FOUR little FULTONS: Look at me Mom!....

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Look at me Mom!....

Today the babies turned 18 months! Yikes! Where has the time gone?? They AMAZE me each & every day. I try to give them new experiences each day. That is hard to do with 4 of them!! ha! I think they give ME more new experiences than I can ever give them! Just yesterday Miss Avery showed us her "flying" skills as she entered our pool. She really does think she can swim & we tell her day in & day out that she cannot. She just stood on the side of the pool & jumped onto the top step of the pool. The only good thing about this is that the top step is about a foot deep & 6 feet wide! She has absolutely NO FEAR! It is a struggle! We hope to get them started with swim lessons in the next few weeks. It is VERY difficult to find an instructor that will assist me with 4 babies! I make a mental note of all of the things that I struggled with to help another mommy out. If you can believe it I have been fortunate to "meet" a few new mommies of quads. YES, I said quads! It seems like it is in the water down here! 4 sets of quads born down here in less than 2 years! WOW! I try my best to help these new mommies with advice & stuff. I think once the babies get even older it may be what I was called to do. It is like second nature to me! I just LOVE anything to do with multiples & most of all babies!!! Another sweet thing they do each morning is tell each other "hello". Camryn makes sure that she waves to each baby & even trys to give them a hug & a kiss. It is SO cute! She makes the "mmmuh.." when she kisses. Oh I just want to eat her up! She also listens & searches for things I say I need. She actually brings the item to me when she finds it! She is one smart cookie! Brendan loves to kiss & snuggle too! He also likes to whine! He cannot take it when his sisters antagonize him! He finds a toy he wants to play with & flash it is gone! They take it & the whining begins! I need for someone to tell me if ALL boys are this way! I know you will say that ALL men are that way but not sweet little boys!! =) Getting to miss Avery well she is just plain ornery! She is one spitfire! I do not know when it began because when she was a baby she was so patient & sweet. Now she just smacks & howls when she does not get her way. Can we say "terrible two's"! I am glad that I have only 1 like her! She is definitely one of a kind even if she does have an identical twin! Miss Linz is our sweetie pie! She has thee BEST personality! She smiles from the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls asleep. She LOVES to giggle & totally LOVES her big bro Dustyn! They have started calling him "D". It is SO cute! He loves it too! You hear "D" all day long now that he is out of school. Well, I cannot believe they are getting so grown up. I cannot wait for the next....

Look at me Mom!....

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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