FOUR little FULTONS: aging

Friday, May 1, 2009

trenches...

I am DEEP into the trenches of the "terrible twos" and I do not know how to get out of them. The last week has been a rough one! I have cried practically every day. God love my hubby for taking those tear filled calls. What I have been experiencing my girlfriend Desiree says best, "Tantrum Rodeos". LOL! Some days thats exactly how I feel, like I fought a bull & the bull won! I'm SO EXHAUSTED! I feel like I cannot listen to another hysterical cry or anymore stomping feet! This one took this one's toy or that one has this one's cup. They sure know what buttons to push! They make my nights LONG and my days even LONGER! Each day I wake up telling myself that this day will be better than the last & I am ALWAYS wrong! I have all of these ideas on how to make our home MUCH more liveable. Like first off since we cannot have a basement( SO want a basement!) to corral them into then I want a "kid" room. A place for them to have completely. A place they can do whatever in. We do not have a home big enough for us all so we need to do something QUICK! It is terrible how they wreck the place. They think they have free reign over everything & just when I clean up one mess there goes another one. Other than putting EVERY item from inside our home out in our garage out of their reach, I do not know what I should do! The only time they listen is if I tell them I have a bug. Yes our kids LOVE bugs. I cannot tell you how many times I have lied about catching a bug for them to come to me. CRAZY huh!? They bang things on the windows, they try to unlock doors, pull things off the counters, grab things off the side of the fridge or better yet wave the broom towards the walls trying to knock down the pictures. They are WILD! I take them outside & they try to push out the screens or make holes in them. Then when they have something they should not have they will run faster as I chase them through the house like it is one BIG joke. I know I'll laugh about it when they are older but right now all I want to do is cry. I get SO upset & I feel that they are putting me to an early grave. My wish to become a mommy was not granted for me to get this upset. There are few people that I can call that can relate to my struggles. We had it SO easy when they were babies. They ate when they were suppose to, slept through the night since 4 months, rarely cried & most of all loved being in their stroller! Now the hell begins! Most people including my hubby say they are just kids. Yes I realize this BUT no woman should ever have to go through what I go through. My quad PLUS momma friend Joellen will call me from time to time because she has been there, done that. She senses my frustration and trys to make me see that this too will pass. I really do think that I have aged quite a bit these past few months. Some days I have no energy to red up anything. I hope when they grow up they will appreciate the sacrifices I have made. I hope they will remember the happy times instead of these CRAZY times! Does it ever get better? PLEASE help me get through this! If there is anyone out there that knows how I feel or experienced the same PLEASE give me pointers on what to do! With a LOT of prayer I hope to get out of these...

trenches...

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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