Pollyanna

StandardJune 1, 2012June 2, 2012Amber 11 Comments

It’s true, strict bed rest is no picnic. It drives me batty to know I can’t go outside the walls of my bedroom and bathroom. Sometimes I just want to get the mail. However, it’s not as terrible as I imagined it would be either. I went Pollyanna on it and found a huge upside to it this first week of strict bed rest….I get to see my friends!!! With busy work schedules and little time to take care of chores and such, we don’t see our friends nearly as often as we’d like. With bed rest, my friends are so sweet they are coming to visit me =)

My friend Judy brought us some yummy chicken salad sandwiches and salad earlier this week. And the next day, our friends Billie and Bob brought over some more yummy chicken salad sandwiches for dinner! It was hilarious that they all had the same meal idea. We enjoyed it all anyways, and their company even more.

On Wednesday before my doctor’s appointment, my cousin, Lindsay, came over with some Eatzi’s and took some amazing “bed rest” maternity pictures. She did an amazing job of moving things around in our bedroom and fixing me up so it looks like I went to a studio or something. Nope, all of the pictures were taken from my bed or chaise lounge! Pretty cool!

When Lindsay said, “treat” Sasha and Lily sat for a quick picture. Notice, Sasha’s tongue is hanging out.

We didn’t have near enough baby blocks to spell out the babies’ names so we made a little Scrabble board on my tummy.

Yesterday my Grandma and mom came over to help tidy up the house and fill out envelopes for promotions for multiples. George was ecstatic to come home to a clean house. Before their help, there were dust bunnies so large on my dresser that you could have made a life-sized bunny out of them.

Today, our family friends, Terri and Kaylie, came over with some delicious Pei Wei. They didn’t just keep me company, they also helped George hang things in the nurseries and walked the fur babies around the block. You can’t have Pei Wei without a fortune cookie, look at what was inside mine:

George always says you’re supposed to add, “in the bed” to whatever the fortune cookie says. It is technically true for me, I am touching the lives of many (well four for sure) in the bed while on bed rest.

We have game night and pizza night with friends coming up soon! Now, I bet you’re wishing you were on strict bed rest.

hugs!

Amber

Let’s Play the Name Game!

April 18, 2012Amber 26 Comments

Last week when we found out the gender of the babies, the appointment was quite long and tiring for me. However, when we got home George had big plans. He pulled out our assortment of baby name books and started making lists of name idea. I was exhausted and falling asleep on the floor as he listed ideas and I approved or denied them. After much consideration, we were able to choose four names we both liked!

Of course when everyone else learned the genders, they naturally started asking about names. However, we decided to keep them secret until after they are born. We figure it will leave something secret and will keep us from getting a lot of feedback and make us change our minds. Picking four names we agree on was not easy, we don’t need to start over now! My mom was cute and thought she’d finagle the names from us since she is going to make letters to put above their cribs, but even Nicey (what she will be called) won’t know until their birthday! She will have to make the letters individually and we will put them in order later =)

We decided it would be fun to play a little game with you and give you the letters for each baby all scrambled up! See if you can come up with some ideas using these letters. Hint: These are the letters for the first and middle name for each baby.

Baby A:

Y L N K R E I S Y

Baby B:

N E R S H O R T E P A

Baby C:

A Y S N Y R N E D E I

Baby D:

S V R E M N R A I O

Have fun guessing!

Hugs,

Amber & George

Learning What Lies Ahead

April 17, 2012Amber 8 Comments

One of the risky things about quads is that they always deliver prematurely, somewhere around 30 weeks plus or minus a few. That means a NICU stay is inevitable. Of course the NICU can be a scary place. The positive side of having quads that will go to the NICU is knowing they will go there. Many parents whose babies are in the NICU did not expect it, but we have some time to prepare for what lies ahead. We have also learned that parents can choose what NICU their babies are admitted to. We are fortunate that Cook Children’s Hospital is nearby and just opened a new level III NICU wing this past September. We toured it this Saturday to learn more about it. The NICU nurse warned us that we would have to act like “pit bulls” to insist that they go to Cook Children’s rather than our delivery hospital (as they have their own NICU), but we will do what we need to do to make that happen. George was blunt about it and basically got the nurse to tell us it was about hospital revenue. I don’t care about the hospital’s bottom line, this is our babies!

Cook Children’s is unique in their approach, which I appreciate. They highly regard parent involvement and want us to be there providing care to the babies as much as we can. In fact, the babies will be together in the quad suite and there are parent beds so we can stay too. In other NICUs they could be in separate nurseries and would be with other infants. If my babies are in a NICU, I want to be with them as much as I can and they will really make this possible. We also felt better seeing how despite all the medical equipment housed there, it was not terribly clinical. Everything is warm and personalized so we will feel comfortable. George thought a tour wasn’t necessary since we’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted with the NICU, but he was really impressed with the facility. We were so happy we took this tour, because the NICU is one less thing to worry over. We know they will get the best care, which will mean the best possible outcome, and that makes me rest better!

hugs!

Amber

https://www.cookchildrens.org/SpecialtyServices/NICU/Pages/default.aspx#3

Mission Organization!

April 2, 2012August 13, 2014Amber 13 Comments

When we bought our house six years ago, we thought we’d grow into it, but we had NO idea how much. In six years time, we’ve done a lot of stuff collecting. That means both spare bedrooms and their closets were filled to capacity. That does not make for good nurseries, especially not shared nurseries. George was willing to part with his exercise equipment and sold all of it on Craigslist, but the closets were still full of photos, gift wrap, miscellaneous junk, camping gear, and the list goes on. We cleaned out as much as we could, but the stuff still had to go somewhere. It migrated to our upstairs room where it sat for weeks. While no one that visited our house saw the enormous pile, we both knew it was there and we had lots of stuff that needed a home. It caused that annoying nagging feeling within us. So, we went on a mission to tackle it this weekend! Thankfully, George is a ~~good~~ fantastic carpenter. He expanded the shelving in all of the closets in our house, including the pantry and laundry room. These expansions helped us to store more stuff than before, but it would not contain everything. We then found cabinet kits at Lowe’s for our upstairs room. By the time we headed to bed last night, all of the stuff had found a new home (besides the nurseries) and it no longer consumed our home. It gave us both a sense of preparedness and control over things that we can actually control, which felt great! Now we can focus on important stuff like outfitting the nurseries! If we only knew what colors to choose….

hugs!

Amber

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