I’ve been distracted with another project and haven’t had time to write. Spent my precious time finally putting up my new design! I feel much better about it all now. I have to settle into this having-a-live-child thing.

Today is really not the best time to write this, as she was a bit of a grumpy bear, but man she is just so awesome. I wake up in the morning to her smiling face, like she’s just thrilled that I’m the first thing she sees. We babble at each other, I give her tons of kisses while she laughs in delight, and then we get up for our day. She’s now totally cool with the bouncer, though she gets bored and I have to move her around to wherever I am. I can now distract her with toys and TV and funny shapes on the wall. The other day she was getting impatient while I had my shower so I pulled back the shower curtain to sing and dance for her so she could hold out until I managed to actually wash myself. Car rides are easier, breastfeeding is easier, life is just easier in general.

She has this vibrant personality now. Well she was never short of a personality, but it just keeps coming out more and more. She’s a very social, very happy, smiley baby. She loves being in new places, being around people. Everyone adores her because she busts out in these huge grins whenever anyone talks to her. She’s also showing not just recognition when she sees me, but delight. When she’s around family and friends she’s happy and social, but when she sees mama she it’s like her whole world lit up. It is a feeling beyond awesome.

During the days it’s just her and me, whether it’s cleaning the house, running errands, or playing with toys. We’re a team now, she’s my little sidekick. I love that she’s always there. It feels like the logical next step after being pregnant, carrying around this life inside you. So many times I thought it would never be better, but now I can see her, touch her, laugh and smile with her. Every time I dress her I pause while she’s naked-except-for-diaper on the changing pad and i have to run my fingers over her belly, kiss her soft skin, and just delight in her realness, her aliveness. It still amazes me every single day.

Den and I are planning to have another child in a couple of years, we both want a living sibling for Kate, a second child to raise with her. That’s always been our plan. But at the same time I look at her and I am no longer quite so certain. My world revolves around her and I kind of like it this way. I know that every parent wonders how they could ever love another child the way they do the one they already have, and they worry about fairness and splitting their attention. Obviously I am so not ready yet, I am cherishing this time with her. I’m sure once she’s past the baby stage I’ll start getting some baby fever creep in. But I also know that no matter what happens in the future it will all be just fine. If our next tries don’t work, if we never get pregnant again, it would suck but it would be fine. We have Kate. It’s a huge relief to realize that we will never be in that hell again. We will never again wonder if we will ever have a child to raise. I am still infertile, and always will be, but I am no longer suffering.

Kate was tired, since my plans to run to the pharmacy got delayed an hour (I discovered my keys were locked in the car, woohoo fun) and she was dozing off in the truck during the 2-minute drive. When I got home I decided to put her down to sleep on her own. She’s been unhappy lately with sleeping on my chest because she’s just getting too tall to do that and stretch out at the same time, so she’s been sleeping on my lap on her back. I figured hey, let’s take it one more step and put her down somewhere else.

Pack’n'play? Nope, wide awake. Swing? Nah, she was squirming, not happy with being in a seat. So I took her to our bed, since she definitely has learned to associate our bedroom with sleep, she visibly relaxes when I take her in there, and when she wakes up she just looks around peacefully. I layed down with her, nursed her until she dozed off. As soon as I moved her eyes popped open and watched me. So I took a risk. I quietly walked over, put the pacifier in her mouth, patted her, then left the room. (Then I went back in for the cat, who had just run in and jumped onto the damn bed.)

And she fell asleep. I peeked in a couple of times to see if her eyes were open. There she is on her back in the middle of our bed, one arm stretched overhead and the other across her chest, pacifier in her mouth. Sound asleep.

I have no doubt she’ll wake in about 30 or 40 minutes but I’ll take it. I think this week I’ll put her down for some naps and hold her for others, as she needs. But I get the feeling from her that she’s ready to start napping on her own. And I’m happy because this gives me a little time to do the laundry and dishes while she’s asleep so that when she’s awake I can actually just sit and play with her rather than rushing around the house.

I am really really happy to see things progressing all on their own. No crying, no fighting. Gentle encouragement, that’s all.

But you know, many nights it is so lovely to sleep with her. Friday evening I was out late and when I came home I really needed to snuggle her close to me and sleep with my cheek resting on the top of her head. Sometimes it’s mom that needs the extra little bit of comfort.

I feel guilty that I do not feel more sadness. I read others who have been through loss like I have, who have also had a living child and they seem to grieve more. I don’t know what that means. Did the years of infertility treatments change my reaction? Is it timing? Is it just a difference in personality? Or does it just mean I am going to get hit with a wall of grief one of these days soon. Some days I think I can feel one waiting just around the corner.

I have become far too comfortable answering “Yes, she is our first.” Often there is the briefest of pauses before it rattles off my tongue; I don’t think anyone notices. More guilt - not just as a mom, but also as a woman, a spokesperson, if you will. My silence, my picture of perfect happiness, turns me into someone I’m not. Is that the image I want to give?

Interestingly, I find it much more effortless to mention the infertility and IVF than Devin, the loss. Infertility is becoming leads of a taboo subject, I’ve noticed. It is common and slowly it is being talked about in a casual and honest way. It’s not a big deal when I mention that Kate is a product of IVF; there is sometimes some curiosity, usually just a simple acknowledgment. Plus it is always my choice whether to mention it or not. No one starts conversation with, “Was she conceived naturally?”

Stillbirth, on the other hand, brings a conversation to a halt. There are the stutters, the apologies, the awkward pauses. It is never just, “My son, Devin.” It’s always, “My son, Devin, who died.” I just got tired of trying to explain, tired of dealing with the reactions, tired of throwing cold water on conversations. So instead I say, “Yes,” and paint a pretty picture that doesn’t exist.

I just wish everyone knew and I didn’t have to explain it over and over again. She’s our first live child we are raising. She is not our first child. Our son was stillborn two years ago. It was terrible and we miss him every day, but we are blessed with a beautiful daughter and we live with as much joy as we can. But how can words possibly convey how our lives changed forever, how we live in this double world where there are no simple explanations?

So I don’t even try. I feel like a coward.

It wouldn’t be so hard if the question wasn’t the first one that everyone asked. But it is.

Oh my gosh I do not know how people handle colicky babies. Kate is doing pretty well with this cold in general, still being happy and smiley, just a little more whiny and fussy than usual. Except when it’s time for sleep. Obviously she has trouble laying down with her stuffy nose, so I can’t just lay down and nurse her to sleep like usual. I am so not used to a squirmy, fussy baby at bedtime, it’s extremely frustrating.

Yes, she is sleeping well being worn, but I can’t do that at night, I need sleep too! So I walked her back and forth across the bedroom until she fell asleep, then laid down with her head on my shoulder.

What is love? (Baby don’t hurt me…) I think it is laying, unmoving, twisted like a pretzel so as not to disturb your sleeping, sick baby. My arm went completely numb and yet I hardly breathed. I did not want to pave the tom with her again.

I slept for a while, and then moving legs alerted me to impending problems. Sure enough the wiggles turned into struggles and whimpers. She awake with little cries and shrieks. Back to pacing, swaying, whispering. No avail. It was so frustrating, she’d drift off and then jolt awake crying again.

After a while of this I figured that wasn’t working so I ought to try something different. The obvious. I changed her diaper. And wouldn’t you know it, she then fell fast asleep for 3 1/2 hours. Agghh. Bad mommy for not realizing it sooner! But she never needs her dipe changed at night and I just assumed the problem was with her nose. Sigh. After that the night went fine, thank goodness.

While I was walking her around it occurred to me that some babies cry at night all the time. Kate was never gotten her days and nights mixed up, she’s never cried uncomfortably at night, never fought us. I know even during the day that I can lay down with her, nurse her, and she’ll sleep. It’s a lovely thing.

I am playing the very un-fun game of “What the hell is up with my child?” The past two nights have been very restless, with frequent waking and squirming on her part, while I sleepily try to calm her and get her back to sleep. She’s even been tough to get down, which is pretty much unheard of - it normally takes only laying down with her to nurse and she’s fast asleep. So this crying, having to walk and rock her, it’s just so weird. I last here cuddling her against me and as she’s drifting off there will be 30 seconds of stillness and then she kicks out her legs, curls her toes like little claws, and  scratches down my lower belly. Kicking I could handle better, this using my pelvis as a springboard thing is highly irritating.

She’s been very fussy at the breast. She’ll eat normally, then act like she wants more and start popping on and off, whining and fussing. As if that weren’t annoying enough, she then spits up a bunch of milk.

Then today she just started melting down. She’s normally pretty good for diaper changes, baling and looking around, maybe a little frustrated crying, but today it was screaming as soon as I laid her down on the changing pad. This evening she shrieked so high-pitched Den came running to see what happened.

She’s had a ton of gas, which I can only assume is due to the on/off nursing, and may partially explain why she’s crying when laid down (but the crying isn’t consistent every time I lay her down, which is confusing).

And now she’s all snotty and stuffed up, presumably from the crying. This doesn’t help the sleeping or eating matters in the least.

She’s still smiling and having fun times, but it snaps from a good time to really upset faster than usual (which is saying a lot, she’s always changing emotion at the drop of a hat). And it’s not her usual personality-driven temper fit kind of crying. Something is bothering her; I just don’t know what.

Friends have suggested it’s the right time for a growth spurt. Or she may be ferrying a little cold. Either way I really hope this passes quickly. Especially the sleep part.

Update: Well, mystery solved, in a way. This morning she is extremely stuffed up, she definitely has a little cold. :( My poor baby. And oh does she hate the suction bulb.

I am very thankful for this lovely new smartphone I have because it looks like I still won’t be ferrying much use of the laptop for a while. I fondly remember how she would sleep against my chest on the boppy pillow, back when she was teenie tiny and her legs didn’t hit the arms. I spent a lot of time writing back then. But now… not so much. But with this phone at least I can sit up in bed (she’s still touching me so therefor it’s acceptable) and Swype away. Well, at least it’s something, right?

::

It frequently occurs to me that I am raising not just a child, but a person. It’s do easy in busy life to get caught up in everything and forget the big picture: we brought into this world and actual person, an individual with her own personality, her own desires. (Okay, it’s not that easy to forget with Kate, she’s rather loud with her personality.) I was reminiscing about my childhood, about the vacations we took as a family, about the earliest memories I have of my life, my family. I realized that we are making Kate’s memories right now. One day she’s look back at the photographs and my writing with a whole different perspective. That is so awe-inspiring.

It’s also terrifying. What will she think of me? What will she think of this life we’re giving her? How will she feel about all these memories? Raising a child is so unlike any other experience. The responsibility is huge.

::

As Kate sleeps I study her peaceful features. They are unmistakably hers, and yet so different from when she was a newborn. I remember how I would stare at her, convinced that she was perfect at that moment in time, that maybe I wouldn’t feel the same as she grew and changed. As usual, I was wrong. She’s different, fit sure. Beautiful in a different way, but beautiful all the same. I guess mother nature planned ahead and knew what to do to make this parenting thing work.

::

Kate has gotten exceedingly vocal in the past few weeks. She no longer goes straight to screaming when she wants something, which is a very pleasant development.

She’s started making a very funny grumbly noise when she’s moderately unhappy and wants me to know it. It kind of sounds like the cross between a groan and a dog growl, but with a vibrate-y oscillation due to her sucking frantically on the pacifier at the same time. Just tonight Den heard her do it and said, “What on earth is that?” It’s really hard not to laugh. It’s her way of warning me that she’s done with whatever she’s doing, but she’s not pissed off. Yet.

She continues to be a very social, smiley baby. She seems to love social interaction, squealing in delight while throwing her arms and legs in the air. She grins ask the time at people, delighting them. And when not interacting she wants to be observing. I can’t carry her against my chest like a normal baby, I have to carry her facing away from me. Everyone comments on how alert and intense she is for only three months old.

Given all of that I am very  grateful that she loves to sleep as much as she does. She has developed a bedtime of around 8pm, any later and she utterly melts down now. (Despite what she may think. This is one case of baby doesn’t know best! She may think she wants to play at 9pm but she is so wrong!) She had ben getting up at 7am for an hour before a nap, but the last several days she’s been sleeping in past 9am - nearly made me late for an appointment today. (I mean, who sets an alarm when you have an infant?!)

It’s hard to believe that Kate is 3 months old now. That’s a quarter of a year. The fourth trimester is over.

I see why they call it that. Now she’s really starting to become her own person, separate from me. I can put her down, let her play on her own. She continues to get more social every day. I think she really enjoys getting put and being around new people and new situations.

Yesterday we spent the entire day at the airshow. I do think it was slightly mad to attempt with a three month old, but I so love the airshow. Den was working, so while he was able to hang put with us for a lot of the time he also had to run around, I couldn’t depend on him always being there with me. I went prepared with the stroller, kozy carrier (mei tai), and fully-stocked jumbo diaper bag. My plan was to go early, hang out until Kate had a meltdown, then head home before the traffic had a chance to get bad.

Imagine my surprise when the day passed without incident. We ended up staying all day. Kate did more than great, she was phenomenal. She rode in the stroller looking around, she sat on my lap and smiled at everyone, and she napped in the kozy as I walked and swayed. She even tolerated the giant ear protection headphones we made her wear when the jets were flying. Everyone commented on how good she was. But that’s what she enjoys, that’s her element: being out and social and moving. I am so thankful for babywearing, there is no way we could do something like that without the joy of naps in the carrier. To top of the day she even made the 20 minute drive home awake, without crying. And I didn’t take the long scenic route, I went through town with all the stoplights.

We were all so tired by the end of the day, but it was the good kind of exhaustion - the kind that comes with something well accomplished.

The jealousy never goes away, I’ve come to believe. It doesn’t even make sense anymore, because I have the baby now; it’s not a matter of other people having what I want. The anger made sense, the depression made sense, the overwhelming sadness made sense. And for the most part those all went away when Kate was born. But this jealousy? It doesn’t make sense. And it’s not going away.

I hate it. I hate that it comes out of nowhere, when I don’t expect it. I hate that it gets in the way of relationships, that it makes things harder on me than it should be. Didn’t I go through enough already? Can’t I just let it go, enjoy Kate and let it go? Apparently no. Apparently I don’t get a say in this.

It’s my lasting, unhealing scar. The others all get better with time. Not this.

::

Kate is growing up in all kinds of ways, changing so much in just a week, I feel like I am forgetting so much, getting behind on my writing and record keeping. It’s hard to keep up when the baby throws a fit whenever I sit at a computer. Awake, asleep,  apparently I am not allowed to use it at all. I am writing this from my new Droid. Thank god for smartphones.

She is so much more vocal than ever before, she’s constantly babbling at random objects now. She has long conversations with the yellow “warning” sticker in her carseat and with our laundry baskets. My favorite time is first thing in the morning when she wakes up, nurses as she’s waking, then lays there smiling, babbling, and kicking with delight. I am not a morning person by any stretch, but that makes me wake up feeling like life is damn skippy.

She’s also developing some good trunk control, and her head I don’t even worry about anymore. She will tolerate laying on her back for a short time, especially now that she can suck on her fists, but she still lasts only a minute out two on her belly before getting very pissed off. Being a “bad mommy” I just rarely even bother doing tummy time on the floor with her. But,  despite that fact, when I tried her on our bed the other day she lifted her head up and pushed her chest off the bed. She’s small, she’s strong, and she’s determined.

She just really hates being helpless and dependent - which is really hard, considering she’s a BABY. She doesn’t like to lay down. When people hold her they automatically cradle her on her back like a normal infant, and we hurry to correct them while Kate strains forward and turns red before freaking out. She has to be held vertical; facing out when she is awake, in when she needs a nap.

During the short portions periods when she is laying peacefully on a blanket I try to engage her, but she shows very little interest in toys dangling above her. She wants to sit up and be in charge of the toys. I have to hold her upright so she can sit and play. I tried her in her exetsaucer, even though she seems way too small for it. I had to stuff a pillow behind her for extra support, but she loved that. I think she was finally in a position she liked. …Unfortunately she only does well until she realizes she can’t quite make her arms do what she wants them to and she has another fit. She can’t wait until she grows up. This baby thing just pisses her off mightily.

We get babysitting offers from well-meaning family, but really? I think it would just be a disaster. Unless you know her and know all her “rules” you would just end up with a screaming baby the whole time. And when I know she is screaming and upset I will not have a good time - I will not have even a halfway decent time. And that is not a reflection of what we think of the would-be babysitters, it’s just a matter of us recognizing that we have a high-needs baby. It is frustrating that no one seems to get that. (It’s like how no one believes me when I tell them my dog has a severe social phobia. Even dog trainers - or maybe especially dog trainers - think they can soothe her. I can only roll my eyes as they try and fail.)

But Kate and I, we’re figuring it out. I’ve figured out driving with her, so I try to get out of the house once every day. She has to be tired, and there can’t be any stoplights. So we always go the long way. Even if it seems stupid to go all the way around the town to get to the other side, I’d rather a quiet 30 minute drive than her screaming the while way for a 15 minute one. It’s great to be able to drive with a relative certainty that she won’t cry while I’m driving, it opens up more options for things to do and makes life much more pleasant.

Though did I mention all the construction in this town? I am normally a very patient, calm driver, but when I get stuck in a line of traffic for yet another construction project when I specifically took this road to avoid the other two big construction projects that are on the other two roads, and Kate wakes up and screams at the to of her lungs as I inch forward one car length at a time, well, there is a large party of me that wants to roll down all of my windows and swear a blue streak. Fixing things is all very well and good, but do they really have to do it all at the same damn time?

Naps are mostly back to normal. Well, in some ways. She’ll sleep on me, but she fidgets a lot. Today I took one nap with her on our bed, a few naps holding her in the rocker, and one I laid down with her on the futon so she’d sleep and I could sort-of watch TV (got a sore neck from that one - it’s not an easy angle). Unfortunately no matter what I do she’s only sleeping for max an hour. This is not typical of her and it creates a rather fussy, whiny baby that needs to be put back to bed within an hour. I’m guessing it’s just one of those phases, a growth spurt or something. I look forward to “normal” naps in a few days.

Breastfeeding is also a little bit weird recently. The last couple of days she didn’t want to nurse while I sat up. Even when she was obviously hungry, every time I’d put her in cradle hold she’d latch-unlatch and cry instead of eating. I know she eats slower (and thus gets less gas) when laying down, but she normally doesn’t fight nursing like that. All day Saturday I just ended up laying down on the bed to nurse her every time. No clue what that was about, but today she’s not having an issue either way. I figure it must be linked to the strange sleeping habits.

Tonight I didn’t want to go to bed at 8pm, so I put her in the mei tai and walked her until she fell asleep (not long), then was able to sit at my computer for a couple of hours. I can’t do that for her naps, but she sleeps deeper at night. It was almost like having time to myself!

I’m also learning to eat at the kitchen counter. Life is just easier when you go with it.

Know what I’ve discovered? Kate freaks out crying really upset when I raise my voice at the dogs. Even if I’m very very quietly whispering, “Zeeke! Cut it out!!” The tone upsets her, I guess.

Unfortunately this puts me in a predicament when the dog is being an asshole. Especially when Kate is sleeping. Beads of sweat creep onto my forehead - the dog’s barking will wake her any second now. But me telling him to shut up will probably wake her, too.

Damnit.