9-month appointment

The Pickle turned 9 months old last Wednesday (4/20), so we had her nine-month appointment on Friday.

The stats:
Height:  28 inches (73%)
Weight:  20 lb 2 oz (82%0
Head:  19 in (off the charts still)

Alice first had to get her hep B booster - she is such a little toughy.  She never actually cried, just squawked for four seconds (this is not an exaggeration), and then was done.  We then had to take her to the lab to get her finger pricked for her iron test - again, she never cried, never even fussed.  She DID give the lab tech a look of, "What the heck are you doing THAT for?!"  Other than that, she was a tough little bird!

She is slightly anemic, so they're putting her on some iron supplements for the next month.  We go back on May 20 to see if it's gotten better.  Other than that, it was a blessing to read the phrases "happy, healthy, developmentally normal 9-month-old." 

The Drought

I've been having a blogging drought lately.

As far as Alice goes, things are amazing and wonderful and she's perfect.  Things obviously have their imperfections (like the reverse cycling she's doing right now), but I'm so amazed and blessed to have such a perfect baby.  I sometimes just look at her and cry from her beauty.

I feel like I've already touched on all of my words for Maddie.  It's just hard and it aches and it's dull, right on my heart.  I can't change it, and I can't make it better.  There's not much new or different to say - it just hurts, and it will forever.  Sometimes I have insights into my own feelings, but they're just that.  Sometimes it feels so weird to share them, it feels like I'm assuming they're important to others when they're just mine.

I don't really know where I'm going with this.  I know April is an awful time for a lot of my friends, and my heart goes out to them.

The Futility

I so very, very often go over the time we got to spend with Maddie, as short as it was. When the grief and despair are at their worst (like right now), I sometimes think of the futility of singing to her, rocking her, kissing her. She was already gone, she never got to experience them. It is my firm belief she knows our love in Heaven, but those motions... those were for us. I so desperately wish I could have done something for her.

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Vampire Baby

My OB (who I adore) got me in yesterday. He treated my bouts of mastitis, but he looked at the weird red streaking and said, "I have never seen that! Let me grab the determatologist."

She said it was either very atypical mastitis, or an infection from a human bite. I am on FOUR medications. Ick!

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The Nursing Saga

When Maddie was born, my milk coming in (and then leaving) were incredibly emotional experiences. I so wanted to feed my baby with that, and it broke my heart when it went away, as if my body were forgetting her. Because of all of this, I knew without a doubt that I was going to be incredibly determined to breastfeed with Alice. I was going to start off with small goals (3 months, then 6 months, etc.), and try to attain each separately.


We started off incredibly rough. A lost over 10% of her body weight in the hospital, and they almost didn’t let us leave on the last day. My milk finally came in, and we were allowed to leave. All went well for a week or two, and then things went south. She was losing weight, my ni.pples were bloody and cracked, so they wanted us to supplement with formula. I got mastitis (103 degree fever and all), and my supply dropped a ton. I started seeing a lactation consultant, and we found that Alice’s tongue was too short and her palate too high – she wasn’t able to properly nurse. I started pumping almost exclusively but still nursing her on occasion, and we did that for several months. Due to my PCOS, the supply issues were very difficult to deal with, but I was able to fix them with a TON of work and dedication – she’s only probably ever had about ten bottles of formula. Around four months, she was big enough that we were able to switch to nursing while I was home, and things went well. I had one more bout of mastitis and about nine clogged ducts, a blood blister and one case of thrush, but it’s been much improved. I’ve been incredibly proud that The Pickle turned 8 months yesterday, and despite having just about every problem possible, we have battled through this to do what I felt was best for her.

Then she bit me.

To be accurate, she’s been biting for a while off and on, mostly when she’s ready to switch sides or is bored. This one on Saturday was awful, though. She just had the first bit of her first tooth poke through a week and a half ago, and so she bit me hard enough that I bled. And bled. I bled when she nursed. I bled when I pumped. Finally I got it to stop bleeding by Sunday morning, and have been putting Bacitra.cin and lanolin on it after every nursing session. However, during last night’s nursing sessions, the pain got a ton worse. It felt like I was getting stabbed – I have had radiation and several surgeries, but THIS was horrible. It kept me up a good portion of the night, and it’s incredibly sore all of the time – I found a little bit of white on it this morning. I have a call in to my OB/GYN, because I’m pretty sure that it’s infected.

I don’t, don’t, don’t want to wean her, but this is awful. Any words of advice? I’m just getting ready to clock in to work, but would appreciate any words of wisdom anyone may have! It was (and still is) my intention to nurse her until a year, and then to mix nursing with whole milk.

Very Superstitious

I’ve always thought superstitions are largely silly. For the most part, I still do. JTD got a job at the hospital where Maddie was born, and I never thought twice about it. I wouldn’t hesitate to move houses or jobs just because they were what I was doing when Maddie was born – those things aren’t associated with her, they were just coincidences.


However… I do find myself avoiding certain stupid, inane things that I did in the hours and days preceding her birth. The weekend before she was born was the 4th of July, and so we’d gone shopping for her crib and nursery furniture. It was to be delivered the next week (which it still was, and is in the nursery still). We had been using that room for storage, so we had to get a bunch of junk out of there. My grandpa and dad came over on the day before I went into labor and helped JTD move stuff, and I lifted a few pillows and things. After we were all done, we went to a local place and got sodas. I can’t even drive by there now without having a fit of sadness.

On the day I went into labor (the 6th), I thought I just had the flu until the contractions really started coming. I had a fever, vomiting, and back pain, but didn’t know what it was. I stayed home from work, and was lying on the couch watching whatever was on TV. There were a couple of old sitcoms that were on when I started having contractions, and I won’t let anyone in our house even flip to them if I see them on.

While Alice and I frequently go to the hospital to visit Daddy, and the entire OB ward has been redone, I can’t even look in the room where she was born. This one makes a little more sense than the others, but it’s still just an irrational block in my brain.

I wonder if everyone has these weird things that they avoid and fear? I’m guessing that they’ll be there for forever – but in a way, it almost seems like they’re healthy. They’re fixed things upon which I can pin my fears and emotions.

Small Miracles

Franchesca is an inspiration!  Join the Small Miracles Blog Hop to share those small things that give you hope - we all need more of it!

On our bedroom dresser, we have an entire area dedicated just to Maddie.  It has her picture and urn, all of the flower petals we were given for her, a statue, and several other things.  It's a wonderfully special area, and it is a blessing for me to look at it each night as I'm going to sleep.

Alice and I often play upstairs on the bed when she wakes up.  Ever since she was a newborn, I will always find her staring at Maddie's urn, gazing intently at it.  My girls are fraternal twins, conceived from the same in-vitro cycle but transferred during two different frozen embryo transfers.  This is a tiny thing, but it lets me know that my girls have a close bond that transcends even an earthly divide.

6-month photos

She technically turns 7 months this coming Sunday, so I probably should have posted these a while ago.  Regardless, my friend Chris took Alice's 6-month photos (he also did her amazing 3-month photos!).

Here are some of the raw files - I just love them!

You may notice a few things:

1.  Alice only smiled in the last photo.  This is because I took her to get her photos taken while she was tired.  Lesson learned.

2.  Like in her Christmas card photos (LINK), you may notice my daughter's nipples.  Apparently I am comfortable posting them on the internet.  This may get weird around the time she's 8 or so.

Judgment

Judgment.  We're all guilty of it about some things, but don't really think about it until we're the victims of it.

You see it even in the infertility and loss communities, in the mama communities.  Those of us who have babies after our struggles with horrible infertility receive comments about how grateful we should be from those who haven't been blessed yet - thus diminishing our own struggles, trying to make us feel like we're no longer "in the pack."  Same thing with those who have lost their babies and haven't yet had another - most baby-loss mamas are not judgmental, but there are times when the despair and jealousy can creep up inside of you, and you lash out. 

"Regular" mamas receive this, too.  Take the breastfeeding wars, for example.  I was personally able to battle through incredible hardships with BFing, and am still going strong with no end in sight.  Not everyone is that lucky - there are people who don't make milk, who don't have the resources to make it work.  Of course it makes me a tiny bit sad when someone doesn't try, but that's not my place to judge - they have their own reasons, none of which I'm privy to.  On the flip side, a woman receives judgment if she goes "too long" (as if there is such a thing).  I plan on BFing as Alice's main source of nutrition until a year, and then beyond that as she wants (although I will likely have to either stop or pump-and-dump when we do the next FET, as Lup.ron isn't compatible with BFing).

Why do I bring this up?  I was made to feel pretty awful this last weekend.  A group of women who do "gentle parenting" made a large number of catty comments about anyone who has had anything other than a home/natural childbirth.  This obviously is a very personal subject to me.  First of all, I was never a great candidate for home birth - as we found during both of my cancer surgeries, and then again when I had Maddie, my blood pressure dips incredibly low when I lose much blood.  It's not safe for me to be at home when this happens.  Then, when we got pregnant with Alice, I chose the Shirodkar cerclage because it had better statistical results - since there is a permanent metal ribbon in my cervix, that is not a valid exit strategy for the baby, thereby necessitating a C-section.  Their comments made me feel bad both about losing my baby, and for doing what I needed to do to make sure that Alice was safe - kind of hypocritical for a group that is about "respect," but I digress.

When it comes down to it, I shouldn't have even had to explain to anyone that my C-section was medically necessary.  I have friends who opted to be induced (or even had elective C-sections) for personal or medical reasons.  That does not make them less of a respectful mother - in fact, it brings the baby into the world at a time when the mother is the most prepared to welcome them in a peaceful and happy manner.  That fosters a close relationship with the baby.  I totally agree that natural is an ideal environment for those who are lucky enough to have that option, but there is NO authority on attachment parenting that requires it.

Enough about my personal diatribe - my point, now that I've eventually gotten there, is that it's just unfair and not right to try and judge someone without knowing their situation.  And, as it's impossible to ever know all of another's situation... again, it's not right to judge them.  Opinions are wonderful things, and we've all got them - but as I age, I realize that all of those concrete ideals I had when I was younger are tempered, that life is rarely black and white.  Life happens, and we just have to adapt with the hands we're dealt.

Hush, Little Baby

There are so many lullabies out there, and it's almost like they're all taunting those whose babies passed away by telling your baby to not say a word, to not cry.

Regardless of that, though, I've always related the song "Hush, Little Baby" to Maddie - for a bunch of different, personal reasons.  As many know, the song has a bunch of lyrics like this:

"Hush, little baby, don't say a word.
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.
And if that mockingbird don't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.
And if that diamond ring turns brass,
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass." 

All of the lyrics have the mother trying to make a bad situation better for her child.  (Granted, she's only doing it by buying stuff, which is illogical, but that's not germane to my point.)  It sometimes hits home how much I ache to do things to make this situation better for Madeleine, something that I never can do.  I would do anything, give anything to make this okay, to bring her back.

Grateful

Yesterday was my birthday. I do not mention this for recognition; I am well past the point of these being a big deal. However, I did receive the best birthday gift.

Alice's 6-mo checkup was Friday. Weight was 18 lbs (86%), height was 26.5 in (75% - ?!?), and head circumference was 18 in - off the charts. Since it was big enough to qualify as a condition called macrocephaly, they figured it was worth checking preventatively (she is developing on schedule, so it is asymptomatic).

They measured our heads to confirm genetics, and made an appt for an ultrasound for yesterday. They wanted to do an u/s because she still has a decent-sized soft spot - if they waited, it would have required a CT scan.

Well, the scan went great! Just genetics! We will keep an eye out to make sure growth levels out, but she is fine. She did NOT, however, enjoy the scan. She wanted to be moving, and let us know it! The tech also kept talking about how she had never scanned a baby with so mug hair.

As an APer, my big problem was trying to comfort her when she was so upset. I could not nurse, so I brought a bottle I had pumped. This helped for a short while, as did singing, but nothing worked great. Both JTD and I just held and comforted her to the best of our abilities, and hugged her when we could!

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Blah Ble Blah Blah

I probably should just leave the blog title spot blank if I can't think of anything...

Miss Alice turns 6 months on Thursday!  My little girl isn't so little anymore!  She's doing so well - the only thing we're a little behind on is sitting up.  She can tripod like a champ, but isn't really sitting up-up yet.  We can't get her to stop rolling even when we need her to, though, and she keeps making motions like she wants to crawl.

Her appointment is on Friday - at that time, we're going to start feeding solids.  I think we're going to do a combination of baby-led weaning (where she gums off of foods and feeds herself) and purees.  I am shocking everyone I know because I've decided that I'm going to make the baby food myself.  In their defense, I can just barely make mac and cheese.  I've been making all of her meals with my chest for the last six months, and know what went into each of them... I feel like I should keep it up.  I am remarkably lazy after I get home from work, though, so we'll see how this goes.

I try to talk to Alice pretty constantly about Maddie, but I'm so curious how to go about that as she goes older.  I really think I want to make up a little story for her, but I'm not sure how to do it.

Goodbye, 2010...

I joked recently that 2010 was the year spent mostly on my couch (which is true - the one-year anniversary of my cerclage and beginning of bedrest is coming up in 12 days!).  It was so very much more, though.  2009 was the saddest year of my life, and 2010 was the happiest.  I am so immeasurably blessed, and it just fills my heart.

I keep watching my itty bitty baby get bigger and bigger, and my heart swells.  I am so proud of that smiling face, the light in her eyes when she sees her daddy or I.  I never imagined being this blessed.

I also find myself still hurting.  I think daily of what it would be like if Maddie were here, too, if we had both of them.  I try to imagine if she'd be a chunky little cherub like Alice, or if she'd still be lithe and lean.  I wonder if her hair would be dark, or if it would be blonde.  I wish I could feel her holding my hand, and seeing her hug Alice.  I also have so much anxiety over Alice - it isn't helped by watching a lot of SVU lately at night while A is asleep, but I am so worried about someone hurting her.  I am so afraid of the things I can't control in her life - and I know it's because of the total lack of control I had with Maddie.

Argh - anyway.  Here are some pictures of my beautiful girl - we don't have any New Year's Day ones, because our household all got the flu last weekend.  Happiest of new year's to all of my dear friends!

What's in a name?

I first off wanted to thank Jill from Footprints on our Hearts (LINK) for the wonderful, beautiful, absolutely perfect keychain that I was lucky enough to win for the 25 Days giveaway!  You're amazing, Jill, and I am just so grateful!  I got a picture of it on my keychain, but it wasn't blog-worthy in quality.

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I've been getting lots of the "Is Alice your first child?" questions lately.  Every single time, my heart says, "No" - but I sometimes struggle with my answers aloud.  I usually try to say, "She has an older sister in Heaven," but there are admittedly times when I just don't have the strength to get into that.  It hurts to explain, and it hurts to not explain.  There is truly no right answer.

It would help if there were a way we could easily identify ourselves.  It's easy enough to explain my fertility issues - "I'm a PCOS-er," or "I had to do IVF" (whatever acronym they may understand).  There really isn't a quick way to explain being a mother of a child who has passed on, however.

The common one we've adopted is "baby loss mamas" - but something about that one bothers me a little bit.  To be precise, it's the word "loss" - I didn't misplace Maddie.  It wasn't thoughtlessness or anything I could have controlled that took her away from me.  I know precisely where she is at all times.  It's a well-meaning term, but a little laden with blame.

Slightly better is "orphaned parents," but that one just confuses people.  "So, you're a parent, but your parents died?"  Not easy to explain.

Is there a better term of which I'm just not aware?  When it comes down to it... does it really matter what I call myself?  No matter what you call it, I still can't hold my daughter, and it hurts even if I don't have a name for the emotion.

I hope the holidays are a time of healing and love for all, and brings them closeness with those they've lost.

Giveaway Winner....

I first off wanted to thank everyone for their wonderful comments on the giveaway!  This meant a lot to me - I was a little worried that it wouldn't be an idea people liked.

On to the fun stuff!  I used our friendly generator at random.org, and the winner is...  Cheryllookingforward!  Cheryl is a wonderful lady - her Baby November and Maddie would have been due around the same time. 

Thank you so much, everyone, for your wonderful comments!

25 Days of Giveaways - Day 16

I am so grateful to Tina for letting me participate in the 25 Days of Giveaways!

After Maddie passed away two summers ago, I took a step back to reexamine everything in my life and see how I could do it better.  One of the things that made me think was how my family celebrated Christmas - we all usually got each other gift cards to buy things we didn't really need, or maybe even want.  While we all appreciated and loved the gifts and each other, it wasn't really what I would call productive.  So, last Christmas, I proposed the idea instead of giving to a charity of our choice, and then sharing on Christmas Day to where we donated, and why.  This idea was received so well that we're doing it again this year.

My donation both years has been to the March of Dimes.  I know it's not a traditional giveaway, but I would like to do the same for the winner of this giveaway.  Please leave your blog link and your angel baby's name in the comments below, and I will donate to March of Dimes in your baby/babies' name if you win.  If you are a frequent reader/subscriber, please leave a second note reminding me of this to double your chances.  Comments can be submitted until midnight Pacific time.

I will post the winner here tomorrow, and will also try to leave a comment on your blog informing you that you won.

Happy holidays!

Eventful

It was an eventful weekend/Monday!  Here's the gist of it:

Saturday - Alice's first blizzard.  Super-excited to get that milestone out of the way.  We had intentions of going to see Santa in the "big" city nearby, but the roads weren't allowing for that... so we went to the local one.  It was okay - Alice has been having stranger anxiety lately, and so luckily she didn't see him when we put her on his lap.  She did, however, grab a handful of beard hair first thing, so she was clearly his favorite child.  The picture wasn't really good enough to be scanned, so it's just going in the baby book.

We got home, and she hit a couple of major milestones!  She tripod-sat for the first time unassisted (go, baby girl!), and then this started happening (forgive her sleep-sack-and-Babylegs look, and my pajama pants):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klj-gSj1NdE

Is it weird that I am honestly more excited/proud about her doing this than I am about almost anything I've ever achieved in my whole life?

Sunday - I woke up several times through the night with some pain in my lower right abdomen.  Hunh.

Monday - Pain continued, so I went to the doctor.  My blood tests showed that my white blood cell counts were pretty elevated, so he got a CT scan.  It came back normal, but he's still worried about the cell counts (I might still be at the beginning of appendicitis), so I go back today.

While I was at home waiting for the results, Alice started getting sick.  Lots of pooping, fever, etc.  Her fever finally broke at about 4:00 a.m. this morning, but we were thisclose the whole time to meeting the pediatrician's requirements to go to the ER.  It was a long night, but we're doing better today!

I'm hoping that 2011 is drama-free.  :)

Pretty, pretty, pretty

Thank you so much to Franchesca for my gorgeous new blog look!  Here is a LINK to where you can purchase her services - even though I was on a waiting list, her turnaround time was so fast, and she was absolutely amazing!

She did SUCH an amazing job with incorporating Maddie's footprints into my header... and my new blog button!  If you'd like to link to me, she has a button right over here somewhere:

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4-month Appointment Fun

Alice's 4-month appointment went awesome.  She was 24.5 inches long (37th percentile), 15 lb 8 oz (79th percentile), and had a head circumference of 17.5 inches (99th percentile!).  I joked to JTD that we have the cutest Bobble.head on Earth.

She did great with the shots, though - she only cried for about ten to fifteen seconds, and was then fine.  She ran a low-grade temp all weekend, but I think it's better.  She giggled when the doctor was checking her hip joints, like, "What is this dude doing?"

Update on baby Isaac Liam - thank you for all of the prayers for my nephew.  He's doing great - he's not eating very quickly/efficiently, but they took him off of the CPAP yesterday because he's breathing so well.  He was moved to an incubator, so they can control his environment more.  We went down and saw him on Saturday night after he was born, and he was grasping my finger - it's amazing how strong he is already.

prayers, please

Please keep a very special baby in your prayers. After a totally uneventful pregnancy, my brother's wife just delivered their baby boy, Isaac, at 32 weeks. He is doing great, but could use prayers.

I guess our family can't have a normal pregnancy...

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