Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Don't Blink

Where does time GO? Seriously.


5 years ago I was eagerly awaiting the coming of 2010- the year hub would come home from deployment- even though he had only left 3 weeks before.


4 years ago hub had been home for 3 weeks. We were celebrating our first set of holidays in our new house.


3 years ago I was living the nightmare. Only one day post amnio results.


2 years ago I was eager to start at the RE, just waiting for the new year to dawn.


1 year ago I was signing "Giant baby please come out" and wondering who was in there


Now- I am watching my son walk across the room to climb the stairs.


I had a cry for Blue Sunday last night. Yesterday I also cried for the little baby kins isn't anymore.


My little walker!

Don't blink
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did

Kenny Chesney, Don't Blink

Thursday, December 25, 2014

Best Gift Ever






The truth is on the shirt. Can't beat this wonderful child. He will always be the best gift ever. 

Santa did bring some nice things too ;)

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Another One Down

BFN 2.




I actually tested this time- on day 29. I was 4 days late (though I didn't do OPKs this time, so it may not have been "late" just reacting to delayed Ovulation). I had a hope there for a minute of being one of those women who have an oops pregnancy after ART. This is not a cycle I wanted to conceive on, but it was still sad. It was made slightly better that I got my official invitation for being in the September wedding (the one I was delaying conception for) the evening I got the BFN. I would have been due less than 2 weeks before the ceremony.

I called and got my schedule of visits for the RE round 2.



Here we go again!

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

RE Update

We had our appointment with the RE a week ago today. As always, our doctor was honest, straightforward and funny. He told me he wouldn't discuss anything until we showed him baby pictures. He joked about how there was no second-guessing bub's paternity.   He explained how he anticipated no changes in our baseline information from last time (just under 2 years ago now) but that the insurance required a complete re-do with the exception of genetic screening which we can skip and doing an SPG rather than an HSG (saline rather than dye).

He did caution us that though he expects the same overall result (pregnancy) we can't assume that we will have a first cycle pregnancy again. I know that.. I know I will be super disappointed when we don't get a first cycle positive.. but it isn't realistic.

We are planning on the exact same protocol after a month of testing. Just need AF to show up again, which should be in the next 2-5 days. Knowing my awesome luck and fantastic knack for coincidental dates I'm sure it will start on Monday- making day 3 (blood draw day) Wednesday and bub's first speech appointment. Which means unless I can get in REALLY early, I'll miss testing this month. 

RE did have another word of caution. The risk of twins goes from 2% to 8-12% for a clomid cycle. That is a 300%-500% increase. YIKES. It would have been hard to have twins when I was hoping for my first take home baby. I don't know how I would manage 3 under 2. That isn't even a saying it's so insane. I'm sure we would do just fine and I would rather 2 than 0, but I still am hoping to add to our family one at a time. 

I'll keep you posted!

So Baby Talk To Me


So I left you all hanging, I did have my reasons ;)

Did I update here that Kins waves now? He started the day before EI came out. Of course. That day he also started saying rarara with some frequency (usually to the cats, he waves and says rara to cats… so cute!). I was feeling pretty silly when I saw him doing those things knowing I had raised the alarm.  Had I not yet scheduled the assessment I might have put it off- which would have been wrong of me.

The Early Intervention appointment was a week ago today. It went as I expected it to when I was being honest with myself and not crazy. Kins is a rock star at a lot of things. He is very social (thank goodness). He turned when he was called, he smiled and waved at the 3 testers. He was so interested in them, and in our interaction with them. A lot of the questions they asked me they would ask and then say “I can see he does ____ (whatever they were asking about).” Before they had really set up one commented “He is SO social” That was a HUGE relief and I felt much better about the whole appointment from that moment on.

Kins is also very physical. He is ahead of age range in his fine and gross motor skills. He is curious and that gave him a very good score in his problem solving section- I had to laugh- Kins is a problem CREATER, not a solver. There was one really cute moment (there were lots, but one to share). The tester had a little toy dog that she played with and then put under a cloth napkin, asked where was the dog was and then pulled it off. She did this a few times and then pretended to hide the dog in the napkin again, actually hid it in her lab and told Kins to find it. While she was doing this, she told me kids his age don’t usually do this one well. He pulled off the napkin, looked for the toy, sat back down and looked all around himself, crawled off and looked at where he had been sitting. It was SO CUTE. The ladies were all excited, “oh he’s really looking for it!” 

All that aside, bub is REALLY quiet. Even with his new Rarara (which he did while they were there), he scored a 67 when the normal range is 85-115 and 77 qualifies for services. They largely feel that he’s behind because he is focused on other things. He has good receptive language, so we know that he learns and understands. There are issues though- (small I, issues)- he doesn’t mimic sounds or sticking out his tongue. He doesn’t have a wide range of noises in his sound dictionary. He doesn’t alter tone a heck of a lot. He doesn’t make sounds while playing- me makes them when he wants something. They will be working with him starting next week (this week the person assigned to us is on vacation). They seem confident that this is a single issue and nothing global or likely to be lingering long term. (Phew).

So I feel vindicated. EVERYONE in our lives told us nothing was off with him. I knew, I knew something was going on. I want to afford him every chance, every step-up in the world. THAT’S why I pushed.  He is the best thing I have ever experienced, if he NEVER speaks I will still feel that way.

Can you stand how cute he is!?  And that's an electric candle.. Just in case Soemone is concerned ;)

So Baby Talk To Me

Eurythmics, Here Comes the Rain Again

Monday, December 1, 2014

#feelnoshame

I just love Prince Harry. He seems like such a fun guy. When my US Weekly email came today it said something to the effect of "Prince Harry revels big secret" of course I clicked on the link. Turns out he has anxiety. Join the club, handsome. He is part of a movement to support World AIDS Day by reveling a secret about yourself with the hashtag feelnoshame. Honestly, I don't really understand twitter, so I thought I would share here.


I am terrified something is "wrong" with my precious kins. TERRIFIED.


He doesn't babble. He just doesn't.


He also doesn't clap or wave on command (Commands like Hi (we wave), or Bye (we wave),  or please baby for the love of your mother WAVE so I don't Lose. My. Shit (we wave desperately). Usually he laughs at us.


Obviously he doesn't talk since he isn't even babbling.


I have reached out to friends of mine who are SLPs and special education teachers. Everyone says they think he sounds fine. No one says "you're crazy stop worrying" (no one of any authority that this).


We called the pedi (royal we, I did it) the week before Thanksgiving and she put in a referral to the early intervention people. They called last Monday and came over the day before Thanksgiving for the intake.


Hub said he thought from the comments of the intake nurse that she thinks kins is fine. I didn't get that impression, but I let hub think that for the time being. Though she did say he was a smarty pants- twice. Anyway.They come over for the evaluation on Thursday morning. I can't breathe.


Kins is interactive, he answers to his name (and to kins, hahaha). He is a physical rock star- he takes a few steps to get from one object to another and he climbed up all 12 stairs Sunday (I'll tell you about that later). He has a mean pincer grip and feeds himself like a champ.


But he won't babble, He's not deaf or even hard of hearing.


#feelnoshame. I am terrified.


PS. I have mentioned the royal family A LOT on this blog. This is strange to me, I am really not much of a royal watcher.