First family park trip

In the past few weeks, the weather has been great. I am so excited for fall-kind of. I love the 70 degree weather, sunny, with a little wind. I love seeing all the leaves change colors. The only thing I dont like is that it means winter is coming and I hate cold weather.
Anyway last week we took the kids to the park to swing after dinner. We knew at daycare they liked being outside in the swing and at home in our swing inside, but had no idea how much fun they would have. They loved us pushing them, and seem to relax. They were so cute and of course Caysen, my little thinker, has to be the one to analyze the chains, the seat, etc. Once it met his inspection he was the daredevil trying to pull himself the a standing position while swinging, leaning to oneside and the other. It was very comical. Price on the other hand enjoyed just going really high and loved leaning back letting the wind blow through her hair. She doesn't have a lot of it but she was relaxing. But of course as soon as she saw her brother getting a little crazy she decided to swing with no hands, using her little belly has a cushion.

Times like these I really cant wait till we move and are able to get a playset in our backyard.
Its funny how we said we wouldn't be that family to have the "junk" in the backyard if the neighborhood has a park, but we love being outside so much, that we would never get anything done if we had to go to the park everytime to play. In the next few weeks we are going to go to the pumpking patch and I am so excited to see what they think of that. I am also super excited to carve pumpkins, and fix pumpkin seeds-they are my favorite. The only thing I am having a hard time with is I have no idea what the kids should be for Halloween. The reason I struggle with it is because Craig grew up not "celebrating" Halloween, and his idea of trick 'o treating was his parents allowed him to dress up like a super hero and they would let him go from room to room in his own house. -not exactly the norm. So he really isnt all about costumes, etc. This year because they will only be 9 months they dont know much about it and I just want to get them dressed up for pictures, and the idea of them trick 'o treating. I am sure a lot has changed since I was a kid.

Here a few photos of the park.

cont'd and clarification of hubby bashing

My last post I had to vent a little about the hubs. All I said I did feel but I want to clarify that the biggest thing I have a hard time with now is not, not getting help once the kids were born. Dont get me wrong at the time it sucked, thats when having two babies didn't make it easy. You had lots of women who looked at me like I was the meanest women in the world because I put my kids on a schedule so early, I didn't let them "be kids". WRONG! when you have two and you are on your own, if you let them "be kids" (which that comment is just plain stupid because they are babies they need to be molded-personally opinion) I would Never get any sleep, or be able to do anything. Which most women who have had a baby know that getting a decent amount of sleep early on is hard to do let alone get anything else accomplished.
But I look back now and although I wish things would have been different and I would have had a little more help, I more feel sorry for Craig because he missed out, although it can be a litle boring at first since the babies dont do a whole lot, but I got to enjoy their first smile-which was at me. The first of everything.
What I wish I could change more then anything else is the pregnancy. And I did mention how it bugged me on my last post, but to make matters worse Friday night we went out to watch a friend's band and there were so many pregnant friends there that it was almost an overload. It just really got to me to see everyones husband being so loving to their wives belly's, you got the feeling that they were almost a little jealous that they weren't the ones caring the baby, because of the closeness, not the hormonal changes.
I think what makes it so hard to see, is that I really feel in my heart that if we got pregnant again Craig would be different he would be a little more "loving to the belly", which brings me to tears knowing there isn't another time-unless the .0001% chance we have the miracle baby happens.
Anyway just wanted to throw this clarification out there.
I am so excited about Monday. Craig and Caysen and my FIL are headed to Dallas for Caysen's helmet appointment, which leaves Price and I, and since I got cleared to lift my babies, but carful not to over do it, I am not taking her to daycare and we are having a girls day filled with shopping, parks, and getting my toes done. Days like tomorrow I cant wait till she gets a little older, so we can add massages to the list.

Warning-Hub bashing

I am still on bedrest so I have plenty of time to watch "trash tv", which is what is prompting me to write this.
Most women are busy during the day so they dont have the "luxury" to watch Maury, but I do. If you haven't watched in a long time, it has basically turned into the "Are you my daddy show". Alot of these men claim they are not the dad, talk a big game, etc. And the few that are the dad's half of them man up, want to be apart of the kids life. Its very sweet to realize they want to take responsiblity. But what strikes a nerve for me is that there are 18yr old BOYS that are wanting to be apart of a newborns life, be there to help with changing, feeding. the works. Immediately I get a little mad because I had two babies and a very capable husband that did NOTHING. I dont want to sound unappreciative of my husband because he does do alot, but when I was pregnant I didn't get any support. The most support I got was that he would come to every doctor appointment-which shocked me, and if I asked him to get something for me or help me he would, and instead of complaining he would just do it. I am very independent so most of the time it didn't bother me, the other thing he would do is always hit the handicap doors at work, when I would visit him so I didn't have to open the doors. and that actually bothered me because it made me feel helpless. But I never got foot rubs, back massages, anything. The only thing that he wanted to do was help with late night cravings-which I didn't have. When he realized that I didn't have sonic, mcdonalds, wendy cravings he was a little disappointed.
Once the kids were born he helped a lot at the hospital when he was there-my choice, I wanted him to work while I was in the hospital if he wanted to so that he could spend more time once the kids were home. The way he acted in the hospital I felt very encouraged he would be an awesome dad-never doubted it. But once I got home, he basically stopped and while he went to work, so did I taking care of the kids. Dont get me wrong I did have the mentality that since he has to go to work every day I would do as much as I could. In that thought I assumed, especially after the hospital, he would WANT to help me-wrong.
I am happy to report that now, he likes to help because the kids are doing more things and he can actually play with them, and every time I see him with the kids it makes me fill with joy.
At times I wonder why I got a hubby that suffered from BHS (broken husband syndrome-dont help with the kids) but I quickly realized that a lot of times you follow in your father's footsteps. Well his dad was rarely involved with him growing up, and it is very aparent he doesn't know what to do-but thats a different story.
So that is why I get so mad that I see these kids on TV that have nothing, that aren't married, that didn't plan on having kids, stepping up and enjoying being apart of everything.
I also have friends who have very involved hubby's and I have to say I am not a jealous person, but it does make me a little jealous.
ok done with the hubby bashing.

Prayer, Patience, Persistence

I took a nice little break, to kind of let things fall as they may. And I am proud to report that things are going good.
My last post I had a large list of things to do and I wish I could say they are all done-but they aren't! Anyone who knows me, knows I make lists, and a major planner and organizer, so to not have a list done is a little tough to swallow,so I wont talk about that-haha.
Well the last week I really had to get my emotions in check and focus on the now and what I can do today. My biggest hurdle was and I guess technically still is, the decision on embryos. Yes I am still working on that post, its hard to get much out because of the emotions, every time I start to think about it I just cry (I blame it on the hormones still).
Ok before I explain, let me give you a little bit of background as to why I have seen more then one doctor. Most women know that your Ob is typically the same doctor that you see while you are pregnant and if you are lucky deliver your baby and who you go to for all your "woman" appointments. So a month ago I had my yearly appointment with doctor who saw me through pregnancy and delivered the twins. At my post delivery appointment of course the doctor wants you to get on a birth control, and when you are breastfeeding there are very few options, well because of my infertility the chances of us getting pregnant without assistance is zero. Most women have heard stories of ladies who have said the same thing, and then they turn up pregnant. Which in the back of my mind I wish that could happen to us, but Craig and I both agreed that if we got pregnant it was indeed a miracle and would love it. So at my post delivery appointment we declined anything. Of course he again mentioned it at this recent appointment, and gave me the IUD option. If any of you ladies out there have had any experience with these please let me know. It sounds like a great idea. What concerned me is that I have PCOS, which the doctor did say he thought my right side seemed a little enlarged. Because of the IUD not messing with any hormones, I wasn't sure if it would have any side effects dealing with my PCOS, so I was already thinking I needed to talk to my fertility doctor, another Ob. And when I asked if I should continue my metformin (I was on this while pregnant and prior to the transfer to help my PCOS)he recommended I go see Dr. B.-fertility doctor.
Ok so I scheduled an appointment with Dr. B. and before I even got off the phone to make the appointment I was a little frustrated. The nurse there, I love, MK has been so sweet and when I called to schedule she was the one I talked to and asked me what was going on. (The reason she asked this was because not even three weeks earlier I had called her to get embryo research information/direction) I explained I was calling about just needing a check up because I was experiencing pain, which I and my other doctor thought could be PCOS and I wanted to know if I could get back on my metformin. Immediately she said,"why did you get off of it?"-A question like that makes you realized you should have never been off of it. My response to her was I didn't know I could be on it while breast feeding.
MK, " Of course dear it helps increase milk supply"
I told her thank you and got off the phone. I was so upset with myself. I stopped breastfeeding at 5 months, because I ran out, and even before then I never really was able to breastfeed 100%, but I would have loved help.
This information just added to all the emotions.-I think it was the breaking point
Over the weekend I decided to just really focus on what I could control, pray ALOT, and just let things happen.
So Monday was my appointment with Dr. B. everything checked out fine, I did have some cysts and they had no problem with the metformin. During this conversation they explained they prefer I try a birth control pill and if ok to stay on that because it will help with hormones and I wont have to be on a higher dose of metformin. He is ok with the IUD just not as the first option.
We started discussing the embryos because MK wanted to see if I had any updates on it. I told her it was very hard to find anything.
*As of right now Craig and I do not want anymore children therefore we need to pay 45 bucks a month for storage, or dispose of them. The option we have selected is to donate them to research-again my embryo posts has the details*
MK and Dr. B both said to suck it up if we can and pay the storage fees for atleast another 6 months before making a final decisions, because they have seen where people make a decision and regret it, and its because they make a decision to soon after their babies are born.
With this discussion I have decided to keep paying the storage fees for another 6 months and re-evaluate. So although the decision is made right now, I still have to tell Craig, and then I have to readdress it in 6 months.
Check #1 off on my "to-do" list.
I also found a day where all I wanted to do was sit around and file bills, so that took care of another tasks.
After Monday and my appointment I felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders which was great and cleared my head. I still need to file insurance claim forms, but what made my day yesterday was I received an 800 check in the mail from the hospital, refunding me part of my money for my surgery. Not sure if I posted this or not, but August was a very tough month, physically, emotionally and financially. Long story short we paid out over $8,000 for medical expenses, in less then one month.
I feel that things are looking up and everything happens for a reason.

we couldn't help but buy this shirt it reads " dude, your girl friend keeps checking me out"

This one was perfect for Price, " what part of princess dont you understand"

Have you ever had so much on your mind that you dont know where to begin? Well thats how I feel right now, so I am not sure where this post will lead or not lead.
Its been three weeks now since I have had surgery and have been on bedrest. I never though it would be this hard to recover from a surgery NOT because of the physical aspect, but its been difficult because its a mental battle. What I mean by that is, that physically I feel pretty good, although today I hurt a little because of pushing it so hard the past few days, but I am not able drive (I have a little bit) do many chores, and yes its crazy but I love to vaccumm, and cant do anything. Or I should say I am not suppose to do anything, physically I feel fine, but I have to restrain myself to not lifting the kids, cleaning, being on my feet for long, no shopping, etc. I am sure to some it sounds fine, but I cant sit still and as one of my friends said, if you are a "thinker" alone time is not good for you. And I never thought of myself as a thinker but being alone really makes you think.
Well going into this surgery I was in the mindset that I would get so much stuff done, and most of them didn't require any physical activity except picking up a phone, filing, and all the none physically stressful things. What I didn't think about was the mental/emotional stress it would put on me. To try and make you understand... Have you ever felt like you were in the mood to get so much stuff done, but couldn't because you couldn't physically do it or you are busy at work, running errands, etc? Well take that feeling, then have you ever felt like you have so much stuff to do, but dont want to do it? Thats how I feel. I want to clean the house top to bottom, and cant and have to do so many emotional/mental things that I dont even want to think about. I know I sound crazy 1. because I want to clean the house and 2 because how hard can doing paperwork stuff be. well I cant justify why I want clean the house, but not wanting to do paperwork, here is my to do list. hopefully in the next couple posts I can explain why they are so tough.
1. Figure out what to do with our 4 frozen embryos
2. Complete insurance claims forms for my surgery and Caysen's helmet
3. Organize all medical bills, expenses, including the receipts for our numerous trips down to Dallas for Caysen's appointments
4. File all bills that have been paid since the beginning of the year
5. Get all receipts calculated and orgainzied
6. Work on 2011 budget
7. Help with job hunting
8. Organize/caption photos online

I know a lot of these dont seem tough, but if they aren't emotionally taxing they are time consuming. The one thing I would LIKE to do is work on my scrapbooks, but that really shouldn't be done until I have my photos organized.

Ok that is everything I have going on, well on my to do list. There are other things going on that just makes thinking clearly hard. (maybe another post)

Before bedtime bottles and after baths. I dont usually put them in matching/coordinating clothes but when it comes to PJ's I love to. these say "current family favorite"

The twins playing with Daddy on the floor before bathtime.

Mothering twins in OK

This hopefully will be short, but I just have to get it off my chest.
Some of you may know that I belong to a Mom's of Multiples group in tulsa. TMOMs. I joined this when I was pregnant because doctors, books, etc. all said it was a great idea to kind of prepare yourself for life with twins. I cant say it has been a total bust but I have learned more from two fellow mom's of twins that are not in the group. One is actually by Ob's daughter, who also did IVF and the other is her friend from highschool who has boy girl twins.
I had PPD once the kids were born and I honestly think part of it was because of the TMOM group.  I know that sounds crazy but they filled my head with all the great stuff, not the bad things, that I wish people would prepare you for. In a nutshell they all had husbands that were 110% hands on, and to make a very long, terrible story short I basically considered myself a single mother when it came to taking care of the twins. A and J were the nonTMOM friends that actually told me about what we can classify as "BHS" broken, husband syndrome. What we are talking about is when you have twins and instead of getting more help, you get even less help then you imagined you would. Most women figure they will be the ones changing diapers, feeding, getting up at night, but few think they will be the only ones also playing with the kids. Well the three of us had this.
I will say that A at the time worked part time at her dad's office, and J is a stay at home mom. A now is going to nursing school, but her twins are just over a year old.
I never asked them why they didn't join the TMOM group, but I dont blame them.
The reason for my raint is this...
If anyone is part of groups, more specifically email groups you know that it can be a great thing at times, you can ask questions and get lots of responses in a very timely fashion. I rarely took advantage of this because I wasn't a stay at home mom. Not becuase I cant be but I dont want to be. I feel a marriage is a parentership along with parenting (thats partially why I had such a hard time with the hubs not helping out much), and in order to fulfill my part of the partnership I want to work as well. Even if I didn't think of marriage like this I wouldn't be able to stay home full time. I applaud women that stay home with their kids, but I feel you have to be the right type of person. ok sorry I was going off on a tangent, so anyway.... most of the TMOMs are stay at home mom's or they work from home, part time etc. Anytime I would ask questions I would get a lot of responses all which would help my situation IF I didn't work full time. The biggest issue I have had recently, the main reason I am blogging this, is because emails have been going around about playdates. Now I totally think the twins should play with other kids not only their age but also with other multiples, but my problem was that all the playdates are during the week, which a 8-5 working mom cant accomadate, so I have missed them. Most recently an email went out about having playdates for mom's in south tulsa, so I made a comment about possibly playdates in the evenings or weekends. What has kind of been the last straw you could say is that most women said they cant do evening because their kids go to bed so early. I am not knocking anyones parenting style (I know plenty could knock mine) but it just shed light that I dont belong to this group. I partially think its because its Oklahoma. I know there are tons of SAHM (stay at home moms) in all states but ever since I have been here, it seems to be the norm that once you have a baby you stay home.
Ok sorry I wasted your time, but just wanted to vent. Just because you have twins doesn't mean you have to be a stay at home mom. I want to form my own group now, TWMOM (Tulsa WORKING moms of multiples)

Stitch Free

Ok I will apologize right now because this post will probably sound so shallow and vain.
So Thursday I got my stitches taken out. I would really like to explain the feeling of this, but I really cant. I have tried and nothing seems to accurate portray the feeling. So here is a vague description of what they did. If you have ever had stitches removed, good for you. I have never had stitches, well thats not completely true I have had like 4 stitches that were dissolvable, so I dont think those count, since I didn't have to get them removed. Well these stitches you had to get removed but because the surgeon didn't want there to be much scarring he did internal stitches with roughly 6-8 external. If you can imagine pulling a thread out of a shirt, you know how you have a starting point and you can pull the thread almost entirely out. Well that is what they did, they had 6-8 external points wear they cut the thread and would pull, so they were dethreading me internally. Yes it hurt, but it was a very weird feeling. And I honestly believe that it would have hurt more if they hadn't cut through all my nerve endings in my stomach to do the procedure. I guess it was a good thing ;)
Ok well here is the vain and shallow part. Since I went to this doctor at my intial consultation he looked at my stomach and said that he would be able to remove all my stretch marks, yes I had a lot, so I was really excited. Well Thursday was the first day I was able to even see anything and he didn't get all the stretch marks out. I know I am lucky compared to some women who have to live with all the stretch marks, but I guess I just had my hopes up because he said he could remove them all. He never garunteed he could get them all he just said looking at the hernia and where my muscles were he thought he would be able to get them. And what sound weird is that I had three little stretch marks on the side of my hip that I knew he couldn't get rid of because my skin wouldn't be able to stretch that far, so I was excited to keep those. I thought "hey what a great trade off, remove hundreds of stretch marks and keep three little ones". Well wrong. Just so happens that my three little ones were right on the incision line, so you can see maybe 1 of the 3. Well I guess my main problem stems from seeing all the before/after pictures of people and I guess I just expected to see the after picture on me now. Of course its not there yet, I have a good two-four weeks of swelling to go down before I look anything like the after pictures. So although my mom and doctor, nurse, etc all say everything looks good its hard for me to see it, so honestly right now I am not very happy with the results. Yes it looks better then it did my stomach even know is flat, probably flatter then pre baby but I just wanted to see the curves. I think the thing I have to get over is that some people dont have curves no matter how much work they get done. If I look at it that way I am not that upset. 
Ok I am done being vain and shallow for now, here are a few pictures (sorry if its TMI)

here I am before the stitches came out

After they took the stitches out

here I am standing up the next day without my wrap on. That dark hole is my bellybutton, it has disolvable stitches in it. and I am still very swollen.

Me, My Hernia, and I

So on Aug. 27th I had surgery to fix my ingastric hernia. This surgery was a total of 6 hours long. The reason for such along surgery was because they had to put a medical "chicken wire" to hold my intestines in and bind my abdominal muscles together and then the muscles are secured together with live cell tissue (a  mesh wall) to hold them in). Thats all interior, because of the drastic change in shape I woudl have a lot of extra skin, so the surgeon woudl then remove the extra skin, and since I had stretch marks and an umblical hernia, he just removed the front of the stomach skin. Essentially a tummy tuck. All of this took 6 hours.
This was a great thing because I no longer look 6 months pregnant, and a bonus my stretch marks(majority) of them are gone. The down size is now will have a scar horizontal scar from hip bone to hip bone and a vertical scar from pelvic bone to breast bone. I am a little scared to see what it looks like, but I was always going to have the dark line down my belly from pregnancy so its not that much different and the hip bone scar I should be able to cover up with any bottoms-hopefully.
Now this surgery means alot to me. It kind of is like my ending. Almost two years to the day (1 week shy of two years) ago I started my, what I call, pregnancy journey. Two years ago labor day weekend I had my first surgery ever. Laproscopic surgery to repair a septum in my uterus. During that surgery we found that I did not have endometrosis, but adhensions which we have determined was caused by my appendix leaking. These adhensions destroyed my fallopian tubes, thus sending us down the path of IVF. We started IVF prep Feb 2009 and did our retrieval and transfer in May. Jan 2010 the twins were  born, and since we got one of each we decided we were happy with our two and are done. So August I finished my pregnancy/baby journey. I know that seems a little weird to say finished with my pregnancy journey, but basically with this last surgery having a tummy tuck doctors do not recommend having anymore children. You are probably asking why, well.. the reason for this is repairing the hernia doens't cause problems when having more children but tightening the abdominal muscles back up and removing the extra skin, means that getting pregnant again it would essentially reverse the muscle tightening and stretch out the "new" skin, which means after having any more children I would have to have this surgery again because the chances of my body going back to "pre-baby" body is extremely unlikely. So we had to make a decision on if we were wanting to have more children to post pone the surgery, but would have to find a balance because the ingastric hernia would start to be dangerous for my health. In so many words, if we wanted to have more children and didn't want to pay for my surgery again we would need to start within the next year, and after having twins, money and room would be the largest of our concerns. So of course you figured out our decision, I had surgery. Craig and I know that there is always that chance of a miracle baby, since I have to IVF to get pregnant if a miracle happens and I got pregnant we would not have a problem at all paying for the surgery again.
Anyway, I had surgery on Friday the 27th, went back on Monday to make sure everything was going ok. This appt they monitored my drainage-yes drainage I had two drains and every 2-3 hrs we had to empty them and record the amount of fluid. If you have never had drains-good for you, if you have you know how nasty it is. Well last thursday my fluid was extremely low so they took my drains out, I cant explain the feeling, except it felt like someone was pulling a worm out of my stomach. Tomorrow, Thursday, I get my stitches out. I have to be honest that I am a little scared because I have never had stitches before and so never had them removed and I just dont want the pain. Oh yeah and another sucky thing about the surgery is I am on bedrest for a month (which is more strict then I was pregnant with the twins) and what is so hard, is that I cannot lift anything including the kids.
Well I dont have any post surgery pictures (sisn't think a picture of my drains would be very pleasing) but hopefully tomorrow I can put some up. But for now here is what my stomach looked like the morning of my surgery.

I know it doesn't look that bad, just looks like I have been lazy and let fat take over, but to give you an idea I am actually 5 lbs under pre pregnancy weight.

Caysen's diagnosis

I want to take a little bit of time to update you all on what all is going on. I will apologize in advance if this post is a little boring.


Well the past few months I have been dealing with Caysen being diagnosed with Left toricollis, placiocephaly and asymetrical braciocephaly. Or should I say not being diagnosed. Basically what has happened was when Caysen was born he had what looked to be a flat spot on the back of his head. At every doctor appointment we would bring his head shape up to the doctor and she would say it is fine, and it will fill out and be more "normal". Well it hadn't gotten that much better, and my babysitter had taken the twins to a mom's playdate where a mother there asked if he had torticollis. The reason she asked this was because of his flat spot on his head. She also said that her daughter had to wear a helmet. This is where it dawned on me that I should ask about the helmet thing to my Moms of Multiple Group. Seems like a weird connection but with the email group I have with them I had seen several emails about helmets, etc, but never bothered to read them because I had never heard of torticollis, plagiocephaly, or braciocephaly. Well when asking the TMOM's they had informed me that you do not get a helmet for torticollis but for plagiocephaly and braciocephaly. They recommended that I do a free screening at our local hospital. So I arranged for a screening-keep in mind still with my pediatrician saying he was fine. At that point in time Caysen was diagnosed with Left torticollis with what they believed as plagiocephaly and bossing. Becuase it was a physical therapist she couldn't technically diagnos plagiocephaly or bossing, but recmmeneded that I go to STAR Cranial center in Dallas, TX who also have a free evaluation. So within the next two weeks I had scheduled a free evaluation from STAR Cranial the only down fall-we had to drive to Dallas. Not a real far drive, 4 hrs, but far enough that a down and back in one day wears you out. Since the kids were spending a week with my parents I scheduled it so that they would go with me down to Dallas. So we made a two day trip out of it and it was nice. The twins got to see my grandparents for the first time along with my Aunt Ang and my cousins.

During this time I spoke with my insurance and found out that they do not cover orthosis that change the shape of the body. Meaning the helmet would not be covered. Once talking with insurance though, they did suggest that I still go through the process of getting preauthurization for the helmet. I was dreading the whole process because I went through a similar process roughly two years ago, when trying to see if they would cover any infertility treatments. It didn't turn out good, but what was a positive was that during the process we figured out that if we switched to Craig's insurance it would be completely covered, perfect timing.

Well of course we couldn't do anything like that with Caysen's helmet and wait till the first of the year to switch back to my insurance because time was money-literally. The older he got the longer he would have to wear the helmet and the longer he wears the helmet the greater the chance he has of having to wear more then one helmet. To give you an idea, one helmet cost roughly 2500.00 so two of those would run 5k. Althouh IF my insurance would cover we still have an out of pocket maximum of 3500. Well although insurance now doesn't cover we are only paying 2500. So in the long run we are saving 1k.

So after our evaluation at STAR Cranial I was secretly hoping they would tell us, "oh although he has a little bit of a flat spot his head is still in normal range and just seems a little more obvious now because he doesn't have much hair.

Well...... we were wrong. He actually was diagnosed with moderate plagiocephaly, mild asymmetrical braciocephaly, with right front bossing and ear misalignment. -I have to say I was shocked, I didn't know all those things were wrong, but what was promising was that he did tell us that we were catching it in time and that we would probably only need one helmet.

Fast forward a month and after gathering all the diagrams, letters of medical necessity, research, etc. (I had roughly 15 pages) of documentation I sent to insurance to try and plead my case that they should cover the helmet, we were denied. I have to say I was a little hurt, but also knew that you get to chances to appeal and I appealed once but I wasnt going to appeal a second time because if I did and insurance denied again, then they would not even consider the claims STAR cranial would be submitting. I know that probably seems weird but with STAR Cranial they have said that after submitting medical codes, etc sometimes insurance will cover. So I have opted not to try and submit the same documentation again for a second appeal. That is why it took me so long to do the first one because I made sure I got all the information I possibly could before submitting, so that if it was denied I would know I did everything I could.

Plus on a positive note, because we have spent so much money on medical this year, we will be able to file some of it against our insurance. I am not a tax expert but basically if you spend more then 7.5% of your annual income on medical , thats perscriptions, bills, travel expenses, etc you can file it against your insurance. So I am trying to look on the bright side.

Anyway I gave you all the boring information to say this. Last Thursday Caysen got his helmet! I at first was really scared because as a money you wont to protect your kids, and to find out he had to get a helmet for his head, just made me feel like I did something to cause it. Although EVERYONE has said there was nothing I could have done, especially with having twins the size I did, but its still tough, and you want to protect them and take blame for everything, and especially since I was on bedrest and couldn't go down with him to watch him get the helmet put on I figured I would cry like a baby. And I have to say when Craig sent me a picture at the Dr. office I cried like a little baby for a couple hours. But once he got home and I saw him in it, and that it didn't bother him and he looked rather cute, I felt better. You are probably wondering how long will he have to wear it.. He has to wear it every day for roughly 23 out of 24 hours of the day. He gets to take it off for roughly an hour during bath time so I can clean it daily. And hopefully at his next appt on the 13th we will find out roughly how long he will have to wear it. My goal is that he will get it off by the first of the year if not sooner.

Ok so here are a few pictures of him in his helmet. And I have to say the helmet couldnt have come at a better time. He is just now starting to climb like a monkey on and off everything so he is hitting his head a lot on stuff, and now with the helmet it doesn't phase him. Its kind of nice.

Its a little blurry b/c its from Craig's cell phone, but this is after its fitted and still at the doctor office.

Caysen enjoying his helmet and a snack.