Thalia's fertility journey

Pob snippets no. 3

"Put the dummy there, just in case I need it"

While watching what looked like a rather fun art activity with a tennis ball, paint, and a lot of newspaper on CBeebies: "Do that tomorrow please"

"Poo in the potty, no, pee in the potty, yes!"

When I had to brake suddenly: "Going too fast Mummy!" 

When H and I were both cuddling her and pretending to eat her ears: "Silly Mummy! Silly Daddy!"

"Going to the park, Mummy, Daddy, Junior and Pob all together!"

"Go to the park soon, after sleep"

She is taking great care with pronunciation, particularly when there are two consonants together, so "sleep" is pronounced "sur-leep", "plan" is "pur-lan" etc.

September and October have been full of parties for her friends, so now every time she puts on a dress she says: "Party, Mummy?" And once, in the playground, rather wistfully "No party today, Mummy?" I think I will throw a little Chanukah party for her to keep up the party experience.

I know tomorrow you'll find better things

Thank you for the sympathy. Yesterday was better and today is doing ok so far. Yesterday:

• I took Junior out for his post-breakfast nap, so I got a walk. He only slept for 30 minutes but when he woke was happy to look at the passing clouds and leaves so it was quite pleasant
• We walked to the post office where I kicked up enough fuss (and enough money) that they decided to release my domperidone
• On the way home I sat in Starbucks for 10 minutes, read the paper, ate a cheese and Marmite panini and had a few sips of a decaf skinny mocha, no whip
• In the afternoon our current nanny decided to bake a cake with Pob, which Pob thought was a blast, and she also took charge of Junior for 45 minutes so I walked round the corner and sat with my book and a decaf cap in our local deli
• My mum came round to put Pob to bed as H was out for the evening. Pob loves her Granny
• Both children went straight to sleep

It was a much better day.

This morning, I got a call from that nursery school. They're very sorry they sent that letter out. They had a class full of siblings so very few places for new children. But one of the siblings has pulled out since they are moving to the country, and Pob was top of the list for a place, so, would she like it?

I feel better. I also feel conflicted as now I actually have to make a decision about whether the school is right for Pob since she will almost certainly get in to another, closer school which is a bit more relaxed. But it's good to be wanted.

__________________

I need a new title for the blog. Any ideas? I've been musing on some combo of 'evolving infertility', 'Post-post-infertility', 'Evolutionary parenting' but nothing seems very catchy or particularly witty. I've always regretted choosing the original title in a hurry on a day when I just wanted to start writing NOW NOW NOW, so I'm prepared to spend a bit more time trying to be creative this time. I don't feel right letting go completely of the infertility part, even though we won't be doing treatments again. I used to study evolution, hence that reference. The blog won't be just parenting so I don't want to major on that too much, although it will be a part of it. Your creativity much appreciated.

Pob at two

Three weeks ago Pob became a two-year old. I'll spare you the "oh my goodness it was only yesterday she was a tiny baby" speech, but it does feel a bit that way. We had a lovely party for her. I had doubted my sanity, inviting people round to a house with a toddler and a non-sleeping baby, but I felt more strongly that we needed to recognise her birthday. And once I started inviting people, it rapidly got to 30 guests, when we included family, gdparents, and my college friends and their children.

It went incredibly well, thanks to great teamwork from H and I, my mother, and our nanny. Between us we baked and made sandwiches and fruit skewers, tidied and cleaned and decorated, and got Pob dressed in a lovely red dress with doggies on it (her favourite animal). My MIL arrived with a big present, the scones, jam and clotted cream. People came and hung out, ate lovely food, chatted, and admired Pob. Their children decorated t-shirts and played with completely age-inappropriate toys. Pob gloried in the attention, although making clear her preference for some people (Granny, cousin J) over others. 

So what is she like, my now nearly-25-months-old? She is very very vocal, as always. She has started to use "I" instead of "Pob" although it's mixed. We now have correct use of possessives and pretty good sentence structure overall - this morning's was "please open this for me," "that's my monitor," (well, no, it's baby Junior's), "I want that apple," and "Help Pob, this is too hard for me."  She has a sense of time: "Daddy working, home later," "Have raisins soon," and can even apply it to days, although not sure she gets it: "Granny coming tomorrow." She understands very complex stories. My mother went away for a few weeks, and told Pob that she was going in a plane, and would be back when Pob was a bit bigger. A few weeks later Pob told me "Granny plane. Pob a bit bigger. Granny coming back." 

But she's still also a baby in some ways, and finds it hard to deal with the strong emotions she feels. We get at least 5 breakdowns a day, normally over not much. Just dropping a strawberry on the floor during lunch a few weeks ago caused a total meltdown. And when she can't have just what she wants NOW RIGHT NOW we also get poor screaming Pob. She sometimes narrates this breakdown: "Matter! Matter" (i.e., we usually ask "what's the matter?" and she's picked up just the main word), "Pob crying!", and "Need a dummy, need a dummy now!"

One strategy I've recently adopted is taken from Elizabeth Pantley's "No-cry discipline solution." I ask her where her happy voice is: "Is it in your tummy? Is it in your pocket?" She has decided it's usually in her pocket, and almost always, as if by magic, she can pull it out, and put it back in her mouth, and the tantrum is over. I'm hoping it's a strategy that will continue to work. 

She is now getting a bit jealous of the baby. Ever since I set up a playmat for him in our playroom, she's wanted all toys to be hers. And when I got to put him down, we have a merry dance of 'Pob's turn! Pob's turn!" for all the possible locations. Although if I ask her to make a choice, she will usually pick one and stick to it. And if I ask her for one toy for Junior she will usually offer him one. Surprisingly, she's become quite generous with other children, and readily shares her bucket and spade at the sandpit. "Pob sharing today." The baby is clearly more of a threat.

This jealously has sadly extended to bathtime. Until recently I was bathing Junior in the handbasin in our bathroom, while Pob had a bath upstairs with Daddy in her bathroom. But Junior, bless him, is now over 16lbs (7.2 kilos, and all on breastmilk, and yes I do feel good about that) and rather too big for the handbasin. So I suggested to Pob they could bath together. She was initially quite keen on this, but the moment I put Junior into the bath she started objecting: "Junior's in the WAY! Get OUT Junior!" Luckily Junior's not up for a long bath anyway, but it did disrupt my imagined nice happy bathtime somewhat. No doubt she'll get used to it.

This month Granny is her absolute favourite person. Followed probably by Daddy, and then by me. The amount of time I've spent with the baby is coming home to haunt me, I think. I love that she loves my mother that much, though. Luckily Granny has been able to spend quite a bit of time with us, including a few overnights (Granny sleep here! On this bed!"). But Granny going away is hard for Pob. At bedtime two nights ago she was reading Puff the magic dragon with Daddy. While reading the last verse she said "Puff sad! Crying!" Daddy agreed, and she added "Pob sad". Daddy asked why, and she answered "Granny gone." Oh dear.

The playground drama has begun. She badly wants to play with the big girls. But most of the big girls don't want to play with her. A few days ago she was on the see saw with one older girl. Pob eventually had enough of being bounced very hard, and asked to get off. The girl decided she'd had enough too, and headed off towards the big slide. Pob ran after her, holding out her hand, asking "Want to play! Want to play with me!" But the girl didn't look back. And the day before yesterday some big girls were playing a twirling game. Pob laughed and ran over to them, doing her version of twirling which is to run round in circles while laughing and looking up at them. They completely ignored her. And my heart broke a little.

She does love to be active. She wants to run everywhere now, and really enjoys her gym and football classes. But she also hits toddler walls of exhaustion where she can do nothing except sit, or possibly lie, on the pavement, unable to move. For about a minute. Then she wants to run again. Not to anywhere in particular, but just to run.

I've heard that they get more mobile as they get more emotionally able to move away from you. I see that that's true. But I didn't realise to what extent I'm not ready for her to move away from me. She's doing it, but I'm way behind on my own developmental stages.

The end of the fertility journey

I will never be pregnant again.

Really. We have decided that we don't want any more children. The newborn stage with Junior has persuaded me that no matter how much I love my children, I don't need to be that sleep deprived again. Nor do I really want that emotional struggle with breast feeding again. If we'd started earlier, if I had that much more energy, if we even had the option of conceiving easily, when we wanted to, then it would be on the cards. But two children is perfect for us, and I can't help thinking that having three would start to get very complicated in the parenting stakes - speaking as one of three children.

Just because we don't want them, doesn't mean we wouldn't have a surprise. It's very unlikely, but it has happened to others in our community. Well, we are taking steps to remove that option. H has had the preliminary consult for a vasectomy, and has said he will make the appointment before the end of the week. He said, very forcefully, when I pushed him on whether he was happy with permanently ending his fertility, that even if he ended up in another relationship because I had died, he would have enough on his hands with his two children and would not want more. He is committed to the family we have.

We also have several frozen embryos. I can't actually remember how many, somewhere between 6-8. But they were never the best embryos from any cycle, and if we wanted to use them it would be a long and probably painful process of suppression, estrogen, trigger, progesterone, transfer, and possibly a chemical pregnancy or two before we were done. And besides, we don't want any more children. We don't want any more children.

As others have written, though, it's hard to let frozen potential children go even when you know a pregnancy might kill you, let alone because having more children just isn't right for you and your family. Nevertheless, I am psyching myself up to remove our frozen embryos as an option. We will donate them to research. There is no option that I know of to donate them to another family, and even if there was, I'm too old to be an egg donor in the UK so fairly sure that would rule us out. I'll make that call tomorrow. Or the next day. Or after the weekend, perhaps. Well, we have mentally let them go, at least.

With the vasectomy/donation double hit, we will have no other chances to be pregnant again. And I am sad about that, no matter how I think through the misery of sleep deprivation and the pain of failing again to breastfeed my children successfully. I am sad that Pob will not have a sister. I am sad that I will never again use the little white Egyptian cotton babygro with the two little embroidered silver feet on the breast, the babygro which was the first thing I ever bought for Pob. I am sad that I'll never again have that newborn on my chest, conked out between one suck and the next. I have fallen in love so hard with my babies, both times. I fell in love at different points, and it didn't preclude moments of despair and frustration at the screaming infant at a later point. But I won't get to fall in love like that again.

It's sad, but it's wonderful, too. Wonderful that I got to experience that at all. Five and a half years ago we started trying to conceive, and four and a half years ago I started writing about it. There were moments on the journey when I was convinced it would never happen for us. And then moments where I thought Pob would be an only, and mourned for her and for us that sibling relationship. But now here we are, a family of four, and those who meet us now assume it was all smooth sailing - after all, our children are only 21 months apart, and who would 'choose' that? And we have the boy and the girl that people assume must be what we wanted. We have been so incredibly lucky.

And yes, some of that luck is because I pressured and argued, researched and fought for the best treatment, the best treatment as soon as it was possible, fast, no waiting. But that's just a small part of how we got here. An important part, but a small part. Others argue and fight and research and it doesn't happen for them. I have no rationale for why it happened to us other than the weird quirks of my biology, the randomness of that sperm and that egg, and that sperm and that egg and that test tube and that embryologist and that catheter and that drug and the resulting embryo happening to hit the uterine lining just so, and find just the right blood vessel to colonise, and...

So the fertility journey is done. So what, pray, am I doing with this blog, with this blog title? Not writing much, that's for sure. But this isn't goodbye. It's my space, it's our community even if the community I am truly part of now is more naturally those parenting after infertility, with a strong emotional connection on my part, if not on theirs, to those who were in the trenches with me but who didn't make it out, whose embryos never quite found the right bit of the uterine lining. I will try to change the title to more accurately reflect my life now, but I will remain here until they consign Typepad to the dust. The blog got me through, you got me through, through infertility and pregnancy and breastfeeding and the start of parenting.

Junior is stirring. This post didn't end up being what I thought it was going to be. But it is what it is. And I am here, now. A parent.

More Pob snippets

Pob: Where's baby Junior?
Thalia: Nanny has taken him for a walk
Pob: Around the block

Pob likes me to put face cream on her when she comes up to the bedroom. A few days ago she saw the hand cream and asked for that instead. After I'd put it on her nose and hands, she looked at them and said: "Normal cream please!" So we had to do it again with the 'normal' cream.

This afternoon H brought Junior up to the bedroom where I had taken a sneaky lunchtime nap (Junior is NOT a sleeper). He explained he'd left Pob two floors down in the playroom with her play dough. We spent a minute admiring Junior together when a little face came round the corner of the door: "I do it by self!" she exclaimed. Cue heart attack for Mummy and Daddy thinking about the very steep, slippery stairs she'd just climbed alone. I guess she had to do it sometime.

She feels the need to police how we look after Junior, and clearly thinks it's my job (see previous post). On arrival back from a trip to my mother's house last week, I went to get her out of the car. As I opened the car door, she exclaimed: "Get baby Junior out too!" It's sweet she's taking so much care of him in these situations, although if they are both in the playroom she pretty much ignores him.

There has been a real language explosion again and most of what she says is in sentences, with a few places where one word is clear so she's just sticking to it. Most of the sentences are missing a word or two, - e.g., "Breakpast time now" (not a typo, that's a pronunciation idiosyncracy). But more and more, she talks like a real person. "Where's Po gone?",  "Daddy's in the shower," "That's my shoe." I love watching this development, and boy is it easier to help her have a good day now she can (mostly) tell us what's on her mind.

Snippets of Pob

Thalia: Do you know how much I love you?
Pob: Much! (arms wide)

H: There's a hole in my bucket (etc), With what shall I mend it? (etc)
Pob: Tape!

Scene: Thalia heading upstairs for a shower, leaving rest of family downstairs
Pob: Mummy! (accusing, pointing) Baby Junior!!
Thalia: It's ok darling, Baby Junior is staying downstairs with you
Pob: ok. Pob hold it.

Pob, upon seeing or finding most food items, particularly apples: Share!
Pob if offered one bite:  I want some more!

Scene: Food on floor surrounding high chair
Our cleaner: Pob! Who made that terrible mess?
Pob (looks around for a few seconds): Nanny!

Thalia: Are you going to have a lovely bath?
Pob: Ok. Pob dancing in the bath
Thalia: No darling, no dancing in the bath
Pob: Pob dancing in the shower?

Thalia: Will you put this in the bin for me darlng
Pob: Ok. (does so)
Pob: Well done Pob

Scene, a rainy day. Thalia comes downstairs after a shower
Pob: Mummy hair wet. Mummy wash hair. In the sky!
Thalia: Mummy hasn't been outside darling
Pob: Mummy wash hair in the shower

Colourful Pob

We've been talking to Pob about colours for a while. Just when I think she's getting it she indicates that it's all pretty random. If she's asked what colour something is, she tends to say: "BLUE!" or alternatively "Pink-purple". If she's told no it's not, she rotates through other colours, usually 'ello', 'orange' 'een' in that order.

Last night I asked her what colour her pyjamas were. They're checked, white and red. She said 'BLUE!' and I said no they were red, and she pointed at the white bit and said, "No!" Which indicated that she had at least some clue. So I told her it was like Elmer, but with fewer colours. Elmer is checked red, purple, black white, orange, yellow, pink, green and blue, and her pyjamas are checked red and white. We left it at that.

This morning we were talking about her blocks. I asked her what colour a block was and she said 'orange!' which it was. So I asked her what colour her pyjamas were, and she said 'Elmer!'

She may be colour blind, but she makes connections....

Just bug me enough, and I'll write. The question is, is it worth it?

I'm not looking up how long it's been, but someone emailed and said it had been a month, so that's probably right. There is nothing wrong, I am just completely washed out with work, which has stretched into a 730-midnight kind of thing, with (most days) 30 minutes to get Pob up in the morning and an hour or so to put her to bed at night. And weekend work too, and pretty much anytime I'm sitting still not with Pob, I'm working. It's getting really old and I'm very tired, but I don't think it will let up much until I go down to 50% the week of 15 June, and stop completely the week after.

To compound my stress, the builders who are doing our bedroom and bathroom are (of course) taking much longer than planned, so we're sleeping in the attic which is 6 long flights of stairs up from where we spend most of our time, which at 7.5 months pregnant is really no fun. Plus everything is in boxes, and the boxes and everything else is covered in dust, and I want to get stuff organised for Junior but there is no space to do it. So actually I think we are considerably less prepared for Junior than we were for Pob. Poor old Junior.

We also have no name for him, which is starting to worry me a bit. I like slightly avant garde names, but H doesn't, plus Pob's names have real meaning for our families so I feel there is a high bar that we need to meet for him, too. Our shortlist is currently very uninspiring, and I feel a bit stuck about the whole thing.

Of course this is nothing to those still in the trenches. I am not meaning to whine, I'm just being descriptive. Pob is doing lots of cool stuff, including her first three-word sentence a few weeks ago - comprised grammatically correctly of subject/verb/object. When I approached her to help her with a bowl of yogurt which was proving too much for her relatively new self-feeding skills, I went to take the spoon away from her. She pushed my hand away. "[Pob} hold it!" She said. So she kept hold of the spoon and I guided her hand to make things easier. Various other things not to forget about this stage:

• Nighttime routine still working ok, but increasingly she is taking ages to settle once we put her down - up to an hour of chatting, alternating with throwing everything out of the crib and then crying inconsolably for her dummy/teddy until we go and rescue her. Part of this I think is that she really suffers with her teeth - she has been getting the first set of four molars for the last 2 months. One is pretty much through, two are peeking, and one is still under the surface after all this time. But I'm not sure pain from teeth is enough to explain the lack of settling
• Waking up earlier in the mornings. I think this is the light. We are about to experiment with blackout blinds. Currently we lie in bed and listen to "Hello! Teddy! Park! Up up up up! Park! Hello! Mummy mummy mummy! Daddy daddy! Granny Granny granny! Outside! Morning!" for about 30 minutes before she gets really fed up and starts whinging
• She did her first pee on the potty after her bath a few days ago. A bit of a fluke, she hasn't done it again, but she's very interested and forces us to read the inane potty books I bought her at every available opportunity
• We have spoken to her about a baby brother, and she has various books about new babies, but I don't think she gets even a little tiny bit what it will mean for her
• She loves loves loves doggies, and her favourite treat is to be taken out on her trike so that she is at their level and can get licked all over when they find her
• She is not interested in dolls particularly, but loves her soft toys with a passion
• When she says 'yes' she shakes her whole body to emphasise its importance
• I can see her get tense with fury as she cries when she can't do something she wants to do, but it seems to pass relatively quickly
• When she wants us to do something she reaches for our hands and pulls us along until we are where she wants us to be. Sometimes this means just walking around the kitchen/playroom for a while, a little stroll together. 
• She adores the teletubbies, and asks to watch them frequently. Less frequently we give in.
• She loves some of her local friends, when she sees them she runs around holding hands with them and giggling, offering lots of kisses and chatting away in their own toddlerese. And sometimes pushing them over and snatching their toys away, too.
• She loves apples and will eat a whole one, including the core, given the chance. Just like mummy.
• She has just discovered cake and now asks for it regularly
• She is not allergic to eggs in cake, biscuits and french toast, but still has a reaction to scrambled egg. 
• There seems to be little limit on what she will eat
• She has started to get the hang of hiding to play hide and seek, but can't bear to stay hidden for too long and always reveals herself as soon as we ask ' Where's Pob?'
  
• I don't spend enough time with her
  

Got to get back to work. I'm fine, I'm just really really tired.

All fine

Thanks to those of you who checked in via email. I can't remember how long it is since I posted, and I'm not going to look now, but I'm sure it's ages. It's been a terribly busy time. Pob and I were in Florida, then I came back to lots of urgent work, then had to go to Vegas for a week for work without Pob, which was really really tough, then came back to a clingy Pob and even more work, and have been working mostly til midnight each night with no down time during the day other than the 45 minutes I see Pob for in the morning, and the hour or so in the evening before I start work again. The week after next I'm off to Austria, to run the training course where I usually take Pob, but this time no one could come with me so I'm leaving her again. Which I don't like to think about. And this weekend H is away riding his motorbike, so no respite for me.

It probably sounds worse than it is, but it's not so awful. Junior seems to be doing ok, although he's having a quiet day today which makes me nervous. I think he is generally less busy in there than Pob was, but hard to tell if that's poor remembering, or just that I've been too busy to notice. We did end up in Labour and Delivery for a check last weekend as I had some gastric bug and had been vomiting for 24 hours, so they told us to come in for a check. Because it was Easter weekend, the place was understaffed but was having several emergencies, so we waited quite a long time, which was no bad thing as I just slept. Eventually they gave me some fluids, a shot of compazine and gave me some more to take home, and that was that. I had a good night's sleep and felt a lot better the next day. No drama really.

Will write something more interesting soon. Pob is continuing to talk up a storm, but is also doing a lovely line in tantrums and screaming. I guess it's just normal development but it's fairly wearing at times.

All work and no play

Tempted into starting a post by listening to the WXPN feed and hearing that 76 is blocked up from University ave to the Conshohocken curve, and remembering sitting in that traffic...

Last week was a bit of a killer on the work front, and I'm barely recovered despite H sending me to bed early three nights in a row, and taking a nap both Saturday and Sunday afternoons while Pob was sleeping. She's only just given up her morning nap, and consequently is definitely ready for a long sleep after lunch.

She turned 18 months on Friday, and we can see the huge change in her approach to the world as she becomes more and more her own person. No longer can we get her to do little tasks for us - she just grins and says 'No' and runs the other way. These used to be things like taking junk mail to the recycling bin, or fetching her slippers so we could help her put them on, or returning a book to the shelves and fetching a new one. Oh well, it had to come. The one task she will still do is taking a plate to the dishwasher, as she loves exploring what's in there. She also enjoys 'helping' unpack it, and gets very cross if we get too far ahead of her in the process.

Her language has also taken another leap. Lots more words, but more that she is now putting them together to tell us something more interesting. For example, "baby sleep" (pointing to a picture in a book)," "more apple/cheese/peas," when eating, and even a little story when I went in to see her because she wasn't settling on Friday night. I had been stuck on a conference call for all of bedtime, but when I finished she was loudly complaining (not crying, just exclaiming) about being in her cot. So I went in, and she immediately stood up and demanded a cuddle. I gave in, and as we sat down together in the rocking chair, she explained to me, "Daddy night-night [sound of kiss being blown]." "Did Daddy say good night and blow you a kiss?" I asked, "Yes," I was told. I don't think these really classify as sentences yet, but it makes a big difference in us understanding what she really means. This doesn't stop her from getting very cross, whiny and tantrum-y if we don't understand what she wants or won't give it to her, but I'm hoping that as it progresses, it will get easier for us all as we communicate more effectively together.

I've heard from many people about toddlers being picky about food, but Pob is pretty much the opposite. Yes there are a couple of things she's not keen on - potato in particular, and non-strongly flavoured pasta sauces, and too-strong cheese, but apart from that she wants to eat whatever anyone else is eating, and won't stop until she gets it. At the park yesterday this was amusing but slightly embarassing as she walked up to any child with a snack and tried to take it from them. Or just stare at them until they handed it over. This ploy didn't work with a little French boy who shouted loudly at Pob when she tried to come near his banana, so she retreated to a safe distance and kept looking at him while he ate the whole thing, all the while repeating over and over to herself,and partly to him I imagine, "nana, nana, nana". Not sure what we should do about this, if anything? I'm glad she's so open to food and enjoys a wide range of tastes, but the demanding she shares anything she sees someone else eating seems a bit much.

We tried her on egg over the weekend. She's now had half of one of my oatmeal-berry-yogurt muffins on two occasions, with no ill-effects. It's not much egg - one per 12 muffins - but it's a start. We'll keep on building her up until hopefully she can eat simply cooked eggs in a few weeks time. I hope.

She is physically fearless. We took her to a trial class at an organisation called 'little gym' on Saturday, and she threw herself into everything - large bouncy-castle type gym mat, parallel bars, the balance barre (which had hand bars either side so they could walk along safely). I thought this would tire her out but she then ran around the shopping centre where it was held for a good hour afterwards. Oh to have the energy of a toddler.

She has decided that hats are a great thing. Having thrown a fit every time my mother and I tried to get her to wear one in Florida, she is now an addict and every trip this weekend required her to be wearing her white sunhat. And preferably her wellington boots as well, which combined to make a slightly eclectic look on Saturday. Then she needed to wear her pink woolly hat when we got home, and all through supper. I didn't know a stong sense of style started so early.

Pob is going through a real 'Mummy' phase. I felt bad for H when he went in on Saturday morning to get her up and her first response was "NOOO! Mummy!" Not sure there is much we can do about it, and I'm sure it will reverse at some point. This worries me at bit given I'm gone for a whole week from Sunday. It's the longest I've left her, and I'm not at all excited about it. Perhaps when I'm not there she'll accept Daddy as a substitute more easily.

***

Junior (Sib didn't stick so we are back to the unoriginal) seems to be doing well. I had a scan on Wednesday to check placental blood flow to see if I can come off clexane, and all looked good. Great blood flow and a baby with a big head and short legs, just like Pob, poor thing. He is moving around a lot, particularly after I eat something, but so far I am not very uncomfortable, even in bed at night, which is a relief. We'll see how long it lasts.

24w5d

Unfortunate drama

Pob and I are due to leave for Florida in the morning so that I can teach next week. Given my general control-freakiness, this is not easy for me. A four hour time difference, a hotel not geared for babies, travelling on my own with a 17-month-old for 10 hours on a flight...I'm sure it will be fine, but it's driving me crazy.

And then I got home tonight and Pob was in a real state. She cried all the way from the armchair to her bedroom, she cried while I undressed her, she cried while she had her bath, and she cried until she got her bottle. This is not like her. During that crying we noticed that one of her eyes was a bit swollen, and her grandmother had noticed some gunk in the eyes earlier in the day. Our thoughts immediately went to the peri-ocular cellulitis she had back in November. So after many phone calls, H got an appointment for her to be seen at the local hospital at 9pm. He's there now. Fingers crossed it's nothing. If it is something, she won't be able to come to the US with me, which messes me up as I can't bear the thought of missing her for a week when I'll be away for another full week at the end of the month and really can't take her with me on that occasion, and because H just started his new job, is working flat out and we have no child care next week. All manageable, but all very suboptimal.

Fingers crossed.

Updated to add, all ok with the eyes, just mild conjunctivitis, I've got antibiotic drops to take with me, all systems go. 10 hours on a plane alone with my daughter - wish me luck!

A post about Pob

Pob. What can I say about Pob. It's been a while, and here I was, sure that I'd be able to use blog entries as a way of recording her development. Let's think about Pob at 17 months then, and see if I can at least capture this moment.

 Pob at 17 months is a combination of holy terror and delightful, grown-up, thoughtful little person. Her most obvious characteristic is that she's very very social. She loves people, and greets almost everyone she meets with a "Hiya! Hiya!" She will repeat this loudly until the person concerned notices her - this works even with very sullen-looking people on the street, most of the time. She sees no reason why people shouldn't smile back at her, so she keeps going until they do.

She has quite a lot of language, and uses it well to get what she wants. About 3 weeks ago she switched from 'Mamama' to mean me, to a very clear 'Mummy'. Now she will happily repeat for several minutes 'Mummy', 'Daddy', '[short version of her name]', pointing at the right person as she does so. She calls my mother 'Nanny' (instead of Granny), and has attempted to call her other grandparents 'Grandma' and 'Grandpa' although neither word is clear. She is very interested in body parts and when I hold her in my arms at the end of the day she happily rotates through 'nose', 'ear', 'eyes', 'elbow', 'arm', 'hair', 'knee', 'toes' etc., with the appropriate actions. She says 'pease' for please and now uses it to try to get what she wants even when she's been told she can't have it. Very crafty. She's also at the stage of repeating absolutely everything we say, so every sentence we say to her, she attempts the last word - resulting in reditions of 'passenger,' 'password,' and 'friendly,' just this morning.

Language, however, is still inadequate to convey her needs so she uses two other methods very effectively. One is to come and grab the finger of the person she wants, and to drag them over to what she wants them to do. The other is to shriek loudly until she gets the attention/help she wants. The last is rather wearing. I've been trying to get her to climb up the stairs instead of being carried, and to slide down instead of being carried, and she's not keen. Depending on her mood she will either hold up both her hands to hold fingers and attempt to walk up with us supporting her upper body, or just scream really really loudly for a while. Or simply sit down on a step part way up, kick her legs gently and look me in the eye to say "haha Mummy, whatcha going to do about that then?" I'm not mad on the walking up option as I'm balancing most of her weight, our stairs are narrow and my balance at this point isn't great. But it's easier than trying to carry her up our multiple flights of stairs and I don't want to have to still be carrying her when I'm 30 weeks pregnant instead of 20 (please heavens willing), so I'm sticking to being mean about this. 

Physically, she seems to be on track. Not ahead and not behind. She crawled at around 9 months, Walked at about 13.5, although not confidently til more like 14.5 months. Now she runs everywhere, and mostly when she falls over she gets up immediately and keeps going. She climbs happily up anything which isn't the stairs, although the poor thing inherited her Daddy's body shape and so has a long body and short legs and arms (and short wide feet), which makes some climbs difficult for her. This doesn't stop her wanting to climb, however, and she'll attempt to go up anything, particularly the smooth slippery part of the slide.

In terms of toys she rather likes her shape sorter but only partially understands it. She knows she needs to get blocks through the holes, but doesn't seem to understand that different blocks will go through different holes - she bangs wildly on it for a while, trying to slot the block through any hole, then will eventually, with a bit of prompting, try more gently to get the block to fit through its hole. When she does get one in she cheers and claps. She particularly likes her Noah's Ark, and spends a long time getting all the animals out (kissing them as she goes), then putting them back in and taking them for a walk. She loves her Mozart cube, still, and her Piano - she'd prefer to bang on our big Piano but it's on another floor from the playroom so she makes do with her own little electronic one. My brother last week got her really building with blocks, so there is a new level of enjoyment there.

She loves the two little dolls she has, particularly dressing and undressing them (or rather, demanding we undress and dress them, while Pob tries to put on their clothes and gets frustrated that they don't fit). But most of all, she loves stuffed toys. Any stuffed toy. Doesn't need to belong to her. If we see a child carrying a teddy in a shop she'll hold our her hands and demand loudly that it is given to her. Same with toy displays in shops. All soft toys are made to be loved by Pob. She kisses them, then tucks them into the crook of her neck and walks round with one hand on the toy, the other hand looking for the next activity. Actually she is generally incredibly affectionate with toys and with other people, and also with books. She will regularly kiss all the animals in "Dear Zoo," for example.

Her favourite plaything is still her library. She'll read books for hours - both to herself now, but more often demanding to be read to. She's got a lot of books but usually only about 10 are in rotation at any one time. A favourite at the moment is "You choose" which she can look at for hours. Funnily enough she always chooses the rather spivvy-looking man with a trilby and a moustache as her friend, without much rhyme or reason as far as I can make out.

She eats like a trouper. Very rarely rejects anything, and relishes her food. As a consequence she is still pretty chubby. Don't know where she is on the scale as she hasn't been weighed for months, but she hasn't elongated as much as others led us to believe she would when she started walking. I'm trying not to worry, but not doing a great job. At least I don't have to worry about her getting enough nutrition, and what she eats is very healthy - lots of fruit and veg, porridge for breakfast. The sweetest thing she gets regularly is fruit. She's had bits of a biscuit a couple of times but since she's off eggs until she's 18 months that rules out most cake and sweets*, and so far she hasn't yet realised that chocolate is the most delicious thing ever, so we are spared her demanding it from us. She does want to eat whatever we are eating, which means she's now had olives, curry, lemon risotto and rosemary foccacia, among other things. And thought they were all yummy.

She is a creature of routine. She usually has her morning bottle with one of us holding her in the armchair downstairs. One morning last week, H brought her to me in bed with the bottle, and we had a nice time hanging out in bed, exploring the stuff on my bedside table, and having the bottle. We went downstairs about 20 minutes later, and she kept tugging at us while we made breakfast, although we didn't understand why. Eventually I let her take my hand. She led me over to the armchair, carrying the empty bottle, climbed into my lap, sucked a bit at the empty bottle, and then happily got up and went to play. Clearly we had done things in the wrong way, and she needed to fix it.

She still feels like my baby, although she clearly is becoming quite independent. I miss her horribly all day while I'm at work, and get quite grumpy if anyone gets in my way on the way home. I knew having her would be fantastic, I knew that I wanted more than anything to be a mother. It's all that I wanted and hoped for, and more than I could have imagined. I am very aware, every day, of just how lucky I got.

* Because she showed a mild allergy at around a year, so we were told to keep her off them for six months, then try again

Letter to my daughter

Dearest Pob

I came downstairs after my early phone call this morning to find you playing with Uncle R. You were having such a lovely time together, and he was delighted to get to see you after a few months' absence. Thank you for making him feel so welcome. You are the child I always wanted - and so much more. So much more complicated, so much more intense, so much more delightful than it was possible for me to imagine before you arrived.

I've been worried, ever since it looked like this baby sibling was going to stick around, of the effect he or she would have on you. If Sib would disrupt the lovely relationships that your daddy and I have with you. That you'd feel that we didn't love you enough, that we needed something more than you. We really really don't. I wanted you to have a sibling because I wanted you to have what I have now - two lovely brothers who share a lot of my history, who love me and frustrate me in almost equal measure, who I know will always be there for me. Your Daddy feels the same way about his brother. I don't want you to feel alone in the world, alone against unreasonable parents when you are a teenager, alone at the (hopefully long-distant) point where won't be around any more for you.

We really weren't sure a sibling was going to happen for you. It took such a long time before you arrived. But here is this potential sibling, still growing, kicking Mummy from the inside on a regular basis. On Friday, at our Gymboree class, your friend A's tiny baby sister, I, was there. You went up to her carefully, patted her face, and said "Baby!" And everyone cooed at you. You know what babies are, I wonder if you know what having one in your own house will be like.

But there was a specific part of giving you a sibling that I realise now I was very invested in. That was to give you a sister. I haven't got a sister, and despite my now very strong relationship with my brothers, I have always really really wanted one, jealous of the relationships I see my friends have with their sisters. My mother got pregnant again just after my little brother was born, and she had a termination as she felt our family couldn't cope with another baby. She told me this when I was a teenager, and I understood, although I also saw her regret and my father's regret. They both thought they were doing the right thing for the other, while both secretly wanting this fourth baby to arrive anyway. My mother told me she has dreamt about this potential baby ever since. A little girl, the sister I always wanted, although she would have been seven years younger than me. Blonde, like my middle brother, to proove to him he wasn't adopted, his secret fear based on being the only blue eyed blond in a family with dark hair and mostly dark eyes. 

So maybe I might have had a sister, in another reality. And I thought, perhaps you could have a sister, give you that very very close sibling I wanted. Because my brothers, close as I am to them now, were not easy relationships when we were younger. My 2-year-9-month-old self was desparately disturbed by the arrival of this invader baby, or so I'm told. I don't remember much about it, except for throwing my panda out of the car window on the way home from meeting the baby at the hospital, after my mother had told me (with very good intentions) that the baby didn't want my panda, he was mine. I thought "well, if the panda's not good enough for the baby, I don't want him." So I threw Panda out of the window, and my father, furious, pulled the car over, stomped down the street to pick up the panda, and threw him back through the window at me. It wasn't a good day.

I do remember constant frustration as we grew up. Me, the good girl, always helping clear the table, do the dishes, do my homework, and those boys, noisy, rough, breaking enough things when they cleared the table that they weren't asked to do it again. Banding together as soon as the little one was old enough, to make bigger noises, make fun of me and my friends, beat me in tennis and football so often that I just stopped trying to play sport, and got pudgy and shy.

So although things between us are good now, I wanted a closer sibling relationship for you. One that wouldn't take so much fixing as young adults. 

I didn't realise how much I wanted this, until the sonographer zoomed in on the gap inbetween your little sibling's legs, and said "There you go, what's that!?" And your baby sibling, my lovely, is a boy. And I cried and cried, despite having just been told that the baby is perfect in every way.

I felt so awfully embarassed at the crying. This clinic is one where people go when they have serious problems with their pregnancy. And my pregnancy is fine, my baby is fine. But he's a boy, and I had to let go of all those futures I'd imagined for you and your little sister, the images of her wearing some of those little dresses you've grown out of, the thought of you having a female ally against all those hordes of boy cousins you have.

That was a few days ago. I'm getting used to the idea of a boy. I've started to test out little sentences about my son. I've ordered a book that might help me continue to understand what I'm feeling, although I'm feeling it less and less as the days go by, as I feel him kicking me. I'm hoping we can help you have a great sibling relationship, maybe do better than my parents did with me. Maybe. And we are certainly committed not to getting you to play the role I had to play in my family as the responsible, good, quiet and helpful one.

Daddy and I have started to think again about boy's names - Daddy was convinced that your sibling was another girl. We haven't told our families yet. We want to share our excitement with them when we do, since we know both grandmothers will have moments of a little sadness at a reduction in their abilities to buy pink clothes. But I know that will be transient, and then they'll get on with loving him, as we all will. As I especially hope you will, when all that disruption in your life has started to seem normal again.

This morning when you were playing with your baby doll, I said to you that you might have a baby brother in the house to play with by next year. You repeated "baby bother" and went on playing. I hope not, sweetie. I hope not.

Words Pob can say

My mother has dug out the book she kept during my second year. It's quite entertaining noting both our different parenting styles, as well as where I was at developmentally. Turns out my parents had almost no rules for me, so my mother described me as a tiny tyrant, screaming loudly to get whatever I wanted. She resorted to drugging me to get me to sleep because she was so exhausted by the time I was 13 months - with Phernergan, nothing dreadful - but still.

This prompted H, my mother and I to try to make a list of all the words Pob is saying. Turns out Pob and I were/are quite similar in our language acquisition. We had/have a similar number of words in our vocabulary at 16 months, although only about 50% of the words are the same. We came up with this list for Pob:

Daddy
Mama
Baby
[nanny's name]
Pat
Me
Teddy
Bunny
Bird
Book
Da (dummy)
Dat (that)
Trees
Pen
Bye
Hello
Hair
Eyes
Ear
Nose
Arm
Teeth
Head
Bath
Splash
Bubbles
Poo
Shoes
Socks
Button
Poppers
Coat
Tights
Highchair
Bib
Chair
Up
Down
Downstairs
Carry
Hiding
Backwards
Hat
On
Off
Gone
More
Open
Yes
No
Hot
Cold
Spoon
Bottle
Plate
Apple
Cheese
Toast
Pear
Teletubby
Po (one of the teletubbies)
Block
Toys
Light
Train
Car
House
Back
Door
Home
Park
Ball
Cat
Dog
Bear
Fish (mouth opens and closes)
Woof
Meow
Baa
Neigh
Moo
Oink
Please
Ta (thanks)
Spot (as in the dog in the book)
Mog (as in the cat in the book)
Rosie (as in the chicken in the book)
Stars
[my younger brother's name]

I'd say about 50% of these are intelligible to anyone listening, the rest probably just to H, my mother, the nanny, and me. Obviously many are not spoken as written - e.g., some of the animal noises often seem to start with "ah" - so she says - "Ah-Moo", "Ah-neigh" etc. She also speaks more to those she knows, she's unlikely to say much directly to strangers other than "bye," and possibly some of her favourite words like "chair" and "dog." She's also at the stage where she repeats most things we say to her, but then doesn't necessarily retain the word to use again later. She had a go at "dinosaur" last week but she hasn't again. Some words are hard to say. She had a good go at "obama" this morning but only got as far as 'Aba."

In my vocab at 16 months were a few words Pob has no idea of including Smarties, Sweeties and Chocolate. Seems my parents had resorted to bribery early.

Lurgies

I got ill on Christmas Day. One of those things where various diseases have been floating around me all autumn, including Pob having multiple colds, but it takes being on holiday for me to get ill with one of them. I've been in bed on and off since the end of Boxing Day, just managing to drag myself into the shower yesterday morning when I couldn't stand it any more. I stretched to doing a load of laundry, one sink of dishes and emptying the dishwasher after my shower before collapsing back onto the sofa. Poor H has been on single parent duty, although we managed to get my mum over to help today and she was great - looking after me as well as Pob, bringing soup and magazines and delicious juices, and making the bed for me. H is pretty good at single parenting but less good at knowing how to look after me - he hasn't even felt up to cooking, which is his usual care-giving role in our family. I think it's end-of-year ennui for him.

The lurgy has meant we skipped on our usual trip to the cold north for New Year. I am sorry, but I couldn't face the travel - it's really a long way and not a straight forward journey. I don't think this will be a banner New Year for us - H has bought a lovely bit of steak to cook tomorrow, but I don't have a big appetite right now and it will just be the two of us with sadly no fireworks over the bay to look forward to. No doubt I'll be in bed at 10. Which is fine, just a little bit of an anti-climax. I wanted to have a lovely break as a family, so this is a lot less fun.

I'll be 13 weeks tomorrow. Hard to credit that things are going ok. I know I shouldn't write that, as cue for disaster, but this is really pretty uneventful so far.

More interesting posts to follow I hope as I start feeling a bit more human again.

Learning

According to the gurus, there is a developmental spurt at around 55 weeks which involves babies learning that things happen in sequence. This morning we had proof of this. At about 910, Pob started to get a bit scratchy. She hadn't woken up til 730 so it seemed a little early for her morning nap, but I asked her if she was tired and wanted a sleep. She reached out for my hand, and walked me over to the draining board where her clean dummies sit. She gestured to the dummies, I handed her one and she put it in her mouth. She then started to walk over to the stairs, waving to H and saying '"Bye! Bye!". When we got to the stairs she turned round and put her head in between my legs, with one hand either side of my legs, her signal for 'pick me up please'. So I did, and as I carried her up the stairs she kept shouting "Bye! Bye".

She gets it, my baby.

Time away from economic disaster

Why do you give your babies Cheerios? At least the ones available here have plenty of sugar and salt in them, and there are plenty of little snacks which don't (we offer Pob these and these, for example). Is it just a cultural thing - Cheerios as part of the fabric of American (Canadian) life?

It's not a moral high ground, I have a baby in the 90th centile for height and 99th for weight, so whatever we are doing, it's resulting in her being very well covered. Oh how I hate the comments we get: "I love her little thighs, they're so chunky!" or "you are a little Michelin baby, aren't you?" and "Well, you're not fading away, are you?"

I'm trying not to get worried about her weight. The doctor and health visitor both say it's absolutely fine given she is so tall, and that when she walks she will thin out. They say they don't get worried about children's weights until they are 4 or 5 when patterns get established. I don't know why she has shot up the centiles (remember she was in the 2nd centile a few weeks after birth), except that she really loves food. We don't give her a lot to eat but everything we do give her gets consumed, unlike the other babies we know who tend to reject half of what they are offered or throw it on the floor. Having been skinny til I was 7, and then suddenly overweight by 8 and up and down ever since (with lots of maternal eating issues) I am desperate to help her avoid a similar life, but worry that she just has my predisposition to child-bearing hips (hahah), chunky thighs and a love of food.

I wrote a very sensible comment on BrooklynGirl's similar post about her daughter. When it's someone else's child I'm able to have a rational perspective. But I looked around the first birthday party we went to on Saturday, and noticed that the three other girls there were all delicate and slender, and Pob was bigger than all but one of the boys, and it made me worry for her. I worry that in worrying I'm more likely to give her issues. I'm worried that I'm larger than I'd like to be right now and am not taking much if any action to fix it. I want her to have a lack of self-consiousness, unlike my shyness which ruined my late teens. And I don't know how to do that.

Happy Birthday girl

I don't have time to write the 'Pob at a year' post, and am feeling horribly guilty as I haven't done the 'Pob at 11, 10, 9 or even 8 months' I think. I will do the year post, just probably not til next weekend. But I did want to write about today so that I have a record for the future.

Today as you might imagine has been very hectic. I baked the cakes last night. Cakes plural as we figured out about 10 days ago that Pob has a mild allergic reaction to eggs, and I didn't want to risk making it worse by giving her a cake with egg in, just to be on the safe side. But I'd ordered this fancy number-1 shaped tin (don't do it - it took me nearly an hour to figure out how to line the tin!), and it was such a messy shape I didn't want to mess with the cake recipe to put in it, so I did a standard victoria sponge recipe for that, and then made an eggless chocolate cake that a friend had recommended.

Pob woke up chatting this morning, and we brought her down a little later than usual, having laid in bed listening to her for a while. She completely ignored her presents and crawled over to her current toys, pulling out a book to 'read'. Once I started opening her first present, however, she got quite engaged and pulled the wrapping apart. The present itself was quite a hit although I expect it will drive us potty over time. She jiggles along to the music every time it plays, which entertained everyone at her party this afternoon.

After her morning nap H took her to the park while I iced and decorated the cakes, tidied up, got plates etc out, decorated the table. We gave her all her favourites for lunch - spicy chicken, tomato, asparagus, melon and mango, and she happily went down for her afternoon nap while we ran around madly tidying further, organising balloons etc., having showers and generally beautifying things. Then people started to arrive.

We invited just family and godparents and their children, and some of them couldn't make it, but that added up to around 16 adults and eight children at its peak, which was plenty. I brought Pob down after her nap and a bottle, and she needed to sit on my lap for the first 15 minutes or so while lots of people came up wanting to play with her, but after a while she was fine to venture off for a few minutes, before needing to come back to H or I for reassurance and a cuddle. She had a lovely time and particularly enjoyed clapping her hands after everyone sang happy birthday - her face while everyone was singing was quite a picture, she kept looking around, presumably wondering what on earth was going on. But the clapping she understood. And the chocolate cake, she understood that too. Given it was her first taste of chocolate, her first food with added sucrose, and her first ever cake, she dispatched it pretty fast, and of course the icing got everywhere. But she didn't sign for more, she instead reached for the blueberries and tomatoes on the table, so hopefully we haven't ruined her preferences for ever.

It was a lovely party, and I think she had a lovely day. We had another enjoyable bedtime together, and she went happily to sleep. Tomorrow we leave at 730 for a week away - unfortunately I will be working about 14 hours a day but hope to sneak away from time to time to see her, and she and H will be having fun in the mountains together. It will be another adventure.

Happy Birthday darling, thank you for today.

This day a year ago

On this day a year ago I spent the day making the most of the last day before everything changed. I got my hair and nails done. I wandered through one of London's quirkier shopping streets, and bought a few bits and bobs. Slippers for the hospital. A couple of pretty hand towels for our downstairs loo, anticipating a lot of visitors. Some soap, similarly. Toothpaste. Nipple cream. You wonder how I remember the inanities? I've been carrying the receipts in my wallet all year. In the change compartment, where I see them every day.

On this day a year ago I spent the late afternoon and evening baking and tidying. I made honey cakes, which need to rest before eating anyway, and put them up on top of the fridge, wrapped in foil, ready for visitors. I packed the baby's hospital bag. I packed mine. I made H pack his. I can't remember what we had for dinner, but I'm sure we ate something. I remember being up late, doing I don't know what. My mother told me to sleep while I could. I felt I was unlikely to sleep whether I went to bed or not.

On this day a year ago, Pob and I had yet to meet. We knew each other from a series of knocks and pulls and pushes, kicks and punches, strokes and conversations. But we'd never seen each other.

Tonight, I spent longer than usual rocking Pob after her last story. After I'd sung our few songs, she sang back to me a little, before lapsing back into silence. She squirmed a few times, squawked a few times, but mostly lay still in my arms, looking up at me, but her eyes fluttering shut from time to time. Dark eyes in the darkness. I whispered to her how I was feeling, how much I love her, how I didn't know this time a year ago what that would feel like. How I will always love her, even though she may not love me at times. As I lapsed into silence her eyes closed for a few seconds longer, and I decided it was time to put her down. I carried her over to her crib, laid her down, handed her her bunny and left the room.

I stood outside briefly to see if she'd settle. It all sounded good so I headed downstairs, but halfway down found I needed to sit down on the stairs, to pause for a moment to remember this time a year ago, walking down the stairs with her bag packed, ready to go to the hospital. Very unsure about what was to happen. Not knowing my daughter, still nervous that at the last minute she'd be taken away before I got to meet her. Not knowing what she was going to be like, what I was going to be like.

At 1407 the following day, that all changed.

The beginning of an era

Pob can say quite a few words now, although most are not very distinct. 'Mama' - directed at me specifically -came out clearly at the end of June during our trip to France. She then returned to saying it both in babbling and when it means me, but over the last few weeks has started to use it more exclusively, albeit in the form of a variety of 'ma/mum/mama/mmmm' sounds which seem to refer to me. Dada less clearly relates to H, some of the time it does, sometimes it doesn't.

Her most distinct word is 'up' which she's been saying since mid-June - her first word. Close behind is 'hello', although she only says this in response to us saying it to her, never spontaneously. She says a version of 'light' which is clear enough for another mother at our Friday music class to remark on it, but isn't really clear - it sounds more like 'alt'. She has said 'byebye' once or twice, but not regularly. She seems to say 'ball' but it's a bit random. 'Duck' has come out once or twice. Tonight I'm fairly sure she said her name when we were playing in the mirror after her bath, but she just did it once and wouldn't repeat it.

She understands many more words, including her name, mummy, daddy, no, gymbo, light, teddy, bunny, telephone, wave, byebye, hello, goodnight (all the last four make her wave), hooray (she raises her arms and says 'raay' (blame the Olympics)), eat (she makes the sign for eat), more (she makes the sign for more), ball, outside, doggie, dummy, book, bottle, sit down, stand up, bee, duck, baby, monkey, lion, swing, up, and kiss (she blows kisses but won't actually kiss us and even wriggles away if we try and kiss her most of the time).

Then yesterday morning she said 'no'. She is very attracted to the buttons on our television, which are just at the right height for her to prod when she's sitting, or play with when she's pulled herself up to stand near the television. We are keen for her not to do that, so when we spot her, we say "Pob! No! Sit down!". She always does, even if she immediately goes back to it afterwards. She recently started to shake her head when we said 'no'. She's been shaking it for a while when she means no - like when she doesn't want a mouthful of food - but only in the last week has she done it in response to the word. This morning we used our usual phrase when she went to touch the television. She sat down, shook her head, and said, quite clearly, 'no.'

The nanny told me that yesterday afternoon they went on a playdate with a little boy of about 18 months. He is in the stage of 'all toys are mine' so kept trying to take Pob's toys away. When he did it for the second time, she shook her head at him, and said 'no'.

Like I said, the beginning of an era.

Sweet people

Thank you everyone. I'm doing ok. Our holiday hotel is not quite what we expected (rather more of a resort than a secluded upmarket beach place, but very nice with it), but we are having a lovely time in the wind and the sun. Pob has charmed everyone in the hotel with many shouts of "Dad DAD dad DAD DAD!" As well as lots of crawling after dangerous or forbidden items, and even more smiling and waving. She's developed a very cute habit of shrugging her shoulders up to her ears and grinning and giggling simultaneously. She does it when she sees her teddy, when she thinks something is funny (not much rhyme or reason to what she thinks is funny), or when we are laughing at her. It's a virtuous cycle.

I am doing ok. I was pretty sad on Monday, sadder than I thought I would be. The thing that really made me cry, however, was having to wait 35 minutes at the clinic for my bloody blood test. Which takes about 90 seconds once someone calls you. It's not as if there were lots of people waiting, just 5 or so in line in front of me when I arrived. And plenty of nurses, just none of them taking blood, for about 25 minutes. Somehow the utter injustice, as well as the stress of trying to get into work early so I could leave early and do Pob's packing before she went to bed, just got to me and I ended up in tears when the nurse who finally called me in then asked me if I had permission to have my blood test on day 13. What was I going to say at that point, no?

Anyway, I knew it would be negative, even while I sort of hoped otherwise. But really, Aurelia aside, my internal instinct, my sensing based on vague symptoms, and the pee sticks, have always been true before, so there's no particular reason to doubt them now. And they were spot on.

What's next? Of course, sod's law, I'm travelling over the days I will probably ovulate this month, so we're unlikely to have another miracle. We'll see Dr Candour on the 28th for a review. The question is whether it's worth doing another fresh cycle given how crappy my eggs turned out to be this time, even while there were a lot of them. H thinks we should give fresh one more try. I dunno, I've lost faith in my eggs somewhat. I've ordered some DHEA, will give that a try and at the very least, we will do a frozen cycle in October - September is just too busy with work for it to be realistic. We're down but we're not out.

Will write more when I get back from holiday. Thank you again for your lovely messages.

The baby is fine, mummy will need some time to recover

As caused you much hilarity on my last post, all was fine. Pob had a hard time going down at bedtime, and got quite upset when we weren't there when they got back from the park at lunchtime today, but other than that she was happy and chirpy, did lots of walking (supported by Granny, I hasten to add), lots of standing up and cruising, lots of chatting and plenty of crawling.

The party was lovely. My friend really had thought of everything, and turns out all her friends are nice - from 4 or 5 major parts of her life, we by no means knew each other, but everyone got on and had a good time. "There are no assholes here," exclaimed one colleague after the first hour. We had afternoon tea on the lawn, drinks in a different part of the grounds, dinner outside with a huge barbeque, dancing and dessert inside the lovely dining room. I wimped out around midnight due to a rather frustrating stomach upset (must have eaten something that disagreed with me - odd because usually I have the iron constitution). H partied on with cigars and whiskey until 130 or so. So no nookie, which would have been nice, but a fun evening nonetheless.

We had a good time. I missed her. A lot. Last night I quite enjoyed being without Pob for the early evening. I was free to have a long soak in an 'infinity bath' (ever seen one of these? very funky. It had underwater glowing lights as well), then shave my legs, then have a shower. Then sit around with my hair wet and cool off a bit while watching my current favourite programme. Then dry my hair. Then sit around a bit more. Then get dressed, and choose my jewelry and my shoes. It all took nearly two hours and was most enjoyable. It was also good to sleep through the night and into the morning - although we both woke at 6, we managed to sleep until 8 before finally getting up (time for my injection, anyway).

But the rest of the time, I would have been happier if she had been with us. Yesterday afternoon, having tea on the lawn, in front of this beautiful hotel, in the very uncharacteristically glorious sunshine, I wished she was there, crawling around on the grass and telling us what she thought about it. This morning at breakfast another baby was shouting 'nananana' (meaning, give me more scrambled egg, daddy), and I imagined her shouting 'upupupup' at my mother, demanding more toast. It wasn't a horrible feeling, it was just a sensation that I would be happier if she was with me.

We arrived back at my mother's just before Pob woke up from her nap, and it felt wonderful to go in and get her when she started to stir. She was pleased to see me. She showed it not with big grins, but by hanging on for dear life for the first 15 minutes after she woke up. She was also pretty screamy for the rest of the afternoon, not sure if it's connected or not. She's happily asleep now despite it being 26 degrees in her room, so I imagine by the end of tomorrow she will have forgotten we ever left her.

So everyone concerned had a good time. My mum had a lovely time, although she did take the opportunity this afternoon to drop in a few more comments about how she thinks we overfeed Pob (more on this in another post. I am a bit worried about it - Pob has shot up to the 95th centile for weight (75th for height), and I don't quite know what to do. Anyway, more in another post). But it was good. And I'm glad we're back.

Another step away

Pob has been trying to crawl for about two and a half months now, if you start counting from the time she started getting on all fours and rocking backwards and forwards, as if she was a dinky toy and trying to wind herself up enough that she'd eventually start moving. She has yet to actually crawl. What she did learn to do about 10 days ago was to pull herself along the floor on her arms. It's as if she has designed the most energy-inefficient model for movement, just specially to make life difficult for herself. She gets onto all fours, rocks backwards and forwards, sometimes moves her legs forward, sometimes moves an arm, then collapses down onto her tummy, and pulls herself bodily across the floor, as if she was a little mini-soldier, crawling under the barbed wire.

Until this morning, the only time she would actually move was when there was something she's not allowed to play with within body-distance - a coffee cup, a blackberry, a phone, a remote control, or some paper (any paper, she's not really fussy). Then she can move like lightning. If we put her on her tummy without one of these things being within 2 meters or so, she just wails. Then this morning, I walked in the door and she immediately wiggled out of H's arms and started pulling herself across the floor, to me. I've rarely been so gratified. And delighted, because I hadn't seen her for 48 hours.

Yup, I just left my baby for the first time. It was very very hard in the anticipation, and I missed her ever so while I was away, and I started nearly crying this morning when the usual mess up occurred at Heathrow and we couldn't get off the already-delayed-by-2-hours plane. But actually, while I was away, it wasn't too bad. I went a long way, to a meeting which wasn't that good, but where I got to have some important conversations with some people who have a lot do say about my future career. So it was worth it. I missed her, but it was ok, better than I thought it was going to be. We coped. I'll be away from her again soon, it's just a fact of my job that I have to travel. But now I know I can do it, hopefully the anticipation of the next trip won't be as bad.

Corrupting my child

Apropos the previous post, I was sitting finishing it with Pob cuddled into the corner of the sofa next to me, a few toys arrayed around her. American Idol was on. I'd pretty much given up on American Idol for this season given two important challenges. The first was that itv2's schedule was a bit of a mystery to me and I could never find all the shows in one week, so I kept missing important performances. The second was that all you lovely Americans kept telling me the answer before I saw the relevant episode. So I gave up. But it happened to be on as I had a quiet few minutes on the sofa to finish that post, so I left it on while Pob hung out.

And then I realised how much she was enjoying it. Smiling away at the screen, particularly at that young David guy, waggling her head and hoping he would smile back at her. And occasionally banging my hand or the computer to make her feelings known.

I've turned my child into a telly addict, and there is no point of return.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Well, what a two weeks it was. Austria involved me working very hard, not sure it worked as a 'gradual reintroduction to work' as I was on duty from 7am-9pm most days, and on a couple of days it was hard to find much time within that to see Pob. Mum did wonderfully with her, but the whole experience made Pob a bit unsettled and so I had terrible nights with her. Italy was superb, and she settled well once we were all together as a family - H met us at the airport and she was delighted to see him. Holidays in Italy will be top of my list for a long time now - only an hour's time difference, weather gorgeous, people in love with babies. All good ticks in my box. Of course Italians seem to love all babies, but I tell you Pob was extra specially charming. We got lots of "oh bellissima!" and even requests to take photos and video of her. She loved the attention from her adoring public and developed a new line in head shaking that really entertained the crowds.

We've been home since Friday but things have been very hectic. H's brother is having a kind of breakdown so we tried to see him on the way back from the airport, but he'd gone for a walk and didn't reappear before we had to leave to get Pob home for supper. Then Saturday my brother, SIL and two nephews arrived to stay for the weekend. It was lovely to see them but BOY is my 3-year-old nephew LOUD! His outbursts made Pob cry a couple of times, but equally he was very sweet with her and brought her toys when she was getting a bit screechy, announcing to me "this is to make him better." (he hasn't quite got the hang of pronouns yet).

Sunday was a big family party for my aunt, and Pob tired herself out smiling and head waggling at everyone. We got home just in time for me to give her supper, and for me to have a complete breakdown at the thought of the nanny starting in the morning. I just don't want this lovely time with Pob to end, to go back to work and leave her, but leave her I will, next Monday I start back at work.

The nanny started this morning, and so far it's fine, although she does talk a lot! She's already done some steamed pears and tidied Pob's toys, so it can't be all bad. It'll be a long week escorting her to all our usual haunts, but it will make me feel better to give Pob a week of having both of us together before I head off to work. Pob's fine with other people, but she clearly is a lot happier when I'm around.

I'm going back to work 4 days a week (although in my job 4 days a week may mean 5 days one week, 4.5 the next but try to get home early a few times). My aim is to get back from work in time to put her to bed each night when I'm in London. When I'm travelling obviously H will have to do bedtime as well as the nights, and the nights are no fun at the moment. I hope Pob decides she can sleep through the night again soon, it's been three months now since she slept through and H and I are both constantly tired. Perhaps this is just the new way of living, and in a few years we'll forget there ever was uninterrupted sleep between 11 and 7. We're alternating nights on duty but somehow even my one night off doesn't lead to be feeling completely refreshed.

So we're fine. Pob is still wonderful (I'd post pictures but typepad can somehow no longer see iphoto - anyone got any hints?), I'm rather stressed, but it's sunny out and I'm going to make the most of this last week together.

The last time

On Sunday night, Pob's seven month birthday, we had our last breastfeed. I talked to her gently as she sucked away, and told her it was the last time. It was a lovely feed. I put her into bed after her story and her song, and came downstairs for dinner. H and I shared half a bottle of wine. It felt ok.

On Monday night I gave her her bottle. Throughout she kept diving for my boob, and whining. She drank the bottle ok, however, so I kept going with the routine, telling her the 'hippos go beserk' story and singing to her once she was in her swaddle in the cot. Then, as usual, I gave her her dummy and left the room. And she started crying. So I went back in, told her everything was ok, and left the room. And then she started crying again. Lather, rinse, repeat for 45 minutes before she eventually settled. I figured it was a bit of mourning for the boob, although I was surprised as she hadn't seemed to mind any of the previous feeds stopping.

On Tuesday we went through our usual routine. And this time it took 20 minutes to settle her. Better than last night, I thought. We're on the way up.

On Wednesday it took 30 minutes.

Tonight it took 1 hour 20 minutes, and she only settled in the end after H rocked her to sleep in the glider.

I dunno what to do. I don't want to go back to breastfeeding (oh I do I do, but I want to give my body some recovery time, not to mention the chance to get pregnant again), and let's face it, I'm sure there's not much milk in there for her right now. I don't want to have an unhappy baby, either. And I'm drawing a veil over the night time sleeping (ok, since you ask, last night I gave her a dream feed at 2230, then she woke at 215, settled on her own, 235, needed attention, 415, needed settling, 445, needed the dummy, 6am, was awake and didn't go back to sleep, although she was ok being entertained by her mobile for 20 minutes or so while I tried to pretend I was still sleeping). I'm worried that taking her away on Sunday is going to make it all worse, and worried about my mother looking after her all day - it turns out this training course I'm running is a very full agenda so I'm not sure I'll even be able to settle her each night.

Other than sleep things are wonderful. She naps beautifully during the day. She's really enjoying her solid food, and has become quite the roly poly baby. She tries to charm everyone she meets. She's gorgeous.

I just wish she'd sleep at night.

Back again

BT still sucks. Took several days longer than even a basic new connection to get our broadband reestablished. Despite the fact they all admitted it was their fault we got cut off in the first place. And we had to move the router to get the connection to work. So now it's under Pob's high chair which is not really ideal. But apparently the fact that the line in the study is not of sufficient quality for the router to be connected there is not their fault, either. I still want to kill someone as some kind of revenge for the hours I spent on the phone to them, the misery of talking to 17 different people, none of whom ever seemed to be able to access the records of our previous conversations, the people who made me cry...anyway, it was all rubbish and it's not over yet, but at least we're back on line. I hadn't consciously articulated the extent to which I depend on the internet(s) to keep me sane, to help me live my life.

Life is pretty hectic. We hired a nanny, neither of the two I wrote about before. She starts on 12 May. I'm going back to work 4 days a week (or 80%) on 19 May. Until then I'm working the equivalent of one day a week which is really cutting into my Pob time. We don't have any childcare set up but H is around some of the time, my mum has done some, and I've arranged telcos for when Pob is napping. I've been cooking all Pob's food, which takes quite a bit of time. Pob still isn't sleeping very well. I'm preparing to take Pob away for 2 weeks.The first to run a training course, my mum is coming to look after Pob so that I can work during the day. The second week Po and I will join H in Italy for a holiday. The amount of stuff I seem to need to take for her is quite extraordinary, I'm just glad mum doesn't think she needs to take much for herself. The trip is necessitating the purchase of a readily foldable stroller to get through customs. I really want a Bugaboo Bee, which is supposed to be foldable with one hand, but H and I tried it yesterday and it really isn't. The Maclaren techno is, but it's hideous, and doesn't look nearly as comfortable for Pob. But I should stop being such a fashion victim and just buy the Maclaren, yes?

I stopped pumping. I dropped the daytime pumps a few weeks ago, while we had visitors here from the US. After we stopped feeding Pob at 2230, I kept pumping at that time, partly in case we went back to doing that feed, partly to build a freezer stash for when I stopped breast feeding, so she could have breast milk for a bit longer. For the first few nights I got loads at this pump (for me) - around six or seven ounces (180-210ml). Then it started dropping, down to around 100mls. And looking thinner. It started to feel less important that I keep going. Last Saturday night was my last pump. Medela are coming to collect my Symphony on Tuesday. Today I threw away some of my more abused pumping equipment. Tomorrow I'm packing away the steriliser we kept in our bedroom for night time cleaning.

I don't miss the pumping (hahahaha) but I am finding it hard, and sad, to stop breast feeding. As expected, once I got down to two feeds a day, which is what I'm on now, my supply dropped fairly precipitously. Pob is still getting what she needs in the morning, as she has her porridge straight afterwards, but in the evening she has a bottle afterward the breast feed, and the amount she takes from the bottle has been steadily increasing over the last few days. I think in a week's time we'll be done with breast feeding. On the one hand, Yay us for keeping it up for so long after all the early misery, on the other hand, boo hoo for the loss of that physical relationship. I have too much to say on this to keep it to one paragraph, I'll try to write it another time.

In stopping pumping I've lost a couple of my opportunities to blog and comment. I no longer sit in bed in the middle of the night, with my lovely mac to keep me company, bottles attached to my boobs. I do miss that time, a bit. Well, I do and I don't. I wish I had not had to pump. I'm glad I did pump. I'm glad I had the internets to keep me going while I did. I miss the time I had to myself when I pumped while Pob and H slept. It was good and it was bad. It was.

Pob at six months

She's six months old. I've put away most of her 3-6 month size clothes as she's already too big for them, and some of the French and Italian 9-month size are only going to last another week or so. Those continental babies must be much skinnier than our English ones. But as my old nanny used to say, this is a baby who pays for dressing - she looks adorable in most things I put her in.

On the day of her half birthday she looked like a 1950s baby in a little sailor dress, all big smiles, mohican hair and lots of drool. Yesterday, when we had a few friends and family over for tea she wowed the crowds in trousers and a navy shirt, covered for the first part of the party by a long-sleeved bib which was rapidly smeared with the very delicious banana and apple she had for tea. She was very good natured as she was passed from lap to lap, grinning at everyone who smiled at her, peering around me as I fed her to look at the assembled crowds. Eventually at about 5pm she'd had enough and screeched loudly until I took her up for a nap. Unusually for her, she needed me to stay with her until she settled. I patted her gently and she stared at me with slightly worried eyes until eventually, with a big sigh, she spat out the dummy, turned her head and went to sleep. By the time she woke up everyone had gone, and when I brought her back downstairs she kept looking around the room, and then looking up at me, as if to ask where her adoring fan club had gone.

She loves people. When I take her to Gymboree she spends most of the time looking at the other babies and at the instructor, giving the adults in particular big gummy grins. After she grins she usually has to hide her head in my shoulder, as if her own charm is overwhelming her. This love of faces now extends to her toys, and she shows a marked preference for dolls and animal toys. Of course the first thing she does is to stick their heads in her mouth, but still, it's a preference. Jimbo the clown is the one toy we can use to make her laugh - singing the Jimbo song (to the tune of 'Wheels on the bus') makes her giggle with joy.

She's been sitting unaided since the day of her half birthday. She'd been managing 30 seconds or so for the last week or so, but that day was the first she really sat, bolt upright, and even managed to correct herself when she wobbled by throwing out her arm. She still has a tendency to overbalance and fall backwards, so some strategically placed pillows, or Mummy's legs, are still essential. If she goes forwards she simply rolls herself onto her arms, so that direction doesn't need protection to the same extent. The arrival of the Mozart cube from the US has helped the sitting up, as it keeps her entertained while she leans forward to chew on a corner or lean on a panel, and the lights keep her watching it as she sits upright and wobbles to and fro. Our early observation that music seemed to help calm her has been confirmed by her special interest in this toy, as well as by her wondering look and instant silence if she's been screamy, when we launch into song.

She now won't stay on her back for more than a few seconds, rolling over onto her tummy is now essential. Once on her tummy, though, she rapidly gets frustrated by her inability to go anywhere - and rolling back onto her back seems not to be the point, even though she can do it if she wants to. Instead, she wiggles desperately on her tummy in one of two ways - using her tummy as a pivot she rocks back and forth, kicking her legs and waving her arms, or she plants her face to the floor and wriggles one leg forward under her hips, then the other in a crawling motion but without ever having both her hips up in the air at the same time. She will eventually pause and lift herself up on her arms with a big sigh, looking around and exclaiming loudly at the annoyances of life. Our downstairs floor is slippery enough that this motion often pushes her backwards, and this really drives her bananas as she just gets further away from the object of interest. She can, however, twist herself round on her tummy to get at something she's interested in, or to watch us as we move around her. I regularly come back from the loo to find she's in a completely different position than when I left her. We keep meaning to start child proofing, but have done nothing about it yet. I'm sure that will come back to haunt us.

I bought her a bouncer a few weeks ago and she LOVES it especially when we turn on the nasty flashing lights. It's a horrible piece of plastic tat, the kind of thing you always thought you no child of yours would ever be allowed, but we don't have any doorways suitable for one of the plain door frame-based bouncers so it was this or nothing. And it makes her so happy, who I am to deny her the flashing lights and tinny music.  She loves bouncing enough that she often does it when being held upright on our laps, too, and this child is STRONG!

She was starting to babble about two weeks ago, saying 'Ma' for the first time on Mothering Sunday, followed by a selection of 'ba's 'da's and 'ya's. Since she started on the crawling motions and sitting, she's been babbling less, although I could have sworn she did a 'Mama' yesterday. Her cries of outrage also sound more like talking now. She doesn't just blow us an outraged raspberry, she articulates her frustration with a range of vowel sounds. This happens when I take her off the boob for a burp, when we aren't responding fast enough to her need for food once I've put her in the high chair, or when we've left her too long on her playmat without attention.

Feeding is going well. We started giving her solids a couple of weeks ago, and so far she's loved everything except broccoli, potato and mango (not together). Her favourite seems to be pear, with a mixture of avocado and banana a close second. I've been steaming and purreeing up a storm, and we now have a freezer full of cubes of courgette, apple, pear, sweet potato, butternut squash, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, and pea. Today we'll give her courgette for the first time, tomorrow perhaps a second go at potato as the first one didn't mash well so she got a bunch of larger lumps in her mouth which made her gag. The solids have reduced her milk drinking somewhat - I breast feed her before each of her two solid meals a day then offer her milk again afterwards but she usually doesn't want it, or takes only an ounce. She has a huge bottle feed just before bed - often taking around 300mls (10 oz) - of a mixture of breast milk and formula, depending on how much I've pumped. And that's the big revolution around here, I've stopped pumping during the day. I started off by missing it, feeling it was a waste to leave any milk in the boobs at the end of a feed, but the extra benefits of having more time to do things, has persuaded me it's worthwhile. I've also skipped a couple of the 330am pumps, and although I'm not really feeling any less sleep deprived, I'm feeling better about starting to wean from the pump. Plus it means she gets a great feed when she wakes up, so that feels good.

The next step for us is to gradually reduce the breastfeeding. I feel incredibly proud of what we've achieved. After having successfully breast fed at the British Museum this week, and rather less successfully at the Natural History Museum - the difference being I was in private at the first, and in public at the second and BOY does this baby prefer to look around than to suck - I've managed to do what I always envisaged. I'm not ready to stop, but the looming of my return to work, and the need to start my reproductive system going again, mean it's time. I'm down to 30mg of domperidone a day, and expect to have stopped taking it by the end of the month. So far my supply seems to have persisted quite well, at least enough to get through four or five feeds a day, plus a couple of decent pumps - one in place of the dream feed and one in the middle of the night if I choose to do it. The next step is to drop a day time feed, and I haven't felt quite ready to do that yet, but I know it's necessary if we're even going to attempt giving Pob a sibling, and you know how important I think that is. It's coming. I'll miss it, but it's time.

Sleeping is better. We got her back to sleeping through the night by offering her 'hungry baby' formula at the dream feed, after her breast feed. That meant she just woke up once, usually around three, but was easily settled with a dummy and a bit of patting. Then we got ambitious. Two nights ago we decided to skip the dream feed. She always seemed to hate being woken, and it seemed worth a try. The first night she went til around 330, and after a go at settling her we gave in and fed her around 415. The second night - last night - she woke just once, at midnight, and settled after 10 minutes of patting. It seems we might be about to have a baby who sort of sleeps through the night. For a short while, I'm not counting any chickens, you understand.

What we didn't count on is how much WE enjoyed the dream feed. Although I know it's supposed to involve keeping the baby almost asleep while you feed, it never worked that way for us as by the time I'd breastfed the sleepy baby, then we'd given her the top up bottle, and changed her nappy, she was always pretty much awake. And we both really enjoyed hanging out together in bed with her. She'd be very smiley and happy, and often very cute as she drifted between sleep and sucking. When I breastfed her at this feed she's often fall asleep on me, and I'd pull her off the boob and let her sleep in my arms for a few minutes, enjoying the sneaky cuddle time that she doesn't allow when she's awake. When she'd scream because we'd interrupted her eating to burp her we'd sing to help her calm down and she'd look at us with such a look of puzzlement we'd always burst out laughing.We didn't do one final dream feed to enjoy it that last time, and so the first night we went without it we really struggled, sitting together on the sofa, moaning about how much we missed her. We don't know how to recreate that particular snuggle time, we'll have to figure something out as we're both in serious withdrawal.

Pob is a real person now, a real person who loves us and who loves our friends and family. She loves music. She loves bouncing. She's fascinated by mugs and glasses and water bottles. She sticks everything in her mouth. She loves Jimbo the clown. She loves pears and apples and carrots and butternut squash. She doesn't like being held too tight when there is a world to look at. I miss the tiny baby, but I love the explorer she's becoming.  Roll on the next six months. 

Where does the time go?

Well, I know where the time goes. It goes on feeding and playing on the floor, and in washing bottles and pumping gear, and doing laundry, and walking, and pumping, and shopping, and sleeping, and bouncing, and singing, and cooking, and talking, and laughing, and dancing, and...doing all that again. It's wonderful but its also so mundane. I have started to have twinges of thinking that spending some time at work might be not so bad, although not as much time as it probably takes to do my job. I've agreed to go back in mid May, and the nanny search is on. Boy is it hard to choose someone who is going to look after your child.

The current candidates are

• A 48-year-old Mary Poppins type, very clear on what she thinks about things (in a nice way) and someone that Pob reacted very well to instantly. Only problem with her? She is really large and struggled with our stairs - we live in one of those up-and-down London houses with 5.5 floors and lots and lots of stairs. We spend most of our family time in the basement, and Pob's nursery is on the 4th floor. So stairs are a part of our life. I also couldn't quite imagine her on the floor at Gymboree doing the songs with Pob. Might be uncharitable, but there you go.
• A 26-year-old Kiwi who has just arrived in the UK. She has a degree in early childhood development and has worked for 2 families in New Zealand. She has rave reviews from the most recent family. She showed us some of the scrapbook pages she made for the little boy in that family - photos of activities with a description of what he was doing and what he was learning - e.g., "We went to see the penguins at the zoo. When we got home X wanted to make an iceberg so we got an old milk crate a white blanket, then we cut out and coloured some penguins to go on the iceberg. Then X wanted to know what it felt like to be cold, so we went into the kitchen and made some ice." Lovely stuff. Only challenge with her? She is really shy so we met her for an hour and neither H nor I warmed to her because she was just so nervous and couldn't really hold a conversation. I can see from what she showed us and her reference that she's great with children, but we didn't get to see that in her. She would be live-in, so we have to decide that we can live with her, as well.

We may just not have seen the right candidate yet. We'll see someone else on Monday and then reflect some more.

Hmm this post has gone in a different direction from that I intended. Pob is six months later this week and is doing all sorts of exciting stuff. More about that anon.

Sleep cont.

The early morning waking has continued. Usually around 530, but this morning it was 445. I've been getting her back to sleep for 10 minutes at a time by replacing the dummy, patting, sitting with my hand on her tummy, etc. Occasionally I can get her back for an hour or so, but usually only after I've settled her 3 or 4 times. By 645 she is most definitely ready to be UP.

As a consequence of this, plus the fact I'm still pumping at 330ish, so I'm pretty much up from 330 onwards, or at least not getting any restful sleep past that point, I am utterly exhausted (H has been sleeping in the spare room). We give in. We have today moved her cradle into her own room, from our bedroom where it's been since she came home from the hospital. Tonight H will sleep in the spare room, which is just across the hall from her room, and he will do the resettling etc. should she need it. I will still wake to pump but hopefully this way I can get 2 blocks of sleep before the breakfast feed.

It's really painful not to have her in the room with me. As I type we've just finished the 'dream feed' and H has taken her upstairs, and has also confiscated the monitor so I can't sneak a listen to her breathing. I know this is the right thing to do so I'm not so bloody tired, but I've relied on hearing the little snorts and snuffles she makes to know that everything is ok with her when I wake in the night. It's going to be hard not to hear them, to trust that she's just fine with H listening in.

My baby is 24 weeks old and we're cutting another bit of the cord tonight.

To sleep, perchance to not sleep

Until 10 days ago, we regularly thanked our lucky stars that we got a baby who sleeps. She went through from midnight til 8am-ish from about 12 weeks, and apart from an occasional early morning wake up (at 6am, say) she stuck to that pattern for about 2 months. 10 days ago she woke at around 4, inconsolable, and wanted a feed. So I fed her. The next night the same thing happened. The following night she came down with a cold, and woke at 2am and again at 530ish, needing a feed both times. The following night the same. Then most of last week she woke at 530 demanding a feed. I prayed it was down to the cold and kept going. The last two nights I've been able to settle her without a feed. Friday night she woke at 4am, while last night she woke up every 10 minutes or so between 210 am and around 345, then started waking again at around 630, although I managed to get her through til 715 before I gave in and fed her.

What is going on? I'm sure the cold has something to do with it. She might also be doing the 19 week sleep regression 3 weeks late (?). Or starting the 26 week one early? Or going through a growth/development spurt? She has just learnt to roll over from back to front, doing it for the first time when she was having naked time before her bath yesterday, and has been doing it constantly since, although she can't do it while she's swaddled. Or, and my best guess, she has become dependent on the dummy to get to sleep, and so when she goes through a lighter sleep part of the sleep cycle in the middle of the night, she can't get herself back to sleep without it and needs me to put it back in. Again and again until she gets back into deeper sleep and spits it out.

We're still swaddling by the way. I've experimented twice with sleeping bags, and both times she's fussed and cried until I've given in and swaddled her. I've just put her down for her nap with one arm out of the swaddle, thinking that if we can get her to sleep like that, she might be able to self soothe with her hand if she wakes in the night. We'll see. She, miraculously, has gone down with that one arm out, so maybe she's ready for a bit more freedom. We'll see.

Just in terms of background info, she sleeps well during the day, at least 1 hour and often up to 1h45mins in the morning, about 2 hours after lunch, and a short 40minute-ish nap at around 1715 before we start the evening routine. The advice I heard that babies under one need a nap after they've been awake for 2 hours has been invaluable to us, and helped us recognise her sleep cues. Oh, and she will NOT go down at 2000ish after her bath, book and singing for anyone but me. She screams blue murder if H tries to put her to bed, although she will go down for a nap happily with either of her grandmothers or with H. For me, she goes straight down at 2000 with no fussing.

Any advice much appreciated.

American goodies

An American friend is coming to visit in 3 weeks time and has volunteered to bring stuff over for us. I'm at a bit of a loss. What fabulous baby stuff do you all have that we might want for Pob? Assume we are, if anything, rather over-supplied with clothes (I can't help myself, plus we received lots of lovely stuff when she was born, some of which she is just wearing now). Any fabulous gadgets?

Mother's work

I'm feeling thrilled at our recent successes with feeding, at the same time as finding it a little bittersweet. It's wonderful that we finally seem to have the hang of breastfeeding, but sad because it will have to at least reduce, if not stop completely, when I go back to work.

Thank you for your comments on that latter point, by the way. I will try to keep up with one or two breast feeds a day once I go back to work, but given the uncertainty of my hours, the fragility of my supply, and the occasional need to travel, I'm not convinced it will work. My mother is convinced it's very important for me to try, however, as she worries that Pob will get depressed when I leave her. I'm constantly fretting about  my decision to go back to work in May, but so far not enough to change the decision and leave going back until the end of my alloted year of (unpaid after 4 months) maternity leave. I'm going back in May not because I have to financially (although we'd have to move to a smaller house and change our lifestyle rather dramatically if I chose to quit completely), but because it's going to be harder and harder to get back into the swing of things the longer I leave it. Relationships with customers move on, and after a year I would be very out of touch with the work we are doing with my customers.  In addition, if I don't go back in May things will start to slow down for the summer and I might end up sitting around twiddling my thumbs for a couple of months which would be bad - frustrating for me as well as bad for my evaluation next year. So on balance I think it's the right thing to do to go back in May. What I might do is go back part time, which would give me at least one weekday with Pob, even if that day might have to change from week to week so that I can be responsive to my customers' needs.

This indecision on my part is making hiring a nanny difficult. We've seen one great candidate and I've spoken to another good-sounding one on the phone, but since I can't confirm if I want them full time or part time, it's a bit hard to hire anyone. Plus of course in reality I don't really want a nanny at all, so I'm being very very good at procrastinating at setting up appointments to see candidates.

I love this baby so very much, I really really don't want to leave her. At the same time as I recognise that I'm very good at my job, that I often enjoy my job, and that my having a rewarding job will bring something to Pob that she wouldn't otherwise get, particularly as she gets older. Not to mention the financial benefits it brings to our family. I'm being pulled in two different directions and I'm still two months away from going back.

Boob update

Thank you to everyone who has been enquiring re boobs. I'm now fairly sure that the little lumps on the nipple are blood blisters. A bit similar to 'blebs' or milk blisters, but with blood inside due to over-enthusiastic pumping (I think). I've tried squeezing them but can't get them to go, and the same squirt of milk comes from in between them if I test it while Pob is feeding. But she now seems to be feeding ok on that side, and that boob has stopped hurting, no more shooting pains or nipple soreness, so I'm just leaving it for the time being. I know that's a head in the sand thing, but since I've got no breast lumps etc., and it's not hurting, I'm not worried.

In other boob updates, I've been weaning off the domperidone and am now down to 90mg/day, down from 120mg/day. As I mentioned before, I saw an immediate drop in how much I could pump, and it's dropped a bit further since then, but Pob has also taken to refusing or taking only a very little top-up at each feed, so I think she has simultaneously got a lot better at emptying the breasts. As this has become clearer, it's helped me see that the challenges we had with breastfeeding were indeed partially due to Pob's poor sucking rather than just the problems with my supply. Of course secretly I thought all along that it was 'all my fault' despite everyone's diagnosis of the contrary. It's good to know it wasn't all me - not sure why that matters, but it feels like an important realisation.

I can't really express how very glad I am that we persevered with breast feeding. Although many people told us I was bananas, what we have now is close to what I always wanted (well, I didn't imagine the pumping, but that has become less onerous as the feeding itself has got better). Pob strokes what she can reach of my breast and chest while we're feeding. She pulls off and grins up at me occasionally. She opens her mouth like a baby bird as I pull her in towards me and makes little contented 'hmm hmms' as she sucks. It's tremendously satisfying, and I feel very lucky that we got to this place, even if our time here will be short. I don't know what it would be like to have stopped earlier, of course, and it would certainly have given us more time when we could have gotten out of the house, but for us, for me, I'm glad we chose to persevere through the crap, that the domperidone built my supply sufficiently that it was possible for us to get here.

Children of men

I finally watched Children of Men last night. Only the second film I've watched start to finish since Pob was born. When it finished, in fact before it finished, I was reduced to wracking sobs. I knew from about 10 minutes in that the film was going to destroy me, but somehow I couldn't stop watching. The bleakness of the world it portrayed got to me from the first minute, particularly that there were no good guys, everyone was in it for their own goals, including the so-called terrorists who wanted to liberate the country. Somehow the absence of children has created a world where either people don't care about anything any more, and hence commit suicide, or where they care passionately, without any barriers, about an ideal and are prepared to do anything to work towards what they think is right. The ideal, for the terrorists, has replaced any concern for individual humans, they have little fear for their own lives, and no care for the lives of others.

But the moment that recuced me to blubber was the walk that Theo and Kee take with the baby out of the building where the battle is going on. That everyone - soldiers, terrorists, fugitives alike - stops what they are doing to stare at the baby, to try to touch the baby - although in a gentle, rather than frightening way - brought home more than anything else in the film the utter devastation that not being able to have children has brought to the world. I wept because I remembered what it felt like to be just one individual, wanting to reach out and touch the babies I couldn't have, although I cannot really imagine what it would feel like if I was one of billions of people who felt the same way. I wept because I know how it feels to have our baby, to love her as much as I do, and to know that I have friends who are still reaching out but haven't been able to feel that love, friends who have stopped trying to have the baby, who ran out of runway. All that pain was beautifully portrayed on film, the hands, the faces, the arms, the eyes, the sotto voce singing of lullabies. It was utterly heartbreaking.

One thing that got to me, which presumably wouldn't have done before our recent issues, was the fact that Kee didn't seem to ever put the baby to the breast. When the baby was screaming, it seemed as if it would have been the 'natural' thing to do. "The baby must be STARVING," I was thinking, "why doesn't she feed her? Please let the baby be ok!" Perhaps the filmmakers felt that breastfeeding was a step too far for the viewing public, perhaps it just wasn't the issue, but I was so worried that this young girl wouldn't be able to care for her baby, having never seen anyone care for a newborn before, that she wouldn't know what to do. It didn't seem to be the message of the film, so I'm trying to take away a message of hope, but it was hard, the whole film was so bleak, I kept waiting for something else to go wrong.

It was a tough, tough film. All night I dreamt of not being able to feed my baby, of not being able to give birth at the right time, of trying to care for other people's babies. A long time ago I agreed with a friend that we didn't need to see films that were just horribly upsetting. I both wish and don't wish I was still following that agreement. Being that upset is horrible, but perhaps it's a good thing, to remember my own pain, to empathise again with the pain of others, to want to do anything I can to avoid a world without hope. Who knows what difficulties the world will get into during Pob's lifetime.  I can't quite imagine an infertile world, but I can imagine a world heading for environmental disaster, a disaster even closer than it seems today. For now I will redouble my efforts to turn down the heating, to recycle, to give up plastic bags, to buy without packaging, the little things I do which I hope will help her inherit a world with hope. Strange the effect that one film can have.

The magic of swaddling

I keep thinking that Pob is a bit old for us still to be swaddling her. But then I go to put her down for a nap. As I did 40 minutes ago. I swaddle her, using the large swaddle-me we bought a month ago when she outgrew the small one. She's tough to swaddle now as her hands come straight up to her mouth whenever she's given the chance. I think I've done a good job, I put her down in the cradle, turn on her music, give her her dummy, tuck the blanket in and go to sit out of sight on the bed. Within seconds she's back to her loud 'talking' which is this weeks latest trick. Not screaming, just talking, so I leave her alone. It rapidly, however, descends into screaming so I go back to the crib, tell her it's sleep time, turn the music back on, put her dummy back in, and go back to sit down. Screaming. Repeat. Screaming. Repeat. After three goes I check the swaddle and both her hands have wriggled up and are clasped at her chest. So I reswaddle, making sure they stay down by her sides. She looks at me, sighs, turns her head to the side, spits out her dummy, and is asleep in seconds.

I don't know what it is, but she seems to not only need to be swaddled, but need to be tightly swaddled with her hands down to get to sleep - the same thing has happened at 3 different nap times now .This isn't true if I take her out in the pram, then she will happily lie with arms free, up by her head in starfish pose, and just gradually drift off to sleep. She also wakes up after 40 minutes or so, but will usually settle down again so long as I keep moving.

I've checked Moxie, and the consensus seems to be that you can keep swaddling them as long as they need it. So I shouldn't worry, right? Should we start to wean her off the swaddle or just enjoy the fact that it helps her sleep so well?

Feeding, part one million and two

The feeding has been going pretty well, with a few blips. We're breast feeding, then supplementing while I pump at each feed. Just before Christmas I weighed Pob and found out she'd lost 200 grams (approx 7oz) over the last week, so we went on a feed-Pob-up binge, offering her 150mls after each breast feed to see how much she'd take. H would force feed her at night to make sure she got a big feed, and when we got back from the country we found she'd gained 750 grams in a week. Which I think means that the measurement the day I found she'd lost weight was probably off as I think it's close to impossible for her to have gained that much in a week. But it's all good as it meant she is back on the curve and I don't have to freak out (again). Since then she's been steadily gaining 100-200 grammes a week, and taking anywhere between 50 and 120 mls after each feed.

I've started to really enjoy the breast feeding itself. While we were away over New Year, and then a few times since, she has woken up early a few times, and I have taken to bringing her into bed with me and dozing while she feeds for an hour or so. These have been very much the kind of calm, loving, affectionate breastfeeding experiences that I'd really wanted. I'm so very glad I persevered with this, even though it continues to be a pain in the arse, and to massively restrict my movements with her. My friends ask why don't I stop pumping, and just breast feed and supplement with formula, but (i) I'd rather she got breastmilk if possible and (ii) I'm not sure I'd have enough milk for her to tolerate breastfeeding without the additional stimulation of pumping.

The pumping was going pretty well, such that we were only on formula for one feed every 3-4 days. I stopped taking any supplements before Christmas as I couldn't see what effect they were having. I started again in early January, but didn't see any impact so I've now stopped and am fairly sure I won't go back to them. I am still on Domperidone and will start to taper off it once I decide how much longer I'll persevere with feeding.

I say 'was going' above because it's been a bit of a crappy few days with the pump - my supply dropped about 20% from what I was pumping over the Christmas break. Not really sure why. This was then compounded by my rented Medela Symphony breaking on Sunday night, so I had to go back to first the Lactina I still had (rental, hadn't returned it yet, have now) and then the Pump in Style while I waited for a replacement. All I can say is ouch. My nipples may never forgive me, that Pump in Style is tough. Once I got the replacement Symphony going today I could barely feel it compared to the irriration of the Pump in Style. If you're finding this post while deciding what pump to use, all I can say is, shell out for the Symphony, and goodness knows don't bother with a Lactina. At least a Pump in Style is portable, the Lactina in my experience purports to be 'hospital grade' but gives less stimulation than the Pump in Style.

The fact that the feeding has been going well, and has become quite enjoyable, means it's hard to stop. I always thought I would stop before I went back to work, and I've decided to return to work at the end of April, in three months time. It will just be too hard to maintain feeding given my hours and the potential travel. But now I've worked this hard to get this far, I'm really reluctant to stop. I know I couldn't pump through my kind of work, but I'm wondering if I could maintain enough supply to still do a morning and/or an evening feed, although I suspect my supply will tank if I start to cut back on what I'm doing. Also, I don't want to start tapering down the feeding until I have to. Possibly late March, I'm not really sure. We'll see when we get there.

I know there will be benefits to stopping, but the benefits are mostly about me, and not benefits for Pob. It would allow me to cut back on the domperidone, which will help curb my appetite, which means hopefully I could start to lose some of this weight. Currently I'd have to buy a new wardrobe to go back to work in as I can't fit into any of my suits! My boobs would hopefully shrink a bit which would make running possible. I'd have a bit more time - time I could spend doing a bit more of a variety of activities with Pob as well as time to finish writing thank you cards, etc. I might even manage to cook dinner for H at some point.

So I want to continue with the currrent regime not just because I'm enjoying it even while I resent it, but also because it seems to work best for Pob, to give her the best possible nutrition. I don't know how much longer that will stay true, but it's true for now. Of course, there's the additional drive which is that we can't start to  reliably try again for number 2 until I've had one normal cycle, so at some point that will become a strong driver to stop. Perhaps the strongest, since I want to at least try for another one because I think that's best for Pob. It will be easier to stop if I feel it's doing something for her.

Oh dear, what can the matter be?

What did I do? Too much about Pob? Too little? Annoying tone of voice? I promised I'd never do this kind of post, but I'm bemused at only 8 comments on that last post, that's the fewest comments I've had in, um, years. If there's something problematic, please do let me know.

Tonight H is taking me out to dinner for my birthday. It's a bit nervewracking. It's the first time we've left Pob when she will need a feed while we're out. It's only the third time we've left her at all - the first being my dash to the hairdressers before Christmas when she spent 2.5 hours asleep with her Grandma in attendance, the second being an evening after Christmas when we went to meet a friend in a nearby pub while Granny babysat for 1.5 hours. I'm going to pump before we go rather than try and rush through the 1830ish feed, and will probably be back in time for the late night feed as we have an early table. My mother (Granny) will be here, but she's not that great at getting Pob to take a bottle, and not great at getting her to sleep based on previous experience. I'm sure it will be fine, but it's quite likely that we'll return to a somewhat hungry, tired and awake Pob, and a tired grandmother, but isn't that what spending the evening with Granny is often about - doing things differently from the parents but somehow it all turns out ok?

I'm excited about visiting this restaurant again, it was the scene of a very lovely Valentine's evening a few years ago, and the food is delicious. I'm nervous about going as it's rather chic and none of my clothes fit me (the weight simply isn't coming off, cue guilt/desparation from me, subject of another post), and of course I'm nervous about Pob even though I know she'll be fine.

On the sleeping thing, things seem to have improved. Yesterday evening after her bath she screamed blue murder while I swaddled her, but then stopped screaming, gave a sigh and went straight to sleep when I put her in her crib. A kind of: "Thank goodness you've stopped futzing with me, mummy" sigh. Must remember that for future reference.

She's waking from her nap now, will get around to writing all these overdue posts soon:

1. Weight loss, or the lack of it
2. Update on feeding
3. Birth story (ouch, how long can I wait to finish that?!)
4. Ill-natured post
5. Post about My fake baby

When she was good, she was very very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid

We're back from a week in the frozen North of England. It was quite frozen, we had snow and hail and rain and driving winds, but we had a lovely time. Although having a lovely time involved torturing poor Pob somewhat by bundling her into a snow suit and strapping her to her father's chest every time we left the house. Even so he had to walk holding his rain coat around her when we were on the beach so that the wind didn't get into the small gap between his chest and her face. He's rather hardy and enjoys the wilder weather, so he didn't mind too much although a lack of gloves I'm sure meant that his hands were absolutely frozen.

Pob was a total angel on the car journey. We left around 10am, she slept for 1.5 hours, we stopped for lunch and she woke, we fed her and changed her, got back in the car, she slept for 2 hours, we stopped again to feed her etc., got back in the car, and drove for a further hour and a bit to our destination, during which she slept. I pumped after each stop and it went fine, it was much less awkward than I thought it would be - I just wore my pumping bra under my clothes, and wore a loose top over the top. I'm sure a couple of passing drivers got an eyeful of a nipple or two, but it didn't bother me and the yield was rather good. On the way back Pob was slightly worse, she got fed up for the last 20 minutes or so as we neared home and was very screamy but still, I couldn't quite believe our luck.

On the other hand, she has decided that going down for a nap or for the night is for the birds, and is now screaming the place down as we try and settle her. We've tried swaddling/not swaddling, going through a routine in the evening of feed/bath/books/bed, rocking/not rocking, singing/not singing, it doesn't seem to make much difference. She does go down just fine after the 11pm feed, even though she's wide awake when we put her down - something about the dark and quiet that helps perhaps? I think it's something to do with her increased awareness of the world and her own skills. She learnt to blow raspberries a few days ago, and now I hear her lying in her crib, practising blowing them and occasionally stopping to chat a little, it's very adorable.

She also has started to grasp things. When I shake her rattle in front of her she focuses really really hard on it, wobbling her head back and forth as she does so, and after 30 seconds or so she starts to try and reach out for it. She doesn't always get it, but she is trying, and on New Year's Eve she managed to grab and hold the rattle for a minute or so, a couple of times. We were very over-excited.

We saw the new year in dancing around the room to the sounds of Jools Holland's Hootenanny, watching the fireworks go off across the bay, illuminating the nearby castle. It was such a perfect moment, it made me cry. As did reading to Pob a few times from the copy of 'When we were very young' that I found at the cottage. Both are moments I'd dreamed of through the years of infertility, and even before that, and they happened. And they were perfect. Yes, she was rather wriggly while I read to her, yes she was a bit screamy when we put her to bed after the dancing, but those moments were perfect nonetheless, and they outweigh any amount of wriggling and screaming. We are so very lucky, and we continue to bask in that every day, screaminess or no.

A year ago today

Posts were written while we were away, hence I'm backdating them now so that they are in context

A year ago today I saw the follicle which contained the egg which became Pob. Sometime in the next 36 hours that egg met one of H's sperm, and Pob started her development. It wasn't a good week otherwise. I was in the cycle after an early miscarriage. My 40th birthday was 10 days away and I heard the death knell of my fertility sounding in my ears. We were in an observation cycle at a new clinic, a clinic I didn't like but was going to anyway, in the hopes that changing something, anything, would be the key to us finally getting our take home baby. I must be decent proof that that "The Secret" thing is nonsense. I had no real belief that we'd get pregnant this time, although of course I had some hope, otherwise we wouldn't have tried. It wasn't any different than any other cycle were we'd tried naturally, although we hadn't had many cycles in the previous year when we could try naturally given the laparoscopy took out 2 cycles and the Zoladex took out three more, and we did two IVFs and an FET which took out a further three. Seven chances to conceive naturally in a year. And on the eighth, we got Pob.

It's an odd anniversary. I'm unlikely to tell Pob of the significance of 3 January, at least until she is considerably older and more sophisticated - in her 30s, say - but I can't imagine I'll ever forget. I saw her when she was still haploid, before she had half the genetic complement that makes her who she is. That's amazing.