Milestonepalooza

Wow, people, what a weekend. My husband was out of town from Weds. until midnight last night, and So.ren came down with a fever yesterday. Much angst and medicating occurred; little napping, eating, or felicity took place. Doctors were called, etc. I woke up throughout the night and probably slept three hours total in 45-minute chunks. Good times.

Today, So.ren wasn't 100%, and the snot in his nose was keeping him from drinking very well, but he was better. Still, we had a few stretches of inconsolable crying that I totally remember well from my own days as a sick child. But late in the day, after another shot of ibupr.ofen, he was exhibiting good cheer. And, in the course of about three minutes, several advances were made in the baby universe.

Before I describe them, let me say that So.ren so far has not done anything early except smile and laugh. He's behind on pretty much everything else except grabbing, which he must be an expert at. Now, I think he's pretty awesome, but I do have those moments when I run into another kid his age (or younger) who can do shit like say, "Da" back to you when you say it, and I think, "Hey, So.ren - check that out, yo!" So.ren will say things like that but then just stare at you when you reply. And he's not crawling or pulling up or doing the electric slide or anything. So I was beginning to accept the fact that he would go far in life, but only because he's one of those people who charms you by laughing at whatever you say. God, I love those people.

Well, tonight, he pulled several things together. First, he intentionally began stacking his Me.lissa & Dou.g rainbow stacker, which claims it's 18 months and up. He didn't stack things in the right order, but it was well done. He also put a toy into the mailbox of the Learn.ing Ho.me he got because Statia's son likes it, and I felt that copying her would be a good call. He then tried to put the cap onto his bottle. Next, he successfully got from his stomach to a seated position for the first time. Finally, he crawled backwards a little bit.

I think maybe he was putting on a show for me since I'm leaving tomorrow for a week. Rainy, cold California awaits me. I will miss that little genius.

Homecoming

So I had my appointment at the RE on Thursday. A few things had changed. First, they'd moved the clinic, along with the regular OB clinic and the specialty clinics (where they treat your gynecologic cancer and/or repair your hoo-ha after childbirth), to a fancy new wing of the already-sprawling hospital. The downside to this merger and relocation is that everyone checks in at the same place, so the infertile are subjected to seeing the heavily pregnant, which didn't happen in the old place, which was on an entirely different floor from the regular clinic. Once you check in, though, you are sent to a different waiting room, which is clearly the infertile ghetto. That said, I actually felt HAPPY to go in there. What the fuck? I was glad to pass the teeming fertile masses in waiting rooms 1 and 2 and step into the warm confines of waiting room 3, where no one was pregnant but everyone had that look on their face that said they were ready for some gallows humor. Or maybe I was projecting. One other change I noticed was that the Go.lden Girls was not playing on the television. Instead, it was on ABC Fa.mily or some such nonsense. I kind of missed Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia, et al.

I was greeted by a nurse I recognized from the old clinic as being a half-wit. Not promising. She said I'd meet with one of the staff doctors that day, either the head of the department or the RE who was pregnant when I had my FET. In the meantime, I saw a physician's assistant who took my history, listened to my well-thought-out requests, and tried to say that she'd bring this up at their weekly meeting. When I insisted upon seeing one of the staff REs, I could tell she was insulted. Well, maybe she should go get her MD and not have to deal with the elitist prejudices of people like me. Really, she seemed quite knowledgeable, but if I am going to schlep my ass into the RE's office, I want to see someone who makes more money than I do.

So the formerly pregnant RE came in, and I will say this about her: she looked very, very tired. I took some solace in that. It then turned out that she is PREGNANT AGAIN and due in early April. And, um, I couldn't tell. Like, I wouldn't have known she was, like, seven months' pregnant, except that she was saying she'd be on maternity leave beginning at the start of April or even earlier. She's tall. Anyway, the deal is that it's pretty easy to schedule an FET, so I just need to decide when to do it. This means I either need to pull the trigger and do one soon or wait until she comes back from leave (since she's the one with the magic ET touch on my crazy cervix). As an aside, I thought it was interesting that they let you schedule ET with a particular RE, because they never let you schedule anything with a particular one otherwise - you just get whoever is on duty that day. But she acknowledged that there might be something voodooish about ET, and they were willing to indulge that.

If I aim for an FET right when she gets back in June, however, and if the damned thing worked, then I would miss my 15th college reunion. I don't want to do that, so I might push it out a bit. But I realize that these sorts of attempts at managing my fate are destined to end poorly, and then I will wish I had just jumped back on the IVF train so that I could be plunging back into fresh cycles or moving onto adoption or buying a my fake baby. So we will see.

On Monday, I am going out of town for an entire week. It is really too painful to imagine being away from So.ren for so long. But the stars aligned, and it makes sense for me to combine a couple of intended trips into one long one.

Finally, in case you're dying to know, my sleep has improved over time a great deal. I still wake up frequently, but I'm pretty good at getting back to sleep now, even if I wake up within an hour before my alarm goes off. Phew!

Tough times

Please drop by Mary Ellen's blog and send your support to her. After all she and Steve have been through, this sort of thing should not be happening.

Beth is back blogging again, which is great, but it sounds as if she has had a really rough go of it since enduring both infertility and hideous HG, which has had lasting effects.

Thank you, I'll be oversharing here all week.

I was in New York late last week for work. While I was there, I met up with two former colleagues, one of whom was later (ie, after that job, not later that night) my boyfriend. Of all of my boyfriends, this was definitely my biggest heartbreak. We sort of keep in touch - like we email maybe once a year and occasionally see each other at a mutual friend's event or similar. Although my romantic feelings for him dissipated eons ago, I have generally still felt a need to be on my best behavior in front of him, by which I mean I have felt the need to be clever, witty, well-read, confident, up to date on current events, nicely dressed, smokin' hot, young-looking, wise beyond my years, and also perfect. Ever felt that way? Anyway, I give you this as context for what follows.

At one point during our gathering, the other former colleague excused himself to the bathroom. Somehow, in the three minutes this guy was gone, the following conversation ensued. I think it may have been when we were talking about mutual friends and how many kids they'd had.

Ex-BF: You know, I know a couple of people who had problems getting pregnant and then they adopted and got pregnant.
Me: There's no scientific evidence for that.
Ex-BF: No, really, I know two people it happened to.
Me: [possibly spewing wine while speaking] Really, it's just anecdotal evidence.
Ex-BF: [looks at me with odd expression]
Me: [speaking at triple normal speed and twice normal volume] I don't know if you know this, but we had to do IVF, and this is one of the most annoying things people can possibly say to you! That and "just adopt!" There's no "just" in adopting! It's very complicated! And, I mean, people who aren't infertile are also making a choice, and they never have to justify it to everyone else!
Ex-BF: Um. [stares at margarita glass]
Me: Oh, uh, sorry.
[Other friend returns. Conversation resumes more socially acceptable trajectory.]

I'm sure my ex-boyfriend probably felt compelled to discuss this with our other friend later, however. So much for that good impression I hoped to leave.

In other news, I made an appointment for next week at the RE clinic. First, my endometriosis seems to be back since I spend about 15 days a month feeling as if a mace is rotating in my pelvis. This pain is only alleviated by booze, and, you know, that sort of coping mechanism doesn't usually end well.

Second, given my advanced maternal age, I am going to see about the game plan for number two, if such an inquiry is not so hubristic as to be shot down by the gods just for having verbalized it. I am going to go in with my suggested plan and see if the doctors acknowledge my genius and sign off on it.

We have seven frozen embryos. I bet one is good. My suggested plan is based on two assumptions: (1) I'm not fucking around with anything except blastocysts, and (2) I only want to transfer one embryo. So I am going to recommend trying one FET cycle in the spring in which we thaw and culture four embryos. If none makes it to blastocyst, too bad. Okay, maybe I'd transfer a morula, but otherwise we'd do another FET cycle and thaw the remaining three. If that fails, we will reassess, though I am not crazy about doing another fresh cycle, even though I think I still have some insurance coverage and I do think fondly about that twilight anesthesia you get during retrieval. I am also curious about doing a natural FET cycle but will probably be convinced to do a medicated one since it worked before.

Any cycle must take place after February 26, when I have a baseline mammogram scheduled. Now, do I feel ready to possibly have another kid? Not at all! But I'm old and time is of the essence, and I'm kind of a get-it-over-with type of person. Besides, success is far from assured, so there's not any point in ruminating on those kinds of what-ifs.

No babies were bronzed in the making of this photo

Did that get your attention? It's part of our holiday card photo montage for this year. Those of you who know us IRL will be getting the full package, but the rest of you can just chuckle away at this shot. No, we didn't turn the machine on (even though that baby sure could use a base tan). Yes, we do exploit our child to make ourselves seem hilarious.

Here's a slightly different angle. I inadvertently uploaded this one at first, and now Blogger won't let me delete it, because Blogger is full of as.shole necrophil.iac child pornog.raphers who cut in line and also telemarket.

Contrasts

Here's a photo of So.ren's second time in the water at the hotel in Mexico. The first time didn't go that poorly, but the second time upset him for some reason. I suppose this is similar to the way in which I tend to find reputedly unpleasant things "not bad at all" the first time I do them, and then I grow to dread them more and more as time wears on until I break out into convulsions at the mere thought of them (examples: Pa.p smears, PIO shots).

Our trip to Cabo for the wedding was very enjoyable, although So.ren determined that 5am was an appropriate time to get the day going while on vacation. We did banish him to the bathroom, which was just large enough to hold the pack-n-play but which presented us with some challenges regarding going to the bathroom when he was napping (it wasn't such a big deal in the middle of the night, since he stays asleep better then).

Our trip home was significantly less enjoyable than the trip there. First, So.ren shrieked for approximately 30 minutes on the Cabo-to-Dallas leg, and the women (did I say women? I meant skanky bitches) in front of us muttered something to each other about trying a pacifier since it "helps the ears," which I had been doing for about 20 of those 30 minutes. It was a good thing I didn't hear them (only my husband did), or I might have remarked that diet and exercise were good ways to lose weight, YOU HIDEOUS BAGS OF FLESH WITH UGLY PANTS ON. Not only am I saintly, I am also mature.

Anyway, the second less-than-enjoyable point of our return trip was that getting through immigration, customs, and security in Dallas took nearly two hours. That three-hour layover suddenly seemed rather tight. We did successfully get on our next flight, and So.ren successfully passed out as soon as we were in motion, and we successfully made it through some rather bumpy parts of the flight with lightning in the distance (I hate flying at night and in bad weather), and soon we successfully landed in the Midwest, where the temperature was...wait for it...70 degrees COLDER than it had been when we left Mexico.

But at least we made it in. Things took a turn for the worse around here yesterday, when an ice storm knocked out our power. I will say that it is really beautiful around here, particularly when viewed from inside.

Gastrointestinal update

After a week had passed and no one else in my house had fallen ill, I permitted myself to think, "Hey, no one else has gotten sick!" Sensing my hubris, the universe then proceeded to make the following people fall ill in short order: my son, my husband, both babysitters, and a friend's toddler daughter. Wow, nice work, universe!

I even took So.ren to the ER on Sunday since he projectile-vomited and seemed listless. They said he wasn't dehydrated but that I was not entirely insane for bringing him in, which I appreciated because although it was probably not true (ie, I am entirely insane), it demonstrated good bedside manner on the part of the young resident.

Since we're leaving for Mexico tomorrow, I was a bit concerned for several reasons. First, because of So.ren's health, naturally, but also because what would we do if we couldn't go to this wedding?!? The bride and groom met at our wedding, for god's sake! We have to be there! Which they may not appreciate when they both get So.ren's GI bug and spend the ceremony puking!

In any case, he seems recovered now. All of the adults recovered quickly. So.ren had his six-month checkup (a couple of weeks late) yesterday, and he clocked in at the 97th percentile for height, 95th for head circumference, and 60th for weight. That last measurement might have been artificially low due to his puking and pooping and lack of appetite. Hey, he can be a wrestler someday!

Anyway, I hope we all make it to and from Mexico in good condition. So.ren has a 29-inch bag packed full of stuff just for him since we are bringing literally every single thing he will need aside from bottled water to make his formula. I hope you are all doing well!

Barfo-rama

Sorry for the lack of posting (not that you were refreshing madly hoping for a new post of pedestrian observations and trite assvice), but I was stricken by some sort of stomach ailment this week. I'm hoping it was food poisoning and not something that So.ren will get, but that may be too much to wish for. I did see a friend in Chicago who had recently had some sort of bug (though she was over it by that point), although if that's what I got, it had a four-day incubation period, which seems rather long. Anyway, fortunately this occurred while my family was in town for Thanksgiving, so they dealt with the baby and the entire Thanksgiving meal. Sweet! On the upside, I weighed myself and found that I was five pounds below my normal weight. Most of this is likely to be lost muscle, but whatever - we're going to a wedding in Mexico in a couple of weeks, so any weight loss is good weight loss.

I hope you are all having excellent Thanksgiving holidays, unless you're Canadian, in which case I hope you already had a good Thanksgiving holiday a month ago or whenever it was.

Six months

So.ren turned six months old yesterday. All I can say about that is: holy shit. One of my friends had told me that the reason everyone says kids get really fun at six months is because that's when they truly start to have a personality, and I think that must be true. Sore.n has lots of personality now, as well as lots of drool (pictured).

Tomorrow, I'm heading to Chicago for work, and then I'm going from there to NYC for the weekend, since I have a meeting there on Monday. That's four days without my little fellow. I'll miss him, but I'm interested to see whether my change of venue(s) results in any insomnia improvement. I had acupuncture done yesterday and then had a pretty good night of sleep last night, but it's too soon for me to claim any causality there.

Our families will be here next week for Thanksgiving. I haven't given any thought to the meal. I did make So.ren a bunch of pureed sweet potatoes, so I suppose I could defrost ice-cube-sized portions for our guests if needed.

I sleep on the couch now.

That pretty much sums it up: my sleep has improved, but it takes place on the couch. Last night, I successfully went back to sleep three times, including after the problematic 5am wakeup. I would have slept until 7, had my husband not startled me awake by coming downstairs to get his laptop. Maybe someday I'll work my way back into the bed. I did take a nap there yesterday, even though I'm not technically supposed to be napping. Oh, but did it feel good!

The psychiatrist I'd been seeing to keep an eye out for PPD gave me a prescription for At.ivan to help me go to sleep if I really freak out. I'm trying not to take it, though. I don't want to get into a situation where I can't sleep unless I have drugs - that will just require more (and more painful) reconditioning later on.

Now, a PSA interlude: This weekend, I took an official adult/child/infant CPR and first aid course. I'm done with the written tests and am about to go get tested in person on my skills. (This is a "blended learning" option you can do through the Red Cross.) The online component was quite useful and took about three hours. I'll spend one to two hours being tested today. It's really not much of an investment of time to feel much more prepared. Check your local Red Cross's website for details!

Finally, there has been a spate of second-pregnancy announcements among my friends lately, and guess what? They still upset me! Sure, I don't feel as desperate now that I have one really awesome little boy, but I'm still bitter. I think I'm just going to embrace it.

Progress, maybe

So I was really having what must be, like, a bona-fide anxiety episode regarding sleep yesterday. My stomach was in knots; I couldn't eat all day; and right before bedtime I actually PUKED. That has never happened to me before, this puking from anxiety. In the afternoon, I called the sleep expert in tears. She said I should back away from the hardcore reconditioning plan and focus more on relaxation. There happened to be a Yoga for Relaxation class at my gym last night, so I went to that, and then I also listened to some New Agey CDs as I was trying to fall asleep. That was kind of a bust, but I did manage to fall asleep in the guest bed, which I view as a step up from the couch. What's more, I managed to go back to sleep three times after waking up, including after what has tended to be my problem wakeup time each day of 4am or so. I woke up for real around 6, but this seemed lovely. I think I got 7 hours of interrupted sleep. If I weren't riding a tide of sleep deprivation, I'd feel totally normal right now. I don't feel great, but I do feel much better than the past two days. Like, I'm not going to dissolve into tears during the eight back-to-back meetings I have here shortly. That's a relief.

I made an appointment for acupuncture next week, so maybe that'll help my insomnia, too. I haven't seen the acupuncturist since my FET cycle. She'll probably think I'm coming back for more fertility help. Maybe she can throw in some maintenance acupuncture on that front. If there is such a thing.

Our little boy woke up at 6:30 today instead of 6, so that's some progress, too. We let him chatter away in his crib until 7. He's very into "talking" these days. He's still mostly spitting out vowels, but he does seem to be experimenting with some yayayayas and some lalalalas.

Okay, this blows

Night 2 of sleep conditioning looked promising - we stayed up later than usual, and then I was falling asleep while reading. But whenever I turned off the light to go to sleep officially, I would become overwrought with anxiety about sleeping.

So I got up and moved downstairs. Eventually, probably around midnight, I fell asleep on the couch. I then woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep, despite trying more of the reading-until-falling-asleep thing. The anxiety was overwhelming.

So now I feel extremely tired, anxious, and on the verge of sobbing, and I have no appetite. Awesome! Maybe this will just drive me to become so tired that I'll have no choice but to crash out.

So.ren, meanwhile, has woken up at 6 the past two days instead of 7. He lies in bed making noises until we get him. Fuck Daylight Savings Time! Who needs it? It's screwing with everyone in our household at the moment.

Sleep training

No, I'm not referring to the baby - he's been sleep-trained for several months. I'm referring to myself. I've developed conditioned insomnia, according to the woman I saw yesterday in the Orwellian-sounding "cognitive rehabilitation" clinic at the local university hospital. Essentially, I got used to waking up in the early morning. When So.ren stopped waking up, I still woke up at 4 or 5 every day. This stressed me out, which then guaranteed I'd keep waking up at that time. This, in turn, stressed me out more, which began to affect my ability to go to sleep. In short, the bed became a place of stress. That's what she said, and it seems right to me.

So now I'm on a kind of brutal re-conditioning process. I have to restrict my sleep now in the hopes of increasing my "sleep efficiency" - ie, the amount of time I'm asleep while I'm in bed. I am also supposed to get out of bed every time I can't fall asleep or return to sleep within 15 minutes. Last night, this meant I got up nine times and changed venues a few times when I did get sleepy enough to try to sleep. I ended up getting about four or five hours on the couch. I am tired, but I suppose it's not any worse than what I was doing anyway. I am to continue this for as long as it takes, which should be two to three weeks. It's really not any fun, but if I could make it through 20+ weeks of feeling like crap with HG, and nearly 18 weeks of breastfeeding travails, surely I can do this. Right? Eh. We'll see.

Luckily, this weekend and next week, we'll have houseguests who are night owls. This supposedly will be good for me - ie, I can just stay awake until I'm so sleepy I can't keep my eyes open, and then I'll go to bed. We'll see.

In other news, I am very excited about the recent BFPs, but I don't want to jinx them. You know who you are.

We have mobility

So.ren was a bit behind in the whole rolling-over game, but, boy, did it come together for him this weekend. He can now speedily roll across an entire room, grasp a tangle of electrical cords, and shove them into his mouth before you can finish reading that one little email you wanted to check. I thought childproofing began when your kid crawled, but now it appears it should have been completed three days ago.

TEETH!

As Jane requested, here's a photo of Sore.n's teeth. Although I claimed there was a third one peeking out, now I'm not so sure. It may just be a whitehead of the gums. I realize there's probably no such thing, but that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. The front bottom two are growing daily, however. Take a look!

In other news, my AF returned this week. I felt some vague cramping (luckily, not (yet) the kind of intestine-ripping endometriosis cramps that I'd grown to know and love since they gave me some insight into how one might feel if one were shiv-ed in the prison cafeteria), but otherwise it was a complete surprise. This now means I need to think about whether to go on any sort of BCP in the (likely vain) hopes of controlling the endometriosis. We also need to think about when we want to try to produce baby numero dos, if such a thing is even in the cards. We'll see.

And now, a question: what are your children's favorite books? Right now, Sore.n appreciates most books equally since he views them as teethers, but my personal favorites are There's a Wocket in My Pocket, But Not the Hippopotamus, Goodnight Moon, and these two really nifty books.

Bad Mommy Story

I planned to be all clever and take some photos to illustrate this story, but I tempted fate with my last post and have ended up with a bitch of a cold (which involves coughing for hours each night until finally falling into an uneasy sleep on the couch at 4am), so you'll get the text-only version.

So, a couple of days before we left for California, I was on my daily afternoon stroll with So.ren and our dog. We rarely vary our route, which takes us through our pleasant, leafy neighborhood of bungalows and other houses of the small-town wooden variety (why, no, I'm not an architect; how did you guess?). I tell you this because it makes the events that transpired all the more inexplicable.

So.ren rides along in his car seat, which I snap into a stroller frame. The frame, as you may be aware, allows the car seat to clip onto a bar, and then the frame itself has these little tabs that you pull in over the car seat to keep it from coming dislodged in the front. I always check both parts before we head out, and I had done so that day, though I've noticed that sometimes the tabs get jostled on the walk and aren't really doing their job, so maybe that had happened here.

We were cruising along at a fairly rapid pace, which is how I like it, when the stroller contraption hit a piece of uneven pavement. It stopped; the dog and I kept going. I smacked right into the stroller, overturning it. But wait - it gets worse. When the edge of the car seat hit the pavement, it came detached from the stroller frame, and landed UPSIDE DOWN on the sidewalk. I wiped out beside it.

Now, luckily, I had strapped the crap out of So.ren into the car seat, which I don't always do on walks. So he was just hanging in there upside down, looking perplexed, but no part of him hit the sidewalk. (I had the handle in the proper roll-bar position, too.) Approximately 10 people witnessed this event, and came to inquire as to whether we were injured or just stupid (that last part was implied). Fortunately, we were okay - Sore.n didn't even cry - but visions of how badly this could have gone have populated my brain ever since. Poor little boy! I had two shins full of gnarly bruises, which meant I then had to explain how I'd gotten them to anyone who saw my legs, which I suppose was a form of penance.

That little boy is pretty stoic, I have to say. He weathered that well, along with, this week, a cold and THREE TEETH. We didn't even know they had come in - sure, he drools a lot, but he's been doing that for a while, and he wasn't abnormally cranky. He obviously doesn't get his equanimity from either of his parents.

Introduction to flying

Last week, we went to my husband's 15th college reunion in California. This was So.ren's first plane trip, and, boy, did he get an introduction to flying in the modern era. Our scheduled routing was through O'Hare to SFO, but despite the fine weather everywhere we were to be flying through or over or vaguely near, things did not go as planned. How naive we were when we saw the words "on time" listed next to our outbound flight! How gullible!

When we got to the gate at our local airport, the flight time had suddenly moved back by an hour. Fine, we thought - we can still make our connection. But then I called United, and they told me it would actually be even later than that, thus making it less likely that we would make our connection, which "might be delayed, but might not be." So I ingeniously rerouted us via Denver, since that flight was on time and, FYI, Denver is closer to SFO than Chicago. By this point, we'd be in the airport for four hours. Our local airport is small, which is usually nice since it makes check-in, etc., much easier, but when you're trying to amuse a fidgety baby, O'Hare starts to look a lot more appealing.

So we got on the Denver flight. Problem #1: we were assigned seats behind the exit row, which is apparently not allowed when you have an infant in a car seat. So after some adept three-way trading, we ended up in approved seating. That's when problem #2 arose: of all of the seats on the plane, the only one with an issue was the one So.ren and his car seat were supposed to be strapped into. The seatbelt had somehow become wedged between the seat and the wall, and this required the captain and another passenger to engage in some major contortions to unhook it, a process that took approximately 20 minutes while every single person on the plane stared at us (or so I assumed) while So.ren wailed in his car seat in the aisle until I rocked it for about three seconds and he passed out cold. Once he was in the seat, the flight had been delayed about 20-25 minutes. But So.ren had a good time (pictured). We thought everything was going well when we got to Denver and the flight attendant read out our connecting gate information.

Just to be safe, we checked the gate on the monitors, as advised, and found that our flight to SFO was cancelled. There was one later flight, but since the cancelled flight had been a 777, there were 300+ people trying to get on it and no chance for us. We ended up rerouting to San Jose, but our luggage was still scheduled to go to SFO. Fortunately, an airline employee in the Red Carpet Club (which I spent 55,000 miles to join earlier this year) took up our cause and ended up getting our bags on the correct flight. We did, however, have a Priceline (ie, non-refundable) reservation for a car in SFO, so that was money down the drain. It ended up taking us 13 hours to get to our friends' house in Menlo Park. So.ren behaved admirably, by which I mean he mostly slept on the flights and in the car.

Our return trip was better - everything was more or less on time, though we didn't get home until 1am Monday morning (but that was as planned). I am completely exhausted. So.ren has a cold that he picked up from either our hosts' kids or any of the people of any of the planes, since all appeared to be sick. Oh, well - I guess his immune system is getting a workout. I was sick a ton as a child, but nowadays I'm the only person at home or at work who doesn't seem to catch everything that comes through. I am, however, aware that the fact that I have voiced this aloud means that I will presently come down with consumption.

I have a major Bad Mommy story (with me as the star) to tell you, but I need to take a couple of photographs to illustrate the anecdote properly. Stay tuned...

Two weeks, where did you go?

I meant to post many times over the past two weeks, but because my husband was out of town, it turned out that I had, oh, approximately four seconds to myself during that time. And four seconds is just not enough time to post, even if your posts are as banal and unthought-through as mine are. My mom did visit for the second week, but the help she provides is more of the cooking/cleaning/errand-running variety, with an ongoing monologue and a few compliments thrown in. She isn't exactly chomping at the bit to oversee the childcare routine. She did, however, hold the baby during our first attempts at rice cereal, though the photo I have selected from these adventures is one where my husband is holding the baby. My mother is not that flat-chested, nor does she have ripped pecs.

There are many moms who receive my enduring respect. Moms of multiples. Moms of special-needs kids. Moms with PPD. SAHMs. Full-time WOHMs. But after the last two weeks, my current #1 must be single moms (though I suppose single moms of special-needs multiples may trump). When I was pregnant, I read Anne Lamott's book, Operating Instructions, which is a great thing to read when you're pregnant and not a single mom-to-be, since you can appreciate the honesty of the book while simultaneously thinking, "Well, it won't be that rough for me since I don't have to go it alone." And when you do have to go it alone, it's temporary. I really don't know how people manage. When I was in my late 20s and swingle, I thought that if I ever found myself still unattached at the impossibly old age of, say, 35, I would have a kid on my own. And that might still have been the right thing for me to do, but it sure wouldn't have been as simple as I was envisioning it. To make a long story slightly shorter, I sure was glad when my husband returned late Friday night, though I was quite displeased to find that he was SICK from burning the candle at both ends (and poor hygiene). So I didn't get a break right away, but I did have someone to nag, which was nice. (An aside: our baby nurse told us that she had once worked with a woman who was a single mom of triplets - she and her then-husband had done IVF, and about halfway through the pregnancy, she found out he'd been cheating on her for months, so she ditched him. That man deserves a special place in hell.)

And in other, happier news, congrats to Thalia on the birth of her beautiful daughter. And please be thinking of Hopeful Mother today as she delivers her twins via c-section!

The final tally

Our little boy got four months of breastfeeding. His last breast milk was ingested on Friday - I'd pumped it a couple of days earlier since I was heading out to the family reunion at the ungodly hour of 4:30am. Anyway, four months feels pretty good, even though it was about 80% formula for the last month. The pump and I parted ways more or less amicably. I'm currently enduring a bit of engorgement and possibly a plugged duct, but I'm hoping that'll subside soon. I'd say I don't know what to do with all the time that not-pumping frees up, but it turns out there's a long list of tasks-in-waiting that are prepared to jump in.

Some tasks, however, we just can't get done. Like, the handle on our upstairs toilet is broken. This means that in order to flush, we have to reach into the tank and pull the thingamajig with our bare hands. It looks easy to fix - like you'd just take the handle, arm, and chain into a home store and get the new part. But that's the kind of stuff we just don't have time to do. So I called the handyman. He was out of town. I called again. No call back. I should call again, but at this point it's been two weeks, and now it just seems perfectly normal to flush the toilet by reaching into the tank. It's funny how you can get used to disarray. Our living room seems clean by comparison to how it was at the beginning of So.ren's life, but an impartial, dispassionate eye would undoubtedly report it to the health inspector.

My weekend away from the boys (husband, son, dog) was good. I missed the little fellow, but it sure was nice to have two days of not being on the baby clock at all. In hindsight, however, it would have been an easy trip to take him on - short flights on regional jets (which are mellower to board) with lots of family waiting at our destination. Instead, his first plane trip will be next month, when we fly many hours to go to my husband's college reunion. Anyway, the family reunion was really fun, and I found an old photo of my father that bears a very close resemblance to So.ren. My husband won't admit of the resemblance, however - my father has a cleft chin, and I'm pretty sure So.ren does as well, but my husband dislikes cleft chins.

So.ren had his four-month checkup today. He got more shots, which he found to be unsuited to his preferences. He was 16 lbs and 26.5 inches, which are 75th and 95th percentile, respectively. Tall and thin! Maybe he'll be a runway model! His head was 80th percentile. The pediatrician said we should consider starting solids relatively soon since So.ren occasionally puts back a lot of formula, but I think I am going to hold off for now because he's gone back to eating more modest amounts of food (as would be appropriate for a runway model).

I keep feeling posts a-brewin' about infertility but haven't pulled them together yet. I must do so. My husband, however, is out of town all week for work, so I'm a harried single mother for the moment. I am very anxious about tonight, my first night ever alone with the baby. I hope he'll be a first-rate sleeper and all smiles and sunshine during his awake times and that he'll issue forth tidy BMs smelling of tuberose and gardenia.

Baby at a diner

This past weekend, my husband's father and aunt came to visit. They hadn't met So.ren yet. He was perfectly charming, offering up lots of smiles and the occasional seismic fart. We took him out for meals for the first time (we ate; he didn't) - an outing to a diner (pictured) was successful, while an outing to a more upscale lunch spot was less so, though it wasn't catastrophic.

This coming weekend, I am going solo to a family reunion in South Carolina. I'm nervous and excited all at the same time. It'll be nice not to be thinking about naps and feedings and baby activities all day, but I will miss the little fellow. I hope I can get a couple of good nights of sleep in, too, but I'll probably wake up and be unable to go back to sleep, since that appears to be something I like to do.

I would feel guilty about my weekend away, except that my husband is about to go on TWO multi-day business trips. One is for most of next week, and the other for most of the following week. That'll be a lot of time in charge. Time to eliminate the dream feed!

In other news, So.ren was plugged up for a few days, then pushed forth a dry, hard lump that was reminiscent of the concrete marbles of my Z0fran era. This caused him to wake up crying. The pediatrician told me to give him diluted prune juice, and let's just say this hasn't been a problem since then. Wow!