Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments on my last post. I am consistently humbled by the insight and support this community has to offer. I agree that writing the birth story is an important part of healing from it. Just writing out my feelings in that last post helped a bit, I think, and then to have the honor of sharing my thoughts with this circle of wise women... I'm just very lucky to have this space, so thank you.
My egg retrieval was exactly one year ago. A year ago today, I walked (very slowly) into the clinic and had twenty-one eggs retrieved. I was so full of fear and hope I could hardly breathe. A year ago today, the cells that would go on to become Elliot's ears and nose and toes met for the first time. Sometimes it feels like the past year has been a long one, but when I look at the human being that was created during that time, it seems impossibly short for so much to have taken place.
I drive past the clinic every day on my way to and from work (and now daycare - what a difference a year makes) and I always look at the cars parked in the section of the parking lot that is reserved for infertility patients, silently wishing them the outcomes they are working so hard for. This morning, I sent them wishes of healthy March babies with sparkly eyes and big smiles.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
same soup, different bowl
I don’t know when the birth story is going to come. I’ve written down most of what I can remember, but I seem to be lacking the strength or motivation required to finish it. I gave myself a deadline of Elliot’s three month “birthday” but that’s two days away and it’s not looking good.
The honest truth is that I hate thinking about Elliot’s birth. It makes me feel moody and sad and angry. It wasn’t like that at first. Initially I felt really in touch with that whole “a birth plan is destined to change and you have to be flexible because the only thing that matters at the end is a healthy baby” business, and I was also too consumed by caring for our distinctly unhealthy baby (thanks to the birth from hell) to feel much more than gratitude that he was alive. Now that our lives have settled down and our little family is moving through days and weeks and months together, I’m finding myself stuck. I’m just not getting over it the way I want and need to.
My bitterness about my birth experience seems to have picked up right where my bitterness about my infertility left off and the cumulative effect is killing me. First, I couldn’t get pregnant on my own and I had to find a place for all of the shame and anger associated with that, all the while watching others around me sail right through without a hitch. (I know there isn’t supposed to be shame in infertility. Whatever. If you’re reading this blog, I suspect you understand that – right or wrong – that is one of infertility’s core contributions to the human spirit.) Then, in the space of a couple of days, I had everything I dreamed and hoped and planned for in a birth experience taken away from me, one chip at a time until there was nothing left except for that healthy baby, and I didn’t get that right away either. Elliot was born at 4:48am and I didn’t even get to see him (for more than 30 seconds and without a post-surgical haze) until that afternoon, and then he was so covered with tubes and wires I couldn’t even tell what he looked like. Just writing about that day has me tearing up right now.
Reading others’ birth stories brings about a physical response not unlike the one I used to have when reading about someone else’s BFP. My chest tightens and I’m flooded with the same mixture of sadness and jealousy. When I was off work waiting for Elliot to come, I watched 2-3 hours of those silly TLC and Discovery birth shows a day. I haven’t watched a single one since he was born. Not one. Just seeing their titles as I’m scrolling through the program guide causes my blood pressure to increase. I feel like my own birth experience has robbed me of the joy of celebrating others’ in the same way my infertility prevented me from feeling unqualified joy at others’ pregnancy announcements. One of my closest friends is pregnant and due in a couple of months and I’m already bracing myself for the hurt I’ll feel when she has the uncomplicated, unmedicated, vaginal birth I’m positive she’s destined for. And once again, I’m mad that I can’t simply be happy for someone I care so much about. Once again, I’m mad that a past experience holds so much power over my emotions and keeps me from being the person I want to be.
I know I’m supposed to be able to let go of the route and be grateful for the outcome but I just can’t do it. Not yet, at least. I’m the girl with the horror story. Again. Always. I was a TTCer long enough that I should know not to expect fairness but I’m going to say it anyway: It’s just not fair. M and I took the hypn.obirthing classes, handpicked birth companions and a doula, and reserved a birthing tub. I dutifully practiced the relaxations every night and we did perineal massage. I spent days crafting my perfect iPod playlist and packed the most well-equipped hospital bag this side of the Mississippi. And you know how much all of that mattered? I ended up with a 52 hour labor, every intervention under the sun, a uterine infection, and a frigging C-se.ction at the end of it all. No wait, there’s more: I can’t even remember the second half of my labor because I was delirious from pain, hunger and exhaustion, and our baby still spent the first week of his life in the special care nursery due to birth injuries. I’ll be grateful for my amazing son, but I’m also claiming my right to be mad as hell about the rest of it.
*Deep breath.*
I’m going to finish the birth story. It may have been a complete disaster, but it’s my disaster and it’s all I have. I don’t know when it will happen. I’m still flirting with the idea of getting my medical records and maybe that will help, if I do. I’d like to finish it sooner rather than later. I just don’t know how to do it at the moment.
The honest truth is that I hate thinking about Elliot’s birth. It makes me feel moody and sad and angry. It wasn’t like that at first. Initially I felt really in touch with that whole “a birth plan is destined to change and you have to be flexible because the only thing that matters at the end is a healthy baby” business, and I was also too consumed by caring for our distinctly unhealthy baby (thanks to the birth from hell) to feel much more than gratitude that he was alive. Now that our lives have settled down and our little family is moving through days and weeks and months together, I’m finding myself stuck. I’m just not getting over it the way I want and need to.
My bitterness about my birth experience seems to have picked up right where my bitterness about my infertility left off and the cumulative effect is killing me. First, I couldn’t get pregnant on my own and I had to find a place for all of the shame and anger associated with that, all the while watching others around me sail right through without a hitch. (I know there isn’t supposed to be shame in infertility. Whatever. If you’re reading this blog, I suspect you understand that – right or wrong – that is one of infertility’s core contributions to the human spirit.) Then, in the space of a couple of days, I had everything I dreamed and hoped and planned for in a birth experience taken away from me, one chip at a time until there was nothing left except for that healthy baby, and I didn’t get that right away either. Elliot was born at 4:48am and I didn’t even get to see him (for more than 30 seconds and without a post-surgical haze) until that afternoon, and then he was so covered with tubes and wires I couldn’t even tell what he looked like. Just writing about that day has me tearing up right now.
Reading others’ birth stories brings about a physical response not unlike the one I used to have when reading about someone else’s BFP. My chest tightens and I’m flooded with the same mixture of sadness and jealousy. When I was off work waiting for Elliot to come, I watched 2-3 hours of those silly TLC and Discovery birth shows a day. I haven’t watched a single one since he was born. Not one. Just seeing their titles as I’m scrolling through the program guide causes my blood pressure to increase. I feel like my own birth experience has robbed me of the joy of celebrating others’ in the same way my infertility prevented me from feeling unqualified joy at others’ pregnancy announcements. One of my closest friends is pregnant and due in a couple of months and I’m already bracing myself for the hurt I’ll feel when she has the uncomplicated, unmedicated, vaginal birth I’m positive she’s destined for. And once again, I’m mad that I can’t simply be happy for someone I care so much about. Once again, I’m mad that a past experience holds so much power over my emotions and keeps me from being the person I want to be.
I know I’m supposed to be able to let go of the route and be grateful for the outcome but I just can’t do it. Not yet, at least. I’m the girl with the horror story. Again. Always. I was a TTCer long enough that I should know not to expect fairness but I’m going to say it anyway: It’s just not fair. M and I took the hypn.obirthing classes, handpicked birth companions and a doula, and reserved a birthing tub. I dutifully practiced the relaxations every night and we did perineal massage. I spent days crafting my perfect iPod playlist and packed the most well-equipped hospital bag this side of the Mississippi. And you know how much all of that mattered? I ended up with a 52 hour labor, every intervention under the sun, a uterine infection, and a frigging C-se.ction at the end of it all. No wait, there’s more: I can’t even remember the second half of my labor because I was delirious from pain, hunger and exhaustion, and our baby still spent the first week of his life in the special care nursery due to birth injuries. I’ll be grateful for my amazing son, but I’m also claiming my right to be mad as hell about the rest of it.
*Deep breath.*
I’m going to finish the birth story. It may have been a complete disaster, but it’s my disaster and it’s all I have. I don’t know when it will happen. I’m still flirting with the idea of getting my medical records and maybe that will help, if I do. I’d like to finish it sooner rather than later. I just don’t know how to do it at the moment.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
always something there to remind me
There has been a very exciting explosion of BFPs on my blogroll lately. Every BFP is a miracle, but it's always extra-super-exciting when they visit women who have been trying for an especially long time. Congratulations to the women at inlocoparentis, two hot mamas and Amy and Melissa. It was with no small amount of pleasure that I relocated you on my sidebar. I hope to move everyone else sooner rather than later. Whenever there is a burst of good luck in the ttc blogosphere, my heart hurts a bit for those still waiting. I think the BFNs carry an extra sting when so many others around you are celebrating. One time, I had five cycle buddies - the most I ever had on a single cycle - and out of the six of us, there were five BFPs. Guess who got the BFN? It was around my eighth or ninth try and I was destroyed. To anyone who wasn't able to catch the latest train out of the madness, I am so, so sorry. I remember the terrible left-behind feeling like it was yesterday. You may or may not want to read this post. It's honest and I hope it will be reassuring because it comes from an emotional place I feared I'd never get to, but it also may be a frustrating read for someone still in the trenches. Please skip it if you're not in the mood.
I now present Exhibit A, demonstrating how I am a happier-but-still-infertile-minded individual: Two love songs have been getting extra airtime on my iPod lately and it's because I've reimagined them both as being written about surviving infertility. Listening to them makes me daydream in photo montages from our first BFN all the way through to the smiling boy I gave eskimo kisses to this morning. They help me to make peace with our journey and feel proud of all we endured. I hope the lyrics can inspire the same warm fuzzies for some of you, if not now, then soon. Please, soon.
Elliot has been here for almost three months. I know this is a mere moment in the grand scheme of things and I probably shouldn't be drawing any conclusions yet, but I'm pretty sure that I will always think of myself as infertile. His presence may have taken some of the sharpness out of the pain, but I don't think the dull ache will ever go away. What has changed is that I now have more positive feelings and experiences to add to the balance sheet. Don't get me wrong, they haven't replaced the yucky ones, but at least they are in the mix now. (This is a subject of another post in the jumble of my mind, so more on this later, I hope.) The reason for this shift is simple and his name is Elliot. His presence makes the whole experience more palatable in the most obvious way - the ultimate prize is in hand - but also in a subtler, finer way: He literally is who he is because of what we went through. Had our road to pregnancy taken a single different step than it did, we would not have had HIM and knowing him as I do now, that matters to me.
I now present Exhibit A, demonstrating how I am a happier-but-still-infertile-minded individual: Two love songs have been getting extra airtime on my iPod lately and it's because I've reimagined them both as being written about surviving infertility. Listening to them makes me daydream in photo montages from our first BFN all the way through to the smiling boy I gave eskimo kisses to this morning. They help me to make peace with our journey and feel proud of all we endured. I hope the lyrics can inspire the same warm fuzzies for some of you, if not now, then soon. Please, soon.
First, from Ben F.olds:
I don't get many things right the first time.
In fact, I am told that a lot.
Now I know all the wrong turns,
the stumbles and falls brought me here.
And where was I before the day
that I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it every day. And I know,
that I am, I am, I am the luckiest.
And from Ras.cal Flatts, with a few minor edits :-):
There's a place I've been lookin' for
that took me in and out of buildings,
behind windows, walls and doors.
And I thought I found it,
a couple times even settled down.
Then I'd hang around just long enough
to find my way back out.
I know now, the place that I was tryin' to reach
was you right here in front of me.
And I wouldn't change a thing.
I'd walk right back through the rain;
back to every broken heart on the day that it was breakin'.
And I'd relive all the years, and be thankful for the tears
I cried through every stumbled step that led to you,
and brought me here.
It's amazin', what I let my heart go through,
just to get me where it got me:
In this moment here with you.
And it passed me by, God knows how many times.
I was so caught up in holding what I never thought I'd find.
I know now, there's a million roads I had to take
to get [you in my] arms this way.
And I wouldn't change a thing.
I'd walk right back through the rain;
back to every broken heart on the day that it was breakin'.
And I'd relive all the years, and be thankful for the tears
I cried through every stumbled step that led to you,
and brought me here.
In a love I never thought I'd get to get to,
and if that's the road [I had to take] to be with you,
Then I wouldn't change a thing.
I'd walk right back through the rain;
back to every broken heart on the day that it was breakin'.
And I'd relive all the years, and be thankful for the tears
I cried through every stumbled step that led to you,
and brought me here.
The majority of the images in my mental slide show are still pretty dismal, but I'm adding more happy ones by the day and I know the balance will only continue to shift. Of course I would have loved it if he could have been our cycle #1 baby, but he wasn't. He was our cycle #15 baby, and with hindsight (and a generous helping of cheesiness), it's not that I think the journey wasn't beyond terrible, it's just that he was worth it.
I've been doing a lot of reckoning of the last few years lately - bet you couldn't tell. ;-) As I alluded to before, I have many more thoughts to share on this business of honoring both the light and the shadows of the infertility quagmire, but I've taken up enough of your time with my mental meanderings for today.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
sick-o
Elliot is on day four of a low but persistent fever and I've got a nasty case of mastitis. Our house is in survival mode at the moment, which is unfortunate because I've got no less than a dozen blog posts bouncing around in my head and I'm itching to get back on here and work through some things.
Soon, I hope.
Soon, I hope.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Hi-ho, hi-ho...
I’ve been back at work for two and a half days and so far, Elliot and I are both adjusting pretty well. His daycare is small and he’s the only teeny-tiny one there right now so he’s quite the celebrity. Other than him, there is one 6 month old and the rest are 9+ months old. The first day was no big deal. I had a pit in my stomach on the drive but once I got there, I relaxed a lot. It’s a great place and I know they’ll take good care of him. Coming to work was actually fun: Wearing real clothes! Having adult conversations! Showing off baby pictures!
That was Monday. Yesterday was a different story.
On day two, it hit me that Monday was the first day of our new routine, not just a fun little diversion to brought variety to our lives. From here on out, I will pack us up each morning and drop him off on my way to a less meaningful job where I am underpaid but make just enough to pay someone else even less to raise my child while I’m looking the other direction. (I should note that most days, I am pretty pro-daycare. I think it can be good for kids, good for parents, good for the world, etc. I just wasn’t feeling it right then.) I held it together until I talked to M on the phone, but no longer than that. I moped around my office until noon when a beautiful bouquet of flowers arrived on my desk, sent by M in an effort to turn my day around. They had the sweetest card attached that successfully brightened my mood, and also reduced me (and two co-workers) to tears.
Today I’m feeling pretty good. The pendulum seems to have come to rest in the middle. I’m still not happy about having to spend so much time away from him but I’m trying to focus on other things, like how nice it is to have health insurance. There are several upsides, really. Working outside the home is good for my self-esteem (not to mention my personal hygiene) and Elliot will be getting so much more stimulation and socialization during the day. Maybe someday our situation will be different, but for now, we’re all where we have to be. I’m grateful that we found a daycare we love. This would be impossible if I didn’t feel good about where he was spending his days.
That was Monday. Yesterday was a different story.
On day two, it hit me that Monday was the first day of our new routine, not just a fun little diversion to brought variety to our lives. From here on out, I will pack us up each morning and drop him off on my way to a less meaningful job where I am underpaid but make just enough to pay someone else even less to raise my child while I’m looking the other direction. (I should note that most days, I am pretty pro-daycare. I think it can be good for kids, good for parents, good for the world, etc. I just wasn’t feeling it right then.) I held it together until I talked to M on the phone, but no longer than that. I moped around my office until noon when a beautiful bouquet of flowers arrived on my desk, sent by M in an effort to turn my day around. They had the sweetest card attached that successfully brightened my mood, and also reduced me (and two co-workers) to tears.
Today I’m feeling pretty good. The pendulum seems to have come to rest in the middle. I’m still not happy about having to spend so much time away from him but I’m trying to focus on other things, like how nice it is to have health insurance. There are several upsides, really. Working outside the home is good for my self-esteem (not to mention my personal hygiene) and Elliot will be getting so much more stimulation and socialization during the day. Maybe someday our situation will be different, but for now, we’re all where we have to be. I’m grateful that we found a daycare we love. This would be impossible if I didn’t feel good about where he was spending his days.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Just the facts, ma'am.
Elliot was 11lbs, 8 oz and 24 inches long at his pediatrician appointment yesterday. This puts him in the 50th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height. Who'da ever thought I could give birth to a tall, skinny baby? Not me, that's for sure.
Some things are going really well:
- We LOVE cloth diapering. Love. It.
- Sleep: He's up to one seven to eight hour stretch between feedings most nights, which translates into a five to six hour chunk of sleep, which makes Mom a happy lady.
- Dimples have come to town... and to think I thought laughing alone was as cute as it got. Ha!
- His reflux seems to be getting better. We're starting to wean him off the medication and the 30 minutes of upright time with some preliminary success. He is still a spit up machine, but it doesn't seem painful like it used to.
Some things aren't going so well:
- Breastfeeding: What a freaking nightmare this has been. I have a whole post brewing about this. More if and when I find time to sit down and type that up.
- Returning to work: It's happening, and it's happening soon. As hard a job as it is being home with him all day, I am seriously dreading going back to work this Monday. I went to the daycare yesterday to drop some things off and left feeling totally depressed. It's a great daycare and I know they'll take good care of him. I'm just not ready to be away from him so much.
- Post-baby body baggage: I'm really struggling with my body right now. I'm within five pounds of my pre-IVF weight but my body is a completely different shape and I don't have anything that fits. As a result, I'm still in maternity clothes for the most part and this really bums me out. My stomach is big and baggy and stretch-marky and I hate it. There's all this extra skin and it just hangs there looking weird and keeping me out of my pre-baby denim. I thought I'd be more patient about this part but I'm just ready to be in normal clothes again, especially with going back to work.
- Processing the birth experience: I'm working on the birth story, I promise. The problem with that (and my own ability to move on, i suspect) is that I simply don't know a lot of the details about how it all went down during the last 24 hours or so, and it's hard to find people to fill in the blanks for me. Everyone else that was in the room either can't remember or doesn't want to talk about it. It was pretty traumatic for all involved, or parts of it were, at least. I'm considering requesting my labor and delivery medical records. I just have this tremendous need to know how it all happened and it's not going away with time as I hoped it would.
That's the latest from our neck of the woods. I'll have more online time starting next Monday (don't tell my boss!) so I'll post more then if not sooner!
Some things are going really well:
- We LOVE cloth diapering. Love. It.
- Sleep: He's up to one seven to eight hour stretch between feedings most nights, which translates into a five to six hour chunk of sleep, which makes Mom a happy lady.
- Dimples have come to town... and to think I thought laughing alone was as cute as it got. Ha!
- His reflux seems to be getting better. We're starting to wean him off the medication and the 30 minutes of upright time with some preliminary success. He is still a spit up machine, but it doesn't seem painful like it used to.
Some things aren't going so well:
- Breastfeeding: What a freaking nightmare this has been. I have a whole post brewing about this. More if and when I find time to sit down and type that up.
- Returning to work: It's happening, and it's happening soon. As hard a job as it is being home with him all day, I am seriously dreading going back to work this Monday. I went to the daycare yesterday to drop some things off and left feeling totally depressed. It's a great daycare and I know they'll take good care of him. I'm just not ready to be away from him so much.
- Post-baby body baggage: I'm really struggling with my body right now. I'm within five pounds of my pre-IVF weight but my body is a completely different shape and I don't have anything that fits. As a result, I'm still in maternity clothes for the most part and this really bums me out. My stomach is big and baggy and stretch-marky and I hate it. There's all this extra skin and it just hangs there looking weird and keeping me out of my pre-baby denim. I thought I'd be more patient about this part but I'm just ready to be in normal clothes again, especially with going back to work.
- Processing the birth experience: I'm working on the birth story, I promise. The problem with that (and my own ability to move on, i suspect) is that I simply don't know a lot of the details about how it all went down during the last 24 hours or so, and it's hard to find people to fill in the blanks for me. Everyone else that was in the room either can't remember or doesn't want to talk about it. It was pretty traumatic for all involved, or parts of it were, at least. I'm considering requesting my labor and delivery medical records. I just have this tremendous need to know how it all happened and it's not going away with time as I hoped it would.
That's the latest from our neck of the woods. I'll have more online time starting next Monday (don't tell my boss!) so I'll post more then if not sooner!
Friday, May 15, 2009
2 months old!
Two months ago, my life changed forever. It seems impossible that it's already been two whole months since he arrived.
My life today bears no resemblance to my life of a few months ago. Most notably:
- My days are spent nursing, changing diapers, walk-bouncing around my house... and very little else. Some days include nothing else.
- I consider any day that I take a shower an exceptional victory. I hit that about 50% of the time.
- I haven't picked up a book that didn't tell me how to do something since the day he was born. Our multiple magazine subscriptions go pretty much from the mailbox to the recycling bin.
- Planning out errand running is now based on how many times I'll have to take the carseat and stroller in and out of the car, and how conveniently located the elevators are since escalators are out of the question these days.
- I can recite the daytime tv line-up for you. A few months ago, the daytime tv shows I could name could be counted on one hand.
- I spend hours doused in baby spit-up because, really, it's a waste of resources to change clothes before at least th third strike.
- For our recent 10-day trip, I spent approximately nine hours packing for him and nine minutes packing for myself.
- I started this post yesterday morning... :-)
In exchange for all of the sacrifices, I get to spend my days with an incredible little person that lights up when he sees me and learns something new every day. Being his mom is by far the hardest thing I've ever done, but at the end of the day, I can't help but feel lucky that this amazing little spirit has been entrusted to us. He and I have this little "peek-a-boo" game we play during the day where I hold him and we face a mirror, then turn away, then rinse and repeat indefinitely. At one point I was looking in the mirror and it hit me that I was holding a baby. That in itself was strange enough, and then it hit me that it was my baby. This is it - him and us - from here on out. He is ours. Over all of the months and years we tried to get pregnant, the picture of Here got fuzzier and fuzzier in my mind. Now, not only can I picture it, I'm living it. That is entirely too much to wrap my head around most days.
To Elliot, thank you for coming into my life and making it richer and more meaningful than I ever imagined it could be. I am so glad that we didn't give up during the agonizing wait for you. You are worth every BFN and I am humbled that someone as amazing as you was our missing puzzle piece.
And now I must feed you. :-)
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
new theory
AF is back in town as of this morning. Now, I'm wondering if she is the cause of my duct issues rather than the extended time between feedings. It seems strangely coincidental that a new breastfeeding issue emerges at the same time as my breast tissue becomes irregular due to AF's impending arrival.
The overall experience of breastfeeding has been terrible for me since day one but I've kept it up through sheer determination. This may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I can cope with my current situation as an isolated incident, but if this duct issue is going to be a monthly thing, breastfeeding and I may just have to break up. I guess I'll just have to get through this and see what next month brings.
And in related complaining... Damn it for no break from AF! It hasn't even been a full 28 days since my postpartum bleeding let up. I thought breastfeeding was supposed to buy me a reprieve. Booo.
I'd rather have had a sleepless night!
My extended sleep of two nights ago (read: skipped feeding) has yielded me two plugged milk ducts. Ouch.
It might not have come on so dramatically but I've spent much of the past week feeding him every hour and a half to increase my supply. Well, it worked... and then I slept like a rock while disaster struck. I can't believe how much this hurts. I think I got them both unblocked by last night, or at least some milk is coming through, but I'm still in a lot of pain.
It's always something!
It might not have come on so dramatically but I've spent much of the past week feeding him every hour and a half to increase my supply. Well, it worked... and then I slept like a rock while disaster struck. I can't believe how much this hurts. I think I got them both unblocked by last night, or at least some milk is coming through, but I'm still in a lot of pain.
It's always something!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A few notes from here
- We went out of town this past weekend for the wedding of an old friend from college. 300 mile road trip each way and an incredibly loud, over-stimulating party in the middle but the kiddo was a complete rockstar all weekend. He let us make both drives with only one feeding stop each way. At the wedding, we put him in the moby right after dinner and he slept there peacefully for the next several hours. We even danced with him in it! He was totally easy-going the rest of the weekend as well, charming all of our friends who were meeting him for the first time. We were so proud. :-)
- He went six and a half hours between feeding last night!! I can hardly believe it. I don't know how much of that he was asleep for because M put him down and while I remember her coming to bed, I have no clue what time it was. I'll ask her when she gets up - I'm posting this from my phone during "upright time" after a 4am feeding. Regardless, going that long between feedings is step one toward a lot more sleep in our house so I'm happy!
- I'm pretty sure E actually IS getting cuter by the day. He's certainly getting bigger. M and I were both marveling at his size yesterday, which seemed to have visibly increased overnight. Ok, she was marveling; I was tearing up over the realization he really is growing up as fast as everyone threatened he would and before I know it he'll be in college or something. I think this kind of crazy thinking means I'm officially a mom, and a cheesy one at that.
- E is all into baths now. He lays there with wide eyes, cooing and smiling away. It's freaking adorable.
- I go back to work in three weeks. I'm ready for a little more structure and I miss the social interaction but the thought of leaving E in daycare makes me queasy. I think daycare is good for kids' development, but that is Theory and this is my baby. He is really recognizing us these days and I'm freaking out that he'll feel abandoned by us each time we leave him there. Unfortunately, I did not win (or even play) the lottery during my leave so we have no choice. Even if we didn't need my salary, we need my health insurance. M can't adopt Elliot for six months and he can't go on her insurance until that happens. Stupid.
- Mother's Day was quite the "what a difference a year makes" event for me, but I'll have to save my thoughts on that for another post as my time is up on this break!
- He went six and a half hours between feeding last night!! I can hardly believe it. I don't know how much of that he was asleep for because M put him down and while I remember her coming to bed, I have no clue what time it was. I'll ask her when she gets up - I'm posting this from my phone during "upright time" after a 4am feeding. Regardless, going that long between feedings is step one toward a lot more sleep in our house so I'm happy!
- I'm pretty sure E actually IS getting cuter by the day. He's certainly getting bigger. M and I were both marveling at his size yesterday, which seemed to have visibly increased overnight. Ok, she was marveling; I was tearing up over the realization he really is growing up as fast as everyone threatened he would and before I know it he'll be in college or something. I think this kind of crazy thinking means I'm officially a mom, and a cheesy one at that.
- E is all into baths now. He lays there with wide eyes, cooing and smiling away. It's freaking adorable.
- I go back to work in three weeks. I'm ready for a little more structure and I miss the social interaction but the thought of leaving E in daycare makes me queasy. I think daycare is good for kids' development, but that is Theory and this is my baby. He is really recognizing us these days and I'm freaking out that he'll feel abandoned by us each time we leave him there. Unfortunately, I did not win (or even play) the lottery during my leave so we have no choice. Even if we didn't need my salary, we need my health insurance. M can't adopt Elliot for six months and he can't go on her insurance until that happens. Stupid.
- Mother's Day was quite the "what a difference a year makes" event for me, but I'll have to save my thoughts on that for another post as my time is up on this break!
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