FOUR little FULTONS: age

Saturday, January 31, 2009

13 revisited...

Lately we have been a house full of teethers. The quads have been teething their eye teeth aka their canine teeth for quite some time. It always seems to be Camryn & Brendan that have a TERRIBLE time teething. Our pediatrician told me that these are the worst teeth to teethe. UH OH! Like I need more drama in my life! It started with Camryn spiking a fever one day & then she basically refused to eat. I have tried EVERYTHING & even gave her some icecream thinking that would make her gums feel SO much better. NOPE! She wanted no part of it! She is just one BAD teether! Now on the other hand we have Miss Linz who apparently thinks teething seems to be a piece of cake. She never gives us any trouble. She may be clingy but that is for other reasons. Having 4 children of the same age going through the same stages makes it VERY hard to keep up with. Seeing who has what tooth & when did they get it is SO hard to keep track of. I just started to write ANYTHING & EVERYTHING that happens down in my agenda. That way there is a record some place! LOL! Every few days I attempt to check for an new teeth by sticking my finger in their mouths. I know, what am I thinking? Do I WANT to get bitten!? I seem to have gotten pretty good at swooping in & checking, PLUS they seem to allow it from time to time. Well, the other day on one of my "checks" I found that Lindsey has 13 teeth. 1 more than the rest of the bunch. She never complained one iota that she had a new tooth coming through. It was just there! Funny huh!? Well, It was Dustyn who noticed that she has as many teeth as he has years. That made me realize that this moment was definitely...

13 revisited...

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

22 months and a day...

Ok yesterday was their "22 month birthday". We celebrate every month and continue the count down to the ripe age of 2! However yesterday was anything less than exciting. The babies had their annual appt with their pediatric opthamalogist. They do not like going to any Doctor so I do not know what I was thinking when we planned this! I made sure I had enough extra hands for each child. My Aunt Pat & Aunt Donna met my mom & I at the Doctor's office. It started out good, the babies played ALL over the waiting room. This was the first time we actually had to wait in their waiting room. Normally they usher us to a back room to get settled. I guess we are moving up in the world and do not have to worry about catching cooties from other patients. So there we were out amongst the people. They started grabbing books from other kids, made some attempts to "introduce" themselves & they even tried to take a "look see" into another mom's purse. They are WILD! One funny moment came when my Aunt Pat & this other mommy were showing this book to them. There was a page that had a monkey on it. So Aunt Pat says where is the monkey? My sweet little Avery then proudly points to herself! haha! I guess she has been told one too many times that she's a monkey & it set in! What am I going to do with her!? This stage of their life is VERY busy! I feel like I run a marathon every day. It seems like my house is alway's a mess & VERY unorganized! I feel terrible inviting anyone over. Oh to have an ORGANIZED & CLEAN home! ahhh! I have said in the past that I could not wait till they walked & talked. Look at them now!! They are all over the place! Maybe I should retract the statement about wanting them to carry on a conversation with me. Maybe I should appreciate the lack of conversations a little while longer. Especially since they are just...

22 months and a day...

Our Story...

Ok I am now over 8 years into this "job" of mine, being a mommy to multiples, high order multiples to boot! They say that if you try to conceive without protection for one year with no success then you are infertile. Those words were a lot to take in. I sought answers from everyone. We started out with our 1st OB/GYN Dr William Casale doing the normal testing that they were equipped to do. We did it all, IUI's, spermwashing, etc. I then contacted RESOLVE, a wonderful organization for people like me (could not get pregnant). I started making mental notes of what I needed to achieve my dream, to be a mom! The next step was to go see a Fertility Doctor. We chose to see Dr Mark Denker. After checking me out he then referred Michael to see a Urologist who ended up putting him on clomid. Yes, men can take this RX too! It helps make more sperm just like it helps a woman create more follicles. It is AMAZING the things you learn when you are trying to conceive! After further testing we were both told we had fertility issues, I had fewer eggs than a woman my age & they were "tough", Michael had double vericasils so that in order for us to have the "best odds" we needed to go the IVF route. I had this feeling that it was not going to work right away, call it my intuition. So we bought a package, can you even believe that they sell "packages" like a travel agency? Our "package" included 3 rounds of IVF with ICSI, minus all the meds I would need. The drugs are an expense we did not even think of but had to purchase for this entire thing to work. Well, it ended up taking all 3 rounds of IVF & accupuncture courtesy of Dr Susan Schiff for me to get pregnant & boy did I get pregnant! (Trust your intuition!) We started out with very few follicles, only 3 fertilized into embryo's and all three took. I was finally pregnant! 8 weeks into my pregnancy one of the embryo's split & became identical. Can you believe that!? What are the odds? No one told me that could happen! AMAZING! We had a lot of decisions to make. No one thought that we should keep all four. In the medical world it is called a "selective reduction". Only a few doctors even do this procedure. We did not know what our future would hold just that we could not reduce anything! In the beginning we had a hard time finding a doctor that felt like we did & wanted our four babies to thrive! We finally found Dr Moises Virelles, a fellow Christian & my now OB/GYN. He then referred us to an AWESOME Perinatologist, Dr Gary Cohen. Having the two of them on our side we knew ANYTHING was possible! My pregnancy was really uneventful. I was put on "bed rest" at 22 weeks. I later found out my "bed rest" was unlike other women's bed rest. I was just not allowed to work. I continued to do things, just stayed off my feet as much as possible. If I went shopping I would ride a motorized scooter. If I went to a party I sat pretty much the entire time. I had no issues, my cervix was long & rock solid. I really feel that God wanted me to be a mommy! The babies were great! They kicked each other more than they kicked me! People would look at me & could not believe that I had four babies inside me, I tell you I was meant to carry quads! Now don't get me wrong, it was not a joy ride, I was miserable towards the end & felt it very difficult to breathe. I never even went into the hospital prior to January 15th. Even though I asked them to admit me MANY times!! On January 17, 2007 we welcomed our GBGG quads; Camryn, Brendan, Avery & Lindsey into this world. 1 set is fraternal & 1 set is identical. They weighed 4 lb 7 oz, 4 lb 4 oz, 3 lb 6 oz & 3 lb 3 oz. I made it 32 weeks 5 days when I delivered them at St Mary's Medical Center. They were all HEALTHY and they did not need to be intubated! WOO HOO! They were little miracles destined to be here! I had nurses come up to me & tell me how wonderful it was that I carried them so long, that it was a better gift holding onto them as long as I did than a Harvard education! WOW! We were SO happy, excited & most of all unprepared for how much our life was about to change. I will say it was a GOOD change! I cannot imagine my life without them! Everyone watches our little ones in amazement & they still do. This is their story....

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