A few new pics...

Once again, I ran out of time over the weekend to add any new pics. Today is our 7th wedding anniversary, and we celebrated yesterday. Dan made french toast for lunch and then we went out for a yummy dinner. I'm happy to say Sophie was able to go to dinner with us. When Dan made reservations for 2 1/2, they were quick to let him know they didn't have high chairs. Obviously she is way too small for a high chair, but that was a (somewhat) polite way of letting us know they don't encourage children. We decided to risk it, and she was, as always...perfect.

Yesterday was also our BFP anniversary:) It was one year ago yesterday that I got a + pregnancy test...and then the stressing out really began, lol.

Dan being silly with Sophie. I love to watch him play with her:)

I love this, although I look like hell. Sophie, completely enthralled, by Dr. Suess.

Us at dinner last night, Sophie wearing a black velvet dress:)

Her favorite pasttime...eating her fingers:)

Grabbing on to Penelope, one of her stuffed animals.

Looking oh, so peaceful.

Where is my head???

Twice today, I've obviously had infertility on my mind. 1) My boss mentioned the word "donor." She was talking financial donor, I was thinking egg/sperm donor. 2) I just typed what I thought was "implementation." When I read what I had written, I had typed "implantation."

Nice. Sophie will be 16 weeks tomorrow and I still have infertility brain. It still bothers me to see pregnant women, or hear that someone got pregnant *this* quickly. I'm forever scarred I guess, but I do hope that my jealousy lessens with time.

Big news in Sophie's world is that she is grabbing and holding on to her toys. Last week she would take them from me (if she could coordinate that) and then drop them. Now she actually holds on to/shakes/plays with them. It's so fun!! She's also outgrowing her 3 month clothes, and she's not even 4 months yet. I'm feeding her well;) She's actually taken herself from 6 feedings a day (4 oz each) down to 4 to 5 a day (still at 4 oz). I'm trying not to worry about the "ounce per day" requirement, b/c I'm quite sure she's not meeting it. We're monitoring her diapers and she's obviously growing (well)...so I'm just going to go with her flow. I'm sure this is the first of many things I'll have to follow her lead on so I may as well get used to it.

We continue to be overly enthralled with our beautiful little girl. We just can't get enough of her. We aren't chomping at the bit to get out and do something without her, b/c we LOVE being with her. I know that will change (and we'll need/want our space) but for now I'm soaking up every minute.

Last weekend I took some work home for the weekend. While it was a priority to get done, I focused most of my attention on Sophia, even if was to just hold her an extra five minutes. I don't want to look back in a month, a year, ten years and wish I had taken more time to just hold her/play with her. One of Dan's friends on FB recently posted that it was her daughter's birthday, and her wish on that day was to be able to play with her when she was a little girl again. That really touched both of us, and that thought just keeps playing in my head. I want to make the most of this time and feel like I'm doing a good job, despite.the.total.exhaustion.

We were standing over her crib a few nights ago and Dan said "can you believe she's ours." Oh, hello waterworks. No, I still can't believe she's ours. I still cry sometimes when I look at her. I love that I am sharing this with someone who also doesn't take her for granted. He just stares at her sometimes (as do I) with a look of total amazement and contentment. To say we adore her is an understatement. If we had to deal with the hell that is infertilty to get to a feeling like this, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Pics this weekend. Promise:)

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Sophia...

Then and now...

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of our embryo transfer. I just read through my post from last year and the anxiety of that day (and time in general) came right back to the surface. http://myinfertileworldsm.blogspot.com/2009/03/3-embies-are-back-home.html

How I survived that, I do not know. But I did, WE did...and have a wonderful little girl smiling at us now:) We couldn't ask for more.


Here she was 1 year ago...



And here she is 14w2d:)

Tummy time success!!

We finally have tummy time success. It's been getting better over the last few weeks, but it's never consistent. Just b/c Sophia likes it one doesn't mean she'll like it the next. I've learned a few tricks. One is to wait until she's getting close to eating, then her belly won't be full and she's more comfy and two is that I have to "join" her in tummy time. It's not enough to put her on her tummy and walk away, or just stare at her from afar. She wants me on the floor with her, we're talking eye to eye. I talk to her, sing to her, show her a toy...anything to distract her from the terror she thinks is tummy time.

Thursday night she actually FELL ASLEEP while on her tummy. And the real kicker is ME, paranoid, neurotic ME, left her that way...and walked out of her nursery. You're shocked right? That I left her that way. Let me just say that I assessed the sitch before I left, and was back every 3-4 minutes to make sure she was still breathing, so what is normally a relaxing time for me (when she naps), was actually 30 minutes of work, but that's OK:)

Trying out the Sepia function on my new camera!

"Ok mom, naps over. Time to play."

Professional pictures

We have a "First Year" package with a local photographer to get pics taken when 1) Sophia is/was a newborn, 2) when she is 6-8 months old (essentionally when she is sitting up well, but not yet crawling, and 3) one year.

Here are the Newborn pictures, taken when she was only 9 days old. She was so, so, SO tiny. We left the photo session that day, went home to regroup (b/c it was an event), and then went to Children's for our first meeting with the Orthopedist. It was also the day she got fitted for her harness. A couple humorous points to this day were 1) she peed on Dan's shirt during the shoot, and 2) her umbilical cord fell off...but not until we got home. The photographer had us in all of these CRAZY positions to get good shots, but also to hide her umbilical cord stump. Both of our backs were aching when we left her studio and if I remember correctly we were both sweating...and it was mid-December. Anyhoo...we got home, I changed her diaper and thought "what the hell is THAT"...it was her stump. After all that work to hide it for the pics, it fell off on the ride home:)

Shana (the photographer) was actually going for the closed eyes look for Sophia, but she was having none of that. I was instructed to feed her before we left home, in hopes that she would be drowsy. This worked until we had to handle her so much to hide that silly stump. So I had to feed her 1/2 way through. This was my first "out in public" nursing session, although it wasn't really public. It was definately out of my comfort zone of the nursery though. Oh, and when I changed her prior to nursing, she pooed all of the blanket I had (thankfully) thought to lay down.

These are actually pictures of the pics, since we didn't get electronic files of the photos she took. The first two are 16 x 16 are actually on stretched canvas which is waaayyyy cool. The one of me with her is a matted 8 x 10.

http://www.shanawatkins.com/

Funnily (is that a word?) enough, when I saw this one at the studio, for a good long minute I wasn't sure if it was the right picture. I wondered if someone had photoshopped my head on someone elses body. Couple that with the fact that Sophia really does not look like that anymore and I was really not sure it was us! I told the photographer I didn't have a black boat-neck top and she reminded me that I'd had on a v-neck, which (in all of our efforts to pose) had gotten stretched to look like it does in the picture. Crazy.

Major change in schedule...

Soooo....since not wearing her harness during the day, Sophia's sleeping and eating pattern has changed. Coincidence maybe, but this is just weird.

According to Dan, she's napping more, but playing harder. When awake, her legs are pretty much always going:) She's also starting to roll from back to side pretty regularly. She's going to bed earlier, 9ish instead of 10ish and getting up MUCH earlier, 7ish instead of 10ish. What's up with that? Yesterday she was wide awake at 7:30 am and this morning was bright eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30, after her feeding. I put her in her crib this morning, where she talked to her mobile for about an hour. By 8, when I left for work, she was napping but this is just a change from what has been her norm.

As far as eating, I typically feed her once overnight (b/t 3 and 4) and then once before work (b/t 6-7). She eats twice during the day, 11 and 2, and then at night 7 and 10. For the past little while, I've thought she really didn't *need* the 10 pm feeding as she wasn't acting hungry, although she does eat. Last night, I fed her at 7 and then she was in bed at 9:30 without a feeding. I just thought I'd see what happened. She didn't wake up until 3, which is her usual mid-night feeding time. Yesterday Dan tried to feed her at 11 and she wanted no part of it, and finally ate at 1, and then again at 4. I'm at a loss as to why her eating pattern is changing. I still HATE not knowing how much she is getting when she nurses, but I have to imagine she's getting enough if she cut herself out of a feeding yesterday with no problem.

I'm such a stickler for rules, and I know she's supposed to be getting 28-30 oz a day, but I'm going to just let her take the lead in what she wants and see what happens. You would think she'd be eating MORE, with all of her extra calorie burning.

I tried to upload a video last night but it was taking forever. Will try again tonight!

rest in peace Layla Grace...

I just found out through one of the message boards I frequent that Layla Grace passed away early this morning. I won't go into details, as this wasn't a story I'd been following for a long time, and was/is so heartwrenching that I only visited the blog a few times, and only when I was feeling strong enough to get an update.

laylagrace.org

I've been trying for awhile to get to the website, with no luck. I can only imagine it's being inundated with comments.

I know that sweet, sweet girl is finally at peace. I hope her family can begin the healing process soon.

Her hips are good:)

We had a follow-up appt with the pediatric orthopedist yesterday. Instead of an u/s, they took an x-ray of Sophia's hips. Oh, she looked so little up on that table. It's hard to believe that the first time we took her there, she was only 9 days old, and weighed not quite half of what she weighs now.

The good news is that her hips look great! According to Dr. K, everything is where it should be. So, she'll reduce the amount of time spent wearing her harness from about 16 hours a day, down to only wearing it overnight. Dr. K didn't even give an hour per day to wear it, just said during her overnight sleeping, which works out to be 10-12 hours. And, they fitted her for a new harness, size medium (her first was a small, and she didn't have much more room for adjustment). I'm just thankful for a new one b/c her first one was looking g.r.o.d.y. It's hard to keep that thing clean!

I know that she is happy to have so much freedom to move around now. That was really bothering me over the past few weeks, b/c during each diaper or clothing change she would just stretch and stretch, and I felt horrible putting her back in the harness. Last night, she was laying in her crib, and just moving and grooving and rocking. In about 30 minutes, she had turned 180 degrees from the way I layed her initially.

So the next step in the hip issue will be for her to stay in this medium size harness 10ish hours per day until she's 6 months, at which time she'll go back for another x-ray to make sure things are staying on track. At that point, they'll fit her for a different harness, which will wrap around her legs only (without the shoulder straps like her current one). She'll wear that one overnight from 6-12 months. The critical x-ray will occur at 12 months and will tell us what is next, if anything.

I love being able to pick her up without the harness and just give her hugs and cuddles:) And, I asked Dr. K about being able to use the bumbo seat and our carriers. She gave the bumbo a thumbs up, which I figured she would. I pulled that out last night and gave it a try. She tended to lean to the side, so I might have to prop her up with a towel the next time. She didn't seem to mind it though. We also got a thumbs up to my fabric sling, but only for 2 of the carrying positions. We got a huge thumbs up to using the Baby Bjorn, since using it puts her legs into the same position that the harness does. It's a good thing too, b/c we've already used that twice. My theory (about her leg positioning b/c the same as in the harness) was good thankfully.

I'm excited to try out the fabric sling, but may have to take it back for a smaller size. It comes in M and L, and I have the large. I have lost ALOT of weight and think the large is going to be too big. Well, alot of weight for me anyway. I think I mentioned that I lost the 23 pounds I gained during pregnancy in 10 days. Since then, I've lost another 12. I had gained 10 pounds with all of my IVF meds, so I am officially 2 pounds less than before I started any meds (and almost back to my wedding weight which is REALLY hard to believe). Some of my pants literally fall off of me. It's incredible to look at my stomach and think Sophia was ever IN there!

I know I am way overdue in posting, and have lots more to say (as well as pics to post) but will save that for the next post, in the next day or so. Working full time and being a responsive, engaging mom is quite time consuming:) I try to be cognizant of the fact that she needs her alone/quiet time, but it's so hard for me to let her just lie there when I'm home. So other than eating dinner and maybe watching a bit of TV, I'm at her beck and call until she goes to bed:)