Six Months Old!

That’s how old our kids are now! On Tuesday, we were excited to realize that milestone. The babies have come so far. Earlier, I was remembering horrible morning sickness, hospitalized bed rest, 86 days in the NICU, weeks of trying to adjust to our suddenly large family, and *boom!* now they are six months old! What a happy day to make it this far!

Updates on the babies:

Over the last couple of weeks, we have brought Missouri First Steps into our home to work with the babies on their development. As preemies, they will have a unique set of challenges catching up with other kids their same age. We also had their first developmental check-up through the hospital. Generally, the kids are doing fine, but certain things will be targeted over the next six months.

Caleb will start seeing an occupational therapist once a month. He will be working on rolling, grasping toys, and sitting up with the assistance of something like a bumbo. He has been taken off of thickener because he is swallowing so much better. He is doing an awesome job scooting around on his back though! The other morning, I found him across the room from where I laid him with his arm curled around a bag of dirty diapers. Lol!

Abby will also see an occupational therapist once a month. She is already rolling from tummy to back and back to tummy, so her goals include playing with toys, sitting by herself, and *maybe* a little crawling. She was taken off of oxygen about six weeks ago, but couldn’t keep her sats up, so they put her back on it at night. We took her back for an oxygen sat check on Friday, and she was too low again, so they increase her oxygen time to include naps as well. She is now on it from 10pm-10am and then again from about 2pm-5pm. Bummer. We are really hoping that she will gain some weight and grow her lungs just a bit more so that we can lose her oxygen tanks and monitor. Other than her oxygen, Abby is really doing quite well developmentally. She rolls around, plays very well by herself, coos and smiles, and pushes up on her arms to look around.

Elijah will see an occupational therapist twice a month and a physical therapist once a month. He isn’t quite as far along as his two older siblings. He just started rolling from tummy to back this week and finally was able to push himself up enough while on his tummy to get his head off of the ground. We are proud of him for working so hard to accomplish it! He is our last baby to start doing those and definitely had a round of applause the first time he did both! Occupational therapy will work with him on gaining strength to roll and scoot. They will also work on having him sit with assistance. Physical therapy will concentrate on his neck. He favors holding his head to the right even though he can turn it to the left. We would like to see him look both ways equally and be willing to lie on the left side of his face. Happily, he came off of thickener as well. He is having to learn how to eat thin formula that isn’t the consistency of wall spackle anymore.

Ellie will see an occupational therapist every week and a physical therapist once a month. Occupational therapy will concentrate on helping Ellie to self-sooth and keep from getting over-stimulated (as you can imagine, there is quite a bit of stimulation at our house!). She will work on bringing her hands to mid-line, and grasping toys. In terms of where she is developmentally, she is coming in at the 1-2 month range instead of 3 months which is her adjusted age and the age that they use to assess her. Physical therapy will work with her legs. Ellie has some stiffness in her legs, especially in her hamstrings. She curls her feet in and doesn’t like to straighten them out. Our biggest concern with Ellie is the possibility of cerebral palsy, and we know that early intervention is the best thing that we can do if she does have it. We were told that the stiffness in her legs can be a sign of CP but that her arms seem to be doing well. However, we were also told that it is too early to know conclusively whether or not she has CP. Because of her risks, she will be monitored weekly in our home by First Steps, and then monthly or bi-monthly by the hospital. Most likely, we will have some answers when she gets to be between 9-12 months old. At the same time, she can push up on her arms and hold her head up like a champ! She’s definitely a fighter!

We have had quite a few first adventures in the last week, so the goal is to get another blog post up in a few days with LOTS of pictures and fun stories. Hopefully, I can make that happen!

–Posted by Rebecca

Babies Have Really Short Arms

Really. Have you ever noticed how truly short babies’ arms are?? It’s kind of fascinating! And cute! 🙂

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had a chance to update the blog. We seem to have found a routine which works well for us, but which also causes the days to fly by before we even realize that they have begun. As I type this, I have Caleb and Elijah asleep in their bouncers, Abby is on the floor playing with her gym, and Ellie is sitting on my lap because she absolutely refuses to be quiet anywhere else and her daddy is trying to take a quick nap. I’m seizing my opportunity to blog a bit. 

A few quick SIGNIFICANT updates!!

1)      The babies are now on a 4 hour eating schedule. It’s awesome to have a little extra time in between feedings to get things done. The babies made the transition seamlessly. I feel a little saner since I can actually get to the grocery store and back without wondering if I will make it in time for the next feeding.

2)      The babies are also sleeping through the night! Sean and I are beyond happy about that! We feed them from 9pm-10pm and then again from 6am-7am. They normally wake up in the middle of the night, but a quick flip onto their stomach puts them right back to sleep. 30 seconds to flip babies is so much easier on me than 2 feedings in the middle of the night that last an hour or longer. While we still definitely need our day helpers, we’ve managed to let our overnight help go, and Sean and I are handling the evenings and nights ourselves. It was a big move for us, but we are enjoying having some privacy back. At the same time though, we miss our good friends who were willing to sleep on the couch and feed babies at 2am just to help us survive the first 2 ½ months. Thanks to those of you who sacrificed your sleep right along with us!

After about three nights of them sleeping through the night, Sean looked at me and said, “Do you feel more rested now that they’ve slept through the night a couple of nights in a row or are you still exhausted?” I said, “Well, I’m still exhausted, but not quite as much, I guess. Why?” Then my smart-aleck husband answered, “Because you aren’t doing or saying as many stupid things as you were a couple of days ago.” Encouragement in its finest form! 

3)      Ellie found her thumb! I’ve had some people tell me that I will regret her thumb sucking in the future when I have to break her of the habit. Not a chance! She is so much happier now that she is a thumb sucker. After all, no one goes to college sucking their thumbs. J

The kids had another NICU Follow-Up appointment last Friday. Everybody is progressing nicely for the most part. Abby is the only baby who is still struggling a bit. She had been taken off of oxygen, but her oxygen saturation was too low on Friday and the doctor placed her back on oxygen at night. Not exactly what we were hoping for, but we definitely want her brain and organs to develop well. She will go back in three weeks to see if she has gotten her sats up. On the other hand, Ellie was completely discharged from the NICU follow-up! She never has to go back! And the boys will be reassessed for their swallowing difficulties at the babies’ Developmental Checkup in August to see if they can be taken off of their formula thickener. If they come off of it, they will be discharged as well! 

We had our first little bout of sickness here at the house last week. Thankfully, I was the sickest with a sinus and ear infection. Ellie and Abby both had runny noses and chest congestion, and Eli had a runny nose, but it was nothing more serious than that. Caleb managed to make it through the week without any issues. We had a few brave friends who still came to help with the babies in spite of the germs over here. I am so grateful to them for showing up! I wasn’t feeling well, and desperately needed the help.

Between overnight helpers, day helpers, dinner helpers, laundry helpers, and helpers who show up even when there is sickness, we are one blessed family! I tell you what, having quadruplets is an excellent way to find out who your really good friends are! 

Evening Bottle Prep

We got into the habit of getting all of the bottles needed during the night and first thing in the morning ready before bed. Even though the babies are sleeping through the night now, it’s still a good system. Grab four, pop them in the crockpot to warm, change diapers, and they are ready to go!

 

 

Trip to the NICU Follow-Up Appointment

  

 

Ellie: “Daddy, I don’t want to talk to the doctor today. I want to hold your hand instead.”

 

First Walk

We have two double strollers. I picked a “cool” evening to go, but apparently 92 degrees is still pretty hot and humid.

 

 

 

First Night in Their Room

Now we take them upstairs and let them co-bed up there during the night. In 3-4 weeks, we will move the two cribs in our living room up there and let them each have their own crib. Why are we waiting? Because it’s really convenient during the day to have cribs in the living room.

  

Who me??

 

Girl Time: Mommy, Abby, and Ellie

  

Five Month Pictures: Abby, Ellie, Caleb, and Elijah

We tried so hard to get Abby to wake up for this photo. Sean even picked her up and blew raspberries on her tummy, but she was just completely out. This was our best photo.

 –posted by Becca

A Little of This, A Little of That

Exhausted seems to be the overwhelming feeling these days. I know I’m running on fumes when I start to feel nauseous. I’m not sick, just so tired that I feel sick. Blah. Sean and I pretty much live from caffeine dose to caffeine dose (iced coffee, sweet tea, diet Dr. Pepper) these days. I have this theory that our moms purposely withheld information from us about morning sickness, pregnancy pains, and post delivery exhaustion in an effort to increase the population and get grandbabies. Hmm…and I have every intention of doing the same thing to my daughters. 🙂

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

I can’t wait for when the babies start talking. I LOVE the cute things that kids say and how literally they take everything. Until then, I have Sean to provide the humor. Here is an example of conversations that happen at our house:

Me: Caleb, you smell. You need a bath.
Sean: Maybe your mom can stay an extra 20 minutes tomorrow and help you give the kids baths.
Me: Wow, you really have no idea how long it takes to give all of them baths, do you?
Sean: It takes longer than 20 minutes??

Hehe! Sean always keeps me laughing, no matter how tired I get!

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

The babies’ personalities are continuing to develop. It is pretty amazing to me how different they all are being this small. In fact, Sean and I even gave each of the babies one of the seven dwarves’ names.

Caleb is Happy. Always okay with whatever we throw his way whether it is sleeping, eating, lying awake in his crib, or looking up at his jungle gym. He is so cute when we wake him up to feed him! Most people do that squinty-eyed, blinky thing to try to wake up. Caleb’s eyes shoot wide open and he stares around him like he can’t quite place where he is. Hehe!

Abby is Sleepy. Definitely our baby who sleeps this most. She’s also the quietest and most content to wait her turn to eat or have her diaper changed. She has had us worried since we brought her home because she tires out while eating and won’t finish her bottles. At the suggestion of one of our nurse friends who comes to help me, we switched her to a higher flow nipple on her bottle. It’s done wonders! She is able to get through a bottle without falling asleep now. That is a huge sigh of relief to us. She is also completely mesmerized by her daddy. All he has to do is walk into the room and start talking and you can tell that she cues right into his voice. Earlier today, he started reading Cinderella to her when she was a little upset and she calmed down to listen to him talking to her. Such a daddy’s girl! She also surprised us with her first smile on Thursday! Her first smile went to Grandmacita (my mom), but we’ve been able to get a couple out of her for ourselves since then.

Elijah is Doc. How did he end up with that dwarf? Mostly because all that was left for us to choose from by the time we gave him a name were Doc, Bashful, Sneezy, and Doopy. The last three didn’t fit him, so Doc it is. Elijah is a little bit more high-strung than Caleb, but still the most laid back when it comes to medical procedures…and that boy has certainly had his fair share. Really, as long as everyone respects his personal space, he is pretty content. The little cutie gave me his first smile on Thursday morning as well. We haven’t really been able to get much more out of him since then, but I’m pretty sure it was a real smile and not just a baby twitch. I think Eli is the most bored of all of the babies at this point. I’m excited to be getting some crib toys in the mail from Kami, one of my fellow quad mamas, this week. I think all of the babies, but especially Eli will enjoy them when they get here.

Ellie is Grumpy. She looks like such a little cherub in the pictures, but if she wore panties, they would constantly be in a wad. She’s generally only happy if she is asleep or eating. My favorite nickname for her is The Little Tomato. It is amazing how fast that little girl can scrunch up her face and turn red when she’s upset. A couple of days ago, she was squawking about something in spite of Sean trying to feed her. Finally, he picked her up, held her directly in front of his face and said, “Those two extra minutes in the womb did wonders for your personality!” Ellie makes us laugh the most because there is just no middle ground with her. She’s either completely happy or completely upset. Hey, we have to take the laughs where we can get them in our situation!

Which leaves me with the big question: Will they follow the stereotypical birth order types? Since they were only one minute apart (except for Ellie who got stuck and took two whole minutes to make her appearance), will it even apply?

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

Around Christmas time, Abundant Moments was having a gift certificate drawing that people could enter. Low and behold, I actually won! I never win anything! We won a newborn photography package where they take photos 4-5 times during the first year of the baby’s life. The only problem I had with the package was that we had four newborns. They were kind enough to work with us and include all of the babies in the package. Yay!

A couple of weeks ago, Debra came out with her assistant to take the first round of photos. Debra gave me written permission to post a few of my favorite photos to our blog. How cute are these little people??

 

The Babies: Caleb, Elijah, Ellie, and Abby 

The Girls: Ellie and Abby 

The Boys: Caleb and Elijah 

The photo of all four babies was taken right after Elijah peed on Ellie, Abby, and photographer. And the only baby that is really asleep in these photos is Abby. Debra is a very good photographer to get quadruplets to hold still, act asleep, and put herself in the direct line of pee in order to get some cute photos of the babies. We are due for our second session in a couple of months when we get to do a family photo!

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

And our last update, but certainly not least is that the Kansas City Star contacted us last week about writing a follow up article about our family. Jenee, who wrote the first article, came out to the house to meet the babies she wrote about back on January 1^st. She wrote another very kind, very well-written article about our family. If you would like to read her article, you can see it here.

Each baby has a memory box that we like to add special things to. Their micro-preemie knit hats, tiny blood pressure cuffs, articles written about them, and onesies with their names on them will all end up in their boxes. Hopefully, someday they will enjoy reading the blog about their first months of life and seeing the little things that we are saving for them.

Thank Goodness It’s Friday

I am so happy that it is Friday! This week has been particularly long and exhausting for us as we’ve hauled various kids around to doctors’ appointments this week.

Tuesday, I took Abby to her ophthalmologist appointment at Children’s Mercy Hospital South. We’ve been taking her every 2-3 weeks, so this was our 3^rd appointment since she has come home. While all of the other kids have been cleared until their next eye check-up at age 3, Abby has had some issues getting her right eye to fully develop (her left eye is fine). We saw a new doctor this week as her old doctor moved away. I really like her new doctor since she explained everything to me about how her eye has progressed since she was born. The concern is that her retina may detach from her eye, but this last check-up showed that it looks like it is starting to get to point where we may be out of the woods! The doctor said that hopefully she will only have to go back one more time, and then they can discharge her officially until her next check-up at age 3!

Wednesday was an even longer day. I didn’t get much sleep the night before and we had a full day of appointments. I took Caleb to the cardiologist in the morning. Children’s Mercy South is getting used to seeing me walk through the door! Caleb has a small PDA opening left in his heart and he also has a hole between the top two chambers of his heart. Due to the hole, his blood flow is not as efficient as it should be. We were told that he would most likely need surgery to have it plugged next summer. However, after the cardiologist did a heart echo and examined him, he said that there is a chance that we can skip the surgery! He said that it isn’t an all or nothing kind of thing. If it’s small enough, he will be fine and they won’t have to make any interventions. He also told me that it won’t be a full on surgery if they have to do something for him. They can fix it with a simple same-day procedure where they use a heart catheter to quickly plug the hole. They would fix the PDA at the same time if they were in there for the other issue. Caleb’s next appointment is in 6 months where we are hoping to hear that he won’t have to have the procedure done at all!

In the meantime, while I was at the hospital with Caleb, I had three wonderful helpers at home who were feeding and getting the rest of the babies ready to head back to the NICU at Saint Luke’s for their Follow-Up. Sean worked a half day and met me and Caleb back at home where we loaded up the whole clan and hit the road. Their follow-up went really well! Elijah and Ellie were both taken off of their monitors, so we now have three babies who are free of cords! Abby got to start weaning off of her oxygen today, and we should be done with that process by Tuesday. She does have to stay on her monitor awhile longer to make sure that she fully tolerates losing her oxygen, but we don’t foresee any issues with that. Truth be told, she hasn’t really been using her oxygen much in the last three weeks. We certainly do our best to keep the cannula in her nose, but she is very good about pulling it right back out as soon as we turn around. Sneaky little thing! It’s so nice to have fewer cords around here! Our next follow-up will be in about 4 weeks when they will look at changing the type of formula that the kids are on. We are hoping to move them from Alimentum, which is a hypo-allergenic formula, to Neosure, which is a formula made specifically for preemies.

One of the highlights of our visit was getting to see some of the nurses who took care of our kids during their time in the hospital. We also got to see their primary neonatologist (high-risk preemie/sick baby doctor) who was the admitting doctor in the operating room when they were born. She was kind enough to risk her very nice outfit and let four babies with severe reflux sit on her lap for a picture!

Dr. FlorendoEllie, Elijah, Caleb, and Abby

 

The really fun thing about having Dr. Florendo as their primary doctor is that her husband, Dr. Gibbs, was the maternal-fetal perinatologist (high-risk obstetrician) who took care of me while I was pregnant. They make quite the team! We were really blessed to have two such fantastic doctors taking care of all of us!

Yesterday (Thursday) we took the boys back to the NICU for their 4 month shots. They had such bad reactions to their two month shots that we didn’t want to risk bringing them home right away. The NICU kept them under observation for about 24 hours and they came home early this morning. We are happy to report that no one turned blue or quit breathing this time! The worst thing that happened was that Caleb had a fever. That, I can deal with!

And with that, we have completed most of our initial doctors’ appointments for the babies. We, of course, have more follow up appointments in the future, but we won’t be as inundated from here on out. Each baby has their own particular issues. Caleb sees a cardiologist for his heart, Abby sees an ophthalmologist for her eyes, Elijah will have a repeat video swallow-gram study in a couple of months for his swallowing difficulties, and Ellie sees a dermatologist for her hemangioma. (Someone left a comment asking what the spot is on Ellie’s head. It’s a hemangioma or birthmark. It will get bigger until she is one or two years old and then will most likely completely disappear by the time she starts kindergarten. She is seeing a dermatologist to make sure that it doesn’t get so big that it starts to affect her left eye. If it looks like it is getting too big, there is a laser treatment that they can do to encourage it to shrink faster.)

Now, my week is finishing up well! Our pastor, Tom, is coming over to take the night shift with Sean and babies. I get to sleep ALL OF THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! I’m so excited that I can hardly stand it! It’s been so long since I’ve had uninterrupted sleep. I’m taking Tylenol PM so that I don’t wake up automatically after 2 or 3 hours.

Everybody have a great night! I know that I will!! 🙂

–posted by Becca

Photo Shoot and Magazine Articles

Back in December, Kansas City Parent Magazine contacted me to see if I would write a few articles for them about what it’s like to have quadruplets. At this point, I’ve written three articles and had the pleasure of actually seeing them in print! When I was working on my English degree in college, I always thought it would be fun to be published someday. I worked as an editor on our campus literary journal and had a couple of pieces published through that, but hadn’t had anything beyond that printed. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed getting to write about our kids for KC Parent magazine!

My third article will be in the July issue of the magazine. It’s a free publication that can be found in over 1000 metro stores. For this article, they wanted to add some photos of the babies so that people who are following the series can see what we look like. They sent out Antisdels Photography to do a photo shoot with the babies at the beginning of the month. Our photographers were awesome and so patient while working with four infants who were getting a little cranky by the time we finished the pictures.

With permission from KC Parent Magazine, they’ve allowed me to post one of the photos that will be in the magazine on our blog:

I LOVE how it came out! All of the colors are so playful! (And yes, they did photo shop Ellie’s birth mark out) Many thanks to Kia the photographer, Natalie her assistant, Cheryl and my mom for helping me juggle babies throughout the shoot, and my mother-in-law for her great taste in picking out the overalls that the babies are wearing!

I encourage y’all to check out the publication! They have fun articles and resources for parents in the metro area. The same group also publishes KC Baby and KC Going Places (you can get them in the same stores that have KC Parent). KC Going Places is another magazine that I enjoy! It has information about different places in the metro that you can explore with your kids. I’ll definitely be taking advantage of that when my kids get just a little older.

And if you want to read the articles online you can see them here:

February Issue: Pregnant with Quadruplets

April Issue: Birth of Quadruplets (this article was taken directly from our blog because there wasn’t time to write one after the babies were born to make the due date)

July Issue: Life with Quadruples at Home 

 –posted by Becca

A Tale of Two Adventures

Such adventures at the Ishum house!

Adventure One:

The babies have now been home for a month and will be four months old tomorrow. It’s just flying past! Sean and I haven’t had a joint break out of the house together since they’ve come home though. I was hoping at some point in the near future to get to spend a little quality time with Sean, so I was delighted to get a text message from him last Tuesday about it!

The only odd part was that he sent it at 1:30am and it said, “I have a stabbing pain on the right side of my stomach. According to Google it could be my appendix.”

What?!

I sleep in the living room next to the babies’ cribs, so I immediately went upstairs to check on him. “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, what is your pain level?” “About an 8.” Great. Within a few minutes, I had called my mom to come over and help along with the overnight helpers who were already at our house and we were on our way to the emergency room. All of the way there, I was wondering if I was going to end up with four infants and an appendectomy patient to take care of. We hadn’t been back to Saint Luke’s Hospital in a few weeks, so really, it was high time to visit.

So on our first date out of the house alone, I was just hoping that he would spend $25 and take me out to a quick dinner then back home to the babies. Nothing fancy. Instead, he was a high-roller and spent $125 (co-pay), and gave me a 5 hour break from the babies at our “second home.” He forgot the food and drink, but at least he kept his appendix. What was the problem? Blood, urine, and CAT scan tests all came back fine, so the doctor said it could have been something he ate or a small kidney stone. Thank goodness that is all it was!

Now all six of us have been patients there this year. I bet our insurance company loves us!

Hopefully our next date is a little less exciting and preferably during waking hours! 🙂

Adventure Two:

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, we lost power at our house. The big storm that rolled through took out the power for over 60,000 people in the Kansas City metro area. We quickly learned how to change diapers and make formula by flashlight. When the power still hadn’t come back on a few hours later, I called my sister-in-law, Sarah (who works for the power company) to see if she had any idea of when they might restore power. She said that it could be quite a while, so Sean and I decided that we needed to move the babies because the house was heating up and the battery back-up on their monitors wouldn’t last much longer.

Sarah and Mike invited us over to their house to hang out until everything was fixed. Sarah checked the updates and told us that because one of the main lines went down, it could take 24-48 hours to bring everything back up. They headed over to our house to help and we commenced Project Relocation with the understanding that we might be staying with them for up to two days.

Holy cow! Babies have a TON of gear that has to go with them! Especially when you multiply it by 4!

We filled the trunk of Mike and Sarah’s car and the back of our minivan with baby paraphernalia. With four car seats in the body of the van, there isn’t enough room for anything else.

We ended up staying with them for about 26 hours. Sean and I had fun getting to spend time with one of our favorite couples, but the babies were definitely ready to go home by the time we were able to move everybody back. It was so kind of them to invite us over as Sarah is eight months pregnant with their first baby. They even let us use Alyvia’s crib and room while we were there!

All loaded up and ready to go! It’s a full mini-van! 

Ellie: “Are you sure about going on an overnight trip with us?” 

 

Cousin Aly’s room that our babies field tested. Good news, Mike and Sarah! It’s perfect! 

Ellie and Abby trying out Cousin Aly’s crib 

Eli and Caleb hanging out in the Pack ‘n Play. They managed to have their first fight here. Apparently our boys don’t really like to be touching each other. One would flail and hit the other who would flail and hit the first, etc. Lots of crying and carrying on… 

 

…so we fixed it like this! If they couldn’t reach out and touch each other, they got along MUCH better! 

 

 

Uncle Mike feeding Caleb 

 

Aunt Sarah feeding Elijah and Mommy feeding Abigail 

Daddy feeding Caleb 

Aunt Sarah and Mommy making dinner for the adults: Watermelon Lime drinks and homemade buffalo wings! So fun and super yummy! 

As nice as it was to get out of the house for a bit, now that we’ve done an overnight trip with the babies, we most definitely will not be traveling again anytime soon if we can possibly avoid it. It’s seriously like moving! Wow! On the upside, at least we know we can move them if necessary!

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

This weekend we also had the babies’ great-grandparents in town. I love getting to take pictures like these for the babies’ scrapbooks…you know, when I get that far. J

Great-Grandpa Eugene and Great-Grandma Ruby 

And then I love this photo of four generations of Ishum boys!

Grandpa Mike holding Elijah, Sean, and Great-Grandpa Eugene holding Caleb 

 –posted by Becca