They're home! Marcus and Michelle were able to come home Saturday night! Here are some of Michelle's thoughts on being out of bed. And here are some pictures of the big day.

1. Mike and Marcus


2. Coming home from the hospital


3. Marcus meets his siblings

New IM address I've changed my IM address (due to the fact that we are no longer "M4"). Now my addresses are as follows:
Yahoo: michael_lyn_williams
MSN: mike@mikelwilliams.com

Marcus looks great! He's in Michelle's room at the hospital with no equipment attached! Here are some photos...

Marcus is doing better each day! He continues to do better and better. He is off of all the oxygen now and is just being monitored for respiration, heartrate and blood oxygen. Hopefully he'll be home in the next few days.

Michelle spent last night at home! For the first time in three weeks Michelle slept in her own bed. It was wonderful having her home. We are getting ready to go back to the hospital right now to spend the day with Marcus. They are going to let him out of the nursury today and into Michelle's room there at the hospital. If she does well for a couple of days there then they may let him come home.

CPR Training is required for all of the "primary caregivers" since Marcus continues to have occasional fits of low oxygen saturation. We are all going for CPR training at 11am today.

Baby Registry is online Many of you have asked what we need for Marcus. Thanks to a lot of hand-me-downs and good friends we have all the big things already. Here is a link to an online baby registry for the other items we need.

GREAT news... Michelle just called and she was able to hold him! and change a poopie diaper. It was about midnight on Saturday when she went to see him one last time for the night and they let her hold him because he's on oxygen through the nose, not the CPAP or incubator. She was so happy. I am happy also, but sad that I missed it! :-(

Good news... I found the Memory Stick and new pictures are here.

Frustrating news...I brought home my new Memory Stick full of pictures and video of Marcus. I laid it on my desk while i tended toother matters. However, when Madison saw it she just had to look at it (purple IS her favorite color you know!). Now she can't remember where she put it! So, no new pictures of Marcus until I find the Memory Stick. DOH!

A step in the right direction... I just got a call from Michelle. The nurse came in and said that he has slowed down to a much more moderate breathing level and they anticipate removing the CPAP soon and returning him to an incubator. He's breathing about 60-70 times per minute now so they will be able to feed him soon. We just can't wait to hold him!

What a night... Marcus is not breeathing too well. He's breathing much too fast. About 120 times per minute instead of the normal 60 times per minute. Last night we spent at the hospital watchinghim go from an incubator, to a CPAP (continuous pressurized air pump) and nearly went on a ventilator. This morning the Dr. suggested that a ventilator was eminent depending on the results of his blood gas tests. Fortunately, his blood gas tests revealed adequate levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide. So the ventilator was spared. However, he continued to breathe much too rapidly and worry all of us.

Marcus Tate Williams is born! at 4:33pm Thursday afternoon. He weighs 5lbs 14oz and is 18in long. He is receiving oxygen but they doctors expect he should be fine in the long run and off of oxygen within a few days! I'll keep brief updates here. You can find more information, pictures, and video at here.

Today is the big day! The C-Section is scheduled for 4pm. Mom and Dad arrived last night and we are all getting ready to meet Baby Marcus. I've borrowed a friends digital video camera and I'll post video and pictures tonight when I get home. Or, if I spend the night there I'll post them tomorrow!

Michelle is doing well biding time at the hospital. We see her every day and play lots of games like War, Go Fish, Sequence, and Little Bear. It's a good time. We're counting the days until Marcus joins us now. It won't be long...

Here are some pictures of our nasty green walls.

Here are some pictures of us visiting the hospital. You can see Michelle's big, pregnant belly, as well as the kids and I wrestling in the front lawn of the hospital.

Thursday is the day! They won't even do another amnio. They'll just scoop him out on Thursday assuming that Michelle can hold out that long. She's in pretty good spirits all things considered. The kids and I are doing okay also. Thanks to all of our friends who continue to go above and beyond in serving us.

No change... the results are back from Riley and they initially conclude that the lungs are not mature. They are going to give the test to their specialist for futher interpretation, but right now it looks like we'll be waiting a while.

BREAKING NEWS... They did the amnio this morning. The initial report is that the lungs are not mature enough yet. However, they are running some more tests that will be concluded around 3pm. If they are positive, we'll have him tonight. Otherwise, it will be next Thursday until we try again.

I'll keep you posted.

A new potential birthday for Marcus... Dr. Belotti (sp?) discussed Michelle's case today and encouraged us to have the amnio as soon as safely possible which is at 35 weeks, or this FRIDAY. So if the amnio reveals mature lung development they will take Marcus out of there on Friday night! I'll keep you posted about new developments. However, I'll be at the hospital all day Friday just in case. Michelle's room # is 812-353-2905, Room 2905.

By the way... Michelle is doing pretty well. Physically she is OK, occassional contractions but no more bleeding. She's in pretty good spirits all things considered. Unfortunately, Bloomington Hospital still doesn't have broadband connections in their rooms so Michelle can't check her email (click here to ask them to install broadband in each patient's room). However, you can reach her by phone at the number above.

A big thanks to the Newlands for watching the kids tonight so I could play tennis and Michelle and I could have a date. We played scrabble and I won convincingly. I should point out that Michelle was ahead by a mile until one of the doctors came in and talked with us for about a half hour. His best friend lives in Carn Town (sp?), TX which is near Beeville. So they shared Beeville stories for awhile. When he left and we returned to our game, I made my move and beat her like a rented mule!

She'll be there for a while... Dr. Eden called Michelle this evening and informed her that they decided to keep her in the hosptial until Marcus arrives. Hopefully that will be two weeks from tomorrow. However, since it's so close to the delivery, they won't give her any more medications to stop the contractions. That means it could be any day now. So far, Michelle is in good spirits.

Of course that's because she hasn't seen the paint in the hallway yet! HOLYCOW! It's VERY GREEN and shiny. You wouldn't believe it. It is absolutely awful. It should be illegal to sell that color paint in a semi-gloss to an unlicensed person. Ugh. However, thanks to Phil for his excellent help in applying the wretched stuff.

Michelle is back in the hospital... Sunday night she started having contractions at about 6pm (this is the third time she's had contractions right when I would be heading to 6:29. Is God trying to tell me something?) She really did not want to go to the hospital so she kept avoiding calling until almost 9pm. Finally around 9:00 she started bleeding and by 9:30pm we were back at Bloomington Hospital. The kids and I left her there a little before 11pm. She called this morning and Dr. Eden thinks she may have placenta previa. I'll keep you posted about that. For now, he thinks she may have to stay there until the 19th. But we'll see. We've heard that before and she has come home within a few days. So we'll just wait and see. Stay tuned here for more info...

What a week! It was terrific by in large (or is that by and large?). Michelle had very few contractions and was pretty comfortable. I got 0 work done, but had a good time playing Mr. Mom. The kids had a wonderful Halloween and the Crisps joined us for trick-or-treating and dinner. Matthew went to a really fun b-day party at the Allison Jukebox Center in Bloomington. It was so much fun, that he decided to stay for the bitter end of the party and miss his final tennis lesson. Watching the kids play made me wish I was a kid again.

PPE (Pitiful Painting Experience). We've been wanting to paint the upstairs for some time now. About three weeks ago Michelle picked "Japanese Garden" as the perfect color. This weekend I spent every waking minute painting (I'm almost done). The bad news is that within four hours of starting Michelle was pretty certain she didn't like the color. However, she isn't 100% certain she doesn't like it, and we've already bought the paint. So it's pretty much a no-win situation. I've spent 20 hours or so painting, she isn't sure she likes it, but neither of us are excited about going and buying more paint and trying again. Especially considering the fact that painting the stairwell requires renting scaffolding and is a lot of work. Yuck. I'll post some photos up here later today. I left my camera at the hospital last night.