FOUR little FULTONS: Look Mom I can swim!...

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Look Mom I can swim!...

Earlier I took the tribe for their ritual morning swim. Boy do they LOVE the pool! They will gaze out of our sliding glass door & say that's MY pool. TOO cute! We have only had the pool about 3 years so our pool toys are not immense. One BIG expense was this HUGE umbrella that we keep near the shallow end of the pool to give us a break from the Florida heat. It was super expensive with the special umbrella holder but well worth it! Gives us just the right amount of shade & being that we live in Florida we need shade! (= I usually leave it open when we are home but Daddy closes it up after each swim. Needless to say it was closed today. There I was opening the sucker up when I found not one, not two, but THREE sticky frogs inside the umbrella. You know the kind that stick to you if you touched them! YUK YUK YUK! I can handle almost any type of amphibian but the one I REALLY REALLY loathe is the sticky frog! The fact that they are sticky does not help! DISGUSTING!Where we live there are PLENTY of them so it's a constant battle. Anyhow I put on a brave face while I shooed the frogs away & raised the umbrella. No sooner do I have the umbrella up when I realize there is a frog on top of my head! YES on top of my head! I was no longer brave, I proceeded to do the freaked out dance. YUK! I wanted it off my head & did not want to touch it to get it to move! After what seemed like an eternity it finally leaped off into the grass. I turned to Camryn & said "Did you see that frog on my head?!". She said "Yes". I then said "Next time you see that there is a frog on mommy's head please tell her!". LOL! You think the frog freaked them out? NO... They spent the next 10 minutes looking for more frogs! I bet not even seeing a snake would scare them! They love the outdoors & all the creatures that inhabit it! They are definitely their father's children! LOL! Once they finally gave up on that mission they set their sights on the pool & their new found talent... swimming!It was CRAZY! They were leaping off the ledge into the pool like they have been doing it forever! {It has only been 2 days! LOL!} They were kicking their feet & even floating on their backs! I was VERY proud of my three little swimmers! Brendan on the other hand still does not want that freedom. He was much happier if I held him or just standing on the steps. We still did our Mommy "swim" lessons so he can keep up the practice. I think he likes it when he is held because floating sort of freaks him out. I am OK with that. One day he will be a WILD man & we won't be able to control him! (= I did not want them to be out in the sun too long so I made them get out. They did NOT want to leave. After about 4 times of me telling them they had to get out they finally listened. Then it was all about the towels. You see they each have their "favorite" or the one they think they should be using & will cause a scene if someone else uses it! I tell you I have created little monsters! hehee! It's just that they have a routine & do not want to veer far from it. I just tell myself that they like "structure". LOL! Well, Today I only brought out two BIG towels for the five of us. Needless to say that did not go over well. They kept telling me that they needed their towel. How exactly do you explain to a two year old that you are going to share? hmm...I ended up distracting them by letting them play on our back porch. It is covered, has a slide/climber & many other toys on it. It may be hot but at least we'd be under cover! It was a win win situation. At least that is what I thought. Before I knew it they got into some mischief with a potted plant & had dirt EVERYWHERE! I now had to clean them up & sweep the porch! The work never ends! LOL! I decided a hose would be the quickest way. After hosing them down I thought why not let them go back in the pool for a quick dip. No sooner did I open up the pool fence & tell them they could go "swimming" did Lindsey taking a running leap into the shallow end of our pool. This jump was MINUS her "swimmies" and she CANNOT swim! There I was jumping in after her. However just as I got to Linz Aave also jumped in. CRAZY children! I pulled the both of them right up & luckily neither one of them sucked in any water. Can they possibly be holding their mouth when they go under water now? It's scary moments like this that keep me on my toes. Their "swimmies" are now going to be on before the pool fence is even opened! It was just like what Grandma said would happen, she was telling me...

Look Mom I can swim!...

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....

Blog Archive

These words & pictures are MINE & MINE alone