Strongest Moms in the world

   I just want to put down what is on my heart lately.

   In lieu of Mother's Day last weekend I really thought about Mom's.
   Because my kids are still so little, its more of like an anniversary or birthday becuase its the dad's that do everything. Yes, its odd but I was so happy that there wasn't much going on. I feel like although I am a Mom and a lot comes with that, a day right now is more to celebrate and thank my children for allowing me to be a mom.

   There are so many women out there who want to be a mom, and cant, mothers who dont get to hold their trophies, mom's who never got to meet their children, etc.
I know being a mom is a tough job, but I feel like my job is very easy compared to a large portion of women and on days like Mother's Days I just want to take time out to be thankful for what God has given me.

   Mothers take on a job they have no training for, dont know what to expect, have no idea what your body will do, especially your hormones. For some battling the body is a hard enough task, let alone trying to protect a baby that you have no control over. And that is just the small battle before your child arrives. You read all the books you can, you deal with strangers touching you, giving you unwanted advice, looks, comments, and everything any between. Then if you are fortunate enough to get to deliver your baby a whole new load of challenges come into play.

   I have to say if someone placed a help wanted ad in the paper for all the jobs a mom had to do, I dont think very many people would apply, and the biggest difference is that a help wanted ad is offering to pay you, but as a mom you end of paying them, yet you love every second of it.

   With all the choices a mother has to make; breast feed, bottle feed, nature vs nurture. I would not trade a single one for some of the things that other mothers out there have to live with, and the biggest difference is they didn't get a choice.

   To my Mom's out there who never got to hold your babies, or ones who only had days to love on them, or months to enjoy them or even years but were taken too soon.

   The mothers who dont have their "trophies" to show for their achievements are the ones that deserve the biggest trophies of all.
   Some say a child is never really yours, they are on loan from God.
   It breaks my heart that mothers dont get to have their babies and I appreciate every second of every day that I can hold my kids, but also every second of every day I think about the mom's who dont get those chances, and a part of me hugs and kisses my kids a little harder and more for them.

   I just want to say to all Mom's who have lost a child pre or post birth, you are the most amazing women to me and I admire your strength and ability to continue to be successful in life.

   If you have a woman you know that has experienced this please take a moment to tell them how much you appreciate and love them and admire their strength.

 I LOVE all my MOMS!

It was meant to be

   About August/September of 2011 I sat down with the Hubs and asked him to really think about what he wanted to do. Did he want to donate to our clinic and be done? Or continue with finding a couple. To my suprise he wanted to go through with finding a couple. Sounded great except he wanted to find a couple that would have slim to no chance to carry the kids. That was very difficult for me to handle and I took about a month to really pray about the direction we should take, and at the end of September I decided that I would no longer look into couple that contacted me but would search profiles myself and find ones that I liked and contact them.

~Yes I know Craig didn't want that but after we really prayed about it for weeks we both knew we needed a healthy young couple~

   I was roughly a week into my search when I got an email from a couple. Like I had said I was not going to entertain couples contacting us but for some reason the names and pictures looked familar. I didn't put much stake in it because I had been through so many profiles. So I just let it sit in my inbox and the next day I was looking over my chosen profile list and they were on it.

   Immediately I was like, yeah.... I liked them, but I needed to ask questions.

   In search for a "suitable" couple you have to be respectful of peoples personal information, and you dont just flat out ask why they are doing embryo adoption especially since they tried numerous fertility treatments without success. And you especially dont ask those questions in your first contact.

   I emailed the couple back, just letting them know we had not found a match yet, and I can remember the email I got back and it nearly brought me to tears. Tears of joy and relief and sadness, because she offered up all the "unspoken" information.

 **I will be having her tell her side of the story soon**

   All I can say is that we just fit, in so many ways. Our likes, dislikes, passions, faith, roles, etc. And what was an added bonus was that they had recently adopted a beautiful baby girl March of 2011, and they are foster/adopt family in the State of Texas, so they had a lawyer who was familar with adoption and embryo adoption/donation and made things very quick and easy.

   Long story short, and yes we will go into detail about the whole event, February 2012 the snowflakes had a new, loving, happy home.

What about our snowflakes

I look back and time has really flown. I seriously thought it was maybe last November that I last posted about my snow babies.  Nope it was November of 2010, yikes. Well a lot has happen since then.
The first half of the year was pretty uneventful. We did have the kids first birthday party (yet another later post) but really nothing besides catching our breathe from the holidays and birthdays.

   So about April we finally got everything caught up. It really feels like now with kids life doesn't slow down enough to catch a breath until after Easter.
After Easter we started looking at our finances, and that's when I noticed I still hadn't made a decision on what to do with our four snow flakes. For those of you who don't understand "fertility" terms snowflake is frozen embryos. And before I get to far I want you to know a little bit about Craig and I. I don't want to give the impression that Craig doesn't care about the snow babies but he is a guy and doesn't look at it has they are our kids because they aren't here. He agreed with our initial decision of finding a research facility but I am left to do the leg work, so when I said that wasn't an option he was ok with donating. We both were completely against the transferring at an inopportune time. Even though that didn't technically involve him he knew that was not an option. So it came down to donating. Now you already know it wasn't an easy decision. I was the one that had a hard time and of course looked at every aspect of it; cost, accessibility, control, etc. Craig on the other hand was fine with the decision and didn't have much of an opinion either way on if we knew the couple or not. He was good with how I wanted to proceed and knew I would be the one doing the leg work.

   I had explored the option of donation. I'm sure most don't think there are options but there are. We could donate to our clinic, strictly blind donation/adoption, or there are sites out there that are open, similar to putting a born child up for adoption, or sites in between.I encourage all of you who want to know more about this, or those who maybe faced with the decision to donate your snowflakes or want to adopt snowflakes check out Embryo Adoption Awareness Center. There is a ton of information on here, and its nice to know that others go through this.
Well, after drowning myself in information I decided that I wanted to have some control over who I donated to. So I looked into two main sites, Snowflake Embryo Adoption, and Miracles Waiting.  I again had to weigh all my options and what would be best for me, and I do say me because again Craig doesn't look at the details. I decided I would go with Miracles Waiting. I will say they are a little "old school" with their website and set up. Its slightly confusing, but once you get the hang of it, its pretty easy.  I wont bore you with the details, so basically I had to create our profile of us, a short version of what you fill out on your fertility paperwork, and then post. I was very shocked what happened next. I knew that I our situation was not common but I didn't know that I was one of few in the nation to do donate. Within days my email was flooded with potential parents. I have to admit it felt good, that our embryos were in high demand, but very overwhelming. What you don't think about it that you are going to have to turn people away. Also you realize that you get to be specific and for once feel like you get to be selective.
Because of the amount of people I held off on responding to majority of them, until I had a chance to look at the pool of potential people. The difference with this site is that there is not a middle person, unless you want to add a middle person. Its basically the donor talking with the recipient. Yes, very intense.
I was very "hardcore" for about a month, then it got to be too much.

I couldn't do anything with out thinking about it. so many questions filled my head;
*what if I make the wrong choice?   *what if they don't love my kids?   *what if they don't give them a good life?   *do we want a young couple?   *do we want an established couple?   *do we want to donate to an older woman who wants to be a single mom?   *same sex couples who this is their only chance of having a child? 
 Then went to questions like, *well maybe we don't want someone else having our kids, so should we pick an older couple that has had lots of trouble conceiving and the chances of it being successful highly unlikely, or do we want a couple that have a great chance to get pregnant?   *Why are people needing to do embryo adoption?   *what if they already have kids, and just want more?   *Do we want a couple that are close to our ethnicity?   *Have similar traits as us?  
Then you have questions like,   *if it does result in a child how much contact do we want?   *do we want contact?   *do we want to be close?   *how close, will the child want to know us, their siblings?   *will they be upset that we gave them away?   *will they want to know why?    *What if there is more than one kid? *can we keep track of all of them?   *will the couple try it once and if they get a child will they donate the remainder?

These are just a handful of the questions that went through my mind, so needless to say I had to stop and look deeper into my next step. This was something that I didn't expect. I didn't expect to be so concerned. For whatever reason I thought it would be easy, post the profile, have maybe two couples, and go with one. Never thought I would have over 50 inquiries in less than a month.

I apologize for those who are interested, I will have to continue another day, even just putting this to paper (to blog) its very emotional.
***Please, please, please I encourage any person who is experiencing fertility issues in any shape or form, does not mean you are the one going through the hurdles, that you feel free to contact me, or if you don't want to talk with me directly, I can give you great resources, forums, informative websites, etc. --I will make a reference post in the next week or so---***

Nanny, Home daycare, mother's day out, Daycare....

     I have so many things to share and most are so unrelated to eachother, so it makes it hard to decide on what is the appriopriate please to start.
Needless to say, I will get to everything eventually.

I guess the biggest event that we are going through right now, and I actually get a decent amount of questions on that I thought was odd, was what to have.... home daycare, Nanny, Mother's Day Out, or Daycare.  The only other option is being stay at home.  Well I wont be talking about that because I only stayed home with the kids while on maturnity leave. ~Actually I will at some point talk about working mom vs stay at home mom.  just not today.

So to give you a brief background, I made a commitment that if daycare was going to cost me more than my months pay I was going to stay at home. For my sake I am thankful I had an option that did not cost as much as my month's pay check, but I am very glad I was lucky enough to have a friend that not only had three kids, but also has experience with daycares, and had her own in home daycare. 

*A side note story, I actually met her through a fertility forum and introduced her to my doctor, and it does sound a lot worst than it was but I gave her my left over drugs.   (If you went through, going through or know someone who has dealt with infertility treatments, you would understand giving someone your unused drugs)*

In finding what to do with your kids, before they are born, is a tough choice. If I can give parents to be one bit of advice, have a back up plan. First decide if you want to stay at home, then decide if you can stay home, or if you want to do a full time daycare or a part time, such as a mothers day out program. Once you figure out what is best for your family, start doing your research, if you need to. And visit as many places as you can, because if it doesn't feel right, it wont ever feel right.

The twins are nearly 27 months old, and here is our timeline;
 1-3 monthsstayed at home, maturnity leave, recovering from c-section and extra time off.
3-14 months, in home daycare
14-16 months, nanny 1
16-19 months, nanny 2
20-current/ 27months nanny 3
20-current MDO, tuesday and thursday only.

And yes as you can say we went through 3 nanny's. Maybe at some point in time I will write about picking the best nanny for your needs, but for now nanny 1, had to commute almost an hr to and from our house, so it was just getting tough to be on time and expensive, plus needed a lot of time off during the summer for her prior church engagements. Nanny 2 lived close and was very high energy, a little too high and loved the idea of family a little too much (trust me it can be a bad thing), Nanny 3 we LOVE she and her husband just want to move back home to be around their family in Michigan and her husband got a job opporunity they couldn't refuse.

Here is how and why we did what we did. Let me also say that the hubs has opinions but didn't want to do any of the research or leg work, so ultimately since I would be the one dropping off and picking up and dealing with the workers, etc it was my decision. Plus momma knows best ;)

Also a thing you must decide, and you will figure out very quickly if you didn't know before your kid(s) got here, is what type of parent are you. Are you the one that needs to read ten books, before making a decision because you aren't sure whats best. Are you the one that goes off instinct and needs no information to tell you how to raise your kid, Or are you the one that knows enough to get by and listens to people who give you advice, but really dont have time or care to read books.

Well I am the one who has little time to read books, but I want to make sure I make the best decision, and I look way to deep into things. What this means is that I know I want my kids to be in an educational enviornment, but as babies I didn't need them learning how to read before they were 2,etc. As a baby my primary concern was that they got individual attention and love, but also wanted them to have social interaction.

I guess another thing I need to say is that you need to know what type of person you are. OCD, Anal, laid back, etc. Also how will that impact your parenting skills? I am slightly OCD and anal-I prefer to call myself very organized :)

I knew that I did not want to stay at home, although I loved my kids, it was hard for me to stay at home while on "bedrest" pre kids, I couldn't stay in the house, and with twin babies you need to decide when is it worth the 5 minute run to the store once hubs gets home, or you get off work, versus the hour long trip and everyone staring at your at the store for your 3 items.  Also I knew as the kids go older I wanted to make sure they had a schedule for activites, and had a decent routine, that was a combination of educational, creative, and relaxing. I knew I could not provide that to them daily. Although I love routine and structure I am horrible and doing something all day long every day, including weekends.
Because of having twins it was extremely important to me that the kids were on a schedule and stuck to the schedule, so I wanted to make sure they were in an enviornment that would keep them on a routine, but also could teach them things, that as a first time mom I would think about.
With that being said, as I mentioned earlier I had a friend who was helping figure out daycares and options, what to look for, the good and the bad, and long story short she offered to bring my twins in. Although she had not had her in home daycare open the year prior, she was debating on opening it back up (she closed it because she didn't need the income), so I went with her.  It was the best thing ever!

In home daycare was great because they got fed balanced, nutritionist approved meals, got to socialize with kids slightly older then them, and best of all she got the "daycare" ready. What I mean by that is she taught them to sleep in pack n' plays not cribs, and to put themselves to sleep. And because she knew I was very "organized" she had daily sheets but made sure mine were detailed. Becuase they started there so earlier I think it really helped with their seperation anxiety. I believe all kids go through it at some phase, but how extreme varies by kid and preperation for the seperation.
I know most are probably wondering why I left in home, well she primarily watched teach kids, so they were they at 7:30 in the morning and gone by 3:30 and my work schedule didn't really allow for that and I didn't want to be a burden, because she had her own family to spend time with. Also she had taken on two babies roughly a year younger than the twins that were extremely needy (their siblings were already at her daycare) and although she didn't neglect the kids, I could tell they were starting to "act out" slightly because of the shift in attention. They also started to "regress" a little because they weren't old enough to understand that all a baby can do is cry for everything, so they thought they needed to cry for every little thing. So just after a year we decided that a nanny was the best way to go.

The kids were going to the church nursery three times a week, so that social interaction we felt was there, so now it was time to give them more individual, and together attention. The in home daycare had help establish a routine and schedule so we just continued that with the nanny.
Now I want to make it very clear that most people think nanny's are extremely expensive, well we have been EXTREMELY lucky to have nanny's that took very little pay, because they didn't need the money.  To help put money in perspective, our in home daycare was 250/wk, and we paid the nanny the same. (not much money at all) so for you budget people you are looking at roughly 1k a month and a regular daycare for twins, was gonna run us about 1800. huge difference.

With a nanny, she was great with the kids, had a nice routine of learning video's, learning , sign language, play time and reading time, and art time. With this nanny we only asked her to clean up after the kids, make meals for them and keep track of their day. We did not have her do any extra things, like dishes, laundry etc.
Nanny 2 was great as well. She had just graduated college and was engaged and getting married in July, she had so much energy it was great because she would wear the kids out, and although our requirements were the same for her, she would do the kids laundry, all the dishes and make meals. -we were very spoiled. But nanny 2 liked family a little too much, she would have her fianc'e/husband come over when he wasn't working (and yes we said that was ok) and she would teach the kids to call him uncle mike, which doens't seem bad except my brother's name is michael.... slight problem. And they were taking pictures of the kids and posting them on their facebooks, which occasionally no big deal but often I didn't like.
Some of you ladies know what I am talking about when you can tell what time of pregnant woman a person is going to be, for example; you have the "Im pregnant I cant do anything even at 4 weeks, others are the ones that you cant stop them no matter what they are going to continue doing life as people." Well nanny 2 was the first example, and so I knew if she was thinking of getting pregnant that I would have very little time to get a replacement, so I continued to ask her, and she would tell me know what her facebook status would contridict that. Anyway, end of August she said she needed to get a job that had insurance because they were thinking about starting a family. So that brought us to Nanny 3.

Nanny 3 has been great, she and her husband actually went over seas for a missions trip to teach kids, so she had some experience and loved the thought of watching twins. She has been wonderful. She not only has them on a schedule and keeps track of their day but keeps the house picked up too. She is very timely and even can with her built in back up, if she ever got sick -her husband, who the kids LOVE. From the beginning she had told me that she was going to move back home before they thought of having a family, but also were semi actively looking to move back home. With that, she also pick and drop the kids off at mothers day out on tuesdays and thursdays.
Although Nanny 3 has been great it was getting to be too much running around and juggling people and schedules and payments to do mother's day out and nanny, plus MDO was only during the school year so we would have to go nanny full time or a daycare full time this summer.
I had said from close to the beginning that about age 3 I would put them in a daycare/pre-K and since the ideal school I want them to go to is out of our price range right now and wont take them till they are 3, and again going back to me being "organized" I want them to start out on a school year calendar, so I wont start them in Jan. it wold have to wait till they were 3 1/2. but that doesn't help me now. so daycare is where to go. Plus on the money side of things we went from paying 1k a month to 1100 when you add up nanny and MDO. Then the additional cost in utilities, and groceries, it only made since that paying 1200 for daycare will save us money. Plus the kids aren't stuck in the house all day.

Next step is daycare. The kids dont start till the 21st of this month so I will keep you posted.

I know this is a little lenghty so I apologize, but a quick recap

Nanny- The comfort of home, a mommy fill in.

In Home Daycare- a little more control for mom, and a little more personalized with a homey feel, with the benefit of social interaction

Daycare- less mom control, social interaction, and more emphasis on educational guidelines.

Recommitted

So I realize that I have not posted in roughly 6 months. yikes. I am not sure why blogging does not come that easily for me. I love writing and I think putting things on paper, or computer, helps me sort thoughts out.
I have decided that I am recommiting myself to blogging. Not only for myself but there are so many things in life thats happening that I want share with others.
Just a few points I will be getting to in the next few posts....
-Christmas
-Twins birthday
-superbowl/hubs bday
-easter
-vacations
-books
-church
-and Embryos

Although most of these topics seem typical, not so much. Its more thoughts, philosophy, etc.
Also I am extremely excited about embryo updates. I will be having a guest blogger to help shed light on the topic as well.
and in general I want this to be a blog that people can review and learn something new, or have a different perspective on things.
So
STAY TUNED........

Embryos

I have thought to myself... FINALLY. Well I haven't forgotten about my embryo story. not a day goes by that I dont think about it.
This post was extremely hard, mentally to explain things but emotionally. Everytime I would start to write I would cry.
I know it seems weird I can say that this was hard to write before actually writing anything.... well technically I have written roughly 5 or 6 posts and deleted all of them on this topic. Why do I have such a hard time, its because when dealing with invitro to begin with people are EXTREMELY opinionated and embryos well that is even bigger opinionated topic. With that being said I welcome all comments, good or bad. I have come to terms with my decision and dont really care what others think, nothing anyone says will change my actions right now. -Sorry if that seems harsh.
Ok before I get into my process I know most know what an Embryo is, well let me say you know the technical definition of an embryo. Here is what it really is..... YOUR LIVING CHILD. Not just a fertilized egg. My embryos are my children. my egg fertilized by Craig's sperm and at 7 day gestation.
So why am I talking about embryos, no I am not thinking of getting pregnant, but in May of 2009 I had my egg retrieval and on May 13th I had my Embryo transfer of 2 embryos, leaving 4 embryos to freeze. The fertility clinic I went to give you a year of free storage. After that year you begin to pay 45 bucks a month for storage. Well this past June I got my first bill. The dollar amount was not a big deal its what the bill represented.... making a decision. I had not thought about my embryos since they told me four were frozen, so for this to be the way it comes back up was tough. Literally how do you put a price on love... well they did it for me 45 bucks a month.
For most IVF is not something you are super familar with but, before you begin the process you have to sign a TON of paperwork, they ask you questions like; in the event of a divorce who gets control of embryos? As a spouse do you allow the other to take your sperm/egg to produce a child, if they are not able to do so on their own, etc. When it comes to the embryos they give you options on what you would like to do. Well there is so much paperwork, they once we signed it all I never looked at it again, there was no question in my mind that we would be together, so not concerned. But they also had questions asking about once we were done with IVF our choices for the future of the frozen embryos. The choices were 1. allow transfer of all embryos at an inopportune time. (in a nutshell that means pay money to have them put the embryos in you during your period to cause you to essentially miscarry) -that was a HECK NO! 2. embryo donation, we give them to the clinic to allow a couple to donate the embryos. 3. donate to embryo research. 4. ask fertility clinic to dispose of them. (they would thaw them out and not do anything with them).
I know everyone is different but I think its pretty obvious that option 1 and 4 are out. I cannot imagine killing embryos. Even before going through any of this those would have never been options.
So my battle came between donate for adoption or for research. I know people feel that embryo research is killing a child, and to some extent I do agree, but for me I would rather my unborn children help benefit children in the future. With embryo adoption, the reason I had a hard time with this is that I have no problems carrying children and the only reason we would not have them would be because of money, and to give them to someone else and fast forward 18 years when they could contact us, I would not have a good answer on why I gave them up for adoption. The chances of that happening are slim to none, but it still haunts me.  Now the costs of the two choices. donating for adoption, free, we just have to go to OKC to sign a form and give a vial of blood for testing. cost for embryo research minimum 750. that is for the costs of shipping the embryos to the research facilities-I know what some are thinking, if they want the embryos they should pay... nope not nearly enough funding for that. But 750 isn't that bad when you consider 45 bucks a month for a minimum of 5 years. I say 5 years because that is when my dr office would want me to make a decision to do something with them. and keeping them in storage is an option, but most are past their "baby making" time frame so thats not a typical option taken. Well even with the 750 costs I was willing to donate to research, well thats when it became really hard. Although they offer it as an option the fertility clinic does not have any research facilities to refer me to or help with contacting. And I know most have not tried researching embryo research facilities, and even if you have finding out if they will take embryos or who to contact to donate embryos is next to impossible. So since this has been so hard I have started looking into the idea of the only option for us is donating to embryo adoption. My problem with this is, I have looked into embryo adoption and for couples wanting to adopt, not only do you have to go through 5 hundred screenings, test, etc. but it will cost roughly 25k just to purchase the embryos. To me this seems like a huge scam. Fertility clinics are making a killing on embryos because you cannot get paid to donate embryos but yet they can charge nearly 25k for someone to have the embryos and even then, thats only for the frozen, the chances of a successful thaw are close to 1 in 3.
So I have been dealing with all of this for a few months now and when I talked to my doctor they recommended that I just pay the storage fees for atleast another 7 months (basically they said 2 years from when I did the transfer) they really said 2 years after the kids were born so I would have another year, but they said minimum 2 years from transfer, because my hormones are sitll all out of wack.
When I was told this I just kind of stopped trying every day to find facilities to donate too, but i still occasionally look around.
What I have decided to start looking at doing is trying to find a couple in need of embryos that cannot afford to go through the adoption process. I know that sounds crazy but you have to keep in mind that most couples who have reached the point of embryo adoption have tried and been unsuccessful in IVF, which for most will cost anywhere from 7k-18k a round.
So the final verdict as it stands today is I will keep the embryos until May 2011, and will reevaulate the situation at time.
***I know what you are thinking, why do this if you are going ot have more kids.... well that is the part I decided to leave out of the post, in a nutshell we do not want anymore kids, there are several reasons for this decision, which I may get to a post at some point in time***

To all the Mother's out there.

I know I need to catch up on my posts, but this couldn't wait.

*Invisible Mom*


It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible..
The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie
this? Can you open this?? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a
clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer,'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'Some days I'm a crystal ball; 'Where's my other sock?, Where's my
phone?, What's for dinner?'I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the
eyes that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!? One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe .
I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:
'With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'
In the days ahead I would read - no, devoured - the book. And I would discover what would become for  me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: 1) No one can say who built the great
cathedrals - we have no record of their names. 2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. 3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. 4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.
I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend
he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he'd say, 'You're gonna love it there...'
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.

Ear infections, pink eye, broken bones and a baby

Last week, well the beginning of the week had been fun, and on Wednesday is when the "fun" began. When I picked up the kids on Wednesday from daycare, it seemed to be a normal day. The night had been a little rough and looking back the past week the nights have been rough. Caysen had been waking up roughly 2-3 am and not wanting to go back to sleep. He would go back to sleep but only if you were holding him, and not craddling him, but holding him upright. Which is not the most comfortable for Mom. Once he had been asleep for about 45minutes, you could attempt to slowly lay down with him on your chest, but he would wake up 50% of the time, then you start over until about 5:30 where he wakes up for the day and wants a bottle. So I picked up the kids from daycare and Caysen was as happy as could be. Both of them didn't eat as much as normal, but it was only a day or two of that, so nothing to be concerned with. What was a little different was that Price had what seem to be sleepies in her eyes. I put her in the car and wiped her eyes with a tissue. The car ride home was 15minutes and when we got there her eyes were goopier then before. So I kept looking at it and when Craig got home he even mentioned it. I cleaned her eye with a cool cloth and we went to the park, just being at the park her eyes seemed to get puffy and red, but she wasn't rubbing. Wednesday night she went down fine, but woke up in the middle of the night with her eye closed shut from matting. I called the Dr. and took her to the doctor. I figured she had pink eye. She was acting fine, so didn't think much of it. To my surprise the doctor said she didn't have pink eye but had two severe ear infections. I was shocked! They gave me meds and then after talking with my babysitter, I started piecing things together, and it all made sense, but it also shed light that Caysen may have an ear infection as well. Of course it would have been easy to take both kids to the doctor, but I had no idea there would be an issue, and it would have made sense to set up an appointment for Caysen before leaving the doctor. but of course not me. I called two hours later when it dawned on me. So that afternoon I took Caysen in and of course he had one as well. I was so happy and so mad at myself at the same time. Since the kids hadn't been sleeping through the night I was happy because this could be the reason why and I wouldn't need to put much work in to getting them back to sleeping through the night. But at the same time I felt mad at myself because I felt like I was being a bad mom. Mothers should be able to be in tune with their child and one little change I should noticed. and I didn't. The great thing about that night was that I gave them meds and they slept almost through the night. I say almost because they both woke up around 4:30. Mainly Caysen woke up because he was hungry and he woke Price up. That was an improvement. The only bad thing about the meds was that it made Price very sick. The doctor prescribe Augmetin (sp?) and Caysen did fine on it, even with flavor Price was not having it. Not only did she get sick, and I mean she was throwing up two hours after the medicine. And to add to Price's issues she is TERRIBLE at taking medicine. You literally waste half the medicine when you give it to her. I feel like a bad parent then as well because the best way to get her to take the medicine with minimal spill is to let her start crying and since her mouth is open you can put it in.-cruel I know but you do what you gotta do.
So on Thursday I was playing doctor with the babies when I got a phone call from my brother. Its nice to hear from him, but I always get worried when I do hear from him, because we dont talk that often. The conversation didn't start off great when he asked when was the last time I talked to mom. This was about 7pm and I told him around 5 when she was headed to Uncle Churbby's house (its a family members house that is litterally falling apart and he is too old to take care of it, so my parents are trying to make it liveable again). Well my brother said he didn't have details yet, but he pulled up to the house and saw my mom on the concrete face down with blood everywhere. -needless to say I was freaking out. Well long story short my mom was closing up the house and her hands were full, she slipped on the door frame and tried to break her fall with the storm door, but it didn't hold and she feel down the concrete steps. She broke her nose (actually has to have surgery next Tuesday on it) and fractured her radial head in her arm. Of course if this had to happen to anyone my mom is the best person, she is such a trooper. I get my extremely high pain tolerance from her. But its been a week not and she is doing great. We are actually going up this weekend to visit them. My main goal is to help get some of their to do list done. taking down wallpaper, painting, staining a fence, etc.
Well what a week, really what a day. On top of everything going on that Thursday one of our good friends was being induced on Friday. So I was trying to get everything I could done for them. (long story short, they dont have a lot of help around here) Luckily Heather's hub was home with her so I didn't have to do too much. So on Friday I was taking my trips to the hospital, bringing breakfast and lunch to Jeremy and checking on Heather. I am proud to say that at 6:27 pm Brynley Nicole Davis was born. 7 lbs 1 oz, and 19 1/2 inches long. She was so precious.
What a perfect ending to a crazy week.

Girls day out

Last Monday Craig, Caysen and the F-I-L, traveled to Dallas for Caysen's helmet appointment. I took this day to spend some quality time with Price. The tough thing about having twins, and really more then one child close to the same age, you never seem to be able to give them individual attention, and when you do give them attention it always seems like you are favoring one of the other. Recently since Caysen has had his helmet and physical therapy appointements, it has seemed like he has gotten a lot of extra individual attention. Yes I know they are only 8 months, they probably dont realize they are getting the same amount of attention. Well my thinking is, if they dont notice now, it atleast gives us practice for the future, when they will notice.  I know it seems a little odd, how can you give a child more attention because of a helmet and physical therapy. With his helmet we spend a little extra time with him in the bath, scrubbing his head making sure it doesn't smeal, and let it sit a little longer, and we majority of the time put Price in her crib before Caysen because it takes the two of us to put the helmet on. And with physical therapy-yeah sure not everyone would call physical therapy fun, but Caysen is only 8 months and all they do is "play" yes its work, but he doesn't realize that. Also its typically an afternoon appointment, so the normal routine, since I usually have to take him on my own, I pick him up from daycare and leave Price there and once PT is over we go to visit Daddy, and hang out for a bit before picking her up.
So with all this extra attention I decided Monday would be a great day to just hang out with Price. Theres not a lot an 8 month old can do, so we went shopping (Target) where Price was so cute, a little embarassing, but I will take her make noises over her crying anyday. The past month or so Price has not only found her voice and continue to get higher and louder every day, but she notices that the bigger the room the more sound she needs to make, and Target was the perfect stage. I loved it, she scared a few workers, because they didn't think a little thing like that could make such a loud noise-I didn't know she could get that loud either. Price was such a "help" she loved either playing with my purse and everything in it-not so fun part, and liked holding everything I got from a shelf.
I know shopping isn't much of a girls day, but it just makes me so excited to see her grow up, so that when we do "girls days" we can go get massages, nails,etc. on top of shopping.
The rest of the day wasn't a bust at all. we went to chik fil a for breakfast, and spent a long time at the park playing on the swings, and slides. Although there isn't much we can do, we hung out at the house, took a nap together, and just played on the floor. It was so much fun.
It was so fun I think we may try and do it once a month or atleast once every other month, so I can do one month Price and one month Caysen.
Here's a few pictures from the day:

Price's shopping outfit

Enjoying the swing

Posing for the camera

Final photo before naptime

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.

Wow,, Dont know what to say

So I told myself that I would blog more and I really do plan on it. I have to say that I applaud everyone that are serious bloggers especially the mom's out there. I really do have a schedule and have made time to do "my thing" in the evenings, but never realized that once I got the time freed up how fast it fills up.
I know I have said I will post monthly pictures of the kids, and I will, but right now my free time is filled with Baby showers, work, and dealing with insurance.
When I get all the insurance stuff handled I will blog more about it, but all I want to say right now is....
Dear Insurance,
Please explain to me the common sense in completely covering IVF that costs thousands of dollars, but yet will not cover a orthosis for a child that is only a few thousands dollars? And if you are paying to cut me open why would you not pay to stitch me back up?
anyway, just a warning when I finally get to blogging on insurance it will be a LONG one.
Dont get me wrong I appreciate what insurance has covered but I would like logic to be used when selecting and rejecting what will be covered.

On a happier note... this past weekend we got pictures taking for the kids 6 months. Man how time is flys and really notice how fast they grow when you are doing the same thing a few months down the road. Our 3 month pictures the kids couldn't sit on their own, they were not real responsive. it was the random smiling, etc.  This time around they could sit on their own and not only smile on command (just because they can do it when they want doesn't mean they smile when you tell them to, but they could) and they could even laugh.
Because it was so hot, we only took a few pictures outside and the rest we did at our house, and they lasted more then an hour and were happy the whole time.
From what we could see of the pictures they were great, I cannot wait to get them back and I will for sure posts them.

I know this is a short one, but I wanted to make sure I kept the post going. Like I said I have a lot on my plate right now and once insurance which is the biggest hurdle right now is accomplished I will be able to write more about that "fun" experience and everything else going on in my life.
it always seems like when you things are looking up, its way up and when things are going bad its really bad and right now is a joyous bad time in my life. (kind of hard for a bad thing to be happy, but everytime I see the kids I realize that not everything is bad, and although things are tough I'm doing everything for a reason and thats to better their life)