a previous problem she had the nice ultrasound lady give me an ultrasound. We immediately saw the heartbeat and she said "Oh what a cute baby!" At 8 weeks the baby looks like a peanut, but it was sweet of her to say that. She also said, "the baby looks great and there is only one in there" Well that was a relief!

So she went ahead and did some measurements, all of which were fine. Then she said she needed to get just one more measurement and had to move into a different position. When she moved we both immediately saw two sacs! Her reaction was a very loud OOOOHHHH there are two in there!!! Let me tell you that it is a darn good thing I was lying down. I would not have believed it if I had not seen the two black spots for myself.

Now she had to start all the measurements again because they needed to be labelled Baby A and Baby B. Meanwhile I am slowly coming to the realization that we will have three babies under 1 year old. As I laid there I said, Oh Lord there is no way I can do this! Then I remembered that I had been telling myself that God does not give you more than you can handle. Well that is all fine and dandy, but at that moment I decided that God also has a big sense of humor and I must be the punchline of this particular joke!!

Well after the ultrasound I needed to drive myself home. At the time we were living in Los Angeles and my doctor was 45 miles from where we lived. Nearly all of it was 8-10 lane LA freeway traffic. And because the appointment and ultrasound took much longer than I had planned I ended up having to drive in rush hour! I did not know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both - hysterically! People were looking at me very strangely and all I could think was "if you only knew!"

Then I had to tell my husband, he was away and was not able to go with me. Now you have to know about a conversation we had frequently. He always said he wanted 7 or 10kids. I never knew why he said 7 or 10 and not some other numbers but it didn't matter because I always told him that I was too old to have that many babies. I was already 31 when we got married. To that he always said "well just have a couple sets of twins or triplets and you will catch up in no time."

He called soon after I got home, in fact my girlfriend who was watching Sam was still there. She was giggling and I was just in shock. I told him "I don't know how you did it, but you got your twins!"

So that is the story of how we found out. Now we need to fast forward to actually having them. My mom came when I was about 7 months pregnant. When she got there I let her take over everything. By that point I looked and felt about 10 months pregnant already. I was never officially put on bed rest,but my doctor knew that I was not doing much of anything and that my mom was there. I had many many ultrasounds and so we were pretty confident that they would be good size babies. Because of this my doctor scheduled the c-section for 37 weeks. Carlee was 7 lbs 7 oz and Ben was 7 lbs! I was carrying nearly 15 pounds of babies, no wonder I was so uncomfortable!

They were very healthy and had no problems. We went home and had lots of help. My mom was there and so was my hubby's Aunt, Uncle & Granddad, who stayed for a several days. The extra hands were nice, I just let everyone else feed and change babies and take care of Sam while I enjoyed watching all of them and rested. I was tired!

Then my Dad came and we settled into a routine where someone was always downstairs to take care of the babies. Between myself, my hubby and my parents it worked out well. We had their crib set up in the dining room, while all the bedrooms were upstairs. When it was my turn to sleep I had to close the door and put the fan on full blast so that I could not hear them crying or it would wake meup instantly and I would never sleep.

The sacrifice my parents made for us is amazing. My mom was with us for 4 1/2 months and my dad was there for 2 1/2 months. The celebrated their 40th anniversay apart! Although when my Dad arrived we sent them away for a weekend to make up for that. We all worked well together and established routines that saved my sanity once they left when the babies were 3 months old. The first day I spent alone with all three of them was the scariest day of my life. I was not sure that I could do it, but I did and I am. Sometimes the best part of the day is when Daddy gets home and I can retreat for awhile!! I can manage because he does so much when he is home.

I have had other opportunites for help. The kids & I spent about a month or so at my parents place last summer and then about 2 months with them this summer, and we spent a couple weeks with my hubby's family too. My mom will be here this week and will be staying until the end of November. My hubby's Aunt and Uncle get here next week and will be here for 10 days. It is so much easier when there are others around all day. The kids thrive on all the attention, and so do I!!!

The easy answer to the question "How do you do it?" is this..."ONE AT A TIME". And that is how I deal with them to this day. I am only one person and I can only do one thing at a time. I am grateful for the time when I have help but usually it is just me, so that's my motto - one at a time. That and with alot of strength and grace from God.