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 Todd Wetherington | Daily Herald Holly Wilson looks on as Marissa gets ready for some bottle fed milk. For more photos, see Closer Look, pages C1 and C10. |
ROANOKE RAPIDS - When Holly Wilson and Rob Swindells take a trip to the store, they have more to contend with than the usual traffic and cash register lines.
Strangers stare and stop to ask them questions, and a chorus of “ooh” and “ahh” follows them around town.
Such are the lives of local celebrities. But nobody's asking for the couple's autographs. All attention is focused on the contents of the strollers they push around: A set of 4-month-old triplets.
“We had a drive-by the other day,” said Rob's daughter, Elizabeth, referring to people who vocally marvel at the babies through their car windows.
“Everybody's very gracious and most are just curious because they say, ‘I've never seen this before except on TV,'” Holly added.
The past year has been full of changes for the family, but while triplets create some unique challenges, they wouldn't have it any other way.
Big surprise
When Rob and Holly decided to have a baby, they intended to have just one. Initial test results suggested Holly would be having twins, and they were OK with that.
“We were prepared for twins,” Holly explained. “We thought he'd have one, I'd have one, and it would be pretty easy.”
But at a later appointment, the couple received some surprising news.
“They kind of counted them out. They said, ‘Here's one, here's two, and then they found another one.'”
After the initial shock wore off, Holly said she and Rob were excited. “We had wanted babies for a long time, so we kind of thought it was a blessing.”
The parents were even more shocked when they learned the babies were all girls. “Rob didn't say a lot at first, but then he said, ‘Oh no.' I said, ‘What?' He said, ‘That means I have to pay for four weddings.'”
The couple's primary concern was getting the babies into the world safely, since triplets come with increased health risks. On Dec. 27, at 34-and-a-half weeks, Holly delivered the triplets by c-section at Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greenville. As triplets go, she noted, they weren't too small.
Alexa Grace weighed in at 4 pounds, 4 ounces; Marissa Bari weighed 4 pounds, 1 ounce; and Brenna Isabella weighed 3 pounds, 13 ounces.
Alexa was able to leave the hospital with her parents, giving first-time mother Holly a short time to adjust to motherhood with a single baby.
After a 10-day stint in the neonatal intensive care unit, Marissa and Brenna followed, and the new mother hit the ground running.
Holly's other worry was that they would get the triplets home and not be able to tell them apart. This concern led to Marissa's first pedicure.
“We painted Marissa's toenails just to make sure that we wouldn't have to get their blood drawn.”
The twins are not identical, so it only took a little while for most people to be able to tell them apart.
Holly can usually tell which one is crying when she is in another room. Rob's son, Scott, who doesn't spend as much time with them, has had the hardest time; it took him a few months to tell them apart.
The triplets have already proven themselves to be very different from one another, but the couple does not have a favorite.
“My daughter says, ‘If you had one, I wonder which one of them you would have had,' and I can't think of it that way. I can't imagine one of them without the others.”
Though only three babies were born on Dec. 27, the couple have brought five children into their home in less than a year. Rob's children, 18-year-old Scott and 13-year-old Elizabeth, moved from their mother's house in Maryland in September and December, respectively.
Elizabeth is getting ready to start high school at Halifax Academy and Scott is preparing to graduate from Roanoke Rapids High School.
The teenagers have been getting used to life in a new town, as well as their new sisters. And Rob and Holly have been dealing with orthodontist appointments and homework as well as diapers and bottles.
While Elizabeth has more to do with the babies, Scott has also been helpful, running errands and taking Elizabeth to school every day.
“Elizabeth helps with the babies and Scott takes care of Elizabeth,” Holly explained.
The two teenagers said their move to Roanoke Rapids has brought them closer, since they have been dealing with so many changes together.
Things are certainly different for Elizabeth, who had grown accustomed to being the youngest.
“I cried and got really mad when I found out,” she said of her initial reaction to the triplets, though she has since been a big help to her parents.
One thing Elizabeth hasn't appreciated was the purchase of a family minivan, which isn't so cool to a teenager.
“They're so ugly - big, old, ugly pieces of metal,” Elizabeth groaned.
“They're practical,” Rob noted.
“They're hideous,” Elizabeth replied.
Her designated seat in the van happens to be surrounded by the triplets' car seats. “I have to climb all over the diaper bags and vibrating chairs and the luggage.”
With Elizabeth around, Rob and Holly have learned what they have to look forward to in 13 years.
“I hope they have three of me,” Elizabeth said.
Helping hands
In general, caring for the babies is like an “assembly line,” said Rob, whose years in the military helped make him organized. Feeding, diapering and bathing haven't been as difficult as they may seem, the couple explained, since they developed a routine.
The triplets are now on similar eating and sleeping schedules, though they don't always wake up and fall asleep at exactly the same time. On Wednesday, all three seemed to be dozing off around noon, but Brenna woke up after a few minutes and wanted to play.
After many lost hours of sleep, the family has figured out tricks to help them deal with three babies at a time.
If one baby wakes up hungry in the middle of the night, for example, the parents get the others up to feed them to avoid having to get up every hour.
While there's a slew of parenting books on multiple births, Holly said the one she bought didn't help much. “We have just kind of winged it and everything seems to have fallen into place, and if it doesn't work one way, we just switch it up.”
The couple doesn't know what they'd do without the support they've received from family and friends. They devote as much time as possible to the babies, but they also have busy professional lives.
Rob is a surgical nurse and Holly is a lawyer who worked through the end of her pregnancy and has since returned to her job.
Elizabeth is continuing to adjust to the changes in her family, but she has been a real lifesaver for Rob and Holly.
She does the dishes, which have been increasing in quantity and yuckiness since the triplets started eating baby food.
She does a lot of babysitting, and when the family travels together, she's usually around to take one of the babies off their hands.
Holly is originally from Roanoke Rapids, and much of her family lives in the area. The girls even receive daily visits from their grandfather.
Rob and Holly also lucked out when they found “super-nanny” Stacy Matthews. Rob has Thursdays and Fridays off from work; he catches up on the family's errands on Thursdays and takes care of the triplets on Fridays, but Stacy takes care of them Monday through Thursday.
Stacy has been a nanny before, including five years with a family in Chapel Hill, but she has never worked with multiple births.
“I think most people are terrified, but it's not that bad once you get into a routine and a schedule,” Stacy said. “But I wasn't the one up at night feeding them.”
Half the battle seems to be keeping the babies occupied. While Marissa slept and Stacy gave Alexa her bottle Wednesday afternoon, Brenna played in the Exersaucer, a seat surrounded with lights, music and toys. “That's the key; having lots of baby gear, keeping them entertained,” Stacy noted.
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