[chantalTTC]

Hi ladies! Sorry I've been out of touch. It's been nuts around here. The biggest news on our side is that I decided to leave my job - my last day is August 31st... I'll be with Linnea fulltime and I'm THRILLED. I just couldn't make it work - apparently I'm not cut out to be SuperMom.

Kay - great ideas for finger foods. We've been giving her just baby food so far, but I think it's time to branch out. I think I'll use that little mesh bag thing soon. Linnea likes the Puffs a lot. Very cool that you're considering going for an FET in Sept/Oct. What has your RE said about weaning Clara? For how long do you need to be off BFing before doing the FET? I called our RE recently to ask some Qs but forgot that one. They clarified that although our embies are frozen in pairs, we can thaw 2, choose the best one and then refreeze the other one. Should we choose to do another FET down the road, the 2nd one may not be as viable after the second thaw but it's worth the risk. We just would prefer to avoid multiples. So we'd only transfer one back, too. Hey, it worked the first time!!! I'm very excited for you!

Rennae - I hope it goes well for Avery on Monday. I bet she'll surprise you at how well and quickly she adapts! I have no memory of wearing my braces but I have long straight legs because of them so I am eternally grateful that my mom had the guts to do it. Good luck!

Linnea's doing great. She's still rolling mostly to get around, though she's pretty much mastered sitting up and has just started testing out pulling her belly up off the ground. I suspect she'll be crawling in the next few weeks. Still no teeth, which is good news for this breastfeeding mom! There is a little white dot on her lower left gum but that's been there for 5+ months. Maybe something will break through soon - she's been drooling more and having interrupted nighttime sleep lately. Anyone else have an early riser? Linnea consistently wakes up, I believe hungry, around 5am. She'll feed on one side and fall right back to sleep in her crib. Then she's up for the day around 7. I'd love to break this feeding habit, but she seems incapable of going all the way until 7. Today she slept until 6 and I decided to just keep her up since she seemed much more awake than she does normally at 5. She was awake for 2.25 hours and then she slept almost 2 hours for her first nap. It was ideal. I wish we could do that same schedule every day... But alas...this little monster doesn't come with a program guide!

I'm going to a Mommy's Night Out tomorrow night with a new mommy's group I'm trying out. I've not met anyone in the group so this will be the first time. I hope they're nice and fun! I'd like to have playdates lined up for September so I have something to do and keep busy for my first month off work.

We think Linnea is trying to say mama but it's unclear she's saying it TO me or ABOUT me, etc. My niece is convinced she's asking for me, but I'm unsure. She is 'talking' more these days. I just LOVE it.

We bought one of those bounce things that goes in the doorway? OMG Linnea loves it. She can bounce and bounce in the kitchen while we make meals and she's totally content. Makes her spit up, but my little girl is a class-A spitter-upper anyway... Anyone else's LO have problems still spitting up???

[bunniswife]

Hi Kristen, nice to hear from you...I'm actually lucky, Georgia has been sleeping through the night since ten weeks old and she's had virtually no problems with spitting up. Have you tried letting Linnea fuss for a bit before getting up to feed her at five??? Maybe she'll quiet down and go back to sleep. I've got Georgia on a ten to nine schedule...ten at night to nine in the morning. I know she'll eventually start waking up earlier and going to bed earlier but for now this works great for us.

[Kay]

Kristen- I am so happy for you about being able to be home with Linnea! I know you will just love it. It is very hard to juggle it all. My hat is off to those who can, but I just know I could not do it either.
As for the FET, I will need to wean Clara and have two cycles before I can start the Lupron. I am very sad about this. I will have to wean Clara by the end of the month for a Sept transfer. I don't know if I will be able to do it. I love our BF times and I had to fight so hard to establish BFing with her. I do not want to give it up. I am going to talk to my RE about it. I have read a couple of posts on here about woment who have not had to wait the two months. My periods have returned as of two months ago, but instead of 28 days they are 37 days. I am not regular yet.
We will be doing a single emby transfer for sure. My peri really does not want me to have twins. At this point it is probably best for us too to have a single. I have always wanted twins, but health and sanity must come first.
Clara is also saying MAMAMAMAMAMAMA. She says this when she is upset and crying when I am not holding her. Talk about tugging on the ol' heart strings. How can you resist that?!
It is so good to see ya back. Hey when is your cruise? Still think there might be a possibility of meeting up in Seattle? I could get to the waterfront where the cruiseline departs very easily! There are some amazing places to eat with in walking distance of the ships.
Kay

[hopefull79]

Kristen - good to hear from you. Avery is the QUEEN of spitting up, as her reflux has been an issure from day one. It is drasticly better than when she was only a few months old, but she still spits up A LOT. Congrats on getting to stay home, I would just love to not work, or even just work part time. But that's just not possible at this point. So how old were you when you wore braces?? It's very nice to hear how much you appreciate your mom doing the braces. It lets me know that even if Avery hates them now, one day she will thank me. We have a jumperoo for Avery, the kind that's more like a walker?? But not the doorway kind, I bet she would like that...

Kay - I hadn't even thought about watermelon, I'm sure Avery would love that. She likes almost all fruit, except for "real" bananas...

Well, we've recently dropped Avery's dreamfeed and it has gone wonderfully. She sleeps from 8pm till 8am without that 10pm bottle with no problem. We just increased all of her bottles one ounce, added a lunch babyfood, and gave her a full 7 oz bottle at 8pm, the last 3 nights have gone great. I'm really glad we've been able to drop that feeding so easily, especially with the braces coming...

So, those of you that are planning on FET and only transferring one embie, what is your reasoning exactly?? Is it because you don't want multiples?? Do they feel you'll still have a pretty good chance at success?? I ask becasuse we have two frozen embies and I know the ONLY WAY DH would ever even consider a transfer would be if we only transfered one at a time.

[chantalTTC]

Margaret - I have let her fuss for a while but it seems to me she's hungry because she's rooting (but I know it's a common parental mistake to assume the baby's hungry...) and as soon as she eats she passes out again. Different from if she wakes up at 2 or 3, she doesn't root at all, just needs to get back to sleep, you know? I don't know. She's also teething, so that's sometimes disrupting her sleep. She was awake from 3:45-5:45 this am, mostly crying. I gave her Motrin first thing at 3:45 because she was writhing around crying and clutching at her mouth/sucking on her fingers. It seemed to calm her down, but she'd start crying as soon as we left her. We let her cry for awhile and she finally settled down after 2 hours. UGH.

Kay - September, that's so cool. I'm so excited for you! I look forward to cheering you on. We're still going on the cruise, which leaves July 4th at 4pm. We have to be on the ship at 2pm I think. We arrive in the afternoon of Friday, July 3rd, but we have dinner plans with friends that recently moved to Seattle. How about brunch? Linnea usually sleeps between 8:30-10 which would be 7:30-9 on the west coast. Would 10ish work? We're staying at the Mariott Waterfront. Is that close to you? I look forward to finally meeting you and little Clara! My dh will miss the meeting as he'll be en route from India (filming an interview with the Dalai Lama!). Keeping our fingers crossed that he makes the ship on time...

[Kay]

Originally Posted by hopefull79

Kristen - good to hear from you. Avery is the QUEEN of spitting up, as her reflux has been an issure from day one. It is drasticly better than when she was only a few months old, but she still spits up A LOT. Congrats on getting to stay home, I would just love to not work, or even just work part time. But that's just not possible at this point. So how old were you when you wore braces?? It's very nice to hear how much you appreciate your mom doing the braces. It lets me know that even if Avery hates them now, one day she will thank me. We have a jumperoo for Avery, the kind that's more like a walker?? But not the doorway kind, I bet she would like that...

Kay - I hadn't even thought about watermelon, I'm sure Avery would love that. She likes almost all fruit, except for "real" bananas...

Well, we've recently dropped Avery's dreamfeed and it has gone wonderfully. She sleeps from 8pm till 8am without that 10pm bottle with no problem. We just increased all of her bottles one ounce, added a lunch babyfood, and gave her a full 7 oz bottle at 8pm, the last 3 nights have gone great. I'm really glad we've been able to drop that feeding so easily, especially with the braces coming...

So, those of you that are planning on FET and only transferring one embie, what is your reasoning exactly?? Is it because you don't want multiples?? Do they feel you'll still have a pretty good chance at success?? I ask becasuse we have two frozen embies and I know the ONLY WAY DH would ever even consider a transfer would be if we only transfered one at a time.

watermelon works great, but I have to warn you it is a HUGE mess!
As for the single embryo transfer.... I met with specialist at the university of Washington Med Center who is an expert on pre eclampsia and pregnancy induced hypertension (I have had such issues in 3 pregnancies) He said it is okay for me to attemp another pregnancy as long as I only transfer one emby. He wants me to minimize my risks and multiples are more risky.
He also said that 3 consecutive SETs are more successful statistically than one transfer with 3 embys. We have 8 embabies (2 are frozen as singles)
In my heart of hearts, I would still like to transfer two.....I have always wanted twins, but I want to be healthy and I want a healthy baby.
Kay

[Kay]

Originally Posted by chantalTTC

Margaret - I have let her fuss for a while but it seems to me she's hungry because she's rooting (but I know it's a common parental mistake to assume the baby's hungry...) and as soon as she eats she passes out again. Different from if she wakes up at 2 or 3, she doesn't root at all, just needs to get back to sleep, you know? I don't know. She's also teething, so that's sometimes disrupting her sleep. She was awake from 3:45-5:45 this am, mostly crying. I gave her Motrin first thing at 3:45 because she was writhing around crying and clutching at her mouth/sucking on her fingers. It seemed to calm her down, but she'd start crying as soon as we left her. We let her cry for awhile and she finally settled down after 2 hours. UGH.

Kay - September, that's so cool. I'm so excited for you! I look forward to cheering you on. We're still going on the cruise, which leaves July 4th at 4pm. We have to be on the ship at 2pm I think. We arrive in the afternoon of Friday, July 3rd, but we have dinner plans with friends that recently moved to Seattle. How about brunch? Linnea usually sleeps between 8:30-10 which would be 7:30-9 on the west coast. Would 10ish work? We're staying at the Mariott Waterfront. Is that close to you? I look forward to finally meeting you and little Clara! My dh will miss the meeting as he'll be en route from India (filming an interview with the Dalai Lama!). Keeping our fingers crossed that he makes the ship on time...

Kristen- I thought your trip was later in July. I will still be in Seaside, Oregon until the 7th of July. How about on your return?
Kay

[chantalTTC]

Originally Posted by Kay

Kristen- I thought your trip was later in July. I will still be in Seaside, Oregon until the 7th of July. How about on your return?
Kay

Oh, shoot, Kay! I think we'll miss each other, then. We leave Seattle shortly after the ship docks on Saturday, July 11th. Darn it...!

[infertilitynovice]

Rennae, I am sorry to hear that she will have to wear the full braces. I know this is easy for me to say since it isn't my child, but they look better than I expected. I guess I thought they would still be the metal ones that they had we were all kids.

On the topic of food...Marlee has pretty much eaten everything at this point (except strawberries). She's had curry, kiwi, cantelope, egg, peanut butter, herb garlic ravioli (minus sauce)...lots of stuff. She's learning to feed herself the finger foods like scrambled egg and puffs. She's not very good at it, but she's working on it. She's never refused anything I've given her. She liked the mashed pot roast veggies when they were hot and stopped eating them once the cooled off, but that's it. I touched her arm with peanut butter for months before letting her taste it. She never had a topical reaction and there are no food allergies in the families. She's not really eaten peanut butter but I've given her some tastes and she's also had tastes of ice cream with peanuts/peanut butter in it. My Ped said that if I hard scramble the eggs, she will be fine. She does pretty well feeding those to herself. I have not given her jarred meat b/c it freaks me out. She can be introduced to meat later when she's able to eat it as a finger food. A mom friend gave me a recipe for squash turkey meatballs that are supposed to be really good for "hiding" veggies, not that we need that, but are soft enough to eat/gum too. I haven't tried them yet, but I thought about making some later today.

Kristen, YAY for staying at home! How do you feel about taking some time off from your profession? Do you feel like you will be loosing any time? You're going to love staying home with her again!!!!!! What about your neice, will she stay on to help out til her time is up?

Oh, bummer news for me...finally showed today...sucks!

So Marlee isn't moving at all...doesn't seem to care to learn how. She's happy as a clam to sit there and watch everyone else. She can roll both ways but she doesn't do that to move either. I don't really mind b/c right now I can put her down and know she'll stay right there.

She had her 6 mo appt a few weeks ago and she was in the 27% for weight, 70% for height, and 45% for head circ. I wish she wieghed more but my Ped feels very good about her growth, so I guess she'll just be petite.

DH hasn't found a job yet but he's had lots of bites. It has been 2 weeks now, we're going on our 3rd now.

[Kay]

Originally Posted by chantalTTC

Oh, shoot, Kay! I think we'll miss each other, then. We leave Seattle shortly after the ship docks on Saturday, July 11th. Darn it...!

Bummer! I sure would like to meet up with you. I would drive the 4 hours from the ocean, but we will have guests. Maybe another time.
Kay

[hopefull79]

Well Avery got her braces, they wouldn't hardly stay on so we had to go back today and they added another strap. They stay on a little better now, but her feet still slip up and out of place often. I don't know how effective they are going to be, it's impossible to keep them on just-right for any length of time. We go back to the dr next week, I guess I'll see what he says. She's been awful fussy, but she's also getting yet another tooth, so I'm not sure if it's the braces or the teeth making her unhappy. After her bath when we're getting her ready for bed she howls when I put her braces on. It's so sad. I hope she gets used to them quickly, I know they can't be very comfortable though.

Hope everyone is doing well.

[chantalTTC]

Rennae - hang in there...Avery will get used to the braces, I promise. Soon she won't be able to remember ever NOT having them and they'll become second nature to her. It'll be ok... I hope her first night goes well!

Melissa - So cute that Marlee likes to sit and observe. Linnea is the same way. Her cousin Rowan is the same age and he has 6 teeth, is crawling with his belly fully off the floor and pulling himself to standing all over the place - Linnea just sits there with her toothless grin. I LOVE it. I would be fine with her taking her sweet time to start crawling. It's a lot more work!

I hope your dh finds work soon. It must be nice having him home, but I can imagine it's stressful. Hang in there!

Our niece is staying with us through the end of October, maybe longer. She's a big help and a joy to have around, so it's working out well.

[chantalTTC]

So are your LOs drinking less milk/formula these days? Linnea has had a runny/stuffy nose for weeks and I don't know if she's turned off to drinking because it's hard to breathe, or if she's getting more and more full from real food. Have you noticed either in your LOs?

[chantalTTC]

LOL - it's like I'm having a conversation with myself... I'll keep jabbering on in case someone else joins!

I finally called the doc today. Linnea has had a runny/stuffy nose for 2+ weeks, following being exposed to a bunch of other kids. I thought at first it was a cold, but then it just lingered forever. Then in the past few days, she's started drinking less milk and is wetting fewer diapers than normal. I thought it was just because we'd increased her to 3 meals a day lately. Today I started to worry, so I called the doc. They wanted me to bring her in and sure enough, she has a 'really bad ear infection' in the right ear. The doc said it's not inflamed or red, just really mucousy (sorry for the visual) and said it would eventually get really painful, so she prescribed antibiotics. I hate to start with antibiotics, but I want to be sure Linnea is getting enough milk, so... Hopefully she'll be feeling better soon!

Lesson...I listened too much to my friends and family who told me she was just probably teething. The doc said she doesn't see any toothbuds at all, so it was definitely the ear infection from a cold. I should have listened to my gut and called the doc awhile ago!

[Daney]

Kristen-sorry about the ear infection I am always worried about those as well its so hard to tell when their schedule chages if its teething normal or something like an ear infection I had taken Park in about 2 weeks ago cause he was up all night and so restless that I thought maybe he had an infection but in my case he is teething 3 teeth and we are still not sleeping!! So yes that is a good lesson listne to your gut!!

Rennae sorry about the braces the others are right soon enough they will just become a part of her everysay routine and she wont know any different!!

So park is offically crawling FAST i cant believe how fast he can get some places!! And he pulls up to standing and is letting go which is leading to some major spills so he kepps me super busy!! ? are your LOs sarting to get whiny? He seems to whine now if I leave the room and hes by himself!! Or if he wants to sit and doesnt feel like getting that way by himself hell whine I try not to give in but man he was never like this is this a phase or is he just being whiny?