The mom that I am

I find a lot of bloggers seem to have their own parenting style, and it has made me want to blog about mine. Before I became a mom I had a mind filled with ideas about what kind of mom I wanted to be. Ideas of what a good mom does, what good parenting is and what I swore I would never do. I would mean mug misbehaved children and their parents in restaurants, glare at mom's with crying babies in airplanes (honestly just the ones who didn't try to soothe them.) I had all of my own philosophies like children should never sleep in bed with their parents, and breastfeeding in restaurants was gross to just name a few.

Then, I became a mom. And everything changed.

Who I am as a mom is completely different than I ever thought I would be.

Starting right after R was born, it only felt natural to have him sleep with me. I was terrified of something bad happening, loved having him close, and with breastfeeding it only felt natural. He is now 4 months old and still enjoying our bed-sharing environment. I am now convinced when he is ready to sleep on his own, he will but for now, it's evident, we both get comfort out of it. There are so many articles to support co-sleeping, not that I needed them but they re-enforce everything I have ever thought.

Breastfeeding as become my passion. When I was in my first trimester I told my sister in law that I would "try it but not be heartbroken if it didn't work out." She said I wouldn't last 2 weeks. I'll admit, I hated breastfeeding the first 6 weeks. It hurt, I had wounds, I had mastitis, and I had thrush. I pushed through to prove her wrong. I knew that if I quit there was no going back. I am so thankful for pushing through because now it's something I enjoy more than anything. As for my previous views on breastfeeding... I couldn't be more different. I'll feed my son anywhere, and I have. If I don't have my cover, like I once forgot at the zoo, who cares. My child needs to eat. I have never thought twice about breastfeeding in a restaurant.  

I swore that I hated pacifiers and that remains true, R has never used a pacifier. Mainly because I held off while we were learning to breastfeed and by then he wouldn't take one. But I also swore by cloth diapers, bought a entire stash, and that is something I have not held true on. For various reasons, including being busy, R is big, he is in size 9 months, and the cloth is so bulky I can't put his clothes over it, it drives me nuts. It's something I wish I could have held true to.... I refuse to get rid of them just yet.

As he gets older I am finding myself learning more about things I feel about for his current stage... baby led weaning for one, NOT sleep training is another. It will be interesting to look back in 20 years and see what all I did that I didn't think I would do.

Edit: I typed this post not even realizing that it was almost exactly what the theme post for PAIL's blogroll for this month. I am adding a few notes to the bottom to address all the questions asked, and just adding them from this point because I don't like to go back and change my posts too much :)

I may not be the crunchiest of them all but I do concern myself a crunchy mom, and even more so definitely consider myself a attachment parent. Surprisingly, while I was pregnant, I was against most philosophies of attachment parenting, had no interest in Dr. Sears, and swore I wouldn't do half the things I have done and mentioned in the above post.

I feed on-demand, I will never let R cry it out, he runs his own schedule and I follow his needs which seem to have a pretty regular schedule of their own. I do not think you can spoil a baby by holding them too much... I love wearing R in my carrier all day or when we are out and about. He is the happiest baby I know, so I think I am doing something right here. One of my favorite activities is our infant massage class.

2 months old at the beach, in the Mo.by

4 Months Old

Four months old and growing up WAY too fast. Can I just press rewind? Slow down a little bit!

4 months old: The Out-takes

R is developing his own personality more and more every day! This month has been the biggest month for changes. He hit a lot of milestones this month. Our monthly pictures took 2 attempts. the first day, he was NOT having it! As you can see above.

 

Clothing: Depends on the brand but mostly 6 month, some 3-6 and in one brand 6-12 months! He is a big boy!!

Weight: Approx 17lbs but we will know for sure on Monday at his 4 month appt. 

Sleep: Hit or miss on this one! "Slept through the night" which is 6 hours on my birthday, but it's rare and few and far between. I dread the day he outgrows his swing, he sleeps the longest there. Otherwise he sleeps with his momma and is up every 2 hours at night, occasionally he is up every hour. I think it's comfort nursing from teething. 

Eating: Still breast milk, I will exclusively breast feed till 6 months, and then if he is showing interest in solids, we will start letting him explore (while still mainly getting breast milk) . I plan on doing baby led weaning which doesn't involve puree's, he will eat small pieces of what we eat, if he is interested. 

Milestones: Biggest ones yet this month! He is a rolling machine. He can roll from back to belly but gets stuck and isn't quite rolling back over but he has rolled over several times. Was baby sat for the first time. Laughing. talking, cooing and found his feet. He loves pulling on his feet!!

Places we went: First trip to the Easter bunny, first time at the Zoo, and attending 1st birthday party on Sunday. 1st time in a swing at the park.

Upcoming: First vacation/road trip (of many this summer!!) in a few weeks.

IVF: One year ago today

One year ago today was my embryo transfer. The day after my birthday and a day I'll never forget.

 I blogged about it here and the days before here.

It's surreal looking back. The hardest time in my life, is now one of the most rewarding. I am sitting here with my beautiful miracle baby... I couldn't imagine my life without him. I'm over filled with joy every single day, and I can honestly say, I haven't taken a moment for granted during this entire experience.

The light of my life.

Making peace with my birth experience

I attend a local La Leche Lea.gue group once a month. Last month birth experiences came up and several women spoke out about having bad birth experiences, but were quickly shut down because we had pregnant members in the meeting. At this months meeting, these issues were re-addressed as we no longer had pregnant members, and we were given resources for dealing with our births. In this information we were urged to talk about our birth with others who can give support. I find myself daily re-living the experience, going over all the details in my head over and over again trying to gain some understanding from moments I don't remember. My husband goes over my experience over and over with me every time I ask about it but I am still not feeling better about it. I feel like I need to blog about it too. Maybe connect with other mothers who had a similar experience or may be experiencing the same thing.

The biggest upset of my birth is not remembering seeing my son for the first time. The nurses kept assuring me that he was ok but that they were worried about me. I was fearful that I was going to die without seeing him. When he was born, I remember screaming out for him from the c-section table but not being able to see him. I remember praying "Lord please let me see my son just once before I die." My next memories are from recovery. I have pictures of myself meeting him, but I don't remember it. I often ask my husband about it. For the first week, I wasn't even aware he was there during the procedure, I simply don't remember him talking to me at all. I felt alone. The fear of dying was so strong, it's something I'll never forget. The doctor had yelled "You have 2 minutes..." apparently to get my spinal in before they sedated me for the emergency c/s but I at the time thought, he needed to be out in 2 minutes or I was going to die.

One of my problems with my birth is not that I needed the emergency c-section, the amount of blood I was hemorrhaging it was obvious something I needed and I understand their choice but my problem is the pain medications I was given from IV to "take the edge off" that ended up making me completely disoriented. I felt disconnected (being tired, hungry and fatigued after 18 hours of labor with no epi, on pit.ocin probably wasn't helping) I felt like I had no control over the situation. I have hardly any memories of the first few hours with my son (although pictures confirm I was able to do my skin to skin, and breastfed as soon as we met.) I barely remember it. It kills me. I go over the details and look at the pictures and cry. Just thinking about the experience puts me in tears.

For the weeks following R's birth all I could say is "I will never do that again" and "I never want to go through that again." In the end, he was all worth it, and I am so happy to have him here. Happy to still be breast feeding 4 months later after a rocky start. But I am fearful of ever having to go through that again. I hear planned c-section as much easier but my experience is something I am still dealing with everyday. *I will add the link to the original story I posted once I find a moment*

The Day my Life was Changed Forever... or 3 years at least.

We are moving to Japan. In 3 months.

R has had croup, followed by what I thought was teething, told by the doc not teething, just fighting a virus and is finally back to his normal self.  Not leaving much time for blogging. My life is in shambles. In the next 50 days we have to pack up our house/get rid of a ton of stuff, sell a car, store a car/drive across country and find a temporary home for our 2 dogs. Needless to say, I am a mess.

More later. 

3 Months... Where does the time go?

Where is the time going? It feels like just yesterday I was recovering from a hell-ish delivery and trying to figure out my little newborn... now days are flying by and I understand him so much more everyday. My heart melts when my sweet baby boy even looks at me. This post is some-what mushy but my heart just feels so full of love. I am so happy to be able to spend all day kissing his face. One thing is for sure, his momma loves him more than anything in the world.

Look how much I have grown!!

Sleep:  R seems to have a good idea of day and night. At about 8pm I will start our nighttime routine of a bath (every other day) or jammies and turning all the lights down in the house. We will then feed and he seems to go to sleep, sometimes if he doesn't I'll put him in the swing and he will fall asleep. Occasionally. he will fight his sleep and cry and thrash around while rubbing his eyes till he falls asleep or I try feeding him again.Still sleeping with us, and loves cuddling with his momma. I lay with him on my side of the bed and it's so nice to wake up to his smiles and cuddles.

Feeding: Little chunk loves his milk! He eats every 2 hours during the day, sometimes he will go 3 hours. At night he is up every 2 hours and will sometimes do 3-4 hour stretches but never more. I had cut a bunch of food from my diet but saw no results, added them back and he seems fine, haven't even had issues with gas since adding in milk again. It might be because he is 3 months now and his digestive system is maturing. 

Diaper Size: Been in size 2 since about 8 weeks. 

Weight: 16lbs (at 12 week doctor appointment!)

Length: 25" 

Clothing: Depending upon the brand, you are in 3 months but also fitting some 6 month, most 3-6 month clothing, and pants 6-12 months (must be the big belly!) 

Milestone: First mini push up this last week. He hates tummy time but we have been working at it all week and he finally did it. He is also blowing raspberries and drooling a lot. Using both hands to grab and hold on to toys and shaking them.

First: Took him to his first arena football game. He wasn't so sure about it at first but then slept through most of it, and enjoyed the rest.

So much personality.

I deserve to be happy.

Quite frankly, I am sick of hearing about it but as a member of P.A.I.L, I feel the need to speak out on a few things that are bothering me surrounding this latest controversy.

I am still infertile. Just because I had a child, doesn't mean I am no longer dealing with infertility. Has my blog moved in a different direction? Yes. Because it's about my life and what is relevant in my life right now. Just because we've had a child, doesn't make us no longer infertile. It doesn't mean our issues with Endometriosis will never resurface and doesn't mean we will ever be able to conceive again and doesn't mean just because we have a child, that doesn't hurt.  It doesn't mean that when I hear about a positive pregnancy test on Facebook I feel that little wound ache just a little bit. It doesn't mean that I don't suffer from a "mommy guilt" everyday when I am just so tired I wish my child would sleep, it crosses my mind, I should be thankful for every single waking moment, which I am BUT there are those times when I am aching for sleep, or a moment to shower that I feel guilty for even wanting those things because there was a time when I would KILL for this. It's true, infertility never leaves you, but it also doesn't mean I can't bask in what I have been wanting and trying for years for. WE DESERVE TO BE HAPPY! We all do. Whether it's after we've had a baby, or trying to find happiness while still trying, or once we've given up. . . we all deserve a place to feel happy and express ourselves.

Just like there is Go.ogle, Ya.hoo and other search engines, there are going to be other blog rolls for finding infertility, post infertility, parenting etc  blogs. I know for a fact the creation of P.A.I.L was out of the good of someone's heart and NOT a personal attack or something that was done in a malicious manner. In fact, as a member, I had no clue that there was another blog roll even similar for post IF bloggers and after checking out Mel's blogroll, it doesn't look like one that would be useful to me merely because it looks disorganized, and there are a lot of dead links. I believe that it was out of sheer concern of what it felt like to discover a mommy blogger when we were out searching for other infertility blogs we could relate to, that PAIL was created so this did not happen to others who would accidentally stumble upon our blogs and bring other mom's together. And yes, there is a sheer desire to meet other mothers in a similar situation. I love that there are a few other "mommy bloggers" who have babies from IUI/IVF whose babies are similar age and I can watch them grow.

Point blank, as a IF community we should be happy there are other means to bring us together no matter what time in our life we are at. Some posts that have been posted are down right NASTY, and it saddens me because I was there before, and I know what it feels like to be that miserable that you can't be happy for anyone, but I never felt that way for those whom I knew struggled and wanted their miracle babies. No wonder I have started to distance myself from the IF community.