FOUR little FULTONS: our daughter is a clepto...

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

our daughter is a clepto...

Oh SO much has happened over the past week, so much so that the tribe is now attending preschool! Yes, we bit the bullet & enrolled them in school. A HUGE expense but one we have to find the funds to cover! They really, really needed this! I think they needed this about as much as I needed it! LOL!As many of you know that when you enroll anyone into school there comes a HUGE list of stuff they need before they actually attend their first day. There is the normal expenses like bedding for the mat they will take their nap on, EXTRA sets of clean clothes, panties/diapers in case of accidents (Remember we are NOT fully potty trained yet!) But one expense I did not even think of was SHOES! They needed new shoes, sneakers to be exact. Being that the school playground has wood chips they have to have closed in shoes to keep those feet protected! So while Dustyn, the tribe & I were at the mall last week we happened upon the Stride Rite store. It just happens to be across from the play area so there we were! This is what happens when you have time to kill before Daddy gets off from work! haha! Going into the Stride Rite store is NOT a normal event for this family especially since almost every piece of clothing & shoe we have for them is a hand me down.Most of all we can not afford Stride Rite shoes! I do not know what I was thinking walking into that store but since we were there we decided to check their shoe sizes. It really does pay to get a toddlers foot sized by a professional! After about 30 minutes I found out that the shoes on their feet were the WRONG size! Uh Oh! Before I knew it I was buying four new pairs of sneakers! The only good thing was that they were on sale! Let's just hope these shoes last a few months! PLEASE?! Trying to contain four toddlers while you are checking out shoes is a feat within itself! They were all over the place! The clerk helped us out tremendously & gave us some coupons. I do not know if Daddy will let us buy NEW shoes again after seeing that bill! LOL! We decided we better cut our losses & left to go meet Daddy for dinner. There we were unloading the tribe from their HUGE blue stroller into the 'burb when I find a BRIGHT yellow sandal in the bottom of the stroller.This is NOT a match to any shoe we currently own & after closer inspection I notice it has a price tag attached to the bottom of the sole! "Someone" stole it! I could not believe it!! Of course I took a picture! hehee! After process of elimination we determined that Camryn was the culprit! I kind of thought it would be her since the sandal was yellow. They tend to gravitate towards their colors. SO I asked her if she took it & she finally fessed up! You can tell by her BIG grin that she knew she had been had! (= So I left D with the tribe as I trekked myself back into the mall to return the sandal. As I walked into the store I start to tell the clerk about finding the lone sandal in our stroller & how Camryn took it! I wonder how often this occurs? Hmm.. Funny thing is that she did not even notice it missing!Too bad one shoe would not help us out! hahah! It was quite funny! Made me realize how many more funny stories we will get to share about them as they get older! As soon as I returned the "stolen shoe" I immediately started dialing her Daddy's cell phone to tell him about the lastest fulton "funny"! There I was saying "Guess what?!"...

Our daughter is a clepto...

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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