Woo Hoo!

My OB appointment went great! Cervix is still greater than 3 cm long with no funnelling. Blood pressure was perfect and I passed my glucose testing with flying colors! I have been worried all week long that I would be making Boston a permenent home for the next several months but that was far from the case. I do however think that I will be packing a bag for myself and as soon as I get a big diaper bag for the babies packing that too so we will be prepared when I have to stay there.

The only disappointing news I got was that I really need to slow down and he wants me to pretty much be done work too. I am not too happy about that but if it will keep them cooking longer then so be it. I get the chance to tour the NICU in two weeks and also I will be getting the steroid shots to help the babies lungs develop.

Ben got to go to the ultrasound but they are getting so squished you really can't see anything much. The main thing is their heart beats all looked good and they are growing well. They have the perfect amount of fluid and begining in a couple weeks we will be doing weight checks on them at each ultrasound as well.

I want to thank Mandi and Monique for coming and painting the babies room. Carpet and trim will be in ASAP and then it will be DONE!!! So excited!

Also, congrats to Terry and Donald! Their girls, Addison and Kara, are here! I can't wait for all the babies to meet.

Here is a pic from 25 weeks!

I've been gifted this cool award by Alyssa. Check her out at http://heylyss09.blogspot.com/2009/07/kreative-blogger-award.html

The responsibilities that come with the award consist of listing 7 things you love and then 7 blogs you'd like to pass the award on to.

Here is my list of the 7 things I love...

1. Seeing the babies move on the ultrasound. I bet you guys can all guess that! I talk about it all of the time.

2. My family. Especially my husband of course but everyone else too. We have such a great support system that we are so thankful for.

3. Our friends. They have helped us through so much in the past couple years, where would we be without them?

4. Watermelon. I can't seem to get enough of this lately!

5. The babies room. It is almost ready and it looks great! Best room in the house we are so ready to have them home and healthy.

6. Being pregnant. This has truly been a great experience! I am ready for the babies to come but not ready to give up feeling them move and kick.

7. Lifetime Movie Network. It has kept me occupied during many hours of taking it easy.

I am passing this award onto...
http://tucanontheweb.blogspot.com/
http://russelandmandy.blogspot.com/
http://tessiekeys.blogspot.com/
http://tessiekeys.blogspot.com/
http://glitzedjewel.blogspot.com/
http://donnaandthorne.blogspot.com/
http://ashleyandlyle.blogspot.com/

An uneventful week...

not that we are complaining! Thursday Ben had his nerve testing and they did find some damage, they are still uncertain if it is reversible or what caused it. We are hoping that once they review all the test results again they will have some clue as to what is going on. The braces and physical therapy have helped him gain the strength back in his legs but he still has a hard time walking because of the numbness in his feet. He wants to get this straightened out before the babies are born so that he is more steady when carrying them.

I am still trying to get everything organized from the babies shower. It will be much easier to do once the room is ready. The painting is getting done this week then we are getting the rug put in! I am so excited to still be up and about and able to at least see the progress even though I am not much help.

Ben is going to try to join me at my appointment in Boston this week. I have to have my glucose test that day as well. I want to pass this test sooooo badly! I couldn't imagine giving up breads and pasta. Hopefully we will be able to tour the NICU that day as well.

Milestone!

This week marks a big milestone for the babies! They have reached their viability day which means that if they were born they would he a chance of survival. Each week the survival rate goes up so the longer they bake the better off they are!

I FINALLY finished going through all the stuff from my shower and organizing it into catergories. It needs to be put away but we are making headway! It is amazing all the stuff we got!

Ben is not tolerating his chemo well again this cycle. He has been nauseaous, week and uncomfortable all week long. Tomorrow is his nerve testing to see about the numbness in his feet they said it may be irreversable. Hopefully they can get it figured out and back on track so he has balance to carry the babies safely.

We are trying to come up a license plate for the van. Any suggestions??? So far we have people saying QUADSQD (Quad Squad) and 8LILFT(8 Little Feet).

Great news!

Ben had his chemo today and doctors appointment. They gave us the results of the PET scan which showed no more spots of cancer in any of his organs! His lymph nodes are still swollen a bit but almost normal! He will still have to do chemo through December to insure they got it all and it won't come right back but as of right now things are looking great!

My appointment today went good as well. The u/s tech was able to get some good shots to show Ben that the 3 boys were in fact boys! They are getting crowded in there so he wasn't able to make out what we were looking at all the time. No change in the cervix this week we are still looking at 3.6 cm so they were very pleased by that. My blood pressure was good at the end of my OB appointment and I was only showing a weight gain of 2 lbs in 2 weeks bringing the grand total to 27lbs so far. My belly is now measuring past a 40 week single gestation.

Pretty calm week this week so hopefully we will get the rest of the babies stuff sorted and stored. Who knew babies needed so much stuff???

Babies Shower!

My mom, Diana, Allison and Kate through the best baby shower ever yesterday! I can't believe how much stuff all the babies got, we are really ready for them to come now. I'd like to hold out another couple months though.

There were tons of guests but I was so surprised to see Karla and Keri from Connecticut and Marissa and Peyton from Maryland. I wish I had more time to visit with each of them but it was a crazy day and they all had to head back yesterday.

When Ben and I got home our den was invaded with gift bags! We went through about half of them sorting them into sizes for clothes and catergories for everything else. We still have half the room to go through. It will be so much easier to organize once their room is done and that is coming along great! We left some of the big stuff at my moms and most of the diapers!

Ben was amazed at all the diapers and I told him that we probably would still need to buy more when they came. I don't think he really understands how many diapers babies go through!

Here is the link to some of the pictures from yesterday if you want to see them. Any one who took pics I would love to have them emailed to me at khickey@ne.rr.com

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=ty01mh3.1zmn7c4r&x=0&h=1&y=sftpu1&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_button

TGIF!

What a long, appointment filled week! Ben had his PET scan today so we will know on Monday how things are going with him. We are feeling pretty confident that it is going to be good news! He is starting to act like his old self, the one we haven't seen in a LONG time!

Tomorrow I am going to Burlington to pick up Stacey at the airport! I am so excited to see her! I don't count the 10 minutes I got to see her last month so it has been like a year. Hopefully she will bring the sun and warmth up from South Carolina.

Sunday is my baby shower! I am so excited to see all my family and friends from away. Some of the guests I haven't seen in many years.

The nursery is all sheet rocked now we are waiting for it to be taped and mudded so the paint can go on. It will be so nice to be able to start putting everything together in there for them. I am ready to have everything set up for them so if I end up on bed rest it will all be in order.

23 week appointment

Babies are doing great, nice strong heartbeats and moving like crazy. Everything else went great at my appointment too until they took my blood pressure and it was high. They had me rest for 15 minutes and took it again, it was higher. They repeated it a couple times and everytime it was higher. I ended up having some blood work done and I have to call today to get the results and give them the blood pressure reading from this morning. If they don't think it is low enough then they will be putting me on bed rest. I want to get through the weekend before that happens!

They decided that I won't be doing weight checks until 28 weeks so a little longer before they do those. I still have to do cervical length checks every week so I get an excuse to see the babies each week. The bigger they get the harder it is to see them well. I didn't get any pictures this week because they didn't get any picture worthy views.

In other news, I officially become a minivan mom today. One more thing done to be ready for the babies to be here!

No news...

Ben had his appointment with Dr Lallana today to get the results of his spinal tap and they found nothing. It was a pain for him to drive all the way down there for something they could have told him over the phone. They were giving free chair massages for cancer patients though so he was psyched to get one of those!

The babies are moving more and more each day! Today one of them kicked so hard that Shelley was able to see them move from across the room! I love it!!!

Enter your best guesses!

Thought I would put a little something on here for fun!

Enter your guess for Aubrey's stats


Enter your guess for Brady's stats


Enter your guess for Matthew's stats


Enter your guess for Cameron's stats

What a Long Day!

The softball tournament was today it was 10 hours long and Ben and I both made it through the whole thing! I am sure that Ben will be sore tomorrow, he did far too much walking around. I am glad to see he was feeling better after how the first part of the week was for him.

Ten teams registered today and everyone seemed to have a great time playing ball. We would like to thank everyone who came out today to play, donate their time to working the tournament and those who came to support the players and the cause. We would also like to send a special thanks to...

Lee and Tracie Lambert for organizing the tournament.

Wayne and Farron Deyette for manning the grills and making sure everyone was well fed.

Jason Gaudette for getting all the prizes for the raffle and for donating the proceeds from the 50/50 back into the fund.

Bobby Simpson and Deanna Scott for donating the winnings from the Home Run Derby.

The Axle Surgeons Team for Donating the trophy back to our family, it will be a treasured keepsake to rememeber the tournament by.

We are very touched by the generousity of our friends, family and community members. We will never be able to thank everyone enough for everything that has been done.

The winning team...


Giving Ben the trophy for a keepsake...


The runners up...

Great night!

We had a great turn out at the dance last night! It was so good to get out and see some friends and family and listen to great music. Tabby and Sam's flocking skit was hilarious and provided many laughs! We feel very fortunate to have such a great support system around us.

We would like to thank everyone who attended the dance last night and especially...

Sam and Chris Canton for organizing the dance and everything else they have done for us.

Tom and Heather Bushey for generously donating the winnings from the 50/50 back to our fund.

Amy, Wendall and the rest of the Sweet Jayne Band for donating their time to provide great entertainment.

Well, off to the soft ball tournament! Hope it stays a little cool!

Dance tonight!

Sam organized a benefit dance for us tonight at the local American Legion. There is a great band playing, Sweet Jayne, they play everything from 70's-today. If you have nothing to do come join us 8-12. The drawing for the raffle is tonight also!

Ryan and Tom have been working in the babies room the past couple nights and the sheet rock is almost done! I am so excited to see it all done and painted so we can put all of their stuff in there. I am going crazy with the big pile of baby stuff on my porch!

This week has been rough on Ben, unfortunately we thought that it would get better after each chemo treatment but in fact it has gotten worse each time. With any luck he will be feeling ok tonight and able to make an appearance at the dance. I know he misses being out and seeing all his friends.

Tomorrow is the softball tournament at the big ball field in Groveton. There are a lot of teams signed up, both amature and league teams so I am sure it will be lots of fun too!

Another rough day for Ben

Ben had his spinal tap yesterday and it took far longer than they expected because they were having a hard time getting around a mystery bone in his back. After calling in reinforcements they were finally able to get another fluid to run the test, we will get the results next Tuesday. He was in a lot of pain and had a hard time with having to stay on his back for so long afterwords to try and keep him from getting a spinal headache. They wheeled him down to the infusion room on a stretcher and got him ready for his chemo.

His doctor came in and told him the results from his MRI. There was nothing that they could see that would cause the numbness in his feet but they did tell him that there was a part of the brain that a bone didn't fully develop when he was an infant so he decided to make a story out of that and call his mother and convince her that the doctor said that she must have dropped him on his head as a baby and that is why he acts retarded sometimes. He thought he was a funny man yesterday.

That didn't last long, he was very sick on the way home and all day today. Chemo really wipes him out for at least 3-4 days then he begins to feel better slowly. About 2-3 days before his next round he begins feeling like his old self just in time to be knocked down again.

Ben has a PET scan scheduled for next Friday to see if the chemo is working or if they need to tweak it. We will have the results before his next treatment. The doctors are hopeful that it is working and so are we. Even if it is working he will have treatments every other week through December at least.

My ultrasound went well, Auntie Allison got to see the babies and one of them even waved at her. They are all growing so much it is getting harder to see them. There is 3 hands in one shot sometimes! LOL! My cervix is holding up great! The OB said that it is doing better than most women carrying one baby at this point so I am very hopeful to make it to 32 weeks at least.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday with friends and family! Have a safe and happy 4th!

First a little story about "flocking" for those who are unfamiliar with the fundraiser. Some friends of ours put together a fundraiser to help us off set the loss of Ben's income and soon the loss of mine as well in which late at night flamingos are placed on lawns throughout the community. You can flock someone by purchasing a fleet of 10, 20, 30 or 50 and sending them to anyone you wish. In the morning the flocked person will wake up to a yard full of flamingos and in turn they can send them on to someone else the next night if they wish. There is flocking insurance you can purchase if you do not want to have them placed on your yard! This is a very time consuming project that has raised over $3000 to date. We want to thank everyone who has given their time to this project, those who have flocked someone, and especially to Sam and Tabby...the "mother-flockers" who came up with the fundraiser and organize this on a daily basis.

So, of course at the local parade we needed a flamingo float too! Here are some pictures from parade...

21 week appointment

My ultrasound today went great, the babies are all doing well. Growing so much that it is harder to get a good veiw of them. They tried to do a 3D/4D shot today but it was just a big bunch of something. I couldn't tell what we were looking at! Anyways, they are going to start checking for weights at 24 weeks so I am looking forward to that. According to my books they are around 1 lb and about 10 inches long.

Onto the OB appointment...
Blood pressure was high but came down when retested. No sugar or protien in urine so that is good. No new restrictions, same speech about listening to my body, taking it easy, resting at least 3 times a day. We talked about when the babies are born and how long to expect them to stay in the hospital for. He said generally they stay until they reach the point where they would have been 36 weeks so it all depends on when they are born but the good news is as soon as all their organs are functioning well and they are eating with a bottle they can move to Littleton so we will be closer to home.