Unwellness

the photo shoot

This week we went to a photo shoot for an unpaid gig, a shot at getting into the gift guide of a magazine near and dear to us. It didn't go that well.

I need to process this. I didn't enjoy it. It felt like I was doing something wrong, like I wasn't good enough, like my kid was doing something wrong just by being 9 months old and crawling away constantly. It feels like middle school felt in my stomach.

The biggest problem was that no one told us what shot we were going for (which turned out to be crawling away and looking back over the shoulder - good luck with that) until the whole thing was over. And that info was uttered in the same breath with, "Well, this is why we double cast everything." Which made me feel like there was no way my kid was going to be the one to make it into the magazine.

This shot shows what it was like - me trying to slip fruit into his mouth to keep him happy, him crawling away, me breaking out into my mysterious (stress-induced?) chest rash.

This shows how Beck felt about the whole thing. He enjoyed the part where 2 or 3 young pretty women were dressing him all at once. He did not dig the sitting still bit.

But really, I swear I am not a stagemother.

Wes took this after the shoot when Beck was happily eating fruit on the couch. Oy.

while we're on the topic of the bad place

It seems as good a time as any to publish my February 29 Loss piece. This was a day decreed by our Cali to be a day to blog about our losses. I didn't get around to it for weeks after that. And then I sat on it for a while. But now it's up if you want to read about how it feels for me even 21 months after the fact. I know lots of people who never felt this way about a miscarriage. This is just my own grudge-holding heart. I never let go.

And here's the (strange) video of the song I mention in the post, Gabriel by Lamb.

from a previous inhabitant of the infertilsphere

I just read a post through NaComLeavMo, a commenting extravaganza month. One is meant to leave at least 6 comments a day and to visit blogs one might not normally read via the NaComLeavMo list. Most of these are infertiles or ex-infertiles so I am coming across a whole lot of people in the bad place. Or the hopeful place. Or the waiting place.

Normally when I think about the bad place, I just think about the people from my list whom I know in real life, the IVP members I have seen and hugged and stuff. Those are the people who cross my mind each and every day. These people know where I am in my life and are therefore easily able to avoid reading my blog if they don't feel like viewing the baby stuff.

But this comment month means that there will be other people who come across this blog and aren't in a place where they want to read about my baby joy fest. And that makes me feel weird and sorry.

There is a lot of survivor's guilt. I have written a little about it before, how I often have the experience of utter joy and contentment and then a wave of sadness and worry about my friends in the trenches. That doesn't even begin to explain it. I hate how it sounds, like I just shake my head at the poor, sad people who are less fortunate than I, and then go back to my glee.

But here I am. Feel free to keep moving if this isn't something you need to read. I would never have read me when I was in the midst of it all. I ignored the blogs of my 'due date buddies' even if I had counted them as part of my tight crowd before that. I didn't read any preggo or mom blogs when I was trying. I was bitter and grudge-holding.

And I was a nightmare pregnant person and new mom, at least from the standpoint of the infertilsphere. I complained. I whined. I detailed all the bad parts and didn't appreciate much.

But now it has started to get good. Really, really good.
I won't be mad if you don't comment.
Seriously.

Click the About on the sidebar for my story. It took a year and a half and Clomid and triggers and boosters and miscarriage. And those things still hurt. Especially the last. But it got good.

I hope it gets good for you very soon. Whatever that may mean in your particular circumstance.

more cheesy dreams fulfilled

Dad videoed my every move and edited it into a music video of my first two years. I always wanted to repeat this with my own child and I have had the music picked out for years now. My dad used Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely." It still makes me cry.

Talking Heads, "Stay Up Late" is the choice for Beck's first six months of life. And it makes me cry a bit. Not because I wish I could have that tiny baby back but because it went really fast and that makes me realize that it all will.

technical assistance

I made this gorgeous video of Beck's first half year of life but when I load it on to youtube, the video quality is splotchy and lame. And that just won't do.

What to do? What format is best? I did an MPEG-4 and resolution of 640x480. That should have worked, no? Other frequent youtubers have an idea? Bonus points if you are imovie users who can give me explicit directions.

he will be awake soon but i haven't slept yet

I went to a movie and it was sold out so I waited and went to the next one. Which is why it is 1 am and I just got home and needed to finish my NaComLeavMo commenting (see sidebar). I am so tired my jaw aches. It was fun to go to a movie but the plot of the new Indy Jones is downright bizarre. Today Beck broke the B key on the laptop. B as in Bri and Beck. Yes. This entry reads like a 3rd grade journal entry. Because it is 1am and I haven't seen more than 4 hours of sleep in a row in 10 months. Yes. I count that last month of pregnancy because it s-u-c-ked for sleep. I ran into a co-worker outside the movies and she introduced me to her friend as someone who will be back next year. And I felt all panicky inside. Tomorrow's goals include vacuuming, making a video out of all the footage we shot so far of Beck, and having some picnic park time.

secret vomitrociousness

Don't read this if you're in the bad place.

But I know why people have kids now.

In the first few months of Beck's life, I did question it a bit. I sat with a fellow ex-infertile and said, "You know, I think I could have had a perfectly happy life without children. I just didn't know it."

I still know that I could have. But I also understand why people like this parent thing so much.

Because at least once a day, often more, there are these moments. They are like movies. They are like fricking perfect baby moments out of a mothereffing movie. And you feel like your heart is going to burst into a gazillion pieces because it is just. so. good.

-Playing 'tent' under the covers with Beck in the early morning and he grins and looks amazed. And he is warm and soft and perfect. And truly wondrous to me just because he exists.
-He sees me and grabs my face and kisses me with a big open mouthed grin.
-I feed him something he loves and he makes an ecstatic piggy face that looks just like my sister. And he dances a little.
-He falls asleep with his arm wrapped around me and with total trust in my arms around him.

It is unreal, all this. Cinematic. Awesome.

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PS - question answering from two posts ago - he eats lots and lots and lots andlotsandlotsandlots of real people food. he still nurses like mad, too. he is a hungry, hungry boy. honestly, though, i did try to pay attention today and maybe it's not as frequent as i thought. if he won't go down easily for nap it sometimes gets really extended or takes 2 or 3 tries and that feels like a lot, maybe. and he often wants a tiny nip of comfort when he wakes up from a nap. but not always. so i don't know.
i have about 5 bags of frozen breastmilk, complicatedmama, and that's what i am using to experiment. i am starting to consider the pumping once a day thing, at least at first when i return to work, but i reserve the right to change my mind. as melissa said, i may have to in order to avoid mastitis at first, anyway.
the yogurt thing is weird. the doctor said that if he had a dairy allergy he would react when I ate dairy. which he does not. so he thinks it is just a yogurt problem and that he will grow out of it and we should try again in 3 months. we will try cheese soon and see if he's right.
this week he had tomatoes for the first time. LOVED them. loves all fruit. loves tofu and asparagus and zucchini. loves lentil & rice babyfood and summer veggies babyfood and that's it for mush. takes 30-45 minutes to eat a meal. eats and eats and eats. and eats.

praise me

We went on a DATE.

The idea was brought up and we were out the door before I could overthink.

Now that we are CIO'ing and he is sleeping so well, there wasn't much to worry about. Even if we were home and he woke up, we wouldn't go in. But he rarely wakes up. He didn't wake up.

Though he is currently grunting/moaning in there. We are hoping that stops soon.

Thank you, in-laws. For our first dinner out alone together since early August.

And yay me for finally doing it.

random

Thank you, as always, Internets. I have decided to ignore my kid's doctor, as usual. I think any attempts to resist nursing at naptime are going to be futile for the moment unless Beck himself decides otherwise. We are just getting into a really good napping groove, including CRIB NAPS for the first time, and I am not willing to mess with that. So I will see if Wes can discover some new nap methods on weekends and I will try not to worry about the future. MIL will discover her own ways to soothe him to sleep. There will be a hard transition period, I am sure, and some napless days. But we will work it out.

He is already using a sippy cup with some success. So we will keep working on that. Today I did breastmilk in the cup and he enjoyed that quite a bit. Also enjoyable: the gnawing on the spout of the sippy cup. It seems cosmically unfair that we just made it through FOUR teeth arriving at the same time only to apparently be starting the next two on the bottom (he has two down there, but I suspect he is starting to cut the side ones because he is bitey again).

But is there anyone out there who nursed their babies to sleep for naps and then... stopped? Are we looking at Nap CIO? Thoughts? Methods?

I have a deep, deep annoyance coursing through me caused by the young David of Idol. There is only so much wholesome I can stomach. Seriously, he makes me feel a bit nauseated. I kind of want to smoosh his head. Or pinch him. Hard.

We have a lot going on right now. The backyard is torn up but there is a brand new fence and it is lovely. There is a lot to do still, though, and it feels sort of amorphous money-wise, like I have no idea how much it will end up costing us and there are other financial woes ahead of us. We are in the midst of big stuff with GMB and issues therein. And Wes is going away for a week next month, which is why I am going to Ohio to see Melissa. Wes and I are both tired and overextended and often a little cranky. And my in-laws arrive tomorrow for a visit. And I just found out my beloved internist is moving away. And I have a weird rash sort of thing on my chest, most likely from the places that Beck scratches me with his dirty little nails when he is nursing a gazillion times a day.

I just ate a boatload of cookies.

a bunch of baby questions

Today was Beck's nine month visit and I brought up the issue of me going back to work. I had been worried that Beck has a milk allergy because of his reaction to yogurt, but the doctor thinks it is just a yogurt issue, that we can retry at a year and that there's no reason to believe that he won't be able to eat cheese. Which is good, because no son of mine.... Seriously, that baby is MADE of cheese. I ate so much cheese when I was pregnant.

Anyway, the big issue is how to make him drink cow's milk (if there really is no allergy) at age one when I am not here all day. I don't plan to wean him as far as when I am with him but there will be 5 days a week from 7:30-4:30 that no boob will be available. The doctor asked how many times a day I was breastfeeding and I just said, "Ummmmmmm." A gazillion? About a gazillion, maybe?

"Oh, you are in big trouble," he said. "You have a long road ahead of you. Start today."

I honestly don't think I really understand what he wants me to do. I am pretty sure he said to make cereal with formula and feed him that in place of one feeding. There are many things wrong with this idea, so I am coming to you, Internets. How do I start working toward a schedule wherein the boy will accept milk in place of boob milk? Because as willing as I am to keep bf'ing him when I am back at work, I am not going to pump.

Here are the Beck specifics:
- He doesn't eat baby cereal as such. He turns down more than half of the mush we offer now and prefers chunks of things (which WE must feed to him, which is a whole other post asking for assistance in how to make him feed himself someday). So we can mix some formula (or breastmilk - I do have a few bags frozen but they won't last that long) into... chunks of oatmeal or tofu or something. But it won't really be a lot of liquid. Is that a problem? Is part of the issue water/liquid/thirst?

- I am supposed to... substitute a feeding. Huh? I don't keep track of feedings and I have no idea how often he nurses. Sometimes he just has a few nips and that's it. He nurses to sleep for his 2-3 naps. He usually nurses a little bit when he wakes up. And maybe 2 or 3 other times that are not related to sleep but are much shorter. What do I consider a feeding? Do I just try not to nurse for some of those little nip moments? Try to stop nursing when he wakes up? Try a snack instead? I suppose the first step might be tracking his nursing patterns and then figuring out how to make it a real schedule. Yes?

- The doctor said something about using formula now because it will be easier for Beck to digest cow's milk if he is used to some formula (just once a day). This seems odd. Did I misunderstand him? Does he maybe think I am trying to wean totally? Is it because I mentioned that I wasn't going to pump when I went back to work and the nutrients in formula are better than just solid food at this point, so if I am dropping nursing he needs to make it up somehow? Or is just odd advice? Is there any real reason to use formula? And, if so, does anyone have an organic formula they like? Wes read some of them add sugar. Hm.

And, on a related note, shall I change doctors? I have been considering it for a while. I don't hate my doctor but I barely get any time with him at all. Visits are super rapid and he doesn't ask all the questions that books say he should (nothing at all about development, though he saw us a bunch in the waiting room so he saw him cruising, so...) and doesn't take the time to be sure I understand stuff. On the plus side, he has a good manner with the baby and he is some sort of Head of Pediatrics at the hospital near me where Beck was born. So I sort of feel like he might be a good guy to be in with if something really bad happened. Because the reality is that I don't need much by way of hand-holding or checking-in - I already know the developmental milestones to watch for, I feed him as I want to anyway, etc. So it's really just that I know he SHOULD be asking more questions that makes me wonder. It's not actually something I NEED.

So... other working moms, especially if you went back after being a nursing machine - HOW do I do this? Where do I start? I have three months. Mother-in-law will be here midsummer for good so we can transition slowly. But I really need a PLAN.

PS - As much as I'd love to let you all believe we have THAT advanced of a child, I must clarify that he is not actually WALKING yet. Cruising and standing. No steps.