Luke's Surgery

Well Friday was Luke's surgery and thank you all for your prayers. We arrived at 6am for his 7:30am surgery. Once we got there, they told us that his surgery was going to be delayed until 10:30am since they told us the wrong time for his last feeding.
Which meant we could have gotten 3 extra hours of sleep!

He was taken back for surgery at 10:45am. Our dear friend took time out of his busy day to come pray with Aaron and I. Which gave us such peace (thanks Edward, we love ya).His surgery was a great success. He was in there for about 45 minutes. We had to wait a bit before we could visit him in recovery. The wait seemed like forever! Finally I was able to kiss and hold my boy again. He was completely drugged on codeine. They told us that he needed to stay for at least 6 hours and possibity overnight. Which was never told to us prior to surgery. We thought we would be home by 1:00pm

They wanted him to say at least 6 hours since he was a preemie. They needed to take extra precaution on his breathing. So after being there for over 12 hours, we finally left at 6:30pm with Luke and Addilynn.

We still needed to pick up Austin and Dylan who were being watched by wonderful friends (thanks guys). Once we got them and Luke's medicine it was 8:30pm! It was a long day, but thankfully a wonderful one!

So Luke got his last set of casts on his legs which will be on for 3 weeks. After those 3 weeks he will wear his braces for 16 hours out of the day. Once he is about 9 months, he will just have to wear them at naps and at night until age 3. So hopefully the major treatment is behind us and we can now focus on our precious boy!

Luke's Surgery

I'm so sorry that it has been weeks since I have updated this thing, but as you can understand, time slips away from me everyday.
Well Luke is on his 5th cast and will be having surgery on April 10th at 7:30 am.
This is the surgery where they will clip his Achilles Tendon in both ankles. Since he is so small, it repairs itself. Once they clip the tendon, they will set his feet accordingly and then cast him again. This time his cast will be on for three weeks. After the three weeks, NO MORE CAST. YEAH! I don't know who will be happier, him or I? Once the cast comes off, he will wear a brace on his feet. This brace looks like Brickenstocks with a metal bar connecting at each shoe. He will wear these 20 hours a day for the beginning of his treatment and slowly reducing the number of hours as he grows. He will wear these braces until about age three. The doctor's say that he will still crawl and walk on time as Adilynn. This is one reason they like to start this treatment at such a young age that the children do not know any different.


Other than weekly cast treatment, both Luke and Adilynn are doing great. They will be six weeks this Friday and growing better than ever. They are just shy of eight pounds and 21 inches. They are 'perfect' babies as they understand the difference between night and day. They only wake up once in the night for a quick bottle and then back to sleep. Adilynn has beautiful blue eyes like her father and Luke's are in between blue and brown. We are still taking guesses at what color they will be in the end. Adilynn is more of the eater than Luke. She always lets you know when it's time to eat. She is like clock work every four hours. After almost six weeks, we still cannot tell the difference between their cries and moans. It's always a game to guess who we think it is and 99% of the time, we are wrong.
Austin and Dylan are in love with their new brother and sister. They both are great helpers for me as I can take all the extra hands that I can get. I will try to give another update after Luke's pre-op appointment on April 8th. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we live on this adventure called parenthood!

Luke's first casting

Well Luke got his cast on Monday and was such a trooper! I think it hurt Aaron and I more to watch him go through this than it did for him to experience. Here is the before picture to show you how severe both feet were. Not only are both his feet turned in, but his heels go up towards his calves too. All this will be corrected over time with this procedure.

So from here on out, Luke will get both legs casts every week until he is about four months old. When he turns six weeks old, they will do his first surgery which is clipping his Achilles tendon in both feet so they can manipulate the feet better. Here is them working on his legs.

As you can see the cast are from the top of his legs to the very end of his toes. Every week when they change the casts, they will turn his feet a little bit at a time to straighten them out. This process can take the whole four months, but thank God that this condition can even be corrected! So our little peanut now weighs over five pounds with these casts on. Together they weigh about a pound. But please continue to pray for his treatment and myself as I do this drive by myself and take both babies every week! We will continue to give updates here and always feel free to call us.

What a week!

LUKE RYDER CHESNUT & ADILYNN (Add-i-lynn) REVAY CHESNUT

Okay first off, we are sorry if this is the first time that you are hearing anything about the babies. I lost my phone 20 minutes before leaving for the hospital and my phone has everyone's info. I will try my best to call you all in the next week or so or feel free to call us anytime. But here is everything that has happen in only seven days!

We had a scheduled c-section on Friday, February 13th at 5:00pm. Luke Ryder Chesnut was born at 5:50pm at 5 pounds and 0 ounces. Adilynn Revay Chesnut was born at 5:51pm at 5 pounds 1 ounce. It's funny that their birth weights match their time of arrival. Anyhow, they were both doing wonderful. About 3 hours after birth, Luke was breathing a little heavy. He was taken and admitted to the NICU for observation. They ended up putting him on a CPAP (kind of like breathing for sleep apnea). Adilynn was great and didn't need to join him the whole hospital stay.

Adilynn and I came home on Tuesday, February 17 but had to leave Luke behind. At this point he was off the CPAP but needed to lose the feeding tube and IV fluids. Our first night home with Adilynn was crazy. Waking up again to a newborn is a hard adjustment. Around 2am Aaron and I just laughed knowing that we still had one more to bring home! Luke made such wonderful progress throughout the week that he came home yesterday!!! Let me tell you how weird it is to leave a hospital with a double stroller and two babies inside. Talk about crazy, but truly blessed at the same time!

Luke was born with severe club feet and he has his first doctor's appointment on Monday for his casting. Not only does he have club feet, but he is also tongue tied (the piece of skin under your tongue is close to the end and prevents you from eating well and possible language problems in the future). My poor little guy seems to have everything! So they will have to clip that sometime soon as well. Adilynn has a slight tongue tie, but shouldn't require clipping.

As far as Aaron and I, Aaron has been so awesome. I know he is so tired from running back and forth between visiting me at the hospital and the 2 boys at home. But he lights up the minute he gets to hold his princess in his arms! I feel wonderful considering everything that I have gone through in a week. I'm not 100% yet, but feel close to it. Just knowing that I have both Luke and Adilynn home together and Austin and Dylan with an amazing husband, makes my recover that much easier!

So thank you again for all the prayers thus far. Please continue to keep all of us, but mainly Luke in your prayers as we start his club feet treatments. Feel free to call us anytime to talk and visit. Our home number is 503-922-1212. We will update you on Monday to show the progress on Luke's feet.

Friday the 13th

So today we went in for our amino. After several painful attempts, they were able to get his fluid. They perform two different test on the fluid. In order to get a postitive result, first test needed to be higher than a 55, Luke's was at 51 (just our luck). So they performed the second test which took four hours. This test needed to be higher than a 2.0, Luke's came back at 2.6!!!! Thank goodness for over achievers in this family =)

So with that said, we are having babies tomorrow night at 5pm at St. Vincent's Hospital. We are so excited, but nervous on having 2 or 4 which ever way you look at it! Plus I'm a little scared about having a c-section. But Aaron will keep everyone updated as much as possible, but feel free to call us for an update: 503-706-3757. Thanks again to everyone for you love, support and prayers throughout this pregnancy

TO BE CONTINUED . . . . .

our last doctor's appointment...hopefully

So today we went in for an ultrasound to get the measurements of the twins. Adilynn is weighing so far at 5 pounds 14 ounces!!! I can't believe how big she is! Luke is approx. 4 pounds 14 ounces, but his head is SO LOW they can't get an accurate measurement. But the doctor's guess he is about 5.5 pounds. Which means by the time Friday comes, they could be even bigger, which is awesome especially since I'm only going to be 35 weeks.

We are still anticipating the amino results on Thursday to let us know if the c-section is 100% on Friday. If their lungs come back mature, then our c-section is sceduled for 5pm on Friday night with a check in time of 3pm. So please continue to pray for the health of the babies and if it's God's will we will have 2 beautiful and healthy babies this Friday.

1 for the money, 2 for the show, 3 to get ready and 4 here we go . . .

So we had our doctor's appointment today after a long weekend of continous contractions. I still have made no prgoress from last weeks hospital stay. I am currently 33.5 weeks, 3cm and 50% effaced. Here is the plan as of this morning. Next Monday (2/9) we will have an ultrasound to look at the babies positions and their growth. Then on Thursday (2/12), we will have an amino (they place a needle into the sac where the baby is and take fluid out to test for lung maturity) on both babies. It will take 4-6 hours to get the results back to show if their lungs are mature for life outside the womb. If they come back positive, then we will have a c-section the next morning on Friday (2/13). If they come back negative, then the c-section will be put off one more week.

With all this said, if my body progress any futher on it's own between now and next week, the babies would be delivered sooner. So again, we wait and continue to allow Adilynn and Luke to grow stronger and healtier. Everyday at this point is less time in the NICU.