Riley at 2.5

If I’m going to get back in the swing of writing, I’d really like to be documenting my big kid’s life more. Don’t get me wrong – her life is WELL documented from a photographic standpoint. But I find that I stopped writing things down when the “baby book” phase ended and she turned 1. (Side note: we didn’t have a true baby book, but had a calendar that encouraged documenting a few things each month along with all of the classic “firsts”).

So without further ado, Riley at 2 and a half is …

• The sweetest, happiest little person I’ve ever met.
• Insanely demanding, whiny, and unreasonable.
• She loves: books, music, dancing, coloring with markers, “cooking” in her kitchen (usually sushi, pancakes, and pizza), playing in her sand table, playing on the playground, talking about her friends
• She hates: trying new foods, eating full meals, being told “no,” naps
• Some funny (or just fun) things she has said recently:
  • Momma, I help you blow the lawn?
  • Don’t put lotion on my haircut! (referring to her painted toenails)
  • This is you birthmark? We go to the store, you buy me a birthmark?
  • That’s so silly. That’s silly buying birthmarks at the store. We buy grapes at the store! Grapes and avocado at the store.
  • *pointing to my brother’s mustache that he has had her entire life* What’s this? This? It’s my mustache You mustache? Yeah *touching her lip* I no have a mustache. I only have eyebrows.
  • She calls Lucky Charms “yucky charms”
• Her favorite foods are: Lucky Charms, chili, and Wegmans’ peach applesauce pouches.
• She had a growth spurt in the last few months. Now she wears 3T clothing and size 5 shoes.
• Her favorite color is pink (go figure)
• She potty trained in 1 weekend and has had a grand total of 4 accidents in her life (it’s been just over a month). She stays dry at nap time and almost always overnight, though we still do pull ups overnight because she won’t poop on the potty and just waits for her pull up.
• She is sick all. the. time. I am fairly certain she had fewer than 10 truly healthy days between November and May. We just recently got a week or two of healthy and now we’re right back in another cold/cough. Whenever she has a cold she goes on a preventative/steroid inhaler that makes her impulsive and a little angry. I can’t wait for her to have longer healthy stretches so we don’t have to worry about whether she’s going to impulsively smack us in the face all day.
• She is so sweet to her baby sister. She reads her books, strokes her face, and hugs her at any opportunity.
• When Kellan was born, Riley went through about an 8 week phase of being, for lack of a better word, bad. She was clearly reeling from the sudden decrease in attention. I’m glad she took it out on us rather than the baby but it was a tough season! She would throw food at every meal and say no to literally every request, but then she came out of it and was back to her laid back, happy, generally compliant self. Thank God.
• She wants so badly to be independent, but still needs help with things like dressing and going to the bathroom. That’s hard for her but she gets more independent every day!
• In April (2 years 5 months), she learned how to go down stairs by herself, and she has been gaining independence at a rapid pace since then.

She’s here! 4 months later …

WELL I am obviously getting progressively worse at documenting these things with age. So though this is about 4 months late … it’s a girl!!

Kellan was born on February 6, 2019. She came via C-section and her birth story is something. I think I’ll put it up as a separate post for posterity. She’s a joy. Her sister is in love (for the most part). I can’t believe she is already 4 months old!

Kellan is a happy little chunk. Like her big sister, she really struggled to get the hang of breastfeeding. She also took 3 weeks to get back to her birth weight despite eating well and getting supplementation the whole time. I guess my kids just take 3 weeks to bounce back. I suspect they both took on a lot of water weight during the lead up to my C-sections, so I think that inflated the weight loss quite a bit. As you can see, she’s not wasting away.

At 4 months old, Kellan …

• Is very smiley, especially when looking at faces up close. She laughs when you bring her toes up to her cheeks or when you do a gasping laugh.
• Is SO chill. She only cries when there’s something wrong (over tired, over hungry, needs a diaper change, or is trying to work out a poop). She’s happy to be in her car seat (unlike her sister at that age) and generally doesn’t complain.
• Loves her playmat just like Riley did! She can hang out on her back on the playmat for a good chunk of time, talking to, grabbing, and eating her animal friends. She seems partial to the zebra. I get it.
• Eating: When she is with me, she exclusively breastfeeds. She is super predictable and eats every 3 hours during the day. We just weaned off of the nipple shield a week ago, and she suddenly got 50% faster/more efficient (cue the anxiety that something was wrong – but my boobs are emptying and she is satisfied so she must just be better at nursing now). She has had 4 colds already (ugh daycare germs) and really struggles to nurse when she’s congested. She does NOT like bottles and tends to hold out to nurse. She gets 3 bottles at daycare – yesterday they were 3oz, 3oz, and 2oz. Last week she took 4 oz bottles which was amazing. Prior to that, she was taking a max of 10oz while away from me for 10+ hours. She tends to eat twice over night – around 10:30 and then anywhere between 2 and 5. Sometimes she skips the early morning feed and will go straight from 10:30-6:30 or so.
• Sleep: Kellan sleeps like a champ at night, in a bassinet in our room. We put her down sometime between 6:30 and 8pm (depending on her rest-of-the-day schedule), and she falls asleep on her own with minimal fussing. She naps 3 times a day, and will fall asleep on her own then too (in the Merlin suit). I nurse her to sleep at night but she isn’t reliant on it which is great. Here’s hoping we keep that up. She never took a binky, and recently found her hand to suck on. Jury’s out on whether she’ll turn into a finger/thumb sucker to self soothe. Either way, she’s able to self soothe to sleep when she has the suit on.
• Play/communication: Kellan loves to coo and babble with people and with her hanging animal friends. She is obsessed with watching whatever her sister is doing, and tends to find her hilarious. She is very mellow and will just chill with her hanging toys and watch what’s happening around her.
• Motor: Kellan likes tummy time if she’s propped up on a pillow (like putting the boppy under her arms). She’s not such a fan if she’s directly on the floor. She doesn’t really push up with her arms at all, but holds her head up well/has good neck strength. She is able to grasp hanging toys and bring them to her mouth, brings her hands together at midline, and can get her hand in her mouth to suck on pretty well.
• Health: Kellan started out life with super sensitive skin like her sister. We were pretty worried she would end up with significant eczema and probably food allergies (Riley has a laundry list of severe/anaphylactic food allergies). I had to cut out dairy and soy as her poop tested positive for blood around 2 months. At this point, I’ve added back soy with no problem but am still avoiding dairy. We recently had her tested via blood test for all of Riley’s allergies (milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, and fish) plus soy. And they all came back negative! Her skin has been relatively clear (she tends to get a little rashy with colds) – no cradle cap (knock on wood), yeast infections, or widespread eczema like her sister. She has, however, had at least 3 colds and seems to be starting in on her 4th. Riley was healthy for the first 6 months of her life, though I suppose that is because she didn’t go to daycare until 6 months. Kellan was home for almost 4 months, but Riley was obviously bringing the daycare germs home with her. Here’s hoping the summer season brings with it fewer germs and healthier kids.

Kellan looked SO much like Riley when she was born – they have the same giant cheeks, tiny mouth, and button nose. But it turns out that their eyes are very different! Kellan’s look a lot like mine. They’re blue for now but seem a little darker than her sister’s, and I wonder if they’ll change. She’s such a chunky, happy baby. She’s just starting to get some stranger anxiety.

Just a few weeks ago we started cloth diapering Kellan. We used disposables with Riley and with Kellan for the first few months, but I have been curious about cloth and had the opportunity to buy a used lot of diapers for a really good price so I went for it. It’s been easier than I expected! I don’t have any misconceptions about the fact that cloth and disposable actually have an almost equal environmental impact, just in different ways … but it does feel nice to be generating less waste. Also they’re cute.

I’ll be back with her birth story soon!

The State of my Uterus

I think it’s time to fill you in on our journey to conceive #2! I did update my timeline if you are inclined to just jump to the quick and dirty facts. If you like my prose, feel free to stick around.

Em and I like to make big life plans. And our big life plan has always included trying for #2 once Riley was about a year old. In Em’s head, that meant starting the week after her birthday haha. I was on a slightly longer trajectory because I knew it would take some time to wean. I know that some folks choose not to wean before doing IVF, but I needed to do a retrieval (which means lots of drugs), so was just not on board with that plan. It took a little over 2 months to totally wean, and we were done mid-January. Because I’m a procrastinator, I didn’t call my RE until that week, thinking I’d be able to get an appointment within a couple of weeks. Dumb assumption! When I called, they booked me for an appointment on April 28th.

I’m not really particularly good at waiting, so I directly e-mailed my doctor and came just short of begging for a sooner appointment. She wonderfully agreed, and squeezed me in the next week, AND agreed to have me do CD3 blood tests that day (I just happened to get in touch with her on CD3).

I know I mentioned it in my last post, but it bears repeating. This second time around has been so polar opposite to our first attempt to conceive. My day 3 labs all looked good and my RE booked me not only for a consult, but also for all of the other testing I would need to complete in order to submit for insurance approval. So on January 25 (CD11), I had an ultrasound, sonohysterogram (SHG), consultation with my RE, and meds teaching session with her nurse. The SHG was about a billion times more comfortable than the HSG thank goodness. All systems were a go for IVF, so my doctor submitted for insurance approval. If you recall (you probably don’t, so I’ll remind you), my insurance plan covers IVF and fertility related treatment once I prove a diagnosis of infertility. That meant I had to pay out of pocket for all of my treatments (IUI, meds, ultrasound monitoring, lab work) for 12 cycles, which I did. Thus, I qualify as “infertile” and now can have all of the things for free (except not for free because I have a deductible and co-insurance, but for cheap anyway). As you probably also know, insurance companies like to take their sweet ass time and make you sweat it out. I was fairly convinced that they would take about 30 days to respond, which would mean we could proceed with my cycle beginning in late March. But the TTC karma gods smiled on me and BCBS gave me the thumbs up a whole week before CD1 rolled around!

February 20, 2018 was CD1. By then, I had approval for treatment, all of my meds were in the cabinet/fridge, and our sperm was at the clinic. On CD2 I had a baseline ultrasound and got the go ahead to start the IVF stim meds. My protocol this cycle was:

• Gonal-F 300IU in the evening starting CD2
• Menopur 150IU in the evening starting CD2 (this was a change from last time – I believe I did Menopur 150IU but I didn’t start until day 4 or 5)
• Ganirelix pre-filled syringe in the morning starting about a week in (I responded well early, so they had me add in Ganirelix after about 4 or 5 days of stims)
• • My LH started rising earlier than expected, so I added an extra Ganirelx twice during the cycle. Once on the day I ended up triggering – they were worried that I was already starting to surge and wanted me to do the extra dose “as soon as I had access to it” (they assumed I was at work – I was actually home so did it right then). Thus leading me to an all-consuming obsession with the worry I would ovulate early and there wouldn’t be any eggs in there at retrieval.
• HCG and Lupron trigger (last time I just did one trigger with Novarel. This time they wanted to add Lupron – my RE said that it would help release any less mature follicles and thus decrease my chance of ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome?)
• • When the time came, I ended up just triggering with HCG as they were worried that the Lupron would actually over-do it and make me ovulate too soon.
• Crinone 8% in the morning starting after retrieval

After only 9 days of stims (I think), I had 11 follicles on the left and 13 follicles on the right over 12mm (AKA measurable). There was a good mix of sizes – the biggest were 20 and 21. Because many of them were over 16-17mm, they had me trigger that night on March 1st (which I believe was 2 or 3 days sooner than my original calendar had predicted). I had my egg retrieval on Saturday March 3 (which was also Em’s 33rd birthday. My gift to her was having to get up at the crack of dawn to get to the clinic and then let her take care of me all day). I was so epically disproportionally worried that I had already ovulated and was going to have no eggs at all. My brain latched onto the fact that my LH was high during my last 2 tests and added that to the fact that my cervical fluid had gone from OMG super fertile too much EWCM to pretty much dry once I triggered. Also I was super anxious because I had a REALLY tough recovery last time. Like, weeks of pain and limping. In the end, it went great! My recovery has gone so well. I have no pain at all now, less than a week out. And they got 23 eggs! 23! The nurse whispered it because she didn’t want to upset anyone else in the recovery area. I know not all of the 23 would be mature enough to fertilize but I was really happy with that outcome. Last time I got 12 eggs (from 20 follicles) so I was expecting about the same. We did “natural” fertilization (no ICSI) and ended up with 10 embryos from those 23 eggs. After 5 days, 5 were still contenders. They transferred the best one yesterday (grade 4AB), and ended up being able to freeze 3 others. It’s less than I initially expected but I’m not at all disappointed. I’m happy to have what will hopefully be the option for 2 more pregnancies.

So that’s where we’re at! The state of my uterus is … pregnant until proven otherwise. Official blood test day is March 19 (because 2 weeks from retrieval falls on a weekend). I’ll probably take a home test on Friday March 16. Anyone else on a similar timeline?

I’ll leave you with a pic of the little guy who’s in there now!

I guess I’m going a year between posts now …

You guys. I can’t believe I fell off the blog wagon for an entire year. Actually, I totally can believe it, but I’m a little bummed about it. I really like going back and being able to see where I was at different points in time. It’s cathartic.

ANYWAY I felt like I needed to do another update. Let’s see if I get back into the swing of things again. First of all – is anyone still out there? Or is this going into the internet black hole? I’m not sure that it really matters to me, but I am curious.

Okay onto the goods … Riley is 16 months old. I can’t believe my last update was when she was 4 months.

Those blue eyes get me every time

She’s amazing and I am obsessed with her in every way. I love this transition from babyhood to toddler hood. Don’t get me wrong – I miss baby Riley so much! But it’s so fun to watch her learn new things so quickly. For her first year, I used an app called Moment Garden to hep me keep track of her “baby book” moments. It was actually really great, and I was able to create a baby book when she was 1 using that. Let me see if I can do a quick milestone recap …

• 5.5 months: first food – sweet potato
• 6 months: started responding to her name, sitting unassisted
• 6.5 months: finally rolled over (on Mother’s Day!)
• 8.5 months: mobile by rolling
• 9 months: scooting backwards, clapping, understanding some words
• 9.9 months: crawling! (she crawled literally the day before turning 10 months)
• 10 months: first tooth (upper right – so weird), started pulling to stand
• 11 months: pulling up, cruising, babbling up a storm, pointing, waving hi/bye (when she felt like it), first word: “done”
• 11.5 months: first steps a week before her first birthday!

Riley is now walking, running, climbing (ugh), and dancing. Her favorite things to play are stacking cups (the Ikea ones = gold) and stacking rings. She loves to read books but sometimes only 3 pages before she’s on to the next. She is so chatty, and this speech language pathologist mom LOVES it. I think she has around 35 words. Her favorites are: all done, more (sign), different (sign), duckie, night night, bye bye, uh oh, baba (bottle), yeah, no, up, down, and agua (she goes to a Spanish speaking daycare).

So the major update since my last post is that we obviously figured out what was going on with her skin. As it turns out, she has multiple severe food allergies, which is a big fat bummer. Right around the time of that last blog post (4 months), the pediatrician ran some allergy blood tests just to “rule out” food allergies since there is a family history (I am allergic to tree nuts). At that visit, she tested very positive for peanut, milk, egg, and dog, and borderline/unknown clinical significance for wheat and soy. I kept breastfeeding (started to wean at 12 months and fully weaned by about 14.5), and ended up cutting out dairy, eggs, soy, and peanuts. By the time she was 9 months, I was able to add back soy and by 10 or 11 months I added back dairy and eggs. I wasn’t able to add back peanuts per our allergist. We’ve since done further testing and dealt with many reactions to foods as we started to introduce real food, so the current/updated allergy list is: peanuts, tree nuts, sesame, dairy, eggs, wheat/barley (gluten). She is able to eat soy, which is great. But she is definitely a very allergic kid. Sesame was a recent discovery that ended in using her Epi Pen and a trip to the ER. It’s scary and a big fat bummer, but we are learning to live with food allergies. Up side is: she eats a very healthy diet of mostly whole foods (processed foods always have something she’s allergic to in them). She drinks Ripple as a milk substitute, which is a plant-based milk made of pea protein. We love it – it has more calcium, Vitamin D, and protein than most other plant-based milks like soy and coconut. She loves avocado, applesauce, veggie straws (may as well be crack), and homemade risotto.

Can you even handle the cuteness that is kids being tossed in the air? 

So I think that’s our update! Oh, the other fun thing is that we are working on making her a little sibling … I just saved that for the end there 😉

We had planned to start trying for number 2 when she was about a year old. I knew we’d be doing IVF again, and am lucky enough to have coverage for IVF this time (now that I spent 2 years proving I’m really for certain infertile), so we needed to wait until Riley had weaned to get anything started. We didn’t have any frozen embryos from last time (Riley was our only frozen embryo from that cycle), so had to do the whole thing again. I knew it would take a while to get the ball rolling, but didn’t know how long it would take to wean, so I didn’t call for an appointment with my RE until I had actually weaned. They didn’t have anything until the end of April! Luckily I’m a good squeaky wheel and she was able to squeeze me in that week.

Long story short, this process has been the polar opposite to our last process in every way. Mostly in that it is happening in a timely manner. In fact, it’s all going VERY quickly. I think I’ll make a separate post for those that are interested in the facts and figures. If there’s anyone still out there, that is. I hope a few of my old buddies are still on here – give me a shout if you are! And happy Friday 🙂

4 months

Riley was 4 months old on Saturday. I CANNOT believe it has been 4 months. It simultaneously feels like she has been a part of our family for my entire life, and feels like I was squinting at a line on a pregnancy test literally yesterday (side note: that was actually just over a year ago! Holy shit!).

The thing that is at the forefront of my mind this month (or maybe just this week? Today?) is her skin. She has always had super sensitive skin. She’s just kind of a rashy baby, and clearly would get contact dermatitis whenever someone who was wearing a fragrance or wool or anything irritating would hold her. Over the past month or so, she seems to be having more significant allergic reactions to something and I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIGURE OUT WHAT IT IS. I think about it all day long and my gray hair is spreading rapidly because it is all I think about and I worry all the damn time. The rashes come and go and this is a kind of dramatic picture because it is basically the worst it’s been plus I took the pic right after I rubbed lotion all over her so it’s kind of extra red.

We tested her poop for the possibility of an allergy to something I’m eating (apparently if that were the case there would be blood – possibly not visible) and it was negative. I don’t think that means that it is definitively NOT something I’m eating, but I think it is less likely. She has also been having liquid poops (like, not that “seedy” look, just the yellow color and totally absorbed into the diaper) for a full month as well. The doctor isn’t concerned about the poop given that she doesn’t seem dehydrated and she is gaining weight, etc. She has never had a fever. I think it could be the dog? But we are being super vigilant about vacuuming all the time and keeping Riley’s things off the floor etc etc etc. I also cut out dairy anyway and that hasn’t helped at all (it’s been almost 3 weeks). My working theory is that it’s the dog and we just have to get an air purifier and be even MORE vigilant, but the poop changes throw me off. Ugh. Anyway, that’s all I think about so, any theories are welcome. Of note, we have already done the following things:

• We use a free and clear detergent for her things and ours (duh)
• We use an “extra rinse” cycle on the laundry
• We bathe her twice/week and use a sensitive soap (Aquaphor baby wash)
• We hydrate her skin multiple times/day. We used to use Aquaphor but the doc said it has lanolin in it which sometimes irritates skin because it is a sheep product, so we switched to Hydrolatum at her suggestion. That actually helped for like 2 days – she totally cleared up. And then it came back. We use coconut oil on her head for cradle cap/dry skin there
• I vacuum a lot
• We got the dog groomed
• We try to only dress her in 100% cotton and only wear it ourselves.
• I cut out dairy

Sigh. Anyway I’m sure you didn’t come here for an obsessive mom waxing poetic about baby skin. So let’s talk about Riley at 4 months old.

She is at such a fun age! She’s learning so many new things

• She is WAY more aware of everything going on – and very distractible (especially when nursing)
• She can reach and grab toys and loves to play with her O-ball and little dangling animals on her play mat.
• She has her hands in her mouth all the time. She has taken to sucking on her index and middle finger and it. is. very. cute.
• She brings her toys to her mouth and tries to eat them too.
• She can almost stay in a seated position all by herself, and really likes sitting up (between our legs, in a Bumbo for a few minutes)
• She likes tummy time for about 5 minutes and then she doesn’t anymore.
• She is almost ready to roll from front to back. She can do it if I tuck her arm under and kind of coax her to start (she’ll kick her leg over and roll the rest of the way).
• She smiles and giggles and is just the most fun baby to talk to in the world.
• She has full-on conversations that are passionate and serious and full of eye contact and awesome facial expressions.
• She loves music and songs.
• She is mesmerized by sign language.
• She loves to facetime and seems to actually recognize people on video chat?? Or at least, she smiles at people on facetime despite not being the type of kid who smiles at the phone when it’s not on facetime. And she’ll have little vocalizing conversations with the phone too. GUH.
• She recognizes and prefers her moms 😍

Also, on a less exciting note, she is certainly struggling to learn how to sleep effectively as her little brain grows and grows. I hesitate to use terms like “4 mount sleep regression” because I really feel like those things are kind of made up and in general serve more to give parents anticipatory anxiety than to help describe a developmental phase but… Her sleep has suddenly taken a dive. (and she happens to be 4 months old…). She has always been such a good sleeper! And she still does an awesome job of falling asleep- I don’t have to nurse her or rock her to sleep or anything. She goes down awake and swaddled with a binky (my least favorite part but ya win some ya lose some I guess). So she’s still doing that, but now she’s waking between sleep cycles and having a hard time getting back to sleep on her own. We are kind of sort of if starting to sleep teach? We’re doing some extended waiting before going in to give her the pacifier at night. So far I can stand to listen to the fussing and crying for like 7 minutes before I cave. About 50-70% of the time she will fall back asleep in that time, but will often wake back up crying again like 20 minutes later. We’re working on it. She’s also added back in a 2am wake up which I am so not having. She was on a pretty good steak of sleeping about 6:30-10 or so, then nursing, then back down until 4 or 5, eating again, and back to bed until about 7. I know we’re lucky but also that’s our reality so this new habit of crying and walking up in the middle of the night is rough and I don’t really know what to do about it. Sigh.

So aside from my current all consuming worry about her skin (oh, and did I mention she might be coming down with something today? Her little cry is all hoarse and scratchy, her lymph nodes are swollen, and she has a low grade fever of 99.7), this is such an awesome age. She learns new things every other day and is generally so happy and playful. I’m so happy Wednesday is finally over because I get to spend the next 4 days with my little love before I have to go back to work. We are looking forward to her 4 month doctor visit tomorrow (maybe we’ll start to figure all this out) and my parents visiting this weekend! Grandma is on daycare duty next week. Any and all positive thoughts about her poor skin are appreciated! Happy hump day. 

12 weeks

I’ve officially stopped being surprised at my total lack of blog writing. When I’m home with Riley, it’s just really hard to motivate myself to do anything other than play with her, take care of her, or snag some me time. It really doesn’t help that I don’t have a computer. I hate blogging on my phone.

Which brings me to today, my very first day back at work. Y’all, I feel like I left a body part at home. It is so so emotionally hard. And I really really love what I do. I am happy to be a working person. I want to have a routine and see adults and speech pathologize my patients. But I also feel like I’m missing something major when I leave my baby behind. Yeesh.

All of that said, it is crazy to feel like I have some time to sit and write a blog post. Work suddenly seems so uncomplicated – I  just have to do my job and pump. Simple as that. Being a mom involves so much less structure! And let’s talk about pumping. Do any of y’all get crazy different amounts at different pumping sessions? I haven’t pumped more than once a day (in the evening) since her first few weeks of life so I don’t have a great barometer to go by, but it feels weird that my 8:30am pump I got 8.5oz and then my 11:30am pump I got 4oz. That’s less than half! Is my 2:30 about to be even less? (Update: I got a little less than 4oz in the last pump session). I know that I’m pumping enough overall to make up for what she is eating but I’m worried about her having enough anyway. Like is my supply decreasing while I’m away from her all day? Will she have enough to eat when I get home tonight? I’m probably overreacting. Emotions. Bleh.

So here’s the deal. I have a plan to write a post about Riley’s birth and first few days, and potentially a couple of posts about her development at 1 month and 2 months. But no one wants to read a monster post like that, so I think I’ll start with a post about my sweet Riley at 12 weeks.

I can’t believe this sweet baby girl is 12 weeks old. Time literally just flies like a jumbo jet. So fast. Slow the eff down, please!

This week Riley …

• Is super smiley, especially when looking at faces up close. This usually means when she’s facing you in your lap or hanging out on the changing table.
• Once or twice I’ve even heard a giggle. I shit you not. I have a human child who giggles.
• She doesn’t love being in a half awake state on the changing table. Once she’s fully awake she’s all smiles. It’s weird.
• Loves her playmat! During her awake/activity time, she can hang out on her back on the playmat for a good chunk of time, wacking away at her animal friends. (Our best friends’ 3-year-old son refers to the hanging toys as “decorations” lol)
• Eating: She is super predictable and eats every 3 hours during the day. We get one chunk of 6+ hours between feeds overnight, and then another 4ish hour chunk, which is awesome.
• Sleep: Riley sleeps like a champ at night, in a bassinet in our room. We put her down sometime between 6:30 and 8pm (depending on her rest-of-the-day schedule), and she falls asleep on her own with minimal fussing. She is napping in her crib (!!) about 3 times a day, and will fall asleep on her own then too (swaddled, with music and a binky). We haven’t gotten a nice long nap in a while. She usually caps out at about an hour and a half, but averages 45 minutes. Is this normal? I wish she’d take a long nap like once a day. It would be superb.
• Play/communication: Her favorite thing to do is coo and babble like she’s having a conversation. Lots of vocal turn taking and even some imitation (ooo vs. ahhh). She’s also figuring out how to make the “attend to me now!” vocalization that is not actually crying. This speechie mom loves it. She’s also really into her hanging toys – mobiles, playmat, etc. She’ll wack, stare at, and talk to them all day long.
• Motor: Riley loves tummy time, but only for maybe 10 minutes at a time, then she’s ready to not be holding her head up anymore. She’s starting to refine her arm and leg movements to play with her hanging toys, and has even grabbed on a few times. She’s also getting excellent at bringing her hands to her mouth (she puts them together like she’s praying and then brings them up to suck on) as well as to her head where she scratches. Ugh.
• Health: Poor thing has the most sensitive skin. She has never really not had a rash somewhere on her body. Currently, she has a very persistent neck rash that is sometimes a yeast infection (smells gross ugh), dry scalp that is maybe hedging on cradle cap, and some itchy dry skin that is perhaps in the eczema family (per the pediatrician) on her head and arms and feet. I just hate that she’s itchy. It’s also a bitch and a half to keep her nails short enough that she’s not constantly mauling herself. ALSO she has already had her first ear infection, last week. She didn’t show any symptoms aside from maybe slightly more fussiness than usual? She is NOT a fussy baby so this presented as minimal fussing that I just assumed was her finally being a normal baby. But then she had stuff coming out of her ear so it was certainly an ear infection. She had a couple of days of antibiotic ear drops that cleared it up, thankfully. I constantly worry about her poops. At the moment, I’m worried that they seem more liquidy. Sometimes I worry about their color. Sometimes I worry about their frequency. I wish I could just chill. She’s also a spitter, which is not helping the neck rash because she’ll spit up while she’s lying on her back, no matter how much burping we do or how long we keep her upright after eating. Anyone else have this issue?

Honestly, she is the. best. baby. And she is my baby. And I can’t wait to leave work early right now and go home to her because I miss her so damn much it hurts. Here’s some more pics because I know that’s what you’re really here for. Now that I’m back at work I play to actually blog, as it’s an excellent procrastination tool 🙂

Loving her tummy time mirror. Who’s that cute baby?

Seriously, she loves tummy time. 

Can’t wait to get home to these smiles

Halfway There?

Even with my cornucopia of distractions, this 2WW is dragging on for months.

Today I am 7dpiui 8dpiui (oops, started writing this yesterday). One week ago today yesterday I spread my legs for a sperm-filled catheter to be inserted into my uterus. Awesome.

My wife and I had a lovely vacation in LA, visiting with good friends and family while eating nearly 24/7 (oy, diet started again today). Of the 4 days we were there, the temperature was in the 90s for 3 of them. The last day (of course) cooled off a bit. Honestly, the heat didn’t bother me too much – it just made it feel more like vacation! My Irish skin did crisp up a bit but nothing off the charts. We took a red eye and got back in yesterday at 8am, and both promptly went to work. That was a bit rough, but we made it through and I’m actually quite a bit more exhausted today than I was yesterday.

It was lovely to have a constant and fun 4-day distraction from the 2WW. I did very minimal obsessing over non-existent symptoms, which was awesome. Of course, now we’re back to reality and it’s only 8dpiui. Monday seems SOOO far away! I’m supposed to go in for a blood test on Monday, and I’m trying to wait until then to find out (or wait for AF to come to town Sunday or Monday). Since this is TTC cycle #1, I don’t have any pregnancy tests lying around the house to tempt me, so hopefully that works in my favor. Also, my mom and dad are coming to town for a visit this weekend, which will provide another beautiful distraction! My mom will be here tomorrow, and my dad will join us on Friday. I’m super pumped for their visit and the distraction THAT will bring as well. So I guess I’ll just allow myself to obsess today and tomorrow and try to let my parents distract me until Monday.

Symptom spotting: Well, we all know that symptoms mean nothing since they can be attributed to a million other things, but here I go anyway:

• 3 and 4dpiui – major bloating/swelling all over, most likely due to the cross-country flight I just took (I had to take my rings off and my pants were tight)
• 6dpiui – mild feeling of “tightness” (cramping? I don’t know if I would call it that) in my ovaries/uterus region, creamy CM
• 7dpiui – totally tired (obviously because I got 4 hours of sleep on a red eye, so this doesn’t really count), same tightness/cramping feeling occasionally throughout the day, bloating (this time it seemed focused on my abdominal region, the rings stayed on), gassy
• 8dpiui – still tired (again, most likely due to the whole not-sleeping-well-on-a-plane thing), very gassy, definite cramps (feels premenstrual) at times

My temps have stayed up since last Monday. They crept up more slowly than I would have liked (it’s so much more satisfying to see a nice spike), but what can you do. The last two days have been a bit of a dip (not even close to below the cover line) – I’m hoping they go back up again tomorrow and maybe it was an implantation dip? (Wishful thinking).

So that’s it for my crazy thoughts for today. Honestly, this blog is where I get to be obsessive and write it all down, but I do feel that I’ve been able to mostly carry on as normal so far, with only occasional obsessive moments. Here’s to the next 6 days, hopefully I maintain only a moderately obsessive level of crazy.

Today’s Obsession: BBT

Of course I need something to worry about.

So, much like Decaf at My Little Happy Family, I did not get a temp spike today like I did after ovulation day last cycle. It literally went up maybe .2 degrees, but I took it twice and used the higher temp. Obviously that means I’m spending my day obsessing over whether or not I actually ovulated yesterday, and if not, whether the little swimmers would have made it to today.

Here’s my chart this month so far (excuse the wacky temps on the weekends – we traveled a bit this month and sometimes I sleep in):

And last month’s:

Given that my temp went up over a couple of days last month, I still feel like there is a chance I ovulated yesterday (hopefully) (or maybe that’s just what I have to tell myself so I don’t feel like I flushed $1000 down the vagina toilet). My Monday temp may very well have been artificially high because I had 2 glasses of wine on Sunday night, and barely slept a wink from all the anxiety. I am 99% sure I did not have a solid 4-hour chunk of sleep before temping (it was MAYBE 2 1/2 hours). Also both yesterday and today I temped at weird times (but it was probably only off by a half hour or so), and my CM is definitely drying up – with no EW or WCM in sight. Could all of those things account for a less-than-ideal rise today? Hoping for a better sign tomorrow.

Surprise!

IUI #1 was today instead of tomorrow – surprise!

I’m not sure I can even come close to writing in an organized fashion right now, so bear with me.

• I was up tossing and turning all night last night, which is really notable for me as I am a ridiculously sound sleeper (I have literally slept through fire alarms). My poor wife was reminded just how sound a sleeper I usually am (and probably just how light a sleeper she is) and got just as little sleep. I was just too anxious to even be able to consider resting my brain for the night. Obviously all of the question marks surrounding the timing of my positive OPK yesterday left me really uneasy with the plan (actually, it really felt like there wasn’t a plan at all – just a vague idea of calling in the morning to set up an IUI for Tuesday, and somehow scheduling a same-day tank swap at the bank to keep us in the guarantee, which they don’t even do …). I knew that I would feel better just by talking to someone at the RE’s office, and that did turn out to be the case.
• I did an OPK (internet cheapie AND Clear Blue digital) this morning, which was negative. The internet test still had a dark test line, but lighter than the control line, and the CB came up with a big fat O. This spun my already anxious brain into new heights of what-ifs. Also – if I hadn’t done that afternoon test they yelled at me about yesterday I wouldn’t have caught it at all!
• I got my fav nurse, Tracy, on the phone around 8:15 this morning. They technically don’t open until 8:30 so that was good but I was still in crazy-freakout-anxious mode because nothing was resolved, and I was in the car on my way to work. Anyway, Tracy was great and consulted with my RE, and they both agreed that even the “subtle surge” of yesterday morning was enough to do the IUI today. So that became the plan.
• As soon as the plan was to do the IUI today, it was like a magic wand had erased all of the tension in my body. It feels like that was the right thing to do, and it solved the issue that I hadn’t yet gotten to solving – the tank swap. Since the guarantee was good through today, we didn’t have to worry about it at all. (Phew)
• Of course, last minute plans tend to throw all sorts of things out of whack – so I had a crazy morning trying to re-schedule my 10:00 patient, who was already en route from a whole other state … Long story short, I didn’t reschedule them – I just did a shortened eval and rushed out as soon as they stepped out of my office door to make my 11:45 IUI appointment. Afterward, I rushed back to be here in time for my 1:00 patient, who didn’t show. Go figure.
• The IUI itself was interesting. I had a full bladder, and the only discomfort I felt was from the speculum. So maybe that was because of the bladder? Or maybe I just was distracted from any cervix pain by the duck lips in my vag. When she pushed the sperm in, it made the weirdest sound – is that normal? My wife cracked up at the sound of it, so if this IUI makes a baby, it will have had a very humorous start. The vial was SO SMALL – how could there have been enough sperm in there to make a baby?? Overall, it went much more smoothly than I was expecting. The nurse commented on my CM looking good (officially weirdest compliment I’ve ever received but I’ll take it), and his numbers sounded fine. The count was 29 million, and 52% motility. They said they look for anything over 20 million and 50% motility. I would have loved to hear that the motility was higher but I really have no frame of reference for what to expect.

If you got through all of that – good for you. If you scrolled to the end to get the important deets, here ya go:

1. My surge is apparently short. Or weak. I don’t know. What does that mean? Nurse Tracy said I should ideally test mid-morning, once/day for best results. I think that may affect sperm retrieval from the bank if they need 24 hours notice though… I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
2. IUI #1 is officially over
3. I am now in my very first TWW … let the Googling and symptom-spotting begin
4. This is officially the closest I’ve ever been to pregnant
5. Sperm makes a funny sound going in

Here’s to the two week wait! We’ve promised each other to be as normal as possible, distract ourselves, and not test at all (until the blood test on May 12) … feel free to make fun of me tomorrow when I start obsessing and buy a home pregnancy test. So glad I have a couple of wait buddies out here in the blog-o-sphere!

Y’all are the best

Thanks for all the advice, ladies! It’s amazing having this little community to bounce things off of/learn from/commiserate with. So here’s the update:

I called my doctor’s office and spoke with the nurse we’ve been seeing. I fully expected her to cancel the IUI plan and have me come in for the baseline testing that is ordered for next month. Instead, she was super nice and not at all worried about my late O. She said that because I have a pattern of late ovulation as it is, a little bit later is not worrisome to her. She did say to call again if I don’t get a positive OPK in another 5 days. It was really comforting to hear. I literally felt my body release a bunch of tension after talking to her. She said what I suspected, which is that they would likely put me on Clomid if this cycle doesn’t progress normally. That totally makes sense, but I really want to give my body at least 1 shot at conceiving without Clomid. And so does she, so she’s totally behind waiting for my O this month – whenever that may be. So I’m relieved that this cycle is still a-go, albeit a bit later than we had hoped.

Before hanging up, nurse Tracy said to me, “a watched pot never boils!” Ugh so true. I’m ovulation obsessed and I need a distraction to let my body do its thing!

After talking to nurse Tracy, we called the cryo bank and scheduled a tank swap to keep the swimmers on ice for another 5 days. A mere $30 later, we are now all set through Monday. EWCM has made an appearance, but my CM this month is acting kind of bipolar so I’m not putting much stock in it. I don’t think tomorrow is the day … if I was a betting gal I’d put my money on this weekend (CD 30 or 31). I guess we’ll see whether or not I should start gambling.

SO … In summary, I’ve learned that a little commiseration and expert advice can go a long way, and that late O is a-okay as long as it fits in a pattern of typically late Os. The nurse actually said that she has worked with women who are using Clomid or even injectables, and their bodies respond at their own pace – sometimes still not O’ing until day 30. She said that as long as my luteal phase has an acceptable length she doesn’t have a reason to worry.

Crossing my fingers that my body gets in gear before this tank expires too! On to more waiting …

*sidenote: I haven’t figured out how to put images in the middle of my post when I’m posting from my phone. I think the answer is that I can only do it if I put the image in as I’m writing rather than as an afterthought … But whaddya gonna do? 🙂