Happy 1st Birthday, Babies!!!!

Happy 1st Birthday!!

Abby, Elijah, Caleb, and Ellie

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about today’s post.  My heart is so full of gratefulness and wonder at what we have experienced over the past year. Pregnancy and birth statistics along with the emotional, financial, and physical requirements have been absolutely daunting, but our God has proved over and over again that He is bigger than anything that we have faced or will face. 

Today is the babies’ first birthday.

We made it.

And God has been so kind to our family.

First Birthday?!?! Where did the time go? The days seemed ridiculously long and tedious, but the year flew by so quickly. In the past 365 days, the babies survived more than most parents ever even have to think about.

                -A high-risk, higher order multiple pregnancy

                -A sack leaking amniotic fluid at a time when birth would mean only a 50% chance of survival for each baby

                -A premature birth at 27 weeks, 6 days. They didn’t even make it to the 3rd trimester.

                -Ventilators down their throats, followed by CPAPs, and nasal cannulas

                -Watching the boys quit breathing and turn blue over and over again

                -Eating Issues for all of them, but more specifically Abby

                -HIV scare

                -Being hooked up to monitors for months on end. Abby finally lost the last monitor and tank of oxygen when they were 9 months old

                -Not to mention coming home with two clueless parents

                -And for kicks, let’s just throw in the tornado drill two weeks after they came home!

The kids SURVIVED all of that.

Heck, Sean and I survived all of that. And we are still smiling…most of the time! We are so blessed to get to be their parents and watch them grow up.

I’m going to say it again. God has been so abundantly kind to our family.

The babies have not only survived, they have flourished! We have four:

                 -happy (except for after 6:30pm at night)

                 -healthy (yay!)

                 -crawling and pulling up (heaven help me)

                 -baby food eating (yes, even Abby!)

                 -smiling, giggling, wiggling (by far the best part!)

                 -PRECIOUS

                                                 Little one year olds.

To God be the Glory, Great Things He has done.

I'm reminded of a Bible passage that I relied a lot on while I was hospitalized on bed rest. A dear friend called me one morning between doctors and monitoring and told me to read this passage as she felt it applied to my situation:

"Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death." - Philippians 1: 18b-20

At the time, we were fighting for every day that the kids had in the womb. I still remember the doctors telling us the morning after I was hospitalized for premature labor that if I delivered that day, our babies would only have a 50% chance of survival. It was so scary. I loved (and still do!) the phrase "sufficient courage." Just enough for that day of being pregnant, just enough for the day they were born, just enough when it came time to bring them all home from the hospital, just enough to get up through the night again and again to feed them, just enough to trust that God would allow them to see their first birthday.

Just enough. That's what I'm taking with me into this next year. I don't need enough to get me to their high school graduation. I only need sufficient courage to get me through today, trusting that our God will continue to keep His hand on our family as He has been so faithful to do from the beginning...even when I thought surely He had been distracted by something else when we got pregnant with four!

Thank you to all who have supported us, prayed for us, helped us financially, sent encouraging messages and understood when I took forever to respond, prepared meals for us, and loved us over the course of our pregnancy and first year with the babies. I remember at one point putting in a post that believers from around the world were praying for us. I think they still are. We are still getting hits on our blog from countries all over the world.

You have blessed us and we have been honored to get to share our journey so far with you.

Caleb

Born at 4:11pm

Birth weight: 2 lbs. 5 oz.                   Now weighs: 18 lbs. 2oz.

Abigail

Born at 4:12pm

Birth weight: 2 lbs. 5 oz.                        Now weighs: 16 lbs. 6 oz.

Elijah

Born at 4:13pm

Birth weight: 2 lbs. 3 oz.                   Now weighs: 18 lbs.

Elizabeth

Born at 4:15pm

Birth weight: 1 lb. 14 oz.                   Now weighs: 16 lbs. 8 oz.

Happy 1st Birthday!!

Abby, Elijah, Caleb, and Ellie

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about today’s post.  My heart is so full of gratefulness and wonder at what we have experienced over the past year. Pregnancy and birth statistics along with the emotional, financial, and physical requirements have been absolutely daunting, but our God has proved over and over again that He is bigger than anything that we have faced or will face. 

Today is the babies’ first birthday.

We made it.

And God has been so kind to our family.

First Birthday?!?! Where did the time go? The days seemed ridiculously long and tedious, but the year flew by so quickly. In the past 365 days, the babies survived more than most parents ever even have to think about.

                -A high-risk, higher order multiple pregnancy

                -A sack leaking amniotic fluid at a time when birth would mean only a 50% chance of survival for each baby

                -A premature birth at 27 weeks, 6 days. They didn’t even make it to the 3rd trimester.

                -Ventilators down their throats, followed by CPAPs, and nasal cannulas

                -Watching the boys quit breathing and turn blue over and over again

                -Eating Issues for all of them, but more specifically Abby

                -HIV scare

                -Being hooked up to monitors for months on end. Abby finally lost the last monitor and tank of oxygen when they were 9 months old

                -Not to mention coming home with two clueless parents

                -And for kicks, let’s just throw in the tornado drill two weeks after they came home!

The kids SURVIVED all of that.

Heck, Sean and I survived all of that. And we are still smiling…most of the time! We are so blessed to get to be their parents and watch them grow up.

I’m going to say it again. God has been so abundantly kind to our family.

The babies have not only survived, they have flourished! We have four:

                 -happy (except for after 6:30pm at night)

                 -healthy (yay!)

                 -crawling and pulling up (heaven help me)

                 -baby food eating (yes, even Abby!)

                 -smiling, giggling, wiggling (by far the best part!)

                 -PRECIOUS

                                                 Little one year olds.

To God be the Glory, Great Things He has done.

I'm reminded of a Bible passage that I relied a lot on while I was hospitalized on bed rest. A dear friend called me one morning between doctors and monitoring and told me to read this passage as she felt it applied to my situation:

"Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death." - Philippians 1: 18b-20

At the time, we were fighting for every day that the kids had in the womb. I still remember the doctors telling us the morning after I was hospitalized for premature labor that if I delivered that day, our babies would only have a 50% chance of survival. It was so scary. I loved (and still do!) the phrase "sufficient courage." Just enough for that day of being pregnant, just enough for the day they were born, just enough when it came time to bring them all home from the hospital, just enough to get up through the night again and again to feed them, just enough to trust that God would allow them to see their first birthday.

Just enough. That's what I'm taking with me into this next year. I don't need enough to get me to their high school graduation. I only need sufficient courage to get me through today, trusting that our God will continue to keep His hand on our family as He has been so faithful to do from the beginning...even when I thought surely He had been distracted by something else when we got pregnant with four!

Thank you to all who have supported us, prayed for us, helped us financially, sent encouraging messages and understood when I took forever to respond, prepared meals for us, and loved us over the course of our pregnancy and first year with the babies. I remember at one point putting in a post that believers from around the world were praying for us. I think they still are. We are still getting hits on our blog from countries all over the world.

You have blessed us and we have been honored to get to share our journey so far with you.

Caleb

Born at 4:11pm

Birth weight: 2 lbs. 5 oz.                   Now weighs: 18 lbs. 2oz.

Abigail

Born at 4:12pm

Birth weight: 2 lbs. 5 oz.                        Now weighs: 16 lbs. 6 oz.

Elijah

Born at 4:13pm

Birth weight: 2 lbs. 3 oz.                   Now weighs: 18 lbs.

Elizabeth

Born at 4:15pm

Birth weight: 1 lb. 14 oz.                   Now weighs: 16 lbs. 8 oz.

Cereal, Crawling, and Christmas is Coming

One week until Christmas!

I thought this year would be pretty low key with being on lockdown, but somehow, four babies have made for it being anything but that!

The kids are definitely keeping us crazy busy!

Caleb is such a sweetie, but he hasn’t done much in terms of moving from point A to point B yet. Why go to all that work when eventually someone will just make the move for him?? He rolls a lot though and gets up on his knees a bit. I imagine he is not too far behind the others. His favorite thing is giggling. He loves being tickled and sometimes he will just lie on the floor and laugh at his own private jokes. Hmm…reminds me a lot of his father.

We wish a little of his happiness would rub off on the kid that was born four minutes later.



Now that Abby has figured out how to crawl, she thinks she is a cat. If she wants to be picked up and one of us are sitting on the couch, she crawls over and rubs up against our legs…or head butts us. Whatever strikes her fancy, I guess. She also likes to lick our knees when we are down on the floor. I really don’t know what to do with that….

Happily though, she FINALLY decided to give up her oxygen. It was a surreal feeling packing up all of her monitors and supplies to go back to the medical company. For all intents and purposes, we have had a mobile NICU unit set up here, and suddenly, we were done. Nine long months of fighting to get them stable and breathing without support and **BAM** we’re finished. Not complaining, of course. It’s just such a strange thing to watch the gear that has accompanied us everywhere walk out the front door and then look down and realize that my daughter is officially unattached to it.



Elijah is doing what I like to call “The Injured Soldier Crawl.” He throws one arm out and then drags the other three limbs behind it. It’s kind of hilarious by itself, but the physical and occupational therapists are now zeroing in on him to develop core strength. That boy hates therapy like non-other. His therapists were telling me yesterday that most kids can be coaxed into doing their exercises after awhile, but not Eli. He is a total wet noodle, and does his best to stay that way. I think his unequivocal refusal to do anything is definitely challenging to his therapists. Other than that, he is the most laid-back, genuinely happy baby I’ve ever met.

I’m sure his sisters would be thrilled, though, if he would stop kicking them in the face. Yep, I’m already having to separate my kids.

 

Our runt. Ellie is a crazy little thing! She suddenly decided to start crawling a few days ago without any warning. When I left for the grocery store, she was just spinning around in circles. By the time I got back, she was crawling all over the place. There really was no lead up to it. She just decided she was going to start crawling and got down to business!

Always our high maintenance child, she is currently driving us both up the wall with her constant crying in the evening. She isn’t hungry, wet, dirty, cold, or in pain. She just wants to be held for hours on end. Even if Sean is playing on the floor with the kids, if he isn’t playing specifically with her, she screams about it. We try not to let her dictate how our evening goes since we have to get other things done too (like eat dinner), or play with our other kids, but we are kind of suckers. She gets held a lot. She’s a hoot though because when she is playing or laughing, she makes sounds like she is a lion. When she’s happy, she’s thrilled to be alive! And when she’s sad, we aren’t thrilled to be alive. Go figure.



******************************************

I have to stop for a minute and ask, “Did you like the previous four photos?” We love them! They were taken by the same photographer, Debra, from Abundant Moments Photography who did the babies Newborn shoot. We are super lucky to have won that gift certificate! Woot! We now have a large print of our family and a large print of them all curled up together naked on our dining room wall (Don’t worry. The nakedness is tasteful. Everybody can still eat. :-) )

We still have another shoot or two in the next few months before we are done. We are talking about doing one either here at the house in their environment (once they can sit up by themselves) and/or a first birthday shoot. If you want to see her other work or are curious about her, you can go here.

 

These photos are treasures at our house!

******************************************

Sean’s parents’ brought over the babies’ first Christmas tree last weekend, so we set about decorating it. In a bid to keep pine needles out of their mouths, the tree is sitting on our kitchen table on the other side of the gate. But for this photo, I asked Sean to move it into their play area. Sean’s mom also brought over Christmas pajamas, so we dressed them up and took their first Christmas photo.

A Christmas Elf, Santa Claus, A Reindeer, and The Kid who Thinks if She Stays up Long Enough She Will Catch Santa Coming Down the Chimney

(we haven’t had the heart yet to tell Ellie that we don’t have a fireplace or chimney in our living room).

*******************************************

One last treat for those of you who like to see videos of our kids. We have officially started rice cereal! We are taking it very slowly to give their digestive systems time to adjust, so we are sticking with just the cereal right now. Curious how that’s going? I’ll let the video speak for itself.

In case we don’t talk before then, we wish you a Very Merry Christmas!

-Becca

One week until Christmas!

I thought this year would be pretty low key with being on lockdown, but somehow, four babies have made for it being anything but that!

The kids are definitely keeping us crazy busy!

Caleb is such a sweetie, but he hasn’t done much in terms of moving from point A to point B yet. Why go to all that work when eventually someone will just make the move for him?? He rolls a lot though and gets up on his knees a bit. I imagine he is not too far behind the others. His favorite thing is giggling. He loves being tickled and sometimes he will just lie on the floor and laugh at his own private jokes. Hmm…reminds me a lot of his father.

We wish a little of his happiness would rub off on the kid that was born four minutes later.



Now that Abby has figured out how to crawl, she thinks she is a cat. If she wants to be picked up and one of us are sitting on the couch, she crawls over and rubs up against our legs…or head butts us. Whatever strikes her fancy, I guess. She also likes to lick our knees when we are down on the floor. I really don’t know what to do with that….

Happily though, she FINALLY decided to give up her oxygen. It was a surreal feeling packing up all of her monitors and supplies to go back to the medical company. For all intents and purposes, we have had a mobile NICU unit set up here, and suddenly, we were done. Nine long months of fighting to get them stable and breathing without support and **BAM** we’re finished. Not complaining, of course. It’s just such a strange thing to watch the gear that has accompanied us everywhere walk out the front door and then look down and realize that my daughter is officially unattached to it.



Elijah is doing what I like to call “The Injured Soldier Crawl.” He throws one arm out and then drags the other three limbs behind it. It’s kind of hilarious by itself, but the physical and occupational therapists are now zeroing in on him to develop core strength. That boy hates therapy like non-other. His therapists were telling me yesterday that most kids can be coaxed into doing their exercises after awhile, but not Eli. He is a total wet noodle, and does his best to stay that way. I think his unequivocal refusal to do anything is definitely challenging to his therapists. Other than that, he is the most laid-back, genuinely happy baby I’ve ever met.

I’m sure his sisters would be thrilled, though, if he would stop kicking them in the face. Yep, I’m already having to separate my kids.

 

Our runt. Ellie is a crazy little thing! She suddenly decided to start crawling a few days ago without any warning. When I left for the grocery store, she was just spinning around in circles. By the time I got back, she was crawling all over the place. There really was no lead up to it. She just decided she was going to start crawling and got down to business!

Always our high maintenance child, she is currently driving us both up the wall with her constant crying in the evening. She isn’t hungry, wet, dirty, cold, or in pain. She just wants to be held for hours on end. Even if Sean is playing on the floor with the kids, if he isn’t playing specifically with her, she screams about it. We try not to let her dictate how our evening goes since we have to get other things done too (like eat dinner), or play with our other kids, but we are kind of suckers. She gets held a lot. She’s a hoot though because when she is playing or laughing, she makes sounds like she is a lion. When she’s happy, she’s thrilled to be alive! And when she’s sad, we aren’t thrilled to be alive. Go figure.



******************************************

I have to stop for a minute and ask, “Did you like the previous four photos?” We love them! They were taken by the same photographer, Debra, from Abundant Moments Photography who did the babies Newborn shoot. We are super lucky to have won that gift certificate! Woot! We now have a large print of our family and a large print of them all curled up together naked on our dining room wall (Don’t worry. The nakedness is tasteful. Everybody can still eat. :-) )

We still have another shoot or two in the next few months before we are done. We are talking about doing one either here at the house in their environment (once they can sit up by themselves) and/or a first birthday shoot. If you want to see her other work or are curious about her, you can go here.

 

These photos are treasures at our house!

******************************************

Sean’s parents’ brought over the babies’ first Christmas tree last weekend, so we set about decorating it. In a bid to keep pine needles out of their mouths, the tree is sitting on our kitchen table on the other side of the gate. But for this photo, I asked Sean to move it into their play area. Sean’s mom also brought over Christmas pajamas, so we dressed them up and took their first Christmas photo.

A Christmas Elf, Santa Claus, A Reindeer, and The Kid who Thinks if She Stays up Long Enough She Will Catch Santa Coming Down the Chimney

(we haven’t had the heart yet to tell Ellie that we don’t have a fireplace or chimney in our living room).

*******************************************

One last treat for those of you who like to see videos of our kids. We have officially started rice cereal! We are taking it very slowly to give their digestive systems time to adjust, so we are sticking with just the cereal right now. Curious how that’s going? I’ll let the video speak for itself.

In case we don’t talk before then, we wish you a Very Merry Christmas!

-Becca

Rolling, Wiggling, and Giggling!

Hello blog world!

Apparently life only gets busier! I've been meaning to post for...oh....three weeks now. So updates and SO many pictures!

Caleb is rolling around on the floor these days, picking up toys, and traveling around on the floor to visit with all of his siblings. He gets a little bummed out sometimes if he doesn’t get a response from them. Such a precious little boy! When the others cry, he immediately tries to find out which of his sisters or brother is in trouble to see what’s going on. He gets the most concerned expression on his face and will stop playing or eating until everything is okay again. He is doing very well developmentally! He isn’t quite sitting up by himself yet, but with a little assistance, he does manage to balance himself using his arms and stay upright for a few seconds. He eats like a champ, and doesn’t spit up nearly as much as he used to. Thank goodness! He used to go by the nickname, Caleb the Erupter! Of course, now that he likes to take his pants off (see photo), he needs to be careful or he will end up with a new nickname!



Abby is our special baby right now (They are all special, but Abby is our ‘specially challenging one). We have really been struggling with her over the last few weeks with her eating. She has never been a very good eater, but recently she has been regressing. We literally force feed her these days while she tries to hit, kick, and knock the bottle out of our hands. We have begun using the “Abby Straight Jacket” (swaddle her from the neck down) in order to limit her movement. This is especially frustrating to us since we need her to grow so that she can get off of oxygen. That’s right. Our 7 ½ month old baby is STILL on oxygen support overnight and during naps. Now that her eating is getting worse, we are desperate to keep her weight moving in the right direction. We did admit her to Children’s Mercy for tests this week including an Upper GI and an Endoscopy. Neither showed anything wrong with her anatomy or tissue. Now we are waiting for biopsy results to come back in case there was something that couldn’t be seen with the x-ray or scope. It’s possible we just have a finicky eater, but we felt it prudent to be proactive. Other than her eating and breathing issues, Abby is an absolute star when it comes to development. Not only has she been rolling front to back the longest, she is also our happiest baby! She has no problem laying on the floor and chewing on her toys by herself, but if you catch her eye, she has the BIGGEST smile ready for you! She isn’t afraid of strangers at all and loves to share her sun-shiny personality with them. She is an obvious favorite with nurses!



Eli is such a cuddle bug! He is teething right now and quite a bit fussier than he usually is, but calms right down if he can just have a few minutes to cuddle. He has the most outrageous laugh out of the group! He easily smiles, but laughs are a little harder to come by. If we manage to get one of his scream/laughs out of him, Sean and I practically die! It’s hilarious! Video of Elijah laughing. He just started rolling back to tummy this week and we seriously can’t pin this boy down. Yesterday when I went to pick up Abby and Sean from the hospital, our helper, Cheryl, built a barricade with couch pillows because he kept rolling away. Today while we were feeding the girls, Elijah started rolling and by the time we got to him, he was in our dining room.  It’s amazing how fast these kids go from not doing something developmentally to us not being able to catch them!



Ellie has made vast improvements over the last 3 or 4 weeks. She developed an open wound and staph infection in her hemangioma about 5 or 6 weeks ago. The NICU follow-up doctor told us that she had never seen that happen before. Apparently, it just grew far too fast and became infected. We took her to the dermatologist and started doing wound dressings every night along with another oral medication to help control the growth. After about four days of treating it, Ellie was an entirely different baby! When we first brought her home, she cried so much, I thought I was going to go crazy. We thought it might be sensory related, but now we are thinking that her hemangioma may have played a part in it. Thankfully, the staph infection is gone and the hemangioma itself has shrunk considerably in size. Now she happily plays on the floor next to her siblings and is in a good mood most of the time! Her favorite place to be is in the corner of the mat on her tummy so that she can watch everything that is happening in the room. The tone in her legs has definitely improved, and she has serious abs of steel. She can easily hold herself up on her arms for 45 minutes at a time (see photo below of her and Grandmacita). Her smiles are precious because we have had so few of them up until now. It’s so nice to have a daughter who actually seems to enjoy life!



So there you have it! 7 ½ months old and they are all rolling around and playing. (I uploaded a video of the babies following a rattle if you care to see it.) This week, Sean and I plan on getting gates up to block off our living room and lower their cribs so that they don’t launch themselves out. Yikes! I thought my life was crazy up to now. I’m really dreading when they start crawling! Who needs a workout when you are chasing FOUR crawling babies?!

*******************************

We are officially under lockdown for this year’s RSV and flu season.  We had fun taking the kids to grandparents’ houses a few times this summer, but from now until May, our kids won’t leave the house unless we have a doctor’s appointment (or we lose power again, but let’s all pray that doesn’t happen!) We are very serious about our lockdown because it could very well mean the difference between a hospital stay for everybody or getting to spend the cold weather safely at home. Most everyone knows that we have tried to keep our babies away from extra people since they came home, but now that’s crucial. Other than a few select people who come to help me during the day and our families, we can’t let anyone in the house. We have had a few people stop by without making prior arrangements with us. Although we know friends always have good intentions, we ask that you please respect what we are trying to do to stay on schedule, make it to our appointments, and protect our kids by not coming by the house unannounced. Come May, things will get easier for us, but for now, we are going to be doing our best impersonations of hermits. :-) Thanks for understanding!!

**********************************

And for your enjoyment, a slew of photos in no particular order!

 

7 Month Photo! (clockwise from bottom left corner) Caleb, Abby, Ellie, and Eli

First Picnic: We completely rearranged our house over Labor Day Weekend. Our living room no longer looks like a nursery! All of the kids are now sleeping in their own cribs upstairs. On Labor Day, we had our two families over for a backyard picnic. We threw a big blanket our on the grass and put all of the attending babies out there to enjoy the sun. This photo is of our four kids plus their cousin Aly. Our girls weren’t too thrilled with the great outdoors. Their other cousin, Marissa, was running around playing and unfortunately we didn’t catch her in the photo.  (clockwise from lower left corner): Elijah, Abby, Caleb, Ellie, and Aly

At the end of September, my grandpa, Paul Taylor from New Mexico (I grew up down there for those of you who didn’t know that) and my Aunt Mary Helen flew up to meet their new relatives. I was SO excited when I heard that my 91-year-old grandpa was willing to get on a plane to come visit us! Caleb, Ellie, Abby, and Eli 

Four Generations! Ellie, Mommy, Caleb, Great-Grandpa, Elijah, Grandmacita, and Abby

We took a bunch of great photos, but I LOVE this photo of Abby smiling at her Great-Grandpa. 

This was just hilarious! Aunt Mary Helen sat on the floor, and I started piling babies up for a photo. Somehow, Abby ended up on the bottom of the pile. Haha! She took it so well but eventually didn’t think that having her brothers sit on her was the best idea. We were all laughing so hard! Caleb (in yellow), Abby, Eli, and Ellie with Aunt Mary Helen

This is a precious photo also! Great-Grandpa suddenly decided that he wanted to play on the floor with Ellie. 91 years old and he got on the floor! He’s obviously still full of energy and fun!

How cute is this photo? I caught all three of them smiling! :-)  Elijah, Daddy, and Caleb

Ever wondered how much formula a quad family goes through in a month? Yes, I do attract attention when I go to Walmart.

Don’t you just love jeans on babies? I do!  Ellie, Elijah, Abby, and Caleb 

Brothers!!  Caleb and Elijah 

Getting So Big!  Caleb, Abby, Elijah, and Ellie 

--Posted by Becca

Hello blog world!

Apparently life only gets busier! I've been meaning to post for...oh....three weeks now. So updates and SO many pictures!

Caleb is rolling around on the floor these days, picking up toys, and traveling around on the floor to visit with all of his siblings. He gets a little bummed out sometimes if he doesn’t get a response from them. Such a precious little boy! When the others cry, he immediately tries to find out which of his sisters or brother is in trouble to see what’s going on. He gets the most concerned expression on his face and will stop playing or eating until everything is okay again. He is doing very well developmentally! He isn’t quite sitting up by himself yet, but with a little assistance, he does manage to balance himself using his arms and stay upright for a few seconds. He eats like a champ, and doesn’t spit up nearly as much as he used to. Thank goodness! He used to go by the nickname, Caleb the Erupter! Of course, now that he likes to take his pants off (see photo), he needs to be careful or he will end up with a new nickname!



Abby is our special baby right now (They are all special, but Abby is our ‘specially challenging one). We have really been struggling with her over the last few weeks with her eating. She has never been a very good eater, but recently she has been regressing. We literally force feed her these days while she tries to hit, kick, and knock the bottle out of our hands. We have begun using the “Abby Straight Jacket” (swaddle her from the neck down) in order to limit her movement. This is especially frustrating to us since we need her to grow so that she can get off of oxygen. That’s right. Our 7 ½ month old baby is STILL on oxygen support overnight and during naps. Now that her eating is getting worse, we are desperate to keep her weight moving in the right direction. We did admit her to Children’s Mercy for tests this week including an Upper GI and an Endoscopy. Neither showed anything wrong with her anatomy or tissue. Now we are waiting for biopsy results to come back in case there was something that couldn’t be seen with the x-ray or scope. It’s possible we just have a finicky eater, but we felt it prudent to be proactive. Other than her eating and breathing issues, Abby is an absolute star when it comes to development. Not only has she been rolling front to back the longest, she is also our happiest baby! She has no problem laying on the floor and chewing on her toys by herself, but if you catch her eye, she has the BIGGEST smile ready for you! She isn’t afraid of strangers at all and loves to share her sun-shiny personality with them. She is an obvious favorite with nurses!



Eli is such a cuddle bug! He is teething right now and quite a bit fussier than he usually is, but calms right down if he can just have a few minutes to cuddle. He has the most outrageous laugh out of the group! He easily smiles, but laughs are a little harder to come by. If we manage to get one of his scream/laughs out of him, Sean and I practically die! It’s hilarious! Video of Elijah laughing. He just started rolling back to tummy this week and we seriously can’t pin this boy down. Yesterday when I went to pick up Abby and Sean from the hospital, our helper, Cheryl, built a barricade with couch pillows because he kept rolling away. Today while we were feeding the girls, Elijah started rolling and by the time we got to him, he was in our dining room.  It’s amazing how fast these kids go from not doing something developmentally to us not being able to catch them!



Ellie has made vast improvements over the last 3 or 4 weeks. She developed an open wound and staph infection in her hemangioma about 5 or 6 weeks ago. The NICU follow-up doctor told us that she had never seen that happen before. Apparently, it just grew far too fast and became infected. We took her to the dermatologist and started doing wound dressings every night along with another oral medication to help control the growth. After about four days of treating it, Ellie was an entirely different baby! When we first brought her home, she cried so much, I thought I was going to go crazy. We thought it might be sensory related, but now we are thinking that her hemangioma may have played a part in it. Thankfully, the staph infection is gone and the hemangioma itself has shrunk considerably in size. Now she happily plays on the floor next to her siblings and is in a good mood most of the time! Her favorite place to be is in the corner of the mat on her tummy so that she can watch everything that is happening in the room. The tone in her legs has definitely improved, and she has serious abs of steel. She can easily hold herself up on her arms for 45 minutes at a time (see photo below of her and Grandmacita). Her smiles are precious because we have had so few of them up until now. It’s so nice to have a daughter who actually seems to enjoy life!



So there you have it! 7 ½ months old and they are all rolling around and playing. (I uploaded a video of the babies following a rattle if you care to see it.) This week, Sean and I plan on getting gates up to block off our living room and lower their cribs so that they don’t launch themselves out. Yikes! I thought my life was crazy up to now. I’m really dreading when they start crawling! Who needs a workout when you are chasing FOUR crawling babies?!

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We are officially under lockdown for this year’s RSV and flu season.  We had fun taking the kids to grandparents’ houses a few times this summer, but from now until May, our kids won’t leave the house unless we have a doctor’s appointment (or we lose power again, but let’s all pray that doesn’t happen!) We are very serious about our lockdown because it could very well mean the difference between a hospital stay for everybody or getting to spend the cold weather safely at home. Most everyone knows that we have tried to keep our babies away from extra people since they came home, but now that’s crucial. Other than a few select people who come to help me during the day and our families, we can’t let anyone in the house. We have had a few people stop by without making prior arrangements with us. Although we know friends always have good intentions, we ask that you please respect what we are trying to do to stay on schedule, make it to our appointments, and protect our kids by not coming by the house unannounced. Come May, things will get easier for us, but for now, we are going to be doing our best impersonations of hermits. :-) Thanks for understanding!!

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And for your enjoyment, a slew of photos in no particular order!

 

7 Month Photo! (clockwise from bottom left corner) Caleb, Abby, Ellie, and Eli

First Picnic: We completely rearranged our house over Labor Day Weekend. Our living room no longer looks like a nursery! All of the kids are now sleeping in their own cribs upstairs. On Labor Day, we had our two families over for a backyard picnic. We threw a big blanket our on the grass and put all of the attending babies out there to enjoy the sun. This photo is of our four kids plus their cousin Aly. Our girls weren’t too thrilled with the great outdoors. Their other cousin, Marissa, was running around playing and unfortunately we didn’t catch her in the photo.  (clockwise from lower left corner): Elijah, Abby, Caleb, Ellie, and Aly

At the end of September, my grandpa, Paul Taylor from New Mexico (I grew up down there for those of you who didn’t know that) and my Aunt Mary Helen flew up to meet their new relatives. I was SO excited when I heard that my 91-year-old grandpa was willing to get on a plane to come visit us! Caleb, Ellie, Abby, and Eli 

Four Generations! Ellie, Mommy, Caleb, Great-Grandpa, Elijah, Grandmacita, and Abby

We took a bunch of great photos, but I LOVE this photo of Abby smiling at her Great-Grandpa. 

This was just hilarious! Aunt Mary Helen sat on the floor, and I started piling babies up for a photo. Somehow, Abby ended up on the bottom of the pile. Haha! She took it so well but eventually didn’t think that having her brothers sit on her was the best idea. We were all laughing so hard! Caleb (in yellow), Abby, Eli, and Ellie with Aunt Mary Helen

This is a precious photo also! Great-Grandpa suddenly decided that he wanted to play on the floor with Ellie. 91 years old and he got on the floor! He’s obviously still full of energy and fun!

How cute is this photo? I caught all three of them smiling! :-)  Elijah, Daddy, and Caleb

Ever wondered how much formula a quad family goes through in a month? Yes, I do attract attention when I go to Walmart.

Don’t you just love jeans on babies? I do!  Ellie, Elijah, Abby, and Caleb 

Brothers!!  Caleb and Elijah 

Getting So Big!  Caleb, Abby, Elijah, and Ellie 

--Posted by Becca