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.

Despite having had three consecutive nights of frequently interrupted sleep, it is currently 1:30am, my baby is asleep and I am not. I have been laying in bed in various positions, all of which involving me not sleeping, for the past three hours.

First I cuddled with my husband – a rare treat, indeed – until he fell asleep. Kate stirred, so I shimmied up close to her to soothe her back to sleep, then rolled back away. I fidgeted. My husband snored. I kicked him three times and then hoarsely whispered at him to cut it out. He rolled over. The dog decided to get a drink of water, reminding me that metal dog tags and a metal water bowl are an extremely bad match in the middle of the night – clank clang clang clang… clang clang clang clang. I gritted my teeth until she stopped. How can she be that thirsty at midnight? Finally it was silent again except for the whirrr of the air conditioner. I settled in. My husband snored again. My eyes popped open and glowered at the ceiling.

I marveled at how well Kate was doing. I wasn’t even sleeping right up against her, I was in the middle of the bed, with just my hand reached out, holding hers. Every time she stirred a little bit she squeezed my fingers and drifted off again. She’s growing up, relaxing.

I should have fallen asleep then. If I were tired I certainly would have. Instead I layed awake for another half an hour until I realized my other wrist was bothering me – it has been lately, just from how I’ve been resting my head on my arm. It feels vaguely like the carpel tunnel I get when pregnant; not pain, just a tickle of irritation in the joint, like I need to keep shaking it out. I moved my arm here, there, flexed, straight.

Finally I just said screw this and got up. The baby monitor is on beside me and I am sulking at my laptop. There is silence in the bedroom.

::

Denis just got back from a week-long work trip. (I didn’t mention it until after the fact because I don’t like mentioning online that I’m home alone!) I was a little nervous about it but he had no choice in the matter and for the last few months I’ve just been hoping that by 3 months old she’d be far enough along that I could handle it. And you know what? It totally was. If it were a month ago I think I would have had several breakdowns, but we handled the week with grace, not one crying fit (from me – lots from Kate, lol).

I really think we’ve turned a corner. She’s happy in the bouncer, happy on her playmat, can be distracted with toys and funny faces. She’s interested in the world around her. More and more I see her happy personality coming out, and much less of her angry-at-the-world. Plus when she is annoyed with something she’s learned to “ask” me (by whining or grumping) rather than freaking out screaming at the drop of a hat. Yesterday I “entertained” her by putting her in the bouncer and cleaning my kitchen. I find that funny, but I have a clean kitchen and a happy child.

Unfortunately the last three nights were just not good. They weren’t terrible – she wasn’t screaming for hours or anything – but she was waking up every hour, squirming and kicking me and making little whines, sometimes little cries. I’d nurse her for a little bit, but she’d still flail around a little bit before falling back asleep. That’s just not normal for her, she’s always slept SO good at night. So last night when she woke me up for about the sixth time, and I had already changed her diaper in the middle of the night (which I never have to do), I thought to myself that something was just not right. She’s still a little stuffy, but not as much as before. A little gassy, maybe that was it? And the day before she had been very… fickle, laughing and crying in the same breath. I started thinking about an ear infection, given how stuffed up she’d been the past week. I was going to just wait and see, but I reminded myself of the last few times I shrugged something minor off and waited a while. So I took her in, just as a precaution.

I felt kind of foolish, taking my baby for a “sick” visit as she sat on my knee in the waiting room, looking around alertly, babbling and flapping her arms, smiling coyly at anyone who glanced her way. I justified it by telling myself that it’s worth the co-pay to rule it out so I can focus on figuring out why she isn’t sleeping well. The doctor looked her over (while Kate squealed and kicked her legs happily), chit chatted with me. Looked in her left ear. “That’s fine.” Looked in the right ear. “Ohhhhhh, there we go.”

So yeah, my happy baby has an ear infection. Some antibiotics and hopefully she’ll be right as rain in a few days. I’m feeling relieved that I listened to my mama intuition.

Devin’s tree is dead.

It has been dying for 3 years now and it finally is too far gone to deny it.

The year it was planted it grew beautifully. The leaves were green, it bloomed on schedule, it even grew a few cherries. As summer progressed I noticed something wasn’t quite right with it. Leaves were browning, dying back. Branches were dying. I consulted garden store employees, online resources, I even had an arborist come out to look at it. I sprayed it for insects, I watered it, I fertilized it. By the time the arborist saw it the entire top half of the tree was dead. I howled in rage and grief. He declared the bottom branches okay and said it should be fine. I clung to that.

The next year I held my breath, wondering if winter had finished it off. With the spring leaves sprouted green, branches grew longer and thicker, and once again it bloomed. I exhaled with relief. Mid-summer I began seeing signs. I started checking the tree obsessively. One by one the remaining branches died off. But at the same time a side-shoot, split off from the trunk at ground level, grew to a man’s height and branched out. Den saw it as a new beginning.

This year, with the original tree entirely cut down, that new shoot grew into a new tree. It was the same size as the original tree and was healthy and tall. Den tried to point out the positives, to encourage and reassure me. I told him it wasn’t okay, told him it was going to die again. He thought I was being pessimistic and overreacting. I felt like we were just postponing dealing with it. I haven’t really looked at the tree all summer, even when Den would point out that it was looking good. I’d just shrug. I didn’t say it out loud, but the thought rung clear in my head, Just wait.

In the past few weeks it has really turned brown. I ignored it, hoping maybe it was just doing the fall thing. But today Den really took a close look at it and admitted the inevitable: the tree is dead.

I sat in silence, merely nodding, “I know.” I’ve known from the start. We were trying to nurse something that was irrevocably broken.

Anger rose in me, just as it did the prior two years when the tree died back. Anger, so much anger. I don’t even know what exactly it stems from. Den pointed out that the tree is not actually Devin. I know that. Of course I know that. But I put my faith, my trust, my heart into this tree. I will never see my son grow, never take another picture of him, never track his milestones. And all these things I have, they are important but they are also static. I have one good picture of him. I have Sheepie. I have every single thing I saved and scrapbooked. But the tree alone was a live, growing thing. It was something for me to look forward to, something to take photos of and scrapbook, something rooted and nurtured and real.

And that one real, live thing fucked died.

I feel like I have to grieve all over again. I grieved every little thing I had lost – so, so much, so many pieces of my life and my heart. Eventually I came to a place where I was okay. As long as you have those things to hold on to I was okay, I wouldn’t float away into nothingness. It’s scary sometimes how much those few things mean to me. To lose one of those few things, it’s another stab, another bit of my reality and existence that slipped through my hands.

I had threatened in the past that I would give the tree one last chance and if it died back again I was going to take a hacksaw to it. I have a very strong image in my head of not just cutting it down, but hacking it down with all the force my body can muster, chopping it into pieces and ripping it from the ground. I have very visceral feelings of anger that swirl around all thoughts of that tree. In a way I’m glad it’s finally dead, that we can get rid of it and I can start to let go. I admit that tree has caused more anguish than comfort these past two years. I should have gotten rid of it the first year when I lost my shit the first time, but Denis wasn’t ready to let go of it yet. I don’t know if I really will chop it up or if I will simply beg Den to get rid of it when I am not home, but either way it will be gone. That is a relief.

After that, however, I don’t know what comes next. Den simply wants to plant a new tree – if he had his way we’d just get a replacement of the same type. I do not know if I can handle that. Ideally, yes, I’d like the same type of tree, a chance to get it right this time. But then I just feel empty. It’s not the same tree. And planted 3 years later… that defeats the entire point to me. Twenty years from now I wanted to be able to stand in front of a huge, beautiful thing and say, “We planted this when Devin died.” It as supposed to be a timeline, a record. It doesn’t evoke the same feelings to have to say, “Well we planted a tree when Devin died, but it died too. This one was planted three years later and actually survived.” Will it just make me angry every time I look at it? Or will it forever just be “the replacement”? Not to mention the fear that we replace the tree and the new one dies, too.

Thank you all for your kind words. I still have absolutely no idea what we will end up doing, but I highly doubt I will be as attached to the new thing as I was the old. At least I have the dragon still.

::

In an apparent effort to keep my mind off the tree Kate was in full force today. I have no idea what was up with her, but oh boy was she cranky. She wanted to be held – no, not like that, or that either – and walked around. Her patience with her bouncer was very low, with the playmat miniscule, and with toys non-existant. I nursed her, Den walked her, all attempts to entertain her were met with a couple of smiles before she’d start whining and squirming.

I have a goodly amount of appreciation for breastfeeding on the best of days, but on days like today it is both utterly frustrating and the one saving grace. As much as she fussed and tugged I could always lay down on the bed with her and she will immediately fall silent and nurse peacefully. I even did that yesterday while we were out, she was hungry and overstimulated. Nursing goes from a trial to a blessing when I finally just lay down.

I truly love breastfeeding. Not just the theory and biology of it, the simplicity and ease – though I love all of those, too; but the feeling of it. I love snuggling into bed with my baby nuzzled againt my breast. I love the gentle tug of her sucks and the tingle of let-down. I love how her little hands clench my shirt and carress my skin. I love how her tense little body relaxes as soon as she latches on. The breast is her comfort, her safe place. I love providing that for her.

Sometimes I am the one that needs the comfort of nursing. In the midst of a trying day it is my reminder to stop and appreciate the little miracles. It gives me a boost of oxytocin, a quiet moment to reflect, and the warmth of a snuggle with a now calm and sweet child.

Dear Kate,

I feed you, you scream. I give you your pacifier, you growl and whine. I sway, you flail; I sit, you shriek. I lay you down and you smile and babble and then try rolling and end up crying.

I feel kind of bad for just putting you down to nap yet again, but apparently that’s all you want (while whimpering as you drift off). I would happily do anything you want me to do, but today it just seems that nothing is cutting the grade. If you really need to sleep then please just stay asleep instead of waking up!

I love you, but I am so glad I am going out without you tonight. Daddy can entertain you for a few hours.

Love, mama.

Kate’s preferences continue to change on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis. They say about New England, “If you don’t like the weather just wait a few hours.” Babies are a lot like New England weather, I have found.

Her newest fun thing is that her tolerance level for where and when to sleep is diminishing. No more naps on my chest while I rock and watch TV. I either have to put her in the front carrier (Kozy or Beco) and walk her around, or put her to sleep on our bed. Those are the options. (She does still sleep in the car, but, as before, only so long as the car is moving.) I am very glad that I have a reliable option for when I am out, since she still needs to nap very frequently, especially when being extra stimulated. And since she is doing so well with naps on our bed I have taken to leaving her there and actually getting time to myself. She’s doing very well with that – I can even put her down, nurse and cuddle her until she’s right on the brink, and leave the room while her eyes are open and she falls asleep! It does take very precise timing, but just the fact that I can do it is exciting.

Unfortunately Den doesn’t use carriers very often and doesn’t have boobs. So when I went out last night and she got tired she utterly melted down. For three hours he had a very tired, whimpering, crying, flailing baby, and nothing he tried worked. Yikes. Tonight we pulled out the Beco, got it fitted to him, and confirmed that she will sleep in it for him. Now he just needs to learn how to get her into it without my help. But then, by the time I go out again her wishes will have changed.

I am so happy with how we are  parenting her. There are so many different ways to do things, so many voices in your ear saying what you “should” do, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. We decided from the start that we wouldn’t follow a schedule, that we wouldn’t worry ourselves about what we “should” do or when she did them, that we would simply follow her lead. So far it has been so peaceful. Neither of us have ever been sleep deprived (though that is on larger part thanks to Kate’s pre-disposition), Kate is happy, we are happy. It feels very low-stress. It works for us.

I can’t imagine trying to breastfeed on some kind of arbitrary schedule. People ask how often she nurses and I just shrug. Sometimes it’s every three hours; sometimes it’s every half an hour. Not always convenient, but luckily I don’t have to worry about prepping anything. I love how carefree it is. I never worry about how many ounces or bottle sizes and nipple flows. When she needs more milk my body produces more; when she needs less I produce less. It just takes trust – trust that my body will do what it needs to do, trust that breastfeeding works. If only women approached breastfeeding like they do pregnancy! Few people (beyond those who have suffered a loss or other severe diagnosis) worry about how the baby gets its nutrients in-utero, they don’t need to manage the growth. It just happens. And yet when the baby is born suddenly they lose all faith in their body. And so many doctors and “support” people feed into it. It’s frustrating.

Kate brings me in touch with mother earth, with humanity. She’s teaching me so much about the world, and about myself. I needed it, this grounding.

I doubt Kate will ever really know or understand what she means to her father and I. I’m sure there will come a time when she slams her door and shouts that she never asked to be born. Maybe one day she will look down at her own child and know. But I hope she never has to go through what we did to get there. I hope she never truly knows what it is to feel this joy after so much pain.

Kate is in sleep transition. I am exhausted.

I mentioned how she seems to want to nap laying on our bed. These past two weeks I have started nursing her to sleep (though not every time – sometimes she just wants the paci and a snuggle), then getting up and quietly leaving when she’s almost asleep. I have been SO proud of her, I walk in all smiles when she wakes up and give her tons of kisses for sleeping all by herself. Plus she’s wicked adorable when she’s all round-eyed after just waking up.

Well the change seems to be extending to night-time, too. It’s a wee bit frustrating. We’ve had several rough nights as we try to re-negotiate this whole sleeping thing, trying to figure out just what she wants. We’ve been waking up both on our backs, her arms flung over her head like she sleeps during her naps. It appears she is liking having some space. But at the same time she still wants snuggles from mama, she wants to feel safe and secure. So it’s kind of Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. ‘Cause I kind of need sleep, too.

Last night I put her in a footed sleeper, thinking it would keep her warm when she’s not snuggled up to me. I don’t think it worked very well, she fussed and cried. Every time I layed down with her she would start crying and screeching. But she was obviously tired. She’d nurse for 2 seconds, then cry. Take the pacifier, then spit it out and cry. I tried putting her on her back, on her side, holding her. I changed her out of the sleeper, changed her diaper. Layed down… she started crying again. I was so frustrated! I sat up with a mutter, planning to take her into the living room to walk her around for a while, but when I turned to pick her up she flung her arms over her head, gave a sigh, and fell asleep. Just like that. I sat there beside her feet and gave a quiet, “What the hell?” So I ended up laying down really close to Den, giving Kate lots of room so I wouldn’t disturb her.

And it would have been really really cool had she slept like that all night, but instead it was a very long night of her waking up unhappy every hour. She wanted her paci, she wanted to nurse, she wanted to fidget, etc etc. I had to keep scooting close to her, nursing her, comforting her, then scooting away when she fell back asleep. This is not working. I hope she figures it out soon.

I hate sleeping in the middle of the damn bed, it’s uncomfortable and I feel squished. Kate still seems to dislike the mattress in the cosleeper, she refuses to sleep in it still. So I think our next step is going to be side-carring her crib to our bed so she can be right beside me, but giving me my side of the bed back. But before we do that I’m going to wait a night or two to make sure this is actually what she’s going to continue doing. It could be something else bugging her and making for crappy nights, but it doesn’t strike me as “I don’t feel good,” it’s more of a “I don’t want to sleep like this, but I’m tired.”

But then the other side of it is that I woke up this morning feeling not only tired, but really sad, too. She may be ready to sleep by herself, but… I’m not. I sleep like crap when I’m not touching her, because I’m constantly waking up to make sure she’s okay. Even if she’s literally one foot away from me, I don’t feel “safe” like when she’s in my arms. Every time I wake up with her snuggled up to me I immediately know where she is – before I’m even fully conscious, I know where she is. I remember the first two weeks Kate was home, when she was still sleeping in the co-sleeper, I would wake up every morning in a panic, sitting bolt upright and leaning over to make sure she was still there, and still alive. It’s been very peaceful to wake up gently for 3 months. I even had the half-thought last night that I could try her in her crib to see how she does, but I just couldn’t do it… I couldn’t sleep in a separate room right now.

My history is definitely playing into a lot of the decisions I make with Kate. I don’t think I would have been so keen to co-sleep and have her with me 24/7 every day had I gotten pregnant five years ago, before we went through everything that we did. But my history is my history, and this slow progress reflects not only her comfort level, but mine too. I’m glad it’s a slow progression. I’m glad I have time to get used to things.

Well scratch what I wrote, I have no idea what she wants now.

Last night I made a big, big mistake – second night in a row. I thought, hey she’s napping so well by herself during the day, how about I wait until she’s almost asleep and then move her to the cosleeper beside me. If she does well with that I can sleep on my own side of the bed! So that’s what I did. She was almost asleep, had nursed herself down, taken the paci and was just settling in. As carefully as I could I moved her over and settled her into the cosleeper.

And she woke up. Oh no, she didn’t wake up crying and screaming the way she used to, she woke up excited. Her eyes darted around at this “new” vantage point (I wouldn’t have thought it would be so interesting, considering she sleeps right next to the cosleeper every single day and night). And then the legs and arms started pumping. “Ooo! Ooo!”
“Uhhhh,” I said to Den, “this isn’t working, she’s waking up.”
“Have patience,” he counsels.

Bad idea. Five minutes went by and now she was super awake and wanting to play. I pulled her back into our bed but by that point she wanted no part of sleep. I snuggled her. She screamed and pushed away from me. I sat her up, she looked around and flapped her arms happily. Shit. Shit. I tried to nurse her. More screaming. I gave her the paci. She spit it out and yelled. We got up and walked her around. It was obvious she was tired – it was 11pm by now – but she was utterly convinced it was time to play. She’d doze off on our chest while we walked her around, then wake up shrieking in anger whenever we layed her down.

I was SO frustrated. Den reminded me that she’s been such a good sleeper that we’ve been spoiled and are kind of due for some bad nights. But I swear to you, I felt like throwing myself face down, beating the snot of a pillow, and throwing a nice big toddler-esque tantrum. I was so damn angry at myself for moving her. You know that feeling… that everything was just fine until YOU screwed it up.

It took some work and a lot of patience, but Den finally waited her out until she was really soundly asleep before laying her in my arms. And I froze like that for a good half an hour until it was clear she was going to stay asleep. The rest of the night she did okay. She’s still a little fidgety at night, and that’s the part that I can’t figure out.

The next few nights I’m going to do what I know works for her. Please shoot me if I get any brilliant ideas.

I feel so out of the loop now. I feel like I’m living a different life than the one I had before. Bedtime consists of laying in bed with my husband, listening to our daughter laugh and squeal as we tickle and kiss her. I had this image today of us, the perfect happy family. Watching us all you wouldn’t even know. Except for the dead tree, the decal on my truck, the fact that Kate wears a onesie that says “little sister.”

When we talk about having another child it’s always with a caveat. “If we can…” Plans all involve IVF just as a matter of course. But what bugs me, what really really bugs me, is that people – people who know the whole story, no less – constantly have to throw out, “Well maybe you won’t need that! I heard how women are more fertile after a pregnancy…” Ignoring the obvious irritation of the statement because I did TTC after my first pregnancy and it didn’t work any better than in had before, I am constantly amazed at everyone’s ability to completely overlook a medical condition to err on the side of “keeping your chin up.” If my problem was simply ovulating it would possibly be more in the realm of realistic… but it’s not. I am not whining about the fact that I need IVF, I am simply starting it as an inevitable truth. It does not change after pregnancy (or two!).

::

Kate continues to take some naps by herself each day, which continues to delight me. This allows me a moment to breathe, clean up a little, sink into a chair, and realize that I am still an individual aside from being a mother.

I have started to feel the need to get back into the other parts of me. Not just the stillbirth mama and infertile girl, but the working me, the wife, the tech geek. No, I’m not going back to work full-time, but I’m thinking it’s time to go back to my job at the non-profit. I’d like to do 5 or 6 hours a week – enough to give me something totally different, to be around others that have nothing to do with babies, to do something meaningful in the world outside my home. I also think it’s time to start going to the loss support group (more to support those with recent losses than for support myself, though it would be nice to curse about the tree). It would also be nice to come up with some sort of hobby, but as of yet none have been forthcoming.

It’s like the parting of the clouds. After 5 years of having my life overtaken up into some form of treatments, pregnancy, grief or frustration I have stepped through and past it all. Now I get to decide what to do with the rest of my life.

I just can’t get over what a good baby we have. I know it’s probably 99% parental pride. Every time I look at her I think, wow, how did I get so lucky? Not just to have a baby after all we’ve been through, but to get such a fun, happy baby. She doesn’t cry unless she has a reason to. She loves people and is always smiling when someone talks to her. She’s intent and active when she’s playing. She nurses great, other than the typical day-to-day preference changes. She sleeps fantastic most of the time – I can count on one hand the number of times she’s not wanted to sleep at night (either crying or wanting to play).

Though I still maintain that she’s a high-needs baby. She’s still not the type you can just lay on her blanket or in her bouncer; she wants to be upright, she wants to bounce, she wants to walk around and see and touch everything. But as long as her needs are met she’s a happy baby, so it’s not too bad. We’ve adapted and she’s quite predictable. Plus it’s gotten easier now that she can sit in her exersaucer, upright, and play with toys at will. She’ll be even happier once she’s able to move herself around!

She gets totally spoiled with lovin’s. I’m always holding her up and saying, “You are sooooo goooood!” And then I nom nom her cheeks until she gives her charming little cough-laugh. (No, she still doesn’t give belly laughs. *sadface*)

::

For some reason Kate still doesn’t care to nurse while I’m sitting up. She will, if she’s hungry, but she pops on and off to squawk and admonish me. This makes nursing in public still somewhat of a fun experience. It’s not a “problem,” per say, but it does make me roll my eyes, especially when I’m trying to portray the image of a sweet, calm, nurturing breastfeeding pair to others. Instead I get my baby smacking me, squawking, then letting go and leaning way back so that my nipple flashes everyone and squirts Kate in the face. Sweet deal. BUT! If I lay down? Total calm. She nestles in, sighs, and eats calmly and peacefully while kneading my shirt. It’s like laying down puts her into a meditative state. I’m not exactly sure what the difference is, since whether I am sitting up or laying down she is laying on her side, facing me. I have a theory that she doesn’t like being *held* in place, but what do I know, I just do what she says.