November 2009 babies?

[Wondercat]

Nancy,

We have also been talking about #2. Like you, we have 4 frosties so enough for 2 more tries. In my case we didn't have success until the third try, so I know that it might take a while to get the second one. We definitely want at least 2 kids, but I have to admit I have this weird anxiety when I think about having to share my affections with other babies. It was so hard to get the first one and he has been so wonderful. We decided however to reconnect with the fertility clinic in September (coming right up!) and to try and have them be about 2 years apart. First, I want them to be close in age so they can be close as kids. My sister and I were 5 years apart and we didn't really have much in common until I was in college. That many years apart you are just always at a really different place in your life before then. Second, I have had to work pretty hard to get my body in even as good a shape as it's in now (still about 2 sizes bigger than pre-pregnancy) and I would just as soon get this baby-having over with so that when I do get back to a fitness level that I'm happy with even if I'm never as small as I used to be I don't have to think in the back of my head that it's "all for nothing" anyway. Selfish? Maybe, but being pregnant was really hard on my body and... well, I just want it over with.

I almost had hyperstimulation my first cycle, which is why I think it didn't work. My whole body puffed up like a tick and they were monitoring me every day instead of every 2-3 days like the one that worked. Next time around they just switched the drugs and drastically reduced the dosages.

[nancy1]

WONDERCAT: Thank you so much for your candid response. I pretty much feel like the same you so and knowing the clock is really ticking is an added pressure... For now, I just give MILLIONS of thanks for my peanut!.
Have GREAT weekend.
Nancy

[charr]

Nancy - Our son is plagiocephalic. His cranial vault asymmetry was 7mm and already after one week it's at 4mm. His standard deviation was +2. What about your son? His neurologist suggested having his eyes checked as well so we did that yesterday and everything looks fine. He really is adjusting well to the helmet. He's such a happy little boy so that helps.

Yesterday he turned 8 months! Hard to believe it's been that long already since he was born. Like you both, we have also talked about another child but we unfortunately don't have any frozen embryos. None of them survived. In some ways we'd like another one as we'd like for him to have a sibling but then at the same time we also wonder if we should stop now and just be thankful for the amazing blessing of our son. I had kind of a rough time with pre-eclampsia and so that is a concern. We've have also talked about adoption but know that the process also takes a long time. We also need to make a decision soon as I'll soon be 39.

Our son is sitting on his own but occasionally tipping over. He also has started to pull up into a standing position if he's lying down and you help him by holding his hands. Still not crawling though. He just rocks back and forth on his hands and knees.

Take care, Wondercat & Nancy!

[nancy1]

CHARR & WONDERCAT:
very difficult decision indeed. I turned 40 a few days after I gave birth and it was the most amazing experience of my life. Sometimes I feel like I'm beeing greedy for wanting another one. I have mixed emotions. Some days I feel it's for him. Also, I was so fortunate to get a BFP on my first try. While I did miscarry one of the twins,would I have such a luck on attempt #2?
Yet another concern: while I would love to have another one, I don't know how I would feel with multiples which is a real possibility. In fact I know that it would be very hard for us. Decisions, decisions...

CHARR: his deviation was +3. He was classified as severe. But he will be done in a month and his head looks great now. He's probably not going to need a second helmet. How many times a day do you so stretches for his torticollis and does he still go in weekly? Mine started going in once every 2 weeks.
No standing yet. He is sitting pretty well though he still falls. he is 7.5 months. HIS FIRST TOOTH IS NOW VISIBLE! Are you guys seeing any?

He has a peds appointment today so I'll keep you posted.
Have a great week ladies.
Nancy

[charr]

Nancy - So how long will your son have been in his helmet when he's done? Glad to hear his head is looking great. We do still go in weekly to PT. Lately I've not done as well with keeping up with the stretches as I did when he first started PT. The therapist feels like now we need to mainly work on strength as his range of motion is quite good now.

No teeth showing through yet for our son. We keep wondering when they'll show up! He has really gotten much more mobile. He still isn't crawling but pushes himself backwards and pushes himself up on his hands and knees and pivets around on his tummy. Now he just needs to figure out the forward motion.

Hope all is well on your end, Wondercat.

Happy 4th to you both!!

[nancy1]

CHARR: My son had a double graduation today! Originally, he was scheduled to have one more adjustment to the helmet but we got him in today and he had a 5 mm growth over 2 weeks, and there was no more room for further adjustment. Originally they had warned us he might need 2 helmets but he looked so great that he was done with just one. Later on, I took him to PT and the therapist also said his neck looks great and so does his range of motion and so he's DONE. We will still continue the stretches and look to see if there is any regression. It's a BIG relief!
He just has one lower incisor and he is not fully crawling though he'll go from one end of the room to the other in no time.
CHarr, you did the right thing with the helmet, I assure you. I went to a b-day party this weekend and there was a 16 month old baby with plagio. His parents had opted for no helmet. And although they had let his hair grow, he had like a cone shape on one side of the head. IT DOES NOT GO AWAY ON ITS OWN.
CHarr, are you back to work?

WONDERCAT: HOw's little Sean doing. Starting to walk yet? Can't believe he gets up on his own. How is he doing with the sitting now? And how about you, back to work yet?

Looking forward to hearing from you guys.
Have a great 4th.
NAncy

[Wondercat]

Ah hahahahahaha - that's a good one. "Back to work yet." Yeah, I have been back to work full time since January!

Sean still isn't terribly good at sitting up since he only wants to stand. He doesn't crawl either, but does get on all fours and rock a bit. He also still only has the one little bottom tooth sticking up, but I can feel that the other one isn't far behind. He sleeps all over the map now - back, side, tummy, half on his tummy, upside down, angled bizarrely semi-upside down half on his tummy/half on his back while locking his little musical sea horse in a half-nelson... I never know where I will find him in the crib when I go in to check on him!

Right now he isn't doing much walking, sitting, or crawling because he is one sick little boy. Stomach virus. His temperature spiked yesterday at 103.5 and we are not having fun over here. He's asleep right now in Daddy's arms and I am waiting for the pharmacy to open so I can buy another thermometer since the one we have died last night. I use the pacifier kind, so he won't freak out and puke. Just putting him down on the changing table right now is enough to make him freak/puke, as I discovered yesterday... Funny, my baby book said that the only accurate reading for a baby would be rectally and that oral ones would not read high enough, but when I checked the rectal reading against the pacifier reading last time he was sick the oral one was actually .2 degrees higher. So using that one seems like a no-brainer!

OK, pharmacy is open in 5 so I better go make myself at least marginally presentable...

[nancy1]

WONDERCAT: don't feel bad. I went back to work 4 weeks after having the baby.
Hope your baby is doing better now! Still feverish?
I can't believe he can stand up. Was he born in November or late October?
Did you start giving him protein foods yet?

CHARR: how's the helmet going and which company did you go with?
Now that his helmet is out, I want to make sure there are no regressions so it's tummy time tummy time tummy time!
Hope all is well with your little one too.

Take care,
NAncy

[Wondercat]

Nancy,

It must have been a 36-hour kind of thing. He was much better by the weekend. Terrible timing, since I took this week off and wanted to make sure I had my work caught up beforehand... but I guess that's what being a mom is all about! It's terrible because he was miserable, but those couple days of being completely needed were kind of nice in a weird way. He just wanted snuggles all the time.

Sean was 3 weeks early, so he was born in late October though he was due November 11. Sounds like he is ahead on standing but behind on sitting? I stopped looking at the milestones so I wouldn't go nuts. He's getting better but still keels over after a few shaky minutes of sitting. Standing (as pictured a few days ago) he can do for lengthy periods of time, and he is doing great walking hold my hands.

We have given him a little bit of chicken, but even I found the Earth's Best stuff to be very dry and unappealing so no surprise that he wasn't a big fan. I'm just afraid he's still gagging too much on thicker foods to start grinding up my own. Our big problem now is that he just doesn't want formula. We still use it to make his cereal, but I would feel better if he was doing more than a scant 4 oz a day. He loves juice from his sippy cup and will even drink on his own if we leave the cup on his high chair tray, but NO FORMULA! WAH!!

Woop, somebody is up from his second nap and ready to head over to Nana's house for dinner!

[charr]

Hi, Wondercat & Nancy! Cute pic of Sean! Isn't it amazing how fast our little ones are growing!!

Nancy - We went with Hanger for the helmet as it was our only option where we live. It's going well though he does get terribly hot with it on. He's able to sleep in it so that's a relief. He's already had it for a month.

Our little guy is sitting really well now. He'll sit for 15 minutes without falling over. The only time he falls is when he's reaching for a toy. He's trying to figure out how to go from sitting to his hands and knees now and sometimes does it not so gracefully. He's so very close to crawling. He moves one leg forward but then stops so we keep thinking any day now. We haven't started him on any meats yet but probably will soon.

Great to hear from you both!

[nancy1]

Hi Ladies,

been meaning to write for the past few days but every time I start typing something, he either wakes up or there is other such emergencies! Welcome to motherhood, right?

WONDERCAT: Sean is such a cutie and seems like a perfectly happy boy. Did you find an alternative to formula? Like soy milk or something else? what brand of formula do you usually give him? Also, the only chicken from earth's best my baby will eat is the sweet potatoe and chicken. Lately though I have also been making my own and mixing it with the earth's best veggies. He loves it.

CHARR: I'm glad the summer hear isn't bothering your peanut too much. We had the finished pics the other day and what a difference the helmet made! It's amazing! Are you continuing the PT still?

It's sure becoming harder and harder to look after the baby but also more and more exciting as he communicates so well?
Are your little guys saying anything yet? THe only word he utters for now is mama. He is moving around so much now during the day that he is sleeping better and better at night. Now he sleeps for like 8 or 9 hours, drinks milk, gets a diaper change than another 1.5-2 hours. So life is so much better on that side.

Hoping to hear soon from you guys.
Nancy

[nancy1]

Hi ladies,

right after I put yesterday's post, he started crawling!!! Good luck keeping up with him now!
Nancy

[Wondercat]

Nancy - Awesome that he's crawling! Sean kinda lunges forward to get things, or rolls over and over to get somewhere. But mostly he just really wants to walk. At our 9 month appointment the doctor saw him walking holding my husbands hands and she thought he would be walking independently in another month. EEeeek!

I have been giving him Similac formula, but have tried a bunch of different ones. I am really allergic to soy and so am reluctant to give him too many things I have a problem with (though there is some soy in that formula). Of course this morning he sucked a 4 oz bottle dry, but when I refilled it and tried to give him more he flat out refused to even open his mouth. And when he doesn't want to eat/drink something there is NO WAY to pry those little lips open!

We started meats (turkey) last night which was a big hit! I mixed it into his sweet potatoes & corn and he munched it right down. I started using a teaspoon for feeding him because those little plastic/silicone baby spoons have been irritating me. It takes FOREVER to feed him those tiny little bites, with half of it falling off the sides. He is much happier with this more efficient feeding method.

Trying to focus on the idea of trying for our second. Anyone else get this occasional weird guilt/anxiety feeling at the idea of sharing your mothering with another baby?

[charr]

Hi, ladies! Great to hear from you both.

Wondercat - Have you tried using the ready-made formula instead of powder? Our son seems to like that a bit better.

Nancy - Yes, we're still going to PT but may start going every other week soon. His range of motion is better but he still holds his head a bit of a tilt. I hope that will resolve itself at some point.

Our son has taken a few crawls forward but when he really wants to get somewhere, he slides himself forward on his belly pushing with his arms and legs. He's become quite proficient at that! He's into everything now. He hasn't been sleeping as well since starting with the helmet. Not sure if it's that or something else. He sometimes wakes up twice a night and then he'll surprise us some nights and sleep 10-11 hours without waking at all. He makes sounds of mama, dada, and baba.

Have either of you had to do a first haircut yet? We have to decide if we're going to let it be longer or get a haircut as it's over his little ears now. And how do your boys do with feeding themselves finger foods? We've been working on that but he tends to get them in his fist and then can't get them into his mouth or he just wants to play with them.

Take care!

[Wondercat]

charr - We used the pre-made formula first, he didn't like that either and if he is going to NOT drink something I would rather have it be the cheaper stuff... Plus it's easier to add the powder to his cereal.

On haircuts... As you can tell from the picture Sean's hair just sticks straight out in this short, reddish-blond fuzz. So no real reason to cut it yet! But I do want it to be short, I think boys look cute with those little wiffle cuts.

On finger foods... Two things with that - First, we have a baby who is in an "I like to wave things around wildly" phase. Second, we have two dogs who are not above taking advantage of food being wildly waved around in their general vicinity. Soon though. Our doctor recommended cooked carrots or pieces of banana. What have you been giving your son?