Just Call Me Slacker

Just call me "Slacker".  I just looked at my last post and Charlie was almost 4 months old, I was going to post after his 4 month pediatrician appointment and here it is 2 months later!  Sorry!

When I last left you, Charlie wasn't measuring up well enough for the GI doc, I was eliminating egg (in addition to the previously eliminated dairy, soy and crab), and we were thickening his bottle feeds when I was at work.  The following week we had his 4 month pediatrician appointment and go figure, I was right with his weight as luck would have it.  The GI doc's scale needed to be recalibrated.  The boy weighed 17 pounds and was 26.5 inches long which is 88th percentile for weight and 92nd for height.  The child doesn't have any problems with weight gain people!  We've stopped thickening his bottle feeds, and started feeding him baby food.  Eliminating egg has helped, though he still spits up from time to time, sometimes small amounts, sometimes larger, but oh well.  His first food (besides rice cereal) was avocado which he liked fine.  He's also had yellow squash, zucchini, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, and banana.  His favorite of these is banana!  He started the rice cereal on June 3, so about 4.5 months old.  The GI doc would like us to wait at least a week to 10 days between introducing new foods.  We're waiting about a week.  His next new food will be peas this weekend sometime. 

I'm enjoying making his baby food.  I can't believe how many things they put milk in.  I had started off making Jack's baby food as well, but after the first two things, I gave up.  This is better for Charlie because I know that there aren't any big allergens in them, just what I put into it.  I bought the Baby Bullet steaming system and blender and it couldn't be easier. 

Charlie still has his cranky times EVERY DAY.  It doesn't seem to be as bad when I'm around, maybe because I just hook him up and feed him and that works for us, but for Archie and my mom he can really be a handful.  Archie and my mom have both made comments that they think it's me, that he gets upset and wants to be comforted, but I'm not there (not that they don't try to comfort him, but for whatever reason it's a me issue). 

At 5 months old, I had both boys in the pediatricians office for different looking rashes, but was concerned.  I'd had Charlie on avocado for 3 days and he started breaking out on his face in an eczema-like rash which was concerning as this had been Jack's MO with his food allergies.  Turns out avocado is a low-risk food for allergies, so that was good news, he was just reacting to something else or having a flare up.  Jack had pityriasis rosea AGAIN (he had this last summer too).  It's a wierd looking rash that looked kind of like white heads all over his trunk and back-caused by a low load viral infection and clears up on it's own in about 3 weeks and sun seems to help it.  It's pretty much gone now but man are my boys some rashy kids.  Rashes really bother me.  Growing up I had a thing about bumps, they just grossed me out, so you can imagine what it's like when my kids are bumpy and I have to figure out what it is, and how to get rid of it.  Anyway, at that appointment we saw one of the pediatricians we haven't seen in a couple of years (we have one we like to stick with, but for urgent appointments, we'll see any of the 3 that are in the practice).  She was watching Charlie roll back and forth, standing up with assistance, and she asked how old he was, and Jack told her 5 months.  She said if we hadn't told her, based on what she was watching him do and his size, she'd have guessed 7-8 months.  He's a tank!  Charlie weighed 19 pounds at that appointment!  19 pounds, at 5 months old!!!  Seriously?!?!?  I looked back at Jack's baby book and he weighed 19 pounds at 9 months old!!!  He's a beast of a boy! 

Size is just one of the differences between my boys.  Charlie will likely have the height from my side of the family, but be built more like his dad.  Jack will have more of the height from his dad's side, and be built more like our side.  As an infant, Jack was happy to play in his jumper or just be cuddled for an episode of the Backyardigans.  NOT Charlie!  Charlie is entertained by his jumper for all of about 10 minutes maybe?  He doesn't jump, he just has stiff legs and stands which is fine and he does this ALL THE TIME, but I think he'd find it more fun if he'd jump.  I don't know how to make him realize that.  He wants to be held sometimes, but mostly he just wants to stand, or roll from one end of the room to the other.  He's gotten up onto his knees a couple of times, but Lord, I think when he figures out how to crawl that we're in big trouble!  He is going to be an active little boy where Jack really wasn't until about 2 years ago and even then, he still will sit and do things quietly for a while.  Charlie likes to talk or scream VERY loudly, where Jack was more quiet.  He's much more fussy than Jack was.  And has an annoying cry which Jack didn't.  Just as sweet as Jack was, but definitely more of a challenge especially when I have things I need to get done.

I'll have to get it on video to show you guys, but the other comical thing about Charlie would be what calms him down when he's throwing a fit.  By accident really, we found out he likes the song Assassin's Tango from the Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie.  Archie was asking me if one day we could take Tango classes and I told him sure, that sounded fun.  Jack asked him to play some tango music and Charlie was fussing and Archie put that song on and complete silence from Charlie is what we got.  Other tango songs don't have that effect.  The other two things that will make him stop crying we discovered thanks to Jack.  He sings "Little Bunny Foo Foo" or "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister (we watch the Betty White show and that's the song for it) and Charlie stops screaming and just looks at him.  I've found that the Little Bunny song also works for me if I sing it.  Not sure what it is about those songs, but I'm not going to argue with what works either!

Today is Jack's last day of camp for the summer.  He seems to have had fun, and his swimming has improved a ton since last year.  We're looking forward to taking some day trips this summer, going to the pool, and at the end of August, going to the beach! 

I WILL update after Charlie's 6 month appointment next week, and hopefully if I do it from home, I'll be able to post a couple of pictures and maybe a video!

It's Been a While

It's been a while since I posted. No reason really, other than I didn't have much to say. I'm 29 weeks, and getting more uncomfortable (you know, little things like breathing that you take for granted until everything gets pushed up into your diaphragm), but all in all things are going well. I can't believe that come Sunday, I'll be 3/4 of the way through.

My next OB appointment is next Thursday. I have some questions for her, mainly regarding my pelvis and delivery. We had a bad car accident in October of 2007, and I was pinned in the car as a result of the accident, and ended up fracturing my pelvis in 3 places. When I saw her for an annual exam in February of 2008, she told me that she thought I would be able to carry to term which satisfied me at the time, however, because I didn't know if I'd ever be pregnant again, I never brought up delivery. She had made a comment at the time that she thought my pelvis was slightly smaller than it had been before given the fractures I sustained. So my questions mainly revolve around whether I risk reinjuring my pelvis during a normal delivery this time, and depending on the size of the baby at the time of delivery, whether it's worth compromising him. My real concern is that if he is larger than Jack (who was 6 pounds 12 ounces at birth) or just too large in general, I really don't want to risk a shoulder dystocia, his head not being small enough to fit through my pelvis or any other complications for him which could lead to ending up with a c-section after how many hours of labor and trying to push, or a NICU stay because something happened to him during delivery. I know too much as my mom put it the other day, and if I was clueless to what could happen, and what does happen, I probably wouldn't be real worried about it. But the fact of the matter is that I do know. I'm sure my OB loves that, LOL. I am not opposed to a c-section, but I also realize it's major abdominal surgery too. It's still too early to tell a whole lot at this point, so we will just wait and see, but I figure a conversation is at least in order.

We have a 4D ultrasound scheduled for next Friday. I failed to realize that this would be the last Friday before Thanksgiving, and thus, that Jack's preschool would be having their Thanksgiving celebration next Friday. Oops. I really don't want him to miss either thing, I'd feel bad if I made him go to the ultrasound and he could care less and would rather be with his friends at school. So I told him that his Thanksgiving party is at school the same day that we were going to go see Charlie on the tv screen. I explained that he could go to whichever thing he wants to go to, and that if he decides to go to school, I will have them make a video of Charlie so he can see it on our tv screen at home and really won't have missed anything at all. I told him he has until his second day of school next week to decide (so we can let his teachers know if he won't be going to school on Friday). He initially told me he wanted to go to school which was fine. Then today, he heard us talking about my in-laws, my mom, Archie and I all going out to IHOP after the ultrasound, and now he wants in on that deal. No doubt he's thinking about bacon (seriously, the kid LOVES bacon). I told him he has time to decide still, he doesn't have to decide now. I'm looking forward to this ultrasound and finding out how big he is measuring, and how much fluid I have at this point (to see if it's normal).

Speaking of that sweet boy of mine. I have to tell you that the last two weeks have been interesting around our house, well, it's always interesting with him around, but the last two weeks have been more entertaining. That might be the better description. It started two Mondays ago, when Jack came home from school and told me he wanted to change his name. I asked what he wanted to change it to, and he told me he wanted to be called "Bert." Yup, you read that right. I asked him where he got that name from (he was never into Sesame Street), and he told me he didn't know, he just liked it. I said, "Ok Buddy." Then he said, "No Mommy, it's Ok Bert." LOL. I called him Bert the rest of the night and tried to call him Bert the next morning and he informed me that he changed his mind and didn't like being called Bert anymore. Thank goodness! Then a few days later he told me he didn't want to call Charlie "Charlie". I thought he was going to go back to saying that he "hated" that name, but he didn't. He just wanted to know if we could call him Callen instead. I had to giggle, and asked where he'd heard that name. He didn't know, he just liked it. Now, Archie and I watch NCIS: LA, and G. Callen is one of the NCIS agents on that show, and we love him, BUT, we do not let Jack watch that show for obvious reasons. So where he got that name is beyond me, but it's a nice name. I asked Archie if he wanted to consider changing the name, and he said no, we've been calling the baby Charlie for weeks now, so it will stay Charlie.

Then over the weekend, we decided to go out back and play frisbee for a bit before I had to leave for work. Jack was looking at something with me, and turned around only to get nailed by the frisbee that his dad had thrown while no one else was looking. Needless to say, Archie felt awful when blood was flowing from Jack's poor nose. It's not broken luckily, I was almost crying (it doesn't take much these days) with Jack. His nose was swelling and starting to turn colors, so you can imagine the scene with me pinching his nose closed to try and stop the bleeding and with the other hand holding ice on his nose. It must have worked out well though because he didn't bruise up like I expected. After the drama was finished with, we went out back and played frisbee some more. With us throwing the frisbee basically to Jack's feet instead of high enough for him to catch it. We've played several times since, and understandably, he's still a little shy when it's higher than his waist, LOL.

My final story for this post is about this morning. Jack and I woke up, he kissed Chance (our greyhound) and then kissed my tummy. Then he turned, and asked me point blank, "How is Charlie going to get out of your tummy?" I know I hesitated and I probably had a deer in the headlights look to me because then he said, "Is he going to come out of your mouth or your belly button?" I had to giggle because of the innocence of a child, and remembering that as a kid I thought they came out of the belly button, were fed through the mom's belly button, and then for a while remember thinking that they were pooped out. I told him that Charlie wouldn't be coming out either of those ways. He wanted to know then, how was he going to get out? I told him that some mommies have surgery to take the baby out. That the doctor will cut them "here" (showed him where), and pull the baby out, and then they sew the mommy back up and everyone is good to go. Luckily he seemed satisfied with that answer and didn't ask how the other mommies get their babies out. I think my heart was in my throat until I realized that conversation was over. Whew!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

I broke the news this morning to Jack when I got him up for school. Our conversation went like this:

Me: Jack, something sad happened last night.
Jack: What?
Me: Grandmom Ann went to heaven.

silence. I gave him a couple of minutes.

Me: Do you have any questions?
Jack: How did Grandmom Ann die?
Me: Well baby, she died in her sleep.

Then I got to thinking that I should probably clarify so he isn't afraid of going to sleep for fear of dying.

Me: You know, she was really old, and her body wasn't able to keep going. She'd been sick for a long time and her body just gave up. She went peacefully though, no struggling, and Cousin Paula was with her and holding her hand, so she wasn't alone. She was with people who loved her, and she went to heaven where she joined Great Grandpa Bob and God. She doesn't hurt anymore, and she is happy to be in heaven with them.

Silence.

Jack: I want to say something to God.

I'm thinking, uh oh. Ok, brace yourself, he could say anything.

Me: Ok baby, go ahead.
Jack: Dear God, please help Grandmom Ann to stay in love with you forever.

Dear Lord! This child isn't even 5! Needless to say, I was balling like a baby. I told him that Grandmom Ann and God had a very close relationship even when she was here. When she was healthy that she used to go to church everyday (very strict Catholic), prayed everyday, prayed the rosary at least everyday, and that she really loved God. I told her that I was sure she was so happy to be in heaven with him, and to be reunited with Great Grandpa Bob after so long. I guess he could hear that I was crying (the lights were off as we usually have snuggle time when we wake up before we actually get out of bed and get moving). **As an aside, the "in love" part is something we occassionally say at home. I would never have expected that to come out of his mouth where God is concerned. Jack will ask if I'm in love with him, and I always tell him I'm very much in love with him, and he will say he's in love with me, so it's not a lusty type thing (obviously, he's 4, and my child-hello!) when he says it about Grandmom Ann and God, it's just the overwhelming feeling of love we feel for each other. Don't want people getting the wrong impression.**

Jack: Are you crying Mommy?
Me: Yes.

He put his hands up to my face and was feeling around for the tears. Then he gave me a big hug and lots of kisses.

I am so grateful to have this child in my life. He is the best medicine for a sad heart. How could he not make you smile with his sweetness and thoughtfulness?

My dad should be calling me later today when he gets information about arrangements for my grandmother. If this morning is any indication of how my son is handling this, our trip to CT for her services should be interesting.

ICLW March 2011

Happy ICLW!!! If this is your first time stumbling upon my little place in web space, welcome! I'm a 30 year old NICU nurse, and mom to a 4-year-old piece of work! DH is 34. We suffer from MFI, endometriosis, and hydrosalpinx (removed in Nov). Our little boy was the most awesome result of our first cycle. Briefly after IVF #2 we explored adoption (and were getting ready to do our homestudy) until our insurance changed and we were given the gift of another IVF cycle covered by them. If you checked us out last month then you might remember that we were in the middle of IVF #3. The update on that is that we had a BFN (Big Fat Negative) on 3/11. We believe we have enough left in our savings and insurance cap combined to do a FET (frozen embryo transfer) this year. We are moving right into that, and I'm currently on birth control pills to get me ready for this. By next ICLW, I should have had my transfer!

For a little overview of our blog and where to look if you want to know about something specifically, we started the blog with the adoption adventure back in May 2009. Insurance changed July 2010, hydrosalpinx issues and info start around October 2010, and IVF consults start about the same time. I hope some of you will stick around and follow us on our journey to complete our family. :)

I Don't Know

I was frustrated, until I started to think about things more. I've been asked if I'll switch clinics. No, I can't if I want insurance to pay for it, not to mention that our doctor merged with this clinic because it is renowned in the region for being so good at what they do. I just can't seem to wrap my head around this. I asked my doc if he would do anything different, and he's right, you can't argue with how well the cycle itself went, and the fact that for the first time in 3 fresh cycles, we had embryos that made it so far, and some that are frozen. As I was explaining what Dr. M said on the phone yesterday to my mom this morning and I told her that he said that our embryos "weren't ready" to transfer on day 3 or 5, she asked, "What does he mean ready?" Great question. Seriously. I mean, to her I explained away that they weren't at the stage that the clinic wanted them to be at, maybe they have a protocol for where they need to be based on day to be able to transfer them. But really? Before we merged with this clinic, we put back day 3 embryos that weren't great quality... so what in the world did these have to look like to put them back earlier? You can't tell me that people have embryos that are hatching on day 3. I'm so irritated.

And I thought I was over crying until I got into the shower for work and as I was drying off, I found myself in tears because Jack unfortunately had to know that we were trying to give him a sibling, and that I had to explain what happened to the ones we put back. He went to all of my appointments with me for the most part, and Archie told him the day we did our transfer that there were babies in my tummy so that he wouldn't run and jump on me or headbutt me like he does sometimes. So I did it as delicately as I could, but I hope it was enough. He still is asking questions about how they physically got into heaven and unfortunately that's too complicated for even me to explain to him. He's seen me have blood on toilet paper before, and asked why, and he was worried, and my simple explanation was that when mommies don't make babies, we bleed and it's ok, it doesn't hurt and we're ok. I couldn't very well explain that instead of heaven, these babies will just come out with everything else. How morbid would that be? Not to mention, what in the world would the kid think later on in life. So the heaven explanation was better in my opinion, but I wish he didn't have to KNOW how everything works. I swear he'll be an engineer one day.

Jack is going to know the next time too, because when you have to be at your appointments at 7:30am, and you don't get off work until then, and you already have your child with you (my mom watches him at night when Archie and I both work and then we trade off in the morning at work), it's just something you have to do.

I can't say I'm ready to go through all of this emotionally again. But this is the second time, and I feel like I've been handling things better-whether that's because I know we're not "done" since we still have 4 embies on ice, or because unfortunately it's not our first time going through this-I don't know. It sucks for sure. But, I almost feel like if we can just continue this sucky roller coaster ride and keep on going, MAYBE something good will come of it. I feel like if we take a break and wait until next year, I may be even more apprehensive. I don't know. It terrifies me to think that not only will I possibly have to deal with "being done", and "not having any more", but I'm most terrified about how to explain to Jack, good enough to satisfy him, that he won't have a brother or sister when I know that he wants one so bad. Crap, I'm crying again. Ok, I have to be done, it's time for dinner, and I have to get my stuff together so I can work tonight.

Processing Bad News

I guess now that the initial shock has passed, I find myself just irritated. How could we put back supposedly good looking embryos that were already hatched and NOTHING happen? I was supposed to trust the lab to make the call on when to transfer them back, and what I wanted didn't matter, and NOTHING happened. I tried to look on my clinic's website to see if they post their IVF results by day of transfer and they don't. That said, I can't imagine that they would continue to do day 6 transfers if they didn't have a decent success rate.

Archie said he wishes he had stopped me from drinking the iced tea I had the night of our anniversary. ICED TEA!! I didn't even realize I had iced tea until I sat straight up in bed that night thinking, "Holy CRAP, I cannot believe I did that!" I told Archie that if I can have a baby at work whose mother did PCP, heroin and cocaine and can still get pregnant, two glasses of caffeine was not the deal breaker.

I just got off the phone with my doc. He said the only way our cycle could have been more perfect was if we had gotten pregnant. He said that it was a great cycle, and if we did another fresh one, he wouldn't change anything. He said we couldn't have elected to do a day 5 transfer because the embryos weren't ready. I asked about our frozen blasts, what they looked like and their quality. We froze 2 hatching blasts, and 2 expanding blasts which are evidently further along than early blasts but not at the hatching stage. 1 of our embryos was good quality, the other 3 were fair. This doesn't worry me much as our first cycle was all fair embryos and we got pregnant with Jack.

I asked Dr. M what to expect for a FET since we've never done anything but fresh cycles, and he said that they do injectable estrogen which is IM, but it's only given every 3 days. They sometimes do lupron, sometimes do BCP's, and they do injectable progesterone IM but that won't start until a few days before the transfer. I asked about thawing the embryos, how far in advance they do it and they thaw them the day of the transfer. I told him we'd want to put two back, and he said that they would start by thawing two, and if both survived thawing then we'd still have two frozen but if they didn't both survive they would continue thawing until we had two embryos to transfer or until we ran out. So it's not a guarantee that anything would even be transferred back. I'm just glad we decided to freeze some since this cycle didn't work out, at least I don't have to deal with the fact that "we're done".

My mom is upset. She asked if I was really going to put myself through this again emotionally. Yup, I am. I can't believe that I've dealt with this blow as well as I have, but I think it's because we're not "done". We still have a chance. If insurance won't cover it, we'll wait until we get our taxes back next year instead of taking Jack to Disney. If it will cover it, than we'll do it, and use our taxes to take Jack to Disney next year.

Archie is just as disappointed and confused as I am. And of course, Jack went to all these appointments with me and knew that the bloodwork today was to see if there were any babies growing in my tummy. So when we picked him up from school, and I was upset, he wanted to know why. I was on the phone with my mom and she was upset that I told him how I did, but he needs to know. He knew that we had put babies back in there, the logical question is what happened to them? So he asked and I told him that I was upset because there weren't any babies in my tummy and that meant that we had more time for us to have him all to himself. He was fine with that and gave me hugs and kisses. Then a little later he asked me where the babies went. I explained that they went to heaven because God was ready for them. He asked how they got there, and I told him that it was like God gave them a big hug and just wrapped them up in His arms. He asked me if it was like a sliding star that slid up to heaven from earth, and I said sure. However he can understand it and process it is fine with me. So, Archie told me that when they went over to Jack's best friend's house, A's mom asked how I was doing. Jack said, "My mommy's babies died and they went to heaven." like it was no big deal, and I'm glad that for him it's not. I guess we handled it the right way or he'd be more upset, right? I don't know. There certainly isn't a parenting book that tells you how to deal with this.

Learn to Pay Attention Mommy!

I learned a little lesson today, and it is one I often preach to Jack. Pay attention!!!!

We were having a conversation that we have multiple times throughout the day, and thus, I wasn't paying much attention to what he nor I were saying. I was on the computer, and he was informing me that he has a penis because he is a boy. Yeah yeah, I hear this all day long...so, I said yes, you are a boy. He told me, "You don't have a penis Mommy because you are a girl." That's right. He asks me, "Mommy, what's yours called?" Still, I didn't perk up. I told him what it was, and he repeated it. Then he says, "What's it for?" Before I realized what I said, out comes "having babies and going pee pee." It was one of those moments where something leaves your mouth before you can censor it, and you're holding your breath waiting for the fallout. He didn't miss a beat, and said to me, "Silly Mommy, babies don't come from there!" Oh, Thank God!!!! So I asked him where babies come from, and his response..."They come from your work where all the babies are!" That's right baby! Whew!!!

You can bet I'll be paying better attention!!!