Tille Family

Playing in the water!

This is just a very brief close to the weekend. Meredith is down for the night, the dishes are done, the laundry is almost done, and the pics are downloaded and saved. I led the crew of Meredith, Becky and Debbie (her mom and aunt) around all of the construction here in MSP to see Angela for lunch and a little time outside. It was a beautiful day here in MSP. These pics are the evidence.

Thanks Becky and Debbie. We needed that night!

What a week!

Wow. This was a big week! We had Amanda and Emily helping out at our home for the week, I learned that my job was safe, we got some updated measurements of the kids, then we had more family visiting and then some more family!

Amanda and Emily are now back in South Dakota after a week at our house. Thank you so much for watching Meredith during the week. She’s quite the handfull, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience dealing with an active toddler. Unfortunatly, Meredith has developed a bit of an attachment issue which led to a long week for the girls. Meredith really didn’t repsond well when I left her with the girls, or anyone, for that matter. I suppose that I’ve been one of the very few constants in her life recently and seeing me walk away isn’t really what she wants to see. We feel that tossing her around week after week has had a direct effect and I do not want to do it any more. Janet (A&E’s mom) made the trip up to River Falls on Friday along with my grandparents. We had a nice night. We went out for dinner and then I had a fire in the back yard after M went to bed. It was nice. Thanks again!

Angela got a nice surprise today. Just after eveyone left this morning, her mom and aunt showed up at ANW. They took on Meredith this afternoon so that I could make my way back to ANW and spend the night with her. I haven’t been there over night in a while and we both need it. We just ordered dinner and we’re gonna watch a movie after she gets done on the moniter. Maybe a game of cribbage…I might let her win this time.

As for the kids. There really isn’t too much to report as we really had our big ultrasound earlier in the week. We did have another ultrasound on Friday, but they didn’t do any measurements. That ultrasound was one of our Biophysical Profile Tests that we have twice weekly where they check the babies heart, watch them practice breathing, and observe some general movements. Everyone checked out great. The physicians and staff here are really happy with Angela’s and the kids progress. The docs are aware of how this is effecting her emotionally and we’ve started to discuss the idea of scheduling a c-section sometime out in the future. Its unlikely that they’ll schedule it much before 32 weeks, but maybe we’ll get lucky and find a compassionate doctor to plead our case. The idea of scheduling something is so that Angela can have a goal to look foward to instead of just blindly wating for something to happen. I guess we’lll just see what happens. I’m sure that we’ll learn more early next week.

That’s about it for now. I guess we’ll see how the rest of the weekend goes.

Until next time…

Back to work.

I just got off a conference call. My job is ok. Back to business as usual. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. They were appreciated.

My thoughts and prayers will go out to those who lost their jobs today. There were close friends who received bad news today. Please keep them and their families in your prayers.

Any bright ideas?

Hello everyone! Another day in paradise here at ANW. That’s been my catch phrase recently. “Another day in paradise” and “I’m living the dream” have been common if you’ve spoken with me in the past couple weeks. Angela is currently in dream land as I write this. Its already been a big day for her and I’ll get to that in a minute, but I want to back things up a bit first.

We really want to thank our families for thier tremendous support over the past couple weeks and months. Angela’s family was great with Meredith a couple weeks ago and then my family was awesome last week. Robert and Gwen (my brother and his wife) brought Meredith back to us this past weekend. They stayed at the house overnight and they stayed with Meredith at home Sunday morning so that I could get to church. Taking Meredith to church, now at 19 mos old, is impossible on my own. After I got home we all went in to see Ang. They stayed for a little while before making the 4-5 hour trek back to Brandon, SD (just outside of Sioux Falls, SD). Thank you Robert and Gwen. I know the sacrifice you made. We appreciate it. Thank you!

We also had a few other family members make a sacrifice on our behalf on Sunday. Janet and Brian, my mom’s sister and her husband, gave up their two daughters for a week. They spent probably close to 10 hours on the road on Sunday driving Amanda and Emily to our home in River Falls so that I wouldn’t have to put Meredith back in the car for a full day on the road. Thank you Janet and Brian for giving up your kids for the week. I’m not sure if you were sad to let them go or if you were happy to get the break from your teenage daughters, but we thank you either way!

Amanda and Emily did a great job helping with Meredith yesterday and they’ll be with her at our house for the rest of the week. They’ll back me up on this when I say the M was a little difficult to deal with on Monday morning. She really didn’t want to see her daddy go, again, but I really needed to go see a friend up in Duluth. Evey, thanks for all of your support. I appreciate your company and council…even if you’re a silly Viking fan. Meredith could tell that things are still in a constant state of change. I feel so bad that we’ve had to toss her around so much, but hopefully we can keep her at home from now on. Amanda and Emily, thank you so much for sacrificing your summer to help us out. This week specifically, you’re allowing me to do my job (I find out later today) and still spend necessary time with Angela. Thank you so much!!!

With that said, we think that we’re in the home stretch now. Tomorrow with the completion of 28 weeks. What a huge accomplishment!!! I’m so happy and proud of my bride. She’s so much tougher than I thought she ever was. I can’t begin to imagine and/or describe what she’s gone through physically, and maybe more so, emotionally during the past 6 months. She’s such a trooper. I can share that she is physically and emotionally exhausted at this point and she’d be perfectly comfortable booking the c-section today, but the doctors and nurses here at ANW won’t let her. They all keep telling her how awesome she’s doing and they’re so happy with her progress. Its funny…depending on who we talk to, their goals for Angela all vary a bit. One person will say 28 weeks, another will say 32 and then we’ll hear someone else day 30. We just know that were getting very close. Angela said something very funny today. I try to keep the blog clean, but I can’t resist this one. She told me today that if they let her go all the way to 32 weeks, “she’s gonna be a raging bitch.” I laughed. I promised her that she’d be home by the 4th of July.

As many of our loyal readers know, today was a measument day. We’ve been anxiously waiting for this. We were hoping that everyone would be in the 2 pound range, but C is just a hair behind the others. The good news is that they are all still on their expect growth chart and everyone is just so happy with the results. So here are they are:

Baby A – girl – 2 lbs, 9 oz
Baby B – boy – 2 lbs, 6 oz
Baby C – girl – 1 lb, 12 oz
Baby D – girl – 2 lbs, 1 oz
Baby E – girl – 2 lbs, 5 oz

I just did a little quick math for a little perspective. Most of them grew 11-15 oz since the last measurements (3 weeks ago). C grew the least in that she only gained 6 ounces. The good news is that she’s gaining and nobody seems worried about anything. Also keep in mind that these are estimated weights and thay they could be off by a few ounces either way. As long as Ang can keep em cookin, they’ll keep growing. I affectionately call the kids our little parasites. They just keep eating away at Angela and when they’re all fighting for space we can see each of them moving around on the surface of Angela’s belly. Total freak show. Its just amazing when it happens. Angela isn’t quite as amused as I am. Angela has actaully been losing weight over the past week or two. She’s only up about 15 lbs so far, but consider this…the kids weigh a little over 10 pounds, plus 5 placentas, plus the additonal blood and all the other stuff in there. Angela had me take her wedding ring home recently becasue it kept falling off. Don’t want to loose that! Nobody here at ANW seems too worried about the weight loss. They keep telling her that the kids will take what they need, hence the parasite reference. Please don’t let me misrepresent the situation. They are watching what she eats and they are watching her closely. Usually, someone is in the room every hour or two to check in on things. As I wrote that last sentence, food service came with a treat for her to eat.

With that said and now that I’m over a 1000 words on this HUGE post, let me close with this little slice of heaven and please remember that I tend to be a bit sarcastic from time to time before you put any comments on the post for me being inconsiderate husband.

If anyone has any bright ideas on how to fatten Angela up, please let me know. Its for the kids!!!

By the way…I find out my fate at work later today. I’ll pass it along when I know more.

Until next time…

Now we wait…

Hey everyone. Its been a very busy couple/few days and I’m very sorry for the lack of communication.

Angela is doing so awesome. On Wednesday, she completed 27 weeks. She is such a rock star…and I’m talking Aerosmith rock star quality. She’s hooked up to her contraction monitor now. Lets all think happy thoughts and pray that things are quiet tonight. We have another ultrasound in the morning where they’ll check for basic stuff. They’ll give us new measurments and estimated weights on Tuesday morning. I’ll make sure that I get that info out as soon as we get it.

We’re excited to get Meredith back this weekend. Robert (my brother) and his wife Gwen have volunteered to make the trek up to RF this weekend and bring M home. They’re gonna stay the night and spend some time with Angela at the hospital too. It will be good to see these guys again. It looks like everything is shaping up to have Amanda and Emily join us this weekend too. We’re so grateful that they volunteered to help us out this summer.

As for my week…I did everything that I could to prepare for my interview. This process is really a tough situation for everyone involved, even for those asking the questions. Angela and I are really fortunate that it was held here in Minneapolis so that I didn’t have to travel. Coloplast flew over a hundred employees into Minneapolis this week to go through this process. I ended up interviewing on Wednesday afternoon with 3 different people. I felt that there was nothing that I could have done differently to improve my performance. It is such a weight off my shoulders, but it isn’t over quite yet. I (nor anyone else) was not able to gain any type of committment as to the status of my future. So…I sit here and wait. I will get a phone call on Tuesday to find out if I’m part of the team moving forward. I’m confident that I’ll be fine, but there is that little glimmer of doubt that has me wondering, “what if?” I’m not gonna focus on that. I’d be miserable and it would make for a horrible weekend.

Angela and I are gonna do the ultrasound in the morning and then we can happily wait for Meredith to come home.

Until next time…

Day 1 at Oma and Opa’s House

It sounds like it was a big day on Monday at Oma and Opa’s in Rock Rapids. Most of the family came by including Great Gma and Gpa, Robert and his daughter, Lucy; Brad, Jill, and their son, Braden; and Amanda and Emily were there.

Angela and I really appreciate the extra effort that everyone is going through. Amanda and Emily (will be know as A&E) were there as well. A&E are my cousins from Tea, SD. They are the daughters of my mom’s sister, Janet. A&E are 16 and 14. This week is kind of a dry run for them as they plan to spend most of their summer with us in River Falls helping out with Meredith so that I can be with Angela and eventually the 5 as much as possible. We’ll eventually get them in this blog. You never know, maybe they’d like to have a voice too…I’m gonna attach some pics of M from yesterday. It sounds like she and Braden (my brother Brad’s, son) were like two peas in a pod yesterday. Man, they’re cute. Wish we were there!!!

There isn’t much to report on Angela’s status. She did have some contractions the other night and she did feel them. Turns out that was enough to get everybody worked up just a little bit. She ended up getting some medication that they gave her for 24 hours. The last pill was last night. It worked on the contractions. I guess we’ll see what happens now that she’s off the meds. I know that they don’t want her on a constant dose of whatever that pill was for the health of the babies. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Sorry, this one wasn’t very clever and we’ll try to get another update in the next day or two.

Until then…