You are my sunsine...

Most of you will think I'm a terrible mama for thinking this is funny. But I crack up every time I watch it. It started off so sweetly with TJ singing to Theo and the ending was just so unexpected - for Theo, TJ and the mama's. And I love "sowwy" and kiss. TJ is Theo's "fake cousin" and his bff - we heart TJ to death. Everyone was fine like ONE minute later. I promise.

CD & SP + 8

Carrie over at Eat, Poop, Love had a great post a couple of days ago about the TLC show "Jon and Kate plus 8" and how disgustingly commercial and gross the whole show has become. She also touched upon how controlling and distasteful the mother is--I think every commenter agreed that the show has gone out of control. Suddenly, having a million kids is very trendy. See Brangelina, Madonna, et. als. for adoption/out of control reproduction problems. Then there's the horrid "18 Kids and Counting: The Duggars," also on TLC. Let's not even get into the octo-mama thing...

It seems everywhere people are having gaggles of children and we are endlessly fascinated by them. I thought this whole discussion was rather appropriate given our recent stressing out over the number of children we'd like to have in our family (as in, should we have 1 or 2, not should we have 4 or 8). Then this morning on NPR, I heard this rather amazingly disgusting story of the Quiverfull Movement. Yes, it's biblical. Yes, it's the idea of "be fruitful and multiply." And it's also the "God will tell us when we've had enough children" theory. Oh, and don't forget the "We're building a Christian Army" part of it. Yikes. (If you listened to this story, I'm sure you'll especially like the bit where a woman claimed in just three generations they could take over urban centers that have gone astray like San Francisco!)

So okay, I admit that I am vaguely jealous of these women's obviously amazing fertility and ability to grow and deliver healthy children. Apart from that, I'm just sort of grossed out by the whole gaggle of children concept--especially these days. I know I'm being judgemental, but it is just not fair to the Earth to have these many kiddos running around. What a resource suck.

Just my thought for the day. I know I sound bitter and rude but, hey, some days I just am.

Theo is 8 months old today. woh.

It's interesting that I haven't posted many updates on the breastfeeding situation. Please recall the breastfeeding dilemma I have been in from day one. I never got enough supply to sustain him, so most of his nutritional intake is from formula. However, I kept up what I could for the health/brain benefits as well as the comfort. Plus, I liked it. Lately he's been nursing before bed and first thing in the morning. I envisioned myself a extended breastfeeding kinda woman...alas...

I pulled the plug. I stopped pumping. I've dutifully pumped everyday for 8 months even though I get paltry amounts. It used to be every time I fed him (even in the middle of the night). Then I went back to work so I was just pumping 3-4 times when I was home. Eventually it dwindled down to once, after I fed him at night. I decided to stop pumping because he self-weaned out of his evening feedings. At this point, he wants the bottle because it's faster and easier. I'm lucky he didn't do this sooner. My supply has diminished to just about nothing (I also stopped the d*mperidone). He isn't interested at night and he was just vaguely piqued this morning.

I worked really hard at breastfeeding. I would call myself a success. Even though he's a formula baby. My first goal was to get breast milk into him everyday for 3 months. Check. Then make it 6 months. Check. My next was 9. I don't know if we'll get there. We have a few weeks left of frozen breastmilk - stored from many tiny amounts acquired while pumping. In my heart, I was hoping for a year. I'm sad it's just about over.

I had such a tumultuous relationship with the entire process. I'm jealous of women who can just whip-it-out and sustain their baby. I'm bitter with women who can and choose not too. I did what I hope was best for Theo. I tried my damndest.

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back...

I felt a little flip-floppy in my stomach as we rode the elevator up to that office again. Already, we were informed that our doctor was running one hour behind. We pulled the bitch mom move: "We have to leave at 4:00 to bring him to swimming and we both left early from work." Yeah, that line. It sort of worked. I still didn't see the doc until 4:20 or so (my appointment was for 3:20), but S. got to come in and show Theo off to our most favorite and understanding ultrasound tech in the world, at the very least, then split with Theo for his swim class.

Okay, so the meaty part. Our doc loved the idea of doing a FET for me. She said, hey, we're paying to have these embryos stored, so why the hell not?? While we both knew insurance would not cover a FET for me, she informed me of the price---let's just say it is about the same cost as 4 IUIs with frozen donor sperm. And no signifigant army of meds - stuff that co-pays will probably actually apply to. Two yucky procedure--the shg and hsg--but even those will (fingers cross, knock on wood) probably be covered.

Waaahhh? Seriously? That's IT?! That was basically my reaction. Not that I am foolish enough to think this will be "easy." Frozen embryo transfers have only about a 25-30% success rate, a 70% thaw rate, and I will probably have to transfer 2 embryos. Our feelings on this is..well..sort of distressing, actually. We only put one embryo back for Theo on the doc's recommendation, and we really do trust her, so if she says she would probably want us to do two, I guess that's it. The yoyos are frozen in pairs, but they don't have to put two back. That is ultimately our choice. But....

..I don't know. So we've apparantly just gone from wondering about having two to figuring out WTF we'd do with three.

And let me tell you, she was ready to sign me up to start right then and there. Walking out the door she said "Welcome Back"! with quite the gleeful smile. Is the economic downturn hititng the infertility business as well or what?!

So that's that. We're not necessarily anywhere closer to an answer now than we were when I spewed off my anxiety about having another kiddo. But, at least we feel armed with the information we need to make that decision.

Thanks for your comments and thoughts on only vs. siblings. I loved hearing about your stories from childhood and to find out that many of you have stressed/are stressing over the same decisions.

On My Mind

Before we actually had Theo, we were 100% positive we wanted two kids. Each of us has one other sibling in varying years of separation (S. is 3 years older than her bro, me 7 years older than my sis), and we were sure we would want a sibling withint 2 years of Theo.

Hence our appointment with the RE tomorrow to talk business, particularly regarding doing a frozen embryo transfer with me as the carrier (Is that the right term? That kind of makes me feel like a pigeon!).

But lately, we've been thinking..how the hell would we do it with two? We are exhausted constantly (blissfully so, but still, exhausted nonetheless). S. can barely make it out of the house with one. We go many places with Theo and it seems that adding to the pot would only make us pull our hair out more. We've watched as S's cousin with an almost-three-year-old and almost-one-year-old twin girls has been run around ragged by her brood. She handles them amazingly, don't get us wrong, but we know how exhausting it is. And she has a shitload of help with those kids and we really don't--it's our babysitter during the school day and that is really it for caretakers on a regular basis.

So, what are some pros and cons of having an only child? Well, as teachers, both S. and I do notice a difference with only children. They can be...well...I don't know...I do not want to sound off -putting, but perhaps only children are a bit more..entitled? Ach, it's delicate, I know. I am just speaking from experience, and S. has occasionally seen the same thing in her little kids. One of my high school friends that I shared the most drama with was an only and her mother's interference in her day-to-day life confounded me. It was like, jeesh, doesn't she have anything better to do?

Of course I know better now, in retrospect. At the time, not being an only, I didn't really get it. I get it now.


And then on the other hand, our neighbor is an only child, and she is Theo's future babysitter, remarkably smart, cute, and nice, and is super-close to both her parents. She is wonderful. And they have traveled all over the country with her from a young age.

Is it selfish to have another? We have so many more resources to give when there's only one to give them to.

So, what to do? Do we cut our losses and raise Theo solo?? He has plenty of cousins around to play with. We could be happy with just him. But would we be missing out on even more happiness by not having another baby??

This is just what's on my mind. I'll let you know how the RE appointment goes tomorrow. Yikes.

Yeah right, mom!

Just to throw my last post back in my face, I'm sure, Theo has decided to be a fuss bucket at unusual times--including 4 in the a.m. I can only guess that teeth are coming. Poor dude! Poor mommies!

I'm sure he did that just to remind me that babies are unpredictable in every imaginable way.

What teeth gel, if any, did you guys use when your little ones started teething? We bought this "100% natural" homeopathic stuff only to find that there is parabens in it. We're looking for something a bit less...icky. Any suggestions? 

Random Ramblings

My kid still amazingly still has no teeth. No sign whatsoever except all the drooling. But I suppose we should be happy that we don't have that awful poor teething sad cry going on quite yet.

Theo is loving food--we had to put blueberries on hiatus for now because they are ridiculously messy and stain stuff (duh!), so we've moved on to pears. Yummy, juicy, clear pears.

We occasionally watch random vintage Sesame Street clips on YouTube (prompted by my spontaneously remembering all of the words to  song I haven't heard in 25 years-it's an odd talent I have), and found this one surprising. I guess I always knew that Sesame Street's thing was to be inclusive and appreciate diversity, but when I heard the girl sing "I've got one daddy, I've got two" I almost dropped to the floor. And the best part is, I knew all the words to that song as a kid and it never registered as strange or stood out to me, ever. 

Gotta love Sesame Street. Damn liberal left-wing media agenda!!