FOUR little FULTONS: going to school

Friday, August 20, 2010

divine intervention...

Have you ever have one of those ~~days~~ weeks where you feel like nothing is going right? Well, Welcome to my world! School started on Monday & we have been BUSY little beavers since. A lot of stress comes with the start of school. I do NOT like stress! The tribe moved up to the 3 year old class & D started HIGH SCHOOL! YIKES! Seems like yesterday he was in Kindergarten! We would drop him off & all of the girls would chase him around the playground! Ahh... now those were the days! Funny how life comes full circle to where we are now! He is in a NEW school & I can just about imagine the girl situation! LOL! =] Not only does Cam have regular preschool like the others she ALSO gets to attend a speech program too. EVENTUALLY she will be riding a bus to & from preschool & I must say she is VERY excited about that! Of the foursome she is by far our most acclimated child. She can pretty much go with the flow & thoroughly enjoys school! YAY for me since I have had to take her until the bus gets set up. There have been MANY challenges this school year. I am the parent that needs things mapped out, I need a time line & wish for things to run smoothly. After MANY bumps in the road we are hopefully where we need to be. Dustyn has his schedule, he's getting used to his new environment, the tribe has been assigned their classes, teachers & Cam may FINALLY know where she will be attending speech. The best part is that I really like this school & hope that she gets to stay. I tend to look for "signs" to see if this is meant to be & when I saw signs, I saw signs! =] The staff there are WONDERFUL, very accommodating & really LOVE the children. When I walked into her classroom it was completely set up unlike the other one. They gave me paperwork on what was expected of me whereas the other school gave me nothing. Now I am not trying to knock the alternate choice but remember I am new to this game, I need instruction, I need to know what is expected of me. But even putting all of that aside the BIGGEST sign would have to have been learning what their mascot was, an eagle. My Dad LOVED eagles, in fact my mother still has his HUGE collection of them at home. If ever there was a sign that this was where she needed to be it was that. I feel like he is watching down from above & it was sort of like...

divine intervention...

Friday, April 30, 2010

We want to go to school!...

OK, I have wished upon this day for what seems like a VERY long time! The tribe leaving the nest & going on to school. I know, I know, why have them grow up even sooner than they should?! But when you have four munchkins at your feet ALL day long you kind of wish for some ALONE time! I figured that when this day arrived they would miss me a bit more than they do! I really never thought that they would love it SO much! They actually look forward to going! The defining moment was when I asked them if they wanted to stay home with Mommy or go to school and they replied by saying...

We want to go to school!...

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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