Having a child really is everything I expected it to be, and more. When going through treatments and losses and the absolute mental hell it’s hard to really know that it will all be worth it in the end. I mean if you’ve never had something how can you possibly be sure that it’s what you want? Something inside you says that it is, so you just push forward and trust that gut feeling. It’s a relief – a wonderful, beautiful, miraculous relief – to know that you were right.

I remember my freak-out of the first week at the thought that she’d get bigger and change; I loved her exactly how she was at that moment. My friends, you were right: it gets better.

She’s started smiling not just because someone is smiling at her, but in recognition. Sometimes when she wakes up from a nap she opens her eyes, yawns, then gazes up into my face and gives me the sweetest little coy smile. Then she starts talking to me in a soft, content little voice. You can just see how happy she is to wake up in mama’s arms, how safe and secure she feels. It utterly melts my heart.

I frequently watch her as she nurses. She’s a fidgeter, arm swinging front and back, legs licking. As she relaxes and drifts off to sleep she settles into her favorite position with her arm extended over her head, resting on my chest. I adore her baby proportions, her extended arms barely reaching over her head. So disproportionate, yet somehow just right for a human baby. She starts with her hand clenched in a fist, grabbing at my breast and shirt, but it slowly releases. She likes to sleep with my shirt held in her hand. I tell Den that at night I feel like a mama cat, laying on her side feeding her kitten, especially when she kneads and nuzzles my breast.

Babies are truly little miracles. I think often about what we went through to create her, how she exists through the wonders of science, created in a little dish in a lab. I think too about the embryo we have frozen, created at the same time as Kate was. Maybe someday that one will become a baby too. We plan to try, at least. Not for a while yet – I am want time to exist just with Kate. But someday.

::

Yesterday was Kate’s 2 month appointment with the doctor. She’s growing well but it definitely going to stay a little peanut, she’s in the 20th percentile of weight and around the same with height. She weighs in at 9lb 9oz. Though to me she feels so big, compared to what she used to be… Until I see another 2 month old, then she looks tiny!

Unfortunately the 2 month appointment means shots. I spent some time over the past month researching the different vaccines they get in the first year. What I finally settled on was doing them all, but spaced out more. So yesterday she got only two shots, she’ll get the next two at 3 months old (though they don’t typically have an appointment at 3 months, so we’ll have to pay a co-pay since it’s not a well child visit).

I don’t think the shots would have been as stressful if she hadn’t already been ticked off and very tired from too-short naps that morning. She had been remarkably patient with being undressed, weighed, examined. But after a while she decided she’d had enough and started crying. We only barely got her calm when the nurse came in with the vaccines. She didn’t just cry, she turned bright red and screamed. Holy moly was she pissed off, nearly inconsolable.

After we got home she slept and cried. She was exhausted and developed a mild fever. She’d sleep for a little while then wake up crying strongly. I ended up laying on the bed nursing her to sleep, as that seems to be a position she feels very comforted in. I rubbed her back and whispered to her and ended up sleeping a few hours with her because I didn’t want to move and disturb her. She woke up crying again. After a few more restless naps in the evening the fever lifted a little and and started feeling better, smiling at us again and cooing. I was relieved she only had one half-day of feeling ill.

Katherine was showing her personality again yesterday. She nurses frequently, and if she’s being fussy and doesn’t seem to want anything then I’ll just put her on the boob. She’ll eat for only a few minutes before having her fill, at which point she pulls back, smacks her lips, looks around, and then screeches. That’s her signal that she’s done, pick her up now (now!).

She doesn’t usually do that in bed while nursing, because usually she just snuggles up close and falls asleep when she’s done. Except last night apparently she wasn’t done, she was just done with that side. So we’re laying there nursing, Den’s getting ready to lay down, and suddenly Kate starts rooting, latching and unlatching. Then she opened her mouth wide and said, “Wa…. RAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!” I mean she screeched at the top of her little lungs. Den and I both froze and looked at each other, then bust out laughing. Meanwhile Kate’s still going, “RAAAAAAA! AAAAAAAAA!” while shaking her head back and forth so her mouth ricochets off my nipple back and forth. It was very clearly a scream of rage. I pick her up, roll us over to the other side, and she latches right on and peacefully goes about her business nursing.

Den just sighed and said, “You’re my kid, aren’t you.”

::

I do think she’ll become more content when she can affect the world around her without help. She hates laying down for any length of time so she’s not showing any inclination to roll, but she loves to be held in a sitting position so she can look at and play with her toys, or even just look around the room. And she’s happy to sit there for even half an hour sometimes, watching the windows, the lights, whatever. Yesterday Den sat in front of her and made faces and talked to her, which delighted her, she was all smiles and attempted giggles (she still does a little fake cough thing which I am certain is her trying to laugh – it just comes out like a choke cough hiccup thing, lol!).

That favorite toy of hers is still one of her main obsessions and you can see the intense concentration on her face as she tries to figure it out. She managed to (accidentally) get her fingers on one of the rings and gave it a tug, so now she tries very hard to do it again. She’s somewhat successful some of the time.

In the past few days she also noticed that she has feet, I found her staring down at them while I held her in a sitting position. She flexed her little toys and just gazed silently, motionlessly. I could almost see the little “busy processing” cursor above her head, ha.

Unbeknownst to me we have ended up with a high-maintenance baby. Which is kind of funny because if you’d have asked me a week ago I would have shrugged and said she’s not easiest baby, but she’s certainly not the hardest. She isn’t colicky – there aren’t hours of screaming. She sleeps well at night as long as I sleep with her. She’s healthy, other than some gas. She sleeps easily and well enough.

But the thing is, she’s very very picky. I hear of others talking about their babies happily sleeping in their carseat or bouncer, of playtime and tummy time spent delighting on the playmat. I hear of babies now going 3-4 hours between feeds and sleeping 8 hours in a stretch at night happily swaddled. Ha ha. Ha.

She does a lot of screaming, and we really thought it was gas. We dutifully give her many doses of mylicon every day in the hopes that it will help. But the thing I’ve noticed is that the screaming is both random and quickly quelled by picking her up, giving her her pacifier, and shushing her – or, failing that, nursing her. She’ll be screaming an ear-piercing scream moments before smiling at mama after I pick her up. I have learned when to expect the screaming. The list includes – but is not limited to – the following: when she wakes up, when she’s done eating, when she’s put down, when she’s picked up wrong, when she’s put in her swing (if she’s not tired and doesn’t have her pacifier), when she’s put in a carrier (and she’s not tired and doesn’t have her pacifier), when the person holding her is standing still… and so on and so forth. She’s happy as a clam when she has what she wants, which usually means falling asleep on mommy or daddy’s chests while we walk or rock. If she doesn’t have it? Hissyfit.

Worse is when I can’t immediately respond, such as when we’re standing in a store or in the car – if she wants to nurse I have to stop what I’m doing, unbuckle her from whatever she’s in, find a place to sit down, then nurse. And there’s no predicting it, either. She’ll be asleep in a carrier and then open her eyes, yawn, look around, and start screaming, stretching her legs as if to pop out the top of the carrier, and arching her back. So now suddenly out of nowhere I have a screaming beast attached to my chest in place of the sweet, peacefully sleeping child that was there 10 seconds ago and I’m speed walking to the mother’s room.

I’ve been having some serious mommy doubt the last few days. I’m happy to attachment-parent, I believe in responding immediately to a baby’s needs. Everything I’ve read has talked about responding to their first cues, before they start crying. Well I’m not doing that. In fact I’m not sure it’s physically possible. Kate gives maybe a few grunts before crying, and very quickly escalates to full out screaming, often before I can even reach her, much less figure out what it is that she wants. So I kept thinking What am I doing wrong?

And then I ran across this article: 12 Features of a High Need Baby. Bingo. I started cutting and pasting sections into an email to send to Den. Intense? When she’s unhappy she’s fucking pissed. Feeds frequently? Yep. Demanding, awakens frequently, unsatisfied, unpredictable, super-sensitive, can’t put baby down, not a self-soother, separation sensitive – pretty much everything on that list refers to her, excepting the part about not sleeping much; my Kate is still a champion sleeper (as long as she’s cuddled up to me or Den!), though yes she wakes frequently for nursing and just to fidget.

It’s nice to have that little lightbulb go off. Why yes, she is a needy baby, that’s okay, and we’re doing just fine. Just the occassional meltdown when it hits 8pm and I’m frustrated at her screaming because she’s unhappy but doesn’t know what she’s unhappy about (or at the very least I can’t figure out what it is).

I do believe she’s going to be one hell of a toddler.

As I prepared for a new baby I tried quite hard to purchase only necessities, not toys. I figured a baby wouldn’t use any toys for a long while. Shows what I know. I had no clue that babies this young were already so interested in such things! I guess I thought they were lumps for longer.

Shortly after recognizing her hands just the other day she discovered she can control these hands and started purposefully grabbing at a toy. I am really pleased with her Lamaze toys: she has the bug and flower, and the peacock. Her favorite is the flower for three reasons: its black and white high-contrast patterns (on the bottom of the flower, which right now is the side we hold up to her); the fabric petals are soft and easily grippable by her little fists; and they also crinkle, a feedback that she seems to LOVE.

It is SO FUN to watch her! In the span of only two days she’s already reaching for the toy much more purposefully, and she gets visibly excited when playing: her eyes get really wide with a semi-shocked expression and she flails her arms up and down quickly, like a primitive baby dance. It’s like watching her express “OMG! That was me, I did that! I made that sound! I’m awesome!” And we, like good, well-trained parents, shriek with joy and affirm yes, yes she is awesome. I’ll note that while figuring this hand control thing out she does not smile or coo; she’s all concentration, brow furrowed, eyes semi-crossed as she focuses on her hands.

She’s apparently working very hard because, while she only lasts for a 10 or 15 minute stretch at one time, she wants to do it often. Unfortunately she’s also only napping for 30 minutes at a time, which really isn’t my favorite. I’m a little lost trying to follow her pattern because, well, it’s not her pattern! She wakes up just when I think I’ve got her down for a stretch, and she’s wide-eyed, calm, and wanting to play again. Then she wears out quickly and before I know it she’s falling asleep again. Arg! She’s also eating “snacks” all day, wanting only a little bit at a time. I try encouraging her to eat more at once but she pushes off and cries (but happily takes a pacifier) – she’s pretty clear when she’s done. Yeah, a weird day.

So now of course I’m online looking for similar toys to buy. I’m glad I didn’t buy a bunch beforehand, though, as what I would have bought before is not necessarily what she seems to prefer now. I also have to keep in mind that her preferences are ever-changing. But it’s so much fun watching her that I want to provide her with more opportunities to learn and play!

::

I admit, I worried about becoming a SAHM. While I was once a SAHW I tended to sleep all day and not actually do many chores (much to Den’s frustration). Then I started working full-time. This was going to be a major adjustment, no matter how you look at it. I had no idea how I was going to get any chores done, or how I’d cope with not being able to sleep. Would I feel like I had too much to do? Or would I feel extremely bored with the repetition and cut off from everything?

I freaking love it. I have this constant companion; we’re a team, she and I. (I admit, I hold many conversations with her.) I keep busy fulfilling her needs: feeding, changing, playing, soothing. We dance around the living room as she squirms, restless and tired. We babble and grin as she sits on my lap, taking in the world around her. She gazes at me with her half closed grey-blue eyes as she nurses, fingers clenched in my shirt. I rest my cheek on her head and pat her back as I rock her to sleep. This is my life, and not only do I give myself over willingly, I delight in it.

It would have been much harder to be home alone in her early weeks when she hated being put down at all, for any reason. But now it’s already so different. She will sleep in her pack’n’play or swing, she’ll hang out awake and amused in her swing, bouncer, or on the floor on her blanket. I have enough time to eat (though not much time, I have to be very quick about it), go to the bathroom, throw on some laundry, feed the dogs. Those few naps when she’s sleeping somewhere not in my arms I tend to clean up the kitchen or sweep the floors. In short, I think I get more done now than I did as a SAHW – now I feel motivated and upbeat, ready to tackle things. (Feeling good about life does marvelous things for motivation.)

And the blogging? Well I admit I do the bulk of it in bed or from the recliner while she’s asleep. I am typing mostly on my blackberry, a feat that is indeed frustrating, but less annoying than typing one-handed on the laptop. (I can only hope that I’ll be as quick at it on the Droid I’ll be buying shortly!)

If only I could figure out how to function this well when not at home – that’s where it all comes crashing down. It’s all so much easier with everything close at hand: the recliner, boppy, swing, pack’n’play. When you’re out and don’t have any of those things, then suddenly it isn’t quite so easy… And there tends to be frequent meltdowns on both sides!

Trip to walmart? Total fail. She screamed the whole way there, causing me to pull over twice to try to calm her down. I seriously felt like crying myself when I pulled her out of her carseat, wiped the tears from her red eyes, and she shuddered and nuzzled under my chin and fell silent. I thought that was the end of it, I put her calmly back in the seat with her pacifier, pulled out… pacifier fell out, and screaming re-commenced. So then I switched to Plan B: turn up the radio and get there as fast as I can.

I thought she’d be okay while in Walmart. She had quieted down and was falling asleep, so I put her carseat on the stroller, thinking she’d just sleep while I shopped. Big mistake. She woke up and started crying, so I picked her up. Stupid me, I forgot the carrier in the truck, so I had to carry her in my arm and push the stroller (which I used as a shopping cart). She was okay for a little while, but then? Then she started getting fussy. Then she started crying. And crying. And crying. No amount of swaying, jostling or shushing got her to stop. The cashier felt bad for me as she rushed to get me checked out while I juggled her, the stroller, the backpack, the purchases. I carried her out to the car.

Of course I had to strap her in again. So I nursed her first, thinking maybe that would help her fall asleep – but I didn’t want to sit in the parking lot for an hour. So I nursed her, put her down, strapped her in – I even got some sleepy smiles. Gave her the pacifier. She seemed happy. Content. I tried to use a burp cloth under her chin to get the pacifier propped in there. Ahahahahah. Yeah, right. 5 minutes in, crying. Crying crying crying. It got more and more pathetic the closer we got to home – she was obviously really REALLY tired, and all she wanted was her damn pacifier so she could fall asleep. I chose not to stop, but just to get home as fast as I could.

I got home, picked her up, rocked her in my arms for 30 seconds – long enough to get her to stop crying and settle – then I put her on her belly in the pack’n’play, patted her back a couple of times. Out. Like. A. Light.

She’ll wake up perky, yawn and start smiling at me. Thank goodness babies have a short memory for these things. Too bad the same isn’t true for mommies.

I had just told my BIL and SIL how much Kate hates her bouncie seat, but loves her swing. We were over there for the evening and Kate was very hot, sweaty, and was having troubles napping so they brought out their daughter’s old bouncer so we could at least put her down and let her cool off. Wouldn’t you know it, she chilled out for a while and fell asleep. Den and I stared at each other in surprise. “Their bouncer is different than the one I got her, I wish I’d chosen a different one,” I said. But the next day I brought out her bouncer from the corner it has been stashed in for the last two months, since she would wrench up her face and wail every time I dared to put her in it. And I think here’s the key: I took out the newborn headrest. I sat her in it. And she looked around, smiled for a while, and then dozed off, while I looked on in amazement. Today again I put her in it, and she is hanging out beside me while I sit at the computer. Wow. This gives me one more place I can put her down for 2 seconds while I run and do something… or just give my arms a break. And it’s progress.

The past few days she’s also slept for over an hour in her swing. She’s always liked her swing, but had gone on a bit of a strike for several weeks, being happy in it for only a few minutes at a time and never sleeping.

Little bits of progress, little signs that she is changing, growing. I am proud that she is learning that it’s okay to sit by herself for a little while. She now knows I get her as soon as she’s done.

::

Today during play time I sat her on my lap and held a toy in front of her, within her reach. She has shown little interest in the toy when dangled overhead, she’d rather stare at her black and white shapes or the radiator. But sitting in my lap she has a different perspective so I figured I’d try it. Her hand hit it by accident the first time as she flailed around like she often does. But then her movements seemed to have more purpose to them, her hand smacking the toy again. Little fingers clasped and unclasped, sometimes grabbing the soft, crinkly fabric of the toy, sometimes grabbing nothing but air. It was like watching a mini exploration on a foreign planet with a primitive hit-or-miss mechanical robot arm. Such a simple thing, such a simple toy, and yet so fascinating. I said nothing much, just held her upright and let her take in these strange new connections she was making.

::

I thought I would be more sad that she’s not so much a newborn anymore. She was so teeny-tiny, so perfect, so adorable; I wanted to keep her just how she was. Now I’m nearly 2 months down the road and I can’t get over how amazing she is. She somehow looks even cuter now, I didn’t think that was possible. She’s easier to carry around now that she can hold her head up pretty decently, and she doesn’t feel so frail and breakable. She’s developing a personality and we’re starting to see little glimmers of the person she will become.

I cuddle her all the time. We sit in the rocking chair for long hours, something somewhat boring on TV that I am ostensibly watching, but really I am just brushing my lips lightly across her warm, soft head and letting the weight of her sink into my arms. She makes little whimpers as she sucks on her pacifier, little sighs as she relaxes and sinks into sleep. I rock her gently, my cheek against her forehead, existing simply to be her safe place, her comfort. I could sit there for hours… and often do.

I am having a crisis blogger identity. 11:30 at night when the baby is asleep is very poor timing for a crisis of blogging identity, but I suppose they come when they come. So I lay here in bed staring at the ceiling and over-thinking everything – much like how I spent all my free time today fretting over whether I should get a nursing necklace from place A or place B. (No I still don’t know, and yes I have issues.)

This blog was originally intended simply to be a record of a pregnancy and raising a baby. I was going to share it with some friends, but mainly it was just for posterity. That’s not what it became. Over the past four and a half years I’ve leaned heavily on this space, both as an invaluable outlet and as a place of support, due to the IF community. So now that I’m finally there on the other side, where I intended to be years ago without much fanfare, I’m left trying to figure out how to use this space.

I have written so much of my emotional roller-coaster in the journey to get here, now it feels the roller-coaster has glided to a stop. I am happy. Simply, unquestionably happy. I keep waiting for the other stuff to come crashing in on me at any moment, but it doesn’t. Even when I think about going through IVF again in the future it no longer feels desperate, no longer feels like my only thread to sanity, to hope. Hope and joy and the future are all asleep on my lap at this very second. If I never get anything more out of life I could be content.

How many times can I say the same things? Day 53: Yep, still happy. So instead I write about my baby, my day-to-day events; I revert back to the blog’s original purpose to be a record of my child. But after all this blog has been through that feels so… divergent, trivial. Now I have readers, now I have a community I feel beholden to. Every time I start to write there I go, mentally stuttering again.

I no longer feel comfortable in my own space, and I don’t know what to do about that. I keep waiting for that weird feeling to go away, but it still hasn’t. I almost feel like I need to set up somewhere new, somewhere fresh, somewhere that is only about Kate and joy and the life we lead, somewhere that isn’t so steeped in fear and loss and sadness. But then that feels like I’d be cutting out my past, my history… my son. What I went through to get here is as important to me as where I am now. How do I balance both?

So I don’t know what to do. At the very least this space must change from how I view it in my head. I just am not sure how that needs to happen for me to reclaim it as my own again.

Of all the things to not be adjusting well to, my blogging identity seems like a rather minor thing. But here I am, spending a sleepless night trying to figure it out.

I really don’t have much to say recently other than moaning about how our AC is not holding up to this heat and I’m whiny and sweaty. Kate started getting baby acne last week and it’s way worse with the heat… breaks out all over her cheeks. :( Poor kiddo. When we sleep we keep the temperature right around 74. Now to me that feels a little cool, especially with the very slight breeze from the fan, so some nights I can’t quite sleep comfortably because I need something covering my shoulders (since I sleep with Kate I can’t/don’t pull the sheet up past our waists). But Kate, who sleeps in just a onesie, wakes up sweaty so I don’t dare turn the temperature up – well, that and my husband would also kill me, as he too gets hot. How in the heck did I get a baby who likes it colder than I do? Yes I’m a wuss.

In regards to her baby bath tub that I so carefully picked out, Kate says, Oh hells no! Fail, double fail. I don’t think there is anything that Kate hates more than she hates that tub. I put in nice warm water, I put a towel down so it’s soft, we make it sound all cute and cuddly as we baby-talk to her and she screeaaaammmmms. So I scrapped that whole idea, filled the big tub, and I climbed on in with her. She’s still not sure about this whole water thing, but she gave it a chance. And the last time I took her in she actually smiled and babbled at me as I swooshed her back and forth in the water and held her on my knees. I think she likes being close to me, and she prefers being totally submerged up to her shoulders, it keeps her warm. I got her all soaped up and rinsed and wrapped her in one of her towels, and no screaming! No crying at all! Then I put her, still wrapped in her fluffy towel, in her little bouncie seat in the bathroom so I could really quickly wash my hair and hopped out just as she was letting me know she was done.

She’s been cooing and making sounds at us for a while now. Nothing delights us more and erases the frustration of why-is-she-crying faster than a grin and a “gah.”