Today has been a busy day of birthdays! We started our day roller skating at Skate South celebrating Siler's birthday! The boys had a blast (yes that includes Dadddy-O)! Later, Camron and Caden went to Ci-Ci's pizza to celebrate Ella's birthday. From there they met me at the Barber abode to have a "sleeping" party for Jones. The picture proves what a great time they had having a sack race in their pillow cases! Luckily, these aren't the pillow cases that were wet from the paint! They each got to personalize their own pillow case as a take home craft! What a busy day and we are all so tired but OH so blessed to have so many wonderful friends to celebrate!

Daddy-O on skates!

taking a little break!

Jaxon is getting pretty good at this!

Ready, Set, HOP!

Field Trip

We took a field trip with some of our homeschool friends to the Natural Science Center last Friday. It was SO much fun! We didn't get to go outside to visit the animals due to the c-c-cold weather but we WILL be back soon to do it again! Here is a picture of our crazy crew!

Girls Over-Night Out!

Last weekend I was SO blessed to be able to have a girls night out with Brooke, Kelly, and Tonya (from Durham) in Burlington! We meet there quite often for dinner but this time we not only met for dinner but also shopping and an over night stay in a nice hotel! We had a GREAT time! Oddly enough, of all the shopping I did, I didn't buy one thing for myself. ( Oh wait, I take that back, I did buy 1 thing...but it was for maternity photos...so not sure that counts! ) We had dinner at the Olive Garden, did lots of shopping, then stayed up talking and laughing until way too late (for us Mommy's that is!).

Roller Skating Party

So I am a little late in posting this! The boys had a Valentine's Skate Party with our homeschool group from church. This was all three of my boys first time on skates. They LOVED it and really impressed me with how well they did! Jaxon's buddy Siler is a mini-pro! You might be able to see him zooming past in some of the pictures!

We have a birthday party tomorrow at the skating rink and the boy are SO excited! Oh, and for all of you wondering...this momma is NOT getting in skates prego...no worries there!

Camron and Caden posing while skating...can we say skills!

Jaxon is getting good!

How stinkin' cute are these 5???

Our homeschool group! What a good lookin' bunch!

20 week ultrasound

I went in today for my follow up ultrasound. We got lots of great pictures of our little Baby Bean. The Dr. said his spine and lips look great. All the shots they couldn't get last time, they were finally able to get. He is measuring a little over a week larger than 20 weeks which is fine. They did notice a little ( very small amount ) of fluid around his kidneys. The Dr. thinks it will be gone by my next ultrasound in 4 weeks. I will have ultrasounds every 4 weeks from now on to check his growth. Apparently my being on a low dose of prednisone can cause the baby to be smaller. Anyway, we are praising the Lord that everything looks good and praying that the kidney issue is something that we won't have to worry about in the future!


This is his hand up over his face. You can see his nose and lips. This is my favorite!

Profile shot



We caught a yawn! It was adorable!

These are just a few, there are more on facebook!

March For Babies

Camron

Caden

Hello Family and Friends~
It's that time of year again to start getting ready for the annual March For Babies Walk. Camron and Caden are almost 4 1/2 years old. As each year passes, we get farther and farther away from that terrifying time when they were fighting for their lives in the NICU. Farther and farther away from the roller coaster ride that lasted for 2 long months and even continued once we got them home and still weren't sure what the future would hold.
For those of you who are new to our story, let me fill you in. For those of you who have been with us all along, let me refresh your memory.
Camron and Caden were born in my 28th week of pregnancy. They were supposed to have close to 12 more weeks to grow and develop inside! Camron weighed 2 lbs. 8 oz. at birth, dropping down to 2 lbs 3 oz. and Caden weighed 2 lbs 4 oz. at birth, dropping down to 1 lb 14 oz. Can you imagine holding 2 bags of sugar in your hands. That's what it was like holding my babies. Both of them needed surfactant at birth and then again after as well. The research for surfactant was made possible by funding done for the March of Dimes. Camron and Caden both had a very hard time learning and remembering to breath on their own while in the NICU. Many of you know, Caden had a hard time remembering even once we got home which resulted in a 911 call and many "close" calls. Both of the boys had intraventricular hemorrhages on BOTH sides of their brains. Caden had a grade II on one side and III on the other. Camron had a grade III on one side and a grade IV on the other. A grade IV is the worst. It is only by the grace of God that there are no long-term effects from those bleeds today. Many children with those bleeds have life long problems such as cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus. Both of the boys had ROP (retinopathy of prematurity). This is what caused Stevie Wonder to go blind. Camron's was much more severe than Caden's. He has worn glasses since the age of 7 months due to that as well as other issues with his vision. Both of the boys had bilateral inguinal hernia's which required surgery at 5 months of age when they were strong enough.
These are only some of the obstacles Camron and Caden faced from being born prematurely. Wouldn't it be nice if ALL babies could be born FULL-TERM? Wouldn't it be nice if ALL babies could be born HEALTHY? With your help, we can get closer to that point! On April 24th, starting at 9am at Center City Park in Greensboro, we are going to WALK to save babies. Up until that date, we are going to RAISE money to fight against prematurity. Please help us win the fight against prematurity! Visit our site at www.marchforbabies.org/dukeboys.
If you have any questions at all, please let me know! I would be more than happy to answer them!
Love to all,
Chris, Jenn, Jaxon, Camron, Caden, and baby Bean!

Update

Wow, I feel like I have so much to update since my last post...wait a minute, that's because I do! I have some awesomely amazing news first and foremost! I had my CK level checked last week at my rheumatologist office and my levels are down to 275. Yep people you are reading that correctly, no need to clean those lenses or wipe those eyes! 275. That is almost normal. Normal is between 40 and 230 (I believe). That is a reason to high five the person closest to you right now!
As I'm sure some of you know, I was very set on NOT finding out the sex of this baby. Our goal was to be pleasantly surprised on the big birth-day. Well, we were pleasantly surprised last Friday instead. Let me start from the beginning. I got a shocking phone call Wednesday morning. A nurse from my ob office called to let me know my AFP test had come back "abnormal". (Now, I know what you're all thinking...what does Jenn do that IS normal) She went on to tell me they wanted me to come in and have an ultrasound so they could check for visible neural tube defects such as spina bifida. Needless to say, I was a mess. I called in the troops (aka, Chris, Nana, and Poppi) and off we went to take care of boys or go to to the dr. The ultrasound tech could not see any "gross abnormalities" of the spine but baby bean was not laying the correct way. After meeting with Dr. T, he suggested this very well could be a false positive but he wanted me to go to the hospital for a high risk specialist to do another ultrasound. The second ultrasound was scheduled for Friday morning. We went to this appointment praying for a more concrete answer and that baby bean would just be perfect, the way God planned all along! At this appointment, it was confirmed that the spine and the abdomen both looked good. They could not get a good shot of the mouth at this one! This means they could not rule out cleft palate. Being that I am still taking a low dose of prednisone, this is a concern. I will be going back in a few weeks to have a repeat ultrasound to check all of these things again. I will then have an ultrasound every 4 weeks to keep a close watch on baby bean as well as myself. If I wasn't all the way in the high risk category before, I'm there now! With all that said, there were many shots baby bean was NOT letting those techs get during these 2 ultrasounds. There was one thing baby bean wanted us to see and made sure of it! We saw the goods. Baby Boy Bean is not a shy baby at all! He is very proud of himself as he should be! He is a blessing to our "little" Duke family and an answer to a long awaited prayer!