ST. LOUIS — Places, everyone.

That is what will happen when the day comes to deliver the Ferrill Five — the three boys and two girls Pete and Jenny Ferrill of Danville are expecting any time.

The couple hoped to make it to Christmas before the babies were born, but now the proposed delivery date has moved to Dec. 23. Jenny is on bed rest at a St. Louis hospital and has been there since the end of October.

“I’ll be planning on heading down a couple days ahead of that,” Pete said.

The five teams that will take care of the babies as they are born are doing another mock run this week to prepare, complete with taped off sections for the cameras that will record their births, he added.

“All 30 people who are involved will be carrying pagers.”

Ferrill, who speaks to his wife daily, said Jenny is having more difficulty breathing, which is normal with this type of birth. Hospital staff are monitoring her oxygen levels and doing blood work to make the best decisions for Jenny’s and the babies’ health.

Jenny already received steroid injections to help with the babies’ lung maturity. A Dec. 4 growth ultrasound determined that the babies weighed between 2 pounds 3 ounces and 2 pounds 6 ounces.

“The doctors were just elated with that growth,” said Karen Butikas, Jenny’s mother. “That they were so close together in body weight was really good.”

Butikas wants to make sure everyone realizes how grateful their families are for the donations, gifts, thoughts and prayers.

“Our thank you is not enough,” she said.

Butikas made the trip to the hospital to visit her daughter Tuesday. She added people can go to the Web site to send Jenny well wishes and encouragement.

A list of needed items will go up on the site soon, and people can check there for new information on the quintuplets and to make a donation.

“We know that people are wondering what they can do to help us. Right now we’re just having people sit tight to see how other things fall into place with these other big companies,” Pete said. “We’re just reminding people to go to our Web site.”

Pete will be in the delivery room when the babies are born, but he said he isn’t nervous about being a first-time dad.

“It’s going to be a pretty big deal,” he said, explaining a local news channel crew will film the births along with the documentary crew following them through the pregnancy.

“We’re really not nervous. We were really more nervous through the many weeks and months leading up to this point,” he said, adding both he and Jenny are getting more and more excited.

“We’re finally going to celebrate the joys and emotions that have gone with that.”

Jenny had fertility injections to enhance the quality of her eggs after two miscarriages in the past two years, but she didn’t have the type of injections that would cause multiple births. Pete said the last two holidays were devastating and traumatic because of the problems they had.

The couple didn’t expect to have such a big family at once, but they will celebrate with their new family this Christmas.

“This has just been a true blessing that we’re going to get to experience that this holiday season,” he said.



FYI

To find out more about the Ferrill quintuplets, visit http://www.ferrillfive.com.

Anyone who wants to send wishes to the couple can direct cards and notes to Pete and Jenny Ferrill, c/o Karen Butikas, 117 Michigan Ave., Westville, IL 61883. The family will make sure Jenny receives the mail at the hospital.