It took several months for them to be able to go home, but now that they’re there, Ashley Landry and Drew Jordan’s triplet daughters are thriving.
The Luling triplets have reached the quarterfinals of the Baby of the Year competition, where the winner (or winners) will be featured in Variety magazine and win a $25,000 prize.
The trio were eighth in the quarterfinal voting on babyoftheyear.org – the vote ends at 9 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 6.
“The support has been overwhelming in a good way,” said Landry. “Since literally the day I got pregnant and we found out it was multiples, our community and St. Charles Parish has done literally everything they can to support us in ways we never even thought we would need. We’re very grateful to live here.”
The triplet girls were born prematurely in July of 2024. Landry and Jordan went to a routine 29-week doctor’s visit when Landry began having contractions. Landry was rushed into surgery for an emergency cesarean. After the triplets’ birth, Landry and Jordan waited nearly six hours to visit their triplets for the first time in their NICU rooms at Ochsner Baptist in New Orleans. They waited to hold their daughters for the first time: three days to hold Kenzie, seven days to hold Remi and 23 days to hold Austyn.
Then, they waited 168 days – nearly six months – to have their daughters together again. Austyn was finally discharged from the NICU on Jan. 3. – Landry’s birthday – nearly three months after her sisters came home, and after six total surgeries to address a perforated bowel. Austyn came home with a gastronomy tube to allow her to receive nutrition and fluids directly into her stomach.
After a difficult journey to begin their lives, the girls are doing well.
“Austyn still has her G-tube, although we haven’t used it in awhile. Her doctor was talking about taking it out next summer,” said Landry. “Kenzie and Remi, they’re normal 1-year-olds, other than being small. They’re tiny, tiny babies.”
Landry said Austyn weighs 14 pounds, while Kenzie and Remi each weigh 15.
“I look at my Facebook memories every day because they were still in NICU a year ago at this time,” Landry said. “It’s crazy looking at the pictures and videos of them then, and looking at them now and seeing them walking around and talking. And it’s just different.”
The Baby of the Year entry turned out to be a surprise to Mom herself.
“It was Drew,” said Landry. “He signed them up. I didn’t know … a while later, I see something about it and say ‘Oh, look, there’s a baby of the year competition. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I just got the notification this morning that the girls were accepted.’”
Even so, they never expected to get this far.
“It’s getting so close, like, ‘Wow, we really, actually kind of have a shot,’ you know?” Landry said.
Voting is free at babyoftheyear.org and one can vote once every 24 hours. One can also make a donation for any amount – every dollar equals one vote, and money raised goes to the Baby2Baby Foundation which supplies items of need, such as diapers, wipes and clothing, to children.
