One year ago today: Transfer

One year ago today, my sweet baby was a tiny embryo, and I was high on valium. He, and another embryo we'll never get to meet, came home to my uterus via a catheter in a doctor's office in another state.

I spent the drive home from that appointment repeating a positive mantra in my head. "We want you, we love you, we can't wait to meet you." I concentrated all of my energy on getting those little ones to implant.

Modern medicine is such a marvel. You take a young woman with PCOS and terrible eggs, who doesn't even ovulate - with a bajillion injections, tears, and sleepless nights: she's pregnant.

Alex and I have come so far in one year! From a nerve-wracking two week wait, to an anxiety-riddled pregnancy, an early delivery, and now a healthy, happy, gorgeous four-month-old.

I carried and delivered him; he made me a mom. It's hard to know who gave whom the more precious gift.

Four months

Dear Alexander-

My, oh my, you are four months old! You have learned so many things in the past month - it’s hard to choose my favorite.

First of all, you started giggling! Your first giggle was a few weeks ago, when I was tickling your face with my hair during a diaper change. Then you made us go weeks with no more laughter until recently, when you started doing it more often. It’s still pretty unpredictable what will make you laugh, but it fills my heart with joy every time you do.

You have also started pushing with your feet; this is huge! One day you were sitting in your bouncer chair when I realized you were practically doing a backbend! That’s when I pulled out your Jumperoo. After a few days you learned how to bounce around like crazy in that thing, and we have so much fun watching you.

Now that you push with your feet, you are sososososoclose to rolling over. We let you practice every night on your back, and you will be rolling within a week, I bet.

You’ve also gotten more coordinated with your hands. The first time I realized you had total control over your hands, you were rubbing your eyes because you were tired. It was adorable. You can grasp objects, although not intentionally, and you reach out and bat at toys now. You love to suck on your fingers, when last month you had just started bringing your fists to your mouth.

With fun “firsts” also come some less exciting milestones. This month, you had your first cold, and I’m learning how hard it is for babies to shake that nasal congestion, as your stuffiness lingers and lingers. We had our first out-of-town trip, for a sad reason, when we went to my hometown to say goodbye to your great-grandpa. You had your first dip in a swimming pool in the hotel, which you absolutely hated (hey, that water was frigid and I really can’t blame you).

You are a happy baby. You get fussy when you’re tired, and you still have the occasional reflux flare up. Every month when I write this letter I think “maybe next month I’ll be able to report that he’s started sleeping well at night!” Not the case for month four. : ) But I have hope, and we’ll keep working on it.

I think this past month has been the absolute CUTEST month of your life. We’ve gotten so many smiles, and you’ve become so much more alert and eager to look around at your surroundings. You like to sit in your high chair while your dad and I eat dinner, and you like to go on walks and stare at the sky and the leaves on the trees. You have such a gorgeous face that I get choked up sometimes, watching you take in the world around you. You’re perfect.

In a thousand tiny ways, you are growing more independent each day. It makes me so proud, and also a little sad. I love you to the moon and back.

Love,
Mom

One year ago today: Retrieval

It’s been a year, today, since the worst day of my life, aka the retrieval that led to my son, the other embryo we transferred along with him, and the frozen embryo we will use someday.

I’m emotional on the anniversary of this day, knowing that my Alex, the bouncing almost-four-month-old I dropped off at daycare this morning, was conceived right about this time, one year ago, in a different state, in a lab.

Until that moment, there was no Alexander. He was one of 17 eggs and one lucky sperm of millions. It’s blowing my mind to think about it, even now.

When I think about that awful day, I remember some things with crystal clarity:

1) the pain. The pain was so intense. It was far worse than anything I experienced with my c-section.

2) waking up in my husband’s arms on the floor of my parents’ house, feeling weaker and sicker than I’d ever felt

3) squeezing the nurse’s hand and crying “I just want to have a baby” over and over

4) the feeling of lightness I finally experienced, after hours in the ER, when they gave me some pain medicine that actually worked (I think it was toradol?)

It was a horrible day, but it was so worth it. My little boy is the most yearned for sort of miracle.

No matter how much he cries, how little he sleeps, or how much I have to sacrifice for him, I will never forget the longing I felt in my bones before I got to meet him.

Please, dear god, help me help him sleep.

My son still doesn’t sleep well at night. He’s 4 months on Saturday and everything I’ve read on the subject says he should be sleeping at least six hours at a time by now. We celebrate when we get three.

I have tried everything. I have changed his reflux medicine. His mattress is on an incline. There is a humidifier. There is swaddling. There is white noise. There is darkness. There is frequent nursing.

I’m out of ideas.

He goes to bed around 7. We do our bedtime routine and I put him down in his bassinet, awake, and he puts himself to sleep. It’s just that he doesn’t stay asleep very long, and he can’t put himself back to sleep.

Maybe 5% of the time I can get him back to sleep with a re-swaddle and a pacifier, but 95% of the time I have to nurse him.

An important distinction: he does not “nurse to sleep”. He’s awake when I put him back down. It’s just that nursing is the only thing that relaxes him enough to get back to sleep.

I’m so torn on what to do next. His four month appointment is next week and I know the pediatrician will encourage me to do CIO or controlled crying.

I go back and forth on this. Do I think my son will suffer long-term damage from CIO? Most likely, no. Do I think I can be there, hearing him scream for his mommy, and just ignore him? Absolutely not.

Do I think that the parents who are super judgmental about CIO are probably getting more sleep than I am, not waking up 5x a night (as if with a newborn), while still needing to appear professional and coherent the next day? Yes.

Part of me thinks that he will figure it out on his own if I’m just patient enough. Part of me thinks that I am seriously going to have a mental breakdown soon and in order for us all to be happier during the day, we need to do something drastic.

Lately I have been doing a dream feeding between 9:30-10:30, and after that he may sleep till 12:30-1 ish. Then he is awake in another two hours. Once we hit 3am, all hell breaks loose. He always wakes up at 3, 4, and 5, and somewhere in there I always give up and bring him into bed with me. My alarm goes off at 6.

He’s still in his bassinet, because I can’t imagine having to actually walk into another room all of those times in the night. That’s another thing – do I need to get him used to the crib before we start serious sleep training? It seems heartless to plunk him down somewhere totally alien and then let him scream.

Everything inside me rejects the idea of CIO. But I also can’t keep functioning like this. And really, neither can he. He needs more rest than he’s getting.

I don’t know what my next step is.

Breastfeeding predicament

I’m in a predicament, because I am so damn stubborn.

When I felt like breastfeeding was established, I set myself a goal of 6 months. We booked a vacation for March, when Alexander will be 10 months old. Perfect, I thought, he’ll be weaned by then.

Now I cringe.

I can’t wean him at six months. That’s only two and a half months away! The thought of weaning makes me hurt inside. I’ve been given this gift – of breastfeeding going relatively smoothly – and I just can’t stop doing it without a good reason.

So now I’m in a predicament. Our vacation is four nights and we’ll be away from Alex for about seven days total. The internet indicates a 10 month old needs 20-25 ounces of breast milk each day. I’m being generous and estimating he’ll need 30 ounces a day.

This means, if I want to keep him on exclusively breast milk while I’m on vacation, I need 210 ounces in the freezer.

COMMENCE PANIC!!!!

Right now I have 120 ounces. If I don’t use any of it (yeah right), and if I can pump 4 oz every weekend and freeze it, then I can do it. But those are big Ifs.

Another big issue: I’m already adding a fourth pumping session in the evenings at home just to get what I feel he needs for the day, because I come up .75 oz total short at work. (I should stop, right? A quarter of an ounce less in each bottle isn’t going to leave him hungry, RIGHT?)

My plan for vacation means I literally won’t be able to go a day without pumping between now and March (gahhh). It also leaves no flexibility for me to have extra breast milk to mix with oatmeal, etc.

I know what you’re thinking. GIVE HIM FORMULA WHILE YOU’RE GONE. It does seem simple. But I’m so stubborn that if there’s a way to keep him exclusively on breast milk, then I’m going to do it, damnit.

I could use some input. Feel free to tell me I’m crazy.

Rest in peace, grandpa.

My grandpa passed on Monday morning and was laid to rest today (Friday). We just got home tonight, after getting to my hometown Wednesday afternoon and spending Wednesday and Thursday night in a hotel.

It was an exhausting, confusing, taxing, depressing, stressful, exhausting exhausting exhausting weekend. But also a tiny bit fun because I got to see so many family members. I got drunk, didn't sleep nearly enough, and pumped in both a closet at the funeral home and a men's restroom at the parish hall.

Traveling with a 15 week old is no joke - especially a 15 week old who has his first cold. Poor baby. He's had diarrhea and sounds like a little piglet when he tries to breathe. He also has a pathetic little cough. It breaks my heart.

He did not sleep well at all while we were gone, but did take some good naps because we packed up his swing, which was a pain in the ass but totally worth it. We co-slept in the hotel bed because I couldn't bear to listen to him snorting over in the crib.

I spent the better part of 6-7 hours preparing for this trip (packing, laundry, cleaning the house for our house sitter, etc), but luckily I think unpacking will go more smoothly.

Alex was my grandpa's first (and only) great-grandchild. There was a large flower arrangement on the casket: yellow roses, mums, and carnations, with white daisies. There were ribbons that said "dad", "husband", "grandfather", etc. And tucked in the corner of the casket, one tiny yellow rose with a "great-grandfather" ribbon. It went into the grave with him. He didn't get to know Alex very long, but he sure was special to him for three short months.

I look forward to the day I can take big boy Alex to grandpa's grave and tell him that there's a tiny rose from him resting with his great-grandpa.

I'm sad.

Saying goodbye to my grandpa

Today I went to say goodbye to my grandpa.

It's all going much faster than anyone anticipated. He went home last week for hospice care, and I've talked to my mom every day since then. At first it was "He looks good, he's sitting up in bed eating egg salad." Then, early this week, she said "Dad had a rough night because he saw frustration in grandpa's eyes." A few days ago, it was "He's starting to sound a little confused." Sometime in the past 48 hours everyone came to understand that we were coming to say goodbye, not to visit.

He was nowhere near sitting up in bed eating egg salad. He has no mobility other than some jerky arm movements and a little bit of neck control. He speaks clearly, but so softly that it's very difficult to make out what he says. Last night, he had to repeat himself three times, until he finally said "Do I have a speech impediment?" Haha. Oh, grandpa.

He has started getting much less coherent. He would kind of fall asleep and then wake up. I'd smile at him and he'd say "Did you bring the baby?" even though he'd already seen the baby. Each time I said "Yes, we did!" and brought Alex in. He liked to touch Alex's soft skin and smile at him. Once he said "It was a long time coming", which I think was a reference to our infertility. These were good, clear moments.

At other moments he'd just look at my dad and say "Is the door locked?" "Yes, dad, the door's locked, don't worry about it." Or, he'd look around the room and say "We all have a lot of work to do." He kept acting like he was taking pills, even though the need for pills passed long ago. He'd look in his blankets for pills he thought he had dropped.

I liked to just sit there and hold his hand. Once, he woke up and looked at me, and I said "Is it okay if I hold your hand?" And he squeezed my hand in his. That meant a lot to me because he has so little strength.

When it was time for us to leave, I went in to say one final goodbye. I said "grandpa, I just wanted to say goodbye." I stroked his face and his arm. He said goodbye to me and kind of started mumbling. I said "You know that I love you, right?" and he looked at me with vacant eyes and asked "Who are you?"

My heart stopped. I said "I'm Lulu. I'm your granddaughter." The focus came back in his eyes and he said something about being embarrassed. I said don't worry grandpa, don't be embarrassed, just rest. He mumbled a little bit more. I told him again that I loved him and asked if I could give him a hug. He brought his arms around me which, again, I knew took a lot of strength.

I think I jogged his memory because when my husband took Alex in to say goodbye, he called my husband by name and told him to take care of both of us.

The last time I had seen my grandpa was on the fourth of July. He wasn't feeling well, but was happy. He held Alex and fed him a bottle. In just a few weeks he's now bedridden, practically immobile, breathing with a lot of effort -- dying. On the fourth of July he was okay. Now, he's dying.

Last October, just 10 short months ago, we went to tell him and my grandma that we were pregnant. My grandpa got tears in his eyes and told me how happy he was. He wrote an advice card for me for my baby shower in March. Now, he wouldn't even be able to hold a pen.

I think some of my family members think I misunderstood, that he wasn't bad enough to forget who I was. But I heard him clearly, and saw the way he felt foolish afterwards. But I also felt his arms around me when I left and in that moment, I knew he knew who I was.