Archives for December 2005

An update on the Roberts Family who had quadruplets recently.  You can also see an article on them on November 23rd, 2005 @ In love we weep for one another.

Their family’s website is www.expandingrobertses.com

Love,

Julie

Dear Friends & Family,

Merry Post-Christmas & Happy Pre-New Year!  The latest updates on everyone…

Ashley had a great Christmas.  Any notions of a small-scale Christmas were quickly dispelled, as friends, relatives, the First Christian Church Youth Group, and the Postal Service lavished lots and lots of gifts on Ashley.  No possible way to describe how much fun she had, and how much fun we had.  She’s still loving life with Grandma and Grandpa, and is becoming an increasingly sweet, increasingly smart, increasingly talkative “big girl”.

Benjamin is weighing in at 4 lb. 13 oz., and still doing better than anyone.  He actually moved to an open crib, as he is able to regulate his temperature pretty well on his own now.  His belly button started bleeding a few days ago, and he is finishing a round of antibiotics to make sure that any potential infection is knocked out.  We would love to see Benjamin home with us in a couple of weeks from now!

Casey went back onto CPAP a few days ago, which consists of a rhinoceros-looking mask and hat.  Not fun for picture-taking, but helpful for him for right now, and he is scheduled to be back on nasal prongs on New Year’s Eve.  Casey has a reddish-purple mark on the underside of his upper lip—pray that this is simply a blood bruise, and not a hemangioma (a hemangioma is a sort of raised birthmark that can grow very large for a number of months before becoming small again—it wouldn’t be a good thing to be on his lip).  Casey weighs 4 lb. 0 oz. and is still doing very well overall.

Danielle is this week’s superstar!  We can finally see her nose, as she came off of CPAP just the other day and is now breathing through the nasal prongs.  So far, so good.  She now has a cute little nose to go with her big pretty eyes.  She is lagging behind weightwise, at 3 lb. 9 oz. and is getting antibiotics for what is probably a slight urinary tract infection.  Not out of the woods for a while, but she has made such amazing progress since her first weekend with us.

The candles pictured are ones that we lit on Christmas Eve and Christmas, the beginning of a tradition.  We wanted to remember Emily at this Christmas, but also wanted to give thanks for the little ones that we have been blessed with, but also wanted first and foremost to honor and celebrate the Baby whom “Christmas is all about” (Ashley would love to tell you His name).  Wal-Mart had a nice seven-candle set-up that accommodated us rather nicely:  The white candle in the center represents the pure light of the baby Christ; the small white candle is in memory of Emily, who is with Him today; the two blue candles and the two purple candles are in celebration of Benjamin and Casey, Ashley and Danielle, respectively; and the green candle represents new life—the new life that Jesus came to bring all of us, the new life that Emily is enjoying, the new lives of our four little ones that we’re enjoying, and the new life that many infertile couples are asking God to give them, as we were just a few years ago.

Various odds and ends:  *Lisa had another good cardiologist check-up.  *It would be quite rude to give away someone’s age in a mass e-mail, but I will say that my Dad’s birthday on Friday started with an early morning party of sorts, as we downloaded and played the song “When I’m 64” for him.  *If you are suffering from snow and bitter cold in your corner of the world right now, we feel bad for you, but we can’t relate at all.  Sunny and high 70’s most days in Phoenix this week.  *The old nerve-damaged laptop I’m borrowing from Savannah Christian Church died the other day, but the hard drive was resuscitated at Circuit City so that we can back up all of the files that were on it; we just sprang for a new personal laptop, so that we won’t have such a scare again.  *I wrote the babies a NICU version of The Night Before Christmas, in an attempt to translate a little American folklore into their preemie world—if you want to see it, go to www.expandingrobertses.com and click the underlined link in the text to “Emily Anne Roberts” and find it on that page.  *The deadline passed for the Smartest Nurse Contest that I referred to a couple of e-mails ago; it yielded nineteen entries.  They were asked to guess what date the last of our babies would be released (i.e. when might we head home?).  The 19 guesses ranged from January 28 to February 28.  We will see who the winner is, but of course we would love to see The Amazing Jane run away with it with her January 28 wager.

Thank you to all of you who remembered us, prayed for us, and blessed us in so many ways this Christmas.  It was a different one, and in some ways a difficult one, yet definitely lived up to the cliché “the best Christmas ever”.  We pray God’s blessings upon you in 2006.

In Christ,

Phil, Lisa, Ashley, Benjamin, Casey, Danielle

& Emily (November 4-23, 2005)