November 21, 2005

(Emily experiences being held by Daddy and Mommy)

Dear Friends & Family,

Thank you again so much for all of your prayers and your expressions of kindness, especially over the last couple of days.

We are asking the Lord to work a miracle in Emily’s little body.  She is very, very sick, and her kidneys have still not been keeping up.  It appears that the infection is still very present (in her blood as well as her central nervous system).  If it is not the Lord’s will to provide the miracle we’re praying for, then she will be going home to be with Him sometime in the next few days.  We rest assured that her presence with us in the first place is a miracle, and we know that Jesus loves her.  If the miracle of her healing here on earth doesn’t happen, then we have peace and assurance that the miracle of her ultimate healing is about to happen.

Lisa and I have cried a whole lot together in the last couple of days—it is so difficult to say goodbye to someone that you love, especially when she is so tiny and when we have just begun to get to know her.  Yesterday, we asked to be able to hold Emily for a few minutes, and the nurses allowed us to do that.  I can only say that it was hard, and it was emotional, and yet it was one of the most wonderful moments of our lives.  To hold her in our arms, kiss her, say how much we love her, and smile at her through our tears…we thank God for those moments, while she’s still with us, that so many grieving parents never get.

We also were able to hold the other three yesterday.  Danielle is doing just well enough that they were willing to allow us to do that, and I got to hold Casey for my first time yesterday.  Both of us being able to hold all four of them means a whole lot to us after all that we’ve been through.  Please pray for protection from infection for everyone, and that Casey’s PDA will not require the surgery.

We will try to keep everyone posted on how things are about once a day.  For the next little while, we will probably not get a good chance to return e-mails (but we will read them and cry through them and will know that we’re not alone) and it really drains both us and our batteries to do much talking on the phone right now.  That is hard for us, and I know that it is hard for you because many of you would like to call and talk with us, and it would certainly be good to talk to you.  We appreciate your understanding, and hope that we convey to you how much your thoughts and prayers and messages mean to us.

On a similar note, some of you who are close to us may have the urge to fly out here to comfort us.  While we would normally appreciate that very much, that would really not be helpful at this time.  If Emily should leave us, we will probably have a private family-only service for her here, and then would like to do a larger memorial service once we return home to Savannah.  We will cross that bridge if we come to it, but just don’t want anyone to spend money for a plane ticket at this time, and we need so badly to focus on the other children during this still-volatile time.

In my e-mail the other day, I listed the people who had visited the babies.  I realized today that I had neglected to mention Mark and Jena Hall, who were one of the first ones to meet them (and who saw Lisa through the hardest part of her ordeal).  My apologies for the omission on that one—I’ll correct it on the website.

We love all of you and thank you so much for laughing and crying and praying with us.  God has been so good to us…

In Christ,

Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily

(left to right:  Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily)

(Who is this un-masked man?  Benjamin)

Dear Friends & Family,

Here’s the latest…

All four of the babies are flirting with some degree of some kind of infection or another, and so we really need your prayer for all of them.

Emily right now is really—to be honest—teetering on the edge of life and death, as she has been now for most of the last week or so.  The infection that she has is not only in her blood and central nervous system, but could also be getting into her brain and lungs right now as well.  The kind of virus that she has is a wicked type, which over the last decade or two has mutated to a place where it’s resistant to most of the antibiotics that knock out most infections.  As a result, Emily’s little body is getting hit with a high dose of heavy-duty antibiotics.  Part of this double-edged sword is that the healthy parts of her body can have adverse reactions to those antibiotics.  If you want to pray hard and fast for anything right now, please pray for Emily’s kidneys to kick in and produce some serious urine output.  In general, we believe that Emily really needs a miracle in order to stay with us here and to live any kind of semi-normal life.  Her best-case scenario includes a weeks-and-weeks long tooth-and-nail fight, which she has already begun.  Thank you for your prayers.

Casey is really doing well.  Even though his tests showed meningitis, which always produces some potential long-term brain issues, he is fortunate that his actions seem to indicate that he is for all material purposes “better.”  He is fortunate to have a much easier type of virus than Emily does—though he was sick the other day, the virus itself is easier to kill in both the blood and central nervous system.  He is almost back to where he was with his breathing before the sickness started, and he looks and acts quite healthy (he’s had his eyes open a lot the last few days).  Unfortunately, his PDA (heart valve) did come open, which is not unusual with an infection (but kind of discouraging to us, since early on he had shown zero signs of it being an issue at all—we had no idea that it even could come open at this point), but hopefully a drug called endomethazin (sp.?) will cause it to go shut on its own now without surgery.  Please pray that Casey’s recovery from infection will be complete, and that he will not require the PDA surgery.

Danielle has really really improved.  Her progress has been slow, but you may remember that we almost lost her just two days after she was born, and that she required the PDA surgery, and that the surgeon came and told us that the state of her lungs was very, very bad.  Danielle has slowly gone down on how much she needs the ventilators, and various levels are looking a lot better, and we are nearing a point where we can attempt some new things, such as:  going from a ventilator to a CPAP machine; feeding her Mommy’s milk through her tube; and possibly even letting Mommy and Daddy hold her!!!!!  She has shown possible signs of having an infection on some tests, but has shown no real symptoms.  Please pray that Danielle does not have any kind of full-blown infection, and that her progress continues.

Benjamin is kind of in the same boat.  Tests indicate signs of him having at least a slight infection, but nothing on the surface would indicate that his body is sick in any way, shape or form.  Yesterday, Benjamin came off of his CPAP and started breathing through a nasal cannula (a steady supplement of oxygen through two very non-invasive little prongs in his nostrils).  He tolerated this very well, and we hope that he will not have to go back on to the CPAP again (but if he does, we still love him).  I had the privilege of holding Benjamin last night, which was so much easier and enjoyable without some of the bigger breathing tubes all around him.  We enjoyed a great father-son rocking time for a good 30 minutes.  Benjamin’s feedings are purely breastmilk now, with no fluid supplements, which is great.  Please pray that Benjamin keeps doing great, and that there is not even a hint of any kind of infection from here forward.

The two of us and Ashley are doing fairly well.  (We may start renting Ashley out to some of you who need some stress relief—though she creates some toddler-induced stress of her own, she is such a bright-eyed, innocent, ornery, hilarious, beautiful little girl, and represents the absolute best picture of what we’re praying for with the other four.)  One great friend from Savannah Christian Church—Mary Brown—was replaced by another—Jennifer Nagy—who is actually going to spend Thanksgiving with us, for which we are so grateful.  We are rejoicing with the babies, and daily holding up under the strain of seeing one of our little ones in particular who is walking through the valley of the shadow.  Thank you for your concern, encouragement, faith and joy that you’ve expressed to us recently.  Most importantly, we thank you for your prayers.  They mean the world to us.

In Christ,

Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily

Dear Friends & Family,

It seems that the last few days have held a lot of bummer news for our children.  Daily, and moment-by-moment, we are all too aware of the dangers and potential consequences of some of this news.

Without minimalizing any of it, or living in DenialLand, we still believe this:  At the end of the day, the Lord has been so gracious and so merciful to us and to these four little babies.  We wanted to offer you a sampling of some of the ways that we’ve seen this mercy and grace in the last two weeks, so that while you’re relentlessly praying for us, you can remember to rejoice at the same time…

Four Beautiful Babies

We don’t know why God chose to answer our prayer for children so suddenly and so dramatically.  For whatever reason, we have the opportunity to be Mommy and Daddy to a super-cute toddler and to the most beautiful little foursome we’ve ever laid eyes upon.  With daunting issues and challenges and hurdles in their way, they have all turned two weeks old!

Whatever comes, we have been blessed to lay our eyes and on our hands upon them, and we will never be quite the same again.  For fourteen days and running, all four of them have heard over and over and over again that Jesus loves them, that people are praying for them, and that their Mommy and Daddy love them and are very, very proud of them (we know of many who have waited a lifetime to hear those kinds of words, just once, from their parents). We are absolutely in love with (from left to right) Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily…

Angels with Stethoscopes

Our friend and former professor Dr. Bert Allen wrote to us in an e-mail shortly before their birth:  “You can be certain that an angel band are walking with you and even perhaps playing a few tunes!  Can you hear them?  I think that some of them are wearing scrubs and have stethoscopes around their necks.”  He was exactly right:  All of the doctors and other specialists have been incredible with both Lisa and the babies.  But, specifically, our hats are off to the nurses, in Labor & Delivery, and then in the adult ICU, and now in the NICU with these little ones, who have demonstrated a special kind of love and compassion toward both us and our children, in such a way that we would never have believed it possible if we hadn’t experienced it.  The around-the-clock attention and care given to all four of them, and to us, is amazing.  Pictured below are two of the excellent night nurses, Gretchen and Megan, as well as some of the celebratory signage that they have creatively produced for our children (in cases where kids in the NICU are abandoned or are removed from their homes, these works of art go with the child to their foster or adoptive home, as a record of the first real love that they received when they were brought into this world)…

If you expand each of the footprint/handprint files below up to 4” x 6” size, it will be just a little bigger than the actual size (Benjamin’s file is two 4x6es scanned together, so actual size would be just under 8x6).  Casey’s has yet to be done…

From the Mouths of Babes

We are encouraged by the prayers and compassion and encouragement of everyone, but for some reason (and I think you’ll understand this) it means even more to us when we hear that other children are praying for these little ones.  Some of you may have noticed a picture of some children in the background of the kids’ isolettes.  The pictured children are Burke, Boone, Turney and Aubrey Russell—they live in the greater Nashville area with their parents Steve and Barrett, and they happen to be quadruplets.  When these four-year-olds heard about our kids, they asked if they could be assigned one of our kids as their own personal “prayer baby” (the two-boys/two-girls combo worked out nicely).  Barrett just sent us an updated version of the picture (see below), and included samples of the prayers that each of them have been praying, which are as follows:

Burke:  "Please help Casey to grow up big and to like broccoli like me. And help him to breathe good."

Turner: "God, please help Emily grow up to be a Mommy and to love baby dolls like I do.  Then her baby doll and my baby doll can be friends."

Aubrey:  "God, please help Danielle not be sick. I want her to have a big girl bed and grow up strong."

Boone:  "I pray that Benjamin will like camouflage and donuts just like me. And I love Benjamin."

We are connected online to numerous other families of high-order multiples who have sent us pictures and have told us their children are praying for ours, and we continually get the assurance that many other children are doing the same.

Our friend Mary Brown, here with us right now, and her husband Kevin have a small group at our church, Savannah Christian Church.  When Mary arrived in Phoenix just the other night, she showed us the cards that the kids in their small group had made for our babies.  I wish that I could include a sample of all of them—they all moved us very deeply—but I scanned in just a couple of them that you can see below.

Our eighteen-month-old, Ashley, knows the babies’ names and occasionally decides to say them without any prompting.  (Often, we say “Benjamin” and she proceeds with the names of the other three).  At every mealtime we have her repeat their names during the prayer.  There is not a more beautiful sound in the world.

Isolette-side Visitors

In addition to Mommy and Daddy’s frequent visits, these babies have been blessed to get to meet personally a whole host of friends and family who love them.

First and foremost among them are their three active grandparents (my parents and Lisa’s mom), who flew from very far away to come meet them.  We are very comforted that—should anything happen to any of them—they all got to know all of their grandparents.

In addition, they have also been visited by—not necessarily in this order—my first cousin Melissa Casey; Stacy Baker and Donita (sorry, Donita, can’t remember your last name [it is Evans]) who are children’s ministers at First Christian Church of Phoenix; Kenyon Ackeberg and Debbi Dilk, also FCC ministers; Mark and Jena Hall, dear friends of ours from Savannah (earlier I had omitted their names); our close friend Dave Allgire, a minister at Savannah Christian Church; Janie Magruder, our new friend from The Arizona Republic, and Tom the photographer; DeeDee (sorry, don’t know the last name there either), who’s another quad mom who lives in Phoenix; Amanda Pommerenck, our great friend and neighbor; Mary Brown, who goes to church with us in Savannah; my first cousin Ron Dove; and Lisa’s incredible ICU nurse Denielle Headley.  [Most recently, our incredible Savannah friend Jennifer Nagy also got to meet them.]

If I’ve omitted anyone, please let me know, and accept my apology in advance.  The important thing is that you realize that Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily sleep in isolettes, but have not been isolated from people who love them.

Prayers of the Saints

We are reminded daily by e-mail of the hundreds of people who are lifting up these babies in prayer.  We will not even try to list them all, because we will leave someone out and get someone mad at us (which would defeat the purpose of an uplifting e-mail).

We know that our church family in Savannah is praying for us, and that many people from First Christian Church here in Phoenix are doing the same.  Churches like Victory Christian Center in Macon, Georgia (my sister’s church), Bethel Christian Church in Conyers, Georgia (Lisa’s home church, where we were married), Grandview Christian Church in Johnson City, Tennessee (my parents’ church, also the church that ordained me), and several others have specifically focused concentrated prayer on the babies.

A common scenario that we keep finding is that people we’re e-mailing will forward on our updates to their own friends and acquaintances in other places, who end up praying for the babies too.  We don’t know if someone in every state has prayed for these babies, but we wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case, and we know that people in other countries (such as Canada, Zimbabwe, Mexico, and even Michigan [just kidding, but…Go Buckeyes!!!]) have lifted them up to the Lord as well.

We don’t believe that it’s already been definitely decided what will happen to our babies.  We believe that prayer works, that God wants to hear us and tells us to petition him about such things, and we believe that He does answer prayer, even if not always the way that we want.  Because we believe this, we know that your prayers really do matter to us and to God as well…and they mean the world to these innocent little ones.

The Good Physician

More important than anything we’ve mentioned is the fact that we are certain that these babies are never alone.  We don’t believe that Jesus is some kind of legend or mantra or angel or phantom (whose likeness shows up on clouds or toast).

We believe that Jesus really is God, that He lowered Himself to come to earth to be like us and so that we could know Him, that He didn’t immunize himself or His followers from physical suffering, and that He literally died in our place, and then overcame death by rising from the dead.

As a result of those convictions, we believe that He’s not only right here with us, but that He’s always present in the NICU.  We know that He loves children, we know that He weeps when our little ones are hurting, and we know that there’s nothing that they could experience right now—even death—that would separate them from His love and from their place in His kingdom.

That’s the ultimate good news whenever not-so-good news comes at us in this whole experience.  That’s our peace.

Many of you have commented that we seem to be at peace, and holding up well, and not caving in when things are going downhill.  When you say that, maybe you’re just making an observation, but maybe you’re asking us how that’s possible with all that’s happened to us in the last three weeks.  And if that’s what you’re asking, we’d love to tell you more.  Please just ask.

Thank you for sharing in all of our news, and we hope that this e-mail will give you some reasons to really really rejoice, right along with us, in the midst of what’s happening in our lives…and in yours.

In Christ,

Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily

 November 17, 2005 (part 2 of 2)

Dear Friends & Family,

Sorry to be writing you again so soon, but we have some more news, which is not necessarily good…

Casey does indeed have meningitis also.  His infection was a different one than Emily’s, and fortunately an easier infection to fight off, but it is still a big concern when the infection has reached the fluid of the central nervous system.  With both Emily and Casey, a 21-day (minimum) round of antibiotics will be given to try to knock out the infection in the central nervous system (which is more under-the-surface than just a basic blood infection).  Please pray that both of their bodies will respond well to this, that the antibiotics will not adversely affect their kidneys or other organs, that their infections will be knocked out in both the blood and the c.n.s. fluid, that none of their siblings or other babies in the unit will get the same infections, and that the long-term effects of their meningitis will be minimal.

The last few days have seen us inundated with several pieces of not-so-good news concerning at least one of our children.  This has been somewhat discouraging, mostly because it keeps coming to us right at that point where we think, “Okay, maybe things are starting to calm down a little.”  One of the things that makes it especially difficult is that there’s no way to predict what some of these issues are going to mean in the long-term, and there’s no way to really get our arms around all of the potential scenarios even in the short-term (multiply it times four, and you can believe that we really just throw our hands up and ask God to do what’s best for the babies).  The negative things that have happened are really hard to put our finger on exactly, and we think and hope and pray that at least some of them won’t have a major permanent effect.

We believe that the positive things that are happening, on the other hand, are very easy to identify and do definitely have a major permanent effect on us.  In light of that belief, the next e-mail that we send out is going to focus strictly on some of those really positive things, and is going to hopefully shed some light on why we’re not falling apart whenever we get some not-so-great news like we’ve gotten.  I look forward to writing it, and putting it together, and we’ll look forward even more to sharing it with you.

Thank you for sharing our lives with us.  Please keep all four of the babies, and Ashley too, in your prayers.  We believe that—if we’ll just pray—the Spirit will compensate for those unique situations where we’re not sure exactly how to pray or what exactly we need to ask for.

In Christ,

Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle &  Emily

Dear Friends & Family,

Good morning!  We just wanted to give you the latest on the gang…

Casey’s day improved yesterday.  He still hasn’t completely turned the corner, but he doesn’t seem to be in any danger, and will hopefully just get better and better, and soon be back to where he was.  In a day or two, they will do a test of his spinal fluid (actually, fluid that goes throughout the central nervous system, even to the brain), to see if the infection crossed from his blood into that.  This would be called meningitis, and is a very serious thing, and we don’t want him to have to deal with that…

Which brings us to Emily.  Her test for meningitis yesterday came back positive.  We are saddened by that, and concerned, and aren’t exactly sure what all of that means, except that she will be on antibiotics for a long time, in order to make sure that this is completely out of her system (both blood and central nervous system).  She is definitely doing well thus far in terms of her body’s recovery from the infection (septic shock), but she still has a long way to go.  Like Danielle’s brain bleed diagnosis, we will have to just wait and see how this meningitis will affect her long-term (fortunately, my only previous knowledge of meningitis happened when I was about ten years old.  A baby in our church in Indiana, Sara Wiley, was the little sister of one of my buddies.  She had meningitis, and we prayed for her recovery and her long-term outcome.  Last year, we watched Sara, all grown up, in the Miss America Pageant, as Miss Indiana—the cause she was supporting was meningitis research!  http://www.tftj.com/Miss/MAO/a_04States/IN/a_IN.htm   Even if Emily never becomes Miss Indiana, we will gratefully look at Sara as an example of the power of prayer and a reason not to give up hope, and we’ll see if we can get in touch with her and tap into some of the resources that she can point us to.)

Because of the two infections, all four of our babies have their own special section now—they are all four right together.  When we go see them, we need to wear a gown and gloves, and if we touch one of them, we need to discard the gown and gloves and go put on new ones before seeing another baby.  This may be less intimate and a slight inconvenience, but we are very thankful that the doctors and nurses are taking great care not to pass any infection on from one baby to another, or to any other baby in the NICU nursery.  (Dr. Ianni last night even worked with the housekeeping folks to make sure that they were being cautious when they changed the trash cans, etc.!)  We are glad that they are so close to each other, but are sad that sickness was the thing that brought them so close together.  We joke about having our own wing, our little country club, an exclusive section…right now, RobertsWorld is the name

Benjamin is excelling the most right now, and is the only one who’s able to take Lisa’s milk.  Last night I got to hold him for an hour, and he even took his feeding while I held him.  Please pray that he will be infection-free.

Danielle is still kind of holding steady.  Her weight was 2 lbs. 0 oz., which is good (probably a little bit skewed from receiving blood and fluids, and probably she didn’t go to the bathroom right before she got weighed, but she is still moving in the right direction with her weight.  We’re not sure of the other weights.)

Ashley is having fun with her buddy Mary Brown.  She is learning a lot of words (Ashley, not Mary), and has handled all of the changes very well.  We were never quite sure how much she understood about the babies, except that when we say “1-2-3-4” she will say “babies.”  She was also able to go to Mommy’s belly (sometimes lifting her shirt up) when we talked about the babies, and we’re not sure if she thinks that they’re still there.  Ashley is not really able to go into the NICU and see the babies (maybe in a month or so, maybe not ever with some of these infection issues), and so Ashley’s world has really not significantly changed.  She’s going to enjoy a pretty good grace period of feeling like the only child, even if she’s not anymore.

Lisa’s neck is not perfect, but feeling a lot better after last night’s massage from our friend Emily Ackeberg (whose sweet daughter Raegen came and played with Ashley right after karate-time).  Thanks for praying for her too.

Sorry about the lengthiness of this.  And sorry to leave you hanging about Casey.  We will get these updated as much as we can.  Thanks again for all of your encouragement and prayers.  If you’re not sure where to start in praying for us, we understand (we’re kind of at that point too).  Just pray for a few semi-stable days, and for continued peace.

In Christ,

Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily

Dear Friends & Family,

Sorry to include you on the roller coaster part of our ride, but we just found out that during the night Casey began to show some signs of a pretty serious infection of some kind.  We are heading over to the hospital right now to see him, but wanted to ask that you pray specifically for him and for his durability and recovery during the next 24 hours or so.  The other three had a very good night.

Thanks for your prayers.

In Christ,

Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily

(left to right:  Daddy and Benjamin; Mommy and Casey; Danielle; Emily; Amanda and Mommy watch over Emily)

Dear Friends & Family,

How are you?  Pretty good here.

The ups and downs of NICU life are definitely evident to us…

Danielle has been doing a whole lot better—thank you for your prayers.  By no means should you take that to mean that she’s home free, but she has had a series of better days and has even been ok’ed to start getting feedings, which will be Mommy’s milk, something that will help her immune system.

Both of the boys (Benjamin and Casey) are doing extremely well.  Lisa and I have had a chance to hold them, as you can see in the pictures attached.  Everyone seems to be very pleased with their progress.

Emily has had a rough day and really needs your prayers.  She hasn’t been breathing as well, and seemed like she wasn’t feeling so good.  They moved her back onto the ventilator that she had been on, and then discovered that the PDA (patent ductus arteriosus—heart valve not closing on its own) was still slightly a problem, even though they thought last week that it was closed.  This will probably require surgery, like Danielle’s.  Today they began to think that she might have some kind of infection, and found out that that was the case.  They started her on an antibiotic, which should cover a whole host of infections, but noticed some evidence of yeast on her skin.  If her infection is a yeast-based infection, it will be harder to knock out than a regular infection, and will require an antibiotic that will be harder on her body and will make it hard to do the PDA surgery.

Please pray for Emily (but don’t slack off on praying for Danielle!), and pray specifically that she will have just a normal, non-yeast-related infection that will begin to get better with regular antibiotics in the next day or so, so that she can have her PDA surgery quickly and start moving in the right direction once again.

Please understand that an infection is a very common thing for any premature baby, and that this is more of a setback, at least at this point, than it is a detriment to her health.  It is still no fun to hear that one of our little ones has moved backward a little.  We are of course concerned, and need your prayers that we won’t allow worry to creep in, since we know that God is in control.

A ladies’ group (the Girlfriends group) from Broadway Christian Church down in Mesa/Gilbert had asked a while back if they could help us out in any way, or do something special for us.  I told them that it would be nice if they could decorate our house for Christmas in mid-November.  Even though the babies came so early, these ladies still stuck with their plan to decorate…and they did an incredible job.  We had a great time today with Jason and Marlene Graham and their formerly preemie 13-month-old daughter Madison, along with Angie Cole and Fran and Jo.  They were so nice, and the house really looks great with their decorative flair.  (Jason helped get the tree up, and helped watch his daughter—he is not an official member of the Girlfriends group.)

Lisa is still doing better.  Getting milk to the babies (with the help of a pump) is both very tiring and very satisfying.  She is going with me to the NICU in the afternoons, and I am trying to get there once in the morning and once in the evening as well.  This allows us to keep up with the babies’ status and to meet each of their nurses during both day and night shifts.

Again, we thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement and concern.  We are so grateful for how the Lord has worked during the last ten days, and know that He is very very good to us.

In Christ,

Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle & Emily

Dear Friends & Family,

Another day, another update.

Before I forget, I updated the website yesterday, with several pictures, and had been working on a kind of birth announcement slideshow thing, which is now on the homepage.  The website, by the way, is www.expandingrobertses.com .  Feel free to check it out.

Lisa is doing much much better and will almost certainly go from ICU down to a regular OB room later today.  We are very excited about this, as she has come off all of her IVs, her swan catheter has been removed, and she is basically on a few oral medications.  She looks 100% better than just a couple of days ago, and feels much better, although there is a definite combination of fatigue, meds, hormones, and “what happened” questions that have been a little tough.  I am hopeful that she can see the babies (and Ashley) sometime today, but please pray for that to go smoothly, mostly from an emotional standpoint, as it’s kind of an overwhelming thing for her right now.  I am SO excited about her getting introduced to them.

The babies are doing really well too.  Danielle has definitely stabilized, but still seems to be behind the others.  All four of the babies, most likely, to some degree had what is called PDA (if I remember right, it’s patent ductus arteriosus), which is very common in early preemies.  I’m going to explain it from memory, and some of you medical folks can laugh at my explanation if it’s a little off:  a duct on both sides of the heart (lung side and body side) closes naturally when a baby is born just a few days after birth.  In preemies, it often doesn’t close on its own and can potentially present problems in regulating blood flow, blood pressure, oxygen, etc.  Danielle’s PDA seems to be most severe, and very likely caused her bleeding episode(s) the other day.  Unless it closed on its own in the last couple of days, she will probably require a short routine surgery either today or tomorrow in which (again, the layman’s explanation) a doctor would cut a small incision and take some tweezers (not the medical term) and pinch the two sides of the valve shut.  The results are then immediately seen.  We look forward to seeing this happen with Danielle.  Fortunately, with the other three, Emily’s closed after she was given medication, Benjamin’s may not be enough to even mess with, and Casey’s stats are so good that they said there’s no reason to even check to see whether he has it or not.  Other than that, the babies all seem to be holding their own, and all four have had a really good couple of days.

The nurses and doctors in the NICU are great.  It’s clear that it takes a very special type of person to work in the NICU—and I have to think that it would be