BY-NOO (or MY-NOO)

I have had a few posts roaming around in my mind...mostly things I want to capture of things baby girl is doing. Really new, fun stuff. 

The title of this post is what my child says for Balloon.  Her language skills have started to really ramp up--she is trying more and more words and saying new ones almost by the day it seems.
For example, just the other day I said we have to throw away something.  Then a little later she came up to me w/ something in her hand and said 'away'. Plain as day. I actually knew what she meant and I told her she could go throw it away.  She ran right over to the trash, lifted the lid, threw it away, put the lid down and came back. She was SO proud of herself. And of course I showered her w/ praise. However, I have to watch her because she likes to 'away' things that don't go there like bottle or cups. And she will also dig things out......but she's learning and that's cool.
Some other new words are: done, more, purple, baby (with the full ba-by), mama (she likes to tell everyone I'm her mama and I just love it). She knows her babysitters names.....everyday she says Joo-Jiss, which no idea where that came from but we all know what she means.
She's also starting to repeat things automatically. Before I used to have to ask her....can you say book, or can you say blue?  Now, when she hears things she tries them out. We were watching a tv show w/ letters and they said T. She repeated T. It was cool.
She's still doing so much better at home w/ the babysitters so I am confident I made the right decision taking her out of daycare at that time.  However, after continuing to interview FT nannies we just haven't found the right fit.  Either they want too much salary, I'm not interested, or baby girl didn't mesh w/ them.....I'm okay to continue looking because 'just good enough' isn't enough for me.  My one baby sitter can continue w the PT, but the other can't. So, I'm now going to focus on finding someone PT. Maybe that will open up a bigger pool of people. Will see.
This one has been hard.

On a positive note, I did find a cute (seems nice) rental house. It's good size, 3 bed 2 bath and we will move at the end of this month. Will be nice to get all my stuff in one place. It is quite expensive, but I think renting for the year will be better for me instead of buying. I'm not sure about staying here and buying just doesn't make sense in that scenario. So, I'll just have to know I'm not earning equity, etc. and be okay w/ it.

Good news on the new baby front. I had my last Dr. appointment and the baby was measuring right on track--I just crossed 11 weeks and heartbeat was good. She ran a lot of labs last time I was there and all came back normal (YES!). She wanted to be sure there wasn't anything specific that pre-disposes me to bloodclots and the answer is no. But, I still have to take the shots daily of a low dose blood thinner as preventative. I am just about to finish up my reproductive meds (ends at 12 weeks) so will be down to injections for only one med--yay~!

The only thing I've continued to struggle w/ is the nausea.  It has gotten me pretty good. The Dr. office just prescribed something new (they normally do zo.fran.) but that didn't work well for me last time.....so it's a med that combines uni.som and B6. It's a 'lesser' med than the other anyway.  You ramp up w/ it so it seemed to be helping but I fell asleep last night w/ out taking it so I am starting over somewhat. It did make me uber tired on Sunday but I think I prefer tired versus sick. I'll take again tonight and will see.
I have had to spend a lot of time on the sofa and can easily start to feel the guilt of not being as physically active w/ baby girl, BUT I feel good about the fact that I force myself to get outside when weather nice almost all the time (walks or park), and when we are inside, we still play, it's just she brings things over to me while I rest on the couch.  Books, toys, you name it.  She seems to be taking it all in stride and hasn't been overly fussy, so I'm very thankful for that. She knows her mama loves her--affection is not cut short here--and she gets many hugs, kisses, stories, coloring, etc.....even if it is lying down.
Something i am doing regularly is have her sit on my lap facing me and I ask her about her day. It is so cute. I'll ask her about what she did, where she went, what she ate, etc.. and she answers me--mostly I can't understand, but we are practicing conversation and it's fun.
Another game we play is, "Hey, where's my kiss?" When I say that she runs and giggles....when I get her I get my kiss.....but if she runs too far I'll say 'oh you turkey lurkey'.....and she repeats it. It sorta sounds like turkey lurkey but it is too cute.

It is hard, yes....not feeling well and taking care of another human being is tough.  Throw the move, finding a nanny, needing to move again, starting my job, etc. it has been a lot.
But, I know in my heart that this was the right move for our family. I feel good about it and am thankful that 'knock on wood' I haven't been hospitalized and continue to do pretty well compared to last time.

Looking forward to feeling better and getting some energy back. Yah.

Exhale

My little heart is flickering away
 

 

I know that people say every pregnancy is different....and I guess they mean it.  I just couldn't really fathom what they meant, how could it be that different, you know? Now I know.

 

During last pregnancy I had no loss of symptoms what so ever.  Not in the entire time of week 7ish to week 18ish. It was super difficult and hard to manage.  I remember at about 11:30-12noon my symptoms would come on and get worse and worse throughout the day. Every day.  I remember feeling like omg when would this ever get better.

 

This time, there have been two distinct times when I felt absolutely and completely 'normal'.  No rhyme or reason, but I just felt good.  Most would say hoorah, but I truly think after going through IVF (well me anyway) I am always just cautiously optimistic. When something is new my mind tends to jump to, oh no.....rather than ok, let's see.  I was confident something must not have been right.

Thank you Lord I was wrong.

 

I am now 9 weeks along and that is an accomplishment. Baby is measuring w/in a day of where it is supposed to, heartbeat where it needs to be, and I am functioning okay.  I definitely still have the nausea, tiredness, and some days of 'I can't do this', but overall I'm taking it slow.  I have had a few meltdown days, but I think that's when I get overwhelmed w/ STILL trying to find a nanny and a new place to live.  That's a lot on a mama's plate...work FT, find new housing, find a nanny, be a mama, and grow a new baby.  I am not superwoman. I have to keep reminding myself of that. The apartment is a disaster, but I'm just not that worried.  I have some good friends here who are super supportive and have allowed me to lean on/cry when needed, and one has even gone to look at a rental for me. Some friends become more involved during these times, some less......

 

Some positive things are that I have recently found a counselor here to just have someone else's objective opinion and guidance. It has been nice so far. Only met her twice, but she's given me some suggestions on building my network here. That makes sense that's what I need to do, but finding the energy is where I fall short. I am just happy that I get outside twice a day each day over the weekend w/ baby girl so she can play and we can continue to do things. Even when I don't feel well. 

I also am connected to a really good Dr. here and I like her and her nurses. They have been supportive, informative, and responsive.  The Dr. really listens to my concerns and has been great at explaining how she wants to move forward.  I am going to do the CV.S testing this time as well (done between 10-13 weeks) to determine if there are any issues w/ the baby. It is an invasive procedure that is a test, not a screen, so we will know for sure.  That was important to me.

 

I have still had the thoughts of flight and moving out of here.....but my rational mind says I need to 'hunker down' and make this work, at least through this pregnancy. The thought of moving again into an unknown situation is just out of my comprehension at the moment. There is time to think about where we live and what I do........my focus now is keeping healthy and being a good mama!

 

Here is the pic I was going to post the other day. She is now pretend-playing and it is oh-so cute.

She has been a trooper overall. She is doing so much better at home.

 

Thank you Ali for your supportive comment yesterday. I really appreciated it.



Not sure

Why is it that if you have symptoms you get upset......and if you don't have symptoms, you get upset.

So far, nausea has been one of my biggest ailments. From beginning to end of day.
However, today was different. I had to get up very early for a meeting at work and when I was getting ready I felt that I didn't feel too bad. I ate my apple on the way to work and when I got to the office I was feeling the same way. Then I started thinking....okay, c'mon already I shouldn't be having lack of nausea.  Throughout the day I didn't feel the same as yesterday and I have a slight headache. I just feel different.
And am now worried, of course.
I keep mashing myself to see if I still have tenderness and soreness. That is so-so.  I didn't have my aversion to wanting to eat and just felt much better about food in general at dinner.

All of these thoughts running through mind....did I do something wrong here, is everything okay, can I just peek inside now and see what's going on, should I have continued the pre natal vitamins even though nurse said stop for now because they were making me more nauseous, was that cramping I am feeling now, and on and on?

I have a check-up tomorrow in the afternoon so I will know for sure if something happened today.
Would like to be more confident.

Hangin' in there

So my symptoms have remained pretty much the same....the biggest one is the nausea.  It is different this go-round because it is pretty much constant, from the moment I get up.  I feel like I have a low-grade flu.  I even have bouts daily of feeling cold/chills regularly. I take a bath almost every night after I put baby to bed and that feels so good. I have done my research to see what I can do naturally, and just today made some changes. I am taking my prenatal vitamins and extra folic acid at night, and I am eating small amounts regularly throughout the day. I also bought some plain ole crackers to have around as well.  Not sure any of that did too much today, but I'm managing.

I am pretty proud of myself that even though I don't feel great, I have been ensuring that I get out w/ baby when I have her all day i..e not at work.  There is a park not too far from here that is fenced in and has toddler-sized equipment. It was kind of funny, well probably not for the little girl, but I witnessed helicopter-parenting at it's best when we were there.  This little girl was 20+ months her mom said, but she couldn't turn, climb, move, or do anything w/out her mom either freaking out, redirecting her, distracting her w/ juice, the phone, or even music. I couldn't believe it. We were at the park! I just couldn't understand why she couldn't just step back and let her PLAY.  All of the gadgets and distractions.....it even stressed me out just watching them!  The way I am w/ baby is not quite the opposite, but pretty close. I am a pretty calm mom....I want her to explore, I want her to learn that sometimes if you climb too high you might have to turn around because you don't know how to get down, that sort of thing. I always come to the rescue if she asks for me or I see she is heading to get hurt......but mostly I let her just be.  She loves climbing on every and anything.  She is interested in other kids, but she keeps a good distance.....even when they want to get in her face. I enjoy taking her because she enjoys it so much.

Some updates on her....she is almost 19 months old....we need to get her in this week for her 18 month shots. Not super excited, but it is a must.  Since being at home, she has recovered from all of her sicknesses and has really done so much better. She absolutely loves her two babysitters. When I tell her in the morning they are coming she starts screaming, spinning in circles, says "wheeeeee", it is cute.  In fact, when she hasn't had a nap during the day, she cries when they go home.  I feel so much better knowing she is much happier.
Still looking for a nanny.....have another lead on one and will be interviewing her this week. I feel positive about her. She is younger, but has nannied full time before and only stopped because she moved.  Also she is in college online, so this could potentially be a good fit. Will see.

Some new things she is doing lately:
Make-believe play.......I've noticed she just started taking her dolls and stuffed toys w/ her and 'set them up' around her. She'll want them to sit next to her on the chair, will climb off my lap to get them up on my lap too.....and the other day she did this for the first time....
I was going to post picture, but not working. Will have to do it later.....


She is starting to play more independently.  She used to just sit by me and whine and whine until I would play w/ her and whatever she had. Now, she will go and get a toy and play w/ it herself. She does still love her books and will bring one to me regularly, but that one I'm okay w/. It is soooo nice not to have the constant whining.

She is still drinking from bottles. I've resisted taking them away w/ all the other things going on for us.  She has one when she waked up, at nap, and at bed.  She drinks just fine from a sippy, but she still likes her bottles.....and mama likes the cuddle time we get when she drinks them. I say one thing at a time.

In terms of living here, well, let's just say I'm trying to adjust.  There are still things I see regularly that I say, WHAT? As an example, we were getting some food at a restaurant and a woman was upset that her meal was taking too long.......she started screaming, and I mean screaming, at the cashier f*bombs, b*bombs, whatever curse word you could think of.  My baby doesn't hear yelling that often so she was looking at me w/ a seriously puzzled/worried look on her face. I had to tell her it was okay, and the lady was just mad. jeepers.  Also, I feel like everyone smokes around here. I am constantly smelling smoke at stores, between my garage/office, just everywhere. Yuck. And finally, in front of the store the other day a car rolls by w/ a woman holding a baby in her lap and a kid sitting next to her.....no carseats to be found.  Hey boy.

Like I said, hanging in there.........

And..

Great news.....there is a baby w/ a heartbeat!!  I went to the Dr. yesterday and through ultrasound we could see the tiny little flicker.  I felt such a weight lift off my shoulders and I just breathed for the first time, it seemed, in a few days.  It's crazy because I was convinced, due to the dramatic symptom changes, that it wasn't good. But good 'ole little one was measuring 6 week 3 days.

And sure enough, my symptoms are slowly returning....the nausea is really the only major one so far, other than some heartburn.  Just low-grade flu yucky feeling.  Not hungry but need to eat, type sickness.
I'll take it.

Bumpity-Bump-Bump

If only that meant my stomach. Nope, it's a good analogy to how things have gone since moving here. I couldn't have predicted the issues I've run into and I'm not too fond of this city.

Lately, as for child care, still looking for a nanny......I had a good lead on one, was supposed to meet up w/ her this past Saturday. We got it all set up and she was a no call/no show. I am thankful she showed her flakiness now instead of after going forward, but it took a lot of time to try and work this out.  I have a few others I am still looking into, but still rotating babysitters. They can't do this full time or long term, so I have to make something happen soon.

My apartment is an allergen-magnet (even though it looks like a nice apartment).  Since moving in, I've had to go back on allergy medication to stop the wheezing, but the sneezing and being on the brink of not breathing well is enough for me.  Everyone keeps saying it is the season, etc. Well guess what? I've had allergy-induced asthma for years and I know when it is the environment or when it is the season. Trust me.  So, I was avoiding the leasing office to extend my lease to 6 months until I decided what I was going to do......and I finally decided I will move out after the 3 months is up. One month down already.  It is NOT what I had planned, but I just don't want to stay here when it affects my health, and likely my baby's.  People at work tell me there is a lot of 'crud' in this city...not sure if this is what they meant.  So, I am now looking for rental homes because I've decided I am not buying here for now. There is not much on the market (have looked since October) and frankly not sure this will be long-term enough for me to warrant purchasing.  I've had lots of thoughts over the last week or so that I will continue to stew in my mind.

The hardest thing to cope w/ over the last week or so was yesterday. I think I hit almost the bottom w/ dealing w/ the continued issues of housing, my baby's care, this city, with the addition of this happening..........

I was sitting in a meeting w/ a colleague close to lunch yesterday and was feeling so nauseous. Morning sickness had kicked in pretty good. But for me it's low grade all day. Well, in the meeting as I was looking at him I thought to myself, hmmm..., I feel better. Wow, I really feel better. It was kind of like waking up in the morning you sort of are conscious, then more and more you realize you are awake. Same thing, the more and more I felt so much better. You might think this is a great thing....well, my first thought was, why is my morning sickness going away suddenly?
So what did I do, search the internet. Of course there are pretty bad stories out there about miscarriage, etc. so I got super worried.  Then last night I started having cramping and this morning my breasts started un-hurting. So, I called my Dr.'s office this morning and they said that unless there is bleeding, it is common for symptoms to come and go. I asked her if you can miscarry w/out bleeding and she said in all her years of experience, it would be unusual. 
However, w/in a 24 hour period all of my pregnancy symptoms had stopped.  But, during today I started to feel a bit crappy again and my breasts started hurting somewhat. 

I have a Dr.'s appointment tomorrow to see what we can see. It still may be too early to see if there was even a healthy baby heartbeat.  I have not started any kind of bleeding so I am holding out hope, but just not sure right now.

To say the last few months have been tough is an understatement.  I am trying to focus on one...day...at...a...time.

18 months

I'm struggling w/ this blog a little bit.  Most of the reason is that I sometimes want to work through things, use this is a journal, of sorts....but there are people IRL that read it.  I've thought about going private w/ a password and maybe I'll look into that. I want to be censor-free, and right now I think through too much what I want to put out here.

In the meantime I have to share about what's going on w/ baby girl.....she turned 18 months old and is doing/saying some pretty cute things.  I keep thinking 'oh I need to capture that' before I forget, so I will do it here.
What stands out is she loves books. Many times throughout the day she will grab a book and bring it to me, crawl up in my lap, and we read it. Over and over and over. We read a book tonight pajama time--4 times.  It doesn't bother me, though, because it's great snuggle time for me and she really loves it.  She is starting to say some of the words like pajama - de - bop...she says 'BOP'. She also anticipates when it will come up based on what she sees on the page.
Language has been interesting. Early on she had list of words she would say like up, etc. but now doesn't say them much and has started saying new words/mostly parts of words....she'll say 'bo' for fatboy (cat) 'bah' for bottle.  Although when I was in the car the other day she said something plain as day...'sh*t'.  It was too funny I just had to laugh. And guess what she calls me? 'DA'.  What?! Yes......when I am in the other room and she's looking for me she says super loud 'Daaaaaa'. I respond and say here I am, I'm in the bathroom and here she comes.  I did want to see if she could say mama or mommy....so in the car I practiced w/ her and said, can you say book, ball, etc. and then said mommy.  She said mommy mommy mommy clear as day. It melted my heart.  I'm still DA to her, but that's fine.  When she was little I would try and teach her I am mama by patting myself and saying mama. Well, now when I ask her 'who is mama?' she pats herself!  I know what she means.

It's actually great to see her more herself again i.e. active since she had been sick for almost a month with one thing or another.  She learned a new trick of opening/closing doors.  I was in her room, she would go in my bedroom and close herself in, then open. I started to say, bye-see ya, so now she runs over and says 'bah' and 'see', closes the door....and underneath the door I can see her little feet running to the otherside of the room, run back, open the door, and say HI....over and over. She loves this little game.
Her personality is hard to describe. I think of it more in how she behaves.... She can be intense and focused on something, she can belly laugh when tickled, she can walk up to me and give me an open-mouthed slobbery kiss.....at the same time she can stand at my feet and whine whine...wanting picked up or who knows what.....she can be devious. She knows she isn't supposed to play w/ the DVR. Well, she walks right over to it, turns around and stares at me, while pushing buttons. No pun intended. She can be pretty determined....if she can't get something one way, she will try many ways to accomplish.  But, she does get frustrated and cry and fuss if she can't figure something out.  She is still pretty outgoing w/ other people, however I've realized that only occurs if she has a 'safety post', like me, or babysitter.  Once she is not w/ someone she knows, melt down city.  She is still very curious....she wants to touch and experience everything, including climbing on everything. I always think it's interesting when people say, my baby laughs and smiles all the time. Do they really? My baby does not, and in fact sometimes can be downright challenging. She demands attention in many ways, shapes.....forget talking on the phone when she wants my attention.  These are times when I wish my mom was here so I can ask her what I was like as a kid......if I think through how she is now, and knowing myself, I can suspect she will be a lot like her mama. Others have told me that too.
One other thing....she does like music. Whenever she hears some, she will start this bend her knees, bounce up and down, thing....sometimes she even throws some arms in there, swinging one from side to side.  And she is pretty much on beat. No idea where she got this from since I have no rhythm.
The other funny thing is she likes to 'run'. What this entails is scrunching up her little arms at armpit height, walking, but really fast...'toddling' from side to side. The bathroom is connected to her room so she will whizz by w her little scrunched up arms, go back the other way, whizz by the bathroom door that leads to the hallway.....it is one of the cutest things I wish I could capture on film. Will have to try.

Overall, at this age she can be challenging (mostly due to the continued whining), funny, cute as a button when she 'speaks' to me/others...which she does a lot--hey, she knows exactly what she is saying, smiles and I can see her upper teeth and her lower teeth, and just......well......' my girl'.