It is easy to generalize my comments about "professional" photographers, "hobbyists" and "snap shot takers". I'll do my best not to speak in those generalizations. The best way to do that is to speak about myself and my art, my intentions, my passions. Let's see how that goes...

Having a digital camera has been a great addition to my bag. It allows me to make near instantaneous changes to how I capture an image. No longer do I take shots of a sunset, take the film to the lab, wait for the transparencies to return, then critique my images and hope the next sunset is as memorable as the previous. I am able to make on the fly adjustments and make the most of each photo opportunity.

What this does not mean is I take a stab in the dark with my settings and adjust from there. My years of experience and training allow me to capture the image I have preconceived. Hours, more hours I can count, have been spent learning to pre-visualize the final image I am after. With digital I am able to capture the light (after all in a nutshell that's all photography is, capturing light) as I perceive it to be, then fine tune the nuances.

With film you have the basic settings, film speed, aperture and shutter speed. Digital, although allowing more people to enter the field of photography, actually has many more "settings" to fine tune. Now you have something called White Balance and no longer do you select the film speed for each role, you can adjust it on each image.

Once you have captured the image you now need to process it. The lab used to take care of this for the photographers, now it falls on the shoulders of the photographer. At the bare minimum this requires Sharpening the image. A term foreign to film shooters. And at greater lengths it requires color balancing and cross processing.

All this, and the bar has been raised because accessing great images has never been easier. The internet can connect you instantly with the work of masters like Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, and Galen Rowell.

There is a lot involved in the final image of a photographer. All this as an introduction to a couple before and after shots. I have posted each image as it came straight form the camera, and along with it, the final image as I had pre-visualized it prior to depressing the shutter release. Enjoy! ~Matt

On October 27 I launched my site and BLOG. On November 1 my wife went into pre-term labor and my BLOG turned away from photography and towards keeping friends and family across the country up to date on my wife's, and twin boys', health. Now that Carolyn has stabilized and her contractions are under control, I am turning back towards photography.

I have several topics I want to expand (and expound) on ranging from digital vs film, before and afters, passion. Please, those of you who came to this site for updates on my wife, don't tune out, keep checking in. It will be fun, and maybe you'll learn a thing or two. I hope to learn from your comments, and mix in humor when I can, usually at my own expense because I seem to learn a lot from my (often silly) mistakes.

Enjoy, I will be posting some before ad afters later tonight or tomorrow and the fun begins anew...again.

~Matt

Good news (we’ve had a string of this lately). Today we did a tour of Dr.’s offices as we went for some testing at the hospital and then went to our Dr.’s office for a check up. The sonogram at the hospital showed us our good, and surprising news. Baby B, on Carolyn’s left side, is no longer ‘breach’. In the last week he apparently learned introductory gymnastics and did a summersault. Now both boys are head down!

Carolyn is doing well and adjusting to bed rest at home. We are grateful every day as to how everything worked out. Having her home is priceless. She is able to sleep and keep her strength up. The boys are in a big growth stage right now and Carolyn resting is a top priority to ensure the boys get all they need to help them grow. They are active in her and it is not uncommon to watch the contraction monitor jump as they kick and squirm.

Oh man. How many times do you let yourself set simple expectations just to have even the most basic assumptions get dashed. It is the middle of the night thursday and we are trouble shooting the monitor Carolyn is hooked up to. We began our first one hour monitoring at 8:45 as soon as we were given instructions on how to use it. At 9:45 we began to send the data to the company that revues the results. The firs attempt didn't work, so we trouble-shot the issues for 45 minutes until we finally had it all worked out and they said to try monitoring for another hour and report back to them.

Our basic assumption was that for the first time in a week we would be able to have an uneventful evening at home and get a good nights sleep. Not gonna happen. Instead I am going in to work tomorrow one again looking like I barely survived a night out with the cast of Animal House. This means I will be splurging tomorrow morning on the ay into work and stopping by Starbucks. My drink of choice when open eyes are desperately needed...Medium (grande?) Iced Americano, no room. This has enough kick to get me going fairly quickly and hopefully keep me awake and productive for a couple hours. Only time will tell.

Carolyn is HOME!

Sorry for no update yesterday. I was under the weather and took a sick day from work to recuperate before I got worse.

Today Carolyn received the OK from the doctors and came home around 4:30. She is still fairly heavily medicated to keep the contractions minimized, and is still hooked up to a monitor, but she is home and will sleep in her own bed tonight. In fact right now she is taking a well deserved shower.

Every 8 hours she hooks up to a phone line and transmits the previous 8 hours worth of contraction readings.

Another small step towards independence. carolyn had the stint (IV) in her arm removed today. It wasn't hooked up to anything, but was left there as a just in case.

What this means is can now take a real shower. Not a quick stand in the water like she took this weekend. This also means that with some help from Jacque she can begin the process of untangling her hair. I can;t imagine what it will take to untangle the thick curls she has that have been matted down by the hospital bed for 6 days.

I am excited to see Car after work today to see her face light up after being made to feel human again by bathing.

That's all for now, just thoguth I woul dkep up the updates.

~Matt

Good news when I walked in the door to Carolyn's hospital room this evening. Jacqueline was standing in the spot previously occupied by the IV stand! Carolyn was unhooked from the stand and given a degree of freedom.

Freedom, like so many things is relative. Carolyn's version of freedom means she can rollover in bed (more easily), use the bathroom, (instead of portable commode), and has a greater range of motion to reach for objects on the bedside tray. This is great. Right now she is awaiting her dinner delivery, as am I. Car's meal is coming from the dining hall (surprisingly good food) while Jacque is doing a dinner run for the two of us.

I have been thinking about may things to type as updates today, more global views and reflections on this ordeal, but right now I am way too tired. maybe later.

Today Carolyn had another exem/test. This test (without getting too personal) measuers how far the kids are from daylight. The Dr. expected a middle of the road number. If a low number resulted, Carolyn would be taken to Barnes, not good. But, the result was great. Not just good, but great. This is the best news I could hear today. I am very excited and looking forward to seeing Carolyn once I get off of work. She is still in the hospital and doing well. Without all the excitement from this weekend, she is able to relax a bit more and get an occasional nap in.

11/4 Carolyn is doing well. I forget sometimes to simply say what is going on. So there it is, the headline for the evening paper is that Car is doing well. She is being eased off one of the meds. Specifically the med that has been connected to her arm through an IV since Thursday afternoon.

This is a big step because without the IV, all she will be hooked up to is a monitor for her contractions. If the contractions stay suppressed, it will be a major success. he doctor feels there is no reason why she should not remain pregnant for many weeks to come. This is a good thing. Car is 25 and 4/7 weeks pregnant. We want to at the very least make it to 29 weeks, but 32 weeks (12/20) wold be fantastic.

Survival rates for babies at 25 weeks is incredibly high, but there is a greater risk for lung, eye and brain complications when born that premature.

The difficult thing about tonight is that I am sleeping at home for the first time since this all began. I have been spending the last 3 nights on the floor of the room where Carolyn is. It was a hardwood floor, my therma-rest camping mat, and me. he bed will feel great tonight, but Carolyn must spend the night alone. She is in great hands with Sheila, the nurse for the last 3 nights, but I have risen with her the last 3 nights every 1 - 2 hours when she would use the restroom (the IV fluids kept her hydrated, but required may frequent bathroom visits.) I will undoubtedly wake up tonight and wonder if she is awake, or if I was there with her, would I be helping her at that time.

I told her as I left to not think of me as being across town, but instead to just pretend I am out on the couch sleeping, because my snoring was keeping her awake. She smiled big. It's nice now that the meds are wearing off some and her personality, lively eyes and bright smile are coming back.

The emails and comments keep coming in. thank you all. Some of the comments and anecdotes are hilarious and really help lift the mood in the room.

Tomorrow I have to return to work, so my updates will be less frequent. This is a good thing. Excitement right now is not a good thing. Boring can be a blessing.

~Matt

Our Dr. stopped by last night at 12:30 (as in just past midnight) I am still remembering parts of the conversation, but the gist of what he said was that he doesn't want to send Carolyn anywhere until he knows for certain how she will respond. Many Doctors would send her home and see how she would react, but the Dr. won't move her until he knows precisely what will happen.

Some tests will be run Monday morning/early afternoon and the results will tell a lot. At that point we could be moved to another hospital, stay put where we are, or be one step closer to home. My parents just showed up and we are visiting right now.

I can't stop thanking all of you for your thoughts and prayers. it is kinda fun to see another state represented on our website statistics ad brain-storming to try to figure out who it is. This "game" is actually fairly difficult at times because we are going on such little sleep.

More info later.

~Matt

I realize the title is overly simplistic, but wow, too many words can complicate things. The nurse is in here hooking up carolyn to the fetal monitors (we do this twice a day) and we are listening to their heartbeats. What is really neat os when they start kicking or hitting you can hear it too. It sounds like someone is rubbing their hand on a microphone. it is way past their bedtime, but they are kicking anyways. it is a beautiful sound.

Active babies are healthy babies.

Carolyn spoke with our doctor and he reminded us that we are his patients, not the the patients of the doctor who checked in with us earlier. Ugh! Good news is, we trust our doctor completely and we know that what he says goes, and we will follow what he says. the challenging news is that he probably would prefer a more aggressive approach ad keep Carolyn in the hospital a bit longer.

Yep. This is our life right now. Our options change on an almost hourly basis. Our doctor will be stopping by later tonight, it is 8:15 right now.

Always adjusting and trying to not expect much or make too many plans.

So much has happened today and so much more has bounced through my little pea brain. I'll try to put the big pieces down here first, then catch up with the rest later.

We met with a Dr. on the High Risk team. He and Carolyn quickly bonded with stories from each of their times as competitive high school swimmers.

He gave us the picture we were after. None of what he said is guaranteed, it all depends on many variables. So please, PLEASE, take this with a grain of salt, not as gospel.

He is slowly easing her off the anti-contraction medicine and will keep her for observation for a couple days. If, IF, this all goes well, Carolyn could be out of the hospital and on strict bed rest at home by late next week.

Right now Carolyn is on the phone with our Doctor so I am anxious to see what he says.

Update soon....