Fun at the Magic House

The boys keep getting more and more fun! I find myself looking forward to getting off work, etc. so I can go home and play with them. They're so much fun!! Most of the time, I'd rather be with them playing than be away from them. Don't get me wrong there are times when I need a break. Lately those seem to be pretty few and far between. They've been such great boys lately. Their little personalities are hilarious! They've gotten into this silly phase. Especially Jace. He walks around the house fake, belly laughing. He'll throw his head back and laugh. It's so funny because it's so fake! He makes a pretty silly face when he does it too!

This past Friday, Monica and I were both off work the same day! Which never happens! So we took the boys to the Magic House. For you out of towners, the Magic House is a place for kids to play. Almost every obstacle, puzzle, or thing for them to play with is educational. A lot of the things work on their coordination and analytical thinking skills. And of course, they can use their imagination! They have a mini grocery store with plastic food and food containers. It has checkout counters where kids can be the cashier. Jace found an abandoned basket full of food and started putting it all away, lol. He's the helper. He loves to help! They have a construction zone, pizza place, library, etc. All miniaturized so kids can play with them and feel grown up. It's a pretty neat place! They boys loved it! They got to run around and go wherever they wanted to, and play with whatever they wanted. They are also fascinated with watching big kids.

Jeriah is the social one. He's the one that will walk up to other kids and smile at them, then laugh with excitement because he's around other kids. Poor little guy has been pushed down so many times doing that. He just wants to say hi, lol. He wanted to run everywhere! Jeriah's run isn't really a run. It's more high stepping at a fast walk pace, haha. It was so cute. Every time we took him to a new area, he would run. He's a climber too, so he wanted to climb on everything. Meanwhile Jace strutted around. When he walks, he struts. Like he's a big shot, lol. He has his chest out, shoulders back, swings his arms and struts. We have no idea where he got it from. It's not really a cocky sort of strut though. It's more an "I don't care what people think" kind of a strut. He just walked around looking at everything, taking it all in.

There was a peg board with lights behind it and different color acrylic pegs to put in the holes. When you put the acrylic peg in the hole, it would light up. Jace could have played there for hours probably. I finally had to show him there was a bunch of other stuff to do or who knows how long he would have stayed there and played, lol. The trip was a blast! We're excited about this summer and getting to take them more places! They absolutely love the water too, which will make this summer a blast! We're gonna have to join the Y or somewhere with a pool to take them to swim a bunch.

Here's a few pics from the trip:

Coming July 2015...

That's right... Baby #3 is on the way! At the end of our first IVF cycle, Monica and I had one embryo left over that still looked "gorgeous" as our IVF doctor put it. We decided to freeze it, as we could not live ourselves for throwing away an embryo. We understand that there is a lot of controversy around whether they are babies at this stage in the game or not, but to us it felt so wrong. Almost the same as having a abortion. So we chose to freeze that last, lone embryo for a later time.

Well, that time was this past November. Monica underwent shots to prepare her body to accept the embryo, and at the end of November, we had the transfer. Everything went perfectly smooth. We got our results 2 weeks later that confirmed a positive blood test! Two weeks later, another blood test still confirmed everything was going great. Two weeks after that, we had an ultrasound and saw our little miracle for the first time. We also heard it's little heartbeat. It was just as amazing as hearing the boys' heartbeats and seeing them for the first time. And now look at them.... It truly is miraculous and awe inspiring to witness them growing from microscopic embryos to almost two years of age. God's awesome hand at work indeed.

We're beyond excited and feel extremely blessed! Monica and I both always dreamed of having 3 or more children. The boys already know that mommy has a baby in her tummy. :) We can't wait to post more updates and keep you all posted on this journey!

Here's a post about our first IVF cycle and Monica's thoughts. click here

We've also gotten several questions with this pregnancy and I wanted to take the time to answer a couple.

The first is whether we got pregnant naturally or through IVF?

As I mentioned above, this was a frozen IVF cycle. We cannot have children naturally. This was also not another full IVF cycle. We cannot afford that, lol. It was a frozen cycle, which is about 1/4 the cost of a full cycle. 

The second is what are the chances our boys and this next baby could have CF or be carriers?

They CANNOT have CF. We had Monica genetically tested and she is not a CF carrier. Therefore any children we have CANNOT have CF. However, they will ALL be carriers of the CF gene. Because I have CF the disease, I have both defective CF genes and will pass on one to each of my children. Therefore they will all have one defective gene (from me) and one healthy gene (from Monica) which will make them carriers. What this means for them is that they will have to have their spouses genetically tested to see if they are CF carriers. Then they can decide whether to proceed with having children based on the results. We had to go through Genetic Counseling before going through IVF. It was mandatory by our IVF clinic. They explained all of this to us (which we already knew). It was honestly a difficult decision to make. Knowing my boys and this baby will be carriers of this terrible disease breaks my heart. I don't like to think about it. But we made our decision, and we have two, soon to be three, wonderful miracles from God. 

Thank you for reading!! Please feel free to ask any questions you may have and be sure to follow along!