Good Morning Everyone!
How was your weekend? Any new milestones, successes or challenges to report?
QOTD: A serious one first: Do your kid(s) have Godparents (in either the traditional or secular sense of the word)?
QOTD #2: If you had $10,000 to spend on your child's next birthday party what would you do? (If you have multiple kids feel free to envision one for each of them, or a combined party - sky's the limit).
Re: Parenting Check-In 1/26
Still doing well here. Hayden had her 1 month checkup and had gained a good amount of weight and was doing great! She still is not an everyday pooper, but the doctor doesn't seem concerned. She is staying up longer when she gets up at night to feed... which A and I are doing pretty well at waking up for evenly. Last night she woke up at 5... and the snow was falling and we had a bottle and snuggled. I feel lucky to not be so tired that I couldn't enjoy it
I have my 6 week check up tomorrow with the midwife who delivered H. I am stupid nervous about it... even though I know she has been all up in my business, I was in a totally different headspace. Send brave vibes my way if you have a chance!
I went out of the house 3 days last week with H, and it was hard every time. But I am glad to know that she is home with her Mama... I think that makes it easier. A sends me loads of pictures while I am out and that is very helpful.
QOTD: Hmmmm.... this is something we struggle with. We are church going folk... and will have H baptized, but haven't settled on God parents. My sister will be heartbroken if we don't "pick" her... but she is VERY Catholic, and we are very not Catholic. So we may forego God parents in the church sense...
QOTD2: We would have a wilderness weekend... sailing, fishing, hiking, s'mores, campfires, etc. in a nice area with cabins that have hot tubs and swimming. We would invite EVERYONE and pay for their lodging!
Baby Hayden Frances born 12/20/14 at 11:11 a.m... Our perfect little miracle. Here's how we got here:
My lovely wife:
5 IUI's January 2013-June 2013- 3 Cycles with Clomid- BFN
Myself: Genderqueer guy who hopped in the driver's seat of the baby making train
IUI #6- 7/23- Monitored and Trigger on Day 12, with one 16mm follicle and one 18mm follicle- BFN
IUI #7- 8/21- Not monitored, 50mg Clomid- BFN
September and October: Missed Cycles due to vacation and a Half Marathon
IUI #8- Monitored and triggered on day 15, with one 23x18mm follicle- BFN on 11/19/2013
December: Moved onto to see an RE to make a good plan.
IUI #9- 1/1/2014 Natural Cycle, BFP on 1/15/2014, 6W Ultra-Sound Reveals nothing in Gestation Sack... Natural M/C at 7W, 2/3/2014
IUI #10 3/21/2014- Natural Cycle- BFP on 4/1/2014 (please don't be an April Fools. Beta #1 13dpiui- 48, Beta #2 16dpiui- 416, Beta #3 1018...
1st Ultrasound- 4/22/2014- 6w4d HB- 134!
Check out my Blog at: http://pregnantboithinksoutloud.blogspot.com/
We don't really have much to report. DS FINALLY cut two of his eye teeth. I'm so happy I could cry! These teeth have been torture and took forever to come through (seriously, I think they took almost a month!). I'm not sure if I want the other two to cut now or if I want a mini break before going through all of this again.
I think we're on the brink of a language explosion. DS is slightly behind when it comes to speaking but I can see certain things starting to click. He did this last month too. Suddenly he picked up six new words in only a week! We've been working on body parts (specifically the face) and animal sounds. He's catching on so quickly and it's so adorable!
QOTD:
We originally had two good friends set to be godparent (non religious) however in the 18 months of his life neither of them have made any effort to spend any time with him (or me, for that matter). It hurts a bit since we were all so close before we started our family. I understand that they don't have children and are on a different path but I (naïvely) thought that they would be around more than twice a year. I'm sorry, I'm a tad bitter about the whole situation.
QOTD #2:
Wow that's an absurd amount of money to put toward a birthday party! I would go all out! Bounce house, petting zoo, crafts for kids AND adults. I'd have an obscenely large and beautiful cake for guests and an adorable smash cake for DS (you can have a smash cake a a 2nd birthday, right?). I'd rent food trucks for the afternoon to provide fair type foods (think corn dogs, fries, pop corn, cotton candy, etc). Maybe have a balloon artist and other entertainment. Finally, I'd hire a photographer and videographer to capture the whole event. Did I hit $10,000???
*DS 6/28/2013*
Will is 7.5 months old!
He is starting to try to pull himself up on things -- the couch, toys, etc. This is scary!!! He is also crazy strong, which scares me a bit. He will stand up for pretty long periods of time holding on to just our hands, or holding onto a piece of furniture. I feel like he gets better at it every day...
Still no crawling, but lots of rolling scooting and just generally being all.over.the.place. We seriously can't contain him.
This weekend was fun. We went out to lunch to a place we hadn't been in a long time on Saturday, and he was such a little ham. He sat in a high chair up at the table, and I gave him slices of pear out of my salad to chomp on. He made friends with the waitress and other kiddos walking past our table. It was hysterical. Then we went on a big Target trip and stocked up for about a month. He loves riding in the cart, and he kicked his legs and squealed as we pushed him around. Sunday we met my MIL out for lunch, then went to Kohls and the grocery store, then home for some family floor play time. He ate baby carrots while we were out at lunch. This weekend he also tried pureed prunes (poor bugger was constipated, so we thought we would try them), and he loved them! Overall it was a really good weekend.
He has a total of 7 teeth (4 are all the way through and 3 are poking through but not fully in yet). He still totally loves bath time and is really digging being in the big boy bath tub. He is ticklish under his neck and his arms. Sometimes he loves peek-a-boo, but other times he seems un-phased by it. He seems to like the dog's toys better than his own 1/2 the time.
OH, we transitioned to the Convertible Car Seat this weekend! That felt like a milestone HAHA... he seems to like it. It was a real *#*! to get into the car though. I thought my wife was going to have a stroke in the process.
QOTD #1: We are not religious, so we did not have a baptism, and do not have official "god parents," but in the practical sense of the word, my BIL and his wife would take Will (and any future siblings) if something were to happen to both my wife and me. We have Wills set up for that.
QOTD #2: So, I honestly cannot imagine ever spending that kind of money on a birthday party. Ever. Regardless of it being lottery money or a gift or anything else.... So, I would say in the future I would use that for a big family vacation that would be a birthday gift for the kid/kiddos, and then have a cookout with family when we got home! Or, we would have a low key at home bday party for $500 and put $9500 in the college fund! I know this answer is kind of cheating by not answering the question, but I just can't imaging spending that much on a bday party. Perhaps after I actually throw a bday party I will change my mind a little...
Me - 30, My wife - 31 , Together for 10 yrs - Married August 2012
5 medicated IUIs w/ RE (March - July 2013) = BFN
Fresh IVF Cycle in September 2013 resulted in 18 mature eggs, 16 fertilized, 12 made it to day 5. Transfer of 2 Grade A blastocysts on 9/15/13, and 10 embryos in the freezer! *****BFP on 9/25/13 - betas: @10dp5dt = 232; @12dp5dt = 465; @15dp5dt = 1,581 *********William George born June 4, 2014*********Our biggest news is that we seemed to have turned a corner with his sleep. Although we have better/worse nights every now and then, he had consistently been waking twice a night and nursing at least once. We have had great success with sleep for about 5 nights in a row now. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but I let him cry/whine himself to sleep the first night. While we've dabbled with CIO here and there, it never worked and we never went very far with it. After nursing Ash forever until he was sound asleep, he woke and cried when I transferred him to his crib. I gave him a hug, told him I loved him, and I left the room - I planned to go back if he didn't settle down, but within 6-7 minutes he was out! Then, he didn't wake until 4:30am or so. We've had some variation of this (just one night time wake up) going on for the past 5 nights - this is huge for us. Oh, AND, my parents put him to sleep on Friday night while Z and I were out to dinner without a bottle. So, I'm feeling better at the prospect of Z being able to put him to sleep without nursing sometime soon.
Another milestone - we actually packed away all the bottles and pump parts. He hasn't had any bottles since around his first birthday, but we've officially stored everything away. I love having my counter and cabinet space back, but it feels a little surreal.
Otherwise, Ash is just loving life. He LOVES Bama and gives her the sweetest hugs. He also gives me kisses when I ask - those huge open-mouthed ones. They are wet, but so, so sweet. He can get a little upset when redirected or I take something away from him, but he is able to move on quickly. We typically just don't engage the tantrumy behavior so as to not reinforce it with attention. He loves being outside and we were fortunate to have gorgeous weather this weekend to indulge him.
QOTW #1: No godparents. My sister will be his guardian should something happen to both Z and I, but we haven't named godparents. I don't have godparents, so it's not something I think about. I am a godparent to one of my nephews, which I think is odd since I"m not religious (he's Catholic), but I think it's mostly ceremonial. I don't treat/feel differently for him than I do my other niece/nephews.
QOTW #2: Geez louise, I have no idea. I can't imagine blowing that kind of money on a birthday party even if I had it to spend! Perhaps I would use that money to fly us and our immediately family somewhere fantastic to celebrate! Since Ash will only be 2 on his next birthday, Disney doesn't seem like a great option. I don't know - a nice beach front vacation at a tropical location? That sounds good. Definitely sounds like it is would be more for us than him, but he'll only be turning 2 in my defense!
You GUYS. Ben slept 12 hours without waking last night. 6:30-6:30. By morning I was sure he was dead. But no, he was totally fine, and in fact woke in a great mood, smiles for everyone. I'm not expecting this to happen every night, but it's still pretty awesome. He's "STTN" before in the sense that he's slept as long as we slept (maybe 7 hours), but since he started sleeping 12 hours on his own in the crib, he's never made it all the way through without a bottle. We got him a new winter-weight sleepsack so that might have helped!
Otherwise, chugging along. Had some health challenges last week -- B got diagnosed with double ear infections on Tuesday. I stayed home with him on Wednesday and started feeling cold symptoms. He's had a cold for a while so I didn't think much of it, but after he went to bed on Wednesday I started having chills, achiness and a fever. Turns out I had the flu! B never got it from me so we're actually wondering if he had it before and I got it from him -- we attributed his crankiness and fever to the ears, but it could have been more than that. Anyway, I'm back at work and other than a lingering cough I am fine. B still has a cough but otherwise is fine and my wife somehow managed to stay healthy through it all.
Moving ahead slowly but surely with solids. I gave him a banana in a silicone feeder thing and he LOVED it -- not sure which he liked more, feeding himself or the banana itself, but he was all smiles. He also tried mango puree and brown rice cereal, both thumbs up. Today we sent food to daycare for the first time so I am interested to hear how that went. We've been trying to feed him at home but he's too tired when he gets home from daycare and it doesn't go that well. When I feed him in the middle of the day on weekends he loves it, so I think we just need to let daycare do it. They were happy to.
QOTD #1: We are not religious, B will not be baptized and we are not naming "godparents" in any religious sense. Though we aren't calling her a "godmother" per se, we did decide that B will go to my sister if anything were to happen to us. Our parents are too old, my other sister can't really afford a child, and my wife's family is all out of state. My sister adores him, is responsible and financially stable, and shares a lot of our values.
QOTD #2: I'd hire a venue and caterer so we could enjoy his birthday without having to cook or clean up, and I'd hire a pro photographer to capture the day. My sister would probably still want to make the cake.
9 IUIs = 9 BFNs
IVF October 2012: 22 eggs retrieved, 17 fertilized, 5 frozen
ET #1: 1 blast = BFP; Blighted ovum discovered at 7w5d; D&E
FET #1: 1 blast = BFP; Missed m/c discovered at 9w5d; D&E
Karyotyping: normal ~ RPL Testing: normal ~ Hysteroscopy: normal
FET #2: 1 blast transferred 10/25; BFP 10/31!
EDD 7/13/14 ~ Induced at 37w4d due to pre-eclampsia ~ Born on 6/28/14
*Everyone welcome*
The weekend was ok - miss thing is teething and just a moody little baby as a result. She's still fighting a bit of a cold and we are taking her in to her pedi today at 3:30 just to check her ears to be safe, as she's been snotty/coughing with a range of severity for 2 weeks as of today.
J and I alternate night duty based on who is working (early) the following day. I have 3 nights and she has 4 nights - mine include both Friday and Saturday, since I don't work weekends. Well, Saturday night had a 90-minute 1 a.m. - 2:30 a.m. baby be a mess session! She was just so uncomfortable - I did all the tricks, then finally caved with a 1/2 dose of Tylenol. Then she slept 6 hours (!!) to which I woke up fearing she was dead and shook her awake in a panic (#neverwakeasleepingbabyWHOOPS). She was fine. Basically it's just been happy baby/sad baby off and on with no warning or apparent reason. She's still eating, sleeping, peeing and pooping just fine so we figure most (if not all) is well.
QOTW#1: We haven't thought about this really! I know a candidate or two, and my sisters are just all in with her regardless of a title. We aren't religious so no church-based activities for us.
QOTW#2: Um, me, J & Simone with a little cake and an envelope with a $10K check to be deposited to her college fun...followed up with us all cheering YAY!
Me (43) and J (45) - same sex couple. And we don't feel 40+!
June'12 - First RE Visit
Sept. '12 - Tubes removed
Dec. '12 - Donor Egg/Donor Sperm IVF Cycle - 4 good embies!
Dec. '12 - Fresh transfer, BFP! EDD 8/29/13
Mar. '13 - Missed m/c at 16w1d, baby boy stopped growing at 15w4d
Loss due to umbilical cord clot...baby was perfect.
Jul '13 - FET#1 - c/p
Sept. '13 - FET#2 - BFN
Dec.' 2, 2013 - FET#3 with our last chance embie - BFP!!!
Dec' 26, 2013 - hb!!
EDD 8/20/14 with a baby girl!
Little S was born on 8/21/14 - 8lb, 14 oz and 20 inches long.
We live in Seattle and used SRM for our donor egg IVF cycle
CageyMack
37, married to my favorite person in the world, DW! One darling surfer-girl (12) and one darling, sweet boy born 3/16/13.
5/2013 Started TTC #3, DW's turn: 5/2013: Diagnostics (shg) and surgery (polyp rem.) for best chances. July-Oct: IUI # 1-4, medicated, monitored, triggered. All BFN. IVF in Jan May. Sheesh. Whoop! IVF#1 cycle started 4/2/14. 5/1: 19 eggs retrieved, 8 matured, ICSI'd. 4 fertilized. Only 2 to transfer/freeze stage. 5/6: Two embryos transferred. 5/15: Beta #1 9dp5dt is 134! BFP! 5/19: Beta #2 13dp5dt is 672! B'erFP! 5/21: Beta #3 15dp5dt is 1853. Yay!
"Things separate from their stories have no meaning. They are only shapes. Of a certain size and color. A certain weight. When their meaning has become lost to us they no longer have even a name. The story on the other hand can never be lost from its place in the world for it is that place.” ― Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing
Hugs for this. While my wife is madly in love with R, I wonder if there is a part of her that will always imagine what her own bio children would look/behave like. When we used my eggs she needed time to grieve for own IF issues and for feeling like her body was "broken".
We've talked and I said if we ever came into money and all our expenses were under wraps I would love to do one more try with her eggs and give it everything we got. She seems to have made peace that her babies have come to her in a unique way and feels fullfilled with that.
Quick check in for me today..
R turned 11 months yesterday.
In BREAKING NEWS, R slept in his own bed the past 2 nights! It was strange waking up in the morning without being slapped in the face or having my hair pulled. Dare I say I missed him.
He is getting more interested in solids, which is great. We have confirmation that he has a dairy sensitivity/allergy. We will need to see how this shakes out with introducing WCM. Perhaps R will get his wish after all and be breastfed for life. With all this talk on the board today about donor's, we changed donor's so many times that towards the end we were like, "Do they have a pulse?, ok that's the one" So when we got pregnant with R, we ordered the extended medical history and low and behold our donor has a milk allergy. Whomp Whomp Whomp...
Other than that, life is good with him
:x
QOTW: #1, We know we want to have religion in their lives and have plans to baptize them both in the fall. We are making Christening gowns out of our wedding dresses. We have a few names of who the Godparents will be. Our Godparents are not the same people named in our will. We see those as two seperate roles.
#2, Gee only $10,000
I guess a nice oceanside lobster/clam bake with all our friends and family in tow. I do realize R's birthday is in Feb, but this is a fantasy right?
G is 22 months. Holy. Shit.
This will be pretty quick, as work is not my friend right now.
First of all, I don't think I say this enough here: I really love my kid. He's pretty amazing and I think that a lot of the behaviors that I find challenging right now will help to make him a really successful person in his adult life.
We had a bit of a marathon weekend, but everything really went pretty well. He even rolled with a 2 hour delay in his nap on Saturday and didn't get cranky or fussy. I was pretty proud of him. Yesterday I took him to my choir rehearsal as I do every week, but this week we had an additional practice session beforehand, for which we didn't have any care set up. Well my little super-active guy sat happily in his carrier while I sang for 25 minutes. I couldn't believe it! Finally he came out of his stupor a bit and then wanted to try to sing along. So I took that moment to take him upstairs and transition him to the daycare area.
But really, it was so SO cute.
We seem to have had no negative ramifications from the Tubes surgery last week. All is well there.
QOTW 1: Ugh. Not religious (well, I'm not. S is, but does not go to church on a regular basis) so G will not be baptized and a "Godparent" would be more in the guardian category. That being said, we still have not decided. We avoid the conversation because it's emotional and it's hard.
My Sister desperately wants to be designated. She is a wonderful, amazing person and she's fantastic with G. But she is an artist, has no structure or schedule, no money, and basically lives a life that is not at all condusive to having a kid/s. Don't get me wrong, there are some really amazing things that she could provide to and for G, but we have serious doubts about getting the day to day stuff done. Like getting to school. Or just waking up. Or eating something (anything) with sufficient protein.
S's Sister and BIL would be amazing guardians of our guy, and I do think they'd be willing. They are wonderful, caring, loving parents to two boys already. But they are struggling financially as well, and while I have immense respect for the religious views that help to govern their house, I am not all comfortable with that being G's upbringing.
Yikes.
(I should add that our insurance is pretty decent. So I don't worry too much about the expense of "Adding 1 more kid to the household." However in both situations, it would require a whole new house/apartment in order to accomodate the extra kid. That's a lot.)
QOTW 2: Airplane, beach, family (both sides), together. Done.
Married to my amazing wife 6/12/10
TTC since 6/11
Unmedicated IUI #1 - 6/28/11 - BFN
Unmedicated IUI #2 - 7/25/11 - BFN
Robotic Myomectomy (Fibroid Surgery) - 11/15/11
Unmedicated IUI #3 - 4/24/12 - BFN
Progesterone Supported Leuteal Phase IUI #4 - 6/21/12 - BFP!!
Baby Boy G Born 3/24/13
On to #2, are we crazy?
IUI #1 - 11/28/14 - BFP! Beta #1 (11DPO) 34, Beta #2 (13DPO) 101, Beta #3 (20DPO) 3043
Ultrasound at 6w4d shows a single, fluttering heartbeat. Say hello to Sticky Ricki!
Married to M and proud mothers to Olivia and Elise (8/19/2014) and to our fur-babies: Capone (pitbull), Jax and Atticus (cats)
@winstan1 Yes, our greatest hope. And not at all surprised that you face the same issues and challenges. Our boys seem to but cut from a smiliar cloth. A really awesome one.
Married to my amazing wife 6/12/10
TTC since 6/11
Unmedicated IUI #1 - 6/28/11 - BFN
Unmedicated IUI #2 - 7/25/11 - BFN
Robotic Myomectomy (Fibroid Surgery) - 11/15/11
Unmedicated IUI #3 - 4/24/12 - BFN
Progesterone Supported Leuteal Phase IUI #4 - 6/21/12 - BFP!!
Baby Boy G Born 3/24/13
On to #2, are we crazy?
IUI #1 - 11/28/14 - BFP! Beta #1 (11DPO) 34, Beta #2 (13DPO) 101, Beta #3 (20DPO) 3043
Ultrasound at 6w4d shows a single, fluttering heartbeat. Say hello to Sticky Ricki!