ramblings: cuteness from the ninja

last night the Ninja repeatedly grabbed my chin and gave me kisses on the mouth so that i wouldn't put her back down for bed. it's hard to be the Tough Parent when she does that! i had to hold her below my chin so that she couldn't distract me with her Kissyface Cuteness. it is so hard to refuse baby smooches! but i didn't want her to derail me from teaching her how to go to sleep. i held firm! and i still got 3 or 4 kisses this morning so all is well.

she slept SIX HOURS in a row last night. first time ever. since we curtailed the bed-sharing (waaaah! i liked having her in my bed!) she sleeps around four hours in a row which i think is pretty good, though. it was weird to wake up with my right boob as solid as stone and realize that she'd blown two hours past her normal feeding. good job, kiddo!

and because i had her in bed early again - i've been moving her bedtime earlier and earlier - she stayed there for 12 hours instead of her regular 10. she felt great when she woke up this morning! and so we went thrifting and i bought a shirt for her christmas outfit.

today she found her hair so she pulled on it like crazy. i was surprised that she didn't fuss that it hurt. she's a tough kid, though. when she gets hurt or feels scared, she looks at my face to gauge my feelings and then she reacts accordingly. usually this means no tears even when she is hurt or afraid. so when, for example, the train runs late at night and awakens her, i turn on the light so she can see that i'm not frightened and then she stops crying immediately. dh is in awe of the effect i have on her. for my part, it feels like a huge and wonderful responsibility: to care for a wee girl's emotional health.

the accepted rule in IF land

infertiles don't have to attend baby showers. that is an accepted rule in IF land. except for the shower i coerced my mom into having for Ninja, i've never been to a baby shower.

but i, a recovering infertile, went to an actual Real Live baby shower today. with presents and ooh'ing and ah'ing and everything. it was for my sister-in-law and my new niece.

surprisingly, it didn't bother me at all to be at a party for a baby, even an 'oops' baby (my bro and SIL found out about her when SIL was already in the second tri - what astonishing luck some people have). i love my niece and so it was all right. so i helped plan the party and everything. i even cut precious pink roses from my mother's day rose bush that DH and the Ninja gave me to use as centrepieces.

and i had Ninja with me - my sparkly girl - to hug. without her, no way would i have gone to any baby shower. without her, i'd be either dead or on the other side of the world right now.

(and Ninja stole the show, anyway. she is full of hilariosity. much to everyone's delight, i kept blowing in Ninja's armpit to elicit her delicious shrieks and giggles.)

sometimes now i feel as though i can rejoin the world.

consult to come

Just heard back from the IVF nurse. She passed my note on to The Miracle RE and he is going to phone me for a "follow up appointment."

I can't believe I'm even considering this so soon. No new mother I know wants to have another baby ASAP. But I do.

convincing DH

OHW: I e-mailed the IVF nurse today.

DH: Oh? How is she doing?

OHW: Don't know - she's away from work but she says she will get back to me ASAP.

DH: She's so nice.

OHW: Yes. Do you want to know what I was asking her?

DH: Mm hm.

OHW: What the FET will involve. (Lists off the questions.) We've done this before but I forget it all and it was at a different clinic, anyway, so this one probably has different protocols.

DH: We said next summer, right?

OHW: Yeah.

DH: Well, I want a January baby. So let's do it in ... April.

OHW: (Laughs.) ("If this even works," she thinks; she knows that DH is acutely aware of the chance of failure.)

DH: Ok?

OHW: Why January?

DH: Because it's cool! That's when my daughter was born. And how many other people do you know who were born in that month? No one. (*Explanation here: it's so friggin' cold during our winters that no one who is able to 'plan' a pregnancy chooses to give birth during January.)

OHW: (Laughs.) Well, summer is good.

DH: No. (Decisively.) April.

OHW: Ok. We'll see how it goes.

frozen dreams

I just e-mailed my IVF nurse back in the Big City to ask about a future FET. Questions ranging from type to timeline to cost.

I must mean business.

DH and I talked about next summer but it wouldn't take much convincing on my part to get him to agree to do it sooner.

How about January/February? Ninja would be a year old. Hmmm...

We are not financially stable yet - although we're certainly not hurting - and this is really the only reason for any sort of delay. Our unemployment insurance and mat leave will end within 6 months and DH's business is still very new. If we had a firm income, I'd start cycling today and I know that DH would be excited about it.

What does the future hold? I hope at least one more baby.

In any case, I am forever grateful for Ninja, my sunshine girl.

milestones

So many milestones in such a short amount of time.

A few days ago, she:
-found her toes and played with them
-recognized her first word ('tickle' - heehee!)
-pulled herself up to sitting (from a semi-reclined position) and held her balance
-tried her first food (avocado)- I had planned to wait until the 6-month mark to introduce solids and we're not there yet but I wanted DH to be around for the big event; I figured that a few weeks' difference wouldn't hurt

And then today, she:
-was introduced to the sippy cup and used it successfully (to down some expressed milk) - HOW ANNOYING that she accepted the cup and not the bottle! I could've tried the sippy much earlier! Silly kid!
-kissed daddy for the first time :) - she sings a bit, then i'm expected to sing back, and then she plants her round mouth on mine. she invented this ritual. DH got it for the first time and he just about melted.

Mother's intuition (is not an old wives' tale): I told DH over the phone last week that it was good he was coming home this weekend because I sensed that Ninja would be doing a lot of new things. Was I ever right, much to my chagrin. She won't be a baby much longer, at this rate.

yesterday's phone conversation

I wonder sometimes if I have some kind of infertility-related post-traumatic stress disorder. That statue I posted yesterday - looking at it very nearly gave me a panic attack. I don't know why I posted it; it hits too close to home.

I'm not the only one in this house who feels this way. DH and I were talking yesterday on the phone. Somehow we very vaguely got onto the topic of faith. Keep in mind that we haven't attended church in over three years.

DH (sullenly): I don't want to talk about that. Not over the phone.

Me (confused): Talk about what?

DH: That.

Me: I don't know what we're talking about.

DH: I'm mad. I know we should take Ninja to Sunday School but for me to sit in a pew ... I'd feel ...

Me: Like a hypocrite.

DH: Yes. (Pause.) Why didn't God want us to have her? Why did it have to take so long?

Me: I'm pretty broken up about that, too. I don't know what to think.

DH: When my sister (who happens to be a deacon's wife) says that Ninja is a miracle, I want to say "no, we paid the doctor to make her."

Me: All I know is that she's here, so to me it is a kind of miracle.

DH: Yeah.

Me: I guess, though I'm not cool with how long it took, I'm coming to see - very grudgingly - that if we'd had Ninja when we first wanted her, we would never have had the patience required to parent her. You know how we are. Now we're old enough and wise enough to have the patience. She is the perfect kid for us, stretching us in the ways we need to be challenged.

DH: Yeah.

Me: And if we'd had a kid when we first wanted to, we would not have Ninja. We'd have a different kid.

(Quiet.)

Me: That's just the way I am trying to think about it.

DH: I don't want to talk about this over the phone.

Me: Ok.

more infertility art...

I saw this piece on a midwife's web site. I felt shattered when I saw it.



Part of the artist's statement reads: "I am truly sorry if you connect with this piece."

What else can one say? There are no words because there is nothing to contain them.

if we were fortunate enough to be gifted with another baby

As soon as Ninja was born, I craved another baby. I missed being pregnant - the experience of new life has been awe-inspiring - and I wanted another newborn right away.

This enthusiasm has been tempered a bit. Well, not tempered. Reality just set in, I guess. DH is gone almost all the time; I don't want him to miss out on another child's life (if we were fortunate enough to be gifted with another baby). And Ninja is a demanding baby. I love her more than I can describe but she is a very sensitive and highly-strung kid. I wouldn't change anything about her but I don't know how I could spread myself around if I had another baby so soon (again, if we were fortunate enough to be gifted with another baby).

But, if DH were fertile, I'd still try to get pregnant again right away. I love being a mother. Now I'm more jealous than ever of fertiles.

Since the day Ninja was born, DH and I have talked about attempting another pregnancy. We'd have to fly 2000 km, back to our RE's office, to do this. We have four blasts in storage (that seems like a callous way to describe the situation!). Again, we'd go through the dreaded 2ww. It would be better this time, of course, because every time I'd get frantic (which would be all the time), I'd hug Ninja. But I still don't welcome the experience (although I'm massively grateful, of course, to have the chance to try again).

DH and I have agreed loosely that next summer would be a good time. Maybe I'll land a job when Ninja turns a year old so that I can build up enough hours to collect maternity leave again (if we were fortunate enough to be gifted with another baby). If not, I don't know. DH's business is just a fledgling and so we don't know what our financial situation will be lik.

Although I'm undecided, DH is not. Again tonight on the phone he referred to next summer and that I'd be going to the RE. He's brought it up 2 or 3 times in the last month. All with guarded hope in his voice.

This is from the man who claimed, pre-fatherhood, that working away from home - while his newborn slept in my arms - wouldn't bother him. He loves kids but he said that our baby wouldn't need him until he/she was at least age 3.

He was wrong and he realized it right away. The day Ninja was born he was cradling her, reading to her, whispering "precious" in her ear. It kills him to be away from her - this tiny creature who looks so much like him - and he is for weeks at a time. Yesterday he missed Ninja's first tooth and he was sad about it. He told me that he'd make it up to me and her: that when she's a difficult teenager, he'll be there every step of the way. I said, of course, he can't help being away from home! He's making a living and taking care of his girls! But he feels as though he's abandoned us.

I know, if we were fortunate enough to be gifted with another baby, that he'll do his best to start off differently. He's a good man. And now he finally understands the raging baby-lust I've had for years. For all these years I drove the IF wagon while he rode shotgun, admiring the scenery but never making a sound. Now he's the one craving another child (well, I am, too, but he's been more vocal about it). That's been an interesting transition to witness.

I think it's a testament to our characters, though. We love Ninja so much that want to have more babies with each other. That's how great our Ninja is.

work of ... ART?

I was looking through Etsy when I came across this:



The artist describes the installation as follows: "This piece is a visual song which encompasses fertility or infertility, multiple births and the ticking biological clock!"

Don't ask me how I came across this piece: I was busy looking for handmade jewelry!

first tooth!

My baby cut her first tooth overnight.

Happy girl as ever in the morning, she grabbed my hand and stuck it in her mouth, as per usual. Immediately I felt a little razor.

Coincidentally (or perhaps not) she found her voice overnight. All morning she talked as loudly as she could and she looked at me every few minutes to see my reactions. I phoned my mom and she couldn't stop giggling at the goofy background noises her granddaughter was making.

I hope that I'm able to cultivate my daughter's voice so that in her life she can always say what she needs to say. And bite back, when necessary.

It is a bittersweet thing, watching this little girl grow.

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!

on mother's day (belated)

Reflections on the first four days of motherhood

The first four days of motherhood were a dream state.

My birth experience was so very different than what I had envisioned – an emergency hospital cesarean rather than a low-key homebirth – and yet it could hardly have been more perfect. My DH and I were stormed in at the hospital with our brand-new sought-after baby.

Baby was born just after midnight. We stayed up for hours in our private room. Little Ninja – alert and inquisitive – nursed for the first four or five hours. I don’t remember if DH and I talked. It was dark and dreamy. Finally we drowsed and then we awoke to finish the day.

I called my dad and my mom – greeting them by saying, “Hi Grandpa, hi Grandma.” They came later that day to hold their brand-new granddaughter. My mom was beside herself with joy; my dad tried to play it cool but his eyes were excited. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law came later that day. We made a few other phone calls to announce the birth.

The rest of the three days was like a domestic fantasy. It was storming and so most people weren’t able to come and see us. DH and I talked in our room, stared at our daughter, and fell in love with each other all over again. The baby stayed beside me in the bed because the bassinet was a foreign and unwelcome object. I couldn’t sleep because she was so perfect.

DH was wonderful with the baby and me. He helped us breastfeed, he brought me food and water, he made tea, he ensured that the baby was safe and warm, he questioned the doctors and nurses when he felt that their care was inappropriate, and so on. He brought us orange tulips. He talked to Ninja: “precious baby, I love you, I miss you, I have big dreams for you.” He read to her, cradled her, whispered to her about her beauty, swaddled her, slept with her. After the first night he went home to sleep and he phoned me to say that he missed the baby and me terribly.

After four days we were discharged from the hospital; we drove home just before another snowstorm hit. We opened the door to our home and we started a new chapter in our lives.

happy conception day, baby girl

one whole year since you began the formation of your body and soul

love you

hi

I'm never on my blog anymore - still don't have internet at home except for the basics on DH's Crackberry - and when I am here, I'm checking up on IF friends. Even if I don't post, I'm there and you're often on my mind. In that spirit, please give some love to Clare who has lost her sought-after baby.