The Best Year (So Far)

Miss A turned 1 year old on Sunday. We are amazed that a year has gone by. It feels like it's only been about 3 months.

I wish I could find the words to more eloquently express what an incredible year it has been. It has been so much better than we even possibly could have dreamed of. There have been so few tough days that I probably wouldn't even need 10 fingers to count them. Mostly it has just been pure joy. We are so thankful for her, every day.

We had a lot of fun celebrating her birthday. She was actually pretty neat when it came to the smash cake. I had visions of frosting and cake flying everywhere, but she didn't spread the mess far. She was much more interested in the frosting than the cake itself and kept squeezing it through her fingers while she was trying to get it into her mouth. Since she didn't seem to be going crazy with eating it, we didn't think much of it, but then the poor thing wound up having (what I am assuming was) a bellyache. She woke up at about midnight and was up for 2 hours, whining (which is unusual for her) and wiggling around because she couldn't find a comfy position laying on me.

Here she is before the bellyache set in:

Happy 1st birthday, Miss A!

Feeling Like an Idiot

I had the appointment with the gynecological oncologist today. R came with me for moral support. And that thing I saw on my ovary is...

Nothing, apparently.

I haven't heard from my PCP's office yet, but I told the nurse at the appointment today that I had an ultrasound done on Saturday, and they were able to call the imaging center and get information about it. I don't know if the gyn onc saw the actual ultrasound images or just received the report (I'm guessing the latter), but apparently my ovaries looked normal. Well, normal as far as PCOS ovaries go, anyway.

So she didn't do another ultrasound, but she did do a pelvic exam and a rectal exam (first - and hopefully last! - time I've had one of those). She said everything felt normal.

Overall, the appointment was reassuring. She said the fact that I was on birth control pills for 8 years, have had a pregnancy, and have been breastfeeding for almost a year are all things that help reduce the risk of ovarian cancer. Because of the PCOS, which involves higher levels of estrogen in the body, she is more concerned about the risk of uterine cancer.

Irony of all ironies, to reduce that risk, she recommends that once we are done with fertility treatments for good, I should go back on birth control pills until I'm at least 46 or 47. She is aware of my Factor V Leiden mutation but thinks that a progestin-only pill would be safe. Still, she suggested that once I get to that point, that I meet with a hematologist to discuss the risk. I definitely hadn't envisioned several more years of birth control pills in my future!

She also wants me to lose about 40 pounds, follow an anti-inflammatory diet, and exercise for at least 150 minutes a week. All of which is stuff that I know I need to do, so now I just have to get my butt in gear and actually do it. She wants to meet with me again in 3 months, so I need to have some progress to show at that time.

All of that still leaves the question of what is bugging my right hip, pelvis, and lower back. My PCP may be waiting for the x-ray results before giving me a call, so we'll see if that sheds light on anything. I'm beginning to suspect some of it may have to do with bad posture. My mom has a small desk chair that has a back support pillow strapped to it. I asked her if I could borrow it the other day. When I sit in that chair, my symptoms aren't nearly as bad, other than some minor aching all the way across my lower back, which I suspect is because sitting up straight for long periods of time isn't the kind of posture that area of my back is accustomed to having to support. If the symptoms persist, I'll go back to my PCP to talk about the MRI he had mentioned a couple of appointments ago.

Thank you again for the support. I feel like the girl who cried wolf. I hate it when I don't know what's going on with my body, and that I get so nervous any time I have a symptom of anything.

No News

By the end of last night, I managed to convince myself that what I saw on the screen was a simple functional cyst with very thin septations. (Apparently, it is quite possible for those to have their own blood supply, at least according to the research that I did.)

That kept me calm and (no pun intended) functional and able to actually get some things accomplished today. Because of that, I chickened out about calling the doctor's office. I figured if I got a call from there, I'd answer it, but I didn't.

The appointment with the gynecological oncologist is tomorrow, late in the morning. I'm assuming she will do an ultrasound, so I will just see what she has to say.

I've realized that from now on, I should only look at the ultrasound screen if I'm in the room with someone who is allowed to explain what they're seeing. Lesson learned.

Edited: There Is Something On My Right Ovary

I had the ultrasound done this morning.

The tech didn't say anything and I didn't ask, but there is definitely something on my right ovary. It looked like four follicles stuck together, but he was measuring it as one. I searched images online, and it looks like a complex ovarian cyst. Those are the kind that have the potential to be really bad things.

He also did blood flow imaging. When he was on the right side, I remember seeing a pretty clear image of blood flow and thinking that must be my ovary's blood flow. I don't remember if it was going to the cyst or not, because I didn't know to look for that, but I think it was.

Blood flow to a cyst is a really, really bad sign.

Also, while he was looking at my bladder, before he did the ultrasound, there was something on there that looked long and thick and squiggly and very white. I don't know much about bladder ultrasounds, but the fact that it was very white (the more white it is, the more solid it is) and squiggly (not of consistent shape) also makes me nervous.

I am scared. Very, very scared.

The tech said my doctor will have the results when he gets into the office on Monday morning. That seemed really fast to me. I don't know if that's standard practice or if he's going to be rushing it along because he thinks it shows something concerning.

I am going to try to be patient and wait until Monday morning and call my doctor's office first thing. I am debating going to the ER and telling them I'm having pain and that I have a cyst. But if it's something bad, they're not going to be able to do anything before Monday other than possibly confirm it. I don't know that they could say for sure that it's something not bad. So I might as well just wait. I'm just not sure how I'm going to make it through the weekend.

Edited to add: Thank you for your comments and prayers. I have calmed down a bit, and I am not going to the ER, I will wait until Monday for the ultrasound report.

Usually Googling this kind of stuff freaks me out more, but I've actually found some information that has reduced my panic a bit. Of course I'm no expert on any of this so I could be completely wrong about what I saw, but right now what I have found is comforting me, so I'm going with it.

I think what I saw was a fluid-filled multi-septated cyst. I know follicles are supposed to be completely black on ultrasound (fluid-filled) without any white (solid matter). Other than what I am thinking are septates (a few lines going in various directions), I didn't see anything else in there. I found a study online that says septated cysts without a solid mass in them that are less than 10 cm and the septates are less than 3 mm are almost always benign. I didn't ask how big the thing was when the tech took measurements, but I saw a lot of my typical small PCOS follicles (usually less than 1 cm) in there, and this thing looked like it was maybe 3-4 times as large as that, definitely not 10 times as large. Also, I pulled out a tape measure, and I don't think the things I'm assuming are septates were anywhere close to 3 mm thickness. So, all of that helped.

Also, I read something else that said even if there is blood flow to a cyst, in pre-menopausal women it is not a reliable sign of whether something really, really bad is going on. And I can't say for sure that the blood flow was even going to the cyst. So I'm also hanging some hope on that.

Oh, and that long, thick, squiggly, white thing that I saw next to my bladder? Um, after looking at some ultrasound photos, I'm about 95% sure that it was my bladder wall.

I plan to stop consulting Dr. Google now (no, really). I will post when I have news of the report. Depending on how calm I am, if I am able to focus and get things done on Monday, I may even just wait for the doctor to call me rather than beg for the results first thing in the morning. And I am 2 hours behind East Coast time at this point in the year, so don't be surprised if there isn't a post until evening.

Thank you again for all of the supportive words and thoughts.

Seriously Freaking Out

I know I haven't been around much and have lots of catching up to do in terms of commenting. I was planning to do that next week because R and I are taking the week off to stay home and get things done around the house. (I have been reading, just not commenting very frequently.)

So I apologize for not commenting much, and for posting again before catching up on the commenting. But I'm freaking out.

I didn't 'fess up to this in my last post, but I've been dealing with anxiety lately, and this week it seems to be getting the better of me. It's not entirely unfounded, but I go automatically to worst case scenarios.

In the beginning of December, I started having some mild lower back pain on the right side. It didn't go away after a couple of weeks, so I went to the doctor. By that time, I was also having some very mild right hip pains and pressure. The doctor diagnosed a pulled muscle in my lower back and recommended ice and ibuprofen as needed. (I should point out that I carry Miss A on my left hip, not my right one.)

Well, the back pain has eased up, though I still feel it sometimes, but the hip thing is getting worse. The pain isn't really getting worse, but the pressure is. Occasionally I feel mild pain in various places on my hip, and sometimes I'll have shooting pain down the back of my leg. Usually it only goes to my knees, but occasionally my toes tingle too. But overall, the pain is very mild.

What does seem to be progressing is the pressure. It's kind of hard to describe, but basically just to the right of my c-section scar, at the edge of the pelvic area where it meets the groin area, I feel pressure. At first it was just when I was sitting, and if I would scoot forward to the edge of my seat so that my leg could be straight as it reached the ground, that would reduce it. Now I can feel it when I stand as well - it just feels like some sort of mild pressure, like something is pressing slightly on the area.

I went back to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and he sent me to physical therapy, but that hasn't helped it. I went back again yesterday, and this time he pressed all over the area and he didn't feel any lumps or bumps. (Neither do I, and I've pressed it a lot.)

I do have some swelling I guess you could call it immediately above the right 1/3 of my c-section scar. That's the side the doctor ended on when she was stitching. It's not a lump there either, it just looks like I have a little bit more fat protruding on that side, but the area wasn't like that (lopsided with more fat on one side than the other) before my pregnancy. The edge of my pelvic area where it meets the groin crease also seems to be just the slight bit swollen. There's no redness or anything like that, and it doesn't feel like anything is protruding that can be pushed back in, like a hernia. Also, those protruding/slightly swollen areas are soft - I don't feel any hard pieces of tissue in there.

The doctor said he thought maybe it was scar tissue pulling. He ordered a hip x-ray and pelvic ultrasound as the next step, but he doesn't seem to be overly concerned. However, later that day, it started to feel like my intestines are pushing up under my ribs and I was feeling shortness of breath, and last night I was standing in front of the mirror examining the area above my belly button because it seemed to me like that area looked slightly distended. I was worried that fluid was building up in that area (ascites - caused by one of the very bad things I'm freaking out about). But I also realize that anxiety can do surprising things to the body. So I know that it's just as likely that those things and my decrease in appetite and frequent trips to the bathroom are from nerves rather than something ominous.

I know there are a lot of different possibilities, most of which are totally benign things. Yet of course my mind goes right to the worst case scenario. Part of the reason is that I did IVIg during pregnancy to reduce my NK cells and cytokines, which are also some of the kinds of cells that help fight off really bad things. I know that doctors give IVIg to cancer (okay, there, I finally said the word) patients, and I never really asked my RI about how all of that works. But in doing some reading since then, from what I have found, IVIg is given to cancer patients after they're deemed free of cancer, oftentimes in order to prevent their immune system from rejecting something like a stem cell transplant. So I don't think IVIg causes cancer per se, but now I'm wondering if taking it could allow something like that to grow more easily if it is there.

So, there it is - my craziness out in the open.

I scheduled the pelvic ultrasound for tomorrow, but they don't do x-rays on the weekend, so I will get that done later this afternoon or on Monday. I doubt my doctor will have the ultrasound results back and reviewed by Monday.

On Tuesday, I have an appointment with a gynecological oncologist, which ironically I had made several weeks ago before all of this started to unfold. She was on TV talking about prevention and early detection of ovarian cancer, and since I'm at a higher risk (due to the PCOS, being overweight, having Miss A after I was 30, plus the fact that my ovaries have been poked literally more than 100 times probably doesn't help either), I had wanted to talk with her about it. Her office requested my records from Denver and the ob, reviewed them, and decided that it was appropriate for me to see her, so I feel like that at least affirms that I am appropriate in thinking that I may need to be more aware and proactive about this than the average person.

(I do realize that "aware and proactive" is very different from "completely freaking out", I just haven't figured out how to stay in that first category.) I had brought up my desire to be proactive in that respect to my ob a few years ago, who promptly blew me off by saying "Do you know how rare that is? I've had maybe 3 patients in my whole career who have been diagnosed with it." And yes, I know that it's not nearly as common as breast cancer, but I think it's something that occurs more frequently than could be called "rare".

I also called and scheduled an appointment with my therapist, who I haven't seen since October since I was doing really well. We usually meet for an hour, but I scheduled an hour and a half. Maybe I should have asked if she had the entire afternoon available...

I need to figure out how to get these runaway thoughts under control. I don't want to pass along this kind of anxiety to Miss A, and I know being around it can rub off, because I think that's how I got it.

8 Weeks (No, Not *That*)

Eight weeks from yesterday, it will be 1 year since Miss A entered the world.

I'm not sure where the time has gone. It has been an amazing, incredible year.

So many things are different. Our house is filled with baby stuff. There is clutter, and I don't care. It's wonderful, happy baby clutter. I am just thrilled that we have a reason to have it. That we have her. R is happy now, all the time. He has more balance in his life. He still works really hard, but Miss A is his first priority. He doesn't have a need to bury himself in his work anymore to block out the hell we've gone through.

A few things are still the same. I still wait for the other shoe to drop a little bit. I'm still hesitant to speak too far into the future. Yet, I bought her a bunch of 3T pajamas yesterday (because I've already bought her a ton of 18 month and 2T stuff), so apparently I'm more okay with looking into the future in some ways than others.

I plan to nurse her until 1 year and then wean soon after that so that we can go back to Denver, hopefully this summer. But I can't imagine not nursing her. So if anyone has any tips on how to handle that, from either the literal or emotional perspective, please share.

Overall, Miss A is doing great. One of the teachers in her day care room had raised some concerns a while back about her gross motor skills. We had her evaluated at the time, and she was borderline, so we had her re-evaluated before Christmas. She was still borderline on that evaluation, which is an initial, high-level evaulation, so she had a more in-depth evaluation a couple of weeks ago.

She was 10 days away from her 10-month birthday at that point, and she tested as 10 months, 10-11 months or 11 months in all areas (cognitive, communication, fine motor, social/emotional, and adaptive/self-help) except for gross motor skills. In that, she tested at 5 months, so she begins therapy soon.

The therapist thinks it's possible that the torticollis she had when she was younger is what's affecting her gross motor skills, so we're not overly concerned at this point. And she is making progress consistently, it's just not as fast as would be expected. She knows how to roll over from her back to her stomach and vice versa, going either left or right. But she doesn't roll repeatedly to get to things. Actually, she doesn't move around very much in general - she'll usually just sit and cry or lay and cry if she can't reach what she wants. But we did see her start to move around more this weekend, and she was apparently moving all around the room at day care today, so maybe that's about to change. (She moves by laying on her stomach with her chest off the ground and using her arms to push herself backward.)

And she has started to get up on all fours (for about 5 seconds at a time) and rock back and forth, but she doesn't crawl yet. She also doesn't try to pull up on things or stand. She can bear some weight on her legs, but she doesn't like to, and we have to support some of her weight rather than just offer assistance in balancing her. On the bright side, all of this means that we've had more time than we expected to be able to baby-proof...

Last weekend, I started doing some preliminary planning for her 1st birthday. It's surreal. We have a birthday party to plan for a child. I remember all those times when I read about other moms doing that, and I would wonder if I'd ever have a baby to plan a party for. And now she's been here for almost a year. Amazing.

Pictures and Bullet Points

These were taken a few weeks ago, for the Christmas letter I have yet to write, much less print and mail. Anyone want to bet on whether I'll actually get those in the mail before Dec. 25? Yeah, I didn't think so... :-)

Other stuff we've been up to lately:

School - The semester is over - yea! Thank God I listened to R and only took one class instead of the two that I was contemplating, because I barely pulled off the one. I got a B, thanks to a very generous teacher who gave me far more credit for participation than I actually deserved.

Sick - People warned me we'd be sick a lot this first year since Miss A is in day care, and boy they weren't kidding. She came down with another cold the weekend before Thanksgiving, and we wound up coming down with it the night before Thanksgiving. We were planning to go to R's parents' house that day, but we stayed home and kept our germs to ourselves. We had planned to have Thanksgiving part 2 that Sunday, but we still weren't well enough.

Adventure - To make up for my lameness in birthday presents for R's last two birthdays, this year I got him a gift certificate to a half-day high performance driving experience that involved lead-and-follow around a track, autocross, and go kart racing. It was scheduled for the first weekend of December, and he felt up to participating, so we went. He had a blast!

More Sick - R and I have not yet recovered 100% from the Thanksgiving cold. It just seems to sort of wax and wane. Miss A did recover, but unfortunately came down with it again a few days ago. That does not tend to do great things for her weight. She'll be 9 months on Monday, and she's only up about 1.5 pounds from her 6-month weight.

Christmas Preparations - We're doing pretty decently on the shopping, having completed most of our gift-buying in November. And what we have bought is wrapped, with the exception of one thing. I usually do a huge amount of baking in December, but this year I resigned myself to the fact that slicing up two logs of store-bought, pre-made dough is going to be the extent of my baking. The tree is up, but does not yet have lights or ornaments. And two tall, skinny trees that we put up outside on either side of the front door are already pre-lit but not actually plugged in. We'll see how far we get. I am determined to at least get the tree done, because I want to see Miss A's face light up when she sees all the pretty lights. And we already have a bunch of ornaments to put on it for her (a couple from us, a few from my mom, a few from other people).

Oh, and how's this for a laugh - the Christmas letter (or New Year's letter, depending on how quick I get moving on that) will also include Miss A's birth announcement, because I got those ordered in late August but never actually managed to get them into the mail. I told R the other day that apparently I should have ordered "Look who's turning 1!" announcements rather than birth announcements... :-)

In case I don't post again in the next couple of weeks, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Ordinary at Last

When R and I were in the beginning years of our marriage, sometimes in the fall we’d go to a local pumpkin festival. It was a very family-oriented event. We’d look around and see all the parents pushing strollers or standing in the pumpkin patch with toddlers and knew that we weren’t ready for that yet, but still, it was fun to go.

And then we decided we were ready for kids. And, well, you know how that went. So the pumpkin festival, with all those happy families, stopped being fun.

And so we stopped going.

Now, thanks to Miss A, we are one of those stroller-pushing couples. And as ridiculous as it sounds, I have been looking forward to the pumpkin festival this year almost as much as a kid looks forward to Christmas morning.

This week, R’s mom was on fall break (she works at a school), R’s dad took the week off, and R’s aunt and uncle, who hadn’t yet met Miss A in person, were in town. R and I took Friday off in hopes that it wouldn’t be quite so crowded, and all of us including my mom went to the pumpkin festival.

We had a wonderful time.

We sat Miss A among the pumpkins. She was not amused by this, so we didn’t get any photos of her smiling, despite our silly antics out there in the middle of the pumpkin patch, but the pictures are still cute. We watched the pig races and ate chili and cornbread for lunch. We bought a pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread, and a plain old-fashioned pumpkin. Miss A’s first pumpkin.

Mostly, we were an ordinary family that was enjoying the day. Looking at us, you wouldn’t know the hell we’d been through in order to have our moment in the middle of the patch.

Never have I loved ordinary more.

Super Simple Supper

Ok, this one has nothing to do with infertility. Or parenthood, for that matter. But I love it when I find recipes that are 1) fast, and 2) pretty much impossible for me to screw up. And this one is very freeze-able to boot, so I thought I'd share.

This first recipe is from Super Fast Slow Cooking, although I've renamed it so that I can tell more about it from the name.

Fiesta Chicken
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, rinsed and trimmed of fat
1 can of sweet corn, drained
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
16 ounces of salsa
1 can of diced green chiles (optional, the recipe didn't originally call for it, but I added it. I used a 7 oz. can.)

Put the chicken breasts in a slow cooker, then pour the remaining ingredients on top of it. Cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or on low for 8 to 10 hours. Shred the chicken. I found this easiest to do by scooping the breasts out and putting them in a large bowl, then using two large serving forks. (You can use dinner forks, but it takes longer and winds up being more finely shredded, which can turn into kind of a mushy consistency.) After the chicken is shredded, return it to the slow cooker and mix it up with the other ingredients that are in there. It's ready to serve.

It's very versatile - it can be used as taco meat or as a filling for burritos, enchiladas, or quesadillasa. It also works well as a topping for nachos.

We served that and the following recipe at our Labor Day gathering with R's family, and it was a big hit. We set out taco shells, tortillas, tortilla chips, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, shredded cheddar and jack cheeses, and nacho cheese sauce, and everyone made what they wanted. We're going to do it again for Cinco de Mayo.

With regard to the next recipe, there are a few restaurants we go to where I love the Mexican rice, but I had never found a recipe for homemade rice that tasted quite the same, until now. Actually, I didn't really find this recipe, I just gave the Rice a Roni a try and threw in two ingredients of my own.

Mexican Rice
1 box of Mexican Rice a Roni
1 can of diced green chiles (I use the smaller can for this, I think it's about 3.5 ounces)
4-5 green onions, chopped (that's about half a bunch at the store where we shop)

Follow the instructions on the Rice a Roni box. When you get to the point of covering the rice and letting it cook, toss in the green chiles and stir. About 2 minutes before the rice is done, add the chopped green onions and stir again.

This also freezes really well. It turns out so well that I usually make 3 boxes of Rice a Roni at a time so that we have lots of extra to freeze. (I usually use a 7-ounce can of chiles and a full bunch of green onions when I make that much of it.)

We usually portion out the meat and rice into 2-serving or 4-serving bags, and then just pull a couple bags out of the freezer when we need a quick meal.

Also, if you're not familiar with green chiles, don't be afraid of them. They're not spicy, they just add some nice flavor. I'm pretty much a mild salsa kind of gal, so I wouldn't be using them if they added a lot of heat.

Enjoy!

6 Months! (with pictures)

Six months ago tonight, our precious tiny little baby entered the world, unsure of why she had been yanked from her cozy, warm bath and not knowing what to make of anything that was happening to her.

Tonight, she scarfed down a plate full of smashed banana mixed with rice cereal, helped feed herself by clutching the spoon and guiding it to her mouth, and, a little bit later, rolled onto her tummy to sleep for a few minutes before realizing that she's still not fond of this new position she has been putting herself in occasionally for the past three days.

What a difference six months makes!

I can't believe that much time has gone by. R and I still have cheeks that literally ache from all of the smiling. I'm still surprised at how at peace I feel, how (relatively) mellow I am about her. (Everyone around me is surprised too.) I'm still so very, very, thankful and grateful for every moment with her. I savor them all.

I don't post many pictures of her online (if you read the posts right after she was born, you've seen more pictures of her than those on my FB account have), but since it's a semi-milestone birthday, I thought I'd share a few:

This one was taken a couple months ago. It's one of my favorite candid shots of her.

I included this one because it's the best example of her hair color. Sometimes it looks red or brown in pictures, but she's still totally a blondie with blue eyes. Which still surprises me, since I'm used to the idea that ladies in our family (i.e. my mom and me) have dark brown hair and dark eyes.

This one was from 5 or 6 weeks ago. It's the first time she rolled from her back to her tummy and got both arms out from under her all on her own. We had just finished drying her off after her bath.

Look at that grin! So far, apples are her favorite food by far. Sweet potatoes and even bananas kind of look like the color of apples. When we give her those other foods, the surprised face she makes when she realizes what she's tasting isn't apple cracks us up.

So, there she is in photos. Happy 6-month birthday, amazing little girl!

A Few of My Favorite Things

While I was pregnant with Miss A, you may recall that I didn’t let myself buy very many things – it was too scary to do much in the way of allowing myself to prepare for her arrival.

However, one of the things I did allow myself to do was bookmark posts other IFers who had recently had babies wrote about some of the things they bought that they recommended. It was my way of living vicariously.

Since Miss A has arrived, R will testify to the fact that I have definitely been making up for lost time in the shopping department! ;-)

And, in the spirit of paying it forward, I’ve put together a list of some things we’ve bought that we really like and/or have found very helpful, along with a few things that we’re more “meh” about. I’ll start with the ones we used immediately, and save the others for a future post:

Baby ESP app –
Probably among the best $5 we’ve ever spent. Well, technically, $10, since we both downloaded it to our phones. It has a very easy way to track feedings, diapers, naps, play activities, baths, breast pumping, weight gain, growth, head circumference, and anything else you would like to track. (We created activities for tummy time and neck stretches, since she had a bit of torticolis when she was born.) When you’re sleep deprived and can’t remember what you did 5 minutes ago much less whether you fed baby 1 hour ago or 2 hours ago, it’s nice to be able to just quickly input it in your phone.

For those of you like me who get very excited over numbers and charts and stats, it has all of those too. And you can sync the data to the account, so even if you and your spouse aren’t together, both of you can be up-to-date on what the baby is doing. We have Android phones; I’m not sure if there’s an iPhone version of the app, but I would guess there probably is.

Sleeping gowns -
A friend of mine who had twins soon after we got the BFPs for Miss A recommended sleeping gowns. Her boys lived in them almost around the clock for their first three months, and so did Miss A. We like them because it’s easy to change diapers while the baby is wearing one, there are no snaps or buttons to have to deal with, and they cover the baby’s legs without requiring a separate pair of pants, especially during the first month or so while they’re all still curled up.

Where we live, the weather became hot right around the time Miss A was born and will remain obnoxiously hot until at least mid-October, so we like the Gerber and Circo brands because they seem to be a little bit more light-weight than some of the others. However, there are several brands that make sleeping gowns (including some designer name, organic, $40-per-each ones – yikes!), so there are ones made of warmer fabric, too.

Handsfree breastpumping bra - It’s amazing what you can find online! 36 hours into pumping (to boost supply during the first days after we came home from the hospital), I knew I couldn’t continue sitting there holding plastic parts to my chest for half an hour every time. So I Googled for a solution, and this is what I found. This particular bra is really thoughtfully designed, and really well made. I count it among my favorite baby-related purchases of all time. I use it multiple times a day now that I am pumping while she is at day care.

Gymboree Baby Play book -
I am clueless about early childhood development. I have no idea how to “play” with a baby. This book helped me realize that I was doing better than I thought, and it gave us some fun ideas for simple, new things to try. I got it used on Amazon for a couple of dollars plus shipping.

Aden & Anais blankets -
The friend who told me about sleeping gowns also told me about these, but I didn’t buy them at first because they are listed at about $50 for a pack of 4 on Amazon, and we already had some receiving blankets that we had bought when we were trying to adopt several years ago. Then another friend whose babies are a few weeks older than Miss A showed me one of them, and instantly I became a fan. They’re a lightweight cotton muslin that is very breathable, has a tiny bit of stretch to it, and is larger than other receiving blankets I’ve seen. Where we live, “breathable” is key.

I researched them on Amazon and discovered that there is a 44” x 44” version sold in major baby retailer stores for about $35 for a 4-pack, which some moms think are just as good as the original 47” x 47” ones and other moms think are horribly rough, scratchy, and poorly made. On Amazon, the original 47” ones are listed around $50 for a 4-pack, but if you click on it, there are actually 10-15 different sets of patterns, and some of them are priced a little bit less, including a few that are almost as low as the in-store price of the 44” ones. I bought a 4-pack of the in-store ones and then a couple of the 47” packs in designs that were about $38. (Yes, I have spent a ridiculous amount of money on these, but we use them a lot.) While I like the extra few inches of the 47” ones and they are slightly softer than the 44” ones, I don’t think you can go wrong either way.

First Aid books -
I saw these when waiting in line to check out at a baby store. They’re kind of pricey, but they have good information in a simple, easy-to-find-quickly layout. I bought three – one to keep in the upstairs changing table, one for the downstairs changing table, and one for the diaper bag. I didn’t want to buy one and then have worry about trying to remember where it was, or need it while we were out and about only to realize we left it at home. I’ve taken infant first aid/CPR, but I’m quite sure that if an occasion ever comes up that necessitates using it for Miss A (or any baby, for that matter), all of that information will drain right out of my head and I’ll need something to remind me what to do.

Diapers as burp cloths -
I got the premium size of these. We have some thin, flannel burp cloths, and those work well for laying under her head to protect the crib sheet if I lay Miss A in the crib for a couple minutes to go to the bathroom after she eats. But if she does a big spit up while I’m burping her, they soak through really quickly, so I wanted something that was a bit more substantial.

I didn’t understand how cloth diapers could possibly wick moisture away from a baby’s bottom in an adequate way until I bought these. She can do a major spit up, and after about 2 minutes, you can’t even tell that the cloth was spit up on at all. We bought a dozen, and then we bought 10 more. Totally worth it, and I can see them becoming dust rags for many years to come after we’re done using them as burp cloths. (Okay, as if I ever actually dust, but you know what I mean. :-) Maybe someday, if we ever get to the point where I’m not working full time, my domestic side will somehow magically appear…)

So as you can tell, I really have been making up for lost time in the shopping department. I was really clueless about baby gear and supplies before Miss A arrived, so I hope this is helpful to someone out there. I'm still feeling clueless about the stuff that is ahead of us and am definitely not an expert in any of this stuff by any means. More likes - and a few dislikes - to come in a future post.

Astounded by '60 embryos'

I am pro-life. Have been for as long as I've known what the term meant, long before we ever started trying to build our family.

I am what the media would classify as a "conservative Christian".

And yet, I still do not understand why people who have no business putting their noses in my business, much less my uterus, insist on trying to do just that. And even worse than that, insist on trying to do so while spouting such lines of utter ridiculousness that they make me snort the glass of milk I'm drinking right out of my nose.

There is an article on CNN.com about personhood rights that offers this brilliant nugget of insight from Keith Mason of Personhood USA, who is leading the charge in support of legislation that has the potential to have very serious negative impacts on IVF:

"In creating 30 to 60 embryos, and then choosing three or four embryos, that's selective reduction."

30 to 60 embryos. Seriously? Couples are:

1) creating volumes of embryos like this??, and then

2) just chucking 56 or 57 embryos out the window?? (The implication being that those "leftover" embryos are deemed by those who created them as unnecessary and worthless?)

That's what Mr. Mason seems to be implying, along with his complete and total lack of understanding about the fundamentals of IVF. You'd think someone who is leading the charge on this would have at least bothered to do some cursory research on the topic at hand.

The ridiculousness of that statement, both outright and implied, astounds me. It's frightening that people like this are the leading voices in this discussion.

Thank God that RESOLVE continues to fight these efforts, so that IVF isn't severely restricted and babies like Miss A can continue to be born.

Just For Laughs

I have to admit, this is a bit of a lazy post. But I figure a lazy post is better than no post at all. So here it is, just for laughs, because someone should get amusement out of this. (Truth be told, I can look at this and see the humor in it too...)

This is the text of an e-mail I sent to a friend a few weeks ago. She was wanting to see Miss A, and we had planned to have lunch, but I had to cancel because I came down with a cold that R had gotten the week before:

"Started to feel better yesterday afternoon, almost called to see if you were available for dinner. Decided it was still too soon to risk it.

Good call. Cold came back with a vengeance. Can't sleep, throat so sore it feels like I'm going to cough up blood. Rudolph nose.

Miss A wakes up at 2:30 a.m. Go upstairs to feed her.

She eats well. Hand her to R to burp her.

She promptly obliges.

All over the burp cloth. All over the carpeted floor. All over the clothes she was sleeping in. Somehow miraculously misses R.

She lifts her head from his shoulder and looks up at me. She is the happiest little baby, big grins.

She is the only happy one.

We are out of burp cloths, despite having done 2 loads of baby laundry the last 2 days.

R goes down stairs to start another load of laundry.

I continue feeding Miss A. I sit her up to burp her. Apparently there's nothing left for her to burp up.

I did not account for the havoc the other end is capable of wreaking.

I hear her fill her diaper. This usually happens in 3 squirts, so I sit and wait, eyes closed, half dozing. I'm mostly out of it. After a few minutes, it seems like no more telltale sounds are going to come.

I open my eyes, look down.

The back of her white onesie is yellow, almost up to her shoulder blades. She is sitting in a large, spreading ring of yellow on the boppy pillow.

I get up to begin dealing with the cleanup. I contemplate cutting her onesie off her, but the scissors are downstairs.

I hear R come back in the room. I tell him he needs to stop where he is and locate his sense of humor.

He looks at me suspiciously. It is now 3:30 a.m. He is not amused.

We take her downstairs for a bath, because there's no way wet wipes are cutting it for a job this big.

I need to step away for a minute and cough. R's sleep-deprived brain decides that is an opportune time to mention "that's what happens when you have dairy while you're sick."

It is irrelevant that he might be right. And in my defense, I had been feeling better the night before and so hadn't even thought about the "no dairy when sick" guideline.

His sleep-deprived brain quickly comes to understand the folly of taking that moment as an "I told you so" moment.

For her part, the baby is very cooperative with an unplanned 4 a.m. bath and is back asleep before R finishes redressing her.

If only I could say the same..."

And yet, even at that hour, even feeling as miserable as I did (I'm a total wimp when it comes to a sore throat), a part of me on the inside was still jumping up and down a little bit and thinking "We have a baby to bathe, we have a baby to bathe!"

How to Strike Fear Into Your Husband's Heart

Early on in your relationship, tell him you are fine with him being Mr. Mom if he wants, but you will be a career woman, thankyouverymuch.

Several years later, buy obnoxiously large house so that your mother can move in with you and have enough space to avoid wanting to kill each other. Try not to think about obnoxiously large utility bills that come with said house.

Rack up credit card debit trying to have kiddos.

Finally have a kiddo. Handle putting her in daycare surprisingly well.

Have a smooth first month or so back at work (at least, in terms of adapting to the whole working-mom scenario).

When kiddo comes down with a cold, spend the night sleeping on the floor next to her while she sleeps in the swing, spend the early morning hours cuddling her in the glider after a diaper change.

When it comes time to hand her sweet, smiling, but snorty and sniffly little self over to hubs so that he can take her to daycare (because she doesn't have a fever and you have no vacation days left after maternity leave), look at him and say "I don't want to work anymore."

And, "What kind of house do you think we could buy for $100,000 so that we don't have to have a mortgage anymore and I can stay home with her?" (His answer: "Not one large enough to allow all of us to continue to live together.")

Like I said, how to strike fear in your husband's heart...

Unfortunately, I don't think staying home is going to be realistically feasible for us right now, especially if we want to try for a second kiddo anytime soon. So I have moved on to plan B - get a new, higher paying job that will allow us to sock away more money so that I can stay home at some point in the future. The job hunt officially got underway today when I submitted a resume to a company I'm interested in.

I still want to keep downsizing on the table, but it will be a tough sell with R. Mostly because he just doesn't want to move again, more than a particular attachment to this house or the size of it.

Maybe we can find a compromise - I get my way with downsizing if I give him his way with only having 2 kids instead of the 3 that I was hoping for?

I Just Want You to Know...

I’ve started this post a hundred times in my head, and even a few times on the computer.

I don’t think I’m feeling “survivor’s guilt” exactly. But before Miss A was born, when others would go on to have success, it stung to read about it. While I was happy for them, at the same time it felt a little more lonely in the IF boat. I still know how that feels, and I don’t want to cause anyone any bit of that kind of pain. So I’ve been quiet.

On the flip side, though, so many of you did such an amazing job of holding my hand through the past year, and I want you to know how grateful I am, and how everything is turning out.

I realize I was high strung (to put it mildly) during the pregnancy. I’m sure many of you thought “If she’s like this now, what is she going to be like when the baby is born??” R certainly wondered about that, and so did others who know me offline.

The answer, it turns out, is “surprisingly normal”. As I mentioned in the post about Miss A’s birth, once she came out, I let out the breath I had been holding for 9 months. She is here. I am a mom to a living baby. This is what I’d hoped for, and it’s even better than I could have imagined it.

Several of my friends have commented that I’m much more laid back than they expected. Sure, I checked on her frequently when she was first born to make sure she was still breathing. I still do check on her, but now I don’t hold my breath and think “Dear God, please let her still be alive” like I did at first. I’m coming to trust more that she’s okay.

And I’m living in the moment. When I was pregnant, I kept worrying about the “what if’s” – what if I got pre-eclampsia? What if I had a placental abruption? What if the baby’s heart just stopped beating while in utero for no obvious reason? What if the lack of movement meant something bad had happened? Etc.

While there are still certainly plenty of things to worry about, for the most part, I don’t. I just want to enjoy her, and I don’t want that to be constantly clouded by worry. And somehow, I can’t explain how, I’m doing that – living in the moment, enjoying every moment with her, and not obsessing over the “what if’s”.

Reading this over, I feel like I’m still not doing a really great job of making it clear how happy I am. So here’s a scene from a morning at the end of last week that I’ll leave you with:

I had just finished feeding Miss A and getting her dressed and ready for day care. A song came on the radio that made me want to dance, so I picked her up and was dancing with her and singing to her. R came out of the bathroom and came over to join us. She was already smiling, and then he started tickling her, and she was laughing a lot, which she has just started to do this month.

So there we were, the three of us dancing around like fools before work. And I realized my cheeks were hurting, literally. It’s because I had such a big smile on my face.

That is my life now – dancing around with R and Miss A, living in the moment, smiling ridiculously large smiles and loving the sound of baby laughter. I am so happy, and so very grateful, and very thankful.

It Goes Without Saying...

...or at least, I thought it did, that even if it's been a couple of hours since baby last ate, it's still probably not wise to hold said baby in the airplane position over a basket of freshly laundered and folded clothes.

Apparently, it needed to be said.

On the bright side, they were R's clothes rather than mine, which I thought was poetic justice. ;-)

You'll Be So Proud of Me

I go back to work tomorrow (boo-hoo), so we began taking Miss A to day care on Thursday in order to ease me into it.

We started with just 4 hours on that day, and I handled it with a relatively small amount of tears. We left her there for 6 hours on Friday and 8 yesterday, with no tears at all from me. (See, I told you you'd be proud of me! :-) ).

Overall, I know it's a good thing for her. They have many more toys and activities for her than we do at home. Plus, the center where we're taking her is a day care center at an organization that works with people who have developmental disabilities, so they have early intervention specialists on site to do evaluations if the need should arise.

(We don't have any reason to think there's an issue with her, and most of the children in the center do not have disabilities. We wound up going there because several years ago when two of my friends had their kids in a day care center at the company my husband worked for, when the company offshored the jobs, they closed the day care center. The employees at that day care center recommended this one, and my friends ended up loving it even more than they loved the day care that closed. Plus, it's on the way to work for R, less than a mile from his office.)

Our grand plan is for me to get up early and work East Coast hours (3 hours ahead of me) since that's where my boss is. R and Miss A will sleep for about 2 hours longer than me, and then I'll take a break to nurse her when she gets up. Then R will drop her off at day care around 7:30, I'll pump 2-3 times a day while eating snacks/lunch, and then I'll pick her up between 2:30-3:30, depending on if there are any errands I need to do before I go get her.

Of course, that is a plan based on a house of cards - if the timing of one thing collapses, it all kind of collapses around us.

We've been practicing since Thursday. So far, we have not managed to get out of the house before 8 a.m., and since the plan is to have R and Miss A be at the day care between 7:30-7:45, clearly we have some work to do.

We'll see how all of this goes. I'm a little bit nervous about it, which I know is understandable. And thankfully I have a very flexible boss, and the ability to work from home most days, which helps a lot.

I just wish we had a money tree so that I could stay home with her. I hinted to R about that in some text messages a couple of weeks ago, with no luck. The reality is that in order to even start to make that feasible, we would need to downsize into a much smaller house (probably not a good idea, since a generous amount of square footage is what keeps me and my mom from teenage-girl-style cat fights) and not have any more major medical expenses (i.e. no attempts at a sibiling).

I'd like to try for a sibiling for Miss A in about a year, and R and my mom keep saying that if I want to sell the house, the buyer gets them included as part of the deal because they're not moving. And now that Miss A is here, they're outvoting me in saying that she would stay with the house too, so I guess there are no moving boxes in my immediate future... :-)

Trying to Reason With an Infant

I'm trying to reason with Miss A. It is not working.

Rejection is not fun for anyone, I get that. But some people cope with it better than others. People who have Borderline Personality Disorder tend not to be among those who cope well with it.

Out of all the people who Miss A encounters, guess who she seems to have developed an aversion to?

Yep, my mother.

Those of you who have been reading for a while know that this is not a good thing. To her credit, she seems to be coping with it better than I would have expected. (Keeping in mind that "better than I would have expected" and "well" are still two very different things.)

I don't know what the problem is.

I've been trying to give Miss A to her to hold at least once a day so that they can have some bonding time. It had been going fine, until two or three weeks ago. Then, suddenly, the rejection began.

I would feed Miss A and change her, then play with her for a little while. When she started to get sleepy, I would take her to my mom.

It goes well for about the first 15-20 seconds. Then, whether I walk away or stay there, the screaming begins. My mom gently bounces her and pats her, to no avail. So then my mom starts to say "no, no, no" increasingly loudly, which only serves to have them see who can increase the volume more. Then my mom starts to mimic Miss A's cries, apparently out of some false belief that that will soothe her, which of course has just the opposite effect.

After a few minutes, my mom concedes, and I pick up Miss A. The crying stops immediately. I calm her down, gently place her back in my mom's arms, and the crying and screaming resumes. Same thing if R takes her from my mom instead of me.

Like I said, so far, my mother is handling it better than expected. But she already has a bit of resentment/jealously that Miss A stops crying for us, and that resentment/jealously is only likely to grow. Plus, she is getting frustrated and hurt at Miss A for rejecting her.

She is trying to comfort herself by pointing out that when I was a baby, I would cry if anyone other than my mom held me.

Either she hasn't noticed or isn't allowing herself to acknowledge that Miss A does not do this with either of R's parents. In fact, whenever we see R's parents, Miss A lays in R's dad's arm, and the two of them usually take a nap together like that for a couple of hours. Last weekend, R's mom was holding Miss A while sitting on the couch, and R's dad was sitting next to them. He was holding his hand up so that Miss A could hold his finger, and the two of them fell asleep like that - it was so cute!

I keep trying to explain to Miss A that the phrase "If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" has nothing on the phrase "If grandma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy".

I can't figure out what is causing Miss A to be unhappy when my mom holds her, or how to fix it. Any ideas??

Back Home With Miss A

Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers. Overall, the last two days went better than I could have hoped for, except for the outcome of the procedure, which looks like it helped but not as much as expected.

It was good that I didn't chicken out and postpone it, because the situation was just a little bit more advanced than we thought based on the ultrasounds.

I held myself together better than I thought I would on Thursday. The only point at which I fell apart was after I had to hand her over to the cardiac cath nurse. She literally said "I promise" to me three times - "I promise she'll do great," "I promise we'll bring her back to you better than new in a couple of hours", etc. I'm sure the hospital's attorneys would have been hyperventilating if they knew she was using that word, but it helped.

The procedure went a little bit faster than expected. I was in a consult room, not quite done pumping, when R called my cell to tell me it was done and everything went well.

The cardiologist was expecting the pressure on the right side of her heart to be somewhat lower than on the left. Normally, the pressure on the right side is significantly lower than on the left. If it becomes higher than the left, then damage to the heart muscle begins to occur.

When they got in there, they found that the pressure was exactly equal on both sides. So if we had postponed even for just a month, it's very possible the pressure would have been higher on the right than the left at that point.

They also found that the heart muscle had started to thicken ever so slightly just below the pulmonary valve, which technically is damage and is another indicator that now was the best time to do this procedure. The cardiologist said because the thickening is so minor and she's so young, it's likely that it will resolve itself as she grows.

The peak pressure on her right side was at 45 when they started the procedure. After they inserted the balloon to separate the partially fused valve flaps, the pressure dropped to 15. Anything between 1-25 is considered mild, 26 to 75 (I think) is moderate, and anything above that is severe. The cardiologist said he's hopeful the pressure will drop even lower in the next few weeks.

However, she had another ultrasound yesterday morning, and it showed a peak pressure of 27. So it was still a significant improvement, and the nurse practitioner who came in to speak with us about it said that she wouldn't have even needed the procedure if her original peak pressure was 27.

But it's still technically in the moderate range, and since it didn't improve as much as expected, she said it's possible Miss A might need the procedure again at some point, but likely not for several years if at all. We knew that pressures are lower when the patient is under anesthesia, but we didn't expect the number to come back that high.

We have a follow-up appointment in a couple of weeks, so we'll see what the numbers look like then and what the cardiologist thinks.

Miss A was quite the trooper. For the most part, she was her usual happy, smiley self. The only things she didn't like were getting the IV put in (I'm assuming, since they did that in the cath lab and I wasn't there for it, but they told us that had to be done before putting her under anesthesia), getting the IV taken out (because of the tape that had to be pulled off of her delicate skin), and the blood pressure cuff.

They had the cuff on her arm until around 2 a.m., when they were able to take the pressure dressing off her leg where they had inserted the catheter. None of us got much sleep until then, because it would inflate, which startled her, which caused her to start flailing her arms, which caused her swaddle to become undone, which made her cold, which caused her to start kicking her legs, which disrupted the ability of the oxygen monitor on her toe to monitor her oxygen levels, which caused the machine's alarm to start going off, which caused her to cry even harder than she was already crying because of the cuff and being cold.

So R and I were jumping up literally every 20 minutes to try to soothe her and keep her covered as best we could. We use the velcro swaddle wraps at home (I'm not a very good blanket swaddler), and we had brought one with us, but because of all the wires hooked up to her for monitoring, we couldn't use it.

Once the nurse was able to move the cuff to her leg around 2 a.m., she didn't seem to mind it so much, and we got a 3-hour and then a 4-hour stretch of sleep.

Now we're taking it easy hanging out at home for the weekend. She usually wants to eat about every 3 hours, but now she seems to want to eat on a 2- or 2 1/2-hour schedule. I think her little body is trying to make up for the calories it missed on Wednesday and Thursday. So I'm back to not getting anything done between feedings other than a quick bathroom break or grabbing a snack, but I'm sure she'll return to a more normal routine in a few days. I'm just so thankful and relieved that she's doing well - that matters much, much more than me getting stuff done...

Relief

It went well. She's in her room now. I'll post more details when I get my laptop set up. If I'm not able to do that tonight, I'll post tomorrow. Thanks so much for all the thoughts and prayers - they really helped us get through today.