Smiling with the Girls

The last two weeks have brought visits from one set grandparents and Mom's closest friend (all the way from California). They not only did a LOT to help around the house but also, for some reason, felt compelled to spend considerable time ooing and cooing over the girls. On this Father's Day, we are proud to share these pictures of them because the girls are just too great for Daddy (and Mommy) to keep to themselves.

New photos

Some new photos of our little ladies below, taken June 8, which marked the start of their fourth week home. All is going well. They are nursing every couple hours 24 hours a day, which means Mommy is working hard, helped with great care by our cousin Kendall -- thank you Kendall! -- and with Daddy playing the role all fathers do at this stage in life, namely as back-up cast.

It is wonderful to see our baby girls grow a little every day, and to marvel at how alike they look the closer they get in weight. As of last week, our first visit to the pediatrician since we came home from the NICU, Danni weighs 4lbs 4 ounces and Rory weighs 5 lbs 2 ounces. Can you tell them apart without a label? So far, we can. So far.

The wine picture, by the way, is purely for proportion's sake. It happened to be handy. Fear not, they are nursing ONLY on Mommy's milk.

The Girls

Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you, photos of our lovely little girls, Rory and Danni, for your enjoyment below. Admit it: they are absolutely adorable.

They joined us at home at last last Monday, May 18, and my were we glad to bring them home after 42 days in the NICU. They are doing great, keeping us up late at night, and getting the hang of home. It's great.

The first picture of them below is of the first time we held them side by side, out of their isolettes, in the NICU. This is, in other words, the first time they met. And yes, the next picture is what it looks like -- the first time they met, they held hands. Life can sure be beautiful.

Also see these photos which we had placed on the hospital's iNursery.

Generosity

As described below, with Leo's passing, we decided to create the Leo Francis Mackey Memorial Fund in his memory. All contributions will be donated to help young children in need. We are thankful to all the generous donors that have already contributed to this fund and for the impact on young lives that your caring will have in Leo's name. We have been profoundly touched by these expressions of generosity, and wanted to share one story of this giving with you which perhaps sums up how kind these gifts are.

The maternal grandma of Leo, Rory and Danni is a teacher at Liberty Elementary School in Caledonia, Ohio. She and we were stunned to learn last week that her colleagues across the staff, from the custodial team to the teachers and administration, had organized a collection for this fund. They raised the amazing sum of $650. These gifts come from individuals who never had the joy of meeting Leo, yet, through his grandmother and family, became connected to him. Their sympathy and generosity will, through this fund, help other young children in need, and on behalf of our beloved son and his sisters, we express our deepest thanks to them for reaching out to touch other lives so thoughtfully.

Leo Francis Mackey

On April 7, Leo Francis, Rory Marí and Danni Christine joined us on this earth. Their arrival was miraculous and beautiful, and hope and love never seemed to us so unending. On April 18, 12 days later, our little Leo, following his brave battle with a sudden and terrible intestinal infection, passed away. He had been born healthy and full of energy and life that were magnetic, and we, like the doctors and nurses, were shocked by what happened. We held him in our arms as he died, and as we had tried to say every minute of his brief life, had the privilege of telling him again we loved him. We will never forget him. Below are a few photos of him taken within a few days of his birth.

We are posting here a link to the video of the service held for Leo on April 25. Our goal with this service was to honor Leo, to provide some small measure of our love for him in a gift of remembrance that his sisters could one day view, and to stand together with our family and friends who have been so kind to us and so thoughtful of Leo, Rory and Danni throughout this tumultuous time and who themselves are mourning. The reason we videotaped this service was to share it with his sisters one day, and we post it here only for those who might value viewing it now.

Service for Leo Francis Mackey

We will never be able to thank sufficiently all those who have reached out to us with love, kindness and support. Please accept our meager thank you knowing it is far from the depth of feeling with which we express it to you. We have formed a charitable fund, the Leo Francis Mackey Memorial Fund, for those who would like to make a donation in his name. All funds will be donated to young children in need. The address and tax ID information are below.

The speakers in this service are
Timothy Dugan, Bucknell University campus chaplain and family friend
Kurt Thiede, Bucknell vice president for admissions and family friend
David Bonheimer, longtime family friend
Matt Quinn, executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and family friend

We are grateful to them for the wisdom and presence of love they brought to this service.

We also are grateful to the singers, musicians and performers who beautified this service with their talents. Their names are shown in the program preceding the video. A special thanks to the Bucknell University Rooke Chapel Ringers and composer and conductor Bill Payn; Steve Gibson, a friend and colleague at Bucknell who kindly videotaped this service; and friends at Bucknell who prepared this video for viewing. Finally, our thanks to the community of Bucknell University that has reached out to us so warmly throughout these days.

The Leo Francis Mackey Memorial Fund
c/o Sam Lundquist
Office of Development
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, PA 17837
Tax ID (all contributions are tax deductible): 26-4738082

We will soon post on this blog photos of Rory and Danni, and have decided for the time being to continue it with updates of the progress of our daughters. Rory and Danni are doing well, and we expect to be welcoming them home from the NICU soon. Our enduring thanks to the devoted caretakers at the NICU, who have given our children such loving attention.

Moving Up

This weekend, the kids have taken some great positive strides, but we'll save the best for last: First, all three are no longer on IVs, which means they are getting all the nutrients they need from feeding (including a growing diet of breastmilk, courtesy of Mom) and shows their capacity to absorb food. Second, the girls both came off their CPAP machines; CPAPs (continuous positive air pressure) are not ventilators since they do not breath for the patient (it is a major positive sign that the kids have never been on ventilators), but instead have a tiny tube that sits just inside the exterior tip of the nostrils and mildly blows compressed air to make sure breathing passages are open so the kids can breath on their own. Third, all their bloodwork has been excellent.

Which leads to the first part of the exciting news: Today, Easter Sunday of all days, Rory graduated from the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) to the next step up, the SICU (special intensive care unit). Babies only get moved up if they've demonstrated a steady capacity over a day or two to breath without a CPAP (i.e., no apnea, or "apnic events" as the docs and nurses call them), require no IV, and have excellent bloodwork. Tonight at 7 p.m. Danni graduates to the SICU to join her sister. Tomorrow or the next day, Leo is likely to join them there. Typically, we've learned, boys move more slowly through the NICU than girls, so it's either that or the girls are just showing off. We spent the better part of the weekend with the kids, and after a little break today will be going back tonight to root Leo on and to see Rory and Danni in their new digs.

A SICU and a NICU, though, can be daunting places. At this hospital, which actually has one of the best such units in the country, there are 38 infants in this care at any one time. Each baby is on monitors 24 hours a day checking their heart rates, breathing rates, temperatures, percentage of oxygen intake, and more, and we have gotten pretty good at reading the meaning of the figures on the computers near them. Every 12 or 24 hours, depending on each child's status, the children get bloodtests, which means a prick with a needle in their little heels. Intravenous tubes run from the tiny arms of those needing extra nutrient support, and most, like our babies at this point, have tiny tubes running into their mouths down to their stomachs for feeding since they are not yet strong enough to suckle for themselves. A specialist nurse keeps a close eye on every two to three infants and manages their care. The nurses, by the way, are outstanding down the line, and across the shifts we've met many of them. It is incredibly comforting to experience their affection for their charges and to learn from them as they describe what they're doing -- and let us join in too, such as changing the kids.

Meanwhile, every day, one of the NICU doctors leads a small team of a couple residents and a nurse on "rounds," evaluating a host of data about each child's status and altering their feed rates, IVs, and so forth depending on their progress. We have been lucky enough to be there for rounds every day for our threesome, and the doctor really is excited about how well they are doing. We're counting on Leo to join his sisters at the next level soon!

Now, the second piece of the really exciting news: Because the girls are off the CPAPs, they no longer have the gear on their heads or faces that these devices requires, which means that we have been able to see both of their faces for the first time for an extended period, and today held them for a long while as they looked at us in all their glory and studied our faces as we studied theirs. In case you're wondering, yes, they are indeed identical. And, if we don't mind saying, they are absolutely beautiful.

The Names

We have no experience by which to judge whether naming one child at a time is more difficult, more interesting or more fun than naming three born together, but we sure did enjoy the process of trying to come up with names for our threesome. We actually have had the names for months now, testing them aloud and in combinations as triplets. Most of all, we wanted the pair of first and last names to sound good together, including with their siblings' names. We also wanted the names to be relatively easy to pronounce on sight and, because of family background and our experience in Ireland (where we got engaged), to have at least a hint of Irishness. Finally, we decided with triplets that a few special qualities would be appropriate:

1. Each name would be strong and singular, able to stand alone on its own and not easily abbreviated, so each child had his or her own distinct identity.
2. The names wouldn't be alliterative, including the identical twin girls.
3. The names would have something in common with one another to connect them as triplets, though in a subtle fashion.
4. Each child's pair of names would include a name we liked and a name with a special family link.

And we wouldn't tell anyone the names before the children heard them first (which drove some family members nuts, although we appreciated all the memorable suggestions, like Eartha, Winda, and Firer).

Our choices were:
Leo Francis: Leo is a name we like for a variety of reasons, while Francis is Daddy's middle name.
Rory Marí: Rory is a name we like for a variety of reasons, while Marí invokes the first name of the Dad's mother, Marion, and of his Godmother and great aunt -- Marí means the same as all three of their names and is the first four letters of grandma's name. (It's pronounced Mur-I.)
Danni Christine: Danni invokes Mom's stepfather's name, Danny, while Christine is a name we like for a variety of reasons.

The names connect in several ways to each other, but the key subtle connection is that each of the first names has the sound of the second syllable of the children's surnames in a unique way (e, y, i).

We hope they all go together well. And that the kids like them!

p.s. The kids are doing great, and Momma continues to recover nicely.