Two Crowns

Nadia was very fussy and clingy with Paul from when I left for the dentist (2:45) until he put her to bed (6:40). I hope it goes better for them this afternoon. I assume she's just adjusting to giving up the 3rd nap. It was easier when we gave up the 4th nap because that was HER doing not ours. I still think it was the right thing to do though because she used to sleep 11-12 hours at night and that had shortened to 10-11 hours. In fact some nights as little as 9.5 hours. The last three mornings she's awakened between 6:10-6:30am which is much better than 5:00am. Last night she was only 15 minutes shy of sleeping 12 hours straight!

One difference I notice when I'm at work these days is that I am so busy! Although when we're full-time we technically can be on campus as few as 17 hours (if we don't have any meetings to attend that week), I used to be on campus far more than that. So now I must use every minute as wisely as possible. Even though I wish at times my hours at work weren't quite so hectic, it will have to stay that way as long as it's a priority to me to be there as little as possible in light of Nadia. The good news is that I have definitely spent less time at school this semester. Most weeks I only go in 2 days a week, and once a month I also go in on a Friday.

So Far So Good

Well so far skipping the 3rd nap is proving to be a great help with her wakeup time. Friday she had 3 naps and woke up at 5am on Saturday. Saturday was the first day of trying to go without a 3rd nap, and she woke up at 6:10am on Sunday. This morning she didn't wake up until 6:30am!

As you can see, she still likes to suck her thumb. She alternates back and forth between both thumbs. Can you believe the outfit she's wearing today is size 12 months? I look back at the preemie clothes she wore last summer and can't believe she was ever that small. She's grown SO much! The pink dress she wore yesterday (with her new white sandals of course!) and this blue outfit today were recent gifts. I think she looks great in both colors. Thanks, Grandma! :-)

She can now stand for several seconds without holding onto anything. The proof would be I had enough time to get my camera, turn it on, and snap this photo while she was standing with "no hands". I need to shoot a little video of her climbing up "her" step. She's very good at it, but she hasn't figured out that it's not safe to sit right on the edge. If she climbs up and then proceeds to cruise along her toybox, I don't intervene, but if she plops down on the edge, I move her to a safer spot. Thankfully bathtime has returned to being a happy event. Although I still have to remind her a few times that we sit in the bathtub, lately she hasn't cried over the fact that Mommy won't let her stand in the tub.

Third Nap

I decided to try to eliminate the 3rd nap in the hopes that it would mean Nadia would sleep in later in the morning. Yesterday she woke up at 5am. That's just too early, especially on a Saturday! Yesterday she did still sort of have 3 naps as she slept in the car part of our trip to the party, but that nap was earlier than when her 3rd nap usually was so she was awake from 3-7pm and then slept some on the way home and then was awake for a little about 40 minutes and then went down at 8:30pm. She didn't wake up until 6:07am. YAY! Today I planned to only put her down for 2 naps. Her first nap was from 8:15-9:45. Actually she was still asleep at 9:45 (which is unusual), but I had to wake her up for church. She went right to bed when we got home from church about 12:10pm. She woke up about 12:55 and stayed up until 7:30pm. I figured today would be a good day for the transition away from the 3rd nap because there was an ordination service at church, and the choir was signing one song in it. This morning I had asked if there would be a nursery provided, and they said no because it would only last one hour. Boy was that an inaccurate estimate. The choir rehearsed 30 minutes prior to the start of the service so including that time Nadia and I were there THREE hours and the service wasn't even over yet (although it was very close to being done). The service started at 4pm, and the choir didn't even sing until 6pm. I was planning to stay for the dinner after the service, but by 6:30pm Nadia was getting fussy so we just went straight home. She had sat with me in the service for the first hour, then went to the nursery with another lady for one hour, and then was back with me in the service for 30 more minutes.

Some churches I have gone to have kept the service to one hour total. The church I went to from 2004-2008 had services that were usually 75-90 minutes long. The last several months that I've attended this "new" church, there was one time when the service was 75 minutes long, a few times when it was 90 minutes long, but most of the time the morning service has been between 1 hr 45 minutes and 2 hours long. The service this morning was about 100 minutes long and the one this afternoon was over 2.5 hours. That length of service isn't easy for a little munchkin! Considering how long they were, I thought she did really well. Hopefully eliminating the third nap will help her sleep in a little more in the mornings.

I had brought a banana to the dinner last night. I assumed she'd eat a lot of the mashed potatoes. She didn't like them. Now I don't feel so offended that she didn't like mine. I think she really likes garlic, LOL! She did however really like their macaroni and cheese and the roll. I have to admit I haven't been careful lately about waiting a few days before introducing a new food since she hasn't had any reactions to anything she's eaten thus far..

Exploring!

Gone are the days where Nadia would just play in one little area for an extended period of time. Now if I turn my back for just a few seconds, I am never quite sure where she'll end up. I turned my back to her yesterday while I was washing my hands in the bathroom, and when I turned back around she was standing up looking into the toilet. Yuck! Today at one point she crawled under her music table (the one she's pictured standing by). I would have taken a picture, but she wasn't very happy as she couldn't figure out how to get back out of there. She no longer needs a ledge to be able to pull herself up. She can get to a standing position just using the wall. I moved the glider that was in front of her window (after this photo was taken) so now she has more exciting things to see like birds walking on our deck.

Yesterday we went to the library and the mall. At the mall I used a 40% off coupon at Borders. I got her one bath book, 2 large board books, and four small Sandra Boynton board books. Paul loves her Going to Bed Book that Wendy gave us for Christmas; so I thought he might like to have more books by that author. I like the Blue Hat, Green Hat one best. At Baby Depot I got her a pair of size 3 white sandals. I also purchased an anniversary card at Hallmark as we are going to Paul's mom's cousin's anniversary party at a country club tomorrow afternoon (they've been married over 40 years). I'm going to have Nadia wear the red dress she wore for her last Sears photos, and her size 1 shoes don't fit any more! I had bought a pair of size 4 black patent shoes at the thrift store in Chicago, but those are a little too big for her at this point. She'll grow into them!

Plenty of Eggs!

I passed the ovarian reserve test with flying colors. Yay! Most clinics say anything under 10 is good, and most clinics won't consider doing ivf if it's 20 or higher. The grey area is between 10-20 in terms of where the cut off is. Some for example won't do ivf if you are above 13. When you hit menopause your level is usually 20-30. When I was tested 5 years ago my level was 5.2. Yesterday it was 6.5. It makes sense that it's gone up a little as I have fewer eggs now than I did when I was 31. The lowest possible level is a 3. However anything under 10 means you should be easy to stimulate, and that has certainly always been true for me in the past whether I was on Clomid or injections. I have leaned strongly towards overstimulation rather than being a "poor responder." Some clinics go so far as to break down the ideal levels. I saw one that said <6 was excellent (which I was in 2004), 6-8 is good (that's where I'm at now), 9 is fair, and 10-13 is diminished reserve. I'll take "good" considering I turn 37 next month. :-) I wasn't really worried. I wanted to skip this fsh testing as I was certain my number would be acceptable, but they insisted I be tested before going on to ivf. It's not a big deal except I could have just had one AF prior to starting stimming whereas now I have to have another AF prior to starting stimming on April 17.

The other level they tested yesterday was Estradiol (E2). The range at this stage in the cycle is 25-75. The lower you are the more easily you will be to stimulate. I came in at 31.4 which is definitely at the lower end of that spectrum. The next time my E2 is tested (April 16), I predict it will be under 25. The whole point of the bcp + Lupron shots is to supress your body (put it in sort of a temporary menopause). Mine was 8.8 at the start of the FET and 22.9 at the start of the fresh ivf cycle in 2007.

I've been more sensitive to age comments lately in light of ttc now. A couple of weeks ago at choir someone said I didn't look like I was 40 years old. They said that because my number in choir (for music) is 40, and I said "I'm 40." I was glad to hear I don't look 40 although I doubt I'll look vastly different in 3 years than I do now, LOL. Then on the other hand on a recent trip to the grocery store a woman was talking to me about her grandbabies (in light of seeing Nadia), and she said to me that her son was SO old to have children so young. She said he was 40 years old and had a 1 year old and 3 year old as he didn't get married until he was 37. She joked that he's going to be in the nursing home before his kids graduate from high school. I didn't know what to say because if this ivf works then on my 40th bday I'll have a 2 year old and almost 4 year old. Last night at choir rehearsal there was a 7 week old baby boy (his parents both sing in the choir). I wanted to hold that sweet little baby so badly! Seeing that little one again made me realize how badly I want another baby. Of course you don't pay $8,200 for ivf unless you really want another baby, LOL. Even though I am very glad to be getting more sleep than his parents are getting right now, I do miss the wonderful feeling of holding such a tiny baby in my arms. I hope and pray I am very sleep deprived in 2010. :-)

The amazing power of chocolate

I know there are people who are not big chocolate fans like my sister, Yvonne, and Paul (although he loves certain kinds of chocolate candy like PB cups). I love chocolate. I wouldn't consider myself to be a true "chocoholic" in that I don't like just plain chocolate, but I do really enjoy things like chocolate chip cookies, brownies, chocolate peanut butter ice cream, and candy that has chocolate with other things like peanut butter or caramel. I usually go months without eating a piece of candy. Yesterday as I was going through the mail on my desk at work, I discovered a card which said I had been "caught in the act" (doing something good). Someone had nominated me to receive this little award, and a Snickers bar was included with the note. Well it was perfect timing. I wasn't feeling well due to the vicious AF I am having. It reminds me of one I had in 1993. That one was so bad that I fainted while teaching my 6th graders. Ironically I had called my Gyn that morning as I was concerned and was told not to worry about it. I think passing out proved it was pretty bad! Anyhow even though I was determined to get back into diet mode this week, I didn't even think twice about consuming that candy bar last night. It tasted oh so very good and helped me get through teaching my class last night.

I weighed Nadia on our scale this morning, and with a dry diaper plus her clothes she now weighs 19 lbs. I assume next week at the doctor's office she'll weigh maybe 18 1/2 or something like that. She seems to be right on target as the last 3 months she's been gaining about 1 lb a month. I think she's tripled her birth weight (6lb 2 oz). She's certainly a lot bigger than when we brought her home from the hospital at 5 1/2 lbs!

This morning I had my b/w to check my ovarian reserve. It's actually been 5 years since my FSH has been checked. They didn't check it faithfully since I always was so easily stimulated. My E2 has been checked more times than I want to count over the last 6 years. That was also done again this morning. Low numbers are what we want to see for both of those on cd2. Although there are treatments for male problems (like ICSI) - they haven't come up with any way to treat egg quality problems except to suggest you use donor eggs. I keep thinking there are women who have babies in their 40's so surely I can't be "too old" yet at the age of 37 (which I'll turn prior to egg retrieval). I certainly stimulated very easily less than 2 years ago. Hopefully I'll pass this test with flying colors.

Nine Months Old!

Can you believe Nadia is 9 months old already??? In terms of sleeping, she's still taking 3 naps a day which usually total 3-3.75 hours. Her bedtime is usually between 7:00-7:30pm. The time she first wakes up varies between about 5:15-6:00am, but usually she doesn't start fussing until sometime between 6:00-6:30am. Her body didn't switch when we were in Chicago. According to CST she was waking up between 4:15-4:45am, which wasn't fun for Mommy! There was one morning there though that she went back to sleep and didn't wake up again again until 5:50 (which was almost 7am EST which was great!). She generally sleeps 10-11 hours straight at night but is usually in her crib for 11 to 11 1/2 hours. Nadia usually wakes up in a happy mood, and usually there is very little or no crying involved when she goes to sleep although sometimes she cries for a few minutes before falling asleep. The routine is that I read her several books (seated in the glider in her room) and then sing her a few songs. She often rests her head on my shoulder and sucks her thumb during some of the song time which I love.

In terms of eating, her most favorite food right now is a banana. She gets sooo excited when she sees one. Her arms start flapping, her mouth opens wide, and she even will squeal with delight. It's easy to feed her cottage cheese, yogurt, carrots, corn, and applesauce. She also loves mashed potatoes if they are flavored in some way. She loved Aunt Wendy's which were made with red potatoes and had some skin in them and were flavored with garlic. It takes more effort to get her to eat peas, green beans, and oatmeal (the non babyfood kind anyhow - the baby oatmeal cereal goes down easily). Puffs still are useful in getting her to eat something she's not as crazy about. She now feeds herself an entire piece of zwieback toast with her breakfast. She really enjoys that also. I'd like to transition her from Puffs to Cheerios in the next couple of weeks as they're a lot cheaper although they were worth their weight in gold on the airplane!!! After she finishes this box of zwieback toast I also plan to transition her to regular toast. We haven't had much success yet with the sippy cups. I hope we make progress with that this month. One last food related item would be that I really missed the Bjorn bib when we were in Chicago. It's the best bib when eating solids! I'll be bringing it along on future trips. Thanks again, Lucia!!

Recently I started having her play in her pack & play for 30 minutes a day while I'm in another room (such as the kitchen) getting some work done. It took some time to work her up to 30 minutes, but now she'll usually play happily by herself with some toys with some music on in the background. At all other times she prefers to be STANDING. She loves to stand in front of the toybox, at her little "step," or by her window. We have the music cube and music table near that window so she often walks between the three things and takes turns playing with each. Her attention span for books has also greatly improved. Reading about 6-8 books at a time is the norm these days. Now that she is traveling greater distances at a greater speed (no more going backward - she definitely knows how to go forward), I need to do some babyproofing as for example yesterday she discovered a stack of textbooks I was reviewing to select one for a new course I'm teaching in the fall. I need to do some babyproofing!

Here are two clips showing her mobility this morning - crawling and standing. Enjoy! :-)

I am thankful for...

1. The pleasure of having Nadia take two short naps in my arms on our flights. What a wonderful feeling it is to have a sweet baby sleep on your chest. Ah....

2. How good Nadia was when she was in the Snugli while I was at the airports. She never fussed At All and once I had checked in my luggage she grabbed on to one of my fingers with each of her hands. That's another great feeling - to have a sweet tiny hand holding on to one of your fingers.

3. The time we got to spend with Wendy and her family. I wish I got to see my siblings and their children more often, but I am very grateful for the time we do get together especially when the university pays for my trip. :-)

4. The fact that AF came today. Yay! Normally I don't celebrate getting AF. Usually there is almost a feeling of depression associated with that, but in this case I only felt a huge sense of relief. I am having my FSH b/w tomorrow morning at my primary care doctor's office (which is closer than the RE), and Thursday I go back on the bcp. I have an appt with the RE nurse for April 6 to be given my Lupron which I'll start on April 7 and another appt with the RE on April 16 for my baseline b/w and u/s which means I should start the Follistim and Menopur on April 17. PTL that my body cooperated, and hopefully it will continue to cooperate each step of the way!!!

5. The fact that one of Paul's professors is at a conference this week so his MWF classes were cancelled. He stayed home yesterday as he can get more work done w/o spending 3 hours on the road. It was nice to be home with him yesterday until I left for school at 2:45pm.

6. Nadia's good health. I think she inherited Daddy's genes rather than mine in terms of propensity towards illness. PTL! Before I had turned 1 year old I had already been hospitalized for pnumonia, had a few ear infections, etc. To our knowledge she hasn't yet had a fever, cold, infection, etc. What a blessing! She goes to the doctor next week for her 9 month check-up. I don't think she gets any shots this time. Whew...

Home Sweet Home

Here are some pics that I took at the science museum on Saturday.

Yesterday we left Wendy's house about 9am (CST) to drive to O'Hare. I had a little more luggage to juggle as Wendy and Drayton gave us a car seat they aren't using any more as they needed to get a narrower one so they could fit 3 in the back seat of their Corolla. I haven't tried it out yet to see whether we'll put this one in my car or Paul's. It will be very helpful to have each in one of our cars since the plan with the babysitter for the summer and fall is for me to drop her off around 3pm on my way to school and Paul to pick her up around 6pm on his way home. Nadia slept during our drive to the aiport, and then she was awake during our time in the terminal and for the first part of our flight. It was pretty much the same experience as last time in that she cried about 5 minutes total and slept about 35 minutes on the airplane in my arms. I didn't try to warm her bottle or to drink anything myself this time though. Again the banana and puffs were the most successful at entertaining her on the plane. The toy that helped the most was the "See & Say" that I bought her at the Thift store we shopped at in Chicago on Thursday. I might be the first professor to attend a conference and go shopping at a thrift store while at the conference. :-)

It was fun to spend time with Adam & Susie last week. They would usually join in Nadia's naptime/bedtime ritual of reading and singing. Susie often read a few of the books to Nadia, and they helped pick which songs we sang each time. I enjoyed listening to Susie practice her violin and read. I also enjoyed listening to Adam pretend to read. Every book he "reads" starts out the same way. There is one word that changes. If the book is about trucks then he while he looks at the first page he says "One day a truck was born." If the book is about dinosaurs then it's, "One day a dinosaur was born." It's so cute!! He's 25 months old. He also says who the book is by. One of the books Wendy frequently reads them is by Iza Trapani. Well Adam says that every book is "by Pani Iza Trapani." LOL! It's also so sweet to hear how they imitate me and say "Nadia, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet Nadia" to their cousin.

Paul was amazed last night at how quickly Nadia is crawling these days. I will definitely take a video of her crawling this week. She's been crawling a lot today. She crawls so she can get to something to that she can use to pull herself to a standing position and cruise. She can stand for longer and longer periods of time without holding on to anything. In addition to her "step" she now has a favorite window which is just the right height for her to enjoy. The downside of her crawling and standing is she doesn't enjoy the jump up any more, and I can't leave her in our bathroom/bedroom (with the door closed) with some toys while I get a shower like I have in the past. There was one time when she tried to stand in Chicago but was unsuccesful. She tried to use the letters on their refrigerator to pull herself up, and for some strange reason the magnetic letters just kept falling off! :-)

Since we got home I've done a load of laundry, gone grocery shopping, paid some bills, and returned a few library books that were due tomorrow. I'm teaching tonight so life is really back in the normal swing of things. This past Friday was my last bcp for now. I would appreciate prayers that I will get AF tomorrow or Wednesday. Then I'll have b/w a couple of days later to check my FSH level and then start right back on the pill and then add Lupron to the mix several days after that. The first very important step though is for me to get my first PPAF - as soon as possible!

Hello from Chicago

Wednesday morning Nadia stayed awake most of our drive to the airport (which took about 1hr and 40 min). She did cry some of the time, but it wasn't too bad. She was very alert while the bus took us from long term parking to the terminal and while we were in the terminal. What proved the most helpful in keeping her happy in the terminal and on the plane was food rather than books or toys. She wanted to either stand in my lap or eat a banana (she ate an entire one) or Puffs. She started crying a little on the plane so I walked her up and down the aisle a little which was a challenge as it was a small plane (each row had 2 seats on either side of the aisle). She then cried a little more later, but then fell asleep in my arms and didn't wake up until they lowered the wheels to prepare for landing. She cried about 5 minutes total on the plane so that wasn't bad. The flight was full so there was someone sitting next to me. Thankfully the man has a 5 year old son and was very accepting of having a baby sitting nearby. I learned the hard way not to order a drink. It's impossible to manage a drink with a baby in your lap on an airplane. :-) She probably wouldn't have cried at all except they didn't have a microwave to warm her bottle. They gave me a little cup of hot water when they brought me my cup of ice water (so you can picture me trying to hold a baby as well as two cups of water at the same time while trying to pour hot water into the bottle without spilling any of it). She still didn't want it, but eventually she fell asleep anyhow. Of course I loved having her sleep on me as I haven't experienced that in a few months. :-)

Wendy, Adam,and Susie met us at O'Hare. We stopped for lunch and then Wendy dropped me off at the Westin on the "Magnificent Mile" for my conference. She took Nadia home with her. I took a cab to their home after attending a session that interested me because the speaker is the author of the textbook I use in my class that is meeting Monday nights this semester.

My session went well yesterday. It was a tough day for Nadia as she's just not used to Aunt Wendy and she was really missing her Mommy. I had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory for the first time, which was a treat yesterday. Last night we picked up some deep dish pizza that Chicago is famous for. It wasn't exactly a good day for my diet, LOL. I haven't actually been very diligent in that regard lately - with either diet or exercise. I need to get back in gear as I still haven't hit my pre-pg weight yet.

All the pictures in today's post were taken by Wendy. The 2nd one was taken yesterday during "nursery rhyme time" that my sister does with her kids prior to their afternoon nap each day. Nadia's 1st two naps were very short yesterday, so Nadia got really tired long before it was a reasonable time for her 3rd nap to start. So my sister bundled them up and took them for a walk to try to keep Nadia awake (3rd picture). Today we went to the science museum. Nadia especially enjoyed seeing the chicks; 3 hatched while we were watching (4th picture). The last picture was taken on Wednesday night. Susie had dressed Nadia up in a ballerina tutu and shoes.

I am sure Daddy is glad we are flying home tomorrow! He actually almost cried on Wednesday morning when we left, and I think it's been more than 9 years since I've seen him cry. He was very worried that Nadia would forget him. I'm sure she hasn't forgotten her Dada!!!