I've been part of two families (one as a kid, one as a latecoming-parent) which had trouble finding babysitters. I saw two causes. One, the kids were particularly challenging. Two, the family got into a habit of not having babysitters, which meant that if the parents wanted to do something special, they didn't have an on-call list of people who'd already watched their kids for an hour on an ordinary night, and also the kids weren't accustomed to behaving appropriately with a babysitter. I know that it can seem not worth the trouble to break in babysitters and kids for ordinary times, but in hindsight I wish I'd insisted that we get babysitters more often so that we kept up the list of who to call and felt okay calling them (and I wish my parents had too). When you feel so 'swamped' that you can't afford the ensuing chaos and disruption after one bad babysitter night, then you're unlikely to take the risks of extending the network.

I also like the idea of encouraging the oldest one to go out while you hire someone to stay with the younger ones, or to experiment with other combinations (such as taking one kid to run errands and see if the other two can cope on their own).

Are you (or is Pat) at all involved with a community of parents of special-needs kids? That might be the most productive place to network about finding additional babysitting, either by trading hours / setting up a co-op or by exchanging references for suitable adults to hire.

It's silly to reproach yourself for the situation with your church community. If you ever do have a family crisis and ask for help, you might be surprised how much help you get from that direction as well as others.