FOUR little FULTONS: Happy HALF Birthday to you...

Friday, July 17, 2009

Happy HALF Birthday to you...

Today is the tribe's HALF birthday! They are 2 1/2 today! Scary but true! At approximately this time of day 2 1/2 years ago the tribe was born at St Mary's Medical Center. Boy time sure does fly by! Seems like yesterday they were little wee people laying in a row in the SAME crib. Not able to do that anymore! (= You may ask why celebrate their HALF birthday? Because we want to! Nah.. I ALWAYS wanted to celebrate my own HALF birthday being that my birthday is in December. Having my birthday 4 days BEFORE Christmas was not much fun! Fast forward 36 years & what do I do?? I give birth to my only children 3 weeks AFTER Christmas! LOL! I think it was fate that things happened the way that they did. Since my parents never obliged me so I figured why not allow this special "treat" for the tribe. They can now have that HALF birthday celebration I always craved PLUS it's WARM out in July! WOO HOO! Can you say pool party!? We LOVE a party surrounded by the people we love! This birthday snuck up on me & before I knew it their day had come & I was NOT prepared! We decided to keep it low key & have just a few people over. NO presents, just the presence of the people they love. These kiddo's of ours have quite the fan club! Over the past few weeks we have been practicing singing the infamous "Happy Birthday to you..." song but added HALF in the middle of it. Each rendition we'd add a name so they all got to hear their name & then the birthday song. They just LOVE to sing & the happy birthday song is becoming one of their favorites! I am making them their cake. This is something my mom always did for us & I want to keep up the tradition. Trust me I am NO Betty Crocker! There I was googling & searching online looking for the right recipe. Yellow cake with homemade butter cream frosting & strawberry filling! YUM! I cannot wait till we sing...

Happy HALF Birthday to you...

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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