What's New by Lew

Soooo much new news!

Blogging these days is tough - both Tonya and I have been scrambling to make time to get some updates to ya'll. Tonya has zero time and I need to get a schedule figured out.

By any means, holy cow are things nutty!

Dane should be over 5 pounds today and Cameron is right there with him. Brock will be there shortly and Summer, well she's cute and that's all that matters! Summer hit the 4 pound barrier on Sunday weighing in at 4 pounds 0.5 ounces!

The news with Summer reaching the 4 pound barrier is that she was able to be cool with her brothers - yeah, all The Quads are out of their isolettes! Brock is the only one with a nasal canyal thing for oxygen. It was determined that he was retaining fluids so he got a diarhetic yesterday morning and has been peeing his brains out since! The thought was that he was retaining too much water which could possibly have been accumulating in lungs, potentially inhibiting his repiratory progress. We are hoping that he will now continue to progress towards getting off the oxygen. It may take a bit yet, he had the most severe respiratory issues with his lungs and his path was more of an uphill battle compared to the other babies.

I really need to get some photos on this thing. We had a photo shoot in the NICU this weekend. It was awesome! We have some beautiful photos of our family with all 4 babies! That was monumental! First time we were able to hold all of The Quads at once!

Tonya has been able to nurse the babies and I am able to assist with bottle feeds. Dane is the big eater and Brock is better at nursing. Cameron and Summer are close behind as well. All in all, they are doing great with getting accustomed to nursing and they all seem to be progressing.

Tonya has been spending some long nights in the NICU. Her schedule, when we don't have assistance, generally see's her arriving at the hospital between 10 and 11 pm and her departure is usually sometime after 2 am! She usually takes Aiden and Cale to see the babies for a brief stint or two during the day. She is incredible. Her love for her family is profound! I am very fortunate to have Tonya as my wife and our kids are blessed to have her as a mom. She is doing whatever it takes to maximize her time with The Quads and with Aiden and Caleb.

The Quads are doing so damn well it is just mind boggling! We are simply awestruck by their health! We are still taking it day to day and week to week with when they may be released from the hospital. It has been estimated at 3 weeks for the past 3 weeks or so. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that they continue to do well and when they are ready to come home, they will come home. Not sure where home is yet, but for the moment, it will be the cottage in TC.

Sure would be nice to have a place to call home, but again, what matters is we have healthy babies, a healthy family, and we will all be together soon enough.

Our family enjoyed a lovely Labor Day Weekend in Northern Michigan! We spent the weekend at the cottage on East Bay. Aiden and Caleb were in their glory, as was the rest of our family. Aiden and Cale have taken up scuba diving - at least that's what they call it. Most of us would refer to it as snorkling - but scuba diving sounds so much cooler. Watching them swim, or flop, around in a mask and snorkle is hilarious!

We are really looking forward to seeing everyone that has been so influential in our journey! Though the golf outing may be a bit uncomfortable for Tonya and I, we will do our best to accept that there are indeed wonderful people in this world, and we truly are humbled by the fact that we were able to make people feel good about being generous to some regular old friends. Thank you all for everything, again.

Also, we continue to received gifts for The Quads and Aiden and Caleb. Our apologies for not getting thank you's out. We have a huge list and we are looking forward to lots of hugs at the golf outing.

Hopefully my next post will have a ton of photos...

Peace out,
Lew