When we got home after work yesterday, Jayne told us that Allie tried to vault out of her crib after her nap. :/ Allie customarily gets 15 minutes post-nap to hang out in her crib and do her own thing, “own thing” meaning, primarily, to poop. She’d stay contentedly in there much longer, but we don’t want her to sit in her own poop longer than that. In was in these 15 minutes that Jayne looked over at the babycam monitor and saw that Allie’s upper body was on the wide front rail of the crib with one leg already over. She needed only to lean a little more and she’d be on the floor. Jayne freaked out and sprinted for Allie’s room, screaming “ALLIE!” on the way to stop Allie. She said when she burst in there, Allie was so startled and felt so reprimanded that she (Allie) was heaving and sobbing. Jayne said it took awhile for her own heart rate to go back to normal. Now that’s a caring nanny. 🙂
Jayne thought Allie may have gotten an extra height boost from stepping on the crib bumpers that line the perimeter of Allie’s crib. I’ve seen Allie step on them before but didn’t think it’d occurred to her to use it as a step-stool. I was hoping this was an isolated incident so that we could leave the bumpers on a bit longer, since Allie sometimes wedges her head in the soft corner and/or hangs a foot out between the crib slats in her sleep.
But she’d already used the front part of the crib rail like a ballerina leg-stretching bar recently (which she did while I was in there so I just pushed her foot off), and the entire evening with us, she was behaving like a little monkey, climbing onto the La-Z-Boy, climbing onto the back rest of the La-Z-Boy to look out the window behind it, climbing in and out of her tub. When Mr. W said we need to take the bumpers off, I didn’t protest. Luckily, Allie nursed herself to sleep last night and stayed asleep (for the 4th night in a row) when transferred to her crib, so she didn’t notice that the bumpers were gone. Her crib looks so roomy and bare to me now.
If Allie is still able to get herself over the rail, we’re going to have to change the rail to make her bed a toddler bed, with lower front rails and an opening about halfway in, so that she doesn’t hurt herself dropping from the top of the crib rail to the floor when she’s in there alone. I have no clue how to get her to stay in bed during her long latency periods if she has direct access out, so I’m hoping this stage stays away a little (a lot) longer. She can and does open her bedroom door unassisted, but that’s less of an issue to me than her pulling out all her dresser drawers and hurting herself while we sleep.
Last night, just in case, I pulled the little plastic footstool away from the side of her crib and more toward the center of the room. Just in cause she’s still able to vault over the crib rails and fall on the stool. She did fine on Night 1 of the debumperized bed, staying asleep until Mr. W woke her up to get ready this morning, so she probably never noticed the bumpers were gone. Hopefully the nap goes well today.
Just this past weekend, Mr. W was saying that Allie’s “behind” in her developmental abilities because she doesn’t know her colors, yet. He blames that on the fact that we see her approximately half an hour in the mornings before work, and an hour and a half in the evenings after work. “See, we need to retire so we can spend more time with her and teach her things,” he declared in his never-ending string of arguments for getting me to quit my job.
He brought this up to Allie’s nanny Jayne on Monday, and Jayne said, “She’s gotta know her colors — we go over them all the time. She’s just not saying them.”
And then Tuesday morning, as Allie and I cuddled up in the La-Z-Boy recliner in her room about to nurse, I pointed at the colorful elephants on her fleece pajamas and said, “Elephants!” She looked down at her pajamas. I pointed at the elephants floating on the mobile in her room and said again, “Elephants!”
Allie pointed at a pink elephant on the leg of her PJs. “Mmm?” she asked me.
“Pink elephant,” I said. She pointed at another elephant on her knee. “Green elephant,” I said.
Then she pointed at a blue elephant on her thigh. “Boo?”
“That’s right, that’s blue!” I said, wondering if it were a coincidence.
She pointed at other elephants on her PJs, asking with her inquisitive “Mmm?” and I in turn named each of their colors. Then she returned to the blue elephant, pointed, and said, “Boo?” It’s not a coincidence! Encouraged by my enthusiasm, she then placed a tiny fingertip on the blue elephant’s eye. “Eye?” I was very happy yesterday morning.
This evening, when we returned home after work, Jayne excitedly told us that Allie had pointed to a pair of socks Jayne had been holding in her hand and said, “Yellow.” I’ve never heard her say “yellow” so I don’t know how she pronounces it. Jayne said she’d looked down at the socks and only then realized she was holding yellow socks, so it was completely unprompted.
In your face, dada!
Speaking of face, Allie in the past couple of weeks has enjoyed pointing out facial features to us. “Eye?” she’d say, poking herself in the eye. Then she’d point to my eye.
“Mama’s eye,” I’d tell her.
“Mama?” she’d confirm, poking me in the eye. And then she’d move on. “No?” she’d say, pointing at her nose. Then she’d point to my nose. Then she’d stick her finger in her mouth and say, “Teeth!” “Ear” comes out more like “Eee.” Eyebrow to her is just “bwow.” Then she’d jab at her neck and say, “Nock nock nock!” After that she’ll jab my neck and say the same thing. She also goes through this with her stuffed animals. She points out her bear’s eyes, nose, ears.
Just a couple of days ago, I finally realized that the “mock nee” she says while in her room, as she’d said for almost a couple of months now, refers to her singing dancing sock monkey that was a gift from Auntie Maggie, sitting on her dresser. She says it like it’s two different words, but always says it together, so I don’t know why I didn’t think to put “mock nee” together for “monkey” before now. We also realized last week that the “me me” she’s been saying for weeks didn’t mean herself; she means Minnie Mouse. Maybe she’s been saying her colors all along and we just didn’t understand her. Maybe she’s been saying tons of other words that we still haven’t understood, yet. Maybe she’s been reciting Hamlet‘s “To be or not to be” soliloquy for weeks when we thought she was just humming and babbling to herself.
Okay, that’s a little unrealistic. More likely, she says “blue” and “yellow” because she’s aspiring to be a Bruin, like her mama.
What color’s the egg, Allie?
I didn’t do my noontime pumping today, the only pump session I’ve done for awhile. I knew it would be this week that I stopped pumping, but I didn’t know when; it all hinged on when Allie finishes the frozen stockpile at home. Today, she had only 4.5 ounces left in the freezer, which I’m sure she’s already had for her singular bottle feeding after her morning nap. We’d stopped giving her the bottle after her afternoon nap months ago and replaced that feeding with a snack. She doesn’t care; when we get her from her nap and finish changing her diaper, she rolls over, bounces up, and runs off. It’s not like she points to the La-Z-Boy recliner we nurse on and says “mum mum,” which she still does mornings upon waking up and nights at bedtime. So since she’s out of stored milk and my measly 2oz pump yields won’t be enough to fill her bottle for a normal feeding, she’s being simultaneously weaned off the bottle completely and I’m weaning myself off the pump completely to coordinate with her.
I’d looked forward to weaning off the pump for months, but now that it was down to the days this week, it was a little unsettling. Was it the right thing to do, since she’s sick and could use the antibodies? Is the timing okay? Should I replace the morning bottle with a snack as well, or would that be too much food? How will my body respond? Will I be uncomfortable all day? Am I gonna be fat now that I’m not expelling those extra few hundred calories in milk?
I comfort myself by thinking that Allie’s still nursing mornings and nights, so she’s still getting my antibodies, and plus, she’s getting over her cold anyhow. So I’m still burning 2/3 of the calories I had been, despite now losing my excuse to not exercise regularly at lunchtime. And given that I’ve only been able to eke out about 2, 2.5 ounces for a couple of weeks, my body is likely ready to be down to just the 2 nursings a day. Plus, it’ll make Mr. W happy to not be slave to my pumping schedule when we go out by ourselves. I’ve pumped now in the car multiple times, once while it was still driving; I’ve pumped in a clean bathroom stall of a car dealership while sitting on the floor (thankfully it was totally private and no one had been in the restroom that day and no one used it the entire time I was in there); pumped at my cousin’s house; in hotel rooms; parked outside supermarkets, restaurants and parks; my jury room; my jury room restroom; other people’s jury room restrooms; my judge’s chambers; a doctor’s spare exam room. It’s nice to not have to think about it or have to figure out a place to rinse all the pump parts ASAP afterwards for fear milk would dry up or decay in the inaccessible little ports and crevices.
We met my HS friend Lily and her hubby Arnold’s baby on Saturday. Harrison is 11 weeks old, and a quiet little thing who hangs out inconspicuously in his carrier and sticks his tongue out as he looks out cozily. It’s hard for me to imagine Harrison being almost 3 months, since it seems like just a few weeks ago that Lily gave birth. Time flies when it’s not your own life, I guess.
Harrison also seemed newborn-y to me. His head still needed to be supported, and he was tiny. His parents said he’s been consistently in the 30-something percentile. Allie was born in the 99th percentile plus and has remained there, so the last time I saw her looking that floppy was before 6 weeks old, when she started holding up her own head sitting.
It’s true about the mommy amnesia thing. Mr. W and I were so impressed with how low-maintenance and quiet Harrison was the whole evening, even while we were out at our favorite neighborhood Greek restaurant eating. He cooed quietly here and there, and may have whimpered once before he was picked up, but that was it. I kept saying how when Allie was that age, we could not have gone that long without her crying and freaking me out. I knew Lily was okay with new-motherhood and didn’t have postpartum depression like I did when I received an email from her early on, and in it she’d written, “I always think Harrison is cute, even when he’s crying.” Wow. Back in the early days, when Allie cried, I was terrified and miserable, often near tears myself. When Allie wasn’t crying, I was having an anxiety attack thinking I heard her cry, or that she was about to wail. I was always on eggshells, something the therapists said was a hormonal imbalance thing due to PPD. It was nauseating. Even tho Mr. W had agreed with me that Harrison is WAY more mellow than Allie was at that age, turned out I didn’t give Allie enough credit. I went back to my blog at her 11-week point, and read. At 11 weeks (early February), she was going through the crazy-sick thing when she had to be on the nebulizer, was so congested she couldn’t breathe, but I still had her on a regular napping schedule according to her needs, she did well and was happy and I had been so impressed with her (the pediatrician was, as well) for being such a good, happy, smiling baby despite her miserable symptoms. She had been going to Gymboree for a few weeks and was very active, talkative, and kicky. She was also very interactive with people. She was picking up things and sticking them in her mouth, and was sucking on her fists and trying to get our fingers into her mouth to suck. Mr. W pointed out that maybe Harrison wasn’t doing those things because his parents had put newborn mittens on his hands. That’s true, I recalled. For all we knew he was signing the alphabet in there and we couldn’t see it.
Reading more posts on my blog, I was surprised that when Allie was Harrison’s age, I was already going through my nanny search in preparation for returning to work. In my head, that’s pretty late in the game and Allie had made a ton of progress and we were “out of the woods.” I guess when I imagined the early days of when I was convinced Allie had colic, that was the first 6-8 weeks or so. Man, those days seemed to have gone on for months. I would’ve been more traumatized than I am now if it weren’t for my mommy support system, the new-mom friends who let me text them at 2, 3, 4 in the morning, who’d always responded promptly and gave me unending encouragement and tips from their experience. I should’ve sent them Mother’s Day flowers. I wish I’d have thought of it. I hope I remember next year.
I’m glad I kept up the blogging through the PPD. I’d either blocked info out, or things were just a blur to me as I lived in a sleep-deprived, anxiety-ridden haze. My posts were pretty detailed, which made me realize I’m less detailed now about what we do daily. That’s probably cuz I’m back at work and the baby’s “daily” is more in Jayne’s realm. So, a typical day:
I wake up between 4:30a and 5a to pump out the overnight engorgement with the hand pump. I get out between 7-8 ounces. Then I sneak downstairs with the pump, my purse, electric pump backpack, and I store the milk in 2 breastmilk bags, pop them in the freezer. I fill a syringe with 0.25ml Amlodipine (for high blood pressure) for Dodo, bring that and the now-empty pump upstairs, making sure along the way that the computer downstairs has all 4 cameras displayed for Jayne later, and that the front door is unlocked so Jayne can get in. I go upstairs, wash out the pump parts, draw up 1ml of liquid potassium for Dodo, and administer both meds to him orally while he struggles. I then get myself ready for work. Meanwhile, somewhere in there at 5:30a, Mr. W gets out of bed and gets himself ready for work and has breakfast. I join him for breakfast between 6a and 6:15a, then we go get Allie up. Often, she’s already up, and playing quietly in her crib. I’m happy if she wakes up after 6a, but she wakes up between 5:30a-6a a lot. We just leave her alone and she just hangs out in her crib quietly rolling, crawling, practicing standing, humming to herself, playing with her bear. When we get her, I open the curtains and say, “Good MORning, sweetheart!” She smiles at me, stretches, smiles at Mr. W as he talks to her and tickles her, then he picks her up and changes her as I take her bear out of her crib and preps her room for the day, moving the stepstool out of the way of her crib cuz Jayne doesn’t use it, getting her clothes for the day, etc. Then Mr. W hands her over as I’m in the feeding chair, and I nurse her. When that’s down, I close the curtains and blinds again, preparing the room for her naps, then go downstairs with her. Jayne may or may not be there by then; she’s been coming in later and later, and today didn’t get there till 7a. Mr. W and I chat with her a few minutes and we rush out and go to work.
In the day, Allie now takes 2 naps, the first staring between 8:30a-9a, and lasts about an hour or a little over, the second starting between 12p-1p and lasts between 1-2 hours. On odd days, like yesterday, Allie only slept half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon and was crabby from lack of sleep all day, so I gave her the optional late-afternoon nap at 3:30p and she slept for a little over an hour before I woke her so that she wouldn’t be messed up for her bedtime. Her mood was much improved after she got sufficient rest. She still goes right into soothing position upon entry into her room: head resting against my chest, sucking on her left thumb. Eyes close slowly as I sway side to side for a few minutes. When the sucking slows and stops, I lay her gently in her crib. She wakes up during the move, sees the approaching mattress, and drops her face into it and goes to sleep on her tummy. Also in the day, Allie now gets 2 feedings of solids — a puree of a veggie + brown rice cereal and a fruit late-morning, another veggie and fruit + rice cereal early afternoon. Right now there are pureed peach, pear, prune, cantaloupe, purple yam, peas, zucchini, and yellow squash in baggies in the freezer to choose from, all no more than a week old since I puree a batch of something every 3-4 days. She’s also got carrots and broccoli in her eating repertoire, and sweet potatoes waiting to be introduced. I should do spinach soon before her growing taste buds start thinking they can refuse different-tasting foods. White meat’s coming up later this month. Allie right now still gets 5 breastmilk feedings a day, the first and last by nursing. The middle 3 bottles are 7 oz, 7 oz, 5 oz.
When we get home after work, it’s about 5p and we have about an hour to play with Allie, give her a feeding of solids around 5:30p, bathe her every other evening, read her a story on our bed, and put her to bed. In her room with just me around 6:15p, her nightly routine is a diaper and a change into her PJs, I apply Aquaphor on her dry ankles and her neck folds, pick her up, nurse her to sleep in the La-Z-Boy, lower her into her crib, and close the door behind me as I walk out. I aim for this to be between 6:45-7p. There’s a whole strategy to nursing her to sleep, too, including making sure her last side is the right side so she’s facing the right way to be picked up and placed in the crib, letting her slow her sucking into a slumber before I move her upper arm out of the way, letting her go back into a slumber before I withdraw, then letting her stir and go back to sleep for close to a minute before I move my arm under her neck and cradle her for pick-up, letting her drift again before standing up and moving her into her crib. Otherwise I place her in her crib too roused and she’ll wake up and cry and thrash around in there for awhile before going to sleep. After she’s put down, I re-medicate the cat and Mr. W and I have have dinner, then do our own things. Lately it’s been him playing Diablo 3 and me reading. I try to be in bed around 8:30p, altho I may not sleep till much later. This morning Allie slept in until we had to wake her at 6:30a so that was good, altho I always feel bad waking her.
Allie’s a lot of fun right now. When I open and close my hand in a wave, she smiles in recognition of the game, and does the same back. I think because she sees my palm when I do this to her, she does it back by facing her own palm toward herself, also, so she can see how she’s doing what we’re doing. We say “bye-bye” or “hi” when we do this wave, and it’s done when I greet her in the morning or after a nap, and Mr. W does it to her when he waves bye-bye to her as she goes upstairs with me for a nap. Over the weekend, she was tired and fussing for a nap, and she started waving at us. We think she’s associating it with “Need to go nap! Go bye-bye to nap!” She also crawls around and explores everything on her own, following after Dodo sometimes. I WAS hoping to not need to babyproof, but that’s starting to look slim. She also likes to get to the edge of the couch or to the landing of the stairs to pull herself to stand. She’s starting to cruise, just a little. Maybe a step or two, or to change direction, as long as she has an adult’s arm or some furniture to keep a hand on for balance.
Playing peek-a-boo is a lot of fun. I would cover her head with a burp cloth, and say, “Where’s Allie? Where’d Allie go?” And then she’d yank the cloth off herself very suddenly, and I’d say, “THERE’s Allie!” and she’d laugh. Then I’d put the cloth on my head and say, “Where’s mommy?” She’d put her hand on the cloth, wait for me to pause in my speech, then yank the cloth down and I’d be face-to-face with a huge wide-mouthed, 4-toothed grin, and I’d say, “HERE’s mommy!” and she’d laugh. And then we’d repeat with Daddy. She’d occasionally initiate the game by placing the cloth awkwardly on her own head. I’d fix it to cover her better, then ask where Allie is.
She’s also easy to take out to a meal. As long as she has her high chair and we bring some purees to feed her first, she’s fine to sit and people-watch. We went to dim sum yesterday for lunch.
(Yes, I’ve stopped wearing makeup. No point when the kid runs her hands all over my face when I’m nursing. Unless I want her to eat foundation.)
Yesterday, after Allie awoke from a nap and played with the camera and pulled repeated on its wires, Mr. W had to move her on-crib camera to over-crib, mounted on the ceiling (amidst very colorful language in which even the crib’s mother was insulted). This is our new view of Allie’s crib, so we get a new perspective on her sleeping form:
She laid like that for a long time. How does she keep her leg up in the air like that? It’s like she fell asleep in mid-dance.
Allie had a fussy time yesterday evening which threw her schedule off and she didn’t sit at the dinner table with us for once as I put her in her room for a nap, and I slept in her room in the La-Z-Boy recliner after she went down for the night. She did okay once she went to sleep for the night; the feeding lasted from 9:15p to 3:30a. I thought today was going to be rough because I still couldn’t get her schedule right; she only fed on one side at 3:30a, then on the other side at 6:30a. I couldn’t get her to do a full feeding as she wouldn’t stay awake after each side. That threw her morning off, too, as she was hungry again by 8am. After that, she again went to sleep during the feeding so I couldn’t do the eat-play-sleep routine each segment to sleep-train her; after she woke from the short feeding nap she fussed for an hour as I tried to put her down, and she may have slept half an hour max and fussed the rest of the time until her 11:30a feeding. After her 11:30am feeding, she was up, but I had to run errands.
We went right away to Discount Tires so I could find out whether the constant “low air pressure” warning in my car was due to actual low tire pressure, or a leak in a tire. Turned out it was generally just low and the guy didn’t think there was a problem, but encouraged me to get a pressure check every other month with them (free). The PSI was supposed to be at least 28; all tires were around 24, setting off the sensor. He said he refilled them to 35 PSI.
Since Target was right next to Discount Tires and Allie had knocked out in the car (again ruining the eat-play-sleep routine), I went and got batteries for the central heater. It was freezing this morning and the heat wouldn’t come on. I made an appointment for some guys to come out and look at it on Thursday morning, but replacing the batteries worked so I called and canceled the visit. Allie slept through it all; I even managed to cut her nails while she was asleep in the car carrier (now in the house). And I started blogging.
But…as she’s now up and crying, I’ll have to tend to her, again on a messed up eat-play-sleep schedule. Whomever came up with that must not have had any infants.
I partially swaddled Allie (arms free) and tried to put her down to bed last nite. She had her usual nighttime fit at 9pm, fighting me, refusing to go down, “leh”ing all over the place altho I’d just fed her, sweating, making me sweat, scratching my chest to ribbons with both hands as she made catfight-sounding wauls. At 10:30p I finally gave up, unswaddled her and took her to her nursery, which we rarely use for anything but pumping milk and storage of her clothes and things. I closed the door, put her in her crib and curled up on recliner, intending just to wait it out for a little bit to give myself a break from the screaming. In less than a minute, she was silent. I walked over and peeked in. She was ASLEEP on her fuzzy bear. OMG! I settled back into the La-Z-Boy, curling up horizontally like I used to when I lived on my own and fell asleep in the comfy chair watching TV. Allie stayed asleep happily until almost 2:30am, when I changed and fed her at her request. Then just as easily, she dozed off, I placed her on her back in her crib again as I snoozed in the recliner, and altho she may have awoken here and there, she mainly was able to soothe herself quickly back to sleep and didn’t fully wake up again until past 5:30a for her next feeding. Then 8am for the next feeding. I didn’t have to get up and rock her, silence her, like I had been doing the night before and before I got into the room, and she wasn’t waking up twice an hour. WOW.
I’m trying to following the lactation nurse’s advice yesterday to pump after a morning feeding, but didn’t know how to do that. So this morning, after her 10am feeding, she fell asleep in my arms and I laid her on her back on her changing pad, which I inclined on a pillow. It was hard when she cried a little in the beginning and spit up and I was strapped to the pumps so I couldn’t go to her, but she fell asleep after that on her own and is STILL asleep now from that nap, even tho I moved her to the swing downstairs. Note the time…1:32pm!
WHO is this angel?
I also got a chance to play with her this morning after I changed her. She awoke hungry, but beared (bore?) with me as I massaged her tummy, bicycled her legs, talked to her, and we smiled at each other. Touching her cheek brings on this huge open-mouthed smile, as with touching the tip of my nose to hers. I also made the mistake of leaning down and kissing her cheek while she was eating at one feeding, and she smiled so big my breast fell out of her mouth and I couldn’t relatch her properly.
Here are some photos of her hanging out with her cousin Alexandra yesterday! Alex is 2 months older than Allie, about 3.5 months old right now. Allie is about 6 weeks.
They’re about the same length!!
Allie likes her new cousin.
Alex finally sees my camera!
We were all like this:
Thanks for visiting Babyland!
On Tuesday, Allie decided she was going to be an upside-down kickboxer on our entire drive home from work. Every two to three seconds, she’d kick up at my diaphragm or my stomach. The assault on my gut was making me feel sick. Mr. W suggested I recline the passenger seat to encourage her to change positions or calm down, or give her more room, so I did that. She still kept at it. Then I turned slightly to my left, which did cause her access to change a bit. But now she was kicking at my left ribs. I rolled to the right. She did it to my right ribs. I gasped for air the entire drive home, and as soon as we got home and I walked out, she stopped. The same thing happened yesterday on the drive home. If she kept practicing her kicking like this, she’s going to be able to walk the day she comes out. That’s probably what she’s preparing herself for. I told Mr. W that she hates his driving. (Who could blame her? haha)
Mr. W took Monday off from work cuz his parents and sister-in-law were still over, and well, he didn’t want to go to work. I still went to work. Mid-afternoon, he called me and said, “Look at the nanny cam.” So I typed in our internet nanny cam’s IP address and saw that in the guest-room-turned-Allie’s-room, that Mr. W had cleared out the queen bed and guest furniture, put together the crib, dragged my La-Z-Boy chenille rocker-recliner up there next to the crib, and was now rocking in the chair looking at his handywork. We have a nursery! He’s such a handyman — when he realized that there was some weird construction screwup and the rails for the drawer at the bottom of the crib were an inch farther apart than the width of the drawer, instead of calling the company (which I would’ve done), he simply went to Home Depot and bought some wood and reconstructed the bottom of the crib and redid the rails so that the drawer now fits in there. We figured it was fine, since that piece only stays there for the first couple of years anyway. When the crib converts to a toddler bed, the drawer has to come out, and when it converts to a full-size bed, again, no drawer.
For a visual, this is the crib (and dresser + hutch) that we got. Mr. W found the company, Baby Appleseed, online and fell in love with their styles. An unborn person now possesses the most expensive pieces of furniture we have in the entire house. We paid additionally for the upgrade from pine to alder, also, because Mr. W felt that when we invest in furniture expected to last 18+ years, that we should get good solid hard wood. I love that the company plants 10 trees with each crib purchased to contribute to sustainability.
I also love that despite the fact that Mr. W had made up his mind long before meeting me that he was done having more kids, he appears to be REALLY into Allie. He’s taken so much initiative on researching and picking out her stuff, and putting it all together. The only thing I’d done for the nursery so far was put all the baby gifts from the shower away in it. He sat in there with me through that, too, playing with and examining all the loot. He’s also come with me to every single baby prep class — breastfeeding, infant care basics, healthy pregnancy, and we have infant CPR, maternity hospital tour, and a series of birthing classes coming up he plans to attend with me, also. As much as he jokes about how I need to have experience changing ALL her diapers and taking care of her cuz he’d already done his tour of duty with his first two, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have some occasions when we’re actually fighting over who gets to take care of Allie’s next need. The stepkidlet is eager for her share of Allie, too. She’s already planning her next semester’s courses so that she could get certain days of the week completely off to take Allie Duty full-time. My mom had already offered to take Allie on Fridays, her weekly day off as she works 4/10s. Hopefully this will all work out to reduce the expense of a nanny.
After we had the nursery cleaned up the other day, Mr. W went and got the stepkidlet to come up and see the room. “How cuuuute!” she exclaimed over everything. I watched for maybe a spark of jealousy that Allie’s new furniture is ridiculously elaborate compared to all the hand-me-downs that the stepkidlet and the rest of us had, but there was none of that at all. Instead, she said toward my tummy, “All right, Allie, your room’s all done. The only thing missing is YOU! Do you hear me? This is your sister! Come out and play!”
Last weekend, I was sitting at our Lake listening to an old-school R&B band perform, tucked into a low beach chair, when my right arm was pushed away from my side where it had been pressing. Simultaneously, I felt the now-familiar internal muscle spasm sensation where my arm was pushed. And that was when I realized, what I’d been feeling inside since like week 15 can now be felt from the outside. Maybe it’s because of the deep bass vibrating my insides, but she kept up her rhythm movements through the rest of the concert. It still kinda wigs me out a little, cuz it’s so similar (identical, except for location) to having a gas bubble moving around.
It took until last nite before it occurred to me to actually put my hand on my abdomen to feel for the jolts externally when I was feeling them internally. As I sat in my big plush La-Z-Boy rocking recliner reviewing some Escrow refinance docs with Mr. W on the computer, Allison continuously broke my attention by her attempts to dance a jig. I pressed a hand gently on the area she was jostling around in. She responded with a movement every 5-8 seconds. I mentioned this to Mr. W, and asked if he wanted to feel it. “I don’t think I’d be able to feel that,” he said, but I pressed his hand onto the same spot my hand was, and for a moment, I thought Allison wasn’t going to cooperate. Then she gave her daddy a high-five, in two different spots, one right after the other. Mr. W’s face lit up. “That’s neat!” he said. Then we both turned back to the Escrow docs, altho Allison really did not settle back down for more than 20 minutes at a time the rest of the night. Last nite was her most active night; usually she’ll move a bit after I’ve had something sweet, like fruit or juice, or if I’m laying in a way that puts pressure on a part of my abdomen, cuz she’ll gently tap at the pressurized spot in protest. But last nite, she was just rockin’ and rollin’ all on her own for a long time.
I told Mr. W that I wish I had an ultrasound machine so I could see what she was doing in there. She doesn’t just poke at one area like she used to; now it’s a tap on the left side, then almost immediately, a brush in the middle above my belly button, then a tap on the way left side of my abdomen. What movements is she making? Supposedly at this stage, we can hear her heartbeat with a stethoscope on my stomach, and she’s having sleeping/waking cycles. Maybe she’s an active dreamer.
Official music video by one of my fave indie artists, David Choi. “By My Side,” new, and relevant. 🙂 (By my side, by my inside, same diff. haha)
The cutest video I’d seen in a long time, and I have yet to come across an original song by David Choi that I didn’t immediately love.
Mr. W and I compiled an earthquake survival kit over the weekend. I’d first checked with my parents and asked if they had one, and if not, if they’d like me to make one for them. My dad responded for me to go ahead, so Mr. W and I doubled everything we bought. Unfortunately, as Mr. W is a huge Costco fan, our earthquake kits came out to about $200 each. But that includes first aid kids, lots of food, and two new rolling duffels. We could probably feed the entire neighborhood from our survival kit, or survive a zombie apocolypse, provided we had a big stick to beat off scavenging neighbors in the second scenario. My mom called on Sunday and told me to skip the weekend visit as she was really sick. I protested I had to bring them their earthquake survival kit. She said if earthquakes happen, they will likely be at work, and our giant home-supply kit isn’t going to help anyway. Good point. She said ideally, we should have more portable survival kits in our cars because that’s something we’ll always have with us, no matter where we are. Also good point. Oh well.
On Saturday, we had our first official “event” with Daughter’s new beau. We’d only met him once before, rather recently, and rather briefly. This time, we invited him over so we could all go to sushi at a local favorite all-you-can-eat place. Turned out, despite his telling Daughter that he LOVES sushi, he’d really meant rolls and didn’t realize there’s a whole other world of nigiri. Son came over for lunch, too. So the 5 of us sat at the sushi bar and some of us had a ball. “Some” = Mr. W and Beau; Mr. W’s two kids, Son & Daughter, refused to eat anything out of their comfort zones so they just ordered a bunch of rolls, nothing raw for Daughter. She claims to “hate seafood.” Son did try spicy tuna and seemed to enjoy it. As for me, I was going to just avoid the high-mercury fish, but as soon as the sushi chef learned I was pregnant, he convinced me that I shouldn’t eat most of this stuff raw. He proudly announced that he has an 8-month-old at home, and that he had taken 5 parenting classes, one of which included nutrition for pregnancies. He had all the current info on how sushi should be prepared and limited for expectant mothers. I just deferred to him and let him serve me omakase style. He avoided all fish in the tuna family (ahi, yellowtail, albacore, etc) and did serve me several pieces of salmon, but he’d lightly seared the outer surface of the fish to kill off any surface bacteria, leaving the inside thankfully rare. He also made me special rolls with optimal nutrition in mind. I saw that a bunch had asparagus spears inside. Beau enjoyed everything, and kept trying to get Daughter to try his favorites — salmon and yellowtail. She refused. Hours later, when everyone was hanging out with us at our house and Mr. W took a nap in the La-Z-Boy as everyone else watched March Madness on TV and I played the piano, every few hours the silence would be broken with Beau sighing, “Ooooh, that yellowtail belly sushi!”
Soon Son and Mr. W left for a father-son gymming session, and Beau engaged me in a long conversation about religion. Not just about HIS religion, but about other religions, Calvinism, my beliefs, thoughts on predestination vs. free will, what personal experiences we’ve had in our lives that brought us to our specific beliefs. I respected much of his opinion. Although he is die-hard Christian (newly for a year, so he’s got that born-again conviction), he wasn’t pushy or preachy, and had an open enough mind to accept questions or suppositions I put up. For example, he brought up that the Bible says no woman should be a leader among men, and I said I had a hard time thinking everyone would be okay with that in this age. He said he has no problem with others not accepting this belief of his, and if he sees a woman leader leading men, he wouldn’t condemn her or say anything; if he decided it wasn’t for him, he just simply wouldn’t go to that service. But he doesn’t judge others who believe differently. I asked whether it was possible, in his opinion, that back when that passage was written, it was at a time when women were not allowed to participate in political events, talks, or even allowed to be educated. Clearly if they decided to incite a rebellion, these women would have a disadvantage in being informed, so maybe it was safer to tell people to just not allow women to lead. But that is not true today when women have the same access to information, education, and just about anything else. Beau acknowledged that this is possible, but because he doesn’t feel that he is qualified to start defining Christian rules as “cultural” vs. permanent, he feels it’s safer for him to not redefine anything personally. Because, he reasoned, what would keep someone from redefining all rules, and saying, “Oh, that no-premarital-sex thing? That’s old-fashioned cultural stuff that no longer applies to today’s culture. I don’t have to follow that. Oh, that love-they-neighbor thing? That was back then. Today’s world is different.” I get that. I can respect his logic. I also respect that throughout our discussions, he remained able to intellectualize his reasoning, he never blindly regurgitated Bible quotes or declared a defensive war with me on theology. We both just shared, and asked questions, and really thought about our answers before giving them. If there were something he wasn’t sure about, he’d either think and hypothesize, or say he simply didn’t know. At the end he gave me a hug and said he enjoyed our conversation. We also both seem to dislike the pushy “preachy” Christians who end up being more hypocritical than truly living the spirit of Christianity, as they judge negatively all the non-Christians around them and condemn everyone else’s behavior. Beau said that goes against the heart of Christianity; he believes in living in a way one believes is right according to Jesus, loving and praying for one’s neighbors through the neighbors’ decisions to do things contrary to Christian “law.” He says you don’t spout hellfire at them because you are not “above” everyone else simply because you are saved, and you are not “better” or “more deserving” in Jesus’ eyes. He says we’re all the same sinners, some have just found Jesus already. Again, I can respect that. The only thing that kinda bugged me was that he said he would have to ask someone like Rebecca who her Lord is, and if she gives ANY word response except “Jesus,” he couldn’t participate with her. I asked, what about “God” as a response? He thought and decided no, because “God” is generic and could mean any god, and he didn’t trust himself know whether he was following the “right” God and his intention is to stay on a specifically Christian path. So he wouldn’t take the risk of following non-Christian doctrine without realizing it. I understand that, it’s rather conservative and humble, but at least he’s open-minded enough to converse and learn about other religious views. Daughter, on the other hand, has a harsher more closed-perspective about her religion. She didn’t think she’d return to Rebecca because Rebecca had made a past-life reference in reading someone else, and Daughter said she’d discussed this with other pastors and they didn’t agree with reincarnation, so Rebecca must be — well, she didn’t use the word, but it’s implicit — “wrong” or “bad.” She says she believes in Rebecca’s accuracy, but was unsure of the source from which the information came, despite all of the references to the “universe,” “greater good,” “God,” “prayer.” But because Rebecca didn’t specifically say “Jesus,” that was the problem — she didn’t say the key word for the Christian community. Beau actually gently corrected Daughter, saying if Daughter didn’t know if Rebecca was Christian, she should ask Rebecca before deciding she must not be, and mused that the Bible doesn’t specifically condemn or deny reincarnation, although it addresses mainly specifically one’s current lifetime and one’s afterlife, and he mentioned some story about a woman at the well to whom Jesus said something about her having lived 5 lives. He said he simply didn’t “know” about reincarnation, but that he will once this life ends and he greets his Maker.
So anyway, Sunday was rainy, which was nice for staying indoors. Daughter disappeared early morning to church and didn’t return until about 10:30p (with Beau in tow). Mr. W and I spent the day being lazy. I watched a “House” marathon, read my baby book during commercials, and did a ton of laundry; he played a new game on his computer the entire day, stopping every so often when I would appear to tell him something funny I saw on “House,” something funny Dodo did, or needed a hug in between stupid loads of laundry. And he stopped at 8pm of course (after I yelled and yelled at him from the stair landing, because he played the game with headphones tightly plugged into his ears) to give me my Progesterone shot and massage the offended butt muscle. (Heating pads afterwards work WONDERS!) I also had a nice phone chat with my expecting cousin Jennifer. Her due date is the end of September, so she’s a bit ahead of me and shared some of her first trimester complaints of nausea and how “eating has now totally become a chore.” I shared with her what I’ve learned recently about epigenetics and proper pregnancy nutrition. (You’re eating for 1.1 in the first trimester, not for 2, so doubling food quantity is totally excessive AND bad for the baby.) She made a passing suggestion for going maternity shopping together. I’m still (secretly) hoping to get away with buying little to no maternity clothing. Why invest tons of money for a condition that only lasts a few months of my life? Besides, plenty of today’s fashion is empire-waisted and look like maternity clothes anyway. Much cheaper (and cuter) than ACTUAL specialty maternitywear.
I thought I was entering into the morning sickness stage of pregnancy this morning when I felt a little sick after drinking water this morning, and thought, “Oh no! I have dinner plans with Ann tonight to catch up over Japanese BBQ” But it passed, so I’m hoping it stays away a bit longer.
TAXES: We visited the tax guy Thursday evening. It’s someone Mr. W has used in the past and I’m happy he found his way back and took me along. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to pay (much) given that our expenses are at an all-time high right now. Imagine our relief when we got a refund, and our tax refund came out to, not as much as last year’s, but about 1/3 as much. We’ll just say that if applied 100% to my “fertility credit card,” will pay off more than half of it. It’s like getting 20% off on fertility treatments. But now I’m thinking, we’re letting the government withhold way too much of our money for taxes. I should increase my exemptions for this year. (Mr. W has himself plus 8, I have just myself plus 1.) So, that went well. 🙂 The tax guy’s modest office lobby is well-stocked with hospitality, too, but I couldn’t indulge in the red wine, chilled white wine, Cokes and diet Cokes, coffee (which they had run out of anyway), so I chewed on a lemon Tootsie Roll (I didn’t know these existed!), flipped through a celeb mag, and played a form of Scrabble on my cell phone with Jordan and Mr. W. (They both cheat. What kind of word is “vim,” anyway? They both played it against me. Hmmph.)
FERTILITY DOCTOR VISIT: Friday morning, we went in to our fertility appointment. First, they did another ultrasound to count my follicles again. I don’t know what these drugs have been doing, but I’ve never seen my follicles (egg sacs in the ovaries) look so clear on ultrasound. I could finally tell what my doctor was counting. He pointed to various large dark circles and said these are the good follicles that will mature and he will take the egg from them. He pointed to various medium and smaller sized dark circles and said these probably won’t mature much, given how young and small they are, so he’ll just ignore them when he’s doing the egg extractions. He counted the viable (large) follicles. SEVEN on each side. Woohoo! (And, ouch.) I’m definitely at the right stage to change over my Lupron drug (halt ovulation) to Menopur and Follistim (start egg ripening). Since we were on the subject, I noted to him, “I didn’t feel anything on Lupron.”
“You’re not supposed to,” he said. “One out of six or so women get menopausal type symptoms, but most don’t feel anything at all.” Mr. W said he would’ve thought I’d be one of the six since I’m “sensitive to medication.” Lucky for him I’m not, although it’d be interesting to get a glimpse into what I’d be like at menopause.
After the ultrasound, I went to the phlebotomist station for a blood draw to test my hormone levels. We discussed what happened last time they drew blood early morning. (Before we left for the airport on our Europe vacation, we went to the fertility doctor’s for multiple blood draws. I stood up when I was done, waited for Mr. W to be done, then when I was at the payment desk, I started feeling nauseated. It got worse until I had to tell the receptionist to stop talking because I needed somewhere to sit down. Then ringing in my ears set in and I started getting a “static” thing going on the outside edges of my vision, which closed in until my vision went black. I told them I couldn’t see anything and felt really sick. A nurse and Mr. W led me into an empty room to a chair and the nurse fanned me (I had broken out in cold sweat) while feeding me a box of juice. Soon the ringing gave way to a water rushing sound and I could hear better and I started seeing shadows moving around in black and white. My vision then came back and they instructed me to sit there while Mr. W kept fanning. Apparently juice in the morning before a blood draw was not enough for my little body.) The nurse said losing vision without losing consciousness was “weird,” cuz usually people that start to black out on their vision faint. This gives me a little concern about “going under” during the egg retrieval; what if I’m paralyzed and blind but I’m conscious and can FEEL and hear? *vomit*
After the blood draw, we went into a separate nurse’s office and the nurse who was with me at the ultrasound came in to explain my next course of medication for the next 8 days. Apparently I’m not done with Lupron. I’m just going to halve the dose to the “5” line (.05ml?) on the tiny skinny subcutaneous syringe (the ones with the orange caps in the photo), and administer that in the mornings as I have been doing the last 10 days. I guess that explains why I got an entire separate pack of insulin syringes in addition to the ones that came in the Lupron box, and why I still have half the vial of Lupron left over. “We still don’t want you to ovulate,” the nurse explained. I’m adding Menopur to the morning Lupron poke, though. I found out Menopur can also be administered subcutaneously, so I was greatly relieved. That means I can still do it myself. But this one’s trickier to set up. Apparently the syringes for Menopur comes with a “mixing needle” attached to the syringe. She said I don’t have to use that because it’s more difficult, so to just twist that needle off and throw it away into the Sharps container (provided). That was a relief, because the “mixing needle” is thick, long, and scary. I then screw on a “Q-Cap,” which is shaped like those ointment tube caps that have an inset puncture point on the other side that you have to turn around and push into the foil seal of the ointment tube opening to puncture it. So you screw the Q-Cap onto the syringe and use it to puncture a small vial of clear fluid. The way the cap is shaped also snaps onto the vial. You then use the syringe to draw up the liquid through the hole at the tip of the puncture point into the syringe. Then you pull off the vial and insert the Q-Cap with syringe onto a second vial of white powder. Squeeze the liquid from the syringe into the vial, shake the vial, mix the two. Then draw up that bottle of mixed meds into the syringe. Remove the Q-cap and vial, screw on the thin half-inch subcutaneous needle head, squeeze the air out, tap out the air bubbles, and you’re all set.
In addition to those 2 morning shots, I have to do a Follistim shot, also subcutaneous, at night. This injection “pen” is the stupidest invention in my kit. The concept is cool; you load a vial of the liquid into the middle of the pen. You screw on a new needle tip. You turn the back of the pen until your directed dosage (225 iu for me) shows up in the window. You inject the half-inch needle into your skin and push the button at the back of the pen with your thumb. You pull out the pen, toss the needle, and you’re done until the next dose. Here’s the impracticality of it: The vial is preloaded with 300 iu of medication. My second dose, I use up the remainder of the vial (75 iu) and have to open the pen, pop in a new vial, screw in a new needle head after tossing the old one, turn the dial to administer the rest of my dose (150 iu), and re-poke and re-inject. That’s TWO POKES for one dose! And then the next day, I’m going to have 150 iu left, so I use it all up, then put in a new vial, turn it to dispense the remainder of my dose (75 iu), repoke AGAIN, and I’ll have 225 iu left in there, the full correct dose, for the next night. To make keeping track of all this easier, the Follistim pen kit has an instructional booklet with a chart in the back pages you write your doses and remaining iu’s in, like a checkbook register. WHAT THE HELL! The preloaded vial is 2/3 empty. Why can’t they fill the damn thing up so I get more uses out of one vial, or better yet, dump all that liquid into one big vial and let me draw up my own dose like I do with Lupron? Argh. It’s such a ridiculously fancy zippered kit, too. See the right side of the first photo. At least it’s in the proper colors of blue and yellow, altho it’s more of a Cal navy blue than the UCLA royal blue. =P
So this morning, I tried the new meds. Mr. W has always been eager to help and so far I hadn’t needed him to. He asks often, though, if I’d like him to do the shots for me. This morning, he woke up before 6am and laid there, fidgeting, keeping me awake. Then 45 minutes later, he prodded me and said, “Want me to set up the shots for you?” I said no, I could do it. He said he paid good attention to the nurse and can do the mixing. I said I can handle it. He offered to do one while I do the other. I still declined, and he said then I’d have to get up now and start setting up the shots to keep to my time regimen of adminstering the shots 12 hours apart each time. I got up and while I was in the restroom, I heard him opening up packaging, heard the clink of vials and the snapping of the Q-cap. I just let him do it while I set up the Lupron. It must’ve been fun for him. After he drew all the Menopur fluid into the larger syringe, I balked. There is SO MUCH FLUID in there, almost 2.5 ml. I’ve been used to .10 ml on the Lupron.
“How is all that liquid going to fit with a little half-inch needle under my skin?!” I wailed. He handed me the syringe. I stared at it, freezing up. I thought of what commenter Bat said (in my Pincushion post) about the discomfort in shots coming from the volume of liquid going in, and not from the prick itself.
“Want me to do it?” he asked again.
“Okay,” I said in a small voice.
I swabbed my problematic right side (which was next up in order of stabbings), sat on the bed, and administered my little .05 ml of Lupron. I felt nothing, which was great, except when the needle came out, a larger drop of blood appeared. Stupid right side. I was still gripping my abdomenal fat roll with my left hand per protocol for injection, and turned my head. “Don’t put it right where I put the other one,” I said in paranoia.
“I won’t, I’ll put it right here,” he pointed to a spot about a third of an inch away from the blood drop.
As I looked away, he went for it. “Hey, that’s good, I didn’t feel it,” I said. A second or two passed. Then I felt the fluid. “Ow. Well, it doesn’t hurt exactly, just sort of sore. Ow. Okay, I’m going to start letting go of my fat now so there’s more room for the fluid to go. Ow. That’s uncomfortable, it feels like pressure inside…” When I fully released my fat roll (I know, this sounds gross), the pressure was relieved significantly.
“Okay, and I’m done,” he said.
“Leave it in there for 5 seconds before you pull it out to let the drug settle,” I said. I had read that somewhere, altho it was probably the instructions for the Follistim pen that I’d be using later that night. My mind was a whirlwind. I figure it couldn’t hurt to prevent liquid from squirting back out like the stream from a clown’s lapel flower. I didn’t feel the needle come out, and he certainly didn’t leave a big mark on my skin the way I did with my dinky little injection, which was already bruising purple under the skin. So he did good, despite the fact that he dropped the Q-Cap when he took it out of the packaging and he stabbed himself with the needle before he administered my shot.
I laid back on the bed, afraid that movement would squeeze the fluid out. How does that much fluid fit in there?! I could feel the pressure as my fat cells were being pushed aside to make room. A minute later I got up and went about my morning and the pressure feeling went away after a few minutes. Now, almost 3 hours later, I still feel normal, not that there’s anything to cause mood swings anyhow. We’ll see how the evening’s Follistim goes.
NEW ANTICIPATION: The fertility doctor’s office called me a few hours after our morning visit yesterday. They said the blood test results show that my estrogen is indeed suppressed, so everything’s on schedule and going as expected. They said to go ahead and start the new drug treatment the next day (today). I go in on Monday for a blood test just so they can make sure the hormone levels of the new injections don’t need to be adjusted (I hope they adjust DOWN!). I go in again on Wednesday morning for another ultrasound and blood test to check the status of my eggs now that they’re being told to ripen, and to recheck hormone levels. At that point, they should be able to tell when the eggs will be ready for collection. (Like a hen.) Presently they expect tentative extraction dates sometime in the week after, so they’re going to call Mr. W’s urologist to clear Monday through Wednesday of the week after next for sperm retrieval. Whenever I’m set for egg harvesting, Mr. W will get the sperm retrieval done the day before so that it will be prepared and ready to fertilize my eggs the day my eggs come out. After that, I will get the best embryo implanted in 3 days or 5 days, depending how well the embryos are developing in their little petri dish beds. Throughout all this, I will be undergoing various shots and I’d still be shooting up, intramuscularly, a couple of weeks after the implantation.
I woke up in the middle of the night last night and stayed awake a bit. I thought of how I’m not going to have sex for a year (cuz right now I’m in menses and after that we’ll both be going through surgery for sperm/egg retrieval and after that I’ll be pregnant and that just seems wrong to give the kid a visitor before he’s truly met his dad). And I thought of how starting now, our lives (well, mine mostly) will never be the same again and it will be completely new territory. I felt a little pensive, and I wondered if this was fear, or maybe cold feet. But then Mr. W snuggled up to me in his sleep and I remembered that one of his traits, which has sometimes annoyed me, is his overeagerness to help and take over on things that I’m doing, which has made me feel like he thinks I’m inept, but maybe when it comes to a baby, I’d really, truly BE inept. I’d certainly be inexperienced. I thought of how a couple of days ago, he was sitting on my La-Z-Boy recliner reading his iPad and I sat perpendicularly curled up on his lap, and he’d patted an empty spot between his stomach and my lap, and said, “In a year, there’s going to be a baby laying right here on us.” And I thought of how I’d been afraid that marriage would be a goodbye to all the things I loved about my life — the freedom to wander around the house nekkid or sloppy, the luxury of falling asleep downstairs in front of the TV for naps, the availability to hang out with friends and take trips — and how none of those things really changed. And then, with my husband curled up behind me and with my cat luxuriously balled in front of me and the rain beating outside, I fell asleep again.
