Baby Update: 18 Weeks

Monica is 18 weeks pregnant! Actually it will be 19 weeks this Friday. So far so good! We haven't posted as many updates this time around. For that we apologize. We find ourselves a little more busy this time than last. There's two boys named Jace & Jeriah that steal our attention. :)

We find out next Wednesday, the 25th, what we're having! Obviously Monica wants to have a daughter. She doesn't get very far shopping with 3 males! Lol! She wants a daughter to dress up, take shopping, etc. We honestly won't be upset either way. We love our boys!! Boys are so easy and fun. And they looooove their momma!!! Monica wouldn't be disappointed at all if we have another boy. Of course I'd be ecstatic. We both would like to have a daughter though. As much as dating, and everything else with girls stresses me out and worries me, I would like to have a daddy's girl. So we shall see! Whatever God has planned for us is perfect! 

The boys have been great as well. They're cutting two year molars so they've been a little more whiney than usual and have stuffy noses and coughs. They've turned into little mockingbirds.  Especially Jace. He repeats almost everything we say. I've had fun with it, trying to get him to say harder words. It's so cute listening to him try and say it. Last night we were working on Dr. Pepper. He didn't really say the Dr. part and Pepper came out like "peppest" lol. It's absolutely mind-blowing how smart they are. I'm not just saying that because they're my kids either. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed and Monica went to a small private school, nuff said. Haha! JK, She's smart! They know how to work our phones and Kindle amazingly well. I'm not kidding either. They know how to turn them on, hand them to us and say "lock it", which means they want us to unlock it. They scroll through to find games, they'll open up our pictures and look through them. They watch videos on several different apps I have on my phone for making different kinds of videos. They're baby geniuses!! It's a bit scary. They're gonna know more about computers by the time they start kindergarten than I do. I must say I LOVE being a dad! Best thing that's ever happened to me!

More updates to come! Here's a pic of Monica 18 weeks with the boys on the left, and 18 weeks with this baby on the right. You'll also notice they huge difference in picture quality between an iPhone 4 and iPhone 6, lol. Oh and the little photo bomber. P.S. Mommy's still got it going on!! :)

Bonus Pic: 12 Weeks ultrasound of Baby Parks

Around and Around it Goes

Sickness seems to be making it's way around the Parks household lately. I was sick with a sinus cold a little over a month ago that moved into my chest (as it always does). I get this cold twice a year almost like clockwork. Our ridiculous weather here in Missouri is almost always to blame. Every year around fall and then spring, we have a week of warm weather (60's to 70's) followed by a week in the teens. It never fails. Every year. No matter what measures I take to prevent it, I get sick.

This year it happened as usual. The cold wasn't as bad as it usual is. I missed no work and only had to survive on cold meds for a few days. I was on cipro (again, as usual). It hung around in my chest for quite some time, a few weeks. I just rid myself of it about two weeks ago. Well, the boys are teething and when they teeth, they get runny noses and colds. Usually I'm unaffected by it. This time has been no different. Until today.

Jace has had a horrible cough. He sounds like a CFer. Coughing so hard his little face turns bright red and veins are sticking out in his neck. He's got so much mucus draining into his lungs he keeps having coughing fits and gagging like crazy. Monica said he sounds like me when I'm sick, lol. Both boys have had runny noses. Jeriah has been running a fever with his for a couple days now. It breaks our heart to see our boys so pitiful looking. The weekend before last, we had 70 degree weather. It was awesome!! Yesterday the temps hit the single digits (with the wind chill) and it snowed. And now I feel pretty rough. Swollen throat, sinus congestion, headache, and to top it off, stomach cramps, lol.

The boys are getting their 2 year molars. They always get sick with new teeth. We're hoping that's all it is. But they don't usually get this sick. I started taking sinus medicine, allergy medicine and doing sinus rinses to hopefully nip this thing in the bud. Any other suggestions from fellow CFers out there?

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!

Cystic Fibrosis: Improving Outlook?

This month I had the pleasure of traveling to Las Vegas, NV to speak at the national respiratory conference, the AARC Congress. I was invited to speak about Cystic Fibrosis. My presentation was the title of this post. Cystic Fibrosis: An Improving Outlook? 

I gave a brief recap of the history of CF, medications, and the CFF (Cystic Fibrosis Foundation). I talked about the advancements being made in lung transplantation and how survival continues to climb post-op. Most importantly I talked about the advancements that have been made the past several years regarding Kalydeco, and other correctors and potentiators of the CFTR protein. The presentation was very well received and even Monica said she learned quite a bit! It was extremely rewarding on a personal level as it always is anytime I'm given the opportunity to speak to others about CF. I had some good questions and met several new people as well. I love speaking at these conferences! I wish I could make a living from it, lol! Minus the constant traveling that would be required of course. :)

Monica and I made it a couples trip as we always do anytime I'm invited to speak somewhere for a few days. It was our first time to Las Vegas. It was also our first trip without the boys. It's hard to believe that in almost 2 years we've never been apart from them for more than 24 hours. We handled it pretty good. They handled it great! They could have cared less, lol! When we were leaving they just kept waving and saying bye as if to say, "Get out of here already!" We did a lot of FaceTime calls with my parents and in-laws. Thank goodness for FaceTime!

We stayed at the Mandalay Bay. We were pretty impressed with it. It is huge! I expected a little more out of the room, but I guess it is just a hotel. :) I was expecting a little more of of Las Vegas in general because of all the hype regarding it. It was very neat though. Everything is very big and extravagant! We went to the Shark Reef aquarium at the Mandalay Bay, went into a bunch of shops, including the M&M store, the Hershey's Chocolate store, and the Coke store. As I said, everything is huge. Most of the stores had several stories. We saw the Blue Man Group, who I've wanted to see for years! They were GREAT!!! Highly recommend seeing them. We walked the strip a lot (about 8 miles a day). We walked through the Bellagio and saw the conservatory there. It was very neat and smelled so good with all the fresh flowers. We watched the fountain show at the Bellagio (only portions at a time) and it was pretty awesome. We got some desserts from Carlos' bakery in the Venitian. He has a bakery there and a restaurant, Buddy V's. We also ate at Caesars Palace's buffet. It was amazing!!! We ate A LOT! All you could eat snow crab legs! We probably ate about 5-6 plates between the two of us, of just crab legs! 

Overall it was a great trip, but we were ready to head home and see our boys! Here's a few photos from our trip: