One year of existence

One year ago today, the doctors collected each of our ingredients so that we could bake a baby.  One year ago was the day our sweet little Anu was created!  How awesome is that????!!!! In one year, he has gone from a tiny embryo:

(Which one do you think he is?  I think it's the top one; that one always jumped out at me!)

to this handsome little 3 & 1/2 month old:

One year ago, I could not have imagined a more perfect baby!

Happy conception day, my sweet one!

Nostalgia

I've always been the type of person who gets very nostalgic at the littlest things.  Like whenever I got too big for the "kiddie rides" at amusement parks, or when I turned 10 and was no longer "single digit,"   or when I became a teenager, or when I was no longer a "teen" or.....Ok well you get my drift.  The slightest things make me a little teary-eyed.

Right now is no exception.  At this time last year, we were starting the IVF process.  Even though I am forever grateful that it was successful, I kinda miss the adventure of it all.  The injections, the monitoring, the surgeries, the waiting......all of it made our life exciting with the anticipation.  Though maybe I would not feel the same way had it not worked out the way we wanted.

As I'm preparing to go back to work, I realize that when school started last year, we had just found out we were pregnant.  And trying to keep it a secret made us so giddy.  I was carrying my child that whole school year I was working.  This year will take on a whole new dimension.

I still miss being pregnant sometimes.  And even though I never thought I'd have a problem with body image, I'm continually frustrated at the fact that I'm still only 10 pounds lighter than my pregnancy weight, and have to keep wearing sweatpants or maternity pants because I can't fit in my old clothes.

Oh well, such is life.  Adventures end, and new ones begin.  Right now we are trying to decide which home daycare we want Anu to go to once DH and I go back to work.  It's a hassle, and I wish I didn't have to leave him, but I know that being with other children will be good for him in the long run.  And I am so thankful that I will have gotten to stay home with him for 4 months.

3 months

My little guy is growing so fast!  He is getting to be more playful now, and really enjoys some of his toys.  Especially his butterfly or octopus rattle- he loves to just look at the "face" on it.  Some other recent happenings and fun stories:

- We had been giving Anu baths in his little baby tub set on the bathroom floor.  But lately he kept kicking his legs and splashing water everywhere, so I thought maybe it was time to try bathing him in the big tub with me.  I got the tub ready and DH brought me the baby, then got in to help soap him up.  Anu was really enjoying it, and then when DH was washing his hair, he turned around toward me and decided to help himself to a little snack. lol! It was soo cute, DH couldn't help to get out and grab the camera.  However, not it seems Anu likes to make a habit of it, and will start sucking then flash this huge grin like he's being so sneaky.

- A couple weeks ago we took our first big trip to Oklahoma to visit the family.  The plane ride there went very well since it was Anu's bedtime, so he slept the whole way until we landed.  However, my parents were there to meet us at the airport and they were so excited to see the baby that, well, they overstimulated him a little so he was really cranky at first lol! But all in all, the trip was good.  Everybody really enjoyed seeing and playing with the baby,  and I think he really really enjoyed interactions with his Grandpa and his cousin.   And with all the busy happenings with my sister's wedding, I really think the trip helped us to become more confident as parents and make me less nervous to take him out in public.

- Since the trip, we are dealing with a couple issues.  I had been on a dairy-free diet due to Anu's gas, but in OK I decided to cheat and was eating some ice cream and some other creamy comfort foods. Well the next day his poop turned green and it's been green ever since.  Even now that I'm dairy-free again.  I might need to talk to the doctor about it when we go for his next shots on Tuesday.  Also, the weather in OK was soooooo hot compared to here; I forgot just how hot it gets there!  I've been so spoiled with our 70 degree summers, we were so miserable in the 100+ dry heat.  As soon as we came back to LA, Anu has gotten a little bit of runny nose and cough, probably due to the extreme weather changes :(  

Moments in parenthood

I can't believe my little guy is already 9 weeks old!  He has changed so much already from the tiny little thing he was at birth.  I want to get better at documenting all the little things, because I don't want to forget this! Some of the moments in parenting that I want to remember always, the good and the bad, the cherishable moments and the ones that make us want to pull our hair out:

- The smell of newborn baby on those first days

-The smell and "fluffiness" of his hair after a bath

- When he was brand new in the hospital and would make the "puppy dog squeaks" in his sleep 

- When he first learned how to nurse and would sooooo slooooowly eat with his hand up by his face

- When he was still trying to get the hang of nursing and would "hover" his mouth over the boob while looking up at me as if he was waiting for permission lol

- The times he would start nursing, then start sucking on his hand instead, then squeal in anger because there was no milk

- The times DH would hold him in the morning and he would literally try to latch onto him. ("Hey, I recognize that bull's eye, that's food right?")

- Sitting on the couch day after day watching daytime TV and wondering if baby will ever ever ever stop eating for just 15 minutes lol

- The times when I could not set him down without him getting all fidgety until he made himself spit up

- The times he makes a huge mess in his diaper and all over his clothes 5 minutes after he just got changed

- The messes he would make in the middle of a diaper change

- The times he would fart in his dad's face during a diaper change

-The way he stretches and kicks when passing gas as if it's an olympic event

- The times when his dad holds him and he looks toward me as if to say "Come on mom, I know you're over there; you're not fooling me!"

- The funny noises he makes, like when he yawns and goes "khhhhhooo"

-The times he makes one loud cry in his sleep, and then is still asleep (I wonder what babies do dream about)

- How he did not cry much at first and would just whimper or go "AYE!" and then wait to see if we'd come to him

- The new "words" he says.  My favorite so far being "nnn-GEE-gee"

- His dad worrying that he was not "looking" at us, and then having him smile at us for the first time (6-20-12)

- The funny faces he makes at us, such as the "furrowed eyebrow of disapproval"

- The way he stares at himself in the mirror now that he's discovered it

- How much he loves being in his whale bathtub, and cries when we take him out

-How nerve-wrecking it was the first time I tried to cut his fingernails (it still is nerve-wrecking!)

- Reading "Good Night Moon" to him every night (never too early for literacy!) and seeing his eyes start to get droopy by the first time I read "mushhh"

- Singing lullabies to him

- The times he "sleeps in" with his dad in the morning while I get up and "refuel" 

-The way he falls asleep while nursing or being held, and then wakes up and cries the second we try to lay him down elsewhere

- Wearing him in the MobyWrap and doing dishes or vacuuming so that the white noise could help him sleep for JUST A LITTLE BIT (because mom knows that he is tired and he just won't admit it)

- Wearing him in a front carrier and taking a walk down the street every day because we just needed to get out of the house and dad was gone with the car!

- How nerve-wrecking it was the first time we had to leave the house to go to an appointment

- How nervous mom got when taking him to a restaurant for the first time

- How people "ooh" and "aah" over him whenever we take him out and about

- How mom and dad always pack a ton of stuff in his diaper bag and never even touch it.  Because we know the second we don't bring it is when we will need everything

- Getting comments when we went out such as "You're already taking him out of the house? You should have waited a month!" or "When I had my son I never left my house for 3 months.  Only to go to the doctor and that's it"...and me wanting to tell them to mind their own dam business.  (The latter comment was said to me when I was visiting my neighbor.....like right across the patio from my apartment.  Sorry lady but I'm a mom, not a hermit!)

- How it is so sad yet cute whenever he gets startled by a loud noise while he's nursing.  Once while DH turned on the blender and another time when I called out to DH that his phone was ringing....startled Anu so much that he "jumped" off the boob with a look of shock on his face, then gave the pouty lip and the most pathetic cry.

- The time he got scared at church when the sound system made a lot of static and started crying, and later people came up and said "Oh so he's the one who got scared!"....and me thinking "Yes, my child crying in church.  I know I have many more years of this to look forward to"

- How flustered I would get at DH in the early days when he would ask "Why is he crying?" "Why is he doing that?" as if I was the instruction manual

- How happy DH and I were the first time he actually took a pacifier (he really only uses it for bedtime or sometimes naps)

- The look on DH's face the first time Anu took a bottle from him. (And the wave of relief that mom felt!)

- The first time I took a 3-hour "excursion" while leaving him home with DH and was irrationally freaking out the whole time that something would go wrong.

- Most importantly:  how I fall so much more in love with him every day and can't seem to stop kissing him

I am going to try to update at least every 2 weeks if I can, now that I'm actually able to get a break for a bit! Here are a few highlights of the past 2 weeks:

- Two of my sisters and their SO's came to visit last week.  It was so fun for Anu to get to meet other family members.  We will be flying to Oklahoma in a couple weeks to meet the rest of the family.  

- On Wednesday, Anu had his 2 month checkup.  He weighed 11 lbs 5 oz. and measured 23.5 inches.  The doctor said he was right in the 50th percentile!  He also got shots, but the doctor said it's ok to stagger the shots because we didn't want him getting so many all at once.  It was hard enough just watching him get each shot.  One was Pc and one was a combo DTap, HIB, and polio.  He had a slight temp spike later in the day but not too much fever, and was a little more fussy and irritable than usual.  But with some baby Tylenol and a lot of extra TLC he was better.  Next month he will get the rotavirus, but I am a little on the fence whether he should get the Hep B, even though he had the first round at birth and was fine.

-Yesterday, we took Anu to visit the RE's office during their lunch break.  They were all so excited to see him.  I realized that we had spent more time with that doctor than any other OB during my pregnancy, so it makes sense that everyone there seemed more excited about seeing the results of their work than other doctors who are just used to babies all the time.  And the RE joked, "When you left here, you looked like a little kid.  Now you look all grown up and maternal."  DH said, "Well, but I'm still a kid though!"  Lol.  Someday we will go back to give our frozen embies a try.  Someday.

A Journey in Books

The other day I was cleaning my living room (all while keeping Anu happy in my handy-dandy Moby Wrap!) and upon looking at our bookshelf, I realized what an interesting collection of books we own.  A few of which, arranged just so, could represent our climb from infertility to and through parenthood:

Please note, I am not *endorsing* any of these books.  Most of these were just given to me.  I particularly don't recommend the "week by week" books, or at least the edition I have.  Even though it's nice to have an idea of weekly milestones, they have just BAD information such as telling you to retract the foreskin to clean an intact penis or suggesting to breastfeed privately in a bathroom stall (yuck!)

Mommy Gorilla

This past week has been really kicking my butt.

We have hit the growth spurt/cluster feeeding/nothing-makes-me-happy-and-calm-except-boobies stage.  Seriously.  Anu will go anywhere from 3-5 hours of what almost seems like non-stop feeding and gets all fidgety and panicky and somewhat fussy in between nursing sessions.  He doesn't like pacifiers, or bottles (I've tried pumping a couple times in the mornings just to try to introduce him because he will eventually need to bottle feed).

The good news is that we get plenty of sleep at night, but during the day I am pretty much camped out on the couch watching TV with the little one attached to the nipple.  And my smartphone is pretty much my new best friend as I constantly use it to consult Dr. Google about pretty much EVERYTHING that Anu does.  Sometimes I find helpful answers.  But for the most part I just find out that a million other new mommies are just as clueless as I am and are wondering the exact same things.

I've told DH that sometimes when I'm nursing Anu or when he falls asleep in my arms, I feel like a mommy gorilla.  Why a gorilla, you ask? Maybe it's just the mental image of this squirmy little primate across my big chest.   But you know something? That mommy gorilla I picture doesn't take infant care classes, or read baby books, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't google search about her baby.  She just figures it out on her own.

I'd like to try to be as smart a mammal as that.  Lose the internet advice dependency and just go with my instincts.


And now since baby is asleep, I will be the mommy cat who briefly escapes from her kitten as she goes to the kitchen to refuel.  

These first few weeks

Anu is already 3 weeks old! Where does the time go?   There is so much that I want to share about these last few weeks, I hardly know where to start. So I'll just thought-vomit:



-During my pregnancy I was so worried/nervous at the thought of breastfeeding because I felt so clueless about it. But so far we haven't had any major problems.  His latch is good, I haven't had any huge pain or discomfort (just a little soreness but nothing too bad), and my supply is good.  (He actually gained a whole pound and grew an inch as of his 2-week checkup!)  The only thing is that he sometimes puts up a little fight if my breasts are too full and he doesn't want to latch.  And sometimes my letdown is too fast.  But we're both getting better at finding better nursing positions and getting the latch more quickly.  Anu will "cluster feed" for a few hours in the morning and again in the early evening, then will sleep for a few hours between feedings.  Sometimes I do feel like a human pacifier though!

-Anu is pretty good at sleeping at night.  I always have a pretty good idea of when he will wake up to eat (and if he doesn't wake me up, then my BBs are waking me up!)  and he falls asleep again pretty quickly.  So far we have him sleep in his little "co-sleeper" that goes in the middle of our bed and he likes that.  (Actually, mommy & daddy like it so that we can keep checking on him through the night without having to get up and look in the bassinet).  He likes to sleep in his Swaddlepod, although lately we're finding more that he doesn't really like being swaddled.  He also rolls onto his side a lot when we lay him down.

-The whole "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing....yeah not so much.  I get maybe half an hour of nap time with him during the day.  Any other time he is sleeping I have other stuff to do: eat, shower, clean, etc!

-We are constantly going through diapers, as expected.  The first week was pretty frustrating though because it seemed like he would leak through his diaper every single time he went.  We kept trying different brands.  And I'm convinced the Pampers brand we got from the hospital are of the devil: they would keep leaving those little gel things all over when he would pee and it was so frustrating trying to clean those off.  Anyway, now it seems to be fine.  Maybe the newborn diapers were still a little big on his legs at first but now he has grown into them. We have a stash of cloth diapers when we're ready to give that a try, but he is still too small for them.  Plus I need to be a little more prepared to make the commitment of getting quarters and going down to the laundry room more often......

-Anu has earned a new nickname: "Mr. Poo-Poo Farty-Pants."  Poor little guy has been having some bad gas this past week and is grunting and tooting quite a bit.  It was pretty bad at first, but then I stopped eating dairy and that seemed to help a bit.  We've also been using gripe water, giving him massage, and "bicycling" his legs, which also seems to help settle his tummy a little.  He still does some awful grunting and straining in the morning though.  I read something that suggests my fast letdown could be contributing to his gassiness, so I try to burp him more frequently during feedings.  Sometimes though he just will NOT burp for me. *sigh*

-Despite all the minor inconveniences of parenting, I feel like DH and I could just stare at Anu all day and never get bored.  It it so interesting to see how much he changes already day by day, and seeing some personality emerge.  When he was first born, everyone said he looks just like DH.  But now I keep seeing more and more of myself in him.  And it's funny but sometimes I'll be holding him and just have this glimpse of what he'll be like as a toddler or even as a teenager! (Don't grow up that fast, Anu!)

-I'm over the blues I talked about in my last post.  I think I just needed to get past the "due date" to get over that "I'm still supposed to be pregnant" feeling.  I'm still wearing maternity pants (whenever I do get dressed!) but I folded and put away my maternity tops, with no tears.  I'm actually kind of excited about finding clothes that haven't seen the light of day in forever, and hoping to wear them again soon.

-I never realized it would feel like such an accomplishment just to get out of the bedroom during the day.  Some days I feel like I live in one room and everywhere else is an alternate universe.  Anu and I do make it to our other nursing nooks in the house though.  And we've been on a few short outings.  But each time we go out I almost feel like having a panic attack, thinking worst-case scenarios and what am I going to do. I get nervous thinking about nursing in public, even though I have a nursing cover. I probably over-think things and get too self-conscious.  So far, Anu has been just fine on each outing.

Ok, baby is waking up!