Thalia's fertility journey

Junior's language at two

At two Junior is genuinely chatty. His whole day is narrated, at great length and with frequent repetition: "Mummy, water in there! Water in there Mummy! In there! Water! Mummy! Water in there!" I long ago stopped counting his words but he is able to say most things he wants, and has some interesting nuances: "actually" is a new favourite. We are quite good on subject/verb/object, occasionally with an adverb or adjective thrown in although not necessarily in the right order. He is also very clear on what he wants and needs, and is unsurprisingly intolerant of that not happening instantly.

"Mummy, bird fly gone fast"

"Where bird gone?"

"Find bird now"

"Find bird now"

"Find bird NOW Mummy!"

He has just started to know colours (with no effort from us to teach them - classic second child neglect). Blue is usually correct. Red sometimes. Orange often. The rest a bit random.

He counts, in the fashion of one, two, five, seven, although he can recognise many of the numbers correctly (the 'hippos go beserk' book is a good one for this). He can say "I'm two" and does a lovely rendition of "Happy Birthday":

"Happy birthday mummy daddy, birthday birthday, mummy daddy [Pob] [Junior], happy birthday"

He knows an extraordinary number of animals, including 'pider, chicken, duck (loves ducks), magpie, cat, doggie, giraffe, tiger, bunny, flamingo, caterpillar, ant, bee, ladybird, armadillo, jaguar and ephelunt.

He has a great ear and repeats most things accurately the first time he hears them: "ballerina," "bolognese" "Beethoven" were all pronounced correctly this evening.

Nonetheless, he has the usual complement of adorable mis-sayings, even though some of the best are now gone (cockee has become coffee, nummy has gone to dummy). Our favourites are:

• 'poon
• ephelunt
• tupper (supper)
• paghetti
• lellow
• Teebee (tv)
• piggle piggle (iggle piggle)

My mother was busy correcting his pronounciation of 'poon this evening and I had to stop her - I want to hold on to his baby hood a little longer.

This time two years ago

This time two years ago it was sultry. Boiling hot. I couldn't stop sweating.

This time two years ago I had agonising haemorrhoids and was experimenting with condoms filled with water and then frozen to see if they relieved the pain. They didn't.

This time two years ago my bag was packed. It contained, among other things, domperidone, fennel tea and fenugreek capsules. And a pumping bra. I wasn't taking any chances.

This time two years ago we had put the crib together and it stood at the foot of the bed, made up with the blue liner and the new white (organic) cotton sheets.

This time two years ago I poked my stomach every few minutes just to make sure he was ok in there.

This time two years ago I had sung Pob to sleep with her favouite song - the Pob song. I was very nervous about how the next few days would make her feel.

This time new years ago we were excited, and hopeful, and nervous.

This time two years ago we were just 10 hours away from meeting Junior.

 

 

 

After infertility

I can't remember what it felt like. I can remember in a factual way that it was awful. Painful, miserable, soul-suckingly awful. But I can't feel it any more. The extraordinary pain that I felt, the hole that I experienced deep inside isn't there any more.

I don't know when it happened. I don't remember when I stopped remembering how it felt. I do remember that I still felt angry after Pob was born, when I realised that the time to just wait for a second didn't exist for us, we had to get on with it if we had any hope of it happening. I remember being so incredibly sad when our first IVF cycle after Pob didn't work. I also remember having to snap out of it soon after I got home so that I didn't affect her. While that didn't reduce the sadness, it did reduce the focus on the sadness.

Sometime after Junior arrived, the visceral reality of the anger and the sadness went away. Not completely, no. When I yearn for another baby, it's there, that feeling that if only we'd had children sooner we might have been able to have another. But it's a yearning, a nostalgia almost, not a deep, penetrating, dreadful sadness like the absence of any children - or of any sense of possibility of those children, at some points - felt. It's there when I look at one of my colleagues, struggling to hold it all together at a women's event where EVERYONE is talking AGAIN about the challenges of working motherhood. And I know she's feeling jealous and angry and ashamed of herself. But I just know it, I don't feel it.

I don't know what made it go away. I don't know if somehow the intensity of the love I feel for my children filled the gap. I don't know if it seeped away because it's just not what I think about all day any more. It comes up, and it goes away while I think about everything else on the list. I don't know if I'm healed, or just papered over.

I know that this is not true for everyone. I had lunch with a friend last week who adopted her daughter two years ago, after nearly 10 years of dealing with infertility. I shared some of the above feelings with her, and she visibly tensed, shivered, looked a bit sick, and then said: "No. I feel it. I feel those critical moments every day. I remember each period of those first three years, getting more and more angry every time I realised I wasn't pregnant again. The day they told me after the operation I'd never have children without IVF, the first time we had to have a social worker in our house. The moment I realised our daughter would not come from China. I am right back there, every time I remember those moments."

Why? Why has it gone for me and not for her? Is it because she is thinking about a second adoption, while, we, much as I yearn for another, are done? Is it because I've filled the hole not just with love but with working too hard and planning a move? Am I distracting myself from reality with a bunch of displacement activities?

As always, it's probably some combination of the above. I know that the love of my children has changed the way I feel about life in a profound way. I know that I am mostly happy. I know, even so, that there are things that are not right in my life and that currently I am doing a medium good job of covering them up. But the sadness, it has lifted. The pain, is a memory of an ache, no longer agony. I got the future I wanted, not when I wanted, but I got it nonetheless.

The experience of being a parent, of loving my children, hasn't cured me, it's just changed the angle with which I experience the world.

 

Junior can talk! (a bit)

At about 15 months, Junior's words started to sound like words. He'd been clearly trying to communicate for a long time, but not managing to be consistent or very clear. While 'Daddy' has been around for a long time, and 'no' for slightly longer, other words appeared perfectly once, and then weren't heard again ('high five'). But over the last few weeks, at precisely the same time as he decided to learn to walk, his language seems to be making progress.

Words he says
Daddy
No
Muhmuh (dummy)
Car
'ank'oo (thank you)
Teef (teeth)
'es (yes)
Mama (Mummy)
Bok (book)
'oof (woof, means dog)
guh (hug)

At the same time, we've upped our use of signing as he has been so much slower than Pob at acquiring spoken language, and we are quite tired by the screaming that he uses to get what he wants most of the time.

Words he signs
Eat
More
Milk
Thank you/Please (the signs are so similar we don't really distinguish)
Hot
Bath
Brush teeth
All done
Bye bye
Up

We're trying to teach him the signs for toast, sorry, banana, book, and drink at the moment. Any suggestions as to what signs it would be helpful to add?

Things in my head

I'm too fat. I'm fed up of being too fat. Must find time to exercise. Must not eat that biscuit...

Is Pob overweight? What can I do about it? Should I ignore it? I don't want her to have an eating complex. I don't want her to be the fat kid. Help.

Why isn't Junior talking? Is there something off with his hearing? Is he just not ready? What did he just say? Is that a word or is it wishful thinking?

Shit I haven't sent that email I said I'd send. Bugger.

Why is H so unhappy? How can I help him?

Should we move? Can I bear the strain? Would it be worth it?

Should I do that meeting or ask someone else to? Is it worth going all the way to Turkey for a 2 hour meeting? Really?

Is my key customer ever going to hire us again?

What should we give the children for dinner tomorrow night?

Shit I haven't ordered the wetsuits for the holiday next week. The children will freeze.

Should I let Junior have his MMR on Monday and risk the reaction happening while we're on holiday, or should I wait for another couple of weeks?

Will the washing machine be safe to use tomorrow after today's flood?

What should I do about my assistant?

When can I get back to my book?

Am I a bad mother because I like working?

What would I do if I didn't do this job?

Let me just browse to see if I can find Pob a winter coat.

What should Pob wear to that party tomorrow (today actually)?

How is Kath? Why hasn't she responded to anything recently?

Shit I still haven't sent that email.

So many thoughts, so few posts

Yeah yeah, terrible blogger, yadda yadda yadda. Working full time in a demanding job, two small children, big house, some semblance of a social life, a week's summer holiday, jewish holidays, pob's birthday, pob starting nursery, all of Pob's friend's birthdays (we are all friends from ante-natal class) it all adds up. Yes, some others manage quite well despite all these elements, but I don't know how they do it. I've been doing that old thing of composing posts in my head and not writing them down. Because I don't want there to be a(nother) whole month missing from the archives, I'm forcing something down on screen.

Pob snippets #9

At the house we were staying at in France, where the pool was not heated. Pob LOVES swimming

Thalia [in the pool]: Look how much fun the pool is, Pob!

Pob: [puts toe in the water] I'm not keen, Mummy

Two days later when visiting 7-year-old (B) has demonstrated that pool is quite braveable, really

Pob: I'm swimming Mummy, I'm swimming! [dog paddling around the pool with her arm bands on]

Thalia: I can see you sweetie, you're doing really well

Pob: Look, B and I can meet each other! [Pob and B jump in from opposite sides of the pool and meet in the middle] [lots]

B: Thalia, I think Pob needs to get out now, her lips are blue

Thalia: [In bad mummy rush] Oh Pob, let's get out now

Pob: No Mummy, I'm going to swim and swim forever!

Home again

Pob: [whine whine whimper whine]

Thalia: Where's your happy voice, Pob? [trying to resurrect what was, 6 months ago, a very effective parenting technique]

Pob: I don't want to talk to you in a happy voice, I want to talk to you in a whiny voice

At her birthday party

Friends: Happy Birthday Pob!

Pob: Happy Birthday! 

Viewing her birthday tea

Pob: Oh my gosh! Wow! 

On being given her third present

Pob: Another present! Thank you! Wow!

Pob had her party on Sunday, her actual birthday was Monday. Monday morning we went in to wake her up

Family: Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Pob, Happy Birthday to you

Pob: Is it my birthday again, Mummy? When is my other birthday?

Playing with her birthday present, a dolls house

Pob: So the baby goes here, and the table goes here, and the sofa goes here, [...], and everyone is eating lunch here

Thalia [viewing 7 room dolls house with all furniture in one room]: Do you think everyone might like to have lunch downstairs and leave the baby sleeping in his room?

Pob: No, Mummy, they are all being a family together

Junior at a year and three weeks

Junior at 13 months is a delight. He is in constant motion, although he will put his head down on the nearest part of us and say 'Aaah' to imitate the sound we make when giving a cuddle as he passes us in travel. He gives full on kisses with open mouth and lots of slobber, enjoyable in their enthusiasm rather than the experience itself. He has a big mouth, small pointy chin and wide cheeks, so when he smiles it looks as if his face will break in two with happiness. He smiles often at us and at our nanny, although is often quite shy with strangers until he gets to know them. He adores Pob and follows her around, wanting to do everything she does, which has the unfortunate effect of occasionally driving her to distraction as he attempts to eat her playdough or bash at the book she is reading.

He is very clear what he wants and doesn't want, and has had several full body tantrums when it's not forthcoming - including an occasion last week when he wanted to drink his nanny's coffee, and no amount of distraction could stop him from completely losing the plot. In the end she had to take him out of the cafe so that he didn't destroy everyone eles's afternoon. He does the same when food is not delivered fast enough or in sufficient quantities - the moment when the yogurt runs out, for example, is not a good one to be around. And if Pob is eating something, he wants it, so he has been introduced to many foods sooner than she ever was - cape gooseberries, for example.

He went through a phase of biting, but now just gently gums us instead. He puts most things in his mouth to explore them, and has a particular fascination for small pebbles, which are of course ideal things for babies to put in their mouths. He bashes anything that seems worth bashing - the louder the noise the better. He loves music and has taken to sitting and waving his arms around when it comes on or when we sing, or when Pob does 'ballet' (more on that anon).

He crawls like a demon now, and pulls himself up on anything. He can stand unsupported but if he realises he's doing it he quickly sits down, although in a very controlled manner. He walks quite well holding on to someone, but as soon as he actually wants to go somewhere he drops down to crawl there. He learnt to climb stairs a few weeks ago and ever since makes a beeline for them as soon as he sees them. He'll also crawl up anything on an incline, including slides. He can already throw a ball quite well, and enjoys chasing them.

He has no clear words as yet. We keep hearing things that sound like words, but he doesn't then repeat them. He does say mamamama and dadadada consistently in what seems to be a discriminatory way, but it's not 100% consistent. Given I know how early Pob spoke, I'm trying not to be concerned about this. He understands a huge amount so I don't think there are any hearing issues. He signs 'more' about 50% of the time, and 'thank you' about 80% of the time. He points a lot, and clearly is waiting for us to respond and tell him what it is. He waves. He does make a couple of animal noises, although again it's not completely consistent. I'm sure it will come. I'm not sure he feels the need to learn more words, as most of the time his urgent grunting and 'ahahahah' and 'da da da' are clear indicators of what he wants, and he usually gets it.

He sleeps. He goes down for a nap at 9 and again at around 1300 with no complaints. He goes to bed around 1900 and sleeps through til about 630, again with only very rare wakeups. If you are in the middle of sleep hell, I hope this makes you feel somewhat better - for a baby who simply didn't nap unless held, and who fed most of the night until he was 7 months old, this is a real blessing.

He loves his mummy, and I, of course, cannot explain how much I adore him. He's turning into a boy before my eyes, and while I secretly wish for another tiny baby, despite the sleeplessness and stress I know it would bring, I love watching him learn about the world. He is on his way.

Things I want to remember

Driving down the A1/M1 on the night of 4 January, two sleeping children in the back. Well, they were supposed to be sleeping. Junior, much to our surprise as he was not a fan of the car at the time, conked out immediately. Pob thought the whole thing was much too exciting, and spent the first two hours of the journey chatting, asking for stories and songs. We tried chatting, we tried telling her to go to sleep, we tried ignoring. Then the driving got rough and luckily she conked out. Snow pelting the windscreen, hard to see where we were going, snow rapidly covering the road. My sense of responsibility cranked up full, very aware of the children in the back, very uncomfortable with my driving skills. Aware H would probably handle it better, not wanting to give him all the responsibility. I eventually gave up around Nottingham. The changeover woke Pob up, and she woke Junior up. We had another 30 minutes of chatting, but then they both conked out again as H sped home, the conditions much improved. We got home just after midnight, and I took both children upstairs, put Pob to bed and fed Junior while H unpacked the car. It felt like a very grown up thing to do.

Watching Pob run off with a 3.5 year old son of a friend of my brothers, when we arrived at the Villa in Italy we were all staying in for the week before my brother's wedding. Two little figures, disappearing hand in hand down the path through the garden.

Watching Pob walk up to my friend's nieces when they arrived at her house. Two big girls, around 9 and 10. "Are you my new friends?" she asked. They looked awkward, and my heart broke a little bit. But then the scene moved on, they moved to play with the baby, Pob followed them, then lost interest and went back to her playdoh.

Sitting on the floor of Pob's bedroom, getting Pob and Junior ready for bed. Junior in his sleeping bag already, crawling around trying to keep up with Pob. Pob running madly around, trying to avoid getting her pyjamas on. "I want to be naked, Mummy!" Then running round and round her footstool, holding her cup of millk, chanting "Mummy, Daddy, Mummy, Daddy, Mummy, Daddy."

Pob and my nephew, walking through Verona, hand in hand. Pob in her flower girl dress, my nephew in his new suit, leading the procession of wedding guests through the town to the Pizzeria. Then, a day later, they walked through two airports together, hand in hand, in somewhat less fancy clothes. Until Pob demanded to pull my nephew's suitcase for him. There's a photo of the two of them at baggage collection in Heathrow. My nephew looks at the camera, eight and seriously cool, hair flopping down into his eyes. Pob looks up at him, clearly adoring. Until recently he hasn't been that interested in her, this time he really touched my heart.

Junior burying his head in my chest, looking for the boob but not quite sure any more where it was. Latching on to my arm for a few seconds, just to see if that was what he wanted. Nuzzling and occasionally looking up at me to see if I can help him out. Giving up and going  back to his bottle. Sucking at the bottle for a bit, then turning his head into my elbow, then going back to the bottle. Sleeping.

Junior at 10 months

At 10 months Junior continues to be a (mostly) very happy, very engaging, and very determined baby. If he doesn't want to be put down, he holds his body rigid so that you can't let him go. If, despite that, you manage to put him on the floor (usually by simply lying him down) he screams the house down until he's picked up again. And then, once held, he squirms madly, this way and that, wanting to go somewhere or look at something, but not yet able to direct your attention to precisely what he wants.

He loves his sister. He has been trying to follow her for a few months now, but until recently wasn't fully mobile. About two months ago he started to be able to move some distances by some combination of rotating on his stomach and sliding backwards. Then he added in an ability to push himself up to sitting, and collapse back down onto his stomach in the other direction. Then about 10 days ago he learnt to commando crawl. And then on Sunday night he just took off across the floor of Pob's bedroom, crawling perfectly, in order to go and investigate the electrical wires by the door. Now, he's lethal. He's decided that the shower is really really interesting, and since we have an open shower with no door, this means we can no longer safely just put him on the floor of the bathroom while we get ready in the morning as he simply climbs straight in with us, which results in a damp baby and less clean Mummy or Daddy.

He's also pulling himself up at every available opportunity, including in the bath and in his cot. But he hasn't figured out how to sit down again, so his howls of outrage are usually a signal for one of us to rush over/up/down to rescue him. Or for Pob to arrive with a toy which she'll use to distract him until one of us can complete the rescue. 

The day he turned 10 months old he started consistently waving and clapping. He'd been trying to do both for a while, with mixed results. But that morning he waved at H as soon as H arrived with the coffee, and then immediately clapped (presumably delighted at his own cleverness). Now he claps a lot, and has started to raise his arms above his head in a 'hooray!' gesture immediately afterwards, as if to make very sure we will be suitably congratulatory at his cleverness. I held him as he fell asleep a few nights ago, and as he dropped off, he did a double handed baby wave (the kind where they open and close their hands at you) as a partial gesture, then clapped very gently, once, before his hands and arms finally relaxed above his head. I guess this stuff takes practice.

He is much more interested in television than Pob was at this stage, and gets quite transfixed by tubbies or iggle piggle, or whoever Pob is watching in the morning - we have a routine of bringing the children into bed with us for their milk before the daily rush begins, and Pob usually demands entertainment at this point. Which is handy to keep her distracted as usually one of us is rushing to the shower and the other is trying to keep Junior from bugging her too much.

Because he loves her, as I said above, and just wants to be with her. So he'll crawl towards her and attempt to touch some part of her, pull her towards him, pull her hair, or give her a toothy/bitey kiss. Which she is sometimes patient and kind about, and sometimes frustrated and complaining. He also loves tiny babies, and will do the same with them, if allowed. At a picnic recently we left Junior and a very newborn together on the rug, although a few feet apart, for a minute while attending to the older children. When we looked round, there was a distinct wet patch on the baby's leg, and Junior was just leaning in again for another 'kiss'. I've tried to use this with H as a reason why we should use our frozen embryos in an attempt to have another baby, but he's not having any of it.

We did our last breast feed on Monday night. I've been gradually reducing, and I finally felt ready to quit. We had a good innings. I am so very glad I persevered, and now I'm ok with stopping. I am not devastated, it felt like it was time.

I love the whole process of his development, even as he moves away from being my snuggly, cuddly baby. He's an individual now, with a mind of his own and a strong personality. It makes life more complicated, but it stays just as rewarding. My lovely boy.

Losses big and small

Tomorrow I leave on my first business trip in about 9 months. Junior is 7 months old. I am still breastfeeding first thing in the morning, after his lunchtime nap, at bedtime, and through the night (more on that another time). I plan to give up the afternoon feed this week given that from the week after next I'll be back at work full time.

Dropping feeds has been hard, my boobs have felt pretty buzzy and I've had several leaks. While this makes me feel happy about my breastfeeding success, it is hard to be experiencing it just when I have to give up. I don't want to give up, but continuing to feed just isn't compatible with my work life. I am away tomorrow night and won't be home until after bedtime on Tuesday. I am supposed to be away again on Thursday night. And in mid-March I will be away for a full week - leaving Sunday, coming back Saturday morning (going to Toronto, anyone want to meet up? Aurelia?). While I can pump through a 36-hour absence, I'm not sure I can do so through a week - won't he simply forget how to feed in that time?

I am not ready to stop breastfeeding, and I really wish I wasn't going back to work so that I could keep going that bit longer. When he settles in for a feed, particularly the afternoon one where he's a little bit sleepy from his nap, I feel like I can really do this magical, but utterly basic, thing I've always dreamed of.

That March trip is just over 4 weeks away, so I'm not deciding today what to do then. What I do have to do is deal with my sadness at leaving him at all. Although I've left him for an evening, I haven't left for longer than a few hours, and it feels very sad that for two nights in a row he won't have me there at bedtime. Or that I won't have him. Or both. There all the niggly issues associated with being away. I had to buy a portable pump and it turns out Medela has changed its attachments for this new pump so my existing kit doesn't fit it. I need to dig around to find my passport, my adaptors, portable hair dryer, etc.. I don't know if I'll be able to get the hotel to freeze my icepacks, or if Zurich airport will let me transport the milk I pump. It's all irritating, all that little bit stressful. Not to mention that I actually have to turn my brain on to a different channel and start to engage with my colleague again. We will see how I cope. But mostly I'm not stressed about all of that, I'm just sad about leaving my baby for the first, and very definitely not the last time.

High on the list of things I wish I'd known earlier...

I am still pumping. I only pump now after dinner, and for most of the last two months that's meant pumping every hour on the hour for 4 hours, for 15-20 minutes at a time. Its not awful but somewhat limiting and I know H is a bit sick of seeing my boobs get pummelled all evening. By pumping this long each evening I was able to get about 150mls or so (5oz) which saw me through most of the supplementing I was still doing, but meant that I didn't have enough for a full bottle for the feeds I was skipping when I started doing work stuff.

Then one evening over the Christmas break I had a bath before dinner. And I went downstairs and pumped, and the milk came pouring out, close to 150mls just in one 20 minute pump. I thought it was a fluke, and so didn't repeat the experiment. Until one day last week, when I was so cold that H suggested warming up the bean-filled hot bags we have to warm me up. Because I was about to pump I stuck them on my boobs. And the milk came pouring out again.

Since then, I put the hot bags on every time I pump. I'm pumping twice an evening, for 15 minutes each time, and getting between 200 and 250mls between those two sessions. It's a lot less invasive of our evenings, and it's enough to feel like I can give him a good chunk of breastmilk even when I drop more feeds when I go back to work full time at the end of the month. But it's an incredibly frustrating discovery. While it's still true that I don't have an abundant supply, to see this amount of milk coming out makes me wonder what I could have achieved if I'd been using this trick all along.

I had a couple of months where I was pumping after every feed, yet only getting an oz at a time because Junior had got good at hoovering it up, while still taking a reasonable amount in the SNS. If I'd known about the heat trick how much difference might that have made? I could have perhaps avoided the month of needing to use formula in the evenings during his sixth month. And if I'd used hot pads on the boobs while feeding, would that have made a difference?

So, good news, but frustrating news. I offer it here for those who come after.

If you are suffering from low supply, and/or if you are pumping breast milk for whatever reason, try the hot pads. It's not just hearsay, for me it worked wonders.

Not the birthday post I intended

Babies don't care, do they? They don't care if you are vomiting copiously from food poisoning, or knackered because your toddler has molars coming in, or if it's 4am and not a good time for a baby to do a projectile poo that necessitates an entire clothing change. And they certainly are no respecters of Mummy's birthday. Come sun or showers or the two inches of snow we had this morning (yes I know for most of the Northern Americas this is not at all unusual but in the UK it means EVERYTHING STOPS as two of my good friends have described in the last couple of weeks of our 'big freeze') they want to be fed, and entertained. And to sleep occasionally (although not my baby).

I was planning a year in review kind of post but that will have to wait as the last 3 days I have been laid low by a nasty bout of food poisoning so I'm not up to the full introspection required. Luckily it doesn't seem to have affected breast milk supply and indeed I've had some super evening pumping sessions so who knows what my body thought was going on.

So to today. Junior did shoot me a little free pass and slept from his 'dream feed' til 4 am this morning which was nice, and then he just wanted the above mentioned full body clean (not that he wanted it, but it was required), and a quick feed. After that he wanted to hang out and chat but I'm not really up for that at that time of the morning so he went back in his cot and chatted to himself for 30 minutes before eventually crashing out again and sleeping til 730. Not a bad night as our nights go.

Pob arrived in our bedroom at 730, handed me a card and then demanded presents. She was ok that they were for me, but wanted to open them herself. She is delighted with the fresh snow and could hardly wait to put on her snow gear and get out there.

I seem to be better enough to contemplate going out to dinner tonight as planned with H. I don't know where we're going but H says they are definitely open tonight and I'm looking forward to a bit of time together. It's been too long.

It's not a bad day so far.

Since you asked

Both our digital SLR camera and our video camera, and a fancy pants zoom lens that was attached to the former, got stolen at the end of November, so we are missing photos for most of November (stolen with the cameras) and December (while we figured out the insurance and what camera to buy). But here are a couple from a professional photographer who was at a party I took the children to back on 31 October.

  

Junior's first six months, mostly about feeding

Junior is possibly the happiest, smiliest baby you have ever met. That is when he's not whining because he's TIRED because he WON'T SLEEP. But honestly, seriously, everyone who meets him comments on just how adorable he is. And he's a lot less whiny when he's being held or entertained or allowed to be on the boob as much as he likes.

Yes, he likes the boob a lot. To the extent that until about three weeks ago he refused bottles entirely. Luckily a bit of perseverance helped with this, and he will now take a bottle, particularly if the person offering it is not me. He won't take any more than he wants to eat, though. Just a soupcon more, and he starts to chew the nipple and do whatever it takes to get it out of his mouth. Which is not what he does with a real boob. With that he just keeps on sucking and sucking until he is in a full-on slumber.

Once he is asleep I used to be able to gently remove the boob (a delicate manouevre - a little too early and he'd whine and wag his head around, opening and closing his mouth in his sleep like a tiny pterodactyl) and move him to his moses basket for a proper nap - all of 45 minutes or so on average, although a few times before Christmas he did two hours whereupon I thought he was dead. But increasingly now if I move him he wakes up and refuses to go back down again unless the magic boob is produced. And the magic boob is going back to work in about 4 weeks, so things are going to have to change. Which as far as I can see means a repeat of the miserable month I had in October where I stayed in the house for a month trying to get him to go down for naps and stay down. It worked to an extent but not completely, and in the meantime it was bloody miserable (lots of holding him while he screamed blue murder) so its filling me with not much joy to contemplate doing it again. 

But, you say, he loves the boob. What happened with feeding then? Well, what happened with feeding (can't quite believe I've written so little about this since the early trauma days; guess it's been a dry spell for writing in general) is that we managed to get it to work, supplementing at most feeds with a homemade SNS (so so so much better than the soul-destroying Medela one I tried with Pob). By about week 5 of his life I was pumping enough breastmilk not only to deal with the supplementing needs but also to freeze 100mls or so a day. By the end of month 4 I could no longer freeze any, and by the end of month 5 I was out of my freezer stash - not because he was taking so much more in the SNS, in fact he was settling at - and growing like a weed at - an average of 40mls extra per feed, much much less than Pob used to get as supplement. But because I dropped pumps quite rapidly once I started getting only 20-40mls at most post-feed pumps, and so that we could all get out of the house more. I think he got really good at getting everything out of the boob, and I think I stopped being so good at letting down for the pump. I only managed to get as much pumped milk out as I did by pumping all evening once he was in bed. In fact I'm sitting here now with my pumping apparatus strapped to my boobs, waiting to turn the pump on one last time before bed. 

And not only was I able to do almost all of his first 6 months entirely on breastmilk, I also was able to drop the supplementing for some feeds - both those when I had more milk and when we were out, so that it was possible to have a life again. Sure he'd want to feed again a bit sooner than ideal - every 2 hours or so - but it meant we were/are portable and I could take him along to playdates with Pob and just stick him on the boob when he got ratty, which was great. My final triumph of being the breastfeeder I always wanted to be was going up to Northumberland the week after Christmas (as far north as you can get and still be in England rather than Scotland) and being able to walk into the motorway service station and just stick him on the boob without worrying about it. I felt like I was finally doing things 'properly,' finally a member of that club I was so desperate to join. 

We started Junior on solids this last week, and after an indifferent start he has taken so them well, and so far has lapped up apple, pear, butternut squash, carrot, and baby rice.

Just as we get breastfeeding working, I need to cut back so that thing work when I go back to work. I'm not ready to stop so I'm resisting dropping feeds, and it's not as easy to drop feeds as it was with Pob as I'm feeing less to a schedule and more to what works with what we are doing that day. So far, I haven't dropped any, but it's coming and it makes me sad. Such is my ambivalence that I haven't cut back on the domperidone at all, which I could presumably do a bit of without affecting supply much (and I have a huge domperidone stock so if anyone needs it - it is like magic for improving breastmilk production and it's all very safe for breastfeeding - please email me and you can have a full supply of the drug for about 3 months for free (plus postage)). It would be good to cut back on the dom as I reckon it's one of the things keeping my weight up as it keeps me hungry, but this is the last time I will ever breastfeed a baby and I want to make the most of it. I'm wondering to what extent I could keep feeding once I'm back at work. I stopped completely with Pob before going back to work but that was because I wasn't ovulating and we wanted to try to get pregnant again, not an issue this time. 

I am so very torn and conflicted about going back to work. But that's another post.

And the non-feeding aspects of Junior? Well, as outlined above, he is gorgeous. He is very very smiley and interactive. He's been rolling from back to front for about a month, and just started to sit independently. He has learnt to shake his head and thinks it's very funny. He's trying to imitate clapping and waving, but really cant do it at all yet. It's fun to watch his hands start to make the movement, though, and then he just gets stuck and you can practically see the gears turning in his head, trying to figure out what to do next. He loves to have his legs squeezed and any kind of tickling elicits delicious belly laughs.

He is saying 'mamamma' but it's not directed at me, it's more his unhappy, feed-me noise. He loves Pob to distraction and spends most of his time trying to get her attention, or at least admiring her from afar. She is quite interested in him sometimes, but guards her space and her time with each parent, and Granny, quite effectively. He doesn't complain. He has developed an ear-splitting screech for when he thinks he has been ignored too long, though. He loves his bouncer, not so keen on his playmat. He seems keen to get going but is definitely behind where Pob was on the motor skills- she was on her hands and knees, rocking at his point, and he's not able to get up on his knees yet, perhaps because he is so much bigger. He weighs over 20lbs (9.25 kilos) and is in the 91st centile for both height and weight so there's a lot of him. 

I adore him in a way I was not prepared for. It's just as intense as that first-child love, but without some of the anxious energy perhaps. He lights up the room, and even at 3 am I can't bring myself to be frustrated with him for long. My lovely boy.

With apologies, I know this is rambly but I've got terrible writers block and had to get something out there to try to get over it.

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.

So. Napping bootcamp then.

You asked what napping bootcamp entails? Well, it first entailed getting in a sleep nanny who was recommended by a colleague. She came in to do one nap with us, but stayed for two given that Junior simply refused to nap for the whole duration of the first one. She gave us various hints tips and tricks to try to get him down, most of which you've heard before, including darkening the room, swaddling him, having a regular schedule, offering a dummy as a nap cue but taking it away before he is completely asleep, picking him up if he gets distressed, patting until he's calm, then putting him down again, etc. She asked us to make sure that almost all his naps for the next week would be at home in a darkened room, and to make an exception only for the late afternoon nap if we had to.

Being me, we've adhered to the plan almost in every detail in an attempt to give it a good try. The only area where I've been a bit lax is in sticking precisely to time. Sometimes I'll go 15 minutes later if he's finally asleep rather than waking him. But other than that we've been very good. And the results have been...mixed. I thought we'd cracked it when on Monday it took only 15 minutes to get him down for his morning nap, and he went down with no fuss at all, just a little grumbling, for the lunchtime nap. But then Tuesday every nap took at least 25 minutes to kick in, and the breakfast one was really screamy as well. Yesterday the morning and lunchtime naps only took 10 minutes each, and the only crying was when I first put him down, he immediately calmed down when I put my hand on him and then just grumbled and then lay quietly while he waited for sleep. But yesterday afternoon he only slept for 10 minutes of the hour's nap time, and this morning took 20 minutes again, although not much of it was crying.

So I dunno. It's been a long week, and unlike the previous not-very-successful napping strategy of putting him in his pram and walking, I've barely left the house. I'm going to give it another 3 days or so and then start to try him in his pram as well as in his room as I'm not prepared to be housebound for the next three months. I like to think this will work eventually but so far I'm not totally convinced.

The thing with sleep

We are quite close, really, to being in good shape. If it wasn't for the family cold, that is. But that will pass. The main reason things are a bit chaotic, is that Junior doesn't nap. Or, more accurately, he doesn't nap unless

• He is in the mood
• He is the pram AND
• The pram is moving quite fast, preferably on slightly bumpy ground OR
• He is on the boob, where the boob will remain in his mouth for the entire nap period. Removing the boob leads to waking up, screamy baby

Note that rocking the pram to and from while, say, standing in a queue to buy a cup of coffee, or talking to someone, or sitting down in any way, is not adequate. Pram must be m.o.v.i.n.g Mummy. Moving such as to go from point A to point B, where points A and B are at least 10 metres apart. That fake moving is simply unacceptable. If he does wake, he usually will not go down again, and then I have him screaming all the way home. Which makes both him and me feel terrible, not to mention the odd looks I get from passers by.

The whole napping scenario makes getting anything done rather difficult, since I'm either feeding, walking him around, or snatching a minute or two with Pob. Everything else isn't happening. To whit the mess our basement is in, and the fact that I started weighing out ingredients for biscuits for Pob's birthday party 2 days ago but haven't got beyond flour and oats. It's a little frustrating. The two hour slot Pob used to give me in the middle of the day when she was this age was fantastic. I'd bung her in her pram with her dummy and start walking, and within 5 minutes she'd be out. I could meet friends for lunch, run errands, sit and read a book, and she'd reliably stay asleep for the whole 2 hour slot. Happy days.

The upside of this non-napping is that he does crash out in the evenings. He usually falls asleep sometime during the 5pm feed, I wake him to get him ready for bed and feed him again around 7pm. He's usually asleep by 1930 or so, and I can swaddle him and put him down and he usually stays down until just after midnight, then feeds and goes down again til about 5am. Which again is not as good as Pob was doing at this stage, but is also not bad.

So I'm trying to count my blessings, but it's still frustrating not to be able to get stuff done during the day, and not to be able to spend more time with Pob. I think napping bootcamp may be in order.

Leaving Junior behind

This morning we had an interview at a nursery school for Pob. They were completely inflexible about the time, which overlapped with a likely feeding time for Junior. So we decided the best option was to leave Junior with our nanny, expressed milk and a bottle, and to see how they got on.

The interview went well. Pob was quite charming which was a relief given she had been very screamy all morning. She played and chatted and asked for a biscuit when the children were having their snack. She asked about the fish and told the director that her torch wasn't working so it needed new batteries. I think we passed. Whether or not we get a place is another matter as they only have 12 spots. But we did our best, and if we don't get a spot there there is a lovely nursery a bit closer which has us top of their wait list, so I think we'll be fine.

Meanwhile, since the director had kept us waiting 30 minutes, Junior was starving so the nanny had no choice but to try him with the bottle. She said he kept grizzling and refusing at first, but eventually realised it wasn't so bad, and took about 100mls (3 oz and a bit).

It's a relief to know he will take a bottle, but I have to confess to also feeling a bit sad. I know this is not a rejection of me, but it's also only the second feed he's had without me since he was born (the first was one overnight feed when he had jaundice in the hospital and was fed in the nursery while I was pumping). It's a step away from the close - perhaps too exclusive? - relationship that we've had.

Anyway, I've now pumped 180mls so I guess the boobs were ready to feed him. I will focus on knowing it's good to know that we have the flexibility of the bottle if we need it.

Breastfeeding redux

Well, I've been somewhat avoiding this post as things are not fantastic, but not awful, and they also change daily and I wanted a sense of where we're heading before I wrote about it. But since feeding and the faffing around feeding are what takes up about 14 hours or more of my day, it seems odd to be avoiding writing about it.

So. Breast feeding. Where to begin.

In a nutshell, since about the end of week 2, Junior has been solely on breastmilk, in contrast to my experience with Pob. He is gaining weight like a champion and was just under 6 kilos (13lbs) when I weighed him this weekend. Unfortunately around 320mls (approx 10oz) or so of this breastmilk comes in the form of supplement. Currently we are still using the SNS to do this, partly because I've got in the habit of it, partly because the one time I got really fed up and tried a bottle, about a week ago, he wouldn't take it. I tried to taper off the SNS using the instructions at Kellymom, but it didn't work, there are just some feeds where he really needs a supplement, particularly in the early evening.

There are several current challenges with our feeding process:

1. He has started to notice the SNS and to spit it out if it offends him, even if he is hungry and the boobs are clearly not giving much, as at the 5pm feed.
2. He isn't clear when he's sucking for comfort and when he is genuinely hungry. When he is sucking for comfort he doesn't like the extra flow of milk from the SNS and so he wriggles to spit it out again.
3. He is a terrible sleeper, particularly during the day, finding it very hard to settle himself to sleep even when he's clearly knackered. One thing that usually works is sucking himself to sleep on the boob. Sadly a dummy is not a good substitute for the boob and he spits it out instantly. So I am tempted, particularly in the early evening, to leave him on the boob so that he will fall asleep. Then there is the issue of whether or not to add the SNS to get a bit more milk in in the hope he will sleep longer.
4. Since I can't always tell which of the above situations is true, some feeds can feel a bit like fights with me trying to get the extra milk into him, and him spitting out the tube. If he stops fussing when it's out then I know he's just trying to suck himself to sleep and mostly I let it go. If he fusses when it's out I assume he is still hungry and keep persevering with the tube, although sometimes what this means is that he's got a huge burp coming. He's not easy to burp and it's often accompanied by vomiting, so this can get a bit messy.
5. At the end of most feeds I pump, so that adds time onto the end and also makes me less relaxed about how long he feeds for as if I want to do anything between feeds, or want him to nap, I need to get on with it as he is still feeding every 3 hours or so during the day.

Most days this is ok, but I am starting to feel very housebound as the whole process is really too hard to do outside the house unless it's a matter of life and death. I also resent how much time it takes away from Pob. I rarely feed him in the same room as her since it's just too tempting for her to grab at the syringe, play with the bottle of milk I'm using, etc.. So it all feels a bit limiting.

Yet I find it impossible to stop.

There must be a halfway house where I pump less and therefore he gets probably some formula (although I have about 3 litres of breastmilk frozen right now so that wouldn't happen immediately). There is an option where I persevere with bottles to remove the faffing associated with the SNS. There is an option where I start skipping the breast feed completely at some feeds so as to be able to get out of the house more. None of them seem ideal, but at the same time I know if I get to the end of my maternity leave and haven't spent any quality time with Pob I will be very frustrated with myself. On the other hand, recent evidence says there are fewer problems with allergies if babies are breast fed through the introduction of solid food, which won't happen til 6 months.

He's 10 weeks old this Thursday. Currently I want to get him through the first two rounds of innoculations - one this week and one in four weeks time - and then start to tail off a bit. In the meantime I'm going to try to get him to take the occasional bottle so that I have a bit more flexibility. I wish this was easier for us. I wish my boobs worked properly. But they don't and so Junior and I will have to work out a compromise that works for both of us.

For Aurelia in particular, I'm fairly sure reflux is not the issue. I think he is a somewhat refluxy baby, but we treated it with Gaviscon for a few weeks and it didn't make any difference to his feeding pattern.

Tired and emotional

Things are ok. My supply is at about the same level as it was with Pob, so so much for making sure baby has unfettered access to the boob for the first few weeks - Junior was on the boob constantly and it's made no difference. The homemade SNS is working ok, a bit of a faff but nothing like the torture of the Medela one we tried last time. I feel that sense of loss of the breastfeeding relationship I wanted, and being able to feed the baby completely and easily, but I also want to do what I can to give him breastmilk for now. What it takes for me to do that is SNS, and pumping, and long feeds, etc., so that's what I'm doing.

It means I am sleep-deprived in a way I don't remember being with Pob. Feeds are taking between 1.5 and 2 hours including pumping, and he wants to eat every three hours during the day, four at night. I think the not remembering is partly that Pob did sleep longer between feeds, and I'm very conscious this time of not letting him go too long, but also partly that you forget just how unrewarding and hard those first few weeks of a baby's life are. They just want to eat constantly, their digestive system gives them a hard time, and they don't seem to have any reaction to you other than to scream for what they want. I remember how much easier it got to do what needed doing when Pob started smiling at me, so I'm hanging in for that moment.

We haven't yet decided about the circumcision. I'm loathe to do anything to upset him while the feeding is so hard, but realise we havent dealt with the halachic issues in any way. Another post to come on that.

Other than feeding pains and having a hard time with his digestive system, Junior is a really sweet baby. He's very pretty, and very very alert when he's in a good mood after a feed. He seems to be trying really hard to roll over which I sincerely hope he doesn't do for a while.

Pob is being amazingly sweet with him, lots of hugs and kisses and wanting to tell him about her day ("Baby Junior! Pob puddles boots jumping!"). She did however bite me one day last week while we were playing with her Play-dough.

Thalia: Ow, darling, please don't bite mummy
Pob: Mummy
Thalia: Do you know why you bit mummy
Pob: (points to my hand)
Thalia: Not where you bit me darling, but why? Are you feeling a bit upset?
Pob: Ok
Thalia: Or a bit sad
Pob: Ok
Thalia: Do you know why you feel upset or sad?
Pob: Junior, junior

So I dunno what level of comprehension that indicates, but I think it is hard for her. She's also had a stinking cold for a few days, and so has been more whiny than usual, plus I'm desparately trying to prevent Junior from catching it which has probably made me a bit tense. But really, she is doing incredibly well and we couldn't have asked for a better, sweeter reaction to her brother than this.

All in all, we are doing fine. Tired and a bit emotional, but fine.

Again

Well, there are multiple breastfeeding posts I could have written if I'd had time in the last few days. The worried early post because although Junior was sucking really well, he was sucking constantly so presumably was hungry. The joyful post last Sunday morning when I had buzzy, lumpy breasts and could see that colostrum was changing into milk - I never had this clear a transition with Pob and didn't have as much. The starting to get worried post when his suck seemed to deteriorate. And the close to throwing in the towel post I feel like writing this morning.

Having started off as a great little nurser, on Sunday he started sucking less well. I could see his latch was poor and my nipples were already shredded, but whatever I did I couldn't get him to take a decent mouthful of boob. On Monday I said to H I wanted to start pumping when we got home as I was concerned his suck was no longer powerful enough to increase my supply. Then he got jaundice, which eventually required 18 hours under lights overnight on Tuesday, and bottles had to be used so they could measure the volume he was getting. I was able to pump all he needed bar 10mls, which I felt pretty good about. They weighed him and he'd lost weight to day 3 as normal, but had stayed flat after that so I thought that was a good sign things were turning a corner.

They sprung us from the hospital on Weds lunchtime, and I thought he was doing ok, but I was concerned enough to get a lactation consultant in on Thursday evening. By then he was having a top up after every feed, but only about 20-45 mls, and all expressed milk so not too bad. I was depressed to be pumping again but thought we should be able to fix this quickly as i seemed to have enough milk, he just wasn't getting it out of the boob well.

The lactation consultant was great - the first really well informed one I've seen. She told me to start the domperidone as I didn't have enough flow to keep Junior interested on the boob - there was very litttle 'productive sucking' when he was on the boob, and none at all if I wasn't doing breast compressions. So I started. She also suggested to start using an SNS rather than bottles as he was clearly developing a preference. So I struggled through thursday night trying to use the bloody SNS, which he kept spitting out, or milk would spill out of his mouth. By the end of the night I was using it to finger feed at least some of the supplement. Latching was still crap, and involved lots of screaming and pulling off constantly. That's continued through the last 24 hours, and last night the 2 feeds involved up to 90 mls of supplementing, meaning that for this morning's feed I had to finally supplement with formula as I was out of breastmilk.

And I weighed him and although it's the first time on our home scales and I know consistency in measurement is important here, he's lost weight since he was weighed on day 5.

The difference from last time is that Pob was refusing 1 breast completely at this stage - he's close to that but not there yet - and that she was having a lot more formula. Although by the end of week 2 I could mostly keep up with her so that's not far off where we are now.

I am angry and sad and not sure what to do. Because I'm trying to ensure he's fed very regularly - that was one of my many mistakes with Pob - and because the whole feeding process is taking about 2 hours by the time he's latched on and off lots of times, fallen asleep on the boob, had his nappy changed twice, I've pumped and finger fed until he's happy to settle etc., I have pretty much no time in between feeds to do anything, and I'm only getting about 3-4 hours of sleep. Which means very little time with Pob, which I hate.

Until some time last night I had the sense that this could really work if I tried hard enough. I thought I had more milk than I did this time last time, and he had started off being such a good feeder. I'm sure it's theoretically possible to make this work, andI remember last time by about 4 months how happy I was that I'd persevered with breastfeeding, but I'm not sure it's worth trying that hard. I cannot do what I did with Pob, it's not fair to her. So I dunno. It's all a bit crap really.