Disclaimer- I am not making any money off of any of these characters. Everything I write is for fun and shouldn't be taken seriously. Janet Evanovich is the owner of the copyright for most of these characters and no matter how sad it makes me I can't change it. But I can use them and abuse them as I see fit as long as I return them to her at the end.
Manoso Quints Baby Blog
Here is the nearly 1 year checkup update!
Armando AKA Manny
Weight: 19 lb 2 oz
Height: 29.5 inches
Walking: YES
Teeth: 4
Manny is the most inventive of the bunch. He is often the first one to figure out how a new toy works. He also was the first to figure out how to get into the kitchen cupboards. That was fun. I had to lock up all of the cupboards but the one with the pans because if I didn't he would wail until he was able to get into the cupboard. He tries to use brushes and combs to "brush" his hair. His hair that once stood straight up in dark curls now lays completely flat, so he almost looks like a different baby. He is still a "mama's boy", but he is getting a little better.
Alejandro AKA Andy
Weight: 17 lb 2 oz
Height: 28.25 inches
Walking: NO
Teeth: 5
Andy is trying to take over Manny's spot as "mama's boy". He is my most snuggly baby. He has a great smile and is the easiest baby to make laugh. He also has a stubborn streak-he is a boy who knows what he wants. He has the longest and the darkest hair of everybody. You can always tell where Andy sat at mealtime because he likes to secretly throw things overboard when he thinks no one is looking. He also hates getting in the water at the swimming pool and he as an aversion to having his picture taken.
Ricardo AKA Ricky
Weight: 14 lb 9 oz Ricky is the most easy-going and content of all the babies. He is often happy to play by himself and doesn't require a lot of attention. He isn't usually the instigator of a fight, but if someone takes his toy, he will put up quite a fight. Ricky has gone from the biggest of the babies to the littlest by being the pickiest eater. He likes to put random toys up to his ear and pretend it is a phone. When he wakes up from his naps, instead of crying, he practices his walking skills in his crib until I come get him. He likes to babble and most of what he says sounds like "tickle, tickle, tickle." He sometimes uses a "fake" laugh to try to be funny.
Height: 27.75 inches
Walking: YES
Teeth: 5
Matteo AKA Matt
Weight: 19 lb 10 oz Matt is the most determined one. He was the first to crawl and the first to walk. If he sees something that he wants, will go over anything or anyone to get it. Matteo is my best eater. He will eat almost anything that I give him. He is also the most tactile. He likes to feel different textures. He likes to make "oooh oooh oooh" noises that sound like a monkey or a caveman. He isn't very cuddly, but when he gives you a hug, it is a big one. He is also the most excitable of the babies. He loves to point at things and say 'Ook mum.' Ook is quickly becoming the most used word they use thanks to Matteo.
Height: 29.25 inches
Walking: YES
Teeth: 2
Vincenzo AKA Vince
Weight: 19 lb 10 oz Vince is the charmer. He is the most high-maintenance of the group and likes to have someone giving him attention all the time. I am sure there are days when he wishes he had come as a singleton instead of a quint! He has a great smile and can be very adorable when he wants to be. Like Manny, he is quick to figure out how things work. He loves to sing and dance along to any music that is playing. He is a born superstar, but then that is probably a mother's bias talking.
Height: 29.25 inches
Walking: YES
Teeth: 4
A few months ago, I decided I better write down all my memories of the babies' births before I started forgetting the little details. Now that the babies are just 11 days away from their first birthday, I thought it was a good time to put the finishing touches on the story and share it! It is amazing how much has happened in the last year. Looking at the babies now, it is hard to believe that they were ever that small!
Birth Story
Preparing for a C-section was something I don't really remember. First the area around where the c-section would take place had to be shaved. Then I had to get 2 IVs. I also had my final weigh-in. In all, I gained 69 pounds during the pregnancy, and I was 54 inches around. I am only 62 inches tall, so I was nearly as big around as I am tall.
Around 1:30 am, I started to have what we thought was a placental abruption. Turns out I was just bleeding really heavily from the strain of the birth. I blacked out for a minute until they got the bleeding under control. The nurses took me down to the Labor and Delivery area where Ranger was already there waiting for me.
Around 2:15, Joe and Gina got back from getting my overnight bag and the babies' first outfits from the house. Everyone was so excited. They would all be in a special waiting room with TV screens showing the babies after they were born.
The delivery room was packed with people. Each baby required its own team of three people. For myself, there was my doctor (Dr. Harker), the resident who was performing the delivery (Dr. Hoff), a fellow doctor from the practice who was assisting, the anesthesiologist, and a couple of nurses. Then there was Ranger, and even a person whose sole responsibility was to record the babies birth times. (That is at least 25 people!)
The delivery room itself was divided into two parts. The surgery took place in the main room. The other part, sectioned off by glass windows, was where the bassinets waited for the babies.
Once in the delivery room, I met the Anesthesiologist who gave me an epidural. Because I was so large, I had to be numbed from the chest down. This was such a strange sensation. I felt like I was suffocating because I couldn't feel my chest moving up and down, and yet if I looked at the monitors, I could see that I was breathing just fine. The anesthesiologist was awesome-he just kept reassuring me that everything was fine throughout the entire delivery. After the epidural was in, they laid me down and strapped my arms to a board. At first I thought this seemed unnecessary, but then I realized that I the medication caused me to shake uncontrollably, so having my arms secured was a good idea. At this point, they put up the blue cloth so that I really couldn't see what was going on.
Ranger sat near my head and held my hand. In his lap, he held his cell phone with his mom on speakerphone so she could hear the delivery. I was surprised when only a few moments later I heard the doctor say they were ready to make the first cut. He called the time at 3:12 am.
Five minutes later, at 8:17 a.m. Ricky was born. I heard him cry, and then moments later Dr. Harker held him up for me to see. I couldn't believe it! He looked beautiful and perfect and he was huge! Much bigger than I had imagined in my mind. I couldn't figure out how five that size could have fit in me. He turned out to be the heaviest of them all. Next to come was Matteo. He ended up being the smallest of the bunch, in contrast to Ricky, but he was just as perfectly formed and beautiful. Then Vince, Manny and Andy followed. As each baby was born, I was amazed and completely overwhelmed with emotions. I was so happy to see all of the babies look so perfect and healthy and I was in awe at the miracle of it all. After all the months of anticipation, it was over in less than three minutes. The doctor held each one up for me to see, then the babies were passed to the nurses who took them into the partitioned room to be checked out by the nurses and doctors in there.
8:17 am Baby A: Ricky, 5 lbs 1 oz
8:18 am Baby B: Matteo, 2 lbs 15 oz
8:18 am Baby C: Vince, 4 lbs 15 oz
8:19 am Baby D: Manny, 4 lbs 2 oz
8:19 am Baby E: Andy, 3 lbs 15 oz
Most of the crowd left with the babies, and I was left with my set of doctors and nurses in the operating room to be sewn back together. Of course I couldn't see anything that was going on the other side of the curtain, but Dr. Hoff later told me that they had to take my uterus out and set it on top of my abdomen to massage it and encourage it to start shrinking. After a singleton delivery, the uterus is about the size of a fist. Mine was the size of a football. Dr. Hoff also said that she put some stitches on my uterus that made it look like it had suspenders. Once I was sewn back together, they took me back to the recovery room. I was so exhausted that I slept for almost an entire hour. When I woke up I was a little groggy still and couldn't remember much of what had happened after I blacked out.
Ironically, once the surgery was over and I was allowed to eat again, I had absolutely no appetite. It was amazing how much smaller my stomach was. I still looked pregnant (in fact the first thing Olivia said to me when she saw me after the delivery was, "How come they left a baby in there?"), but I was a lot smaller than I was, and I could actually sit up at a 90 degree angle again! Now that the babies were out, my body didn't know quite what to do, and my kidneys decided to stop working. I was put on the magnesium sulfate (something I had done my best to avoid the last couple weeks of the pregnancy after a bad bout of it early on) and given some other medications to get my kidneys going again.
The guys surprised me by going up to get my dad that day. He came down and got to hold his grandsons. I don't think he could've been happier. My mom and sister surprised me the most when they showed up. Joe and Gina went to talk with them and I cried when my mom and sister each held a baby. Lula went out and bought five little black preemie suits for the boys to get their first pictures taken in. (The clothes that I had bought were way too big even though I ordered them in the smallest size they had.)
When Ella and Louis showed up I cried for what had to be the fifth or sixth time. Ella had made each baby a tiny black sleeper with Future Rangeman embroidered on the chest. She said she had another set ready to go to put their names on the butts of them.
I found those outfits in the bottom of a drawer today and laughed as I remembered how tiny the boys used to be. Now they are almost one and spoiled rotten by everyone.
Most of the Content found in this chapter was compiled through blogs of parents raising quints. There will be more to come.