Tag Archives: infertility

Jan27

Being a Mommy Counts

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Being a Mommy Counts

So, I read the “Don’t Carpe Diem” article everyone’s sharing around on Facebook.  And you know what?  I think I may be, like, the ONLY person on the whole Internet who didn’t love it.

Maybe that’s because Analie is in such a magical stage right now.  Guys, every single day I get all misty and choked up because she is so amazing and so sweet; I just wish she’d stay like this forever.

But I know she won’t.

And I hate that.

Sure, yesterday she noticed I hadn’t latched the Tupperware cabinet and emptied the entire thing on the kitchen floor within a matter of 25 seconds.  But the look on her face of utter joy in the discovery was absolutely unparalleled.  It took me probably 2 minutes to clean up and reorganize the disaster once she was down for a nap, but two minutes of my time is a drop in the bucket when it comes to filling Analie’s days with the beginnings of rich life experiences.  (Even if it IS only Tupperware.)

Sometimes I feel frustrated by the negativity that can surround being a mommy.  I feel like we mommies get so caught up in expecting our children to behave like they’re years older than they really are so it will be more convenient for us…when what they really need is for us to get on our knees with them (even though it HURTS these days, right?!) and crawl around the house, pull stuff out of drawers and bang blocks together.

Discover life on Analie’s terms.  Not mine.

And isn’t that why I chose to become a mommy?  To do life with my baby?  Even when it hurts?  Or annoys me?  Or wears me down?

Maybe this stems from the increasing panic I am feeling about losing my “baby” as she grows up.  But Analie’s earliest picture of Jesus is going to be what she sees in Joey and I.  And one of my biggest prayers these days is that what she absorbs about Him isn’t that she has to fit into the predetermined behavior box we’ve made for her based on the behavior books we’ve read by well-intentioned Christian authors, or just what makes our lives more convenient.

I want the moments to matter.  The late nights and early mornings aren’t forever.  And I know that someday, when I look back on the early years of Analie’s life, I don’t want to regret my lazy parenting choices.

(AND OH MY GOSH, doesn’t the Internet make it so easy to be a lazy mommy?  Does for me!)

I hope nobody reading this feels judged.  That’s totally not my intention.  Because I am at least 60% less awesome at being a mom than I think I am.

But I’m Analie’s mama.

And I’m the only one she’ll ever have.

I want to make it count.

Oct28

This Morning

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This Morning

Analie’s sitting in her Bumbo, shoving scrambled eggs and bits of cut up pears into her mouth indiscriminately.  It’s hilarious.  I’m adding more scrambled egg to her tray from my plate and she’s squealing with glee as she notices she’s getting more. Eggs are exploding from her mouth.

Joey is sitting next to me on the floor, laughing at Analie’s self-feeding efforts.  She’s so intense; I can’t help myself either.

Joey catches his breath and says to me, “You’re the reason we have such a beautiful little girl.”

I snort and say, “Yeah, but I’m also the reason we can’t have more!”

And he squeezes my shoulder and replies, “Eh, I don’t really care about that.”

Oct24

It was only a matter of time.

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It was only a matter of time.

Two things happened on Friday which I knew would converge into It happening.

  1. I was digging around in my sock drawer (because WHAT IS UP WITH THE COLD WEATHER??? COLD FEET!) and I found my old Follistim case and injection pen, which I stuffed back there a couple years ago after I was done with it.  Because I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.
  2. I was at Carters looking for leggings for Analie and I saw Newborn size PJs.  They are so tiny, and she is so big.

I stood there in Carters, holding the tiny PJs and suddenly I felt the old sense of panic and loss creeping up the back of my eyeballs and seeping out my tear ducts that I used to feel when I’d look at baby clothes.  And it caught me off guard because – HELLO! I HAVE A BABY NOW!  Everything’s fixed!

Right?

Wrong.

I was so glad when my blessed cell phone rang, because it broke me out of a weird and creepy trance.  I literally shoved the tiny PJs back on the rack and ran out of Carters in my 3 inch heels and tried to shake off my unexpected gloom, which did not work so I tried to fake it.  I think I did a poor job.

That night I dreamed that Joey wanted to do another round of IVF, but since we’re not in Texas anymore and don’t have access to our specialist he figured he’d just do it himself.  (Because I guess he took “Rudimentary In Vitro Procedures 101″ in seminary?)  He had ordered the drugs off the internet and was going to do all the retrievals and transfers in our kitchen.  I woke up feeling seriously gloomy.

And you know what?  I have been since then.  BOO ON ME.

Analie’s going to be a year old in less than a month.  My baby’s growing up, and the reality of not being able to “plan #2″ like normal people is really starting to set in.  I know that since we didn’t go through the most painful parts of infertility where we live now, we seem like fertile people because I was pregnant when we moved.  But IVF can’t fix what’s wrong with me, and I’m starting to feel the icky temptation to be ANGRY! again about why this had to happen to me.  Or, I guess I should say, to US.

It’s a new ballgame to still be primarily infertile after having a baby.  It’s confusing for other people and I’m finding that it’s pretty confusing for myself, too.  Because sometimes my brain tricks me into thinking that OOH!  Maybe I’ll have a baby!

And then I have to remind myself that it took 2 weeks of injections, several doctors, a petri dish and a fully sterile environment to get pregnant in the first place.  Not exactly ideal conditions.

So, if any of you infertility bloggers are even stillaround and reading this anymore – hi; I’m back.  (Yay??)

For the rest of you?  Sorry.  It was only a matter of time.

I feel like my challenge on the other side of an IVF pregnancy is to continue to see Analie’s life as an undeserved, precious gift.  To resist bitterness.  To (try to) encourage those who are walking the lonely road of infertility.  To not feel sorry for myself.  To find the joy in the circumstances God has given me, even when parts of them seem like the worst thing ever.  Times five.

Sep13

SO SWEET, and then…

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SO SWEET, and then…

Analie woke up a little bit early this morning, so I knew she was going to be really, really ready for her nap by the time it rolled around.  She was super sweet all morning, though, flipping out with joy over my newly opened bottle of vitamins that I! LET! HER! SHAKE!, giggling in all the right places while we read books, and playing happily on the floor next to me while I ate breakfast.  Oh, and polishing off a few of her first tastes of kiwi off my spoon while I ate – we’ll find out later today if it agreed with her tummy or not.  I know it definitely agreed with her taste buds.

At 9:30, it was obvious she was cooked like the Thanksgiving Turkey she is (or will be next year, I think that’s when her birthday will fall on the holiday?) so I fed her and got her ready for her nap.

First of all, she’s started hitting herself on the head and pulling her hair while she eats.  Apparently that kind of thing doesn’t throw off her milk-drinking mojo, but it certainly cracks me up.  She can hit herself pretty hard, and frankly I’m surprised she’s not bald yet with all that hair pulling.  Second of all, she was suuuuper tired so she ate quickly and then was all MOM, STOP TRYING TO FEED ME SO I CAN SLEEP.

Before I laid her down, I handed her the binky and we stood there by the crib, snuggling happily for a few moments.  She reached her tiny little hand up and was patting my face gently.  It was one of those lovely, heart-warming Mama moments I had been waiting for years to have and I was starting to feel all misty and choked up.

UNTIL.

Until that Squirt started playing with the side of my nose, suddenly remembered I have a nose piercing, and stuck her finger right up inside to twirl the back of my nose ring.  (She’s actually pretty good at it, too.)

That’s reality for ya.

Aug4

Round Two

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Round Two

Analie and I were at CVS this morning picking up her steroid cream to turn her into Schwartzenbaby.  Hopefully this will take down the rash that has been feeding on her underlings for the last 6 weeks and giving all us no end of frustration.  We have tried just about every natural remedy known to the Internet, crowd sourced it to friends, and seen two doctors.  So now we have steroids.

SCHWARTZENBABY WILL TERMINATE THE RASH.

Anyway, we were waiting for our steroid.  As we stood there, we heard the pharmacists chatting about another customer who had placed an order for some specialized drugs because of “round two”.  When I heard “round two”, my ears perked up because don’t I know what round two is, Internet.  (Hint: I was holding her while I stood in line.)  ((Second hint: Usually “round two” indicates some kind of invasive, sucky infertility treatment.  Winning!))

Apparently Clomid wasn’t working for this poor lady, or something about she was afraid she’d have multiples?, so they were ordering Ovidrel for her.  WHOOOPIE FOR HER to be moving to be moving up the infertility ladder to injectables!

We know alllllll about Ovidrel in this house.

So I gave my baby a big, big hug while we stood there listening to the pharmacists and whispered in her ear, “YOU were made with Ovidrel.”

The entire experience made me feel a little bit misty, truth be told.

Shoot up that Ovidrel, unknown lady we heard the pharmacists gossiping about, because I will be praying for you when I apply the steroid cream to MY Ovidrel baby.

May25

Six Months!

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Six Months!

I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but tonight my project is to organize and box up all of Analie’s newborn clothes and paraphernalia we won’t be needing now that it’s summer.  It’s kind of a weird feeling, putting all of these things in a box.  I remember purchasing so many of them with an awed “I cannot believe this is actually, really happening to ME” feeling.  On the one hand I feel like saving Analie’s baby things is kind of a pointless exercise: why am I stashing away things for another baby that science has basically promised us won’t be having?  And yet, if I DO get rid of everything, you know we’ll wind up on the other side of the statistics and be in the 1% of infertile couples who do spontaneously get pregnant.

Hmm.  Maybe I should just chuck all this stuff.

Nah, I’ll save it.  Just in case we have (another) miracle baby.

If we do, I will be shocked speechless for 9 months.  Rather like Zechariah, but more because I’m astounded and less because I didn’t believe Gabriel’s message.  (He hasn’t showed up at our house announcing any miraculous pregnancies, although if he did I’d roll out the red carpet.)

Anyway, I’d better finish boxing Ana’s stuff up or Joey will fire me as Chief Housekeeper when he comes home and sees this unnatural disaster I’ve caused.

Apr29

Two Years

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Two Years

For Mother’s Day in 2009, Joey gave me an adorable green onepiece from Baby Gap with a panda on it that I’d noticed a few weeks earlier when we were walking around, dreaming.  I was just barely pregnant, and our excitement was a little bit premature.  Because the very next Sunday I was in the hospital, and we weren’t expecting a baby anymore.

When I got home from the hospital, I stuffed the little outfit and the card Joey had given me deep, deep into the back of one of the drawers in my dresser.  Six months went by, I found it again.  I sat there on the floor in our apartment, trying to decide if it was cruel to keep the outfit if I was never going to have a baby to put in it.

I decided to keep it.

Even though, at that point, there was a big black blob of nothing on the horizon.

Just in case…maybe there would be a miracle someday.

So I put it back in the drawer and folded up my first Mother’s Day card inside.  I still haven’t read it again.  But today that card is framed and hangs on my wall, and my sweet little girl is wearing a green outfit with a panda on it that I had almost lost hope would ever be on a baby that belonged to me.

Next Sunday, Mother’s Day, we’re going to have her dedicated.  I have so much to be thankful for.

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.  So now I give [her] to the LORD. For [her] whole life s[he] will be given over to the LORD. 1 Samuel 1:27-28

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