In my last post, I talked about some of major purchases we made in order to prepare for the arrival of our triplets . However, I was under some pressure to close out and publish the blog quickly and did not get to mention some other significant events and milestones we had achieved during the past few weeks. Though, I must say that shopping for our children remains the most enjoyable part of this whole pregnancy experience to-date, not only because it distracted me from worrying something will go wrong in the middle of this "high-risk" pregnancy, but it gave me a great opportunity to explore and learn about many baby need-to-have essentials and good-to-have-but-not-necessary gadgets. To this end, I have to agree that I am a gadget geek and will expand a lot of (more than average) efforts to learn about most if not all the specific details about what the product is made of and designed to do. This gets a lot worse when it comes to camping tools and outdoor related products! :)
Let's do a quick recap on what we have been through during these past few weeks, apart from our seemingly endless shopping checklist... :)
1) Bi-weekly prenatal visits to Mount Sinai Hospital Downtown Toronto. One of the major challenges for multiple pregnancy is that you will need to have frequent prenatal visits such as ultrasound monitoring, pediatrician,
obstetrician and gynecologist (OB / GYN) appointments. In our situation, our predetermined prenatal visits with our practitioner (Dr. Murphy) were scheduled as follow: Every other week for the first 33 weeks, and then weekly or more thereafter until delivery date. Although, weekly or bi-weekly appointments might sound like a lot of commitments, but they are all necessary steps to ensure the well being of our babies. Moreover, they also lead to some of the most memorable moments in this pregnancy journey.
The entrance that marked the beginning of a new adventure for our family of 5. Over 6,500 babies started their lives here every year.
Fion waiting patiently for her OB / GYN.
A pic I took with Fion while we were waiting for our OB.
2) Five consecutive prenatal classes for multiples. To better prepare ourselves to deal with the upcoming challenges in our lives, we decided to sign up for a prenatal class which runs every Tuesday night for 5 consecutive weeks. Being recognized as one of the top women's health-care centres in the world, Mount Sinai Hospital offers classes that specifically designed to meet the special needs of parents who are expecting multiples. This class unfortunately landed on the same day as our bi-weekly prenatal visit, which made Tuesday an exceptionally long day for us as we had to spend over 14 hours at the hospital from 7am to 9pm. Below were some of the pics we took at one of our classes.
Dummy babies to practice our diaper changing skills!
Um... Is she being possessed... Should I be worried?
3) Setup a wooden shed in our backyard. I had always wanted to put a shed in backyard for extra storage. However, it didn't happen after I had spent more than 5 years in our home. The topic of putting a shed had once again arise when I got my new Honda Odyssey. I realized that I had finally outgrow the space of my garage and the Odyssey won't be able to park inside the garage in winter if I don't put away some of the gardening tools and outdoor supplies I bought over the years. Also, another BIG challenge for raising triplets is to come up with an innovative way to take care of all the sanitary needs. OH GROSS... Yes, you got it, the needs I referred here is the disposal of DIRTY DIAPERS - A lot of them. Let's do some quick math here, a baby would need between 8 and 10 diapers a day, or between 56 and 70 diapers a week. Triplets would mean that we would run through between 168 and 210 diapers a week! Composite garbage collection come every week to collect them, so I would need approximately 4 composite green bin - each has a capacity of 46.5L for all the diapers disposal needs!!! OK, enough "trash" talk... So, I visited a reputable local shed shop and talked to the owner Steve to have one built specifically for my needs. Luckily, it's getting toward the end of the season and Steve told me that he might have one that would fit my need perfectly, just need some minor tweaking on the windows and widen the front gate to put a double door. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of my beautiful new shed, but below is one similar to the one I installed, just got window and flower planter on the side and it is a double door version.
A beautiful wooden shed to add new character and more essences to our backyard...
4) Celebrating our 6th anniversary. Romance is love and love is romance. I must admit that I love sweet surprise as much as I enjoy to organize one. This year is no difference. Despite the fact that we were so busy planning and implementing the plan for our little ones, we took time off to cherish our lives and every milestone achieved. This year marked the 6th anniversary of our marriage and we decided to throw a last minute surprise to each other. We booked a dinner reservation at a restaurant at the historical distillery district, followed by a Kurios show preformed by Cirque-Du-Soleil. On our way to the show, we admired the beautiful sunset that the City of Toronto had offered us.
Fion enjoying the guacamole appetizer
Sunset view of City of Toronto
Entering the world of Kurios... Another first time experience for the two of us. Despite being a last-minute planner, we both enjoyed the show very much.
At the end of the day, Fion used her little creative mind and created this little postage stamp and marked the day. Life is simple, but once again at its best!
5) Moved to Downtown Toronto. At Fion's week 28 pregnancy, I suddenly had a thought that we needed to temporarily move to Downtown Toronto, where Fion and the babies would be within close proximity to our OB / GYN at Mount Sinai Hospital. The idea was quite well received to everyone and it quickly turned into a series of hardcore online real estate searches and know what??? It's time for pack up! We were very lucky to find a finished suite that is within walking distance to Mount Sinai Hospital and we booked and moved in just before I had to head to Niagara-on-the-lake for a corporate retreat. Just-In-Time!!! It's also such a relief to know that Fion is right at where she needed to be. In fact, this is what kept me worrying during the day and what kept me up during the night. Regardless, packing up for the move didn't sound too hefty of a task as we already had our hospital bag packed (in case of emergency), we just needed to pack more of everything. From booking to moving, everything was done within 3 days!
Home sweet home... Living & Dining all finished with modern furniture
Flat screen TV to keep Fion occupied - day and night!
King size comfy bedding w/ extra cushionsss for head, back, sides and leg support...
A rather small but still a functional kitchen...
Clean bathroom and great bright lighting fixture...
This post summed all the major activities we accomplished in the past few weeks. Nevertheless, Fion and I are both committed and will continue to work our way out alongside with all the prayers, loves and supports we received from our friends and families. The next milestone: Week 32...
