6 month check up

This week we took the triplets in for their six month check up with the city's best pediatrician. I can't even describe the full feeling...the joy...knowing that ALL of the hard work has been worth it...to watch him thoroughly examine each one and be continually amazed at how well they are doing and how huge they are (7 kilos and up!), and how many of their measurements continue to be exactly the same ("trillizas de verdad" he always says). And the whole time, the triplets didn't make a peep other than a sweet giggle or sound, just being perfectly charming. It was like the perfect doctor visit.

(Our little Alison does need to use eye patches though for her strabismus. Will make it easier to tell them apart, ha!)

Maybe some of my gratitude stemmed from the news I was processing and grieving. When we walked in, Dr. Monroy just sat at his desk with his arms crossed and very seriously said "I had a VERY BIG scare with you guys recently". We said what did we do?! He arrived to the hospital to the news that a trilliza (triplet, feminine) had died, and he wondered what had happened since ours were doing so well. Turns out it was one of the triplets that was born just a few weeks after ours. They filled the same bassinet at the hospital the day after we took ours home - two boys and a girl, from far out in the countryside, born to an already large (and poor) family. I well remember how twice the newspaper published an update on ours, adding a note to please donate to the other set of triplets. People were not responding as well as with ours, probably since there were parents in the picture, but I couldn't help but feeling that everyone able to give had already given to our triplets. [And we haven't even seen all of those donations because child social services figured out excuses to get those things into THEIR storage closets rather than ours.]

Since we have already walked through the experience of losing a multiple, it was sobering news, and it's not like we didn't have scares at the beginning when we nearly lost Alison (Victoria). Thank you Lord, for mercifully sparing our babies!!!

Nicole, Nataly, Alison - sacked out after the doctor's appointment

Nataly charming her godmother Nataly on a recent visit (the babies' mother currently lives with Nataly & family)

And since it had somehow escaped me to ever make a picture of F with her babies, here she is! I love how she immediately knew how she wanted to do it, plopping the baby she was holding into the swing and taking the two I had and going behind the swing to stand. She is coming around to motherhood (times three!) slowly but surely.

By the way, in the course of conversations this week with the triplet's mother, godmother's family, government officials, and amongst our team, we have decided how much longer we will help. In January next year, F needs to contract a lawyer to start the paperwork to regain custody. On February 16 the babies turn 1! Within the next few months after that, the papers will be done and they can go back to F. So we will see a lot of fun milestones {minus teeth cutting...ugh} through the trip's first year!