FOUR little FULTONS: memories...

Sunday, February 22, 2009

memories...

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I really do believe this & hope that I remember ALL of my "memories" when I get older. My mom was SO good about capturing our "moments". She would take pictures of EVERYTHING! I have class photos where my mom wrote the name of each child on the back of the picture so I would remember my friends. We had like 25 people in each of our classes! It was CRAZY! We also have albums & albums of trips we took growing up. One trip that I remember was when we went to Washington D.C. when I was 10 years old. Well it was more of a work vacation for my Dad. Being that he was in the swimming pool industry he had a Convention to attend & brought the entire family along. My father was VERY big on history & especially politics so this trip was a good way for him to show us EVERYTHING! He even wrote these fancy letters to our Principals stating why this trip would be a great learning experience & why we should get excused absences for the week. They LOVED it & after a few stipulations we left on our road trip. One stipulation being that we each had to do an "assignment" about our trip. Mine was a scrapbook which I still have. We loaded up the car & off we went. My parents had a BIG pad that covered the entire rear of our station wagon for us to sleep on if needed. There were no seat belt requirements back then. Gosh, I am dating myself! YIKES! I remember my Dad telling us as we approached the D.C. area that the first one to spot the Washington monument would get a quarter. A QUARTER! Like that was some BIG money! LOL! However each one of us wanted to be the first one to spot it! TOO funny! Prior to our trip my Dad had written to our congressmen about getting tickets to the White House, Capitol Building, The Federal Mint, etc... We had plenty to do! The weather that fall was VERY freaky & it was VERY cold! We were some VERY UNPREPARED Floridians! My mom had packed me PLENTY of sundresses but NO sweaters! Needless to say my scrapbook shows how crazy we looked. A hoodie over a sundress in 32 degre weather! HA! It is weird how I can almost remember that entire trip just by looking at my scrapbook! It is weird how that works! My hope is that all the blog posts, pictures & video I take of our life do that for our kids. I hope that they have plenty of...

memories...

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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