Child Care Woes

I've been feeling a little bit better lately.  As long as I eat often and I don't eat anything greasy, I don't get too terribly nauseated.  It's been really nice to be able to function again for the past 3-4 days.  On Thursday we went in for our ultrasound.  It was our last official appointment with the Reproductive Endocrinologist, which was definitely bitter sweet.  I am thankful to be graduating to prenatal care with a specialist, but I am sure going to miss the folks at Dr. Magarelli's office.  I felt totally comfortable asking them any questions and calling with any concerns.  I hope I can forge those kinds of relationships with the new doctors and nurses.

At the Ultrasound on Thursday, we were again able to clearly see all three babies.  It's absolutely amazing how quickly they grow.  This time, we could discern little arm buds on babies A and C.  Baby B still doesn't like to cooperate with good positioning.  They are all three measuring perfectly on track and have very strong heart beats.  Baby A and Baby B were fluttering at 150 bpm and Baby C was a solid 152 bpm.  So, basically, they are perfect.  The nurse gave us an 80% survival rate for all three.  That's really high at only 7 weeks and 4 days pregnant.

Finally, a group picture with all three!

Now, we feel pretty comfortable proceeding as if we are going to be bringing home three babies.  Up until this point, it still felt a little tentative to me.  Our first order of business is to find someone to care for our children while we are away at work.  As it turns out, getting an infant into a day care is quite a process because each facility only has a few spots.  Getting three in at the same time means we have to start searching immediately.  I have been absolutely shocked at both the cost and the logistics associated with this process.  We haven't found a solution just yet, but let me walk you through the process thus far.

First of all, neither Ryan nor I are available to stay home with the children.  I'm in the military, so I still owe them until July 5th, 2014.  After a brief period of working for a terrible CPA firm here in Colorado, Ryan has finally found a job that he really enjoys.  He is as happy and fulfilled as I've seen him in a long time, so it would be best for him to stay where he is for the time being.  Not to mention, neither one of us is cut out for staying home during the day and taking care of the children.  I admire those who can do it, but we are just not those people.

So, we've established that the best thing for us will be to find child care for the triplets during the day while we are at work.  There are tons of options, each with their own issues.  A lot of people take their children to a private home provider.  That is when you take your child over to someone's house who is a licensed provider, and they watch them during the day.  It is usually a very cost effective option.  However, we are not eligible for that kind of care while our children are infants.  As it turns out, in the state of Colorado, these types of providers are only legally able to have a maximum of two infants in their homes.  Unless we split our kids up, that's not an option.  On Ryan's Facebook page, multiple people recommended nannies.  Unfortunately, we can't possibly afford that option.  For triplet infants, it would cost about $150 per day at a minimum.  A really qualified nanny would be more like $200.  That's an average of $3500-$4500 a month depending on the nanny.  I know that there are plenty of people who pay nannies "under the table" to cut expenses, but we are not willing to do that.  In fact, we are not willing to do anything that breaks laws in order to have our children cared for.

It is seeming more and more like day care is our most appropriate option.  Yesterday, we toured a high end day care only a stone's throw away from our house.  It was amazing.  It had great security, was shockingly clean, and they would teach the infants sign language throughout the day.  They were even willing to do cloth diapers.  It was all sounding absolutely wonderful until they told us the price.  $3,374 a month for the triplets.  Holy crap.  Many of the daycares that I have contacted are unable to accommodate all three of our infants.  Our next stop is going to be the day care center on base.  For three infants it will be about $400 a week.  That's $1600 a month during months with 4 Fridays and $2000 a month during months with 5 Fridays.   It sucks, but it's doable.  We will tour many other facilities over the coming weeks, but we need to come to a decision quickly in order to get our kiddos on the waiting lists.  I will keep you updated about our child care journey over the coming weeks.  After that, the next order of business will be Project Van.  Yuck.