infertilepediatrician

I am not a computer person (no surprise there - that's why there's never any pictures on my blog - I'm too computer stupid). So it wasn't until my wife started a blog that I ever even read a blog. I had heard about blogs but had no clue what they were all about. I never realized the sense of community that existed out in blog land. I, like most of you, have read my wife's blog religiously. Despite living with her and knowing all of the stories that she post about first hand, I still logged on each day to read her account of our lives. So when my wife announced to me that she was considering ending her blog, I begged her not to do it. Her points were valid - her blog was started to chronicle our TTC journey and also with the superstitious belief that somehow it would help us conceive a child (in the "if you build it, they will come" fashion) and we were past that - we had built it and they did come! Also my wife wanted to be able to discuss other issues besides just parenting our children on the blog. My wife likes to debate and stir up controversy yet it didn't seem appropriate to have anonymous commentors leaving asshole remarks on posts with pictures of my kids.

So after 25 months of uterusx2 it has come to an end. I am sad that it's over. It feels weird to say goodbye, to end that chapter of our lives. Even as I sit here knowing that our 3 babies are asleep in the other room, I still feel like infertile pediatrician and uterus x2 is where we belong. I am a creature of habit and I do not like change. I do not like saying good-bye. At first my wife considered going to a private blog. While obviously it is her decision (based mostly on the fact that it sometimes freaks her out that so many "strangers" know so much about our family) I was so sad to think that we might lose all of the connections we've made with our virtual friends. Obviously I was not the only one who felt this way as she received over 60 comments when she posted that she was considering putting an end to all of this.

Now the next chapter starts at www.findingchaos.com While my wife will be the main author she has asked me to also post on there. I am not ready to say that this is the end of infertile pediatrician. I know it seems it's been over for a while since I rarely post but in my head I compose all sorts of posts. In my head I communicate with all of you quite often. I guess I'll start communicating with you at findingchaos. Although, I'm not ready to be done here.

Time seems to be passing so fast. I can't believe that Hudson is already 8 months and Bennett and Kate are 3 1/2 months old - that's just crazy to me. I'm so afraid that I'm going to forget these early stages with the kids. It's already hard to remember what Hudson was like when he was Kate and Bennett's age. We have hundreds of pictures (yay for digital photography and a pregnant R who took daily photo shoots of Hudson while on modified bed rest) but I guess she should be more diligent about videos. Here are a few of my current favorite moments that I never want to forget:

• The way Kate looks at me - I could stare at her for hours. Kate is very expressive. She looks at you with the most adoring eyes. Her smile is amazing yet her sad face is equally amazing. Sometimes I let her cry for a few minutes (ok more like seconds) before comforting her because I think her frowny face is so adorable. Sometimes when I offer her the pacifier she makes a "yucky mommy" face like the pacifier is utterly disgusting and it's beneath her to suck on such a vile object.
• Bennett is our little grunter/groaner guy. He often time seems to have trouble getting comfortable and is often making barnyard animal noises (some of his grunts and groans sound like goat noises). However after his bedtime bottle, when his belly is full and he's ready to go down for the night, he finally relaxes. My favorite time with Bennett is holding him after that feed and before laying him down in the crib. He's just so chubby and snuggly (and finally relaxed). I love it and if I didn't want to get to sleep myself so badly, I don't think I would ever put him down.
• These days Hudson is so interested in everything that's going on around him. He's easily distracted while eating and would rather see his surroundings than nurse. However when I nurse him before putting him down for bed at night he frantically searches out the breast and snuggles in to fill his belly before nodding off to sleep. I love this quiet time with him because he finally focuses on just eating and he is just so content to be with me. I also love the mornings. I wake him up around 7am - He's usually kind of awake and just laying in his bed when I go into his room. After a quick diaper change, I nurse him. He starts off the nursing session quite groggy and almost like he's having his morning coffee, once he empties one side, he perks up and sits up and starts talking. He eventually goes for the other side but that second side takes a while because he stops to chat with me every few seconds. I love watching him come to life in the mornings.
  

My time as a stay at home mom is over. Tomorrow morning I head back to work. After my maternity leave when Hudson was born, I was ok going back to work. I didn't dread it, in fact I was looking forward to it in some ways. I guess I knew that in a short time I would be staying home again for some time. But now as the last of my 16 weeks of leave (9 with Hudson and 7 for Bennett and Kate) comes to an end, I am so sad. This was the only time in my life that I will have been a stay at home mom.

Leave this second time around was great (not that the first time around wasn't great). I was definitely needed as there's so much work with the 3 babies and trying to maintain a house in somewhat of decent order. The majority of the time with Bennett and Kate, it's all about meeting their needs - feeding them (especially Bennett), changing them, burping them and holding them. Just recently have we been rewarded with some smiles. Hudson on the other hand is at a great age - he's interactive and down right demanding of attention - which I was more than happy to give him. I've really enjoyed playing with him. If anyone is considering splitting their maternity leave, I highly encourage it. Take some time off when they're a little older, it's so much more fun.

I feel like a kid on the last day of summer. The dread of the next morning - of going back to school. I know once at work I'll be happy since I love my job (much like school, once I was back after a long summer break, I always enjoyed it - guess I was a bit of a nerd) but I don't want to leave my kids. Not to mention my ex-catholic guilt for leaving R alone with the 3 of them all day long. If only we were independently wealthy and could both stay home - yeah right wouldn't that be nice. It's amazing but despite being together 24/7 for the past several weeks now and being sleep deprived, we've gotten along quite well. That is until the past couple of days. We've started bickering over little things and I'll admit to a slight tone of annoyance in my voice. I think it's all tied to me not wanting to go back to work and what I can only imagine is a bit on anxiety from R about having to do it all herself (although I don't want to speak for her). The saving grace is that it's only for 1 week as the nanny will start the following week - she's only 20 hours per week but that ought to help out quite a bit.

Off to bed now, I have to be up early to get ready for work and help with kids before I go. I'm sure R will be blogging in the next few days about life on her end, doing it alone... it should be amusing.

It's been almost a month since my last post. The troops have come and gone and I've been off of work again for another 2 weeks (1 week left) and yet still no posts. I've actually been considering ending this blog (lest you think I already have). I started this blog when I was in a dark place as an outlet for all the socially unacceptable thoughts running through my head. But in the proverbial "if you build it they will come" way, I soon ended up pregnant and now here I am as the "infertile pediatrician" mother of 3. I will forever be the infertile pediatrician - being a mom to my trio doesn't negate the 4 miscarriages or 3 years of infertility that R and I went through together. And really, I'm not about to change my blog name, although pediatrician mom sure has a nice ring to it. So for now I will continue to blog, albeit infrequently at times.

The babies are all doing so well. Hudson is 7 months old which sometimes feels like a lot and other times I can't believe he's only been in our lives for 7 short months. I can barely remember life without him. It seems he's had our hearts forever. I LOVE watching him grow and am fascinated by his development in that cliche-ish way that all moms are. I'm still breast feeding! I feel that I spent most of the first 6 months stressing about my supply but here I find myself at 7 months, still going strong with a son who is thriving on my breast milk and just for a second I have to stop and celebrate that as a milestone.

Bennett and Kate are now 11 weeks old (5 weeks corrected for prematurity). We're emerging from survival mode with them to starting to really enjoy them. They are starting to coo and smile and it's just about the best thing ever. The switch from just meeting their basic needs to now starting to interact with them is underway and it's amazing. I am so totally in love with these 2 little ones which is why I'm ok admitting now that it took me a bit longer to bond with them. I think having them in the special care nursery for those initial 12 days made that initial bonding more difficult. Especially since it was such a work like setting for me (not only was it work-like, it was actually work. They were in the hospital in which I work. Even while visiting them as a "mom", I was always aware of the other kids and what was going on with them. Whenever the monitor of the baby who had apnea went off, I wanted to run over and stimulate her to breath thus making bonding a bit more difficult with Bennett and Kate).

I am breastfeeding Bennett and Kate some which has really helped me with bonding. I'd do it more but during the day their eating seems to coincide with Hudson's and I don't want to alter his schedule/routine. At night, I'm afraid that they won't get enough and thus wake up more at night (something I know R would not be happy about). So usually it's in the evenings when the babies seem like they want to cluster feed that I'll nurse one of them (or both of them) to comfort them. I also contribute daily to their pumped breast milk. My supply is actually up some. The LC that we saw after Bennett and Kate were born suggested that I up the domperidone to 30mg three times per day up from the 10mg three times per day that I was previously doing. It seems to have helped. I'm sure the added stimulation from Bennett and Kate is also driving up the supply as is Hudson's improved latch following his frenulectomy (clipping of his tongue tie).

Well my time at the pump (and hence the computer) is up now - hopefully it won't be another month before I make it back.

We survived our mother's day outing. It was our first time going out to a restaurant just the 2 of us with all 3 kids. We arranged for an outdoor table and parked the double stroller with Bennett and Kate next to the table and Hudson sat in a high chair with us at the table. Dinner went great, the food was just as delicious as I remembered it to be. The kids behaved the first half of dinner. Then Hudson needed to eat - no big deal, brought him a bottle of breast milk so I could eat without having him attached. Then Bennett and Kate started crying in stereo but luckily by then it was the end of the meal and we quickly made our exit.

I did have to go to the bathroom when we got there - you know the place in which I delivered bean (that's what we called her - bean). I remember the bathroom as being this very dark little room in which I remember carefully examining the little perfect baby that had just come out of me (9 1/2 weeks gestation). This time the sun was shining right through the window and it was this very bright room. I'm not sure if the dark memory of the room was more reflective of my mood but I was happy that the bathroom seemed totally different to me.

The other cool thing that happened was that the waitress commented on my "bean" necklace. R and I exchanged bean necklaces (from Tiffany's) to commemorate our little one in our private memorial service that we had. The waitress mentioned how much she loved my necklace and that she too had one at home. In my darker days, I would have made some comment about how it commemorated my dead baby. I might have even thrown in the trivia about the "birth story" in the restaurant bathroom. Even as those darker days improved I still would have considered saying something about the significance of the the necklace or at the very least I knew that R would be ready to kick me under the table as she cringed in fear of what would come out of my mouth. Ah, but not this time! This time around, I just said thank you and looked around at my 3 kids! Times have changed, although I will never forget my little bean.

In happier news, my in-laws get here tomorrow!!! I have never been so happy to have house guests. This means that on Sunday morning, we can hand over 3 kids at 7am and go back to sleep! I get to sleep in!!! R and I don't have any family in town - they all live across the country. While we have awesome friends who are totally supportive, we are doing this all on our own. So having some help for 2 weeks will be sooooooo great. It does mean that I'm going back to work on Monday but just for the 2 weeks that the in-laws are here. I'll then take off another 3 weeks once they leave. Again, did I mention that I'm sleeping in on Sunday?!?!!!!!!! Speaking of sleep - I'm off to bed.