I didn't realize how long I've went without updating this site until someone (thanks Jenn) pointed it out to me. Time just slips away when you're crazy busy.
So, I need to catch up about 6 months, eh?
Our late winter, early spring was pretty uneventful. The little girls (Chiao and Elizabeth) continued to grow and learn well at "school". They made HUGE leaps of progress with their speech! The older twins, Tia and Amber, were enjoying their last year of high school and getting antsy to graduate! And Kelli was just riding along on life (despite our encouragement to "do something"). But all was well.
Then came May! Olivia decided to make her entry into the world a full 4 weeks early! She was born via c/s on May 17th at approx 6pm. My mom and Amber had went up with us and helped with the little girls, and Kelli had driven up with Tia but still made it in time. My dad had left for Indiana that morning and boogied back, trying to make it for the birth! He made it just in time! Olivia then ended up in the NICU (wow...deja vu!) on CPap for respiratory distress and shortly after that developed a good case of jaundice. She was able to discontinue with the CPap and Oxygen about 36 hours after birth, but had to stay on the bili-lights. So we stayed our full 4 days and they discharged her home with a bili blanket for immediate follow up at home for the jaundice. My father-in-law had flown in from New Orleans the day of our discharge and stayed over the weekend. He was a big help with the little girls.
While we were in the hospital 2 1/2 hours away the twins had baccalaureate (sp?). Joby drove home to attend it, pick up his dad at the airport, and came back to get us the next day. I was sad to miss their celebration, but they were very understanding of the whole thing.
Four days after we came home Olivia ended up back in the local hospital because her bili level was critically high! It was so high that her pediatrician came to the hospital that night to see her and make sure she was stable before she could sleep that night. She ended up back under powerful bili lights and spend 2 more days hospitalized before coming home on a different type of bili bed. After another week like that, her bili level was low enough to stop worrying and stop using the lights. Geez!
Meanwhile Earl flew back to New Orleans on Tuesday and the twins graduated on Thursday night. Chiao did NOT understand why she couldn't sit with her "Ber" and Eaa" at the ceremony! And, you guessed it, half way thru a teachers speech Chiao had scooted down the bleacher a little bit away from us and she got up and ran down to the graduated seated on the floor of the gym and climbed up in Tia's lap! I had to go and get her and bring her back. After Amber and Tia said, "we thought you should have just left her with us". Yeah, that would've went over well with the faculty! haha
Betsy and Loey (mother-in-law and sister-in-law) flew in on Friday. They stayed for about a week and helped out a good bit. Then the day they left, Earl and Joby's brother Kiley flew back in. We had my in-laws, at least one of them, for a full 3 weeks. They were a great deal of help and we loved seeing them.
Kelli left for the Army the day BEFORE the twins graduated. He was bummed he missed it. He was happy that Olivia came early thought because he thought he was going to miss her birth and that really had upset him. He is pretty close to Elizabeth and Chiao-Chiao and really wanted to hold Olivia before he left.
Then the twins graduation open house and Earl and Kiley back to New Orleans and that ended our May! whew!!!
So now we are preparing for our Buddy Walk! It's the 3rd annual that we've had and we have tons to do for it. Being the only support group for Down syndrome in this entire area, we really want to reach out and this awareness walk is important to our members so we don't want to let them down. Anyone in the area it's September 26th, feel free to drop in!
So, I think I've caught up on the big things. I'll have to do a better job keeping current from now on. (Joby's thinking we should change the URL address from "we need one more" to "we have a houseful!") haha
Sheryl
