Parker had his surgery and is doing well!

Madelyn in her swing

Mommy,Eva and Madelyn

Dahlia


Parker

Preston

Dahlia

Parker

Parker after surgery

All of the babies are doing very well and we are getting so very anxious to have all of them home together! Here are updates on each of them...

Parker

Thursday Parker had a two sided inguanal hernia repair. He had to have this surgery because part of his intestines (and appendix - very rare) were down in his scrotum. The surgery went well. It was kind of one of the last steps that had to happen before he could come home. The doctor said the hernias were huge! He said he had never seen an appendix that low before. Parker is recovering nicely, we were pretty nervous because he had to be intubated for the surgery and so we were afraid he would want to stay on the ventilator and not go back on the canula. He did well though and in less than an hour after surgery he was back on canula with relatively low settings. He is still kind of swollen but is getting better every single day!

He is taking all 8 feeds by bottle or breast every day so that is really good news. This little baby has a bottomless pit for a stomach and would eat all day if you let him! I definetly think he will be the baby to keep us on our toes. He definetly is a momma's boy which makes me feel really good! We are hoping to wean him onto home oxygen and have him home by next weekend!

Preston

Preston is just cruising away! He is on 6 of 8 feeds by bottle or breast. He is excellent at pacing himself while eating. He too will be have a surgery to correct an inguanal hernia probably next week. He will probably come home a couple of days after Parker. He still has a really pretty honey color of hair! I just cannot believe that with my genes involved we made a baby with such light hair! He is a really patient baby. The nurses say that when he is awake, he hardly ever cries and just occupies his time by looking around. We are expecting him to come home on oxygen as well.

Dahlia-

Dahlia is my little princess! She does everything on her own time! She is over 8 pounds now! She is in the 50th percentile for weight but less than the 10th for her height! So her face looks so round and chubby and so so so cute! She is only taking 2 to 3 feeds by bottle per day and we havent got to try nursing yet :(. Yesterday she had a swallowing test in Radiology where they had her drink milk mixed with contrast to see how she was swallowing it. The results of the test confirmed what the doctors and nurses suspected was going on. Dahlia is aspirating some of her milk which means some of it goes down her trachea. So now she is taking her milk along with a thickener that makes it the consistency of honey. She is doing much better now. She is expected to come home last, probably a couple of days after Preston. She will be coming home on oxygen too which will make for one very noisy house and little sleep with all of the O2 Monitors going off all of the time!

Madelyn-

What a little champ she is! She is just such a dream baby! Trever and I are getting about 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night and she is so scheduled that we can just set our alarms for her next feed. She hardly ever needs her home oxygen, I guess she is just really thriving being at home! The doctor said she looks great and she has gained 5 ounces since being home last week! You can really tell that she loves being held! It sure has been great as she wasnt hardly ever held in the NICU.

Eva-

What a great great big sister Eva is! Madelyn is "her" baby and she adores Madelyn! She has never showed any sign of jealousy or anything! She has had a couple of tantrums about little stuff but nothing we cant handle! It amazes me to watch her with Madelyn and how much she lights up when her "baba" is around!

Trever and I-

Alot of our loyal readers have asked how we are holding up. You all are so sweet! We have been the busiest we have ever been! With a toddler and a newborn at home and still going back and forth to the hospital we are always on the go! We are really focusing on taking time out for us even though we cant really go anywhere together because someone (that is CPR certified) has to stay with Madelyn. We dont yet feel 100% comfortable leaving her with my live-in sister for any extended period of time even though my sister has been amazing! Even if it is a 20 minute walk around the neighborhood, that is enough to keep our relationship solid and full of love. We are loving having one of our babies home! It really helps ease the ache we feel by not being the primary caregivers of our children. I mean seriously, if you have never had a child in the NICU it is one of the toughest things to have people tell you how to take care of your child, when you can hold them, that you must wear gloves before you can touch them etc. I mean, dont get me wrong our nurses are nothing short of amazing, I am just ready to be a full time mommy to my babies!

The amount of bonding we have gotten to experience with Madelyn is really wild! It makes me so happy but at the same time it makes me so sad that I havent got to do that with the other 3 of the quads.

It sure has been a long road but it has made the task of caring for them in the future so much more exciting!

Thank you thank you thank you for all of you wonderful friends and family members that have served us! Thank you to my mom who dropped everything to come here to help our family a couple of weeks ago, Thank you to Trever's mom who spent a week here helping with Eva and Madelyn in the mist of severe back pain, Thank you to Nana and Pop for being so anxious and will to help out, Thank you to Sister Wilding for all of the freezer meals, Thank you to the Otts, Angells, Masons, Bush, Jones, Richmonds and Lamarches for the wonderful dinners and all of those that have signed up to bring dinners for next week! Thank you Anita Bell for arranging for us to receive meals! Thank you to Kristi for giving us so many great things her triplets are done using, thank you to the McMurdie family for the tubs of clothes, thank you to all of my friends who have invited me to outings even though they know I probably cannot go, Thank you for all of the bags of stuff you have given me Casey (as well as the kindness and invaluable advice), Thank you to the Young Mens who came and landscaped 0ur yard for service,Thank you to the Sachse ward for all of the diapers! Thank you to all of our Primary nurses who take such good care of our babies! It means the world to us that you would sign up to be with our children every time you work! We love you so much and look at you like your a part of our family! And thank you so much Neysa for thinking of Eva amidst the miracle of the quads and letting her come play with her best friend Ally! She really needed that and we mustnt forget about how selfless she is for choosing to come to this family even when her siblings are going to demand alot of attention!

And last but not least, thank you to all of our readers and for all of your comments! They really keep us going and make us feel so good!