Happy Ending, Hopefully?

My best friend has been struggling with IF for 5 years now. While she managed to get pregnant every now and then, it always ended up in a miscarriage at around 5-7 weeks.

When I got pregnant last year with only two rounds of simple hormonal treatments, our relationship started to deteriorate slowly. It was hard for her to be around me, I get it.

In fall, she asked me not to ask her about her fertility treatments. She said the last thing she needed was compassion from the pregnant me if she had to face yet another miscarriage.

Since fall, we didn’t talk much. It was hard. All I wanted to talked about was my pregnancy and then Timothy – and I wanted to spare her these details.

I heard through the grape vine that she was doing IVF, but I saw her drinking alcohol in February, so it was clear she was not pregnant. (I found out later that she had two attempts; one yielded nothing, the other ended up in a pregnancy that ended just after 4 weeks).

Finally, yesterday I found out that she is 12 weeks pregnant! The third IVF seems to have been successful. After five unsuccessful pregnancies, one of which was ectopic; after innumerable rounds of insemination; after three rounds of IVF; after 5 years of pain – she’s at the end of the first trimester!

She never got beyond 7 weeks before, so we are all cautiously optimistic this time around. She had her NT scan and all looked fine. She saw – for the first time – the baby move its limbs on the ultrasound.

I shed a tear when I learned the news. My heart shrinks a little with fear – what will happen if it ends up again, but at a much later stage? But then I hope, with all my heart, that this is it. That this time she will have her long-awaited baby!

Who Would’ve Thought?

I haven’t left Timothy with his dad since April – and he pretty much refused the bottle back then. We haven’t tried since.

My MIL is visiting us this week and I left Timothy with her to have a lengthy dentist visit. I was so worried – Timothy was crying before I left, I suspected teething, and leaving him alone, and I wasn’t sure how he’ll eat…

I came home after 5 hours away. All was quiet and peaceful. He didn’t eat much, but – surprise! – turns out he can hold the bottle and eat on his own!

Who would’ve thought. We never even tried giving him the bottle…

Teething

Timothy indicated he’s hungry but when I gave him the boob, he dropped it after a few sucking motions and started to cry. I tried giving him the other boob (sometimes he shows preference to one over the other), I tried playing with him, shooshing him… he cried and cried and cried. Honestly, this was breaking my heart. After 30 minutes of crying at the top of his lungs, I tried to put him for a nap. He started sucking the soother and more crying ensued.

And I was about to leave him with my mil to go see the dentist.

He was obviously hungry but couldn’t eat; he was obviously tired but couldn’t sleep.

He was obviously teething.

Thankfully, I had a sample of teething drops which I gave him. Five minutes later he stopped crying and smiled hesitantly at me.

I waited a bit and gave him the boob. He fell asleep eating.

I left him with my mil and instructions re: teething drops. My heart is breaking.

No wonder he started waking up in the middle of the night, after sleeping thru the night for the past 4 months. Poor Timothy

Body Colours

My linea negra is definitely starting to fade. The lower part is already barely visible, although it’s still quite prominent above my navel.

And my nipples are getting pinker, they’re not as brown and leathery as they used to be any longer.

I am starting to recognize myself

In another news, yesterday I noticed that I have a very funny tan: the ends of my fingers are noticeably whiter than the backs of my hands due to my fingers being curled under the stroller bar at all times while outdoors. Quite weird-looking

What is my baby saying?

Pretty cool, I must say. It works.

Teething?

For the past few days, Timothy is not like himself. He fusses a lot, he often cries (I am really not used to him crying for no apparent reason!), his appetite went down noticeable (the only time he eats well is before bedtime – that can last for 30 minutes of active gulping!). He stretches out his arms, asking to be held (as well, quite unlike him… he likes his independence). He drools, chews his fists, and scratched his ears (he actually woke up with his right ear all covered in dried blood the other day – that’s how much he scratches). He often eats and then stops, crying. He doesn’t have fever and he poops and pees as usual.

I suspect teething.

I don’t feel like something major is wrong (after all, we just saw his ped last Wednesday). We shall wait and see. I hope it’s teething and the little tooth that bothers him erupts soon. I feel so sad when he cries and I can do nothing to soothe him

Cautious Optimism

This is the third night in a row we don’t eat. Sure, he still wakes up – but the repeated pacifier+stroking+whispering+covering works. Sure, I spend the same 10 minutes getting him back to sleep – but the hope is that once he realizes he doesn’t really need to eat, he will stop waking up. Just like he stopped waking up in the middle of his naps.

Cautiously optimistic here.

Superman

Timothy turned 4 months yesterday. He had his shots – took’em like a man. Like a superman.

Hear this: he is 4 months old and he weighs 8.22 kilo (that’s 18.1 pounds). My pediatrician said: this is almost impossible!

No wonder he is wearing 6-9 and even 9-12 mos clothes.

My precious giant.

Nap Success

A couple of weeks ago a sleep specialist came to talk to my moms group. The most important takeaway: a 2-month-old doesn’t need to be fed at night. I mean, it’s not necessary for their survival. Which kind of makes sense – Timothy only eats once during the night, around 4-6 am (and has been since about 1.5 months old).

Another important learning: babies need to nap for an average 1.5 hour stretch at a time. When they’re 2-4 months old, we are talking about three naps, 1.5 hours each, and another short one before bed time – about 30-45 minutes long. Generally, it should go like this: 1.5 hours awake, 1.5 sleep, repeat.

The reason: babies sleep phases are about 45 minutes long, the first phase being the shallow one, the second – deep. So if they don’t sleep long, they don’t get to the deep phase and don’t get good rest, getting cranky and overstimulated.

Well, while Timothy has always been a great night-time sleeper, his naps were all over the place. So I started working on getting him to nap longer. I started bringing him to his crib for his naps (not all of them; the reco was to have at least one nap in their crib, the rest could be in a stroller, carseat, carrier or whatever). He would fall asleep and then wake up 30 minutes later – I would go there, shush him, give him the paci, cover him with his blanket, sit next to him and wait for him to fall asleep (he couldn’t see me). If he fussed and spit the paci out – I gave it back.

2 weeks later? He goes to bed with joy. The moment I put the blanket on him, he pulls it almost over his head and happily falls asleep – andstays asleep for an average of 1.5 hours (sometimes 2, sometimes 1). I don’t need to go and shush him back to sleep any longer. (and yes, the first few times he insisted on sleeping with the blanket over his face, I constantly checked on his breathing… even though it’s a thin blanket).

Now I know that he wakes up around 7:30 am, then he naps at 9-11, then at 12:30-2, then at 3:30-5 and then one short nap and then – bedtime just after 8.

So… today he woke up at 5:30 am and instead of feeding him, I shushed him, gave him the pacifier and put the blanket on him so that it touched his face. He went quiet and then started to fuss again. After I repeated the whole thing three times (shush, paci, blanket) he fell asleep and slept happily until after 8 am!

So maybe I will be able to get him off the night-time feeds, too? It’s worth a try

We Have Feet!