4 Hour Shiftaroo

Sorry for my delay in blogging, but we are trying out the 4 hour schedule with the boys, meaning we have bumped up their feeds and their "waketime" so it's 4 hours between each feeding . It's always a challenge when you switch something in quadworld, but so far it's a go. The boys are eating between 7-8 oz a feeding now! That's almost 2 cans of formula a day! I think Brad and I calculated the other day that it cost about 7 dollars each time we feed the little birds (over 30 buckaroos a day). Isn't that incredible? There's no way we could do it without all the help we've received and we are soooooooooo thankful daily for our stockpile of diapers, along with many other blessings. We can't thank you all enough, so we will continue to thank you on this blog!

We are still thrilled that we aren't taking care of a post-surgery Brooks right now. We all celebrated Friday with a walk along the canal, downtown Indy. Perfect weather - low 80's with a breeze, not your typical July Indiana weather. We discovered that the canal is a great place to take the boys, because people are on the move. Let me explain myself.......when you have quads, like it or not, you are on constant display and interview mode. It's like we wear a t-shirt saying, "Ask us anything that comes to your head, don't worry nothing is off limits". While we love sharing the boys with everyone, and love sharing the story that the Lord has given, it definately makes you chuckle at some of the reactions and questions we get. You want examples? Oh alright....

• Are those triplets? Sextuplets? Whatever they're called
• You've got 2 sets of twins?
• Are they all yours?
• I hope you're done (having kids)
• That'll teach you what to pray for
• (In an Indiana hillbilly tone) D'jew take dem shots?
• And our personal favorite that we hear AT LEAST 10 times an outing: YOU'VE GOT YOUR HANDS FULL!

A girl even ran into a sign one day because she was walking and trying to look back at our babies at the same time. Anyway, it's a hoot, but it does get difficult at times to get from point A to point B. Needless to say, the canal was a very enjoyable walk, because we only got stopped a handful of times, since people are on paddleboats, bikes, even segways. By the time they counted all the babies in the strollers, they had already passed us!

We've been blessed this summer with visits with friends. A great suprise visit was from our friends, the Mathisons who have been in East Asia for the past few years. Amy was my Bible study leader/accountability partner during college.They are dear friends to us. It was wonderful to see their growing family and squeeze them in person.

Some other extra special guests include another set of quad parents, the Benners. We first met them at our first appointment with our high risk doctor during the pregancy. I believe I was about 10 weeks pregnant, and both Brad and I were tremendously anxious about not only having quads, but the mono-mono situation for Clark and Brooks. (If you are new to this "mono" language, Brad posted a great explanation in December on our pregancy blog.) Denise and her quad squad were getting their pictures taken for a brochure for our doctor's office, since she had such an amazing pregnancy. I tease her that she's the "postermom for quads". Just to see 4 healthy babies crawling up on her lap was a realization to us that this was truly possible. God has really used them in our lives as an encouragment and a tremendous resource to bounce questions off of sometimes weekly. It was great to have them love on our babies.

Speaking of quads, please continue to pray for Suzanne. She is hours away from 28 weeks! Remarkable! She is hangin' tough and enduring her hospital stay. Let me tell you from experience hospital bedrest is extremely difficult. Hands down the hardest thing I've had to endure. Please pray for her little ones Ben, Andrew, Savannah, and Ethan to develop and enter this world safely - specifically that their little lungs would start developing, that Suzanne could have the strength and sanity to keep pressing on, for God to give her husband Joe courage, wisdom, and strength for today and days ahead, and that their story would bring glory to God.

Friends and family are so valuable to us these days. It's been a challenge to stay "connected", but please know that we love you all!

Hope you enjoy the pictures - does that bring back any memories from the ole viewmaster days? Personally, I loved The Incredible Hulk reel. What was your favorite?

A GINORMOUS Praise!!!!!

We went to the hospital today to have Brooks examined because Brad noticed that his hernia had really changed in appearance recently. We were hopeful that perhaps the severity had decreased and that we could postpone the surgery until Brooks was at least a year old, since he would have to go under general anesthesia and just the trauma of a surgery at his age. After talking to the surgical nurse, she assured us that it would be something to consider, but would be highly unlikely to get better or go away on its own. We really felt like since we have 3 other boys to compare him to, it would be worth looking into before taking him in Friday morning for surgery. We had awesome news after the pediatric urologist read the ultrasounds and examined our Brooks. Praise God - his hernia has disappeared! We are amazed once again that the God that we serve can do the IMPOSSIBLE! Thank you so much for your faithful prayers - we are so grateful!
Rejoicing Together,
Brad, Jen and the BOYZ

New pics, update

Friends and Family,



I wanted to give you a quick update on our family.



The boys continue to grow and fill our lives with joy each day. It seems like one or more of them does something new each day as they develop before our eyes. It is neat to see each one of them already going in different directions and doing different things.



We had our first virus/bacteria go through the house this weekend. Jen and I decided to take the boys to babies r us on Saturday afternoon so that we could pick up some things that we needed. These outings have all gone well so far, so we were excited to get out again. Well, the boys decided to make this trip a little more interesting. After about 20 minutes inside the store, I looked down and noticed that Isaac had spit up "cottage cheese" all over himself from his formula feeding two hours prior. I had never seen anything quite like this spit-up. It was not pleasant, but I was able to clean him up without having to change his clothes.



Next, I met back up with Jen on the other side of the store. Just as I approached her double stroller, I noticed Clark had just had a similar spit-up, only his was HUGE. It got all over the carseat, him, his clothes, etc. We had to pull him out and change him in order to get everything reasonalbly cleaned up. By the time we got all that done, it was time for the boys to eat.



Babies r us has a nice "mothers room" where you can feed your baby/babies. Jen and I took that room over and fed the boys there. After about a 40 minute feeding/scream fest, we were done and resumed our shopping. By the time we left the store it was almost 8pm and Jen and I were starved. We had underestimated how much time it would take to get in and out of the store, so we cancelled the rest of our plans and decided to hit the drive-thru and head for home.



When we arrived home, Brooks decided that he would join the fun and he spit-up all over his carseat and himself. During the 9pm feeding, Clark spit-up (projectile style) all over Jens shirt, the chair, her shorts, and even managed to get sprayed in the mouth.



After taking Brooks' temperature, we realized that our boys had been infected with our first bug! In some ways, we were releived that there was a reason for our crazy night, but we were disappointed that Brooks was sick. He had a temperature of 100.0 and was very fussy along with his brothers. Our doctor instructed us to take him to the hospital if it reached 101.0 or higher. Brooks was the only one to run a fever, but they all seemed to have it. At 3am, Brooks' temperature hit 101 and I headed to the hospital with him. The docs at the hospital took some blood, gave him an antibiotic shot, and sent us back home. Brooks has not run a fever since Sunday morning, so hopefully it was just a quick bug. They are all kind of congested, but nothing serious at this point.



Anyway, I just thought I would share a bit of the craziness with you. As for Brooks, he is now scheduled for hernia surgery on July 13th. After his sonogram, it was determined that the hernia does pose some risk to his health if left long-term, so they are going to fix it. We are a little nervous about it, but overall it is an easy surgery and should not be too risky. We would appreciate any prayers that could be offered on his behalf.



I have posted some new pictures below. I cannot tell you how fun the past few months have been for Jen and I. Yes, it is exhausting, but the rewards far outweigh the struggles with the daily grind. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support for our family. We love you all.



Brad, Jen, Henry, Brooks, Clark, and Isaac

Out and about......

Friends and Family:

Our doctor gave us some exciting news this week......we can get the boys out more! Jen and I are excited for a weekend of warm weather. If you happen to be at a mall this weekend, you might even spot our boys and their double strollers running around the place! He cautioned us that we should not allow everyone to touch and pick them up, but we are just excited that we can begin to get them out more. (Although they have already been out many times for walks around our neighborhood and a few others, not to mention one trip to starbucks)

At their appointment, our boys surprised us again by their incredible growth and health.

Henry: 8lbs. 11oz.
(Henry is longer and thinner, so he fooled us. Jen guessed 7 something, I guessed 8 even, he is coming up on 9lbs.!)

Brooks: 9lbs. 8oz.

Clark: 9lbs. 1oz. (Clark is gaining on Brooks, they look more alike each day)

Isaac: 10lbs. 14oz. (I dont know if he is ever going to let everyone else catch up!)

We are really enjoying watching our boys start to smile and gain enough strength to hold up their own heads and move around a bit. It is so fun as you can tell they are seeing more and more of the world around them for the first time. Our boys all love our skylights and the ceiling fan that is between them. They stare at them in amazement everyday from the comfort of their boppy pillows/bouncy seats.

More later, thank you all for your continued prayers. Brooks has an ultrasound on Monday to ensure that his hernia does not need surgery to fix it. His urologist is confident that it will close on its own in the next year as long as no intestines are protruding through it. Please pray that this is the case and that we can avoid surgery once again! Our God is great!!

Brad, Jen, Henry, Brooks, Clark, and Isaac

PS I was just informed that I had a setting messed up on this new blog that did not allow non-bloggers to leave a comment. This has been fixed, so you should be able to leave comments again if you have tried before.

Update:

Friends and Family:

Sorry it has been a while since the blog has been updated, but as you can imagine, the daily grind has taken most of our time recently. But, the pace has been tolerable thanks to a bunch of awesome help that we have received from many different places. Brownsburg schools employees and our church members along with some other friends and family have made the first couple weeks of caring for four babies a lot of fun. It is so awesome to have the reality of our four children in our home for the past two weeks. God has an great plan for these little guys and I am excited that the journey into their lives has begun.

Today, we went to the pediatrician for a check-up and the dreaded two month immunization shots. Each of our boys received four shots, two in each thigh and really did great with them. They each cried during the actual shot, but our nurse, Kim, did an skillful job of making it quick and they quickly settled down in our arms.

We also got new measurements and weights for our boys. They continue to have incredible growth and weight gain with each passing week. Our pediatrician, Dr. Kersteff, said that the goal is 1oz. per day average weight gain and our boys continue to average closer to 2oz. per day.

One minor setback was found with Brooks this morning. He appears to have a lower abdominal hernia that will need to be repaired. We are setting up an appointment to have him looked at in the very near future. This is not a serious problem and is causing Brooks no pain or ill effects, but it will need to be fixed soon. Please pray that this problem would have an easy solution and no other issues associated with it.

Ok, here are the weights as of 10am this morning:

Henry: 6lbs. 5oz.
Brooks: 7lbs. 15oz.
Clark: 6lbs. 7oz.
Isaac: 8lbs. 4oz.

I will try to get back on here and give you an update with a little more regularity, thank you for keeping up with, and praying for, our family!!

We love you all,

Brad, Jen, Henry, Brooks, Clark, and Isaac