Wow it has been a while since I last posted. Baby J is 8 months old now and is in so many ways a great baby. He is very good natured, sweet and smiley, he adores Birdie, and he is a little bundle of cute. However, he doesn’t sleep. Many days, he might only nap for 45 minutes during the day. At night lately he has been sleeping 2 to 2.5 hour stretches. The good thing is that when he is awake, he is generally pleasant and cute, so it is hard to be frustrated with him. But I’m TIRED! Birdie hasn’t napped in weeks, and I am afraid that she never will again.

He is much much better in the car now, thank goodness! For the first 5 or so months it was awful, horrible crying nearly every time we were in the car. It made it very difficult to go places. Then slowly after 6 months it got better and better, and now it is maybe 1/10 times he will cry in the car seat. Sometimes I forget how awful it was.

The holidays were so fun. Birdie really got excited about Christmas and her birthday. She has been so much fun lately, but potty training has stalled. I’ll save that for another post.

Breastfeeding has been difficult. He weaned off the nipple shields back in October over about a week. Around then, he also stopped taking the occasional bottle of supplemental formula. So it is all nursing all the time, and he is on the small side, 40th percentile for height, 15% for weight. I was taking fenugreek to boost my supply but then I kept getting blocked ducts (on the left side especially) and last week I got mastitis. It has been hard. He is eating more solids though, so I hope that we can manage to fatten him up a little.

Post partum depression wise, I am doing much better. Some days are still rough, but I found a new doctor (mostly good but not perfect) and he upped my dosage of wellbutrin to 450mg, which is the maximum. Winter has been long and rough and I am ready for spring so we can be outside again.

I miss blogging and have been reading blogs on my phone this whole time, but I just never have a moment to sit down at the computer and actually comment or write posts. At the beginning of the year I started a 365 day photo/blog project, and I have kept up with that only because I can take pictures and post from my phone. The whole point was to force myself to use my good camera and get better at photography, but I only end up taking pictures with my phone! Oh well. At the end of the year, I will hopefully be able to make a book with that blog. My family back home love it because they get to see our day to day life in the pictures and stories.

Pictures to come soon…

 

Well, 3.5 months. Baby J is getting so big now. He is growing and changing so quickly. He is smiling and laughing and grasping things, holding his head up better and is usually so happy. A few weeks ago, we stopped using the nipple shield. The first week or two was pretty rough and painful, and honestly I kind of wished to go back, but now his latch is better and I don’t have to wash those damn things and keep track of them anymore. I never realized how much milk leaked out of his mouth because of the shield until we weren’t using them anymore. I used to have to put a waterproof pad down when I would nurse him side lying, because there would always be a giant wet spot where the milk leaked out from his mouth or the shield. Now I keep a larger pad under him, but that’s mostly in case of pee or poo leakage. He still doesn’t like the car. He cries probably 75% of the time in the car. I do not understand that. Most babies like the car. Is the car seat no longer comfortable? I am re-using Birdie’s Chicco keyfit infant car seat. It seems fine. I hope that as he gets older he will be more amused with toys or his mirror.

Birdie is so much more grown up than just a few months ago when he was born. She is far easier to take places, is generally more agreeable, and is so damn smart. She is completely not interested in potty training, which is stressing me out. She will be 3 at Christmas, and I know she could do it, but pushing her, even gently, was only ending up in resistance, so I am totally backing off for the time being. She first went pee on the potty over a year ago! I have video of it on my phone and she loves to watch it, where we dump the pee into the toilet. She has several books about the potty (Potty, Big Girls Use the Potty, My Big Girl Potty), she loves to watch the Signing Time dvd about potty training, called Potty Time. Before J was born, she would sit on the potty before or after bath every night (of her own choice) and often she would go. As more and more of her friends are potty trained, I am getting more anxious about it. There are classes she can start at 3 (gymnastics, swim, preschool…), but only if she is potty trained. She is not the kind of kid you can force to do anything, so I am just hoping that she will decide soon enough that she is done with diapers.

She is still ridiculously tall. Last time we measured on her growth chart, she was 41.5 inches, and 37 pounds. She is almost too big for 5T clothes. 5T shirts are a little short on her (she has a long torso). 5T pants will be fine once she is not wearing diapers I think.

I have been having some issues with postpartum depression. I am on antidepressants, but my primary care doctor is a bitch and I need to find a new one. The last time I went to see her a few weeks ago to follow up on the ppd, she snapped at me for questioning her about something and she actually said “YOU AREN’T LISTENING TO ME.” Really? Because I think it was the other way around. She is a fucking bitch and the only reason I stayed with her this long is because she didn’t have a problem with prescribing metformin for pcos. I mostly saw my RE or OB the last few years anyway, but I have had it. I left the appointment in tears and will not go back. Way to treat your depressed patient! Make her cry more!

I requested help from a local organization that pairs up families with new babies and a volunteer that helps with the baby or housework or older siblings. It is really an awesome idea, but they had been overwhelmed with requests this summer and didn’t have a volunteer to match me up with, so that didn’t work out. I feel like things are getting better as he gets older and a little easier and I am getting a little more sleep, but I feel overwhelmed a lot, and then I feel like a shitty parent and that I don’t deserve to be a mom.

S had to travel again for work for the first time since J was born, and he was gone for nearly two weeks. My mom came to visit for the first week, but then got the flu and that ended up stressing me out more than being alone would have. My aunt came the second week, and that was much better.

It is hard because they rarely nap at the same time. This is the first time that has happened in weeks, so I am taking advantage of it to catch up on blogging. I really miss this place, and I need to take time to do things for me once in a while. I feel so sad that this babyhood is flying by so fast, because I will never have  another tiny baby to hold. I am so, so thankful that he is here though.

I can’t believe how quickly these past weeks have gone. The first 10 days of recovery after the c section were a little rough, but after that the swelling went down and the pain decreased. S took 3 weeks off, which was great. My aunt was here for the first two weeks which was so helpful. Now, at nearly 6 weeks, I feel normal again.

Baby J is a very good baby. He rarely cries – just when he is hungry or wet or poopy. It is a completely different experience that with Birdie, who cried A LOT. ALL THE TIME. While he is easier in many ways, it has still been difficult, because I am nursing him all the time (or so it seems) and Birdie is missing having time with me. She has been so good with him, but having more tantrums in general. S puts her to bed now. I miss that time with her, but it  is so good for them to have that connection. Breastfeeding has gone much better this time around. I got lactation consultants to help right away, but ended up using a nipple shield again. My milk supply is apparently good because he is gaining weight, and so far, things are going well. I am so thankful!

Here are some pictures:

Birdie meeting Baby J, just a few hours old

1 week old

Birdie, 2.5 years old

Baby J arrived today at 2:07pm. He is healthy, I am doing well, and things went great, except for the nurse needing three tries to get the IV in. So far he is calm and sleeping a lot. We have so much to be thankful for.

I am scheduled for a c-section on Thursday afternoon. Just one more day with this miracle baby kicking me. I am getting sad for this pregnancy to be over, but I am excited to meet him. I have been feeling pretty good for the most part – no real swelling (despite the heat), my sacroiliac pain is minimal as long as I do my stretches every day. I have gained 33 pounds as of my last doctor appointment. I am just really tired and have very little energy to chase Birdie around these days.

The only real issue lately is that S and I haven’t been getting along well. He is sleep deprived and cranky, and I am emotional and teary. Birdie has been having problems falling asleep. Tonight it was nearly 11 by the time she was sound asleep. She generally sleeps through the night fine, but just takes hours to fall asleep, no matter what time we start bedtime, or what we have done in the day. I took her swimming today at the outdoor gym pool and thought I thoroughly tired her out. Nope.

I wanted the last few days to be peaceful and relaxed, instead of us snipping at each other and me feeling sad. I think I am probably just too sensitive and overreacting. I am sad for Birdie that our days of focusing on just her are coming to an end. She has been so much fun lately, but also has been throwing epic tantrums once in a while.

Of course there are the fears too, that this is too good to be true. That something will go wrong, that there will be something wrong with the baby that the anatomy scan and screening tests didn’t pick up on. Please be healthy, little baby. Please.

Here I am the other day, at 38.5 weeks…

Wow this is going by so fast. I have been feeling pretty good for the most part, though today I started having some awful shooting pains down my leg, similar to when I was pregnant with Birdie. Now I have neither the time, childcare availability or money to go to physical therapy for the SPD. I have been doing the exercises they had me do last time, and have only had a few days of really bad pain. Today I took Birdie to Buy Buy Baby to get some things and each step I took was misery, and of course she was all over the place and was not super cooperative. I should have known better than to take her there by myself!

I passed my second 3 hour glucose tolerance test a couple of weeks ago. I have a c section scheduled for June 28th unless I go into labor sooner. I am getting really big. Random strangers ask when the baby is due and I see the look of shock on their faces that I have nearly two months left! I have gained about 20 pounds at this point. The baby’s room is slowly coming together, although I keep waiting for S to move several pieces of furniture around and he keeps not doing it. His feeling is that there is plenty of time. Yes, we do have 7 weeks left, but I want to get stuff done before so I can relax and not be scrambling around at the last minute.

We did a 3D ultrasound at 25 weeks. Here is a picture of baby boy.

I still can hardly believe that this is happening. I feel so incredibly lucky and I am very open with people about our previous struggles and how this baby is a lucky miracle. Birdie has been kind of ignoring all the talk we have been doing about baby brother. Once though she did pat my tummy and say “baby brother kick?” She mostly seems highly annoyed that there isn’t as much lap room for her anymore. We bought a couple of books about a new baby, but she has mostly refused to even look at them. She has been playing with her dolls a lot though, and is very sweet and nurturing to them, which I hope is a good sign.

She is still happily sleeping in her crib, and I am scared to move her out of it. I figure we can use the pack and play bassinet for the baby at first and move her at some point in a few months. We do have a new mattress (a full size one that will go on the floor) for her, and my mom got her some obscenely expensive pink chamois bedding from Pottery Barn kids for it. She has become attached to an also obscenely expensive blankie from PBK (the silk trim stroller blanket), and I’ve had to buy 3 backups, at forty bucks each. I want them all to wear evenly though and I don’t want to have a blankie crisis on our hands if/when they fall apart. The sheets and comforter cover for her new bed are the same soft chamois fabric as her special blankies. I hope she loves it.

She is ridiculously tall, so we decided to bypass a toddler bed for her. The crib will eventually convert to a full size bed frame, so we bought a full mattress. I figure that will be a comfy place to read books all together and there will be room to lay down with her if needed. We can take the front rail off the crib and use it to transition. I need to get a video monitor for her room. Do any of you have an opinions or suggestions about which kind to get?

After my last post, we still haven’t switched her to front facing yet, though I think we will do it this week.

I haven’t posted pictures of Birdie in a while. Here are a few from the last couple of months:

She finally has some hair! Getting her to leave hair clips in is another story.

She loves her magnet drawing pad. One of the best purchases ever.

Practice easter egg hunting. She now insists on picking out her clothes and has a fondness for stripes.

I have a question for those of you with toddlers. At what point did you/will you turn your convertible car seat around? I swore I would keep Birdie rear facing as long as possible, but I think we might be nearing the end of that possible range. She is ridiculously tall (over 97th percentile) and is about 35 pounds. Her growth has to slow down at some point, doesn’t it? She is nearly off the charts!

Our Britax Boulevard car seat can be rear facing up to 40 pounds, so we have a few more pounds to go before the limit, but not a lot longer. I have started to think that we might switch her around when we install the baby seat base before the baby comes, and move her behind the driver’s seat so the infant seat can be behind the passenger seat. We have a Prius and I don’t think we could install a seat in the middle and the side, although if we could it would be nice to be able to fit another adult in the back seat if someone was visiting.

I know that they say that it doesn’t matter how long the kid’s legs are, they can fold them up and be comfortable far longer than we would think, but boy, her legs are long! She’s only 2 years and 4 months, but she is so much bigger than the average child her age. It is getting so difficult to get her buckled into the seat, especially being pregnant and large and less able to pick her up. Every time either she or I bonk our heads, getting her butt in the seat and her legs adjusted and the buckles buckled is like a complex puzzle. But at the same time, I feel so guilty about turning her around before we completely HAVE to by the weight limit. I was really against turning her seat around in the middle of icy winter, when it seems like accidents are more likely, because of slick weather conditions. Now that the weather is nicer, she’s getting closer to the upper weight limit, and we have the new baby coming, I am leaning towards turning her around in a month or two. Gosh, it’s sounding more and more like I am looking for permission and validation. I want her to be safe. I know rear facing is like 5 times safer in an accident. What are your opinions?

So, as I might have mentioned on the this blog, we haven’t been terribly open with our infertility journey. Many family members know a little bit, and many friends do too, but it has been kind of a slow process of sharing that information.We have only shared all the details with a few close people.

We moved into a new neighborhood a year ago. It is full of young families and lots of kids. Usually once every month or two, there is a “ladies night out” where all the women are invited to get together at a restaurant. Usually only 8 to 12 of us show up, but there are enough core people who attend that I have gotten to know a few of them. Since most of us have kids (there are probably 3 couples out of about 50 who are young, newly married and don’t have kids – yet), we tend to talk a lot about babies, pregnancy, sleep, kids, etc. Your basic infertile nightmare.

The first one I went to, I was newly pregnant with this baby. Like 5 weeks or so, and clearly told NO ONE. For the one in January, I was about 16 weeks, and I did tell a few people at our end of the table. At this last one, I was very clearly showing, and it was a smallish group, and it came up. One of the girls said “Oh, I thought you guys weren’t having any more kids!” I have no idea where she might have come up with this. I have never said that to anyone! I have only met her a few times, and I like her, but we have never had personal conversations about family size! Perhaps MIL got to talking to her when she took Birdie out for a walk last fall, and somehow that was the impression she got?

Anyhow, here I was, kind of on the spot, and I said, with everyone quiet and paying attention, “Oh, well, we weren’t sure if we could have more children. We had to do fertility treatments to get Birdie. But this one was a surprise. A happy surprise, of course.”

So there. It was out, to a group of pretty new acquaintances that I have to live near for a potentially long time! And you know what, I felt a little raw and naked at first, but it was okay. And if anyone there has or is struggling with primary or secondary infertility, maybe they felt a little less alone and could talk with me about it. And it’s not some shameful secret – it is our reality, and part of our story.

I think I have felt scared of being out with our infertility story stems from fear of being pitied or talked about. How much would it suck to live in a fertile neighborhood with catty women whispering behind your back things like “oh how sad, they can’t have more kids”. To be fair, most of the women seem very nice, and shit like that probably doesn’t ever happen.

When going through treatments before Birdie, I really did not want to tell people (beyond our immediate family and very close friends) while we were going through it. Answering questions about “are you pregnant yet? how’s that going anyway” would be exhausting and painful while dealing with disappointment month after month. If things continue to go well with this pregnancy, this will be our last kid, so theoretically, we won’t have to deal with that stress again. But I worry. What happens if we lose this baby? What happens if god forbid something happens to one of our kids in childhood? What if some miracle happens and S wants to try for a 3rd?

The immediate reaction around the table was supportive. I saw a few head nods (but was too befuddled to pay close attention to possible knowing looks), but then the conversation turned to how everyone seemed to know someone who “just relaxed” and got pregnant easier the second time. UGH! I know I am one of those lucky urban legends, and I know it happens to SOME women, but there are so many more who continue to struggle with secondary infertility, and it is so frustrating to combat that idea! I didn’t have the energy to go there though, so I just kind of sank back into my chair, sipped my ice water and nodded.

We had the big ultrasound last week, at nearly 22 weeks. First of all, and most importantly, the baby looks healthy. And it’s a boy! I am happy and relieved that everything looks okay. The ultrasound tech was great. She showed us all kinds of thing and explained a lot. I thanked her at the end for that, and she said she technically is not supposed to say anything, but that is very hard. She is an instructor at the local university and says that she has to tell her students not to say anything during ultrasounds. I would have been a wreck if she had not shown us things and talked as she went along.

I still am not feeling a whole lot of movement. I did feel a lot the day of the ultrasound, probably because we pissed the baby off with all the poking and proding. The placenta is along the left side of my uterus, kind of going around to the front, which may explain that.

I am 23 weeks now. We need to start getting the guest room cleared out, and start thinking of names. I am a little bummed that we won’t be able to reuse some of the adorable girl things from Birdie. I really should go through them and give them away, but I can’t bear to do it. Most of the baby gear we have is neutral, but very little of the clothes are. I suppose that means I can look forward to shopping for cute baby boy things. There will be no more babies after this, which makes me sad, but it also makes me really appreciative that we are even in this incredible place.

I still cannot believe I am pregnant. I feel like I am huge for 23 weeks, compared to how I was with Birdie. I have gained 13 pounds, most of which is rather recent, and he is measuring a little ahead but not gigantic. I have been craving salads again, but the one I loved the most during my pregnancy with Birdie has been taken off the menu at our old favorite restaurant, and my second favorite restaurant salad is way across town now that we have moved, and nobody else seems to really like the food there except me, so that is going to be a rare treat. I have discovered a great (and cheap) salad bar at the fancy grocery store near our new house, so that is good.

I am tired. Birdie has been waking up with nightmares a lot lately, so between that and having to pee several times a night, I have not been sleeping well.

I have been slacking on keeping the house picked up and organized, and I feel bad about that. How do you all go about doing housework? Do you have a schedule, like sweep and mop on Tuesdays, clean the bathroom on Wednesdays or something like that? I am not the most organized person in the world, and I can’t ever seem to get ahead. My first priority is always Birdie, and I try to do fun and interesting activities with her, but it is exhausting. I try to clean up the house as we go, but if I get a little behind at all it is misery trying to get back on top of the clutter and general cleaning. We have been sick so many times this winter, and the house gets trashed, and it is a monumental effort to get back to a reasonable state. I am so exhausted by the time she goes to sleep that I don’t have the energy to clean then. I have been resting when she naps too, which is the only thing keeping me going.

I need to figure out a system before the new baby comes, because I can only imagine how much more difficult it will be with two. Please give me some ideas!

 

I am sorry it has been so long since I posted. We had weeks and weeks of illness in our house. Birdie was sick with a cold then got an ear and sinus infection, so that was about two weeks of hell. Then I caught her cold and got my own sinus infection, along with a weird rash. I ended up seeing my OB for the rash and sinus infection and she had me tested for parvo and coxsackie virus. The parvo test was negative, but the lab screwed up the coxsackie test. Weeks later I got a call saying that I need to get blood drawn again for the test. Of course I had just taken the 3 hour glucose tolerance test (more on that later) a few days before and was not happy about the idea of having more pokes into my bruised veins that were just starting to heal. I ended up talking to my doctor and she said I didn’t have to redo it, that she just tested for it as a precaution, so I haven’t retested for it. My sinus infection is finally gone and the rash is gone too.

I failed the one hour glucose test, just barely, at 140. I had an appointment with my OB a few days later, and I discussed metformin with her. I had dropped off some printouts of studies about metformin and pcos and pregnancy, and she did take a lot of time and discussed things with me, so I will give her that. Her concern is coming from the standpoint of how to manage the pregnancy. She feels that if I stay on metformin, she wants to treat me like I have gestational diabetes, and have me test my blood sugar 5 times a day and have extra NSTs and ultrasounds. But, not being diagnosed officially means that my insurance probably won’t cover the glucose monitor and testing supplies or the nutritionist visit. She wanted me to take the 3 hour test early, at 20 weeks to see if I have it now and then we can decide what to do about metformin then. She also wants me to do the 3 hour test again at 28 weeks, because I could develop it at any point, or that my metformin dose might need to be adjusted if it can’t control the blood sugar levels.

I did the 3 hour test a week or so ago and I passed. I still want to stay on metformin though, and I will be discussing it with her at my appointment next week. With my pregnancy with Birdie, she kind of took a middle ground approach. She tested my blood sugar at each office appointment starting around 32 weeks and then I had weekly NSTs starting at 36 weeks. I would be fine with that. I would even be fine with testing my blood sugar at home, at my own cost, but 5 times a day starting now when I clearly am fine seems like a ridiculous waste of money. As of now, I am still taking metformin. I have gained about 8 pounds and I have been feeling pretty good, although Birdie wears me out!

The good news of the past few weeks is that I got the second part of the sequential screening done, and the risk of Down syndrome went down to 1/1200. After the first part of the test, it was at 1/215, so that is a nice drop, but of course it is no guarantee. We have the big ultrasound next Tuesday. Please please let this baby be healthy.

I haven’t felt a lot more movement yet. I do feel a kick here and there, but it is pretty random. I will feel a lot better once I feel regular movement. I am 21 weeks now. I cannot believe it. It still doesn’t feel real! Does anyone have any recommendations on books we can read with Birdie about a new baby? The ones I found at the library all seemed pretty stupid.