Sadness and happiness...

This week has been an emotional one for me. I'm filled with happiness that my girls are growing up and starting to walk. I'm also sad about it. I'm sad about my nanny, Bri leaving us...but I'm filled with happiness that I've found not one, not two, but THREE potential nannies to come join our family. Of course, I need to make a decision about which one...which will make me sad again. **sigh**

But I think the saddest thing that I've had to endure this week was hearing about a friend, and fellow clinical trial participant, who lost her husband suddenly this week. She is only 32 with twin girls who are only a month younger than mine. I can't even wrap my arms or head around the pain she must be feeling. When I heard the news, I cried. When I read her posts on FB, I cry. I wish I could help her, but I know my place is one of encouragement and support from a distance...electronically...as it always has been. It's funny how you learn to lean on people you have never met before via the internet. When I learned of our fertility problems, I joined a Fertility support group...and there I met the most amazing group of women, including Courtney. A few I have met, others only via webcam, most never...but we all have a bond together and when one hurts...we ALL hurt. I know she reads my blog, and I know she reads my emails and I just want her to know that I am surrounding her with the biggest cyber hugs I can. Please pray for Courntey and her girls and may she know that she has friends she has never even met surrounding her with love and prayers.

Houston...we have a toddler...

Yep! Kamryn took her very first steps all by herself this weekend! That first one was a doozy! Her eyes got as big as saucers when she did it! From that point on, she's been popping up and trying to take more and more steps. She took about 6 steps last night and I have no doubt by the time I get home from work today she will be going further! Kayla is also very close to walking...while all the ooo'ing and aaaah'ing was going on for Kamryn, I glanced over at Kayla who was watching her "little" sister and she was just standing there, not holding anything as if to say..."well, look at me!!! I can stand by myself too!!!". I cried. My babies are going to be little people soon and I'm so sad, yet very happy! I can't wait to just walk with them hand in hand and not have to choose which baby I have to carry! We tried to get video, but didn't get it yet. Will post it soon. I also have a video of them cracking each other up while playing. I will post that soon too!

The Nanny Hunt...

Well, all good things must come to an end, right?? Many of you know or have heard me mention our nanny Brianna. Well, unfortunately, she has to return to Utah for some personal family reasons. We are very sad. If the girls knew she was leaving, they also would be very sad. They just love her to death and she loves them. I love listening to her read them stories...it makes me want to go in there and sit and listen too! Anyway, so the hunt is on...AGAIN...for another live-in nanny. Some may wonder why we choose to stick with a nanny instead of placing them in daycare. Well, it all started because they were born so early and I didn't want them being exposed to all the daycare germs given their early arrival into this world. Then it became, I didn't want to put them in during RSV season either. Now, I just love the interaction the girls get by having one person focus on them. They are missing out on some social interaction though I think, so I plan to enroll them in a Mother's Day Out program this fall where they will get more interaction with other children without throwing them into daycare full time. Then once they are used to that, we will up the MDO to four days a week or maybe by that time, I will be ready for daycare. Maybe. Sooo...until then, I'm back to the nanny hunt, hoping to find another Brianna! Wish me luck...need to find someone QUICK!

Prayers for my friend Janice

I haven't posted about my friend Janice yet, though I have wanted too many times. Some things just seem so personal. Yet, as I sit here praying for her today, I wanted all of my blogger friends and family to join me as I know there is much power in prayer. A little history...

I met Janice online on a fertility forum. We were both having troubles getting pregnant and pursuing IVF. We were both about to start our treatments and joined what was called the March IVF group. There we made many, many wonderful friends...most of whom we have never met. Many are my friends here on this blog! Janice and I always had a special bond when we talked on the forum, we were both from TX, we both worked for the government, we both were half Chinese/half white!! LOL. When I found out about the IVF clinical trial at my center, I let the board know and Janice (who lives in Lubbock, TX), Melanee (who lives in Utah) and Kari (who lives in KS) quickly enrolled with me. From there we were on the IVF roller coaster together!! We all became pregnant from the trial...3 of us with twin girls and Janice with one little boy, named Jackson. Jackson would be his mom's miracle in more than one way.

While Janice was pregnant with Jackson, she began having some health problems. I won't even pretend to try and explain what those were, but suffice it to say, they saw some spots on her liver during some testing. Since she was pregnant, they were unable to do much about it so they made an appointment for her to come back to investigate 6 weeks after Jackson was born. Six weeks later, Janice heard the devastating news. She had Stage IV colon cancer that had spread to her liver. She was a year younger than me, with a six week old newborn at home. I had just had my twins when I heard the news...to say I was heartbroken for her is an understatement. I think I cried for two days straight for her...having just lost my mother two years earlier from lung cancer, I couldn't imagine not being there for my children. However, little Jackson became his mother's hero and had she not been pregnant, she likely would not have known she even had this terrible disease and she vowed to fight like she had never fought before.

From her past experience with the IVF clinical trial, she found another clinical trial for her type of cancer based out of NYC Sloan Kettering. She and her husband would make the difficult decisions to leave their beloved son to fly back and forth from TX to NY for surgeries, chemo treatments, consultations, etc. The strength that they have as a husband and wife and as a family to this day astounds me. To go through what she has been through and to have a husband like Bruce with her every step of the way is such a blessing in and of itself.

Today, Janice is going through her third and hopefully FINAL surgery. It will be to remove her left liver lobe, which is the last remaining active part of the disease. After this surgery, the prayer is that she will be NED (No Evidence of Disease). She found out just over a year ago that she had Stage IV cancer and to go from that to NED would truly be a miracle. Please join me in saying more prayers for Janice and her family that she will in fact be NED very soon so she can finally relax and just be a "mom" to her precious Jackson and watch him grow old. You can follow Janice's progress and see pictures of her and that precious Jackson here: http://sites.google.com/site/janicedennisrecovery/page-posts

My prayers are with you my friend! I hope to see you, Bruce and Jackson at the CORM reunion in October!! ((Hugs, love and prayers from Houston!!))

Edited to add: Janice's surgery went well and all evidence of tumors have been removed!! Now the healing! Please continue to keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers!

Please help!

Many, if not all of you, have heard of the March of Dimes, but do you really know what they do?? This is a wonderful organization "dedicated to improving the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature births and infant mortality". It was not until my daughters were born 8.5 weeks premature and spent nearly four months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that I truly understood the importance of the March of Dimes. Without those donations, my children might not be with us today. I was unable to walk in last year's March of Dimes Walk for Babies as one of my girls was still in the NICU and one was home and too young to go out. WE WILL BE WALKING THIS YEAR AND EVERY YEAR AFTER. Our friends have created a team and they are walking in HONOR OF KAYLA AND KAMRYN and we each have individual goals to reach. There is a link to the right of this post for my personal walk site and goals, please click on this link and make a donation if you can...any little bit helps!! There is no minimum donation requirement! The walk is at the end of April so I need to get moving on this! Please feel free to forward the link on to your friends and family as well!! The website address is http://www.marchforbabies.org/KayKam. Here are some pictures from when the girls were first born so you can see how frail and fragile they once were! Thank you!

Holding Kamryn's hand right after birth...

Kayla's weigh-in...yes, that is only 2lbs, 6 oz!!

Working on their tan...

My sick baby, Kayla...who endured more needles, tests, medicines than anybody should!

Thank you again for any donations you can spare for this wonderful organization!!

Video and pics

I wanted to upload a few cute pics and video of the girls. Ignore my talking in the video, just focus on them. LOL. They are getting so BIG!!! Kamryn's Bling (new earrings)! Daddy reading to the girls! Kamryn trying to ride Scooby!

Crawling Babies!!

Remember when I wrote earlier that Kamryn wasn't wanting to crawl or pull up much?!?! Yeah...scratch that. LOL. She is everywhere! I think she started the day ECI came over and hasn't stopped. It's so much fun with them being so much more mobile and also more stressful...especially when they are off in different directions! We converted my office into their playroom which is a blessing! We can plop them in there, we know they are safe and they have a blast going from one toy to the next. They love to "walk" with their little walker toys and will giggle and laugh at each other as they go across the room. Kayla is trying to let go of things as she is standing and can stand for a few seconds before falling so I think she will be the first walker, but Kamryn is usually right there with her. I think Kam is just more timid than Kayla so she's more conservative in her movements...but when she sees Kayla zipping around and doing things, she usually gets over her fears (especially with some motivational ga-ga's from Kayla)! I'll try to get some pics posted of them zooming around soon! Hard to catch them in the same place though!