Our Son and RAINBOWS

Our son can grow up to marry a man, a woman, a transvestite or transsexual from transylvania. I don't care so long as he's happy.

Love is love.

This Morning, nursing

As you nurse this morning I think to myself "just still be breastfeeding while we are on vacation" because I feel it will be easier to soothe you when you're upset, or overwhelmed, or if you're not feeling well.

Teething and Nursing

One of these days, probably sooner than later, our nursing journey will have concluded and our baby won't need me for nurishment anymore. With the introduction of solid foods and an appetite like I've never seen it's only a matter of time.

It's bittersweet. I wish we could have gotten off to a better start. I wish I would have pushed harder for things I wanted or didn't want us to do. I wish so many things. It's frustrating. But here we are and I'm making the best of it or at least trying to.

It's about feeding your baby and sometimes you have to supplement and that's ok. Although I'll admit it hurts my heart every formula bottle we have to give.

Teething

It's official, 4 teeth are coming in at the same time, top and bottom front teeth. It looks like the top right beside the front two could be getting ready to come in too. The past week and especially past four days have been extremely busy, except for today. Then include teeth cutting and it's not as fun to be out of the house, but we do our best.

Officially A Crawler

It was after your Chiropractic appointment two weeks ago that you seemed loose enough to finally get up and go. And all last week you were crawling like crazy. You love pulling yourself up to a standing position but don't seem to like sitting very much.

You turned 9 months old on the 7th. Today is your 9 month check up to see how you're doing at the pediatrician's office, no shots today so hopefully a happy visit.

Growing up so quickly. Before we know it you'll be 1 year old. Had better start planning for your first birthday.

A Decade Later, Infertility Awareness Week

I remember the late nights worrying that I would never be a mother. I always felt like one in my heart, I had been a babysitter for years and around little ones since I was a teenager. The joys of being an aunt to my friend's kids just wasn't the same, my husband and I wanted our own.

We thought about adoption, who wouldn't after all the struggle? It's common to have adoption suggested to a couple who is trying and having difficulty. It's also an unfortunate and often hurtful suggestion. Adoption isn't that easy and if it was a lot more children would have homes to go to, to homes where infertile couples who want a child can give a child a family.

After years of being told many things, being overweight, cycles no where to be found then constantly irregular. Finally everything falls into place, healthy diet, weight lost but still no baby, infertility is a cruel joke that no one is laughing at.

A common thing to do after all exhausted methods to have a child is IUI or IVF. Tests showed at the time we may not benefit from IUI so forward we went and IVF it was.

Years prior with monitoring and an injection there was an early loss but swept under the rug, denial about it ever happening. We never imagined we were about to experience the worst loss possible.

We conceived after our first IVF and were having identical twin daughters. They quickly developed TTTS, a syndrome where one baby becomes larger than the other, deprivation of much needed nutrients. If left untreated it is fatal. Opting for surgery to save their lives we proceeded forward.

It was too late, even though the surgery seemed successful lasering apart connected blood vessels, both girls died in womb. The worst loss imaginable. We felt broken.

Infertility snuck up on us after our loss, we tried unsuccessfully and decided to transfer our frozen babies from our original IVF. This would be our last chance before having to start all over again. This time would be different, we had to believe.

One decade from when we began trying for our family we became parents to a healthy baby boy. He is now 8 months old and thriving, we feel like the luckiest parents to have him in our lives.

Even though we have our rainbow son and our beautiful angel babies, we are still a couple who will struggle with infertility.  I am 1 in 8. This week is about awareness, showing that you are not alone, and hope is out there. Had I given up hope we would not of had our twins and would not have our son.

Much love and hugs to all who struggle, who dream to have a family, you are not alone. It's about awareness and education. Hoping you all get your happy beginnings.

Memories, April 2015

I keep telling myself that it doesn't take much time to do, to sit down and write a small something in the blog each day but life escapes me. The busy mommy life with an eight month old baby, the life I never imagined I would have after everything we went through the past decade.

So here we are, our son is rolling all over the floor chatting away, loudly, and playing with one of his toys. He isn't crawling officially as of yet or sitting up, he prefers to stand and likes moving his legs. We think there is a chance that he'll just pull himself up soon and go straight to running, wouldn't that be something?!

What's happened over the past month,.. Our son has his first tooth, broke through a few Friday's ago and he has also had his first viral cold. We've transitioned to cloth diapering and once I stock up on a few more all in one diapers I will be planning to cloth full time at home and until fully comfortable will still carry disposable diapers. I have two boxes of size 3 diapers that go up to about 22 lbs I believe, who knows if we will manage to use them all. Although considering using them for our upcoming vaca in a few months, may be easier than washing or using disposable inserts for cloth covers.

Our son likes to babble constantly, mama, dada, baba, hey-ya, e-ba, bubu, wowuh, hi, hehe, mmmha. No officially words that we've counted as of yet however he does seem to say mama the most frequently, probably because his mama is with him the most.

His baby book is filled out a little more with the what happened the day you were born section. Have begun to baby proof the house, it's only a matter of time that our son is crawling, walking, running and trying to climb everywhere.

I really enjoy our days together, even if all we do is stay home, play, practice crawling, sitting up and breastfeed. These moments are a blip of time in the long run.