My birthday and some unrelated thoughts on mothers and the value of sacrifice

Short Update on Rachelle
To start off, Rachelle is doing well and the babies seem to also be doing well. At 24 weeks, they are technically viable and actually could have some potential for surviving if they were born soon. However, that said, we know that things can change fast and we are still really hoping to get her at least 32 weeks if we can make it.

Bonding with Riley
Riley and I have been bonding over Spiderman, Harry Potter, and baseball. It has actually been very fun and I will miss all the one-on-one time I have been able to spend with him. I recommend that every dad get a good month or two of roughing it with their son.

My Birthday
Last week was my birthday and, at first, it was a pretty bad one. At work, we had a big company meeting where I was ultimately responsible for making the A/V stuff work. It was a bit nerve racking but fortunately, I have some really great people that helped make it a success. Still, it wasn't exactly the most fun thing to do on your birthday. When I got home, the youth in my church congregation all came over and cleaned my house and fixed up my yard. When they originally asked about doing it, I had assumed that it would only be maybe 10 of them. Instead, all 50 or so of them came. I was a bit nervous when I saw how many there were but I think the overall result was positive. When they were done, they all gathered around and sang happy birthday to me which was very nice of them.

I know I almost always write this, but I am still amazed that this has really brought out the best in people. The people from my church are really amazing and I feel like I could ask just about anything and they would help us out. I kind of feel sorry for people struggling with similar issues that don't have what we have with our church.

The sacrifices we all must make to be happy
Another thing I wanted to write about was an article I read about Jane Clayson Johnson, a former co-host on "The Early Show". The article is about a book she wrote called "I am a Mother" that detailed her television career as well as her choice to eventually give that up to be a Mother. The article, which I recommend, is here:

http://www.meridianmagazine.com/books/070420Mother.html

There was one part in particular that really struck me in this article. It was a quote from someone named Jeffrey R. Holland, a leader in our church, that said:

In those crucial moments of pivotal personal history [we must] submit ourselves to God even when all our hopes and fears may tempt us otherwise. We must be willing to place all that we have — not just our possessions…but also our ambition and pride and stubbornness and vanity — on the altar of God, kneel there in silent submission, and willingly walk away.
-Jeffrey R. Holland

I tend to believe that all of us, at one time or another, will have to do just that. There are times when we have to throw logic aside and put our faith in a higher power. I believe that our future happiness depends on it. The peace Rachelle and I felt when we decided to go against conventional logic and do whatever we could to have these babies, was wonderful. However, I also know that making those choices and placing everything "on the alter of God" does not mean our lives will be easier. Putting your trust in God often means volunteering to go through the "refiners fire". The only real guarantee you get is that when you come out of it, you will be something more than what you ever thought you could be. This is the hope that I will continue to try to remind myself of when I am sitting there in the NICU praying for my babies, listening to them scream at three in the morning, and eventually helping them work out bathroom arrangements as teenagers.

My trip to Europe and Rachelle's trip out of the hospital

This last week has been fairly eventful which was why I didn't write a blog entry. I was in Europe all of last week while Rachelle was, thankfully, coming home from the hospital. Normally, when people think of Europe, they think of old culture, great art, and a lot of interesting things to eat. Last week we my first time to Europe and the only thing I really experienced was the nice (but fairly expensive) things to eat. In the 5 days I was in Europe, I visited Norway, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. Although I am sure that each of those places has some interesting stuff to see, I didn't really get to see any of it because I just didn't have time.


We were shooting video of some of my company's customers that turned out pretty interesting. The problem was that we were either in the hotel room, the customer's building, or the airport. It was funny because I kind of felt like I could have been in any American city except that there were a lot more people smoking. In the meantime, Rachelle was in the hospital really hoping that she would be able to get out of the hospital. I felt really bad when I called her from the St. Paul airport and she indicated that she wasn't sure they were going to let her leave. In the end, however, they did let her leave and she seems to be doing fine now. She is trying to actually follow the doctors orders this time and actually not do things that are not strictly necessary. It is really hard for her because she likes to be busy and really doesn't like others to do stuff for her.

Despite our hurried trip, we did have a few interesting things happen. First, when we were in Belgium on the way to the customer's building, we were stopped by a large group of policemen. The person driving the car was our local sales guy and he seemed to think this wasn't strange. They put something down his gas tank to check what kind of fuel he was using. Apparently, there are two kinds of fuel: one to heat your house and one to run your car. Although these two fuel types are the same, one is colored red and the other is clear. Using the red fuel is bad because it is much less expensive so they want to make sure you are using the white fuel. The police also had him take a breathalyzer test. This was at 8:30 in the morning. Apparently, in Belgium you can frequently find people that are drunk by 8:30 in the morning.

Rachelle and her aunt Jeanie were featured in an article in the Gilbert Community section of the Arizona Republic newspaper last week. With Rachelle pregnant with quintuplets and Jeanie having MS, it makes for a pretty interesting story that I hadn't really considered before. You can view it by going to our home page on wilkinsonquints.org.

At home, I am still dealing with paying the bills, and getting the stuff ready for moving in to our new house. We are still receiving dinners from people and other things that are very nice. The 16 year old young men and young women are planning (weather permitting) to come to our house tomorrow to take care of our yard and vacuum the house which I really appreciate. Riley is doing well with me also. We have been reading Harry Potter and he thinks it is great. I think it is great too because it gives me a good chance to practice a variety of British accents. Also, it is just nice to simply spend some time with my son bonding over broomsticks and magic wands (because I think we are not going to have as much time for that in the future).

My visit to Rachelle, her subsequent hospitalization, and other fun stuff

Last weekend, I got to go to Phoenix to visit Rachelle. It was fun to see her again. She seemed to be doing fairly well and the people there are taking really good care of her. Her aunt Jeanie is so incredibly nice to have Rachelle and Kaiya over.

It was hard to be there only a short time but I had to get back. I guess my visit was a little too exciting for her because the day I left, Rachelle went for her normal doctors appointment and they found that she was 50% dilated which wasn't good. They rushed her to the nearby hospital and decided to do a cerclage which is where they sew up your cervix. She started having a bunch of contractions too which was also not good. We think it was the anxiety of the situation or maybe the sadness of seeing her super cool husband (that's me if you were wondering) return to Austin. They put her on a magnesium medication which helps to stop contractions but also makes her feel yucky. I was pretty worried for her on Tuesday morning because I knew that she had the surgery on Monday night and I didn't hear anything from her until about 2:00 PM. Fortunately, things seemed to go pretty well but she still felt rotten. She has since gone off the magnesium and they are trying to figure out if she can go back to her aunt's house. We are praying that she will...but if not, we will do what is best for the babies.

Another "fun" thing happened right before I went to the airport to go to Phoenix. I got in my van and found that the battery died. I had about 30 minutes to get to the airport so I found someone to give me a jump and made it there. When I came back from Phoenix, the battery was dead again so I called my friend Randy and he came and gave me another jump at the airport. I had actually been driving the van because my normal car (a super cool two door 1993 Honda Civic hatchback) refused to turn it's break lights off so that I had to unplug the fuse every time I parked the car. Another fun thing that happened right before I left is that the house we are renting had a pipe from the water heater that started leaking and got water into the walls. Our very nice landlord has been tearing out sections of the wall in the master bedroom to get it all fixed. It seems to be fixed now but I feel sad that he had to go through so much trouble. Anyway, the moral of the story is that if a bunch of bad things all happen at the same time, it makes for a much more entertaining story later.

On the flip side, I have seen some really nice things from people lately. Rachelle received a bunch of bookmarks from the Cub Scouts at our church to use while she is on bed rest. Today, the 16 to 18 year old boys from church came and did my lawn (in the rain) and did a much better job than I have ever done. Several people from church also brought over dinners and I think I may have enough frozen dinners to last me well into August. One person, Jayd McFerson, brought over Thai food from a really good local Thai restaurant (Tamnak Thai off Buttercup Creek and 183) which was awesome.

I have to say that it is very uncomfortable to be the one that receives the service. I feel so grateful to all of the people that have helped us out. Several people have helped watch Riley as one of our original volunteers had to be hospitalized last week with meningitis (I believe she is doing much better by the way). We are continuing to feel the effects of the many prayers that are being offered on our behalf. Thank you again.

Jayson

Living as a single parent and getting interviewed for TV

I have a whole lot more respect now for people who have to live as single parents. Rachelle has been gone about 9 days now and Riley and I are still alive. In the past, I have gone a week or so without Rachelle but in all those other cases, I always knew that it would be over in a week or so. Without knowing that, it is much more difficult. Rachelle, with her Masters Degree in Statistics, normally takes care of doing things like paying the bills, doing the shopping, and pretty much keeping things in order. I only have a batchelors degree in Engineering so I don't normally mess with that stuff. Now, I have to mess with it or bad things will happen. So far, however, it is going well and we are OK. There have been a lot of nice people that have had us over for dinner. I even saw Riley eat some vegatables yesterday thanks to our friend Kim Krenzer. Others have been really nice and I am very grateful.

On Friday of last week, someone from the local news station (News 8 Austin) came and intereviewed Riley and me. It was a funny experience because I am actually more used to being on the other side of the camera. The interview went pretty well I guess. Riley's interview was funny. He responded to the questions he was asked by mostly nodding his head and occasionally saying a very quiet "yes". Head nodding and short "yes" answers don't work very well when the person asking the question doesn't have the microphone. However, after some tickling and prodding, he did end up saying that he thought having these babies "Would be like school except less people." I thought that was probably pretty accurate. He could have also said that it would be like school except there would be less people, most of those people would be little babies, and there wouldn't be big yellow busses in the driveway...they would (hopefully) be A-team colored busses (or just one A-Team colored bus). If you want to check it out, I linked to the story here: News 8 story.

Something else I wanted to mention here is that we also added a bunch of new stuff on the "how to help" page here. The new things we added are a way to donate funds and a list of things we think we will need like plane tickets to Arizona and stuff for 5 babies.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support. I still get emails from many people telling us they are praying for us and I am very grateful for that. Thank you.

More fun things and some not-as-fun things that happen when your wife is pregnant with quintuplets

Continuing on last weeks post, I had several fun things happen this week that I thought were interesting. I was able to contact an old high school friend, Rob Rogers, who ended up posting a comment about my blog on his blog. He said some nice stuff about me on there so, obviously, I recommend reading it. He and I used to have a somewhat impromptu disco routine that we would do at the our church youth dances. Everyone would crowd around us, glad for the distraction that seeing others making fools of themselves offers. We were glad to be the people that helped everybody else realize that no matter what they did that night, it wouldn't be as ridiculous as what those two guys were doing. If your are interested in seeing an example of the type of self-humiliation that Rob and I used to participate in, I actually have a video on YouTube of me at a company talent show performing something that is partly based on what Rob and I used to do.

My parents were also in town this week as well as my brother and his family. My brother is currently on leave from Iraq so it was nice to see him. We had dinner at our house on Easter and he brought his bagpipes. He has been learning how to use the bagpipes while he is there in Iraq. It turns out that Iraq is a good place to learn bagpipes because it is so far away from here. He is really pretty good now, especially considering that he had to teach himself. However, I'm not sure I would have liked to have been around when he was not as good. Lets just say that when he played for us, it was not inside the house.

On the not-as-good side, Rachelle left for Phoenix on Tuesday (which is why it has taken me so long to do this week's post). That was when the reality started sinking in again. She will be in Phoenix until the babies are ready to come home which I think will probably be September or maybe October if all goes like we hope it will. She took Kaiya, our daughter, and left Riley with me for some father son bonding. I just hope Riley survives the ordeal. You really realize how much a person does for you when he or she is gone. Rachelle really did a lot and it is a bit scary to try to take it over knowing you don't have any backup. Well, I suppose it will all work out. There have been some people that have donated some money to help me get to Phoenix which I am really grateful for. I am also really grateful for Rachelle's aunt Jeannie who is letting Rachelle stay at her house and offering to help take care of her (even though her aunt Jeannie has MS). Without that, I don't know if we could have even considered the Phoenix option.

I am also grateful for the people that have offered to take care of Riley while I am at work. He realized yesterday that Kaiya was gone and said, "With Kaiya gone, who am I going to play with?" I think he really misses her but I assured him that this is actually going to be kind of fun for him because he will get to play with his friends, Will, Sarah, Henry, and Roger.

It is truly amazing to see how this is all coming together so far.

Some of the fun things that happen when your wife is expecting quintuplets

I was thinking today about all of the fun things that happen when your wife is expecting quintuplets. One of the main fun things I noticed is that it gives me something interesting to tell people about. Normally, I only have mundane things to tell people about like how frustrating it is to mow a lawn with really complex and occasionally dangerous shrubbery. With topics like that, you can only keep someones attention for maybe 5 or 6 seconds before they start to drift off to sleep. Having quintuplets, however, is a different story. Now I have a great thing to talk about with people which has given me a wonderful excuse to look up old friends and relatives that I haven't seen or heard from in years. As a side note, when we moved to Texas, we pretty much moved out of the lives of most of our old friends and many of our extended family members. We had to start fresh which was fun but it meant that we really didn't keep in contact with many of our old friends because they were just so far away (yes, although Texas probably isn't as big as most Texans claim, it is still a fairly large state). Now, I have been in contact with a whole lot of people that I hadn't heard from in years. It is great!

Another fun thing that happens when your wife is having quintuplets is that you get to make a web site and a blog that people actually have some interest in checking out. I have tried to keep a journal over the past few years but I keep not doing it. This is mainly because I mistakenly assume that I don't have much to write about. I know that if I were to just write about all of the funny things my kids have done, it would be time well spent. With a blog about quintuplets, I have a better excuse... the only problem is that other people read it which didn't happen much with previous journal attempts.

One more fun thing is that I can sometimes sit there and day dream about all of the great potential things you could do with 5 kids of the same age. If I can teach them (or hire someone to teach them) to sing, they could be a nice quintet. If I can get them to work together, they might make a great basketball team that could come up with secret plays because they know each other so well. If I can teach them how to do yard work... well, the potential is endless! Either way, there are a lot of really fun things to think about.

My favorite however, is thinking about all of the great family hugs we could have each morning before I go to work. Can you imagine 5 little 3 year old kids crowding around to give mommy and daddy a group hug? That just sounds like it would all be worth it.

The funny people that don't understand what it means to have this many babies

Last week we had some funny things happen. Most of the time when we tell people what is going on, they understand the gravity of the situation. Occasionally, however, there are people that just don’t get it. For the last few months the Austin Blood and Tissue center has called us a few times a week to see if Rachelle could donate blood. When they first started calling, we would tell them that Rachelle was pregnant and that she couldn’t donate blood. After about 6 or 7 times, I finally decided that we needed to tell them what the situation was so that they would realize that it was much more difficult than just a normal pregnancy and that she would likely not be able to donate blood for another few years. When they last called earlier this week, the conversation went something like this:

Lady: “Hi, this is the blood and tissue center, is Rachelle Wilkinson available?”
Me:“No, she isn’t and I don’t think she will be able to donate blood for a while. She is pregnant with quintuplets.”
Lady: “Oh, I see. Well, when is her due date?”
Me: “Well, her real due date is in September but she will probably have them in July.”
Lady: “Well, you know, she can donate about 6 weeks after the delivery.”
Me: “Did you hear what I just said? She is having 5 babies. Do you know what that means?”
Lady: “Well, can you give me an email address that we could use to let her know about our blood drives?”
Me: “No. Do you realize that we probably won’t even be able to leave the house for 6 months after this happens.”
Lady: “Well, thank you for your time anyway.”

I am pretty sure that there are a lot of people that either don’t get it or think that we are lying. Rachelle also had a similar experience when she went to the bank to see if they could possibly set up a fund of some kind that we could put on our web site for people that wanted to donate. The young woman Rachelle was talking to basically treated it like it was twins and said that she didn’t think our issue was important enough to even ask for that kind of fund. She said that it would have to go to the regional managers and she already knew that they would reject it so it wasn’t even worth it to try.

It is understandable that people, especially young men and women who have never had any children, would not think it was that big of a deal. I would guess that there are people out there that would lie about this kind of thing in order to get some attention. It seems like a really bad idea (mainly because of the fact that after about 3 months, you have to have something to show for it).