For MOMs by MOMs: My story!

Hi! I know a lot of you may know this already, but I'm going to do a little introduction to how I became a MOM :)

MOM stands for "mom of multiples" :)

Last week, I blogged about a new fun link up I'm doing with a few other MOMs. It's called For MOMs by MOMs. There will be a different topic every week and we encourage ANY mom to join in! Heather Jennifer, Amanda  and myself decided this would be a fun series.

I feel like my journey to parenthood has been quite in depth. It's definitely been a rollercoaster and I never imagined that I would have twins. It's just one of those things that you don't feel like will ever happen to you, you know?

I also never imagine I would have a baby with Congenital Heart Defects who would go to Heaven less than two weeks after he was born. Until now, that was also something I never thought would happen to me.

In 2008, I got off birth control in February. My cycle was all kinds of crazy. By late September, the doctor found a septum in my uterus and diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). I had surgery in November 2008 to repair the septum. While in surgery, the doctor found that I had endometriosis. I more than likely had this due to the septum and backflow of blood. He 'cleaned' that up. I then went on Lupron Depot shots for six months. This basically put me into menopause so that I would have no activity and my body could heal. It was a crazy six months, but it wasn't too bad. I learned to do things that would help with PCOS once it tried to gain control. I ate low carbs and sugar. I came off those shots in early June 2009. I took birth control in June, July & August. We than began to try for a baby. On October 3rd, 2009, we found out we were expecting our first baby :)

At 23 weeks, February 11, 2010, we found out our son, Cohen, had Congenital Heart Defects. He was born on June 7, 2010 and went to Heaven on June 18, 2010. In this moment, I can't find many words to summarize this. I've blogged lots and lots about Cohen and there are many posts than can be found here. I thank God for Cohen everyday and I miss him deeply. I also thank God for sending me his brother and sister.

Six months after Cohen went to Heaven, I became pregnant with Knox & Sloane. Around August 2010, Brent and I decided we wanted to continue to grow our family after saying goodbye to Cohen. We quickly found out that my PCOS has returned pretty badly. I wasn't able to nurse Cohen while he was in the hospital so I pumped. I probably should have started birth control as soon as I stopped. Birth control keeps PCOS and other things dormant. So, when I went to the doctor, I was pretty covered in cysts. I also hadn't had a cycle. I took some medicine to help me start and once it worked and once it didn't. We were debating surgery to drill the cysts. My doctor then decided I should do a few rounds of birth control. That helped clear most the cysts, but things still weren't going as they should. He said it could take a year or more for my body to figure things out and we already knew I had PCOS and my chances of conceiving were actually better sooner. We decided to add follicle stimulating medications. Once we found out those were working, my doctor said we could try timed intercourse or we could do IUI. He said basically it increased our chances of conceiving. I can't say enough good things about my doctor. He is awesome. He was sensitive to where we were and he knew where we wanted to be. We did IUI. He did tell us chances were increased for multiples, but very slightly. Well, I got that in my head and I decided I would be perfect happy with twins. I joked with Brent about it. I prayed for them.

We did IUI on December 17th, 2010 and on January 6th, we found out that we did have two sacs. A few days later, our babies had heartbeats :)

They were born on August 19, 2011 :) We feel so VERY blessed. Sometimes it still feels like a dream. God had a plan and though it's been extremely hard at times, it's been so very amazing, too.

It's still crazy to think in a MOM. I have multiples! It's still crazy to think I had three babies in fourteen months.

I still get, Are these your first? Are these your only kids? I always tell people they have an older brother in Heaven. I always include that he had Congenital Heart Defects. People need to know those are real. They exist.

Having two kids, at the exact same stage doing everything, is so fun! It's challenging at times, but I've loved it so much. Sure, I have moments where I want to pull my hair out, but those are far outnumbered by ones were I sit and think how extremely thankful I am for these miracles and moments that make everything we've been through so worth it!

I look forward to sharing our stories and reading about yours!

My pregnancy with the twins and some of their archived posts are here. I need to update that a bit!

To link up your introduction post, head over to Heather's blog HERE! :) To link your posts each week, the link up will rotate between our blogs, but I'll be sure to let you know where to go!

 Cohen on his birthday....

Knox & Sloane on their birthday...

**Be sure to check out another expecting & parenthood series post HERE.

A other few things.....
*There are several fundraisers going for Cohen's iPods HERE :)
*I'll post the winner to last week's giveaway later today :)
*Enter to win a $100 Target gift card HERE.
*Enter to win some fabulous skin care products by Darphin HERE.
*Enter to win a $50 Visa gift card HERE.