near-disaster

security breach!

some local WAHM businesses are running a huge promotion - lots of giveaways - but you had to 'like' them on FB and then add comments on their blogs.

i was busy admiring their products and entering their contests ... and i did not realize that i was still logged into this blog and that all of my comments were linking to this clandestine tale of infertility woe. i realized after 2 comments that 'one-hit_wonder' was showing up and i hastily beat a retreat, deleting my comments.

hopefully my tracks were erased in time. i know friends and family members were entering the same contest ...

what a way to 'out' myself.

why am i being so secretive about my reproductive history, still? my stunning and talented and funny daughter is finally here and loving it. but there's a topic for another post.

to change the subject, my darling daughter has pretty much learned how to put herself to sleep at night. i am so ridiculously proud of her, you'd think she was valedictorian and Rhodes Scholar, at the very least! it took her 20 minutes to nod off and i only had to comfort her once. other than that, she played until she drifted off. :)

infertility: beginnings and endings

I've talked before about where infertility histories end. I don't think they do ever end. Even though I've turned out not to be infertile - it's my husband who has that dubious honour - and even though I have a gorgeous daughter who ought to make me forget all the pain, my scars remain prominent (although they feel different now because when I hurt I have my Ninja to squeeze). I still ache at pregnancy announcements. I'll never stop wishing that I had a 'normal' conception story - that I woke my husband early one morning with a squeal and a still-damp positive pregnancy test.

But where do our infertility histories start? Does it start when you don't conceive immediately? Or with the passage of an unsuccessful year of trying? Or the first visit to a specialist?

Perhaps I'm asking the wrong questions here. Sorry to get all philosophical here, but the assumption that the story has a beginning and an end is not the way in which stories are seen anymore. Our stories are fragments, whisperings, leaps from here to there. Infertility is no exception; our history with it swirls inward on itself.

Jackie over at Beyond the Brick Wall wrote an interesting post about her infertility history. It's a reminder that, as another poster commented, infertility is "the culmination of a lifetime of experiences that for almost every little girl has revolved around becoming a mommy one day." Please read it.

the power of positive thinking

because, of course, if we just Stay Positive, we'll eventually pee Positive!

so say many fertiles, of course. (you know i don't really believe that nonsense!)

loribeth over at The Road Less Travelled has an interesting post about this line of thought.

tough love parenting

first night of Tough Love parenting went remarkably well.

first time since last summer that i got 8 hours of sleep (not consecutive, but i don't mind that at all).

dh put ninja in a crib (sob sob - she has always slept with me so far) after she nursed for a bit and it took two hours until she fell asleep. i went in at 12:30 to nurse (45 minutes - a full feeding) and then ninja slept straight until 6:30! this is unheard of in our house! then she played for a bit beside me - about half an hour - then nursed herself back to sleep beside me until 9:45.

could this be real?

even if it never happens again, it was a nice reprieve. lol waking up 12 to 20 times/night to nurse was really wearing me down.

i am under dh's strict instructions while he's gone for the next two weeks: no nightlight, no alarm clock light, ninja must spend first part of night in crib (she gets too distracted when i'm beside her), and she may nurse up to (but not exceeding) three times unless she is sick.

the (now pregnant!) wiseguy commented on the last post that ninja seems like a strong personality and that that must not be fun for me. well, ninja is indeed hefty in both body and spirit but i thoroughly adore her the way she is. :) no matter how hard she is, she is mine and i love her the way she is.

ok, jumping right back into blogging

and of course the first real post is about ... drumroll please ... rat a tat tat ... the baby not sleeping.

she does.not.sleep.

at almost five months of age, i still have no idea what her preferences are re: routine. i'm not much for imposing schedules - i wanted to wait and see what her natural rhythms were - but apparently she prefers everything loose and free. this is not okay with me.

typical day: wake up after 10 hours in bed (often less), play with mommy for an hour, nurse for an hour (after fighting mommy for half an hour), play, nurse (after fighting mommy), fight mommy to stay awake, fight mommy to stay awake (repeat this cycle until bedtime), bedtime, nurse, wakey wakey, sleep for 45 minutes, nurse, fight to stay awake, then finally go down for night (waking every 20 minutes to 2 hours to nurse), then morning again.

there are many variations but they all involve too little sleep for the ninja. from what i know, babies at this age are supposed to sleep an average of 14 hours a day. mine sleeps maaaaaybe 11 or 12, minus all the night nursing time. two nights ago, for example, she only finally went to bed at 12 am and then decided at 5:30 that it was time to get up - and in between those two times, she wanted to nurse every 20 minutes.

right now dh and i decided to change things cold turkey. i have tried to make changes but it's difficult when i'm by myself with ninja most of the time, as dh works up north. i have done the best i can do. i try to tank her up during the day so that she will sleep better, both day and night, but ninja doesn't care to nurse when the sun shines. i also tried making her nurse for full sessions at night because she wants to eat for a few minutes every 30-60 minutes but that also didn't work - i was too exhausted dealing with her by myself and she just didn't want to nurse on command.

but, for tonight, dh has her. i nursed her until she - of course - woke herself right up, and now dh has her. i'm not allowed to see ninja until 12:30 a.m. to nurse, then at 4:30, and then at 8:30. she can easily go 5 hours during the day without nursing and so we figured that she should be able to go for 4-hour stretches at night.

i am not asking the popular "when will she sleep through the night?" question. i expect and accept that this will not happen for a long time. i am fine with night-nursing. i am ok with my own sleep deprivation. what i am not okay with is her own absolute fatigue. babies need sleep for many reasons, one of which is proper brain development. she needs sleep. how can i give it to her?

i will try really hard to maintain this plan - imposing a night schedule - but it's so hard with a very demanding baby. i love her to pieces, it's not about that. it's just that i am almost (ALMOST) glad that i couldn't have a baby when i first tried because i would never ever have had the patience to deal with this lovely but high-needs child. i do have the patience now, though. it's tough but we're working on it!

happy news!

I just got my internet hooked up at home - had enough of feeling unconnected to the world - and what was one of the first things I saw? A very welcome pregnancy announcement from the amazing Wiseguy! Yay!

Oh yeah!