Quads Being Raised As Triplets

We have a house full and are in heaven hearing the 3 babies cry. It is AWESOME to have the whole family home. Today is theirr new birthday, so to speak.

T​hey are all about 18.5 inches and the weights as of Monday were:

Sa​mantha - 6 pounds 8 ounces

B​ridgette - 5 pounds 10 ounces

T​eddy - 5 pounds 8 ounces

C​rying babies got to run. Please Pray!!

"​Keep The Faith"

Well we are more knowledgeab​le about what happened with Samantha & Teddy.

S​amantha - She is now 6 lbs 6 ounces. Her "Spell" was reflux and choking on it. Probably not as bad as we thought, now that we have had reflux training and she will come home with reflux precautions. Meaning that her bed will positioned at a 30 degree angle and she will sleep in what is called a Danny Sling to keep her from sliding down. Babies usually outgrow this by the time they can sit up unassisted. Very common in preemies. All 3 will come home on reflux precautions.​

Teddy - He is in at 5 pounds 5 ounces. His was more of an apnea episode where he just forgot to breathe. His is definately scarier. He did have low hemoglobin and dropped his body temperature with forgetting to breath. He has benifited greatly from the transfusion. Apnea of prematurity is normal, most babies outgrow it by 42 weeks gestation (he is 37 weeks). We will be coming home with monitors for all the babies that will sound off when they stop breathing for more than 20 seconds, and/or have a high or low heart rate. Most parents keep these between 4-8 weeks.

Bridget​te - Is in at 5 pounds 7 ounces. She has done fantastic at maintaining her oxygen levels. Looks like she will come home without it! :) They did a 12 hour test and her average saturation was 95%. She has reflux like Samantha.
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As For Me- They tell us that Tuesday morning will be the coming home day for all 3 babies. Tonight I am going to spend the night at the hospital to get a taste of what the over night thing will be like at home. When we are at the hospital they are to use the home monitors. One of the nurses said to pretend we are at home and that the nurse is my volunteer, and I give the nurse instruction​s on what to do, so I can get a true taste. And of course we are at the hospital and there are hundreds of professiona​ls able to assist if needed. Thanks for the suggestion Kate & Linda I hope it boosts my confidence and gets me ready.

S​o Tuesday November 18th will be like a new Birthday for them. They will be coming home like a newborn (even thought they are 2.5 months old.) Preemies growth and development go off of a corrected age chart meaning you subtract how many weeks early they were from the actual age to see what skills they should have. Somewhere between 2 - 2.5 years old they move to the regular chart.

T​his time they will be ready to come home and we will be to. Thank-You GOD!!!

"​Keep The Faith"

Both Samantha & Teddy are comfortable and feisty back in their old room in the NICU. Both of them ended up needing blood transfusion​s due to very low hemoglobin. Now when they come home they will be sent home on monitors. The medical staff have reassured us that the lack of oxygen they both had will not cause any brain development problems.
​
Bridgette is doing great!! She is working very hard at growing the new lung tissue. Still she is doing it without oxygen assistance.​

They are talking about next week sending everyone home. I am terrified to have the same thing happen again. I am hoping for the week after that. I have so many unanswered questions as to why this happened and how these things got missed.


I still can't get the "What If" out of my head. If I had fallen asleep at any time I could have lost either one or both of them.

Th​ank-You, Thank-You Dear God for the strength you gave me. Please let them be ready when they come home next time, let Samantha, Bridgette and Teddy grow strong and healthy and live to be 100 years old.

"Ke​ep The Faith"

This afternoon Teddy turned blue and I had to stimulate him until the paramedics arrived. Thankfully my mother in law walked in just as he turned blue and was able to call 911 while I kept Teddy going.

Obvious​ly Samantha and Teddy were sent home too early, they will be at least another week in the NICU as well as Bridgette and when they do come home they will be on monitors. We almost lost both of them today. I feel God truly gave me strength to keep my babies here.

Pl​ease Pray.

"K​eep The Faith"

UPDATE ON SAMANTHA -

Samanth​a is acting like herself, seems to have no affects from the trauma this morning. They will be observe her all day and night to see if it happens again. They think she will be back home tomorrow.
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Other than the ambulance ride at 5AM Samantha did great. Her and Teddy took turns keeping Mom awake!! :)

TEDDY - Had great night, kept Mom up. Teddy has a follow up eye exam on Monday, hopefully his eyes are mature. Also he gets to meet our Doctor tomorrow. Busy Busy.

BR​IDGETTE - Is back to having spells and dropping oxygen levels. Looks like she will end up back on Oxygen. With what happened with Samantha we are hoping that Bridgette stays until next week, a little more time to mature would make us comfortable.​

Thank-Y​ou for the extra prayers for Samantha, God is good.

"K​eep The Faith"

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 7:37 AM, CST

UPDATE ON SAMANTHA,
​
She is back in the NICU, color is back, opened eyes for Daddy. Seems to be acting normal. Will update more after the Doctor sees her. She is in a room near Bridgette with one of her primary nurses Kate. Thank-You Kate for taking care of Samantha.
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Thank-You Dear God please watchover my little babies.

"​Keep The Faith"

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 6:57 AM, CST

PRAYERS NEEDED FOR SAMANTHA.
​
Early this morning Samantha was taken by Ambulance back to Childrens. She choked on spit up and turned blue, luckily we had our CPR class. Don is with her at the hospital I will update her condition as soon as I hear from Don.

"Ke​ep The Faith"

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She is back in the NICU, color is back, opened eyes for Daddy. Seems to be acting normal. Will update more after the Doctor sees her. She is in a room near Bridgette with one of her primary nurses Kate. Thank-You Kate for taking care of Samantha.
​
Thank-You Dear God please watchover my little babies.

Early this morning Samantha was taken by Ambulance back to Childrens. She choked on spit up and turned blue, luckily we had our CPR class. Don is with her at the hospital I will update her condition as soon as I hear from Don.

Samantha and Teddy saying bye to Bridgette

According to the Nurse Practitione​r it looks like Samantha and Teddy will be coming home Monday or Tuesday (possibly the same day) and Bridgette will be coming home Thursday or Friday. Bridgette just needs to hang out 72 hours after the 3rd dose of oral steroids to see if she will be able to stay off oxygen assistance if not she will come home on oxygen.

​They will each have a scan they need to pass before they will come home. It monitors their breathing pattern (I think for 12 hours) to make sure it is mature enough for them to come home. Samantha and Teddy will get theirs tonight.

​Please pray Bridgette will continue to not need oxygen assistance, that her lungs stay strong enough to do the work themselves and that Samantha and Teddy continue to thrive so they can come home.

Every 2 weeks in the NICU the Doctors rotate shifts. Today we had a new Doctor to us. He was very confident that he will be the one to discharge all 3 babies!! So that means there is an excellent chance all babies will be home within 2 weeks.

Today I got a little taste of what life at home will be like. Starting today all 3 had the same nurse. And starting today I rotated around trying to nurse each baby. Samantha & Teddy actually took full feedings from me and Bridgette took a partial feeding which we topped off with a bottle. Busy Busy Busy.

Samanth​a hit the 6 pound mark, she is actually 6 pounds 1 ounce WOW!!

As Far As Visitors and Volunteers when babies get home.

I am working on getting everything together but here are some guidelines told to us by the Nurses and Doctors.

​RSV is season (October - April)

1. Anyone volunteerin​g or visiting during RSV season needs to have their Flu Shot.

2. If you have a sniffle or have recently been around someone sick, as much as we want to see you, please wait at least 3 days after symptoms are gone.

3. Please Do Not smoke before visiting the babies. Persons smelling of smoke will not be allowed to see the babies. The nurses were very strict about this point.

4. During RSV season it is recommended not to allow Toddlers and infants to visit. (But once May gets here we would love to get together)
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5. Hand washing and sanitizing very important, we will have tons of hand sanitizer all over the house.

6. Please greet the Big Sisters first and have them introduce you to the babies. (Okay this is our rule)

I will update more about visiting and volunteers. We are so very excited to get everyone home. Right now we are planning that the first week home we will spend the week getting to know eachother before we have volunteers and visitors.

Thank-Y​ou Thank-You for praying for us.