babyproofing

wow, i guess it really has been a while since i’ve been here – wordpress changed everything around while i was gone.  let that be a lesson to me.

i have tons of posts in drafts and in my head and on scraps of paper, but the thought of getting them out is just too overwhelming.  hopefully i can make it back to them.  but in the meantime, things have been pretty good.

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so the other day a few weeks ago holy crap, almost two months ago, i had an appointment with the gynecologist to get back on birth control.

can we just let that sink in for a few seconds and appreciate the irony of it: the infertile chick is back on birth control.

calm in the storm

my sweet boy

it’s been a rough couple of day’s in the pignut household: baby with head cold + still teething + not always pooping when he wants to = pissed off kid who doesn’t want to nap for more than 20 minutes + insists on being held whenever he’s awake.

and poor Ralph is dealing with it all. day. long.

last night i was trying to get him to go down for bed, rocking him and feeding him in his nursery.  and he was having done of it, and making sure i was aware of his displeasure.  none of the usual tricks for calming him down were working, and it was clear that he was sooooo tired that he would instantly pass out if he would just stop screaming for more than a minute.

i had sent Ralph an SOS text asking him to come take over if he was still screaming in ten minutes.  i could feel my patience running out, and started singing a lullaby i learned as a kid at 4H camp – more to keep myself calm than thinking it would have any impact.

but it did.

a few words into the song, he just stopped screaming like nothing had been wrong, and stared straight in my eyes.  and he sat there, staring right at me, with a slight smirk on his face and let me sing to him for a good seven or eight minutes.

i sat there singing and telling myself this is one of those moments i would want to always remember.  it was so wonderful.

…until he started screaming again 🙂

i think it’s finally real

i was surprised when pignut was born that it just didn’t feel real.  i kept waiting for that moment when it would all sink in , and i would stop waiting for someone to show up and take him back.

i thought it would be the first time i held him. but it still felt link a dream.

maybe when we came home for the first time?  no, still weird.

the first smile? nope.

it was today, when i emailed the ivf nurse coordinator with the details of his birth so they can include it in their statistics they report.

i think it may have finally sunk in.

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back to work

so we all survived our first week of paternity leave/working mom!  only minor tears!  it went really well, better than i expected, although i was pretty optimistic.

i had an easy transition back into teaching: we had our big scary state mandated testing this week, so classes weren’t really being held.  i didn’t have to worry about lesson plans or grades for this week, and was just able to come back in and catch up on my co-taught classes and student progress.  it’s been really nice to see my kids again, although i’ve been joking with them that i expected them to have matured much more than they did while i was away 🙂

infertile with a lower case i

so i’m pretty sure that i have sung mel’s praises here before.  i found her and the community she created while we were going through testing, when i was feeling lost, overwhelmed, and completely alone.

every now and then she writes a post that, when i read it, fills me with deja vu.  it’s like she managed to explain something that i didn’t even know had been stuck in my head, and did it so much better than i could have.

i just need to get this off my chest

don’t mind me as i pull out my soapbox here and climb aboard.  there have been some comments made to me lately, and i anticipate more, that have been festering, and i really need to vent.

it’s jut a few short days until my maternity leave ends i go back to finish out the school year with my 19 children that i didn’t give birth too.  I have been very, very lucky to spend my son’s first 113 days with him, all day, every day.  we are even more lucky that Ralph will be home with him for the next ten weeks while the school year ends, before i am off for the summer.  pignut will be nine (!!!) months old before he begins in daycare, which i think is remarkable considering that we don’t have any family locally helping with childcare.  i just want to get that all clear lest someone thinks that i don’t appreciate our situation.  ok then.

how we’re doing

sorry for the lack of substantial posts.  this parenting gig is hard work, yo.  and i have been working really, really hard on a series of posts (coming in just two days!) to bug you with share with you for national infertility awareness week.

in the meantime, i feel like we are finally slowly emerging from survival mode.  naps are kind of improving.  pignut is possibly deciding he doesn’t need to eat every other hour all day long.  i won’t go as far as to say that we have a schedule yet, but we’re getting there i think.  i am managing to get clothes and bottles cleaned on a regular basis.  there’s been a few nights every now and then that we have had an actual dinner.  we’re finally getting the hang of this stuff.

what a difference a year makes

infertility sucks, and IVF wasn’t a walk in the park either. but I do love that going through it makes me able to tell my little guy that I have loved him from the first moment I saw him…

love at first sight: april 18, 2012

when he was just a ball of eight cells, a year ago today.

pignut’s big sister

have you signed up for resolve’s advocacy day yet?  what are you waiting for?  all the cool kids will be there!

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one of the hardest transitions when Pignut was born was with our dog, Agatha.  we adopted her from a local rescue group just over two years ago.  it was actually the same weekend we bought our house.  we stopped by a local adoption event to talk to the people from the agency about their requirements and adoption procedures.  and then we saw our puppy girl, and it was love at first sight.