Life....

It is just amazing having our babies home. And I can not believe that they have all been home for over a week. We have gotten into a nice little routine that has been working really well for us but I know in a blink of an eye this routine will change and we will have to find a new one that works. The one thing I do have to say is I am so glad the quads are not our first. I really think that after three kids any more that you add just fit in. You have already lost the man to man defense and have already been outnumbered on the kid to parent ratio. Even adding four at one time has not been bad at all. I totally remember the sleep deprivation after having the twins and I am so glad I do not have to relive those days. It is hard having to get out of bed at two in the morning for a feeding and we get so excited when we get a straight three hour stretch of sleep but when the sun comes up and the clock hits seven we are ready to go and don't usually stop until the last feeding between 10-11pm. I can tell you how amazing our bed feels when we crawl in and aren't we lucky that we get to crawl in an extra two times each night! One night when we were very tired and neither of us wanted to get up for a feeding I told Paul that we could do this because never again will we have a newborn and have to do every three hour feeds. It does make it just a little bit easier to get up.

All done with bath and now it's time to eat

Sister's sharing secrets

Thanks to another quad mom, Amber, we figured out how to tandem bottle feed the kiddos very quickly!

We couldn't survive without our rock n' plays. The kids sleep so well in them that we actually have three of them now. Kenzie is the only one who doesn't sleep in one.

My big man Tate

I know it's fuzzy but I look at that hair!!

Sisters

Good thing we have a large sectional

We start our every three hour feeds at 8am and this momma makes sure we stay on schedule throughout the day. We have mastered the tandem bottle feeding and if I am alone with the babies I can usually get all four feed and burped about 35 minutes. I am so thankful that I have good eaters. Our only problem child in regards to feeds is Tate who the minute he is done eating needs to burp and then he will remain fussy until he spits up a little. Sometimes this can be five minutes and sometimes those five minutes feel like they take forever just to get spit up on! All but Tate are using the Dr. Brown's bottles even though I did not want to use them. I have a whole other post coming regarding our bottle preparation and washing. Tate probably should be on the Dr. Brown bottles because of his reflux but he actually eats best with the Avent bottles so we are sticking to those for now. After eating the babies fall asleep pretty quickly without much awake time. They still have two weeks before their due date so hopefully soon we will have more active awake times. We do keep them in the living room and have them rotate between tummy time, swings and bouncy chairs twice a day. They usually fall fast asleep with tummy time and because I do not trust the three older kids to not trip over them we have a play mat set up inside of a pack n play to avoid babies from being trampled on. We end the day with bath time each night before their 8pm feeding. We then wake them for one more feeding at 10pm and then let them wake us up. We consistently get a 3.5 hour stretch from them and the other night a 4 hour stretch which was a slice of heaven! I am excited for them to start having longer periods of sleep at night. I know it will be here in a blink of an eye but right now that blink is in very slow motion. 

The Riisager's came for a visit and we had enough babies so no one had to argue who got to hold first!

Tummy time is very exhausting

Tate

Wide-eyed Rylan

"Mom would you please stop taking my pictures please."

Lots of people ask how the older kids are doing adjusting. Drew has been great. He is definitely two now so we have the tantrums that are associated with anyone that is two. He does have a one track mind and when he wants to do something he will not quit asking all day. His top three request are jeep/blue (his battery powered jeep and quad), snack and mall. Some days he can drive me crazy with these three words. Aubrey is my little helper and wants to help in any way she can. Sometimes she wants to help too much. She has a very hard time staying away from the babies when they are in the swing or on tummy time, hence the pack n' play. She did scare the bajeppies out of me the other day when I came in from getting someone loaded in the car and I see her holding Rylan and his head was hanging way to far back. We again had a very loud, mom near tears, discussion that she is not allowed to pick up the babies. So hard for a four year old that feels she is fully capable. Natalie is struggling the most. She started having some attitude towards mom and dad this summer and her sassyness has just gotten worse since the babies have been home. She is very much a mommy's girl and we started seeing the change when I got put on bed rest. We are praying that her behavior improves because Paul and I are really struggling with her. She is by far the smartest of our older kids and that is the most frustrating part because she knows what is right vs. wrong but she is using the negative to try and get attention. The girls love to tell everyone that they have four brothers and sisters and when I asked them if we should give them back they both giggled and said no. I do think it's funny that Natalie wants a hundred babies when she is older and Aubrey only wants two! 

I came into the room and found Natalie reading nursery rhythms to the babies

Boy unattended in sisters room+mommy busy with four babies=boy covered in marker

We have been busy with doctor visits (4 different appointments with two kids at a time), eye appointments for Tate and Kenzie, a newborn photo shoot, and a trip to Indiana for Paul. Yes Paul was gone for 3 1/2 days and I was home with seven kids! Luckily my mom and sister each stayed nights with me so I didn't have to do the night shift by myself. We finally got a van that we can all fit in but it was located in Indiana. We had planned on having it transported out to CA but because it is so big it was going to cost about three times what we had budgeted and it was going to take at least three weeks to get it out here. So Paul made a quick decision...making his wife not very happy....to fly to Indiana the next morning and drive it back by himself. I was not happy with this decision but there was no changing his mind. He ended up making a 34 hour trip in 38 hours. The crazy man only slept two hours. And all his children were still alive when he got back and his wife wasn't pulling out all her hair. The one good thing that happened is I did learn how to feed three kids at one time. I now know why God gave us elbows! 

Babies Galore

Sleeping Rylan

Peek a boo Isabella

Stubborn picture won't flip but hello beautiful Kenzie

Tate

Who says you can't feed three babies at one time, please ignore the baby on the couch who is screaming. Her turn is next!

I can not believe that it is already October. My due date is coming up on the 13th but I have already had almost two of the most amazing months of my life. I cannot wait to see what the next two months bring.

Isabella Comes Home: We Are A Family Of Nine!

The day has finally come. We are a family of nine and we are all under one roof! I knew there was a possibility that Isabella would come home today because her feeding tube has been out for a couple of days and today was day seven on her brady (heart rate drop) count but when I called to check on her last night she had lost weight (7gms) for the second night in a row and she was very sleepy during feeds. I told Paul I didn't think Isabella would be coming home because of these two things. I called around ten Friday morning and was so excited when the Dr told me to "come get your child". He later called me and told me he was comfortable sending her home because there was nothing they were doing for her in the nicu that I couldn't do at home. I am already supplementing with two feedings a day of higher calorie formula with the other kiddos so he said with those extra calories she should do just fine. Her last two days have been strictly breast milk so these two feedings should have her gaining appropriate weight.

Isabella...time to go home little love.

I meet Paul and the older kids at the hospital after they got back into town from a birthday party. I cried the entire way to the hospital because I couldn't believe the day had finally come...all four of my babies were coming home. I felt I could breath. We were done with the pregnancy, they arrived safely, and the nicu journey was now complete. It was now time to just be a family. You should have seen the looks of amazement I got pushing two double snap n' go's into the hospital. I even had the secretary from labor and delivery follow me because she wanted to see all four babies. Since this was now our fourth discharge from the same unit it did not take long which was a good thing because we had a schedule to keep!

I love it and they are all mine!!

Time to get our new van

Paul had an errand to make on the way home so I arrived first and had all four kids in the house, out of car seats, and their milk warming when Paul got home. It was now time to feed four kiddos and we had all four feed and burped in 25 minutes. It was awesome. And little Isabella had no problem finishing 45ml's which was more than she had been taking all day. She just needed to be with her sister and brothers. We got in a nice family dinner before it was bath time for all. We have now finished the 8:00 feeding, older kids are asleep in their beds., babies are asleep in their cribs/rockers and Paul and I are relaxing with our iPads. Life is good!! Now to go get laundry folded and switched from washer to dryer before the next feed at 10:30 and then  it's bed time for mommy and daddy.

All bathed and ready to eat

We want to thank everyone for being on this journey with us. We couldn't have done it without all the prayers and support we got from everyone. I will continue to update the blog as often as I can but don't be surprised if there is a week without a post for a little while. We are a little bit busy around our home. I will try to post pictures every couple of days just to keep everyone satisfied.

The Lesnau's

Good night Natalie, Aubrey, Drew, Kenzie, Isabella, Tate, & Rylan and don't let the bug bed bites. We love you all with a cherry on top.

Rylan Joins His Brother & Sister

Earlier this week I knew that Rylan was getting close to coming home. He was just working on feeds. I was expecting Friday but on Thursday I got the call...we could come get Rylan! But first we had a field trip to Fairtytale Town to go to with Natalie and Aubrey. We took Tate and Kenzie but they just didn't think the slides were that exciting! Maybe next year...

We then dropped the older kids off at our friends and it was time to visit Isabella and break Rylan out of the nicu. Such a wonderful day and now we had three home and only one to go. We are so close.

Daddy and Isabella

The last two nicu babies

We got home and it was of course time to feed the babies. It amazes me how fast three hours can go. We now are able to tandem bottle feed two kids at a time using a pillow across our lap. We thank Amber, a fellow quad mom, for showing us how to do this. It is so great to have someone three weeks ahead of us in this journey. So Paul feed Tate and Kenzie while I feed Rylan and pumped. We had dinner ourselves and Paul notified me that he had a work meeting that night. I could have put up a big stink but in a way I wanted to see if I could do it. I had six kids bathed, older kids down for the night, and three babies feed and to bed in 1.5 hours. Not to bad if I say so myself. I did quickly learn not to tandem Rylan and Tate together though because when it is time to burp neither can lay flat because they will spit up everything they just ate. So those two went through jammies rather quickly during that feed.

Ready to go

Love me some baby feet

Rylan has done great being home. He takes 50-55ml per feed but does take a little longer than the other two. He also has some reflex so is sleeping in a rocker just like his brother. The only hard part is Rylan is very much still on the nicu schedule and wakes every three hours on the dot during the night. It is amazing how much that extra thirty minutes that Tate and Kenzie were giving us meant. We are hoping they fill in Rylan quickly that they like to sleep at night and hopefully he will try it out. Once it has been three hours and the first one is a wake...as in loud crying and is not soothing themselves, we wake the others up to feed. Paul gets the bottles measured out and warmed while I change all of them. We are usually up and back go bed in about forty minutes but that only gives us about two hours of sleep before the next round. Exhaustion is starting to set in. We are pretty much doing it all by ourselves except for the occasional visit from my mom, sister or our friend Mary. My mom did come over this morning at 4 to allow Paul to sleep through the 5 o'clock feed. He greatly appreciated this and told her she is welcome to do this every morning!

Mary and Rylan at bath time

Rylan we are so happy you are home. You have come a very long way since you were born and we didn't know if this day would ever be a reality six weeks ago. Happy six weeks Rylan James and welcome home!

Only 24 hours in a day...are you sure??

I have decided that 24 hours in a day is just not enough time to get everything done. I think if I could add on about four to five more hours of daylight it would be perfect and I say daylight because once the sun goes down this momma struggles to do much more than sit on the couch and do laundry. Thus the reason that it has taken me a week to post again because updating falls as one of the daylight activities.

When I brought Tate home this is what Paul gave me. We already had the mom & dad and two babies from when the girls were born but Paul added the twin girls, the boy, and two more babies. Our completed family! Thank you Honey...I love it.

We are loving having Tate and Kenzie home. The girls still insist that it's Isabella that is home and for some reason can't get it straight so often they just say "the girl". I guess adding four babies at once may be a bit confusing to a four year old! For the most part we have as much of a routine we can have with five kids at home, two in the hospital, a dad that's working, two kids that eat every three hours and need diaper changes with each feed, another three kids that seem to want to eat as often and also yell out for their bottoms to be wiped throughout the day, and a mom and dad that try and get some sleep from time to time. Thankfully one of the perks of the nicu is having kids that come home on a schedule. Kenzie and Tate for the most part sleep 3.5 hour stretches at night. We did have a couple rough nights with Tate and we finally figured out he was miserable from reflux. This came after an incident on Wednesday night. We took the babies out to celebrate my sisters birthday and as we were leaving the restaurant I covered the car seats and we walked to the car. I put Tate in the car and lifted up his cover and right away I knew something wasn't right. His eyes were rolled back and I could tell he was not breathing. I quickly got him out of his car seat while calmly asking Paul to get the bulb syringe out of the diaper bag. I then  got his mouth cleaned out with my finger and started getting him stimulated to breath but he would not stop holding his breath and milk just kept coming out of his mouth. Paul was so panicked he could not even find the syringe so I grabbed it and started suctioning his mouth and nose. He finally started breathing but after a breath would go back to holding it because he was refluxing so bad. He finally started breathing normal but the poor kiddo was so worked up. Daddy was ready to call an ambulance and take him back to the hospital. Talk about getting your heart rate going. That night Paul went out and bought a rock in play sleeper that keeps him slightly elevated when sleeping and it has helped Tate so much. He sleeps soundly in it and we wake him at night to feed him. A scary episode has lead to a much happier Tate. We are not going to start him on meds yet for relux if we can control it with good burping, keeping him upright after eating and his inclined rocker. Hoping he grows out of it quickly. He takes about 2 ounces at each feed and he now weighs 6lbs9oz. He is such a chunky monkey!

Tate

Kenzie

Kenzie is still so small!

Floor time for all.

Don't think they are enjoying floor time that much.

Kenzie has done wonderfully since coming home. She doesn't always enjoy starting her feeds since she tends to bite on her tongue while we try and get the bottle in but once she decides that she wants to join the eating party she takes over and wins the race. She takes 45ml consistently except for her two bottles a day of formula. She despises those two feeds and will often leave some for her little brother Tate to finish! The kids get all breastmilk except for two feeds in which they get a formula called Neosure which has extra calories and also extra minerals and vitamins that they need since they were born early.  Kenzie has been pretty laid back since coming home. It is hilarious though when she teams up with her brother. Tate will be screaming, usually to eat, and he decides he needs a break so Kenzie takes over and then as soon as Tate starts up again she quiets down. Such awesome partners in crime! When Kenzie was being discharged we found out that Kenzie had developed a Grade II head bleed sometime between week one and week four of her hospital stay. Thankfully  Grade I and II head bleeds should not cause any lasting developmental delays. We do not know when Kenzie's bleed occurred but we knew this was a risk we took when we choose to have four babies at one time and knowing they would be preemies. The blood vessels in preemies are very fragile and these babies are at increased risk for brain bleeds. We praise God that none of the other kiddos developed any bleeds and Kenzie's was only a Grade II.

Love seeing them snuggled up together

Tummy Time

Rylan and Isabella are continuing to do well and are making big steps in the right direction to come home. Rylan's follow up head ultrasound came back totally normal. We were so happy after we had gotten some concerning news after his one week ultrasound. For having four babies born at 31 weeks we can not believe how well they have all done. It is amazing what prayers can do! We thank God everyday for choosing us to be the parents to these amazing little babies. Paul and I look at these four and wonder which two were non viable per the fertility clinic? 

I'm just as bored with this place as you are Rylan

Isabella

 We want to thank the wonderful families that have brought us meals. It has been so fabulous being able sit down as a family and have a yummy dinner in the evenings. We appreciate these meals so very much. And a very special thank you to Mary who has become the kids new "grandma". We thank you for everything you have done for our family and thank you for loving our kids and Paul & I too! 

Our Peanut is home!!

So on Wednesday Tate went back to the nicu and told Kenzie how cool it was at home and she decided she was a big girl and was ready to leave the hospital. So that afternoon we brought home our Baby A. Kenzie weighed in that day at 3lbs14oz. I had to laugh as I was carrying her out because I never thought I would be bringing home a baby that wasn't even four pounds. She is almost hard to cuddle with because she is so tiny. But boy do her mom and dad love her. It has been so fun having two at home but it does scare Paul and I just a tad to think we still have two more to bring home!! It will be at least another week though before this happens because both Rylan and Isabella had heart rate drops yesterday. They must go a full seven days without an episode before they can come home. We have had some one on one discussions with them lately though because I am about done with these

Tate telling Kenzie all about the outside world

Who's bigger...the paci or Kenzie??

Paul and I both picked up Kenzie and I had total mommy's guilt because I did not even hold Rylan or Isabella while I was there. I felt awful but I know they will not remember that one day when mom did not hold them. Since we haven't gotten a new van yet we have to now officially drive two cars every where if we want to go as a family. So I brought the babies and Drew home and Paul went and picked up the girls from school. I tucked the babies into their crib when we got home and I absolutely love seeing babies snuggled together in bed. I then took Drew and we went and sat in the hot tub. Can you tell I am so not a first time mom...I had a monitor so I knew they would be just fine!! After dinner auntie and Jess came over along with grandpa and grandma and we had some very over tired older kids so it was bath time for the olders and then bed. Kenzie and Tate then got their baths and it was a wonderful first night with two kiddos home. They slept well and Paul and I conquered the feeds without a problem. Daddy did say he was completely exhausted and I reminded him that I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I could wake him up every three hours when I was pumping to prepare him for the kids arrival but he didn't take me up on that offer!

Grandma & Auntie

Mommy's favorite-bath time!

The hood was half as big as her body

"Auntie enough with the pictures already"

I think he is a tad stressed being home!

He loves his bath but hates getting out.

Daddy with Tate & Kenzie

Today I took Kenzie and Tate back to the nicu to visit their brother and sister. Natalie and Aubrey wanted to make sure I was bringing them back home and not leaving them. It is a little different being totally  in charge of two of the babies while the nurses still help with the other two. But I was proud of myself because I pumped and feed four kids in less than 90 minutes. I even came home and allowed Paul to nap with Drew during a round because I was feeling nice! The babies are now tucked in their swing for an afternoon siesta and Paul and I are going to go spend a little time with the kids outside. Life is getting busy; school, Paul working, two babies at home, two babies still in the hospital and just the day to day task of life. Don't think I can fit too much more in but I do have to say I am loving life right now!

Two big sisters watching over their babies