Thanksgiving with Kate was such a fun, low-key event. There was no wince at the “giving thanks,” there was no wanting to hide in corners, there was no feeling of suffocation at being around people. It was a smaller gathering, too, which I think was nice.

It was a lot of fun seeing Kate with her cousins now that everyone is growing up a little. I marveled at how big she looked, sitting on the floor playing with toys with her 2 and a half year old cousin. Thankfully BabyH was polite in gently taking the toys back after Kate reached out and snagged them! Or else she would just look at me and say, “That’s my toy?” It’s going to get very interesting when Kate is old enough to walk and follow her around! We also got a picture of Kate with the two baby twins, who are now 4 months old and looking very healthy! Funny enough I think they are now passing her in weight. Kate managed to grab one of them from behind as we were getting the picture, setting off some tears. Yes, I think it’ll be a fun bunch as they grow up together.

Tonight Den and I went on our first date night, the first time Kate has been left with a babysitter. She’s at an age where she loves to play, she’s not the least bit shy, she takes a bottle just fine… the only worry was sleep, since she’ll only sleep on someone unless she nurses to sleep. Thankfully Den’s sister has experience with needy babies. Unfortunately our dinner was disappointing for how much we spent on it, but we got to watch Harry Potter. As we walked into the theater I said to Den, “We get to watch a whole movie without hitting pause even once!” Tee hee. That being said, it was a nice evening but not a fantastic we-absolutely-have-to-do-this evening. I know some parents feel like they HAVE to get out without the baby.

We got home to a very happy baby, which just made my day. She did only nap for 30 minutes on her auntie, but that was enough. She was shrieking and laughing and grabbing at her toys. They apparently had a great time together, what a relief! She seemed to be thrilled to see us home, too. Not relieved that we were finally home, but it was like she was just busting at the seams and had to tell us all about it. She squealed, shrieked and giggled for a solid 2 hours after we got home, until she finally lost steam and passed out at the boob at 11:30. I tried putting her to bed before then, but she just rolled all over the place and loudly played with her toys.

She just stuns me with how active she is now. She rolls everywhere, back and forth and back and forth. On her belly she can spin in circles to change direction or reach something. If something falls out of reach she’s rolling back and forth, wiggling forward a tiny bit at a time. She’s trying to scoot forward using her toes, but it’s not all that successful yet. Soon, though. When sitting, which she does a lot now, she used to faceplant if she leaned too far forward reaching for a toy. Yesterday I noticed she’s started using one hand to prop herself up while she reaches with the other hand, keeping herself from toppling over. She’s keeping her balance much much better.

She’s also realized that computers are fun. Her favorite thing right now is on KneeBouncers, the music-maker. She gets wicked excited, flapping her arms and then leaning forward to bang on my keyboard. She sometimes likes to watch videos, but her attention span isn’t that great right now. She needs to be grabbing/banging/eating things for it to be interesting. I ended up getting one of our old computer keyboards to let her smash on it for a while. Me, being such a geek as I am, am planning to reformat my old laptop (it needs it, badly) and then installing some stuff and a kid browser on it for her. When she’s playing on my computer I get worried she’s going to accidentally pop a key off or something. I don’t care if that happens with the old one. ;)

This year we definitely have so much to be thankful for.

OMG what a day I have had. Actually, two days.

Monday, the day of her half-birthday, she celebrated by being an utter bear. It was a very whiny, clingy day. Which I can handle as long as she sleeps. I figured since she was being so clingy I would skip trying to put her on our bed and instead just let her sleep on me. That didn’t even work. She was tired, and cranky, and just got more tired and cranky, and nothing I did soothed her or got her to sleep… all of my usual tools exhausted, along with my patience and sanity. I finally took a page from Den’s rulebook and loaded her into the carseat, snapped it on the stroller, and took her and my dog for a walk. Kate quickly fell fast asleep and slept so soundly and for so long that when I got back to the house I just parked her by the front door and cleaned out my truck. At least I accomplished something useful.

(Yes we still use the carseat on the stroller, even though we don’t need to. I like looking at her, it’s easier to keep the sun out of her eyes with the carseat sunshade, and I can tuck her in all warm and snug to sleep. I realized, however, that her in her carseat is a shitload heavier than she used to be.)

When Den got home to watch her while I went to work I practically fled. I returned 4 hours later to hear that she’d been clingy, but slept fine on him. I settled with her for the evening while Den went out and… same damn thing again. Crying and crying. No sleeping.

She went to bed just fine, slept soundly as usual at night, until midnight as Den and I were just settling in to sleep. There was a loud noise, a very distinctive noise. A poopy noise. “Did she just do that?!” I exclaimed. 30 seconds later Kate was whimpering and waking up, wondering why the hell she had a poopy butt. I was wondering the same thing.

Tuesday did not bode well from the beginning. Our water heater broke, so while we do have heat (yay) we do not have hot water (crap). I had my annual gyno exam in the morning (sweet!) and Kate had her 6 month appointment in the afternoon. Plus I had to take her into work to finish my stuff I didn’t get done on Monday – a weekly occurrence now, but it just wasn’t good timing. Why the hell did I book an appointment for Tuesday? Ugh.

Surprisingly my appointment and hers both went very well. She flirted with the midwives and stared quizzically as one of them did my breast exam. She napped on me just fine, I actually had to wake her up to take her to her own appointment. That, too, went well. While waiting for the doctor to come in she was trying to roll and spin circles on the exam table, blowing bubbles and grabbing the paper table liner. She got two shots today and only cried very briefly, stopping as soon as I picked her up, then flirted with the receptionist as I checked out. At work she was great too – understandably whiny when I kept putting her down to try to do things, but she loves playing with my coworkers and it’s a new place to explore. Unfortunately with her now rolling she’s starting to roll towards the cats (I work at a rescue sanctuary) so I’m going to have to bring in a pack’n’play to keep her contained.

In order to get my work done I use the kozy. When she’s awake I either let her play with a coworker, if someone’s not busy, or she plays with her toys on the floor beside me while I work. When she’s sleepy I’ve learned to put her in a back carry in the kozy (using the couch to get her on – works like a charm!) and that’s when I do my inventory/lifting/moving things around. She sleeps quite well that way. But. Today I didn’t have help lifting things, I did it myself. It’s been a long time since I did, plus I had Kate on my back. Three cases of cat food at a time, that’s roughly 24lbs I’m lifting. Kate’s now 14lbs, so that’s 38lbs. Plus I can’t bend over when I’m wearing her so I have to squat. Squatting nearly 40lbs. Ouuccchhhhh. And it takes me 2-3 times as long to get things done, so I didn’t get home until 7. Ugh.

Oh did I mention I got a flu shot today at my appointment? I never get flu shots, at least not until I was pregnant with Kate. My arm hurts.

All of this leading to tonight. Kate went down and slept okay for a while, but then I woke up aching all over. My arm hurts from the shot, my legs hurt from the lifting, my back and neck hurt from carrying Kate all day. I just couldn’t lay there anymore, I needed to get up, use a hot pack, and take some tylenol. And Kate would NOT let me get up. Every time I tried she’d whimper and flail and wake up. I’d nurse her back to sleep again. Her fist kept clenching and unclenching, over and over, indicating that she just wasn’t sinking into a deep sleep. She just stayed there right at the edge. After an hour of this I finally gave up, woke Den up and told him to please try to keep her asleep somehow, and got up. Of course that failed. 10 minutes later I hear from the bedroom Kate “talking” in a very wide-awake voice. Normally at that point I’d go to bed and nurse her to sleep and stay asleep, I never get her out of bed in the middle of the night unless something is wrong… I highly encourage sleeping all night long! But tonight I just couldn’t… could not. And that’s why she was playing in her exersaucer at 2am.

15 minutes later there’s a terrific sound from the exersaucer, the sound of pants being filled. Over and over again. When I think she’s done I go over to inspect and find the diaper blew out the sides and top. What the hell? Second night in a row of a poopy diaper at night? She hasn’t done that in months! But it did explain why she wasn’t falling asleep very well.

I am tired. I ache all over. I don’t even have any hot water to take a bath (which would be SO GREAT right now). I got Kate back to sleep but she woke up 10 minutes later whining for me yet again… I nursed her and then woke Den up to please please cuddle her and keep her asleep. Please. She needs sleep and I need… well, drugs or alchohol would be lovely, but since I can’t really have either I’ll settle for a heat pack and some hot chocolate.

Maybe she’s teething – she still has no teeth. Maybe it’s a growth spurt. Maybe it’s just one of those weeks. I don’t know.

Dearest Katherine,

You are six months old today. I feel a lot of things, but mostly pride. You have always been a happy baby, but now you are so social and adorable and fun to be around. I am so proud of who you are and every day I feel stunned that I am lucky enough to have you in my life. You’re my constant companion, my little side-kick. I love knowing that wherever I go, you’ll be with me. I love that going shopping isn’t just buying groceries, but time with you. Even when my day consists of a doctors appointment and hanging out on the couch, it’s never boring.

I love watching your chubby little arms reach for things, so eager to experience the world. You can sit and roll now and you no longer are upset to be on the floor, now that you’re in control. I always knew that was the problem. I really think that being a newborn was stressful for you. You’ve never liked laying back and watching, you want to be in on the action, lording over your toys from an upright position, walking around, touching things yourself. I think it frustrates you still that you have to rely on us to put you where you want to be. Some days I think we get it all wrong. I’m glad you’re forgiving.

You used to have a temper. I remember you as young as 2 months old, held in an upright position as you reached for your toy. You would growl and growl as you tried to force your hands into behaving until finally you could take the frustration no longer and you burst into wails and unhappy screeches. You used to sleep peacefully in the sling but upon awakening would arch your back and scream to be let out immediately. I’m amazed at how much more patient you are now, laying on the floor playing with your toys. I just sit back and watch you most of the time, letting you struggle to pick up your book, even though it’s so big and awkward in your hands. You roll back and forth, tugging at the toy this way and that, trying to figure out why it’s stuck under your arm, or why when you pull one side of a blanket the other side moves, too. I can see the concentration on your face.

I love seeing your expression of glee when you figure something out. When you realized you could roll to your right after weeks of rolling only to your left you paused a moment to process, then kicked your legs and shrieked happily. Your whole body lights up. And then of course you rolled back over to do it again.

You’re a monkey in my arms, and have been ever since you could move. As a newborn you would hold your head up. At just a few weeks old you would kick the chair arm to propel yourself sideways. You can’t crawl yet so you settle for draping your body over mine, then pushing, kicking, pulling and rolling all over me. With the requisite slobber-on-arms-and-shirt, of course. You make a lot of noise while doing it, too, lots of “Aaahhhhhhhhh”s and high-pitched “shreeeeeee”s. You haven’t really figured out any consonants yet, but you make quite varied use of vowels and raspberries. My favorite is when you hang over my arms, half roll over so your head is hanging back, and then you smile up at me, reaching out to touch my face. And then you blow a raspberry, just because you can.

I admit, I am always cuddling and kissing you. I can’t help it. You feel so good in my arms, so warm and firm and real, and I want to permanently imprint this feeling into my skin. You already feel so different than you used to, and already I am forgetting exactly how it was. So, yes, I kiss you a lot. I nibble on your cheeks and you open your mouth wide and laugh and laugh. Now when I lean my face close to yours you half-close your eyes, open your mouth, and lean forward to press your mouth against my cheek, returning my kisses.

At night you sleep in my arms, though you are learning to sleep alone, too. But it is not something I do just for you, not something I do begrudgingly. I love your closeness, I love your warmth. I love how you turn towards me and wiggle closer. I love nursing you as you drift off to sleep (though I don’t love the way you are grabbing my boobs, please stop that). And in the morning when you finally kick me awake I turn my head and open my sleepy eyes to see you watching me, see your face break out a terrific smile just for me. And then I pull you close and tickle you and we lounge and play as you giggle and roll and greet the day with gusto. (I wish I had your gusto. I still hate mornings.)

I am torn between wanting to remember exactly how you felt as a newborn, eagerly looking forward to seeing who you grow up to be, and wanting to freeze you exactly as you are. Things certainly change quickly, but I love the new just as much as the old.

There are not enough words to say how much I have loved the last six months. It’s not just that the past several years feel worth it to arrive here finally, but that a part of me was born for this, waiting all these years of my life for you to come along. You are my life’s joy.

I love you, today and forever.

Mama

When Kate was just starting to go to bed before me I would get irritated with Den when he said he was going to bed. It was hard enough getting her to fall asleep and stay asleep after I crept out, I didn’t want him going in and disturbing her. He snores sometimes. And she sleeps on our bed – she’s at the far side from him, 4 feet of space in between, but I don’t want his turning over to disturb her.

I am recently realizing that she sleeps far better when he’s asleep in there too. The last few nights have been incredibly frustrating to me, she’s been waking and crying for me 5 or 6 times after I put her to sleep, I have to keep going back in over and over. I was ready to tear my hair out! Well Friday and Saturday nights Den stays up late, as he doesn’t have work in the morning. This evening I put her to bed early and has to go pacify her multiple times. Then Den went to bed and… silence. I sometimes hear a snore from him, I hear the lullabies playing, but not a sound from Kate. That can’t be coincidence.

Last night Den was gone overnight. Other than the pain of trying to get her to sleep while I stayed up a while it was a glorious night. I would nurse her, then move to Den’s side of the bed and happily sleep on my belly all splayed out, my favored sleeping pose. Kate slept just fine, rousing every once in a while for a nurse and a cuddle, but nothing much else. Once I even remember her opening her eyes, lifting her head slightly, then flopping back down and falling right back asleep. I think she was checking to see if one of us was still there with her.

Of course she does still have a little bit of a stuffed nose, noticeable only when she lays down to sleep. That could have something to do with the crummy going-to-bed, too.

You know what’s frustrating? I think of these awesome topics while I’m doing things like driving the car, or giving Kate a bath, or laying in bed nursing her. Then, hours and/or days later I open up my blog and I stare at the screen. I type two words and then the dog causes something to go crash, my husband comes home, or the baby wakes up, or I get an email from work, and now those two words make no sense to me at all anymore. And that idea? I had an idea? Wait, what? I used to be able to write. I used to write a lot. Now I’m just trying to make sure I keep up with my little notes in my text file and emails to my mom.

And the phone? I admit, I’ve always had issues with phones. Always, from the time I was a little kid. I was most certainly not that youngling answering the phone when she shouldn’t be, I remember my mom practically yelling at me to get me to call people (to say thank you, or to ask a question, or whatever). The phone issues were getting better as I grew up these last 10 years. I still would avoid some calls that would set off my anxiety for unknown reasons, but I was pretty good about making appointments and such. Now? Ha. Well first of all, Kate was always either awake and needing to be held (and no, I do not multi-task well) or asleep on me and the sound of my voice would wake her up. Now she’s in the If I see it it must be mine! stage and I spend the entire phone call with my mom juggling Kate on one arm while she shrieks happily and reaches out for the phone. Sometimes I put her down to play, which she’s good at, but it never fails that the moment I try to hold a conversation on the phone she starts crying or shrieking or something. The time I get to myself to do things is from 10 until Midnight – no phone calls can be made during those hours. So now my phone anxiety is back up again and I beg for people to please text or email me.

See, if though Kate’s asleep right now I still am all discombobulated trying to do three things at once. I wrote those two paragraphs and then flipped over to something else and now have lost my train of thought. No, wait… I didn’t have one to start with.

::

Since having Kate I joined a local moms group just for the socialization aspect, something to do during the day and people to get to know. It’s kind of funny, I think I’m more social now than I ever was before. I still would probably stay home most days, if it weren’t for little miss bright-eyes getting bored with that. Last night I took Kate with me to an evening gathering. She has a late bedtime so staying out until 10 isn’t a huge problem with us as it is with other families with babies. She does get a little clingy in the evening – much more mellow than her usual shrieking, bouncing self – but even so she let some of the other mommies hold her for a while. When she got whiny I took her and she layed her head on my shoulder… but still leaned back to watch everyone with serious eyes.

The girls commented that I seem very relaxed for a first-time mom. I’m not sure what triggered the comment, as there was nothing of note that happened. Maybe me passing Kate around, maybe the way I repeatedly picked her paci off the floor to simply brush it off and pop it back in again, or maybe just the fact that I was there with her at 10pm instead of fretting about bed times. It’s not the first time someone has mentioned to me that I’m an easy-going mama. It actually makes me giggle a little. Me, easy-going. Not something I ever would have expected with my personality.

The more I think about it the more I realize that I just don’t care about the small things. If she spits up on her clothes or puts toys in her mouth or leans forward and bonks her head on the wall… it’s all okay. I don’t judge my life’s success by a clean floor or how long she naps. I think that’s definitely a side-effect of the losses we’ve been through. Is Kate injured? No? We’re all good.

On the flip side things like car safety are very important to me. I cannot for the life of me understand parents who don’t bother to correctly strap their child into a carseat. I probably make Kate a little uncomfortable with how snug I pull her straps every time, but she only fusses momentarily. She wears only light fleece jackets when in the seat. And I plan to keep her rear-facing until she is 3 or 4 years old. The idea of getting into an accident isn’t just a hazy maybe, it’s something that could very well happen tomorrow. I will do everything I possibly can to make sure that she is as safe as possible.

A few months ago I wrote out a list of all the signs I thought would be useful for Kate to learn and started using some of them day-to-day. But then I stopped doing it because she was too young to notice. I’ve just realized that Kate is nearly 6 months old! She’s certainly old enough to start learning them now, I need to start making an effort to show her signs, starting with “milk.” Today for the first time she looked at my hand with interest as I made the sign for milk before nursing her. Hmmm, I can hear the gears turning in there.

Who took my baby and replaced her with a monkey? No really. She’s always been a baby in motion, but now I’m all like, Would you stop kicking and clawing me and just settle down and eat?!” I have no issues being a jungle gym. I also have no issues being a milk bar. I do, however, have issues with being both simultaneously.

She’s also flailing around a lot when I am trying to get her to sleep by nursing her laying down, something that used to work like a charm. It’s been so frustrating lately – and naps so short – that for the last week I’ve been having her nap on my chest while I watch TV. (To be honest I don’t mind at all… I really really love the sleep snuggles I get.) And when she finally does settle down and fall asleep she’s rousing and flailing every single time I try moving away from her. So last night I tilted her towards her stomach instead of her back…. and she slept. I think she just craves some firm pressure against her front in order to sleep – that’s how she sleeps on me on the couch, in the carrier, and in the bed. She’s been a rolling fiend lately, rolling across the room repeatedly, so I have no fears about her getting stuck on her tummy if she doesn’t want to be. The only hard part about this is that if she’s not fully asleep when I gently roll her from her side to her front she wakes up and cries because in her head laying on her belly on something other than mommy means playtime. Oi.

It has been a very busy weekend. We are not the type of parents who cannot or will not go places with their baby – Kate has certainly gotten to see a lot of things in her short life so far. This weekend alone we helped friends move (well Den helped, I played with Kate), went bowling, ate dinner at a restaurant, and spent some time visiting with family. She did wonderfully, as usual. She really seems to thrive on activity and people. Of course she has her limits and we duck out early if she needs us to, but she does remarkably well. She seems to very much be an extrovert, which is the exact opposite of me. I have these horrible flashbacks to my childhood (I was the introvert, my mother the extrovert) and how badly we clashed and misunderstood each other. I hope I can do better by her.

She naps while out either in the car, in the mei tai, or just flat out sprawled on my chest, and it’s enough to get her through. Unfortunately she tends to not nap quite long enough, so evenings have been a little hairy around here. You’d think she’d crash early and sleep soundly, but instead she’s fidgety and wakes up at 9pm for playtime before bed. Although part of that is a need for floor time – while we’re out she doesn’t spend much time on the floor (obviously, since we’re out in public and eewww). So the past two nights when she’s refusing to go back to sleep at 9 or 10pm we just got her up and let her play on the bed with us. She was like the rolling energiser bunny. She only continually rolls in one direction so I’d put her on one side of the bed and she’d roll all the way to the other side into the wall, and continue to keep rolling even though the laws of physics when it comes to walls and babies are pretty much constant. So I’d move her down to the other side of the bed and let her go again. It was like one of those wind-up cars kids play with. It took about half an hour of that (and the giggles, oh my gosh the flirting and blowing bubbles and grabbing books and giggles!) before she was truly ready to go to bed for the night.

When we went out to dinner, which we haven’t done in quite a long time (we usually prefer to go out for breakfast), we looked over at the highchairs they had – wooden with just a couple of straps – and debated to ourselves about whether or not she could handle it. We decided to try it. And holy shit, she did fine! I’m just amazed at how quickly she’s figuring out sitting up since that day it clicked for her. Just a few days later and she’s getting quite good at adjusting her balance so she doesn’t topple over. Even when she does fall she’s learning how to curl up and roll down slowly instead of slamming towards the floor with her head. I appreciate that.

She seemed to be getting a cold at the end of last week – her nose was runny and she was getting congested. I braced myself for a bad week ahead, but it never bothered her much and already seems to be on the downside, she doesn’t sound quite as bad as she did. I’m giving thanks that her sleep hasn’t been messed up by it, other than her being a little clingier than usual – she wants me to stay with her, it takes me 4 tries to get her to sleep on her own right now. (Very frustrating, when I’m trying to get something done!)

I think we say the same thing every week: She’s learning so much and becoming such a little person and is she ever fun at this age! I loved the newborn stage, I really did. I loved her little sleepy smiles and her sweet little cuddles and how small and perfect she was. But now it’s like she’s just exploding with personality and joy. I’m constantly amazed by her.

On Wednesday we were at one of our playgroups and one of the other little girls her same age was sitting up. “Wow,” I said. “Kate’s not sitting yet.” Two days later she made a liar out of me and just started sitting without needing me to hold her. She toppled over easily but it’s amazing how quickly she’s adapting her balance. Her core strength is definitely way better than it was just a week or two ago when she kept sagging forwards. Now she leans forward to grab a toy and sits right up straight again. She is very pleased with herself over this, and has taken to sitting there, banging a toy onto the ground and screeching with joy. Of course I have to sit right there spotting her the entire time, even with the boppy around her to catch her when she falls (or, as she is also apt to do, throws herself backwards). I got some pictures of her sitting, but when I grabbed the video camera she managed to fall forwards right over her toes and clunked her head on the floor. That video clip got deleted. Sheesh.

She’s learning to play peek-a-boo. She quickly caught on to us reacting when she is “revealed” and started pulling her blanket up over her own head. It’s freakin adorable the way she holds her arms straight up over her head (they barely go higher than her head!), the blanket pulled tight across her face. Then she dramatically pulls it down, grins, and waits for our appropriate response of “Boo!” Then she laughs and does it again.

One of her favorite games, especially in the evening when she’s more cuddly than usual, is sitting on my belly while I lay on the couch. She leans back against my knees and babbles and sucks her fingers. Then she puts her arms up, her eyes twinkle, and she leans forward to flop onto my chest where she buries her face against my shirt. I then wrap my arms around her and say “NOM NOM NOM!” while kissing her cheek and she laughs hysterically – which causes me to laugh, then she laughs even harder. Then she suddenly stops and struggles to sit up again, playing with her fingers until she flops down onto me again for more kisses and laughter. Oh my god it just kills me! The way she looks at me so impishly, the way she flings herself into my arms, the way she laughs. It is the best damn thing in the world.

She’s really starting to show that she recognizes Den and I. She’s a happy, friendly, outgoing girl, but she just lights up when she sees one of us walk in the room. It’s a great feeling.

I haven’t mentioned her sleep lately because she’s been doing awesome. I’m so glad this month has not been a repeat of last month… from 4 to 5 months old it was just a mess of frustration. Then suddenly it all clicked again and it’s great. I can now put her down at her bed time and stay up for several hours all by myself, like I am now. She’s no longer fighting naps, though they’re not always as long as I would like them to be – I’ve started having her nap on my chest on the couch again, just so she gets a really good nap in while I watch some TV.

She’s also sleeping for Den again! This is huge, because it means there’s no more screaming fits while I’m out. He hasn’t been able to get her to sleep on the bed yet, but he has managed to get her to sleep in her pack-n-play, a feat that I can’t even manage to do. So I guess it’s true, even though with me she needs to nurse, they have figured out their own methods of doing things that works for them. She stays happy, he stays happy, and I get to go out guilt-free. I’ve come home a few times and, when I ask how it went, Den beams and says, “We had so much fun!!” He’s an awesome daddy. Kate adores him, and he’s utterly smitten. He feeds her bottles, he changes her, he plays games with her. I often find him laying on the floor in her room with her beside him while they both shriek and giggle. Saturday while I was gone he even took her with him on their first outing without me, he had a retirement party to go to. He packed his (black, boring) diaper bag, dressed her, got her to nap in the truck on the way. He said she had a great time, everyone commented on what a happy baby she is.

(That coat is a hand-me-down from Devin – it was one of the things I splurged on for him, one of the things I just couldn’t bear to pack up. It makes me happy to see her in it, but a little sad, too.)

In some of my online groups of babies born in May of this year there are girls already pregnant again. There is still that stab of jealousy that people actually get pregnant when they want to (or don’t!), but then I feel a flash of something I don’t recognize. Wait, I know… relief. Thank goodness it’s not me! I think about how sick I get in the first trimester, how tired I am, how careful I try to be… and then I think of the little girl I have in my arms. I’m not ready to take away from her even a bit of my time or attention yet. We finally have what we have strived so long for and I really just want to sit with it in peace and joy for a while, to not complicate it. Plus I think it’s kind of nice having my body to myself for a little bit – no injections, no tests, no bladder pressure, no nausea or heartburn. Okay, yes, I am breastfeeding, but that’s not the same.

In fact, breastfeeding is one of the big reasons that I don’t want to start trying again anytime soon. The breastfeeding relationship I have with Kate is so very special to me, it is upsetting to think about weaning her before we’re both ready. I did some research and it definitely sounds like weaning is required – or at least highly recommended – before doing IVF. Nursing *may* reduce pregnancy rates, and obviously you don’t want to do anything to compromise a cycle. So I know I will have to wean her before cycling, and that makes me very sad. My therapist very wisely pointed out that it’s a hard decision to make, but that I’ll be hopefully giving Kate a sibling. I’ll have to decide what timing is right, which is more important.

The spacing we’re aiming at is 2 1/2 years between children. We are tentatively planning on returning to the RE to cycle again at the end of next year, when Kate is a year and a half old. That just feels so soon. Next year! Den waffles between, “It’s up to you, don’t rush into anything if you don’t want to,” and, “I’ll be 45 years old, I don’t have years to waste!” At this point I figure by the time another year has gone by I’ll hopefully be ready. So, tentative plans.

Which is why I’m so interested in IVF topics, why I went to the conference this past weekend. I kept my mouth shut about already having had a baby, I know how hard that can be for people to hear, even if Kate and Devin are both products of many IVF cycles. I avoided any kind of “intro to IVF” type sessions, for obvious reasons. The best thing about these conferences is not just information – you can get information ad infinitum online and from peer groups – it’s the direct contact with the doctors. I got to learn about the newest theories behind embryo grading from an Embryologist. I heard all about In-Vitro Maturation from the doctor who has been at the forefront of IVM and runs one of the only labs in this part of the country that offers it. And then everyone in the room got to ask questions of the doctors and talk directly with them. “What would you do in this situation?” “Do you agree with my doctor’s reasoning for this protocol?” “Would this new technique you mentioned be of use to this type of patient?” I really feel like there is no substitute for this kind of interaction. Nowhere else can you sit down with a group of REs and PhDs and pick their brains. Nowhere else can I get the same kind of feel for the newest technologies, protocols and theories.

The first session I went to was about treating low responders and low ovarian reserve. I am obviously not a low responder, but I get very few embryos, like low responders do, so I had hoped that they would have information that could be of use to me. Unfortunately mostly what I learned was that the poor quality embryos that result from a person with low ovarian reserve is not at all comparable to the embryos that I get after my crappy fertilization results. The session was very good for the women who deal with that problem, however.

The next session I went to was a “journey through the IVF lab” – exactly what they do, what they’re looking for in the follicles, the eggs, the embryos, and how they do what they do in the lab. This one was truly excellent and while we ran over time everyone in the room had so many more questions. I really think they could have stretched that one into a full day session and we would still have wanted more!

After lunch I attended the session all about In-Vitro Maturation, which was very informative. IVM, for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, involves retrieving all your eggs in an immature state, without going through stims, then maturing them all in the lab. This is great for PCOS patients who severely hyper-stim, or other patients who have some other reason for wanting or needing to avoid putting their body through the stress of stims. They also use it for cancer patients who want to preserve their fertility and need to do it quickly before their treatment. Unfortunately for me, there are two main take-away thoughts from this session. First, that the technology still doesn’t produce the success rates that normal IVF cycles do, the body does tend to do a better job of things though they are getting better and better at achieving egg maturation in the lab. Second, he was very clear that in order for IVM to work the eggs need to be retrieved early enough in the cycle. Which means that for people like me who end up with a shit-ton of immature eggs after stims and retrieval, their IVM techniques will likely not help those eggs. Bugger. (His reasoning, which is based on data he showed us in some charts, is that at a certain point in a cycle, roughly halfway through stims, there seems to be a point where eggs get “programmed” to either be mature and healthy or be immature and die. In a normal cycle only one egg of the antral group will end up being mature and released, while the rest all die off; the studies seem to indicate that this is a factor even in IVF cycles where a much larger portion of the eggs end up mature.)

The last session of the day I went to was a split session between an Acupuncturist and a Dietitian, both who specialize in working with IVF patients. The acupuncturist was interesting. I saw an acupuncturist during my last stims cycle (the one that ended up getting me pregnant with Kate). It’s a tough subject for me, because in some ways it does make sense and it seemed to help… but on the other hand some things they talk about, like judging your body condition by your pulse, just seems a little bit weird and far-fetched. I am on the fence about spending the money to do acupuncture the next time around. I had hoped that this session would tip me in one direction or the other, but it didn’t. I’m still squarely on the fence. I’d like to say the dietitian gave good info, but honestly I started blurring out most of it – there were a lot of graphs about proteins and genetics and probabilities in sample groups and not a whole lot of summarizing of these unintelligible details. I think the only thing I really took away from that is that there’s a reason I’m not a dietitian.

I have a few questions jotted down to ask my RE whenever I go back. Whatever we end up doing, I remain fascinated by it all and I have a drive to understand what exactly my body is doing. Especially since I saw two other women at the conference who mentioned having the same results as I do: highly sensitive to stims, lots of follicles, lots of eggs, very few embryos. It does not appear to me to be as rare as I initially thought it was. I wish there was more information out there, more resources. I may have to start putting together something.