Apparently I Blog When I'm Productive

I have seen my therapist out-and-about in the world twice in the past week or so.  It was sort of inevitable that it would happen eventually; although I didn't know exactly where she lived (now I do), I knew her kids went to the same school as mine and therefore we had to be close.  Turns out she's on my regular walking route; she high-fived me (which was a little weird) for being on a walk, you know, and generally taking care of myself.

*

I've been thinking a lot about this thing I'm calling Baby Lust, which is baby lust I suppose, but I think there's something bigger.  Like, I'm at a point in my life that I actually have what I wanted (tenure, babies, books).  So what's next?  Going on a date might be an obvious choice but I'm not sure that's what I want.  But something.  I feel a bit restless.

*

I tend to walk at such moments, when my head is spinning.  I wrote the bulk of my dissertation two summers in fits between walks around campus.

*

Today already I have written about 1000 words on a collaborative project and revised at least as many on the next book project and read some stuff so I can write about it tomorrow.  I've also done some follow up "book tour" (ha!) stuff.  And done some basic domestic work and taken a shower (apparently I shower during the day now, as Tiny Boy is holding me hostage at night and mornings are too rushed).

I'm getting a lot done this summer.  And I started thinking about what makes this summer feel so different from the previous.  Let's review:

2009:  miscarriage drama, IVF drama, just in a bad way
2010:  IVF drama, tenure file due
2011:  finally pregnant!  summer school!  tenure drama!
2012:  new baby, not sleeping, whacked in the head with a fan, not sleeping
2013:  not sleeping not sleeping not sleeping, summer school, misc. illnesses, not sleeping

And now I'm sleeping (seriously, this unisom/lunesta plan might leave me addicted to sleep meds but I can actually think during the day so why would I stop).  And the Tiny Boy is more or less sleeping.  And I'm not teaching.  So I write stuff during the day.  And read stuff.  And cook stuff.  And mostly enjoy it.  Except when I'm trying to figure out what I want next...

But right now my arm hurts (ulnar neuropathy, anyone?) so I'm going to stop this.  And read.

What does happiness look like?

Someone I know at work--not incredibly intimately, but close enough to share a cup of tea with--made the comment today that I look happy.  And she's certainly right.

Something Remarkable

I don't think I ever mentioned where the title of this blog comes from.  It's indebted to a line from Calvino's wonderful novella Mr. Palomar that goes something like (if not exactly):  there is something remarkable to be seen in Rome this late autumn, and it is the sky crammed with birds.

There is something remarkable about this spring.  What got me through those long months (years) ttc and then the scare of early (ok, all) pregnancy was thinking this time next year you could have...  And, indeed, now, a year later, I do have.  A Tiny Boy.  A giggly, squirmy, rolling over and almost-sitting-up guy who is an absolute delight.  He's 5.5 months old and I am still astonished that he is here, that he is healthy, that he is mine.  And that makes those 3-5 am shifts in the rocking chair more than bearable.  If the worst thing in my life is an exhausted snuggle with a baby in the wee hours of the morning, I've got it pretty damn good.

What got me through was knowing there was an end point.  That when I turned forty I wouldn't be an assistant professor anymore (I might not have a job, but I wouldn't be an assistant professor), that I wouldn't be doing fertility treatment anymore (I might not have a baby, but five years of treatment wasn't a possibility I'd consider).  And here I am, on the other side.  I can't really ask for more.

*

I was at a lecture the other day and the speaker made a comment about how negativity is distracting.  And I thought about all those mornings I should have dedicated to writing over the past few years but couldn't, either because I was in the car driving to the clinic for an ultrasound or because my brain was skittery with sorrow and fear.  I am now flush with desire to get back to work, even as it is so easy to sit at my computer and click a link to another blog and get sucked down that sad road again.  Slowly, a word at a time, a day at a time, I am healing.  And that, too, is something remarkable.

Growing Up, Moving On

At five months (!), Tiny Boy is old enough that I can't accurately recall his age in weeks (maybe 22?).  He took a ride in the real stroller (sitting up!) yesterday, which was followed up by a trip to the park and a "dinner" of rice cereal, which he did not reject.

I look at his preemie clothes and really can't imagine that they actually fit him.  He's grown, like, 6 inches and 8 pounds since then.  His abdomen is literally twice as wide as it was at birth, and his wrists, too.  Not so tiny, it seems.

*

*

I hold him in the rocking chair and am already nostalgic for the baby he once was.  I want him to grow up.  I want him to stay this small forever.  I think, this is the last time I will ever have a baby this small.

I did not mourn the passing of LG's babyhood.  She was a hard baby.  And as much as I wanted to be pregnant, as much as I wanted to have a child, I did not enjoy her first six months.  They were full of inconsolable screaming, even as I starved myself to feed her.  Once she was on Neocate, once she started sitting up/crawling/standing (all within a 3 week period at 6 months) she was a happier kid, and I was a happier mom.  Not coincidentally, that's also when I went back to work.

*

If there is a silver lining to 3 years of fertility treatment and loss, it is having children 8 years apart, which I never thought I wanted.  I sit in the rocking chair with my little boy and then I read Harry Potter with my big girl.  She dotes on him and he adores her.  She is not jealous, at least not in obvious ways.

*

It's been a year, and I am still astonished that it actually worked.  That an embryo implanted itself in the wall of my uterus and grew, that it outwitted all that wanted to stop it from doing so, that it became a boy who is now my son, with his bright blue eyes and huge grin and easy (oh, so easy, compared to LG) temperament.

And for all that I have been irritated with work, I recognize how fortunate I am that I will be able to spend the bulk of his first year at home with him.  This summer he'll have a babysitter for 15-20 hrs week, during which I will finally get that book manuscript finished, and by the time fall semester rolls around and he'll be in full-time daycare, he'll be 10 months.  10 months!

And maybe by then he'll be sleeping.  For now, I'll take these moments of sitting next to him in bed for 40 minutes at a stretch because, really, they'll be over soon.  And in the blink of an eye, he'll be reading Harry Potter and LG will be off at college.  And I really don't want to think about that...

Milestone

A year ago I was in the midst of what I truly think was the worst time of my life, thinking I was having another miscarriage and worried, for good reason, about not getting tenure.  If only I could have flashed forward another year.  Picture it:

A new mother, now a tenured associate professor, takes her eight-year-old daughter and 4-month old son on a walk to the neighborhood park on a beautiful spring day.  Conversation about hyacinth, daffodils, tulips.  What's that one, Mom? she wants to know.  The baby, who should be napping, coos in his stroller.  And then, while the girl climbs and runs and twirls, the mother pushes the baby, all thirteen (?) pounds of him, propped up with a sweater, in a swing.  He giggles and shrieks with delight.

*

The kind of day that I end up in tears--the good kind, always the good kind--you know?

Things That Are Mildly Irritating

1. My neighbors having new siding put on their house, which has involved all kinds of banging, and small trees smacking the side of my house as they are cut to accommodate said work.
2. The nurse at the pediatrician's office setting up a referral without consulting me about which doctor I wanted to see, and then getting annoyed because I requested a change.  (I mean, she does get paid to do this, right?)
3. The chair of the current committee I'm on not knowing what he needs to provide us so that we can actually do our work.  I'm glad I'm not the only one sending gentle reminders.  Ahem.
4. Tiny Boy's babysitter not being able to console him when I'm home, which makes me freak out and not get work done, which is the whole point of having a babysitter.  I have other gripes about her, but I've decided to suck it up and deal with it since I only need her to work for about 10 more days.
5. Summer weather when its barely spring.

Course in the whole scheme of things, and considering where I was a year ago, this is piddly stuff.  But still.  And you know, I've heard that blogging shouldn't be all sunshine and roses, so here's some griping for you.  Kidding.  Sort of.

This is the Year of Peace, man.  Seriously.

A Post About DE/DS One Year After the Petri Dish

Exactly a year ago, Tiny Boy was on the cusp.  A few million sperm shipped from California and an egg just removed from my donor's ovaries, along with fourteen others.  Five days later he was one of two embryos transferred to my uterus; the other was The Twin Who Wreaked All Kinds of Havoc.  I think sometimes about what would have happened, could have happened, if I'd listened to Dr. Gorgeous and just transferred one.  I might have had Tiny Boy.  Or I might have had another miscarriage.  But I suspect even Tiny Boy wouldn't be Tiny Boy without those early weeks fighting.

Although I am grateful to the two men who donated the gametes that ended up being the "other half" of my children's DNA, I don't think much about them.  I do think about the egg donor, mostly because she seems more real to me as a person; she lives in my state, I sat in the same waiting room at the RE's office (and sometimes, I imagine she was a woman I will never forget who smiled a knowing smile at me before I was called back for an ultrasound).  She underwent surgery so I could have this child.  Coming to DE was so much harder as a decision than using DS, which, honestly, I never had any qualms about.  Then again, I decided to become an SMC at 27.

Although I didn't think much of it at the time, I took a home pregnancy test on St. Patrick's Day.  And I found this onesie in my stash of stuff I bought on a hopeful day that the pregnancy might actually work out.  But when I think about how miraculous it is that egg + sperm = an embryo that happened to be put in my body, and happened to survive an Evil Life Sucking Twin and a gestational sac two weeks too small (90% loss rate be damned) and whatever fucked up placental abnormality that led to IUGR, well I think that Tiny Boy is indeed one lucky kid.  And I'm certainly a lucky mom.

It's been a year, people.  And while I'm far from over the anxiety and the anger and the grief and the fear, I am someplace very different than I was.  For Mo, for Maddy, for my other readers who are in the trenches, I so hope that you can join me over here in a land that resembles peace.

 Tiny Boy in One Lucky Kid Onesie

(and yes, he damn sure is!)

Why I Hate Email

Do not get sucked into work drama.  Do not get sucked into work drama.  Do not get sucked into work drama.

This is the Year of Peace, dammit.

Something Resembling Peace

Bitter Senior Colleague came over for lunch yesterday.  Because she's bitter--and, well, a tad crazy--I was prepared for anything.  Turns out babies bring out the best in her.  And it's rather nice feeling like her colleague rather than an underling.  (Where was I headed with this?)  Anyway, she made a comment about how good I looked, comparing it to how horrible I looked a year ago (which she's said before)--way too thin, my color didn't look good, generally frail, blah blah.  Which is pretty much exactly how I felt.  She said something like I don't know what was going on, but it was like the minute you got pregnant you looked better.

Not exactly--in fact, the night in which I apparently looked so horrible last spring was actually at about 5 weeks, which was, as some of you will recall, A REALLY BAD TIME--but generally she's right.  So here I am, a year out from what I think of as probably the craziest week in the DE drama--when I went to a conference in the middle of IVFing and had a million other things going on at work and with LG--and I've got a 3-month-old smiling and kicking his little feet next to me (take a nap, baby!).

That is, things are good.  Not easy.  And certainly not peaceful in a Pottery Barn Catalogue sort of way.  But in terms of my angst level?  Probably as low as it's ever been.  Ever.  And some of that is why I'd like to see Dr. G at least one time in a setting that is not her office, because I'm sure if I walked in there I'd just start crying again.  She's literally held me through some really horrible times, but she's never seen me happy.

And now if you'll excuse me, there's a poopy diaper I need to change...

Random Bullets of Life with Kids

• I woke in the middle of the night convinced that Tiny Boy had succumbed to SIDS.  He was cold and sleeping, well, like a dead thing.  And I picked his little swaddled body up muttering oh my g-d until finally he moved.  The whole episode probably lasted 20 seconds, but wow I can't take that kind of fright.
• I took Tiny Boy with me to the dentist today.  Which sucked.  He was sleeping when we left the house and of course needed to eat when I was mid-way through my cleaning.  So I took a nursing break, which only kept us there longer, as the hygienist took a break from me to work on another patient, so then he was crying because it was naptime.  Oy.
• Despite the above, Tiny Boy managed to take a 1-hour nap and a 3-hour nap in the bed.  And--knock wood, fingers crossed--went to sleep easily at 6:30 tonight and won't wake for a while to feed.
• Because of the above, I missed an opportunity to take Tiny Boy to see Dr. Gorgeous at her outpost in my hometown.  (Apparently NOT waking the baby is more important than showing off the baby.  Good to know.)  I'll just have to catch up with her another time.
• Because of the above, I had some time in which to clean up the kitchen while LG did her homework.  And I'd be hanging out with LG now, except she prefers books to her mother's company.  Yes, she is my kid.
• Am interviewing mother's helper folks later in the week.  Having some scheduled work time is sounding good to me, as much as I'm truly enjoying watching Tiny Boy discover what he can do with his hands.
• I broke down and bought two pairs of non-maternity pants a size larger than I usually wear.  I'm really happy I did, though I suspect if I gave it another few weeks I'd be able to wear my old things.
• The house is largely a mess.  I haven't written more than 100 words at a stretch in I can't remember how long.  And I'm happy, people.*

* Crying almost daily still--post-reproductive traumatic stress disorder be damned--but happy.

Small Good Things

It's been a while, and I'm inspired (always!) by Sprogblogger, so here's a few good things to kick off the year.

1. Baby sleeping.  Baby sleeping in a swing.  (Oops, not any more)  Baby sleeping on mom.
2. LG is actually cleaning her room.  She is doing it in her Little House on the Prairie getup (a relatively fancy dress and a sunbonnet), which apparently makes it more fun.  But the point is LG is cleaning her room.  Because she has a playdate with her recess LHOP buddy at 2:00.
3. The entire household slept last night.  LG was out from 8:00ish until almost 8:00 this morning.  Tiny Boy and I went to bed around 9:00 and only woke every 2.5-3 hours until 5:30.  Compared to every 1.5-2 hrs, that is divine.
4. Baby carriers.  I currently have three in rotation.  Often the one that I use is the one closest to my current location, though there is a system of sorts as well.
5. Lil Joey cloth diapers.  I only have two of them, because of the cost, but if I'd put these on Tiny Boy BEFORE I purchased a sampler of diapers, well, that's all we'd have.  They actually fit him without large amounts of folding and re-velcroing.  And, really, how cute is it to have a kangaroo covered tush?

Well, I must now check on my Laura Ingalls wannabe and try to put this baby down.  Or not.  The smallest member of the household really does call the shots around here...

The Year of Peace

When I started this blog, back in the fall of 2008, I conceived of it as the blog of a single mother/academic trying for a second child.  I never really anticipated how entrenched it (I) would become in the ALI community, as my ttc attempts took over not one semester but, ultimately, three full academic years.  That is, half of my time as an assistant professor (at this particular establishment) involved me trying to get knocked up, grieving lost pregnancies, and desperately trying to find my way through the quagmire of ART.  I started with unmedicated IUIs and ended up at donor egg.  My story so far stretches from untenured mama of one to tenured mama of two.  So here we are, wondering what's next on a journey that I desperately hope will not be so full of angst as the past three years. 

I had my six-week postpartum checkup the other day, where the doctor admired her handywork and said I'll barely be able to see the scar.  But I know from c-section #1 that what might not be physically visible after a while will always be with me.  This has been a long, ridiculously tortured journey, pregnancy included, and I suspect the effects will be with me for some time.  But the fact that it's taken me two days to put these words together--between a zillion diaper changes and nursing sessions, with a newborn strapped to my chest or gurgling in a swing--goes a long way to start undoing the damage.

Yesterday, I had LG write her "greatest hits" for 2011 on a sheet of paper, along with her resolutions.  She also copied down mine, which, not surprisingly were:  Tiny Boy, "promotion and ten year," and being "on leaf" (spelling courtesy of LG; her brother, thankfully, also topped her list).  That is, I have pretty much everything I could ask for (well, except a book contract, and let's put that at the top of things to try to score in 2012!), and instead of living gracefully a life I didn't want to accept, this year, I think, will be about accepting that I truly have the life I want.  A life full of baby smiles and night time cuddles with two kids and two cats in a bed.  It's a life, I hope of peace.

Tiny Boy, however, thinks it is The Year of Milk, so with that, friends, I'll bid you all happy 2012.