35 Weeks and Officially Disgusting

I had my appointment on Wednesday and I got some disturbing news: I have a fungal infection on my underbelly. Think about that for a second. I essentially have athlete's foot on my belly. From being disgusting. The doctor breezed over it. "Oh, do you have some itching" (a little) "You have a small spot of yeast on your belly down here. Get some {blah blah can't understand-izol} creme, the stuff for jock itch, and put it on the spot. That will help." Then she told me that next appointment (the 17th) will be the Group B strep test and my first cervical check. So last week was my last pants-on appointment and now I get to sweat through the paper on the table while I wait for the fun (who doesn't love the cervical checks!) bits. I have the creme and I now cover my bottom half in gold bond powder every morning to lessen the sweatyness. I'm not sure if it helps. 

Anyway. 

Baby is head down. Heart rate was 140-150s. 

Since I had an extra long weekend (W was sick on Wednesday, so I had 5 days off!), I got a ton of work done on the nursery. M got his tools out of the way and hung the curtains for me. We brought up lots of boxes from the basement. I did 4 loads of laundry* and folded everything. I still have 3 boxes left to sort out and at least two more loads of laundry. I will set up the crib with the bumper and then take it out when we actually start using the crib in a few months. I am crazy. 

W helped me sort out baby stuff. I pulled out a ton of breast pads that I hated (why did I keep them?) and he found the baby food containers. I got distracted by organizing the linen closet (everything! must! be! perfect!) and came back in to see every baby food container filled with a breast pad. He told me the diapers were ready for the baby. 

*Laundry: I know (because I am smart) that I don't need to use dreft. I know that the scent free/dye free detergent that I already use for myself is perfectly fine for the baby stuff. I also know that dreft smells like babies and I love it. So I bought one container and I promise not to buy anymore. But you know what was frustrating? Standing in Target looking at my options (I could only find a picture of one. You can guess what the other looked like): 

So, right there and then I had to decide the sex of my baby. I ended up picking the girl detergent. Only because they had one bottle of boy detergent and three bottles of girl. I didn't want someone who knew they had a boy on the way facing the crisis of buying GIRL detergent for their baby BOY. The horror!

33 Weeks and Nesting

I went crazy this weekend. Good crazy, and I'm proud of myself. I built a bookshelf and organized the family room. Our family room was overrun with books. This isn't a bad thing, but I had no space for all the books. W has a bookshelf in his room, but we try to limit that one to books that are appropriate for bedtime. The downstairs books are everything else (and we do have storybooks down there, too). W LOVES books. And I love that he loves books. The main problem was that he couldn't find any of them because we kept them in a toy box and in our end tables. It was a cluster-f of books. Now they are all on a shelf and I'm thrilled. He loves it, too. The best part was that I got rid of all the terrible books (not to knock sesame street, but they produce some awful things). We read so much this weekend!

In the process, I weeded out the toys that W doesn't play with anymore and now we have more room for the baby stuff that will take over.

The crazy thing was that I started building the shelf at 8 pm on Friday night. That's not my style. Usually I'm laying on the couch nodding off by then.

On Sunday, I cleaned our powder room from top to bottom. I scrubbed the floors. The room had been smelling a little like pee. I blame the 3 year old. I wiped up the floor when he missed, but I guess it just wasn't enough. Now the room smells normal.

That's not the way I've been acting lately. My typical pregnancy cleaning routing is to do the bare minimum, maybe a little less. Now I want to clean all the things! I want to organize the pantry! This is better than steroids!

Baby news: 

Most exciting: We have a date! The repeat c-section is scheduled for 10 am on August 7th. That is less than 7 weeks away. I cannot wait. Part of me hopes that we go a little earlier for the VBAC, but a bigger part of me loves the idea of having all of this scheduled. I sent an email to my parents, inlaws and SIL to let them know the details and tell them about the timetable so they will know what to expect. I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that they can come in with us in the morning and then get to see the baby at 10:05.

Least exciting: I had my insane leg cramp on Wednesday night. This happened with W, too (oddly enough, right at the same point in the pregnancy).  I woke up in the middle of a dream (I was pumping milk into a ziploc bag in my car... what?) and my left calf had completely seized up. Eventually, M woke up enough to realize what was happening and he got out of bed to stretch my muscle just like a trainer on the sidelines. He is my hero. It wasn't my first leg cramp of this pregnancy, but all of the others have just needed a quick stretch to go away.

Still less exciting: I got the Tdap shot at my appointment on Wednesday. My arm stopped being sore over the weekend. 

W news:
We're on potty training phase 4. This is the part no one talks about. W is potty trained for pee and poop. He is doing very well at night. However, he will not pull his own pants down or up. I am trying to prepare for my post-baby self and getting him to do this little step would be a great help. But he just looks at me and says he can't do it (he can*). So I'm bribing him. Pull down your pants and then pull them back up... you get an M&M. If I have to help (minus showing him the front and back and final adjustments), no M&M. It's not working very well.

*We were visiting friends and W was upstairs playing with his girlfriend. The girl came downstairs and told her mom that her dress was all wet. They had taken themselves to the bathroom. W was standing on the stool washing his hands. His pants were mostly back on, just very crooked. He did everything on his own.

Grateful

This is always my most conflicted time of the year. The searing pain has faded, but the general feeling of sadness is still there. Four years ago today, it was my last day of a seemingly normal pregnancy. I was visiting friends and wearing maternity pants (maybe even the same ones I am wearing today). I had no inkling that everything would end the next morning.

I feel guilty spending so much time dwelling on the baby that isn't here. I'm distracted by planning a birthday party and huge birthday surprise for W (a playset in the backyard!). But I also have had extra time to think. Every night this week, I've been sitting in the dirt clearing a garden around the area where the new playset will sit. It took a long time. I had time to think. Our lives would be completely different if we had that baby. The biggest difference would be that we wouldn't have W and I can't comprehend that. We'd still have a little boy, just older. Maybe we'd have a second kid by now. I try not to dwell on all of this. I don't want to wish away the life I have right now, the amazing kid that W is becoming and the tiny baby that always assures me that he or she is just fine whenever I need it. 

I wish I could send this post back in time to myself four years ago. I remember people trying to tell me about how they knew about some girl who had a miscarriage and then had a baby soon afterwards and she was happy now. Hooray for her, she's not me. What about the pain I was experiencing? What if I didn't have that success story? 

And now I am that girl. I am that story. I am so grateful. 

25 weeks and a break from diapers

Everything pregnancy related is going wonderfully. I did have a moment last week when I thought the baby wasn’t moving as much, so I laid down and it responded wonderfully with lots of wiggles and kicks.

I potty trained W over the weekend, starting with a day off from work on Friday. I was pretty sure he would get it quickly, but I was expecting a lot of resistance. He has always responded to “Do you have to go potty” with a loud “NO!” and sometimes he’d shout it “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” just so I would get the point. I never pushed it. Just hoped he’d potty train himself, I guess.

Several of my internet friends successfully used the three-day bootcamp, so I decided to give it a try. I found a weekend where we didn’t have anything planned and blocked it out. I read the book a few weeks in advance to see if we needed to do any prep work – mainly we cut out the nighttime milk. I read it again last week to prepare.

And it worked like a dream. I give most of the credit to W’s age. He will be 3 in 3 weeks. He understands everything we say to him. The rest of the credit is to the methods in the book. It was totally clear on what to say, when to say things and how to explain to your kid what is going on. We actually only had 3 accidents and I could tell that it had clicked with the 3^rd accident (he stopped and told me and then finished on the toilet), which was early Friday afternoon. I kept up with it for the 2^nd day just to make sure. We decided to drop it and take a family trip to the zoo on Sunday. We didn’t have anything else planned!

I was nervous about the outing – we took 4 changes of clothes and put an incontinence pad in the carseat. It worked out perfectly, though. I had to pee constantly and just took W into the bathrooms with me. He was cool with the public toilets as long as I held onto him.

The hardest part was the physical part of getting him on and off the toilet, the bending over, the up-and-down of it all. My back was killing me each night. That probably doesn’t happen to the non-pregnant people!

The best part was the 3 days straight of just focusing on W. I found several projects on pintrest for us to do together. We read tons of books. We watched a movie. We played outside. And, well, he did yardwork. M did the mulching around the yard on Friday afternoon. W was outside with his little wheelbarrow and no pants, loading up the mulch and delivering it to the garden. He only paused for bathroom breaks!

I’m going to be one of those people that preaches this method. Everyone I know that has used it was successful. 

21 Weeks and sick again

We've been dealing with W's cough for most of the winter. We call it Kennel Cough. I took him to the doctor on Friday and we got antibiotics for an ear infection and something that is probably a bacterial infection in his lungs (nothing serious, just the usual stuff). Since W does things like cough into my mouth and lick my eyes, I came down with everything on Saturday evening. This is nothing like what I had in January, but it's a reminder that medicine is so wonderful and that I miss it.

I went on a site visit for work last week. I pulled into an Arby's for lunch and the spot had something written on it. I pulled back out and read "Expectant Mother." I parked in another spot. What's wrong with me? I told M about it. I told him I was afraid that someone would ask me to prove it. "All you have to do is show them your belly." Who would question that anyway? I have no idea why I didn't park there. 

Our Easter weekend was very busy. I ate a ton of candy. I am gaining weight, but I don't know how much. When I park my car in the garage, my door easily cleared some wood next to the car. This past week, I opened the door and sat down. I could not close the car door because it was sitting on the wood. I knew that was coming. 

The upside of being awake with a cold is that the baby is awake, too. This little one is a mover and I love it. 

I bought my very first pregnancy-related item this weekend - maternity tank tops. It made me happy. I still haven't bought anything for this baby. Mostly because I haven't had the opportunity. We're working pretty hard on getting W's room ready. Once he is moved out of the nursery I'll get some more stuff for the baby. I'm not sure how much W will want from his room. He'll probably want all of his books and of course his stuffed animals. I'll give him the blankets that were made specifically for him, but keep the ones I got for my shower in the baby's room. 

I gave W a baby doll. He hugged it and said it needed a nap. Then he took it upstairs, put it on the floor and put a laundry basket over it. Then he jumped on the laundry basket. 

We have a lot of work to do. 

20 weeks and I am easily annoyed

20 weeks feels awesome. I get mad when all the pregnancy trackers are congratulating me on being halfway through. I thought about this with W and I still believe that I will celebrate that milestone at 22 weeks.

I'm feeling pretty good, although my body is still very aware that something is different. My back hurts if I sit or stand for too long. I pee all the time. I don't remember the aches being this bad last time, but I am 3 years older and approaching my mid-thirties... I feel my belly stretching and getting bigger too.

I've had two birth dreams already. Both of them resulted in a girl. One of them had us deciding on a middle name. That middle name sounded great in my dream. I was pleased when I woke up. Then I said it to myself and it sounded terrible. We haven't talking about names at all, but we still have our girl name from W. We like the first name, but we were never satisfied with the middle name. We need to work on that.

I guess it's no surprise that this pregnancy is harder than the first one. I don't get to spend my evenings doing whatever and my weekends are always filled with constant activity (unless I plan a day to stay home). A stay-home day doesn't mean I get to relax, though. I'm cleaning and chasing W all over the place. I'm lucky he's such a good kid, but he can be a handful. All I want to do it sit. That works really well when he wants me to read to him (but then I get sleepy). 

My patience with him used to be awesome. I could sit with him while he sat on the stairs and talked about everything EXCEPT going down the stairs. I can't do that now. I think it's a combination of me having a  shorter fuse and him being almost three. He is throwing full tantrums when he doesn't get his way and it makes me crazy. Twice in the past week, I have had to put him in his car seat while he is screaming and twisting and shouting and kicking. It's hard (physically) and I feel totally worn out over it. But I don't have an alternative. I have to go to work, I can't explain that to a 2 year old when he is crying. We've done basically the same routine since he was 10 weeks old. It's no surprise. I feel like my only option is to stick to my guns and let him know that a fit isn't going to change my plans. He also gets mad at home sometimes before dinner, but those are easier to deal with. He can scream all he wants, but I'm not changing our dinner menu to include fruit snacks. He will usually come around on that one and start eating after a while. I just have to ride that out (without wine!). I KNOW what his triggers are - tired and/or hungry. But I can't force him to eat a snack every day when we get home. I can only offer it over and over. I can't force him to take a nap on the weekends, I can only provide a restful environment. At daycare, he will sometimes fall asleep after 1.5 hours of them making him lay on the cot - sometimes. I don't have the patience for that. We actually do better on busy weekends when we spend time in the car. He'll fall asleep about 50% of the time on long rides... although we've been to parties 1.5 hours from home and have driven back without him ever even blinking. So I have a non-napper that gets super mad sometimes when he's tired. I still think I have it pretty easy.

I've been trying to prepare for the later weeks by not picking him up anymore, which can result in him lying limp on the floor because he doesn't want to walk to the bathroom. That's getting better, though. I haven't had to drag him in weeks.

My point is that I think this is going to get worse before it gets better. And I think we're going to have an interesting transition with the new baby. We have a doll that we want to give him so we can talk about the changes that are coming. I wanted to give it to him on Sunday, but we had a rough day. I'll see how he does this evening.

Body Issues

I feel chatty today. Just a warning. I'm all over the place here.

Yesterday I went into a certain cheap clothing store to get some yoga pants. Not because I do yoga or anything, but because I like to wear sweatpants around the house. M thinks that sweatpants are gross and make me look like I’m letting myself go. We had a “rule” at our house that sweatpants could not be worn before 8 pm. That “rule” kind of faded with all of my exceptions (rain, dark, snow, pregnancy, post-pregnancy, periods, bad day, hungry, cold, etc). Now it is a joke because I come home from work and sometimes find him already in sweatpants. The yoga pants are a great compromise. My butt looks good and I’m comfy. We’re both happy!

While I was browsing, I saw that the jeans were only $19! Hooray! I spent a long time standing and deciding what shape and what size and what everything. It requires some real analysis of your own body right there in the front of the store. I thought critically about myself and my needs and then picked out two styles and headed back to try on. The fitting room lady told me that someone in the store could asses my jeans needs and tell me which type I need. I’m not cool with that. I picked my own, thanks.

This is where the post gets appropriate for a pregnancy blog.

I’m not really into diets or weight loss. I don’t usually obsess over my body shape. I’m pretty comfortable. But this weird no-woman’s land is getting me down. I don’t fit into any of my pants. I could do something about it, but I want to get pregnant soon (trying again this summer… we decided we didn’t want a winter baby). There’s no reason for me to bust my ass just to get fat all over again. I could buy new pants, but they would just be good for a few months before they (hopefully) wouldn’t fit right again. All of my work pants are too tight or too loose. I bought some jeans in January, but I was having a fat, grumpy day. You can imagine how well those fit when I’m trying to go out to a fancy bar in NYC with some friends! Ha!

SAGGY BUTT!!!

So I picked two pairs out of the four. One in each style. One that does not have saggy butt and one that does not produce muffin top. Nowhere in the world will I ever find $19 jeans that eliminate saggy butt and muffin top. The muffin top pants are not REALLY bad. And the saggy butt pants are also not REALLY bad. They will do for now. And they will each meet some needs.

I deserve it. I’m good enough for $19 jeans!

In other news: I’m doing very well. Having a real plan helps me move on. I’m also pretty good at Not Thinking About It. When my mind starts wandering down the …how far along would I be… road, I need to stop and take a breath. I can’t tell you right now how far along I would be. Now I really want to check, but I won’t let myself. That helps. Denial is awesome.

We’re going to try again in June or July. M wants June… I’m leaning towards July. We’ll see if I keep that resolve when June actually arrives. I have a pretty busy March followed by an insanely busy April and then a sort of busy May. Hopefully the time will fly. I’m thinking a lot about what happens next time and the thoughts aren’t all sunshine and unicorns. I mean, who seriously debates morning vs. afternoon appointments because of the availability of surgery the next day?

Now that I’ve brought everyone down… some cheery W stuff!

W still astonishes me every day. He’s been slow to talk, but now it seems like he has a new word every day. Ernie! Hug! Apple! He’s in a toddler bed now and makes me lay down with him each night for some cuddles. I’m a softie. I love it. I spent a weekend away and was terrified that M would have trouble getting him to sleep. But he did just fine without me, proving that I am the problem when it comes to too many cuddles. But really, how could I not cuddle that kid? Every second I have with him seems like a miracle. I’m amazed every day that he exists, that he is mine. I tell myself every night that I’m so lucky that I get to rock him to sleep. The poor kid, I’ll still be rocking him to sleep when he’s 10.

The smart kid

A couple of day ago, I rolled up to daycare all excited to pick up the W man. I walked in an giggled a little at the sight of a half naked baby and lots of kids standing around, looking at a half naked girl. Then I noticed that one kid was missing from the gawkers. Mine. W was confined to a crib. He was looking and stretching his neck and wanting to be with the others.

"W is in the crib because J puked on the floor and W tried to eat it."

I love that kid.

My Bittersweet Day

And so we begin my annual introspection of how this year is different from last year and the year before that.

Two years ago today, I had just found out that we were not going to have a baby in November. I listened to my own heartbeat go out of control while we tried to find a tiny baby heartbeat. I saw a lifeless, perfectly formed baby on an ultrasound machine. My clearest memory is of his tiny ribcage.

One year ago today, I was strapped all over with monitors, but we found that perfect heartbeat and it stayed steady. I couldn’t stop smiling. Even when the pain was crazy and I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, it was still a great day.

Two years ago tomorrow, I was put to sleep and woke up alone and cried. It was the worst day of my life.

One year ago tomorrow, I was given some extra drugs to block out the pain as the c-section started. I woke up surrounded by people and cried. It was the best day of my life.

I’m sorry I sound so crazy, but it’s such a crazy time for me. I’m so excited about celebrating W’s birthday tomorrow (and this weekend!). But I still just need to sit and think about who isn’t here. And because that little boy isn’t here, I have W. I have weird, conflicting emotions about this. I’m getting better at dealing with it all.

A valentine

Faces of Loss presented this monthly challenge:
February’s topic: Valentine's Day is quickly approaching. Write about something special a friend, family member, or other loved one did for you after your baby(ies) died that really touched your heart.

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This post is a long time coming. Sometimes my posts turn into love fests for my friends, but this one is going start out that way. It might get gushy.

I’ve posted about this friend before. She’s made comments. We’re friends in real life. Back in that summer of 2009, she let me know that she had found my blog. I knew that she was following other blogs in this community, so that wasn’t a surprise. It was hard to decide to start writing when I knew a real-life friend would probably discover what I wrote. I didn’t want to ever edit my feelings or be afraid to share something. So I sat for a while and decided that I knew she was compassionate enough not to judge me if I said something crazy. I knew she wouldn’t go around and tell everyone what a nutter I was for *still* being sad. And I was right.

This friend made me feel better on the day I sent the email to my friends telling them that my baby was dead. I remember typing that up and crying and hoping that no one would call me. I think I even put in there that I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it.

I kept her reply. It was perfect.

“I am holding you in my mind. Holding you in a safe place where you are allowed to feel anything, say anything, and be the way you need to be right now.”

We all have the problem of real-life friends not quite understanding what’s happening in our brains. We have to listen to them say crappy stuff. I have a lot of wonderful people in my life and I didn’t have to deal with that much. But to have someone who could understand me in my daily life is truly unique. I’m blessed to have this friend around me.

Having W was a turning point in my life. I’ve said over and over how different emotions kind of knock me out every now and then. I wouldn’t change anything about my life because it got me here, and my losses got me to him. He is everything to me. How can I love him so much and be thankful for him while knowing that I only have him because my other two babies died? How can I honor their memories while also saying that I wouldn’t change anything because of him?

My friend gave me this bracelet when she met W. And it is perfect. I keep it in my pocket almost all of the time. I can’t wear it because of tiny grabby hands, but I reach in and squeeze it. It’s one of my most prized possessions.

Perfect. My baby’s name. His birthstone. Two tiny pomegranate memories at each end. Perfect.

Thank you for being my friend.

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My Faces of Loss Page

The day I found out my friend found my blog

The Common Thread

My friend's aunt's store

Here and there... we were sick, now we're better.

So I’ve been so happy to tell everyone that I’m the luckiest mommy alive. My baby sleeps through the night! My baby doesn’t care if he has formula or breast milk. He’ll switch from breast to bottle without a blink. He gives me kisses. He likes to eat food. He stopped peeing when the diaper comes off.

My luck ran out over the holidays. I woke up sick on Christmas morning and it’s been one thing after another since then. I was on two antibiotics for eye and ear infections. WTF? It was so gross. And I was exhausted. Limbs feeling weak, nodding off at the desk exhausted.

W started running a fever on New Year’s eve and completely stopped sleeping through the night. I know lots of parents are laughing at me. Finally!!! Hahaha! See what we all deal with?? But I’m siiiiiiiick. Uuuuuuuuggggghhhh. Waking up every 45 minutes every night was killing me. M and I generally try to alternate picking up W when he cries. That wasn’t working. M just doesn’t have the mommy touch. W would fall back to sleep, but then he’d wake up 2 minutes later (usually while M is in the bathroom), so I have to go in there anyway. We tried a few nights of winging it. We’d look at each other at the first cries and hope he’d go back to sleep. That meant he just escalated to wails and screams by the time one of us was in there. So the rocking would be 10-20 minutes at a time. Then we would give up and bring him into bed with us. That wasn’t working. Then we tried the no cry sleep solution. We would go in the second we heard the whimpering and pick him up and generally we could put him back down in a few minutes. We also set a cut off time – if (when!) he cried after 3 am, he just came to bed with us. So we got at least a few hours of light sleep. That worked well the first night. Then he started getting stuffed up and just could not sleep unless he was kind of sitting up. So after lots of tears, we went to the guest bedroom with lots of pillows and we both tried to sleep there. M and I alternated days for this. M tried to take more than every other night and would tell me, “Tonight I will take care of W. I’m not tired.” Then he would roll over and push me out of bed at the first cries. I was not mad at him, it was kind of funny. He has no recollection of the pushing.

At one point, I took W to the doctor to rule out any ear infections for him, but he was perfectly fine. I love my pediatrician even more because he took me seriously when I said that my reason for coming in was that W was just not himself.

So that was my life for 2 weeks. Bad sleep, stuffy baby, sick mommy, yuckiness. We started putting some cereal in his bottle at night and we set up a vaporizer and we are squirting saline in his nose (by the way – bad mommy moment – the face he makes when I spray it is hysterical). Something in this combination is working. We’ve had 2 nights of bliss. He’s been waking up, but he wiggles his way up so his head is pressed up against the crib and his butt is in the air and he goes back to sleep. He’s a little piece of heaven. We’re happy again!

I was getting pretty upset during that no sleep time. I would just sit there and rock him and he’d be crying and trying to sit up when all I want him to do is sleep. I was almost in tears from frustration, but then I would stop. I thought to myself about all the times I cried because I didn’t think I would have nights like that. It was strange, and calming, to sit in the middle of the night with a screaming baby and think about how thankful I am. Because that’s what matters the most. Not sleep, I’d trade sleep for him any time.

So back to the cereal in the bottle thing – W is breastfeeding less and less. He used to go to bed around 8 or 8:30 and I’d do a little dreamfeed around 10 when I went to bed. This got all confused when I was sick. I was going to bed right after W went down and when he woke up around 12 or whatever I would try to feed him. Sometimes he didn’t want anything. Sometimes that seemed to make things worse. So I started giving him a bottle right at bed time with a small amount of cereal. That is keeping him asleep and he isn’t even really demanding food right when he wakes up at 6:30. So the night nursing is gone. I’m left with just once per day, first thing in the morning. I’m going to keep it up until next week. He’ll be 8 months on the 19th… I’ll give him a birthday bottle that morning.

How do I feel about this? Not like I thought I would. I’m sad. But not upset sad, we’re weaning on my terms and I’m completely comfortable with it. I want to stop. I want to take strong cold medicines and drink lots of wine. But I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss the little face he makes when I put him on the boppy (um, he might think Milk comes out of the boppy) and the rooting. I’ll miss his little hands scratching me. I’ll miss the face he makes when I start talking while he’s eating. He pulls off and pushes himself off and gives me a LOOK. Like, lady, I’m trying to eat here. Can you please have your conversations at another time? Really?

The formula feeding stuff is awesome and convenient and easy. Washing the bottles kind of blows, but I had to do that anyway with daycare and pumping. It’s actually less now! W can hold his own bottle so we can feed him while we have dinner or do chores. That means more time for playing. He’s eating all kinds of pureed food. We’re going to start meats soon. He is –just- getting the hang of putting a puff in his mouth to eat it. I’m hoping he’ll start eating little pieces of banana soon. I want to feed him more finger food, but the lack of teeth is making me sad. I’ll be pureeing PBJ sandwiches when he goes to kindergarten.

Merry Christmas!!!

I haven’t had much to say lately – I don’t think anyone is interested in me just gushing about the little guy all the time. He’s army-crawling now. Yesterday I picked him up from daycare and he crawled to me. He started his heavy breathing (that means he’s happy) as soon as I walked in the door and then I knelt down and he came right to me. I was almost crying.

Breastfeeding is coming to a close. I slowed down pumping at work after W was 6 months in November and now I don’t pump at all. I’d been hoping to keep up nursing at night and in the morning, but I can tell my supply is dropping. Plus W is not interested in nursing so much anymore. He’d much rather look around and see who could be in the room. I’ve had to tell M to stop talking sometimes because W loves to look at him.

W’s been eating all sorts of food. Avocado, bananas, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, pears, carrots. The poop colors have been amazing. I’ve been making his baby food. I never thought I’d be the type to do this, but it’s cheaper and so frickin easy. Even for a lazy bum like me.

I am over the moon excited about Christmas. We took W to see Santa and I thought my heart would explode. He was wonderful and gazed at Santa during the pictures. I loved watching the kids in line – they were talking about what they’d say to Santa and they got to put their letters in a mailbox that had gusts of “snow” blow out when they opened it. It was magical. I can’t wait for W to start understanding the season.




AKD at Little Footprints had a wonderful giveaway and I won (I’m pretty awesome). I feel like I know her in real life, so this is extra special. Her prize was to donate to the March of Dimes in honor of an angel. I’m so proud that my little boy will have this done in his name. Thank you, AKD, for being so generous. You light up my days when you post and your daughter is a beauty!

Due Date - Year 2

So right about now I should be celebrating a first birthday. I should have a funny little boy just starting to run around and I should be exhausted. But I don’t. Don’t feel bad for me, though. I miss that little boy so much and I still cry for him. But this year is so much better than last year. I kind of feel guilty talking about sadness now. I say that a lot here. I’m sad. I’m happy. I want both babies. It’s so conflicting, so I’ll just leave it there. I’ll be thinking about my little Baby November tomorrow, just like I always do.

I just went and read my post from last year. I kind of feel exactly the same. So sad, but so happy.

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Thank you for all the supportive comments about W’s surgery. He’s doing so much better. He’s healing. He might be teething. I went to a MOPS meeting last night and M texted me “W is officially teething.” I rushed home hoping to see something. Nope. Apparently W was just “acting like Satan.” M said his gums felt warm. I stuck my finger in his mouth this morning and couldn’t feel anything. I wish I could take a look, but W won’t open his mouth ever.

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It seems like miscarriages are everywhere right now. Maybe I’m just more sensitive to it. Celebrities are talking about them. A friend just lost her baby at 15 weeks. I’m devastated for her and her family. It takes me right back to that terrible summer and I want to scream thinking that people are just beginning that journey that seems to get worse every day.

There’s that word. Devastating. Every time you see a miscarriage in the news, it is proceeded by devastating. So-and-so suffered a devastating miscarriage prior to this pregnancy. I thought at first that this was kind of redundant. All miscarriages are devastating. To put that word there makes the miscarriage alone sound like it might be ok. It’s not. But then, maybe it is right to have it. To hammer in to the everyone else how bad it really is. Maybe the word miscarriage should be changed to devastatingmiscarriage. Yes, I think that sounds about right. Instead of saying, “I had a miscarriage last year,” I will say, “ I had a devastatingmiscarriage last year.”

Little boy surgery

I’m back at work after two days off to help W recuperate from his circumcision. My poor little boy. I had some moments of self doubt. Were we doing the right thing? Would he hate us for the pain? Would something terrible happen to him during this mostly cosmetic surgery?

To review – We had decided to circumcise before going in for delivery. The OB told us she wouldn’t do it because of the twisted parts. The pediatrician told us about the problem and that it wouldn’t be a big deal and recommended a urologist for the surgery once W got older. I went in to see him at about 4 weeks old. The line on the back of W’s penis was not straight. It went up slightly crooked (let’s say it’s at 6 o’clock) and then veered off to about 4 o’clock when it got to the head. From the bottom of the head to the top it went from 4 o’clock back to 9 o’clock. That part was the problem. Everything else was fine. He could function normally. The urologist told me that he would do the circumcision once W was 6 months old. We scheduled it for Nov 8th because W is a pretty big kid and we wanted him to be healed before the holidays.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:30 am. W was in a great mood. He smiled at the nurses and played with his sample breathing mask. The anesthesiologist gave him a sample one to play with so he wouldn’t be afraid when she gave him the real one. I thought that was a great idea. We were so worried that he’d cry because of the hunger, but he was just fine. After a little bit of prep, I carried him into the OR. The mask came out and he breathed in it for about a minute until he kind of went limp. He wasn’t asleep, but he was. Then I was sent out to the waiting room with M. I cried. The nurse said it would be about an hour.

90 minutes later, the doctor came into the waiting room and pulled up a chair. He got a piece of paper out and drew us a picture of a penis. Now, this was a stressful time and I still had to keep myself from giggling. So the picture showed everything he did and he wrote out care instructions in crazy neat handwriting. The picture showed stitches all around the head and stitches going up a little and down a little where he kind of re-aligned the line. It’s still not perfectly straight, which is fine with us. We weren’t looking for perfect. We just wanted mostly normal.

About 10 minutes after that, we were called back into the recovery room. W was already awake and was crying loudly. I ran to his room and was able to nurse him right away. That calmed him down! He had an IV in his neck (he’s too pudgy for them to be able to get a regular IV in there. They tried.) We went home with a prescription for Tylenol with codeine and a recommendation to buy lots of KY jelly.

The care is to wipe him as normal then cover the entire penis with KY jelly at every diaper change. He gets sponge baths until Thursday and then soaking for a week after that. He can’t be in the exersaucer or baby bjorn or bumpo or anything this kind of uses the crotch to support him.

His penis looks awful. It is swollen and purple with tons of tiny stitches. He has no idea. He is playing and laughing and being wonderful, just like normal. He seems to dread being on the changing table and gives a little cry when we wipe him down. He’s on standard Tylenol and we never used the strong stuff.

I got through my first surgery on my baby. The whole time I felt like running into the OR and taking him home and not circumcising him. But now I’m glad we did it and he won’t have to worry about this in the future. He’s back at daycare today and doing great. I’m glad that it’s over.

Parenting Manifesto

Lots of my blog buddies are talking about their parenting styles. This made me sit down and try to define mine. I don’t think I subscribe to any one theory completely. If I need to define myself, I would say I’m a “What to Expect the first year” parent. I keep up on a few development books and apply what I like. I listen to podcasts and read blogs and discussion boards. I do research everything, thanks to a job in front of a computer. And I’m not bashing anything or anyone. If your kid is happy then you’re doing it right. No, wait… if your name is Farrah or Amber and you’re on TV, you are doing it wrong. (While we’re on the subject - Maci, girl, you are going to be a success story. And Caitlynn, I want to hug you. Your mom is mean. I have no idea how you came out so good. Keep at it. I’m sorry to tell you this, but Tyler is a pussy.) I mainly wrote this all out so I can look back when W was older and laugh at myself or pat myself on the back. Or even (hopefully) to remind myself of everything when we are doing this a second time.

W does not have a schedule. He has a routine, but mostly does whatever we think he wants to do. For the first month or two he fed on demand for as long as he wanted. I eventually started pulling him off after 20-25 minutes because I was so sore. He now eats every 3-3.5 hours for about 20 minutes at a time. We do go longer in the evening, sometimes he’ll be napping and we’ll realize that’s we went 4 hours or more without feeding him. Then he’ll start crying when I’m pulling my shirt up. Like we reminded him that he might be hungry. Other times he’ll try to nurse from M after just an hour or so. He’s been sleeping through the night since he was 2 months old. I do wake him up/dreamfeed around 10 pm. I’m not sure if he needs it, but if it ain’t broke…

Naps are just whenever he seems like it’s nap time. We shoot for 3 a day. He’ll get more if we drive somewhere. He doesn’t like to sleep with anything going on. He will drift off if we put him in the pack and play, but not in his crib. He doesn’t like to go to sleep if M is holding him. He can fight sleep with M for 30 minutes and then pass out the second he’s in my arms. It’s because I’m boring.

Daycare also doesn’t have a schedule. Once he moves to the walking room they do have structured naptimes and meals. I’ll keep to that on the weekends to make life easier for all of us.

I wear him if he’s really fussy. But I can’t do it a lot. Sometimes I think it’s better to let him fuss for 10 minutes while I do my chore and then cuddle. Most of my chores are laundry and washing bottles. I can’t do either of those with somebody pinching my neck and slobbering on me (not always the baby). I use a Baby Bjorn and a Babyhawk. The Babyhawk is cuter and was great when he was tiny. I use that around the house. The Baby Bjorn is better when we’re out because we can get him out in seconds and M likes it. We’re lucky to have both.

W goes with us almost everywhere. We take him out to dinner. We take him to the grocery store. He goes to parties. We started doing that as soon as I could leave the house. We’re trying to not be “those parents” and only take him places where kids are appropriate. Last weekend we went out to dinner and talked about going to a place we really like with awesome crab dip. Then we talked more about the slow service and the crowd, so we opted for our neighborhood pizza place instead. We take him to the “fancy” places on weeknights (but not that often… the cost of daycare means the pizza place is better for the budget).

W is in a daycare center. He still knows I’m his mommy and he isn’t sick all the time (actually, just a few colds… but flu season hasn’t hit yet). I'm kind of defensive about this because I live in a SAHM community. I got a lot of pity looks when I said he would be in daycare.

I use disposable diapers. I wish I used cloth and I have tons of excuses. The main one is daycare. I just switched to cloth nursing pads. I should have done it ages ago.

I don’t care if W sees TV. I don’t sit him down in front of it, but if he’s in the room with a huge TV, he’s going to see it. And he likes watching football. I try to keep him engaged with toys or read to him when we’re watching it. If I’m doing chores, I have him in the kitchen with me. This will evolve as he becomes mobile.

W isn’t circumcised, but for all the wrong reasons. He has a twisty thing going on and will have surgery in November to fix it. Even if weren’t planning on circumcising, we’d have it done to correct the twistyness. I’ve gotten advice from everyone about how to care for the little guy and most of it was wrong. I even started doubting myself. Once I consulted a Hopkins urologist about it, the comments stopped. I’m pretty neutral about the whole thing. I think that by the time W gets to school, both ways will be acceptable. M wanted it done, so that’s what we’re doing.

We don’t co-sleep, but I understand it and sometimes wish we did. I’m a light sleeper and I’ve been known to act out my dreams. I once pinched M so hard that he cried a little. I was trying to escape from something in a dream. M will startle in his sleep and roll onto anything. I don’t want to subject W to any of that. Plus I like to cuddle with M! We do have family time on weekend mornings. W eats around 6:30 and stays in bed after that. I’m just drifting in and out of sleep at that time and it is a great feeling to wake up and see that drooly face smiling at me.

We don’t cry it out. I say this with an asterisk because we’ve never needed to do it. W rarely cries, so if he is crying at night it’s because something is wrong. We’ve had screams in the middle of the night that went away with a few minutes of cuddles. I have trouble getting myself back to sleep and I’m 30. I can’t expect my 5 month old to do it. I don’t always rush to him – this is where the video monitor comes in handy. Usually he’ll wake up and look around and find his thumb and go back to sleep in a few minutes. Other times, he’ll wake up and find his thumb and stay awake. I can watch him and decide if he needs me. I like that. I’m a new breed of parent that hovers over the kid on the video screen. One night he was making loud sucking sounds and wouldn’t go back to sleep, so I was watching him and thinking about going in to rock him so that I could get some sleep. I noticed his sleeve was covering his thumb. I snuck into his room and released the thumb. All was well!

I guess this opens up another thing: I have a thumb sucker. And I'm proud of it. We sleep.

And of course we don’t have any type of discipline right now. He punches me in the face all the time and pulls my hair and pinches whatever he grabs, but you can’t yell at him for that. He just wants to get close and put my face in his mouth. And really, if I give in and let him pull me in for the slobber fest and lose some hair… it’s so worth it.

A Major Award

I won a prize! It’s awesome.

Cape Girl had a contest to guess Jackson’s weight. I won because I am super-awesome. It showed up and M was so excited. He kept looking at the box and talking about my major award and how it could be anything! We are a little obsessed with A Christmas Story...

Here is a picture:

I won some salt water taffy (yum!) some cranberry jelly, a cool cape cod towel (M spent a lot of time examining this), funny cookie cutters (M thought the fish was a tree) and -my favorite- a little oyster ornament.

I can’t wait to put the ornament on our Christmas tree. I always get ornaments when we go places so we can remember important parts of our lives. Now I have this little reminder that I have so many friends out there in the world. You are all a big part of my life. It might be weird to say, but I feel so close to a bunch of you! It's hard for me to get through a day without thinking of some of you. I talk about you to M and he knows about your lives. Little things happen to me and they remind me of one of you.

We gave W some cereal on Saturday. He didn’t care. I’ve read that babies aren’t ready for the solids if they push the food out with their tongue and don’t eat any of it. That’s about right. We’ll try again in a week. It was so cute to watch him try.

Here is the requested picture of a messy baby. Check out that huge thigh!!!

[adorable picture removed]

BFN - and happy about it!

I’m back to POAS all the time.

Not because I want another baby right now! My hands are full. But because I’m in this no-woman’s land of no AF and the birth control with all these warning about taking it at the EXACT same time every day and the failure rate on the package is higher than the regular pill. It’s freaking me out. Combine that with feeling kind of queasy a few mornings this week and you’ve got a full on panic attack!

So I ordered a ton of internet cheapies so I could test every 2 weeks until we start trying again. Last night I took the first one. It was a perfect, clear, unquestionable negative and I had a nice sigh of relief. Anyway, the packaging made me laugh a little. Here I am buying tests in hopes that I’ll get a ton of negatives and I get pamphlets on OPKs and even a temporary tattoo with *~Baby Dust~* all over it. I asked M if he wanted to wear it. Nope.

I’m now blaming my crummy feelings on something going around. I have a kid in daycare. It’s about time that I get a bug.

Hooray! So, having a 4 month old is still pretty awesome. He’s such a great kid. I get all kinds of compliments from the daycare ladies about how good he is. He likes hanging out and playing with books. He does not like The Little Engine That Could and cries when I read it. This makes me sad because it’s my favorite kid book. He does really like The Belly Button Book and that one is fun to read. Every day with him is amazing. M loves him so much – I love to watch them together. We’ve figured out that M is the fun one and I’m the comforting one. W will fall right to sleep in my arms, but struggle to stay awake with M and watch him make faces. I love that he can grab toys now and will take stuffed animals when I hand them to him. We’re going to give him some cereal this weekend just to see how he’ll react.

I’m so happy to read about how so many of you are so close to babies – and one brand new baby today. I can’t believe how far we’ve come!