Wiscasset’s Fred Bragdon dies a thousand deaths every time the phone rings. He said that’s how it feels because he doesn’t know if it might be news about his six-week old triplet grandchildren, all hospitalized, from Portland to Boston.

At various points in their care, treatment has included medically induced comas and reliance on machines to breathe.

Brothers Lemual and Lyric and sister Finley had all been at Maine Medical Center, family members said. Then Finley was taken Friday morning to a Boston hospital. The triplets were born Dec. 13 to Abby and Bryan Blake of Wiscasset. 

One by one, the three were hospitalized after a respiratory illness struck them a few weeks ago; it has hit Finley the hardest, her grandfather said.

His employer, Bath Iron Works, let him switch to the evening shift so he could help with the babies’ three older brothers during the day. Now he spends mornings getting the older two, ages 6 and 7, onto the school bus for Wiscasset Elementary School. Their next youngest brother is 20 months old.

Abby Blake hadn’t planned to have more children and had a procedure done so she wouldn’t, according to sister Megan Bragdon of Belgrade. But that didn’t take and Blake became pregnant, her sister said in a phone interview and an email Friday. “We are very blessed as a family to have the triplets and see them as miracles,” she wrote about her new nephews and niece.

The pregnancy was full of complications, including the expectant mother’s benign tumors. She did two months’ bed rest at MMC, her father said.

The triplets arrived six weeks early, he said; their birth weights ranged from three pounds, five ounces to four pounds, two ounces. The babies came home to Foye Road in Wiscasset and their weight picked up to the six- to seven-pound range, but immune systems take time, Fred Bragdon said. The illness the babies are fighting is respiratory failure from the common cold, Megan Bragdon said. Their conditions quickly grew very serious.

On Thursday night, Feb. 2, Finley had a blood transfusion; the next morning, she was transferred to Boston. “She is very sick and prayers are much needed to get her and the family through this hard time,” Megan Bragdon wrote. “(The) medical team is working hard to get all well again, which will be a long road.”

As of Sunday, the boys were on oxygen masks at MMC and had been moved into a room together; their sister remained hospitalized in Boston but was showing some improvement, including opening her eyes. A machine was continuing to breathe for her, her aunt said.

Megan Bragdon has started an online campaign to raise money toward the family’s costs linked to the ordeal. Insurance is covering 80 percent of the care, but the remaining 20 percent is already in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Fred Bragdon said.  Family members said travel costs and lost work add to the financial challenges.

By Sunday morning, the website was showing $1,160 raised. To help, search www.gofundme.com for the Blake triplets, or find the link on Megan Bragdon’s Facebook page. Abby Bragdon’s mailing address is 152 Foye Road, Wiscasset, Maine 04578.

“We certainly appreciate everyone’s support,” Fred Bragdon said Friday.