FOUR little FULTONS: EVERY vote counts!...

Thursday, November 18, 2010

EVERY vote counts!...

If you are a friend of mine on Face Book you would have seen me acting like a CRAZY person for the past month trying to get everyone to vote for the tribe in a Chick-fil-A Fall Festival Costume Contest. Sorry for being a pain & posting every day about it but I really wanted to win! It started out as a FUN Fall family event & turned into this crazy competition. We went to our local Chick-fil-A for a Fall Festival one night last month. They had this costume contest for the kids which I thought would be fun. As most people know we LOVE Chick-fil-A & always attend "Family Night" at the one near my Mom's. Well, this was our first "Family Night" at the Chick-fil-A near us. The promotion sounded like fun so we were there. Camryn dressed as a "Damsel in Distress", Brendan a "Knight in shining Armor", Avery was a "Bride" & Lindsey was of course a "Mermaid"! {She said she wanted to be a mermaid & never wavered!}. It was a mad rush to get there & then get them all dressed to then have their picture taken. Everyone smiled EXCEPT Camryn. She was acting her part as the damsel in distress for sure! LOL!

Besides the Costume Contest they had face painting, pumpkin decorating & a characture artist. Well the costume contest portion of their Fall Festival turned into a Face Book only competition. We had to get people to vote on the best dressed child! Oh did I try to promote the contest. I think I posted something about it every day & pleaded with people to vote for them. It ended up that Brendan was getting more votes than his sisters. SO what started out as getting people to vote for the tribe turned into voting for Brendan. Nothing like splitting the vote! Ha! In the end on the last day of voting it came down to one vote. Crazy but true, & Brendan lost by ONE vote! Sadly I think I may have cost him the contest! You see every person could vote for each child once & I not only voted for each of my children but I voted for other kids too! I voted for the winner! If anything I'm glad he won because he was adorable! Oh by the way the winning prize which was 20 FREE MEALS! Yes, I think I was more excited about getting FREE food than him actually being able to claim victory! So the next time you are asked to vote for something remember...

EVERY vote counts!...

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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