Half their birthday!

It feels surreal that the Quads have reached the 6 months milestone today. I am happy but also sad ( they are growing way too fast!). I am happy that they are doing great, we are all doing good and I dreamed about this day! To be able to say that everything is in place and that we pretty much have it under control. It does not mean it’s perfect, but it means we can handle what God gave us, no matter how scared and shocked and uncertain we were in the beginning. It was pretty overwhelming! We were excited even back then, but I cannot describe how much better we feel about everything right now. When I was pregnant and my belly was growing so big by the minute, I use to do a lot of research, read everything I could possibly find, about quadruplets. I tried to prepare myself and my husband for what was ahead of us, and I was SO nervous. We were about to become parents for the first time! Nothing really can prepare you for that, less alone to become quad parents. I watched videos and pictures of other families with quads and tried to “see” ourselves in the future. It does give you a glimpse but still, you don’t really know what is yet to come. But God is so wonderful! He doesn’t just give you something and lets you figure out everything by yourself. He guides you and shows you what and how to do it. I am grateful to Him for our family and how beautifully everything has come together. I am even thankful for those terrible boring bed rest days, when I thought I will go crazy! Those days of complete rest helped me carry my pregnancy all the way to 29 weeks and 4 days!  I am thankful for the 2 weeks that I spent in the hospital before the babies arrived. I was very well taken care of and I had no worries. I remember how I was in so much pain in the last weeks, it was hard to roll in bed, get out bed, walk around, shower… everything felt like it was just too much for my body. My belly stretched out so much that my uterus lining was extremely thin. So the fact that the babies came so early was very good for me at that point. I am even thankful for the NICU days, even though every single time I think back at those times, my heart sinks and it’s heavy. But we managed to be happy and hopeful even back then, because our faith was bigger than those circumstances. I am thankful for every day and every moment; everything makes sense now. It was hard for me to go back and look at the pictures from 6 months ago. But now I can clearly see again how wonderful and amazing is our God! The work of His hands is always perfect! We just need to trust Him.

Today we don’t just celebrate the babies turning 6 months. This is kind of funny and also interesting. A year ago today, very early in the morning, I took a pregnancy test and it showed 2 lines. We were beyond excited! Little did we know that March 7th was just the beginning of a beautiful story that became our life. Here we are, a year later celebrating our miracles! If you do the math, you’ll find out that my pregnancy was pretty short.

I made some collages with a few pictures of each baby in the first couple of days after they were born and also I will post pictures of them at 6 months. I am amazed and my heart is full of gratitude. You’ll see why!

ISAAC NATHAN

Our first born, Baby Isaac. He was the first one I got to see the day after the delivery. I was shocked and terrified to see how small and helpless he was. All I wanted to do is pick him up and hold him tight but I wasn’t allowed yet.

My big boy, Isaac, today! tears are rolling down my face as I type this in. Isn’t God amazing? He is over 14 pounds now.

Isaac ~ I get to kiss those cheeks and hold him tight every day now!!

Isaac ~ handsome little man

Isaac ~ Love you to the moon and back!

HANNAH LIANA

Baby Hannah in the first days of the NICU life. Strong personality from the first days of life! She’s our little peanut

Baby Hannah today! How beautiful she is! Her smile lights up the room and she’s not shy to show it! She is over 12 pounds now.

Hannah ~ This little girl has so much energy! If she wakes up at 3AM, she is ready to smile and play

Hannah ~ We love you so much sweet baby girl!

Hannah ~ So precious!

ALEXIS MADELINE

Baby Alexis, our little fighter baby girl. There were some rough days back in the NICU and waiting for her to come home, felt like it took forever. But it was all worth it in the end. SO proud of her!

Alexis ~ Sweetness should have been her middle name! This girl melts any heart! She is over 13 pounds now

Alexis ~ Beautiful little princess

Alexis ~ Those eyes!! Love you bunches!

Alexis ~ Special in every way!

ANDREW DAVIS

Baby Andrew in the NICU. This feisty baby fought for his life and he proved every day what a strong little man he is. He made the funnies faces even when he was this tiny, such a fun baby!

Baby Andrew today! That face melts my heart! He was the biggest at birth and still is a front runner! He also weights over 14 pounds now.

Andrew ~His smile just makes my life wonderful! Love you so much little buddy!

Andrew ~ Handsome baby boy!

Andrew ~ The baby of our family. Such a unique personality!

From L to R
Isaac, Hannah, Alexis & Andrew

Isaac: Finally I grabbed Andrew’s hand!
Hannah: You are about to embarrass me, Alexis! Leave it down!
Alexis: That’s it! Here’s a good picture!
Andrew: What? We’re done?!

We are truly blessed and we don’t take anything for granted. Think about the blessings in your life and don’t forget to give Thanks every single day!

Lori.

Twenty one!

   You think time is flying by, well not for me! When I look back, I am surprised to see how far we’ve come and that we are at 21 weeks in this pregnancy already. But not being able to do anything or go anywhere makes me feel like time is not passing by fast enough! That feeling on Sunday nights, getting ready for bed because you have a whole new busy week ahead of you… I miss that! I thought that when I won’t be able to work anymore, one of the best things will be to know that I don’t have to get up so early every morning. But when there’s nothing to keep you busy, days are so long! And if you have insomnia, like me, nights are even longer! So guys, appreciate your jobs, school, whatever you do everyday that keeps you busy. It’s pretty boring otherwise.

Other than my lack of activity, which I guess is good for me right now, because I am not able to do anything anyway, it’s all good. I know for a fact that the quads are growing everyday, because my belly is huge 🙂 I feel them kicking more and more, stronger and stronger. I am not sure who is right by my belly button, but whenever he/she kicks… ouch! I guess that area is more sensitive. I wake up in the morning because someone is not happy about me laying on one side or the other, so they kick me! And even after I turn, they won’t leave me alone until I grab some breakfast! It’s funny, I am having fun with my babies even now, before they are born. And I can already tell it is not about me anymore. Tomorrow we’re going back to the Perinatal office, so it’s exciting, especially because soon-to-be Daddy is coming with us! I can’t wait to see his face when he sees the babies so big and how they move around in their own bubbles. It’s been a while since last time he got to join us. And I am happy that I actually have something on my  schedule for tomorrow, haha! I have to plan my morning in order to be able to leave the house on time. It’s a lot of work now to just get ready to go somewhere, believe me. After I shower, I have to rest. Sometimes I feel like taking a nap, that’s how much energy I put into it. And I am talking about a 10min shower, not half an hour. Then I blow dry my hair, that’s another exhausting task. I never do that anymore, unless I go to the doctor’s office. So, you think my life has changed? No way! 🙂

Last week I had some special little visitors, my boys! They were so cute! They made a banner for me, glued pictures of them on it and they all wrote me a little something. I loved Bennett’s scribble-scrabble! They have so much energy! It was so good for me to see them. They made the highlight of the week. Fletcher was wondering if we found suitable names for our boys, he knew we already picked the names for the girls. Well…
I got a great book from my sis-in-law, Adina. It’s such a cute book and it’s supposed to make it easier, right? Does everyone have such a hard time figuring out what to name their babies, like us? We got so many suggestions, but nothing sounds good. I go through the book and every time I find something I like, Oly doesn’t like it. If he finds something that he likes, I don’t like it! So we keep going back and forth like that. In the end, I know we’ll make a good decision, we just have to figure it out. There are so many cute names out there but we don’t feel like they match our babies, it’s crazy!

That’s it for now, form my extremely busy life to yours:) Quadruplets updates coming soon, can’t wait for tomorrow!

Good night everyone! I’ll be on night guard again, since I am not sleepy at all.

Lori

21 weeks, 1 day

 

Happy 4th of July Y’all! :)

What better time than 4th of July to pack the car and go camping? Forget about bed rest!

4th of July 2012

Just kidding! These are  from last year’s 4th of July. Ada decided to give it a try, came with us and she liked it. It was very hot, remember last year? Everyone thought we were crazy to go camping. We are a little crazy! Now it’s so hard for us to stay home. Every time we had the chance to go somewhere and have fun, we would not think twice. Camping is one of our favorite things to do. And now that the babies are on their way, all we talk is about how as soon as they are old enough, we’ll go camping!! This year, we’ll take it easy. The weather helps too, this rain doesn’t get you in the mood of going anywhere. But still… if I would not have to be on bed rest, we would probably be somewhere right now.

Today we had to go through a bunch of hand-me-down baby clothes that we got from some friends at church, to sort them and get them ready to be washed. It was funny in a way because we did that so many times but it was not about us, not about our kids. This time around we would look at cute outfits and cute hats thinking how our babies are going to look wearing those 🙂 Oly would ask my opinion on every single on of them, except the ones that said something like “I love daddy” or “Daddy’s helper”, he just piled them up right away without hesitation! We are getting closer and closer to becoming parents and it is so exciting! The babies are always on our minds and we talk about them, we talk to them, we imagine how they are going to be like, how they are going to look like, it is so much fun! Four precious babies at the time… wow! I am still amazed! Almost everyday we get to surprise somebody with our news about expecting Quads. It’s funny how people react! Some are so excited – I used to take the youngest of the Fogles – Bennett- to My Gym in Buckhead and his coach, a sweet lady, was so amazed when she found out I am expecting quads! She just wanted to hug me all the time. From that moment she considered me and the babies a true miracle from God and she kept telling me that there is a big plan for us and that God has something special for our family. I agree!! Other people get scared when we tell them about these four babies. I guess some of them think having one baby is hard and it changes your life and all that, they cannot imagine having four at once! Well, we cannot imagine our lives without them now, and they are not even here yet. It is probably the best feeling I ever felt, and I know my husband feels the same. Four innocent angels that need us so much! We are excited and so happy that this is happening to us!

Back to bed rest. Today, Dr.Jeffers ( my OBGYN ) told me how happy she is about how things a moving forward. My fluids look awesome and the babies are perfect, growing and developing normal, my cervix looks great (it has a huge role in getting me into labor) – honestly nothing to worry about. So I need to keep being good about everything, no camping trips what-so-ever 🙂 She even said that I will probably get to 32 weeks or more!!! That is the biggest deal to hear that from her, because in the beginning she told me that I should keep my fingers crossed to get to 28 weeks. It seems like quadruplets usually come in between 28 and 30 weeks. I was SO happy to hear that, especially coming from her. But we are still going to do everything we can to pass even 32 weeks, even 34 and get this pregnancy as far as we can. All that with God’s help of course. And because recently we’ve learned a new song from a person that prays for us a lot and encourages us every single step of the way, I will share a little bit with you:

“What God has for me, it is for me
I know without a doubt
That he will bring me out
What God has for me, it is for me”

Our plan didn’t work out, but we know that God has a plan that always works out, better than we can imagine! This is His plan for our family. And we love it 🙂

Have fun this 4th of July and be safe!

Lori.

20 weeks, 2 days

Infertility

Infertility is such a sensitive subject. And you don’t realize that unless you walk that path. There are so many couples that struggle with infertility. I never imagined that we will have to deal with it and I never knew how hard it is going to be. As a woman, I believed that it is only normal for me to get pregnant without any “extra help”, I thought it is my right. But it doesn’t work that way. God is the only one that decides for each and every one of us when, how and if we are going to have a baby. He is also the one that guides you in the right direction when time comes.  I will make the long story short and leave out many details because it would take forever to write everything down. So here it goes!

After being married for 2 years, we felt like we were ready to make our family whole. 3 more years passed by and nothing happened. Of course I was getting worried that something might be wrong with me or my husband. I remember people asking us if we are planning on having babies. Duh! We SO wanted to have babies, but nobody knew and we didn’t even know what was going on at that time.  Last year at some point Oly went to get checked out and see if he was the problem. He passed all the tests and so I knew…it was me. Still I waited a while, I guess I was scared to hear that something might be wrong with my body.  In November 2012 I had my first visit to an infertility clinic and I found out that I do have a couple of issues that keep me from getting pregnant. It was very emotional, I remember I was crying so hard when I left the office that the cashier from the parking lot looked at me and said ” You obviously are having a very hard day, so go ahead, you don’t have to pay for the parking today!” . I was told I have a condition called Endometriosis (you can Google it to find out exactly what it is) that is very common in women with infertility. But the main problem was my eggs… not enough and poor quality for a woman my age. A healthy woman has about 25% chances of getting pregnant each month, I had 1-3% . Of course I was upset and I would question why why why but soon I realized that my life is not in my hands and God doesn’t make mistakes. So after I told Oly what was going on, we both decided to go ahead and do whatever we can to fight infertility. Even though we were going through something so hard , God has given us the best doctor we could ever have asked for, which was also our friend and our number 1 supporter. So the problem came with the solution attached to it 🙂 At that time nobody knew what we were dealing with, we decided to keep it to ourselves until we had some good news to share.

Now, to make it clear to everybody out there, we did NOT use IVF! These babies are NOT the result of In Vitro Fertilisation! In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process by which an egg is fertilised by sperm outside the body: in vitro. IVF is a major treatment for infertility when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed. Here is the treatment that I did: I was given medication (Clomid 100mg) to stimulate the ovaries to release eggs. An ovulation kit and ultrasounds were used to determine when ovulation would likely occur. Then, my husband’s sperm was transported via catheter at the very time when ovulation was expected, into my uterus (IUI = intrauterin insemination).  The success rate is around 15-20% per cycle so it is truly amazing that quads were conceived this way.  We went through this process 3 times, the 3rd time worked like a charm and I got pregnant with four babies! It is very unusual to have this result so we feel  4 times blessed and so happy and excited! It was a shock in the beginning because we didn’t even know quadruplets were possible with this kind of treatment so it didn’t cross our mind that it could happen. But it is so obvious to us that this is God’s plan for our life and we’re moving on day by day 100% through faith! These miracles are everything we focus on right now.

I am going to be 18 weeks tomorrow and 2 nights ago I felt the first baby kicks! It was just amazing! I got so emotional 🙂 My mother in law and 2 of my sisters in law were there to witness which made it even more special. I think baby A (Hannah) wanted to play! All the babies are doing great, they are very healthy and about 7 oz.each, that’s about a half a pound each! I didn’t mention yet, but we are having 2 boys and 2 girls, how perfect is that? 🙂 So, at 18 weeks I have 2 pounds worth of baby in my womb! I had to stop working a week ago, sooner than we thought, but it is all for the best of the babies. I am thankful for all the prayers that were lifted for us, because it is all in God’s hands! And it is the safest place to be!

Lori.