FOUR little FULTONS: ROAD TRIP 2010, NC edition...

Thursday, July 15, 2010

ROAD TRIP 2010, NC edition...

Oh was this part of our mini "vacay" FUN! We headed over by car AGAIN this time to North Carolina to visit with my cousin Lori & her family at their house on Lake Toxaway. They have the MOST beautiful house on quite the lake! Not only is the view BEAUTIFUL, of the lake & mountains, it is also VERY peaceful there too!

This is the view from the back porch! Oh do your stresses just melt away when you look out on that!

Our road trip to NC was SO much better than the first leg of this journey. They actually cooperated & snoozed a little. YAY! The first morning in NC we took the tribe Gem Mining! It is a MUST if you visit the area! You buy a bucket of whichever type of rocks you want to mine & let them go to town! We decided on polished stones this trip. They each have their own "rock bag" to hold their "gems"! I think we had just about as much fun as they did!

After Gem Mining we headed over to my cousins house. She has this BIG porch that looks out onto the lake that we all eventually hung out on. It was SO relaxing to just rock on those rocking chairs! Ahh... I almost forgot that I had four munchkins there with us! hahah! You know Uncle Rick even put one of them to sleep! LOVE that! We drank wine & ate VERY well!

We started off the 4th of July weekend by heading back to Lori & Andy's house. It has everything a family needs to keep themselves occupied. I took a LONG strenuous walk up some steep hills with Lori before lunch. That mountain altitude does your lungs some good! Boy was I winded! Ahh... We then hung around the house & let the tribe just play. They rode their scooters, a bike & even did drew with some sidewalk chalk. They had a blast! We later lounged on the porch, went boating and just hung our with our "clan". Heck for those who saw us coming this is just a small sliver of those who claim to be related to us! If you think our family is big you should see the rest of the tribe! We are VERY outnumbered!

By the morning of the 4th it was time to get ready for the boat parade! You see the Lake Toxaway community holds their annual 4th of July boat parade & my cousins family participates EVERY year! They have judges & even give out prizes for the winners! So we strategized on what we should do & decided on the BP oil spill theme. Actually Missy, Mason's girlfriend, came up with it. It was done in good taste & the tribe took center stage. They each held up signs saying "Save our wildlife" and then Brendan was at the end holding up a rubber chicken with a black plastic bag wrapped around it's neck to look like it was oil drenched. Creative huh?! The big boys got the boat all decked out looking like it was in the middle of the oil spill ie: black garbage bags all along the sides & then we rubbed Sarah's black mascara ALL over us! Who would have thought one tube of mascara would go do far! LOL! Thank you Sarah for your contribution! Just as we were to approach the judges stand Camryn dropped her sign in the lake. Uh Oh! Just as soon as she dropped it Dylan dove in after it! He really saved the day! He got back in with the salvaged sign just in time for us to be judged! Quick thinking Dylan! Best part is that we took 2nd place! WOO HOO! They won a $400 tube to use on the lake! We know that tube will be used MANY times over!

Our 4th of July was not over yet because we still had the big BBQ at the club to attend. They had bounce houses, games & face painting. It truly was a kids paradise! Luckily for us we had a TON of family there to keep an eye on the tribe! Each child got some one on one time with someone. Cam of course had her Sarah. Bren had his fill of the boys! Devin, Mason & Dylan took good care of him. Aave & Linz bounced till they could bounce no more & later when the music got going they danced & danced! We had the best time! It was going to be yet again a LONG night! I know we are on vacation but they did not go to bed anywhere near their bed time! LOL!

Before leaving this mountain top paradise we just had to take the tribe tubing! This is a favorite pastime for all of the kids, adults too! In fact Dustyn is usually out there tubing when he is up here. However he could not make the trip this year. He had better things to do like going to the Daytona!! I think I might pass on a road trip with four three year olds too if I was invited there! LOL!

We were even able to sneak in a family photo again missing our "D". Too bad the lighting on either of them were not good or these photos would have been winners! [=

And that folks was our...

ROAD TRIP 2010, NC edition...

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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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