Well it’s been a few days and felt that we should probably get some updates up for everyone. We’ve had a pretty full weekend and start to the week. Since my last post, I’ve had a chance to make some minor changes to the site by updating some of the pages and adding some picture albums. If it’s been a while, please take a new tour of the site.

First of all; Angela, Meredith, and I want to thank Becky for her tireless help last week. Angela’s mom stayed with us after the delivery for the entire week and into last weekend. Her help was so awesome. Thank you so much!

We had a few sick girls at the house over the weekend. As I’ve mentioned previously, Meredith is teething and she was sick again a couple times during the day on Sunday. Angela has not been tip top, so much so, that she didn’t go with me in to see the kids and she threw out all of the breast milk that she’s pumped over the weekend. They had a girls’ day today as I went into the city to spend some time with the kids in the morning, but had to get home for my own dentist appointment in the afternoon.

The kids are doing so well. We still have not had any noteworthy complications to this point. I’ll just give updates by going around the room.

Brooklyn is doing awesome! She is breathing on her own without any spells of forgetting to breathe, which is not uncommon for kids at their development level. She gets medication on a regular basis to help her to remember to breathe. All of her siblings get the same medication. I don’t know what possessed someone to think up a medication like this or how they did it, but I am truly amazed by the intelligence of the person who did. Brooklyn weighed in today at 2 lbs, 11.5 oz and is no longer the heaviest of the bunch.

Lauren is just a little squirt. She weighed in at 2 lbs, 3 oz today. I had a chance to do a little kangaroo care with her and Brooklyn together today. Kangaroo care is skin to skin contact of parents and babies chests. After they get settled in, they really do seem to like it. I thought it was a bunch of hooey when someone first asked me if I wanted to do it, but I’m convinced now that it helps so I don’t mind stripping down and showing everyone in the NICU “the goods.” Their heart rates drop and their oxygen levels go up just minutes after they’re on my chest. They appear to rest easier. On a side note, the staff tried to place a PIC line in Lauren over the weekend. That line that was in her belly button was just too risky to leave in without trying to place a PIC line again. They got the PIC line placed without complications and significantly reduced her risk of infection. This new line will be her IV line used to give her supplemental nutrients that she isn’t getting from milk.

Alex is now the biggest of the group. He weighed in today at 2 lbs, 13 oz. Alex is the only one still on breathing assistance. He is completely off his C-Pap mask and has been since the end of last week. He’s been on nasal canulas (tubes placed in the nose) 24/7 and been doing well. Alex is breathing room air (the same air that you and I breathe) through the tubes and they’ve been steadily reducing the amount of pressure in the tubes over the weekend. However, as they’ve been pulling back on the pressure of air in the tubes, he’s had to work harder to breath. Last night he must have gotten tired because they had to increase the level of oxygen in the air he was breathing on a few different occasions. If he goes through today and through the night without complications, they’ll remove the canulas tomorrow morning.

Emma is just a rock star. She is so little. Emma weighed in today at 2 pounds even. She had weighed less than two pounds over the weekend, but she (and all of her siblings) seem to be on the upswing with their weight. I did kangaroo care with Emma on her own today. She is breathing awesome on her own and just eating up the milk.

Madeline (like Alex) had been on a nasal canula over the weekend and had the pressure decreased over the weekend as well. However, she had her tubes removed today. We’ll see how she did over the course of the day and during the night when we go in tomorrow morning. She weighed in today at 2 lbs, 9.5 oz. She and all of her siblings have had no issues with feedings. They are all fed by a continuous drip through a tube in their nose that leads to their stomach. The amount of formula/breast milk they get is increased by 0.2 mL every 8 hours. Eventually they’ll be getting enough to not need their IV’s any longer and that’s our next goal.

Angela and I will be going in tomorrow and spending nearly the entire day at the hospital. Angela has a follow up appointment with her doctor in the morning which will take some time, and we have some other things that need attention, but we’ll make sure to hold all of the kids tomorrow and spend plenty of time with them. Annie is gonna come over tomorrow and spend some time with Meredith. She hasn’t been over in a while and we’re pretty sure the she and Meredith will have an awesome day together. I’ll do my best to get some updated photos on the site tomorrow night.

Until then…

Not much to report today. No changes except that all of the kids are taking more breast milk via feeding tube than the day before. Emma is back under the lights for her high billirubin levels, but that was expected. We were there for several hours again today holding the kids. I did kangaroo care with Madeline for an hour and a half and Angela held Alex for quite a while. I had a nice visit from a couple doctor friends while I was with Madeline. Thanks for stopping by David and Candace. Don’t be strangers and please share that with all of your group.

Tonight’s post is a little more informational regarding some of the changes or pending changes to the website. Please note that I’ve added (with the guidance of Mr. Patterson) some photo albums on the media page. There are more to come and this will be updated as we take more pictures. There will also be some changes to some of the text on some of the pages in the coming days. Please stay tuned.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support, prayers, and well wishes.

Until next time…

I think today was a good representation of what our daily lives will be like this summer and for the next 5- 20 years. Lets take a peek.

12:00 am – Meredith woke up crying. Becky (Angela’s mother) has been with us all week and helping out with Meredith and was the first to respond to her cries. I heard on the intercom that things weren’t normal. She was sick. Vomited all over and got it everywhere. Becky, the first responder, took the brunt of this event. God Bless her. I took Meredith to the other room as Becky continued to clean it up and change out the bed. She seemed to be comfortable so I put her back to bed to only be woken by her cries again. She got sick again and thus another change of clothes and bedding. I went down and started the laundry as Becky got her back to bed. All the while, Angela sat at my desk in the basement and listened in as she pumped for some much needed breast milk.

8:00 am – Meredith is up. We try for something very simple for breakfast to easy her. Toast sounds like a great idea. She just played with it.

8:05 am – Breakfast over as she threw all of her breakfast on the floor as she played with it. Dad is upset as he didn’t get his coffee made this morning. Diaper change and dressed for the day. Mommy pumped again.

8:30 am – Becky took over so that I could update the site and return emails.

9:30 am – Mommy paid bills and I went to mow the yard as it was a couple days overdue. I really like to spend time in my yard. This is my release where I don’t have to think about anything and I’m away from everything. It isn’t work if its mine and I’m not for hire. I’ve got enough to do.

12:00 pm – Angela and I are finally done with our little projects and cleaned up for the day. We’ve said our goodbyes to Meredith (which were difficult for Angela today) and were on our way to Children’s in Minneapolis.

1 pm – We arrive at the NICU. We got some great reports and Angela took to holding Alex quickly as he was the only one she didn’t get to yesterday.

Did you really get a good look at that picture of my bride? She was so beautiful today. Its been so long since I’ve seen a smile like that. I couldn’t be happier. To see a few more pictures from today, click here. We had a little more time today compared to yesterday so Angela and I did some Kangaroo Care with the kids. Kangaroo Care is skin to skin contact with the kids as we hold them. This is common with preemie babies. I was skeptical, but it seems to work really well today. While Angela was with Alex, I decided to just jump in with both feet and took on Brooklyn and Lauren at once. During our visit today we got some great news. Here are the stats on the kids:

Brooklyn – off all air support, is responding very well to feeding on the breast milk by a drip feeding via a feeding tube through the nose.

Lauren – als off all air support. Lauren still has her venous line in her belly button. She couldn’t keep an IV and they couldn’t place a PIC line in her. This venous line is an infection risk and she needs to get to full feedings w/o the assistance of additional IV fluids asap. Otherwise, she’s awesome.

Alex – still on the nasal canuals every other two hours. That’s the tubes in the nose, but doing awesome otherwise. He’s also tolerating the feeding very well.

Emma – She is less than 2lbs now and has been for a couple days. That’s ok and she’s awesome. She and all of her siblings gained weight yesterday. She is also on her own with no breathing support.

Madeline – Madeline is also doing well with her feedings. She has the PIC line in place and is doing well over all.

Lastly, all of quints had brain ultrasounds today. This is common and we expected it. All of them were clear. They were looking for brain bleeds that are common in preemies, but we’re ok. Prayers answered. The attending neonatologist tells us every day that when it comes to bell curve of quintuplets, we’re sitting at the very top of the curve.

4:30 pm – home for an awesome dinner prepared by Becky. Meredith didn’t eat anything again, and continued to not feel well.

8:45 – Sit down to look at email and update the blog.

10:00 – I’m still typing and I haven’t uploaded the photos yet. I hope to get to bed in the next hour or two. There’s still more laundry to do and Angela needs to pump another time or two.

We’re living the dream and its just another day in paradise here at the Tille house.

Until next time.

Yesterday we collectively held all of the babies. I have some things to attend to here around the house this morning, but I’ll do my best to get a new post with photos up in the next 24 hours.

Until then

What another big day for the Tille family. Today was discharge day for Angela. It was a lot like moving out of the dorms back in college. It sucked, but was so worth it. Our day started by taking care of some things at ANW with Angela. I packed up some things while she was getting things in order with the doctors and nurses. We left mid-morning for the NICU at Children’s. This was the beginning of Angela’s last wheelchair ride. We spent a few hours there today. We had some great news on a couple of the kids, held a couple of them, brought in some breast milk, and felt like we got to know the kids a little better today. We went a different route around the room today by going from #5 to #1.

First was Madeline. She’s still on her C-Pap device 24/7. She’s the only one who is still wearing it all day. She is also on a little higher percentage of oxygen in the air that she’s getting. Her status here is a little discouraging compared to her sisters and brother, but the nurses warn us that she is still in great shape considering her age and we shouldn’t compare her to them. They’re just so far above the curve. Madeline now has a feeding tube and has already been given some formula and she’s handled it well. The staff at Children’s tried to give her an IV, but were unsuccessful so she still has a line in her belly button that goes into a vessel that can deliver the additional nutrition that she needs. The goal is to try again tomorrow to place the IV. If that doesn’t work, they will likely put in a PIC line. This is a little more aggressive in that the line will go through her arm or leg towards the abdomen and stay in place a little longer. It’s more stable, but it carries risks. They have to do something because the line in her belly button has to be removed due to the chance of an infection setting in. It’s a liability. She is a day or two behind her sisters and brother, but still in awesome condition.

Next on our tour today was Emma. She’s been the fighter all along. She was always the smallest during our ultrasounds. We found out today from a NP on Angela’s floor before we went home that Emma’s cord was connected to the side of the placenta, which caused her to grow not as was well as the others. There isn’t any real issue other than she just didn’t get as much of the good stuff from Angela while in utero as her sisters and brother.

Emma is the smallest and now weighs less than 2 pounds. According to the doctor and nurses, there’s no reason for concern. Emma is on her C-Pap 2 hours and then off it for 2 hours. It’s a great development from yesterday for such a pipsqueak. She is also feeding well and will continue. Emma has had an IV since delivery and will not need the PIC line. She’s doing great!

Alex was cool as a cucumber today. He is also on and off his C-pap every 2 hours. Alex was under the lights today when I took his picture. He and all of his sisters are under these lights to help with their bilirubin levels. Bilirubin is in the blood and can affect the liver and can cause jaundice. Their levels are low, but just high enough to justify the lights. Many children have this issue, even regular babies. I think both my niece and nephew needed lights, but don’t quote me on that. They did eventually turn off the lights so that Angela and I could hang out with him. His situation with feeding is exactly like his sisters. He’s doing fine for the first day. He and all of them will get more food tomorrow. Alex also had an IV placed and will not need the PIC line.

Lauren is a spit fire and has a bit of an attitude. Reminds us of her father. She was just crabby right from the start. I noticed she had a dirty diaper. As I began to change her, she started to pee and make the black tar poop more like crude oil. I quickly called for assistance. I just knew that I’d have poo everywhere and they’d ask us to leave. Soon after the diaper was changed, she calmed down, but kept pushing off her sunglasses which made things very uncomfortable while under the lights. She and all of her siblings can cry. Lauren is doing awesome with her breathing. She is completely off her C-pap device. She is feeding just like the others and will get more tomorrow, but she didn’t get an IV yet. If they can’t’ get it in tomorrow, then they’ll put in the PIC line.

Brook is also a rock star. She, like Lauren, is off her C-pap completely. Brook has an IV placed and is taking formula fine. There really isn’t much to report on Brook because she’s very much like the other 4…in great shape.

The kids will get an ultrasound later this week to check out the brain. This is common for all preemies and we’ll learn a lot more about how their doing at that time. Angela and I will go back for a long visit tomorrow where Angela will deliver some much needed breast milk.

Lastly, I welcomed Angela back to her home today. She was very emotional leaving the hospital today and she said that it must be something that she’ll just have to get used to. I promised her that it gets easier, but it will take a while. I spoke from experience. It was all very strange to her. It was the first time she was off the hospital property in over two months. Try to think back to April. Here in Wisconsin and Minnesota, there were no leaves on the trees and the grass was barely green. There were no flowers. She had no furniture in her basement. Now it’s furnished. She’s never slept in her bedroom and she’s never showered in her shower as I finished the basement while she’s was gone. She had a Coke today at lunch for the first time in 6 months. She was in ecstasy!

Welcome home Ang! I might let you snuggle tonight.

Until next time…

So here we are on day four. I sit with Angela in the room where she’s lived for the past 2 months. We’re eagerly anticipating her discharge today. This room is so full of stuff. Its gonna take me half the day to pack it all up. She’s doing well and she’s ready to go home. I’m ready to take her home.

As for the kids. Everyone is still doing very well. Its day 4 now, but we haven’t been over to Children’s yet today to check on them, but we did call over there for an update on how they did over night. We know that everyone is doing well so lets back up to yesterday where Angela and I spent a lot of time in the NICU with the kids. We did not hold any of them, but we did do a lot of touching. The kids really like the physical contact so we often put our hands over their body or let them hold one of our fingers. The staff is letting us do some things as well. I checked Madeline’s temp and changed her diaper.

Emily, the woman in the picture, is one of the awesome nurses taking care of the kids 24/7. No one is on a breathing tube any more. Brooklyn, Lauren, Alex, and Emma are on their C-Pap devices intermittently. They wear them for two hours and then they’re off them for two hours. Madeline is a little behind them and she is still on her C-Pap 24 hours a day, but the staff is still very happy with her progress. All of the kids had feeding tubes places yesterday and feedings were started over night. Angela is breast pumping but has had little success, so the kids were started on a formula. Three of them have IV’s for supplemental nutrition and the other two will get them this week. Initially, they had a line for fluids in the belly button. All of them are under the lights to help with excess bilirubin. Too much bilirubin is what causes jaundice, which is very common in many children, especially little one’s like ours.

The long and short of it is that all of them are doing well and progressing nicely. We’ve been blessed, but this is nowhere close to over. Please keep your prayers and happy thoughts coming for the kids.

By the way…Meredith is doing awesome too. Angela’s mom has been staying all week to help out. We’re really looking forward to seeing her playing in her little baby pool in the backyard tonight.

I am so sorry for the delay in getting info up on the site. Angela and I have been so busy. Angela has her hands full trying to recover, and frankly, has had better things to do than knock out a blog post. I’ve been terribly busy between ANW and Children’s; supporting Angela, checking on the kids, and also getting the family we had in town an opportunity to see the kids. So let me back some things up for everyone.

Friday was such an emotional day. We slept a little on Thursday night, but were up early Friday morning. Everyone was so awesome during the day. As I think back on it, I can’t get over how organized, planned, and smooth the entire process went along. They had a plan and executed it perfectly. Thank you so much to everyone at ANW and Children’s. (Dr. Wagner, I’m gonna buy you that steak I promissed. Go Hawkeyes!) I’m gonna try to get some pics on here for everyone from my personal camera. I have more pics available that the hospital provided. They will be added to the site as soon as I can work on it.

So as the day got started, the staff was busy with Angela and I got changed in to my scrubs.

We had a little down time before things got started and had a little time to spend with Meredith. My family took on the challenge of looking after the big sister for the weekend. What a job she’s gonna have.

Angela went in to the operating room a little after 9:30. I stood around with Angela’s mom, some hospital personnel, and a few others. While they were getting things ready with Angela in the operating room, a nurse manager from Children’s brought me the hats. The hats have become pretty popular and everyone seems to like them. I’m sorry that I don’t have a picture of them. The whole thing started a month or two ago when the same nurse brought Angela these hats that would be used on the kids after they were born. Angela added the ribbons over the next couple days. This was also the same time that we (mostly Angela) were finalizing the names. The names were chosen a long time ago. On Thursday, Angela gave me my “cheat sheet” for the delivery that associated a name with a specific colored ribbon. No one knew the names before hand and I can say that I did find a little pleasure teasing people with the list for a day or so. The moment that I got the hats, I had a little breakdown where things got emotional. I had so many things flying through my head. If you saw the article on-line at the Star Tribune (I recommend that you see it if you haven’t), you can see some of those candid pictures in the picture gallery next to the story. You can find that story and more on our media page or click here for a link directly to the story. After a minute or two, I was called in to the operating room to be by Angela’s side. She was so awesome!!! I’m sorry, but I don’t have a good pic of the operating room. I was focused on Angela during the first stage of the surgery. As the kids were delivered, I stood up and watched. Angela didn’t see them at all until she made it over to Children’s later than afternoon still in her hospital bed. As soon each one was born, they were rushed to one of two adjacent rooms where a team of people worked on each child. As I was called in, I was asked to give hats to each of them and thus name them in the process. Alex got the hat with the blue ribbon and the others just got the hat on the top of the pile when I got to them. It was pretty busy in there for a few minutes. I never felt panic in the room. It was so calm.

As soon as the babies were stable, I went back to Angela to tell her that things were fine with all of them and that I was going with the kids over to Children’s. I tagged along with the first transport team. Soon after we arrived in the NICU, two more teams arrived. They put the last four of them in sets of two for the ride over to Children’s. After a little while, I came back to check on Angela where she was doing fine. Thank you Becky for sticking by her side while I was gone. The rest of the day was very busy between the two hospitals and getting family in to see the kids once things were stable.

Angela is doing well in her recovery. She’s having a few minor issues, but they were expected. She’s really tired, a little weak, and pretty sore. She said it was pretty weird to see her feet.

The children were all doing as well as could be expected. At the time of their transport to Children’s, 4 of the 5 had breathing tubes. Ironically, Emma (the smallest), was the only one not put on a breathing tube. They are listed in critical condition, but that’s because they’re in a NICU. All 4 of them had their breathing tubes removed today which is an awesome development and now all 5 of them are wearing a breathing mask. I keep telling everyone that I feel like I should be panicked, worried, concerned, fearful, scared, etc; but I’m not. The reality of the situation is that they’re all doing well, I’m 100% comfortable with the staff at Children’s, and I can’t do anything to help anyway. I say the Serenity Prayer every night and I truly believe that it’s helped me through the past few days, weeks, and months.

As for the Children, here are the stats:

Thank you so much to everyone for your tremendous support!

Until next time…

Hello

Just breathe. Everyone is ok. We have 5 healthy babies today. Outside of some assistance with oxygen, we have 4 healthy girls and 1 healthy boy. Madeline, Brooklyn, Lauren, Emma, and Alex. I don’t know the order or any other vitals if I’m not looking at my cheat sheet and I’m too tired to go get it.

Angela is doing fine. She’s resting now.

Thank you so much to the staff at ANW and at Children’s. The care you provided today was AWESOME!!!

After while, I’ll try to get some more up on the site. We’re just beat! If you’d like more info, there is a story at www.startribune.com.

Until then…

It’s official. The date has been set. Angela’s C-Section has been scheduled for Friday morning. Some may be wondering, “Is everything is ok?” Everyone is fine other than the fact that Angela has been crawling up and down the walls in this room and watching her belly reminds me of the scene from the movie Alien.

The hospital is helping with photography and maybe some video during the delivery. They’ll be releasing that info to the media once everyone is stable. I’ll try to get some info up on the blog sometime on Friday to let everyone know our status.

Our emotions are all over the place right now. Angela just told me, “It’s just time.” She’s so worn out. Dad is really running on fumes. Heck, if Meredith could put together more than a word or two in a sentence, I think she’d tell you that she’s exhausted from this whole thing. She needs her mommy back, I need my wife back, and Angela needs…well…Angela needs everything back. I’m taking this directly from her this morning. She really wants to just go back to her home, where she isn’t even sure if she’ll recognize it. It’s changed so much just from when she saw it last; now that the basement is finished and we moved all the furniture around the house to accommodate our cherubs. Angela is really so excited to going back to spending time playing with and taking care of Meredith. They have some relationship rebuilding to do. She’s really looking forward to lying next to her snoring husband in HER bed every night. Wait a minute, I don’t snore. Honey, I can’t wait for your freezing cold butt and ice cold toes rubbed up against me either! She’s really looking forward to just being outside and sitting in the sunshine. She misses her garden. We spend a lot of time out there. Angela would like to drive a car again. Funny, I’d like to not drive a car for a while. She’s really looking forward to having some good food of the non-hospital variety. I’m looking forward to grilling her up something nice. She’s calling for some “Pasta Slop.” Sounds horrible, but is awesome. It’s basically a hot dish. I’m gonna grill up some Italian Sausage, cut it up, and mix it in a baking pan with some Penne and Pasta Sauce, and a bag of mozzarella cheese. We’ll bake it until the cheese is melted across the top. Add a little side salad, some garlic bread, and a bottle of wine and we’ve got a meal. Its 7:30 in the morning right now and it sounds awesome. I can’t wait. I miss my wife and I can’t wait for her to come home.

I’m eagerly anticipating some news tomorrow. “Tune in tomorrow – same bat time, same bat channel!”

Until then…

Well Hello and Greetings from Wisconnie!

There’s been a lot of conflicting information coming from the staff at ANW. Very recently, there’s been some chatter that a “go for launch” is coming. No details yet, but we’ll obviously keep you up to date.

Please stay tuned!

Until then…