My Diary of Triplet Fatherhood

It snowed yesterday, thick feathery flakes that, unusually for this part of the world, settled to leave Leeds heaped in whiteness. I showed the girls the snow from our living room window but they weren’t bothered. Evelyn just sighed miserably at the injustice of her illness, Scarlett preferred the lights on the Christmas tree and Jemima turned round to watch her sisters on the floor instead.

I, at least, found it beautiful, and somewhat profound. The world changes when it snows. You have to look harder to see the things your eye would normally pass over. Shapes soften, pathways change as we search for safe footings, people come together to share warmth. Amid this world-changing snowfall, every snowflake is unique. All these things made me think of my life since my children arrived.

Important events echo around our lives, casting reflections, making other events into metaphors of themselves. I see my children in so many things. How wonderful for the ordinary to be transcended so, for it to be lit up with reflections of the love I feel for my kids. How lucky I am to be so in love that it cannot be contained, bursting out to colour the world a better, more intimate place.

We received an email from Proactive Genetics in Georgia, USA, yesterday, with the results of our DNA test. It should have taken longer to process but they kindly rushed it through so we could meet the TAMBA magazine’s deadline.

I’ve been nervous all week waiting for the results. As much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, as much as I knew it would make no difference to how I felt about my girls, as much as I listened to the good advice of others, I couldn’t quite escape from the gravity of the situation. These results would reveal a fundamental fact about the status of my children.

Of all the possible combinations of sexes and zygosities, I have been most concerned about having same-sex triplets where only two were monozygotic. All other possibilites would either have all three children in the same situation or gender would mean whoever wasn’t identical would have their own set of expectations. So when we were told during the pregnancy, both by our consultant and the lecturer who covered for her during her holidays, that there was no doubt that Evie having a seperate placenta meant she was dyzigotic, I was already trying to figure out how we’d deal with it. I didn’t want it to cause a schism between the girls. Everyone says that multiples have a tendency towards competitiveness so I wanted to do everything I could to ensure my girls remained friends.

And now we know. According to Proactive Genetics, the results are over 99% accurate (actually, I make it something like 99.998 from their description of how they work it out) so there no real room for doubt.

This is what their email said:

“We are pleased to report to you the results of the triplet zygosity test that you requested. Analysis of the DNA indicates that Evelyn Mary Avril Hadley, Scarlett Cecilia Kathleen Hadley, and Jemima Amelia May Hadley are monozygotic, or more commonly referred to as identical triplets.”

I’m so relieved, and so glad that we didn’t just take our consultant’s advice as fact.

I don’t know if it would be the same fif the results had been otherwise but it now seems obvious that the girls are monozygotic. Sure, there are slight differences but they are so minute that no one can see them except J and me and they’re far outnumbered by similarities. Why else would no one have ever guessed Evie to be a singleton? Why else would even J and I get confused sometimes despite spending so much time with the girls like, and I can’t believe I’m bringing this up again – I’ve been ribbed about it enough, when I bathed Evie twice? And why would they have not only the same heair and eye colour but such rare features as matching bald spots on the backs of their heads and why would they dveleop so many things within days of one another?

Of course, now I just need to prepare myself for all the trouble identical triplet girls are likely to cause, instead. Which should be interesting.

We had to call off our trip to London this morning. Evie had a temperature again at breakfast and was very out of sorts, crying the moment J put her down, sighing with heart-breaking pitiability and unwilling to eat more than a few sips of her bottle.

Fortunately, the doctor had an appointment first thing and reckons the throat infection she had before Christmas was viral, not bacterial, so the antibiotics haven’t worked and so she might take a while to shake it off. In the meantime she’s to be given Calpol regularly and brought back for a check up in a few days.

As you can see, she was still feeling thoroughly sorry for herself this afternoon.

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I must admit, I’m a little upset not to be seeing my folks this Christmas. With our bags packed and baby equipment piled shoulder high in boxes, I was really excited last night. Introducing the girls to their great-grandparents means a lot to me. It seems important; the relationship between a child and great-grandparent is so precious. When I was a kid, the one picture I had of me meeting my great-grandfather was a thing of wonder. He had passed away by then and I couldn’t remember him so that picture was the one link I had to what seemed then a relation so distant as to be almost magical.

Plus, apart from one miserable time in Thailand where Christmas dinner consisted of barbequed chicken, a paper hat each and a ropey bit of tinsel outside our beach hut, I’ve never missed a Christmas with my family. Up until now, the girls have always brought our families closer to us.

But that is just the way parenthood is. Evie’s health, of course, comes first. I wouldn’t have it any other way. And there’ll be plenty of time for seeing everyone in the new year.

The light is already fading as we arrive at the park. Along the horizon, pinks and oranges glow up to meet the pale blue of the winter sky. Snow lies in patches under shrubs and in hollows where the weak sun hasn’t managed to melt it during the short, cold day.

“Look at Scarlett. Look at her expression. It’s just the same one Jemima does.” In the buggy, all wrapped up except for her face, nose pink against the cold, Scarlett is wide eyed and regarding the world with astonishment.

“You’re right. My God, but don’t they just look alike when she does that. You know, maybe they are identical after all. She looks the spitting image of Jemima.”

“It really is just their expressions that distinguish them, isn’t it?”

“Amazing. She’s even holding her mouth in the way Jemima does and it’s making her chin look the same.”

“I’ve never seen them look so alike.”

“Hm.”

“Mmm?”

“Hm.“

“Ah.”

Reaching into the bundle of pink fleece, we examine Scarlett’s baby grow in the fading light. Except it isn’t Scarlett at all – it’s Jemima.

I blame the light myself, and the impending DNA test continuing to bring the question of zygosity to the front of our thoughts. After six consecutive nights of sleeping through, we can’t even blame tiredness this time.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

Just a quick message to let you know that I have created an online photo album for all the best of our Christmas photos. So far it contains pics of the girls with their first ever presents and of them at J’s parents’ in Preston where they had their first ever night away from home since leaving hospital (and were good as gold).

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Tomorrow we embark on our longest ever journey – to the bright lights of London where the girls will meet their Great-Grandparents for the first time. As long as the routine withstands the upset, I think it should be fun and I’ll be sure to add the pictures to that album when we get back.

Until the last day or so, I wasn’t too nervous about the results of our test, I guess because I’m pretty convinced that I already know the outcome.

Last month TAMBA asked for people who had multiples but didn’t know their zygosity and, of all the repliers, we were chosen. In return for me writing a short piece for their magazine, TAMBA are going to pay for the girls to be DNA tested.

The kit arrived from America last week and I was a bit disappointed to find it only consisted of three test tubes full of cotton wool buds with which to take saliva samples from the girls’ cheeks. My overactive imagination had contructed some kind of high-tech CSI scenario in the week while we waited for the kit. In any case, the saliva was packaged up and sent back the same day so as to meet the magazine deadline.

At the post office, I was momentarily stumped when the lady behind the counter asked what the value of my parcel was. It was three plastic tubes of spit, after all, so rather than give details, I just told her it didn’t have ‘monetary value’. She seemed a little suprised that I’d be fedexing a worthless parcel but processed it nonetheless and it’s now over in America on it’s way to revealing whether Evie, Scarlett and Jem truly are identical or not.

As I’ve posted before, we were told during the pregnancy that Evelyn would be dizygotic, or fraternal, while Jemima and Scarlett, sharing a placenta, would be monozygotic, or identical, but as the girls have grown, it’s been difficult to tell if that really is the case. Scarlett and Jemima being the most different in size made it difficult to tell at first but now they are almost the same size and they still don’t look exactly identical to me. In fact, whenever I have asked people to guess who might not be identical, they have always pointed to Jemima.

Despite that, we are constantly asked if the girls are identical or not and I can see why people would ask. They’re all about the same size with the same colouring and very similar features. The differences, such as they are, are slight and are not restricted to just one of the three. Each has their own peculiarities, their own mannerisms, is at a slightly different stage of development. As much as I’ve tried, I find it impossible to tell how these differences relate to identicality so I have always just fallen back on believing our consultant’s expert opinion. Sure, there was a chance that it was otherwise but only a slight one.

With the imminent test results, I cannot help but wonder if perhaps I have made a mistake in trusting probability over my own instincts.

Im also nervous as to how the results will affect the girls. Will Evelyn feel excluded for not being identical? Will Lettie and Jem feel jealous for not having their own DNA? I know it won’t matter to me but will it to them? Anything that could divide them makes me anxious. Multiples are competitive enough without adding anything else devisive into the mix.

Are we doing the right thing having the test done? Before this opportunity came along, I had settled on telling people that they weren’t identical and never making a big deal out of it to the girls. If we didn’t know, it would be easier to just say that than explain the various possibilities. When we know for sure, there’ll be no sweeping the whole issue under the carpet.

The lurgy continues to spread through our household. While Evie is definitely more chirpy today, Jemima is very snotty and I can only hope she’s not going to be poorly, too. Meanwhile J continues to suffer from the same thing – sore throat, exhaustion, general grottiness – despite a strict regime of Lemsip, throat sweets and vitamin C.

Only Scarlett seems to be immune, just as she was whe the girls got their first colds a month or so ago. What a little soldier she is. Nothing phases her. While her sisters lie there with poor me faces she’s happily kicking away and gurgling at the lampshade, stopping only to occassionally whack one of her siblings in the head with a flailed arm.

I’d thought I would also escape until last night when I woke up feeling as if someone had sandpapered my tonsils. But I’m not complaining. No. I wouldn’t go on the internet and tell the whole world about my symptoms – a headache, sore throat, acheyness, since you’re asking – or feel completely sorry for myself and incapable of anything. Nope, no Man Flu for me. It’s not as if I’d lie down on the floor myself if it wasn’t for the risk of a face whacking. Honestly, I’ll soldier on. Don’t worry about me. *cough*

Poor me. Poor us. I just hope we’re all better by Christmas.

It was my turn last night to go out on the town, for my work’s Christmas party. I’d looked after the girls for almost 24 hours beforehand so J could get ready for her night out and then recover afterwards, so I was a little tired but excited nonetheless to be doing something different. Apart from one evening gaming with some friends, I’ve not been anywhere outside work since the girls arrived in the summer nor, now I think about it, much before then either. With J’s pregnancy beng so high risk, I didn’t really like to leave her for any length of time.

The party was fun. We went for an Indian meal in town followed by dancing and bar-hopping until the early hours. When I finally got back around half three, I found J still up. Evie had been awake almost constantly since her bedtime and J had soon figured there was more to her refusal to sleep than awkwardness. She was really hot and making pitiable moaning sounds almost constantly. I felt awful for not having been there when she needed me. At that point, the other girls were also awake, probably woken by Evie’s moans, so we fed them straight away then I took Evie’s temperature. It was 37.7 but because I took it from her armpit, that made her actual temperature 38.2 C (around 101 fahrenheit).

I told J to just look after Evie, I’d handle the others, so she took her into our room and slept all night propped up on pillows with Evie laid on her chest – the only position where poor Evie stopped fussing. In all she caught maybe an hour’s sleep. Upstairs I got to bed around five but was up again at six thirty to get the morning feeds ready. I’m just glad that I hadn’t drunk much at all for the last few hours on the town so only had tiredness to cope with and not a hangover.

J got up at seven and fed Evie, who still looked terrible. Her face was flushed, her lips deep red and she was scalding to the touch. She sounded terrible, too, her voice hoarse from a whole night of crying, and her expression showed nothing but confusion and self-pity.

Once fed, J went back to bed in the hope that after another few hours she’d be feeling well enough to let me have a decent chunk of sleep. While she did that I changed Evie and checked her temperature again.

This time the thermometer climbed up further than before and as it did so my heart froze. It finally stopped at 39.1 degrees (that’s 39.6 C or 103.5 F, adjusted), way hotter than the level where the books I’d consulted said you should take a child to a doctor. When I woke J up I could hardly speak. My emotions hit me like a truck. I found myself crying, overwhelmed by the thought of her being in danger, a thousand terrifying thoughts bubbling up from my subconscious.

I cried again while J was out at the doctor’s, the worry was just too much, and then again when she got back and told me Evie had a throat infection, although in relief that time. As soon as the danger was quantifyable I felt better. A throat infection. No one dies from a throat infection. But still, I have hardly put her down all day.

She’s asleep now and not nearly so hot as she was this morning. Hopefully tomorrow she will be better still and I won’t feel too terrible abandoning her to go to work all day.

You will have to imagine some additional elements to the statement that follows this paragraph. A mere exclamation mark couldn’t really do the contents justice so please, if you will, picture the words that follow being shouted, jubilantly, from the midst of a fist-puching-the-air, feet-two-from-the-floor, Kids From FAME style leap of celebration. Additional touches like fireworks, neon signs blinking “Hurray” and crowds throwing their hats into the air can be added at your discretion. Ready? Then here goes…

The girls slept through!

For the very first time, at the age of four month and five days, all three went from 10.30 feed right through to the morning without needing to be fed.

We’ve been building up to this point for a while now. For a long time, J and I (and the Nannas who were so kindly here doing night shifts) watched as the middle of the night feed moved from 2am to 3am and finally to four or five in a trepid two steps forward and one step back way. Occassionally it would seem that progress had stopped or that they would never get there, which both J and I would find terribly disheartening, but then someone would sleep a little longer and then another would too and soon all the girls would be waking another half an hour closer to dawn.

But they hit a wall at 5am, waking at that time for almost a month. So instead of pushing them to sleep longer we began to reduce the amount we gave them in the hope that it would have (as Gina Ford claims) the effect of making the eat more during the day and so need less the following night.

And it’s worked. This week we have only been preparing 60 millilitre bottles and even then only with half the normal amount of milk powder in them which, finally, seems to have been unsatisfying enough to not be worth waking for because on Sunday Scarlett slept through, on Monday both Scarlett and Jemima slept through, on Wednesday Jemima did, on Thursday it was Scarlett and Evie then yesterday Jemima again.

Not that last night didn’t have a little help from circumstance. The girls have been terribly difficult to feed recently and last night was no different. I was doing the night shift on my own as J was going to her work’s Christmas party and it took me two hours to give them each a bottle and change their nappies (not helped by Jemima doing the most impressive upwards vomit over her own face, head and shoulders meaning that just as I thought we were done I had to change her, wash her down, carefully clean it out of her ears, nose and eyes and start again).

By the time we finished I was exhausted and so, once in bed, was loathe to jump up at the slightest sound. Every time I heard crying I’d check my watch and wouldn’t allow myself to go in until ten minutes were up and, last night, they settled themselves well before then every time someone awoke. Luckily, J was deep in drunken slumber so I didn’t have to worry about the girls disturbing her when they cried.

I was so suprised that I actually got up half an hour early (at six) and waited to see if anyone would stir and I still can’t quite warrant that iot’s true. Sure, they’ll probably go back to waking early now and then, they always do, but for now I’m just chuffed to bits that we have reached this milestone.

Those of you who take an interest in the comments after my postings may have noticed some scurrulous accusations regarding what the order the girls are in in the last picture I posted. I have them labelled as (from left to right) Evelyn, Jemima and Scarlett but a mum/grandmother coalition seems to have formed, claiming that the baby on the right is not Scarlett at all but Jemima. In fact, Nanna Kath is so sure that I’ve made a mistake that she is willing to bet (and I quote) “all her money” on the fact. The gauntlet has, as they say, been thrown down.

I mean, as if I cannot tell my own daughters apart! Of everyone, I pride myself on being more able to recognise the subtle differences in appearance between the girls. I’ll admit it’s not easy, as shown by the fact that one evening last week I bathed Evie twice while Scarlett went to bed unwashed. But, that incident aside, I consider myself the most able to know who’s who.

The most obvious clues are in the small blemishes they have. Evie has an angel’s kiss (a pinkish birthmark on the forehead that generally fades in the first few month of life) while Jemima also has a pinkish patch, on her left eyelid. Scarlett’s birthmark is the most easily seen – a strawberry hemangioma – but it’s on her shoulder blade so not unless you look down her collar. Matters are complicated by Scarlett also having both a slight pink patch on her forehead and a mark on her eyelid, just like her sisters, so one has to check for subtler distinctions.

Evie’s chin is, if you look closely, a different shape and her ears aren’t the same shape. Jemima holds her lips in distinctively and tends to open her eyes wider than either of the other two. Scarlett has bigger cheeks and a rounder face generally.

Plus, as Nanna Kath mentions (despite being wrong about who’s who!), it’s also possible to tell the girls apart by their expressions. The older they get, the more their charcters come to the fore and so the easier it is to know who they are by their behaviour, by the sounds they make, by what habits they have and what interests them.

Finally, there’s clothes. I dress the girls after bathtime and tend to give certain baby grows to particular babies. Jemima looks cute in stripes (I think it’s something to do with her cheeky expression and the stripes reminding me of Dennis the Menace), Evie in pink and Scarlett in patterns. Besides (and I’m giving away a trade secret here – take heed, fellow triplet dads), the fact that I dressed them means I can normally just rememeber who they are from what they’re wearing.

But back to the accusations. Never one to allow the truth to go unsupported (or to miss the opportunity to fleece someone of “all their money” on a single wager), I will now present pictorial evidence in which, if I am right, you will clearly see a pinkish patch on a closeup of the centre baby’s left eyelid while the right hand baby will have only the faintest mark there. Using the astounding power of Photoshop, I will now prove, incontrovertably, my case.

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Damn.

Even as we made the decision, I felt something stir. Shadows deepened. In the distance something screamed*.

Eons past, an entity too unknowable, too unimaginable to be denied, set out her dictums, laws of contentedness that no child may deny, and sank to slumber beneath the waves. Her words were named the Necronomicon Contented Little Baby Book. Her name, to those who dare whisper it, is Gina Ford.

But now she wakes. The seabed rumbles. Ancient monoliths, long lost to man, are overturned in the watery depths. Someone has broken that which she set forth. She arises to see the chaos her denial will bring and humanity shudders at her unknowable wrath.

Ia! Ia! Gina Ford fhatgn!

Ahem. Sorry. Got a little, um, carried away there. I should really know by now not to read H.P. Lovecraft while sleep deprived. What I was trying to say was: this weekend past J and I broke the girls’ routine, and not just once, but twice! That’s right, we threw off our shackles and fed the girls on demand.

Those of you who have not experienced life under an oppressive regime may not appreciate how liberating it was to be free of Gina Ford’s schedule. And I only have to live by it in the morning, evening and weekends. J has it all day long. When to wake up, when to feed the girls, how much to feed them, when to play with them, when to put them down for naps, where to put them, how long to keep them there regardlesss of their protests, when you can leave the house (and when you must be back); all these things are laid out in the book.

However, despite all our perseverance, the routine has not worked perfectly. For a long time, the girls resisted their lunch time nap, waking after 45 minutes to spend the remaining hour and a half crying inconsolably. SImilarly, they have not met Ms. Ford’s targets for sleeping through the night, waking up between 3am and 5am despite us forcing them awake at 11 at night when they are fast asleep to feed them as laid out in The Book.

And all the while, other babies the same age were all beginning to sleep through. It’s unfortunate that support systems such as TAMBA and other people with children can sometimes help you realise when you have it hard as well as helping you when you need them. Without others to compare ourselves to we might have remained blissfully ignorant of any shortcomings in the way things were going for us.

Then, last Wednesday, J met someone who had been through a similar experence, only to find that when they gave up the forced 11pm waking, their baby slept right through from seven till seven. Well, that was, of course, too much to bear. Had we been putting them and us through the mill for nothing? Was the routine just not right for triplets? Had we just been banging away trying to get our round pegs into Gina’s square holes?

In short, no. We tried letting the girls sleep this weekend and while they still only woke up at between three and five, allowing us more sleep, we also got to experience overtiredness for the first time. It seems that there’s something to this routine lark after all. When they woke early this time they ate enormous amounts and then weren’t hungry at breakfast. That, in turn, meant they didn’t sleep in the morning because they were hungry. Throughout the day the routine disintegrated. Stripped of their familiar pattern of activities, the girls didn’t sleep enough and fed erratically. The result: three overtired, miserable, screaming babies and two overtired, miserable and close to screaming parents..

And that was just day one.

So, Gina Ford, you can return to your watchful slumber and we’ll persevere just a bit longer with the routine. There’s more to contentedness than sleeping through the night, it seems.

* Jemima, if I recall correctly.

No joy compares
To making you smile; did my dad
Play this game with me?

Changing Jemima
My ears catch a tinkling sound,
She’s weed on my foot.

I have to say, I am wonderfully flattered by the kind words of those who have commented on my girls’ beauty after I posted the last set of pictures. Of course, every parent thinks their child is the most beautiful thing ever to grace God’s Earth. That’s one of the blessings of the whole parenting experience – everyone gets the best baby. But having triplets, they get a lot more attention than singletons ever would, what with the strangers who stop us on the street and the people who take an interest in this blog. And for all that being stopped twenty times on a simple supermarket trip can be a little frustrating, the fact that we are invariably told how beautiful the girls are is extremely gratifying. Not in the sense that I’m competitive about my daughters’ appearances but, rather, in that it massages my proudness glands. I could happily run around the streets telling all the world how beautiful they are but that isn’t sociably acceptable so other people saying what I’m thinking becomes the next best thing. It’s validating.

Not that it’s really the beauty part that matters. I would be equally pleased to be told how funny or expressive or strong, how confident or lucky or how clever they are. Remarks about cleverness, in fact, would probably please me the most. Encouraging cleverness leads to achievement while I worry that encouraging beauty will lead only to vanity. As such, I have decided to tailor my praise of the girls. By commenting on less physical things, I hope to balance out other people’s comments on their appearance and so give them multiple platforms on which to build self-confidence.

Of course, at the age of just under four months, the girls haven’t had a chance to display many talents yet, so, for now, I’ll just join the chorus and agree how wonderfully, stunningly, remarkably, superlatively beautiful Evelyn, Scarlett and Jemima are. And while I’m at it I might as well post my current favourite photo, taken this weekend.

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Coincidentally, the reason I like this pic so much is that it really captures their emerging personalities. As the girls have begun to really notice the world around them over the last month or so, each has used the increase in interaction this has given them to display more and more uniqueness.

Lettie is showing herself to be physical and enthusiastic, yet still relaxed and trusting. She adores bathtimes, drenching me nightly as she happily splashes at the water with flailing legs. She loves her “kick and play piano” toy, sings along to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star played in farmyard noises on her Baby Einstein CD and her vocal noises sound more like words with each passing day. She’s loud, happy and good-natured.

Jem, while the least patient, smiles easily and I take her facility for sleeping well at night as an indicator of confidence. Even at her young age she makes everyone laugh with her funny expression and the twinkle in her eye. She eats easily (at least compared to her sisters) and is a pleasure to care for.

Of the three, Evie is the most sensitive. She suprises easily (as I found out when I made her cry by moving her wigglebug toy towards her too fast this week), has a lighter appetite than her sisters and snuggles up close for comfort when she’s held, but she is also the most likely to smile at strangers and was, this week, the first to pick anything up.

That’s right – after a week of holding it, a day or two or regarding it suspiciously and another of experimental tasting, Evelyn picked up a rattle. Twice. And that has made me as proud as anything ever has.

I realised today that it’s been a while since I posted any photos which is particularly remiss of me as J and I spent last Saturday afternoon dressing the girls up in cute outfits again. We had a great time doing it but the girls weren’t so sure. They’re never quite as chirpy in the afternoons and were especially downcast that day as they were coming down with the colds that they suffered through all last week.

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Three kids, one daddy,
Better learn a new phrase quick:
“Don’t tell your mother!”

I had the day off work on Friday so that I could accompany the girls for their final round of innoculations. They’ve were really upset by it the first time and although they took it better last time, I was still concerned about this visit. The look of betrayed devastation on Jemima’s face after her first shot still lingers in my memory so I wanted to be there to offer comfort in their distress.

I have an early memory of going to the doctor’s for an injection. I think it was before we went to live in Malaysia which would make me 7 years old. Now, up until that point, I had actively liked injections and, in fact, all medical procedures – probably because they were generally followed by a trip to the chemist where I could reliably expect to be bought a fascinating sweet-instrument combinations known as a “whistle pop”. On this occassion, Kieran, my younger brother, went into the surgery first while I waited outside. And with the scream that echoed from within as I sat alone in the waiting room, my whole attitude towards injections changed.

To this day, I find the thought of needles skin-crawlingly unsettling, and it takes all my resolve to actually go through with having one, which is perhaps why I was nervous on my daughters’ account on Friday. Much of what we fear for others is a projection of our personal anxieties, after all.

As it happens, my concern was unfounded.

Scarlett had her injections first and I could tell the practice nurse was nervous as she approached despite the aura of allegro cheerfulness she projected. She’s had the pleasure of being in a small room with all three screaming before and didn’t want the experience repeating. J was holding Scarlett and I could see that she, too, was nervous, arms enfolding her baby protectively as the nurse moved in.

When the injection came, Scarlett didn’t even notice. Only when she had to have a second one in her other thigh did she cry but, even then, it was only for a few moments and then she was soon distracted by J pickng her up and walking her around the room while the nurse exclaimed loudly upon the virtues of a chubby thigh.

Similarly, Jemima only cried at the second injection and, again, only for a moment, and Evelyn, tough cookie that she is, actually smiled a moment after her second one, her expression shifting easily from shock though upset and uncertainty to amusement at the fuss everyone was making.

What a relief.

And somehow, I feel proud. Mostly because a parent cannot help but flush with pride at their child’s smallest achievement but also, I guess, it might have something to do with them overcoming my phobia for injections.

I remember sleep
I’m sure I remember sleep
Or was it a dream?

Despite the illness currently sweeping our household, J and I have been looking through the piles of grown-out-of clothes and unused baby equipment that fills our spare room and wondering what do do with it all. Some, I’m sure, will be passed on to other parents while some we might sell on eBay or in the local paper if we can find the time.

It’s truly astonishing just how much of the stuff we bought has hardly seen use. I never twigged before that the people informing me as to what we would need were the ones who make money from them. Adverts, magazines, even looped videos in the hospital waiting room played on our parental nesting and nurturing instincts to gave the impression that we would need all manner of expensive equipment to care properly for our babies. What rubbish. Babies need very little in the way of material things. The human race did, after all, manage to survive pretty well before the birth* of the baby products industry. Babies need love, attention and stimulation all of which take time not money (well, unless you hire a nanny, I guess). Sure they need warmth, a roof over their heads and to be kept clean and clothed but these are basic necessities which really don’t require much expense.

That said, there have been a few things that have made our lives (and those of the triplets) much easier and I thought I’d list them here, just in case anyone else expecting loads of babies happens by. So, in no particular order, we have…

Fergus’s Baby Stuff Top Ten

Muslin Squares. Man, were these a good investment. We use them for everything – as bibs, under heads or bums while changing, over cot sheets, over shoulders, on the play blanket, basically anywhere that needs temporary babysick-proofing.

Morrck Hoodies. What a great idea. These fleece blankets fit into car seats or pushchairs meaning that you don’t need to bother with dressing your baby up in outside clothes. Saves us so much time. We still need to put hats on the girls but that’s all, even in very cold weather.

Baby Grows. Our girls live in front-fastening (and only front fastening!) babygrows and vests. There just isn’t time for anything else except when we specifically set aside time to dress the girls up. It’s a shame but already there’s lots of outfits we were bought that the girls have grown out of without ever wearing. Baby gorws are just so easy. I can’t conceive of a what it must have been like before they were invented.

The Baby Bus. Our biggest purchase but certainly worth it. Without our Peugeot 806, we would be confined to Kirkstall and denied the sanity-saving daily walk.

Peg Perego Triplette. Three babies? In one pushchair? Surely nothing on Earth could achieve such a thing! Well, actually, yes it can. Sure, it’s getting heavy now, with the girls having grown so much, but our triple buggy is still phenomenonally useful. Besides, how else would we attract crowds of grannies every time we leave the house?

Steam Sterilizers. We have two of these (and two kettles to go with them) to help get through the 24 or more bottles we use every day. They’re quick and hassle free. The only problem we’ve had is we use them so much, one has already had to be replaced.

Baby Sleeping Bags. Blankets shmankets, I say. Sleeping bags mean we can operate almost entirely in the dark, plucking babies from their cots, feeding them and winding them without having to deal with a blankety tangle.

Tumble Dryer. What fools J and I were to be sceptical about needing one of these. It now runs almost constantly (mostly full of muslin squares).

Dishwasher. Another piece of equipment we were unsure of that has proved it’s worth a thousand times. Gets put on several times a day. We just need to train the kids to load and empty it and it’ll be the perfect appliance.

Digital Baby Monitor. I have something of a love-hate relationship with this thing but I can’t deny that the digital monitor that we eventually bought is much better than the radio monitor we had at first. With that, even if the babies weren’t crying, you still had to deal with a grating hum of static in the background. The digital monitor, however, is crystal clear, even in the basement, has sensitivity control so you get the crying without the burps and farts and the range is apparantly 300 metres. Hm. Come to think of it, the local pub is about 300 metres away…

An honourable mention goes to Cots. While moses baskets and bouncy chairs have proved a waste of time, cots are a deserved classic when it comes to baby care. I expect they will be even better appreciated when the girls become mobile. Now we just need to figure out how to fit three of them in our tiny nursery.

* Sorry. I’m doing it again, I know.