family

Happy New Year (?)

/ lovescienceandnat20s / Leave a comment

Hooooooly shit what a day. I don’t think I’ve had this eventful a start to the new year since I accidentally and tipsily got unintentionally vulgar with a youth pastor at a New Year’s Eve party before driving home at 2:30 a.m. in a literal blizzard.

This was much crazier.

New Year’s started as it does for most parents. Kyle and I finished our nightly gaming before heading out to the living room at 11:58 to watch the ball drop. The ball dropped, it was 2018, we kissed and started to head up to bed.

Which is when the fun began.

I just dragged myself straight up to bed, pausing only to check in on Sam and make sure he was sleeping comfortably. Midnight is an hour past when I usually crash, and I was already feeling it. Both Carrie and Isaac were awake enough to be questioning the situation (via kicks), and I was more than a little eager to get into bed. No sooner had I snuggled under the covers, curled around my maternity pillow (my blessed nest, I call it), than Kyle came upstairs very worried.

“I think something is wrong with the furnace,” he said.

We’ve had “I think something is wrong with [x]” conversations at bedtime before. Nine times out of ten, nothing is wrong and it’s just something completely normal. I expected this conversation to go the same way. “Why do you think that?” I asked.

“It’s making kind of a pulsing hissing noise? I heard it in the living room.”

Now, it was 12:30 a.m., and I knew that Sam would have no consideration for that fact when he woke up in… probably 6 hours, tops. That was the first thing on my mind when I said, “Well, if you’re really worried about it, we’ll check it out in the morning.”

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But Kyle was convinced something was seriously wrong and first took the step of turning the thermostat down to 50 so that we could avoid overtaxing the furnace. I’d protest this any time but the balmiest of summer days, but last night, it was well below zero outside… -3 with a windchill of -18, which is probably colder than it was in Barrow, Alaska. I vehemently protested the furnace being turned down and Kyle compromised by turning it up to 60.

Only the furnace didn’t kick in. We didn’t hear the reassuring hum and roar of forced hot air, except for a few false starts. Kyle went downstairs to inspect again (it was now 1:30 a.m.) and found the furnace hissing, squeaking, and then falling silent with the lockout light on.

He called a 24-hour HVAC service, hoping to catch someone on New Year’s Eve, during a huge cold snap, at 2 a.m., but after about half an hour of holding, he gave up on that endeavor. We made a plan: at 7, he would get Sammy and bring him into our room so that Sammy could get dressed in approximately 32 layers of clothes. Then Kyle would dig out his car, pack us some bags, and send us off to my parents’ house (with the cat as well) to ride out the coldest of the incident. With any luck, the problem would be resolved sooner rather than later.

It was 2:30 a.m. at that point, and the two of us fell into an exhausted sleep that lasted until 5:30 a.m. for no good reason. It wasn’t that Sam woke us up or Tinkerbell woke us up, we just woke up at 5:30 and, knowing what the day held, couldn’t fall back asleep.

But we tried. Oh my god did we try.

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Around 7, Kyle went to bring Sam into our room, where he could burrow under the covers and keep warm until it was time to leave. Sam thought it was all a wonderful game, especially because he got his Kindle straightaway and because he had Mommy and Daddy there to play Kindle with him. He showed off his favorite games and tried to get us to participate, but I’ll be honest–I was still in a twilight space of not even slightly awake, so it all sort of blurred together.

Kyle dug out his car, Sam got very excited about Tinkerbell being on the bed with him, and around 8 a.m., it was time to make tracks. I bundled up–five layers on top, two on bottom–and we packed up the car to head out to my parents’ house, leaving Kyle to wait for the HVAC guy and stopping for Dunkin Donuts on the way.

Stopping for Dunkin Donuts ended up changing the morning somewhat significantly. As we drove down our street towards the nearest Dunkin, I saw a woman crossing the road. At first, I felt a stab of annoyance that wasn’t even logical–we’re in the middle of nowhere and don’t really have sidewalks at all, much less crosswalks. So of course she’d be in the middle of the road, and I don’t know why I was irritated.

Anyway, she flagged me down, and once I slowed and stopped, I could see that she was really distressed–tears running down her cheeks, all bedraggled and out of sorts. At the same moment, I remembered that, oh yeah, it’s three whole degrees outside. There’s no reason for someone to be out in that kind of weather unless they’re either really dedicated to their fitness routine or in really dire straits.

She was the latter. I didn’t really piece together the whole of her situation, but I gathered enough–that her sister had kicked her out, that she needed to get back to her apartment in the next town over (coincidentally, right on the route that Sam and I were taking to my parents’ house), that she didn’t know what to do.

So I told her to get in the car.

She was effusively grateful and offered to pay me something, but dude, I’m not even going out of my way here. It’s alright. Just hold the donuts for me and don’t turn out to be a serial killer and you’re good.

And, well. Like I said, her apartment was on the way. We chatted the whole way there, friendly conversation about nothing, and she got upstairs alright. And then Sam and I (and Tinkerbell, who she thought was actually a baby?) continued on to my parents’ house.

I’ll be 100% honest–my recollection of the morning at my parents’ house is pretty fuzzy because my exhaustion had started to hit by that point. My mom had to work, but my dad was home for the holiday, and he and Sam play off each other really well, so I knew Sam would be in good hands despite my zombie-like state. I mostly remember the series of games they played: dragon vs. castle (with the old play castle my brother and sister and I had when we were kids), Wall-E and Silly Songs, Sorry, and finally, drums and piano.

That last bit involved the new drum machine my dad got for Christmas, which had Sam all excited because it made noises, and my dad plugged it into the living room sound system, so it made loud noises. Nothing in the world is better to a three-year-old than loud noises, except perhaps loud noises sanctioned by and shared with his grandfather. The two of them had a marvellous time.

As for me? I… tried to sleep. I tried really hard, but comfort is just not something my body is capable of lately except under very specific circumstances. I laid down on Sam’s bed (which used to be mine, until I moved out of the house wayyyy back in 2009) and tried to sleep, but my weirdly shifted center of gravity didn’t really lend itself to a comfortable rest in my childhood bed, so that was a wash. At some point, right when I was getting to a stage where I could ignore my discomfort long enough to pass out, Sam burst into the room crying and tattling on my dad, something about donuts? I have no idea.

The HVAC guy got to our house around noonish, give or take, and found that the furnace had just shut down because–get this–it’s so cold outside that the oil line literally froze. I guess this can happen sometimes when you have an outdoor oil tank (which we have because our house is kind of low on storage for literally anything) and it’s cold as balls out, which it has been (but hey! Next week, it’s going to get into the 40s, so break out your bathing suits, citizens of Massachusetts!). The problem was fixed within 5 minutes and for less than $200, both of which had us sighing in utter relief–when things go wrong in our house, those things tend to be massive fixes that cost at least $500.

And, well. Money has been tight since I left my job, which we knew it would be. We had enough squirreled away that we could afford to pay for some minor repairs, but furnace repairs have a pretty wide range of costs, and we didn’t know what range we’d end up on. That the costs were on the low end of things basically took an awful situation and made it infinitely more palatable.

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When Kyle told me all of this, he also said that he’d keep an eye on the interior temperature and let us know when it was back to being livable (that morning, when we’d all gotten up, the temperature inside had dropped to 40 degrees, which was admittedly significantly more than the -3 degrees outside but was still not even slightly livable), and I told him that I was coming home by 3 regardless. This was at least partly because of the one piece of chaos that we were expecting: the arrival of our new dryer.

Let’s rewind a bit to when we bought this house, three years ago. The former owners kindly left the washer and dryer behind for us, which was fantastic–before moving in, we’d had to either use our apartment complex’s machines down three flights of stairs and costing about $6/load or make a weekly jaunt to my parents’ house to hang out while doing 1-2 loads of laundry (we learned to be frugal with our laundry in those days). Any washer and dryer were an improvement over that situation (much though I love spending time with my folks, it’s better to be able to do laundry in your own place, especially when you have a baby).

And the washer, at least, is great. It’s not brand new, but it’s lovely and functional and has all the different settings and is basically a Washing Machine For Grown-Ups. Having it handy to take care of various messes–cat-induced, baby-induced, otherwise-induced–has been a joy.

The dryer… eeeeeh.

It was quirky from the start. It only ever worked on the medium setting, meaning that we basically had to throw everything in and pray for the best. What was more, it didn’t turn off on its own after any period of time–if you forgot about it, forgot to set a timer or what-have-you, it would just keep running and running and running, wasting so much energy and threatening to burn down the house and shrink your clothes in the same breath. The lint trap was also a hilarious mistake: it caught lint in the filter, alright, but the lint also often got stuck in the trap holder, which made the entire thing pointless.

I probably could’ve lived with it for a while, but my parents weren’t fans of that strategy and bought us a new dryer for Christmas. And it was scheduled to arrive January 1.

January 1: the day of the broken heater, the wandering stranger, the playing at my parents’ house, and no sleep.

As Sam and I were preparing to pack up and leave, Kyle called again to let me know that the dryer would be delivered in the next 20 minutes, which was wonderful timing, as it takes about 20 minutes to get home from my parents’ house. I rushed out the door a little bit, letting Sam get away with abducting a Santa hat he found, ignoring the loud protests of the cat as we slipped her into her carrier once again, and trying to drive safely despite the fact that I was seeing double by that point.

We got home to see a truck parked outside the house and a man running from the front door back to said truck. And the truck drove away, and Kyle poked his head out the door and told me to go into our laundry room.

And, well. My new dryer is beautiful.

26165767_10155121262840592_1631067740820553886_n(it makes pretty little music noises when you turn it on and off)

And that’s how my year started! Dinner and evening activities passed in an absolute blur, and both Kyle and I were asleep almost as soon as our heads hit our pillows, only to find when we woke at around 7 a.m. that the furnace had died again sometime during the night. This time, though, it came back to life after a bit of swearing at and cajoling by Kyle… and after protesting with concerning squeaks and clanks that had us calling the HVAC company back again (they still haven’t arrived–it’s almost 9:30 p.m., and our window for service was approximately from 7:30 a.m. until midnight, so yay).

I think I need another holiday.

And a partridge in a pear tree…

/ lovescienceandnat20s / Leave a comment

I’ve been meaning to write this entry for weeks, but every time I started, something new came up that made me say “well, I should probably wait until after [x] happens to really write, so that I can get a nice holistic picture painted.” And so, for three weeks, I’ve been sitting on stuff that I want to write about but didn’t figure it was a good time for, but now everything is all settled, so here we go.

Mundane first: Christmas happened.

It’s the first Christmas where Sam was really able to understand what was going on, and he spent the entire lead-up to Christmas absolutely vibrating with excitement. He doesn’t quite  understand time yet; he just figured that days change when we moved the reindeer in our advent calendar over a space. And so even right after we’d move the little guy over, Sam would be clambering back up to the advent calendar and asking, “Can we move him to where it says 22? That’s closer to Christmas, right?”

It was a smallish Christmas, probably one of the last smallish Christmases we can count on, since Sam’s still too young to want for anything particularly expensive and there’s still just the one of him. All he wanted this year were some character toys from Toy Story (the Evil Emperor Zurg and Woody, the latter of whom is… quirky, we’ll say) and a toy bow and arrow. All together, those cost about $50, which is a nice number for a child’s Christmas complete. We got him a few other things, too–some clothes, books, and stocking stuffers–but it was a nice, frugal time, and I’m proud of that. And he, of course, was thrilled with everything.

Kyle and I spoiled each other, too, as much as we could on a relatively low budget. I got Kyle a breakfast sandwich maker (thank you, Buzzfeed gift idea lists!) that he’s used every day since, along with a D&D shirt (shown below) and a whole bunch of reinforced socks because he wears holes in socks like nobody’s business.

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His big present to me was a woefully mostly complete (woefully because she can’t write anymore) collection of Carrie Fisher’s writing. I finished The Princess Diarist a couple of days ago, and I had to hug it when I was finished because it was like reading something I’d written, like looking back at the words and thought process of my nineteen-year-old self and ahead at the words and thought process of my sixty-year-old self. It’s probably pretty vain to compare oneself to a famous writer of any kind, but I’ll accept that if I can also accept that it’s possible to feel like someone else out there thinks and writes (or thought and wrote) like you do, even if that person is very famous.

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But point being, I love these books.

And there were other gifts aplenty. My parents are springing for a new dryer for us, since ours is one of the saddest things in existence (it has two modes: on and door is open; you cannot clean the lint trap properly because the lint just falls off in the lint trap door; it’s a dangerous thing). They got me a maternity pillow, which has been fantastic in terms of giving support and nestling me in warmth. And they positively spoiled Sam with a guitar and RC cars and Legos and so much stuff I can barely remember. Sam made out like a bandit this year overall–from Texas, he got a ton of books that he loves and lots of winter shirts that actually fit him (which I love).

And, as the Grinch would want me to point out, Christmas isn’t bought in a store. We spent Christmas Eve with my family, decorating gingerbread men and having Chinese food, and that was a delight. And then Christmas Day was the traditional holiday dinner with my mom’s side of the family, who are all just fantastic. My uncle cooked up a HUGE delicious feast, we all brought desserts, and then we all laughed ourselves silly with the annual Yankee Swap (White Elephant if you’re not from around here).

The week since has been pretty chill. I theoretically wanted us to make plans, but it’s been cold as balls outside, and Kyle had to catch up on some work on Tuesday and Wednesday (to both of our frustration, since it’s supposed to be a vacation week, but at least he’s getting comp time in January). Sam is drowning in new toys and also in a newly acquired love for My Little Pony, so he’s been well occupied, though still getting very bored by around 3 p.m. without school and trips outside the house to keep him entertained. We’ve had a few teary meltdowns, but nothing overwhelming, and we made up for it today (and will make up for it tomorrow).

Today. Today was about babies.

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But to give context, let me rewind a little bit. About a week and a half ago, I’d gone back to bed after Sam went to school (ignoring my to-do list like a good and exhausted pregnant mom), hoping to get another couple of hours of sleep in before I had to go and pick him up. As I started to drift off, my doctor’s office called because there had been a few problems with the anatomy scan.

In theory, I knew about this. When we’d been at the scan, the tech mentioned that she hadn’t been able to get a good profile shot of Isaac, so we’d probably get a call in the next couple of weeks wanting to follow-up. What she did not mention, however, was something the nurse on the phone line said that caused a good week and a half of tension for everyone. She said that it looked like there was too much amniotic fluid around Isaac–a condition called polyhydramnios–and that we’d have to measure the fluid again. If the fluid levels were still too high, we’d have to talk with a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the hospital to make a plan moving forward.

Naturally, the second I hung up the phone, I started buzzing around Google. Polyhydramnios isn’t the end of the world, necessarily, but if it gets severe enough, it can cause all sorts of nasty things that nobody wants in their pregnancy: placental abruption, preterm labor, uncontrolled uterine bleeding, the works. The treatment looked to be monitoring, by and large–lots and lots of non-stress tests and ultrasounds until we absolutely had to deliver.

Bad ends in mind, I called Kyle and my mother to give them the news so that we could all be tense together.

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Fortunately, we already had an appointment scheduled for today, so the nurse just adjusted that ultrasound so that we could kill two birds with one stone. We went in this morning with Sam, hoping we wouldn’t see anything bad but also prepared for the worst. The three of us bundled up like we were making a trek to visit penguins in Antarctica, shuffled through the frigid air, and had our scan.

And everything mostly looked great, but I’m not an ultrasound tech, so I couldn’t say. Both Isaac and Carrie were moving around and had fantastic heartbeats (Isaac at around 150, Carrie at around 160), both of them were measuring ahead of schedule (24 weeks exactly, as opposed to the 23 weeks, 2 days they actually are) and weighing in at a great size for viability’s sake–1 lb, 7 oz apiece (which translates to 652 grams; preemies with a birth weight of more than 601 grams have an excellent chance at survival). We saw fingers and legs and toes, and we got a perfect profile shot of Isaac (Carrie was like “not today, plebes”).

To my untrained eyes, everything looked good, but we still had to meet with the doctor. When we got into his office, he was cheerful and friendly as usual and amazed to see Sam (Dr. Solano also did my prenatal care when I was pregnant with Sam, so seeing him now at nearly four years old was a little mind-blowing, I’m sure). We started the appointment with questions and concerns, as we usually do, and I immediately brought up the polyhydramnios.

“I wondered if today’s scan gave us any more information on that polyhydramnios thing?” was how I phrased it (if you put “thing” after the name of a medical condition, it makes it seem like you didn’t spend 3 hours googling it and panicking).

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Dr. Solano was confused and wanted to know where I’d heard that I had polyhydramnios. I explained that the nurse who’d called me about the updated anatomy scan had mentioned it, and that I wanted to make sure that everything was okay. He got that look on his face that people get when they want to express that they’re annoyed, but not with you, but they also can’t say that they’re annoyed with someone else because it’s unprofessional or something.

“What it looks like,” he finally explained after paging through my files, “is that you had excess fluid around Baby A (Isaac, for anyone keeping track) during your anatomy scan a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t a huge excess, but it’s still something to keep an eye on. The good news is that today’s scan shows that he’s on the high end of normal–we worry if his numbers go above an 8, but he’s at a 7.5, so you’re all set.”

HUGE relief. I’d been telling Kyle that I wasn’t too worried–if you’re going to have a complicated pregnancy, after all, Massachusetts is the place to do it–but those were some scary possibilities. And thankfully, it looks like none of them are in the cards.

The other concern I had… well, that also requires some backstory.

About two weeks ago, Kyle and I got it in our heads to go Christmas shopping at one of the malls around here. I had to get stocking stuffers, Kyle hadn’t bought ANYTHING for me, and we all just wanted to get out of the house. We bundled up into our car and drove to the mall hella early, to beat the crowds and try to get in and out before Sam’s naptime. It was a challenge, but we were confident in our ability to shop quickly and efficiently.

Too confident, as it turns out.

From Kyle’s perspective, the trip was kind of a wasted effort. Sam has reached an age where he’s very difficult to shop with, being too old for a stroller but also too young to not be distracted by every shiny object within 10 feet of him. Kyle’s plans to get me more grown-up gifts went awry as Sam dragged him into Build-A-Bear and Learning Express and all the toy stores, leaving exactly no time for anything remotely resembling a gift from a husband to a wife. And then I texted him.

I texted him because I was having an Incident. We arrived at the mall, and I promptly hoofed it from our parking garage to Newbury Comics, home of Yankee Swap gifts galore (you know, things like “Maybe You Touched Your Genitals” hand sanitizer, handerpants, “Kleener Weener” soap, and bacon-scented car fresheners). I hoofed it a bit too hoofily, as it turned out: within about 30 seconds of entering Newbury Comics, the world started spinning. My heart pounded like it was going to come out of my chest, and I felt deeply nauseous and crampy. I haphazardly reshelved my would-be purchases (with no small amount of guilt; I hate leaving a mess behind, especially at Christmas) and staggered down to the nearest bench, where I texted Kyle: “Help. Just almost fainted at Newbury. I’m at the benches on the lower level near there. Bring water please.”

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(shown: not a successful shopping trip)

I swear, Kyle must have moved at supersonic speeds to get to me with a wonderful bottle of Fiji water. By that time, the worst of the symptoms had calmed, but I still felt dizzy and weak. “Do you think you could bring the car around?” I asked, and Kyle did so, leaving me and Sam to watch children zooming around on oversized plush animals (which was actually really entertaining, as the kids’ dad gleefully filmed his son with the narration, “Here’s my thirteen-year-old son, riding the plush animals at the mall!” Said son rolled his eyes and said, “Daaaaad!” but then was laughing with delight as he joined his younger siblings in chasing the dad around in circles for the next ten minutes). We went home after that, and I spent the rest of the day lying down or sitting with my feet up, trying to regain some equilibrium. I was fine by the next morning.

And then it happened again, two days before Christmas, only now without the hoofing it. I was just standing in the shower, washing my hair and doing shower things, trying to shave, when it all hit me again. Nausea, dizziness, heart pounding, the works. I made it out of the shower and plopped to the toilet, drenched from head-to-toe. I called for help then, too, but I forget what I asked for. Water? Maybe. Towels? Probably. I don’t know what else.

I could kind of understand an episode of syncope (that’s the ~official medical term~ for “passing the fuck out”) like the one at the mall–I’d overexerted myself, the mall was overwarm, I just needed to slow down. The shower one, though, had me concerned. I thought about calling Dr. Solano’s office, but then it occurred to me that (a) I was alright, if a bit shaken; and (b) the office would be closed pretty much until the day I’d be going in anyway, so it would be a waste of time to call.

So I held off and brought it up today. Fainting isn’t exactly something to be taken lightly, and Dr. Solano listened to my retelling before nodding in understanding. “I’m glad you told me. I don’t think there’s anything too big for us to worry about–you’re about halfway through pregnancy, and your blood volume has dramatically increased, so your body’s coping with that–but we’ll still test your iron levels and hypoglycemia to be sure. In the meantime, try and take it easy–no more hoofing it at the mall, and shorter showers–and let us know if you have another episode.”

Which was reassuring. I figured it had something to do with the whole “now you have more blood than an anime character” thing, but I didn’t want to dismiss what might be a sign of a larger underlying problem. The shower incident made more sense in context: when your blood volume is higher, you get more sensitive to changes in temperature, and that can cause a major drop in blood pressure, which causes fainting. Yay! Nothing had been out of the blue; everything had a logical (or semi-logical) cause, so I feel less nervous. And if it turns out that I’m anemic or hypoglycemic, both are easily treatable, so.

SO! Things are going well, and it’s all a good sign as we head into the new year. Until next time…

What’s in a name?

/ lovescienceandnat20s / 1 Comment

I take my kids’ names very seriously. Perhaps too seriously. I’ve had a list of potential kids’ names running in the back of my head for years, probably decades, and though I’ve had to remove some of those names (for example, “David” has been removed because our last name begins with “David” so it makes it sound like we’re stuttering), the list has remained pretty consistent for a while.

list_of_santa_claus-snow(also David is on the naughty list, come on)

I like names with strong meanings, names that flow well with our last name and with any middle name, names that–if they’re longer–lend themselves easily to nicknames. Part of me loves kind of quirky names (Tennyson and Peregrine are perennial favorites), but ultimately, meaning is the heart of any name I choose for my kids, and not just the meaning of the name itself, but the meaning and cultural influences that inspired us to even think of the name in the first place.

For example, Samuel Matthew.

Matthew, first off, is a family name–it’s Kyle’s middle name, so immediately, we liked having that as part of our first child’s name (before we found out Sam is a boy, we thought about Madison as a middle name for a girl, since it means “Matthew’s child”). The name Matthew means “gift of God,” which was especially appropriate–we went through a lot to get pregnant with Sam, so he really did feel like a gift, and still does.

Samuel is also a family name, on Kyle’s mother’s side–his mother’s grandmother–but we were also inspired by the Sams we kept seeing in fiction. There is, of course, Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings, who is arguably the absolute heart of the story. He is, after all, Samwise the Brave–loyal and heroic, the reason Frodo gets anything accomplished, and Tolkien’s everyman. Samwise was meant to represent the brave English soldiers who fought in WWI, and really, he’s just the best character. Everyone loves Sam.

(and I do often call Sammy “Samwise” when I’m trying to get his attention)

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(annnnnd now I’m crying)

And there’s Samwell Tarly from A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, who is sweetly pragmatic and so damn likable (particularly in the show). And overall, the Sams we’ve encountered in fiction are just the kind of person we want our Sam to be.

The name Samuel comes from a Biblical story about infertility, one of several. Hannah, Samuel’s eventual mother, wanted a child so badly that she went to the temple every day to pray for a child, eventually promising that she would dedicate any child she had to God entirely. Sure enough, she eventually had a son, a boy whom she called Samuel, which means “God has heard.” Samuel was the last of the Hebrew prophets and the one to anoint both Saul and David to be king.

So Samuel Matthew. A good, strong name.

And now we’re onto the twins, and coming into today, we faced a slight dilemma. You see, we were struggling to come up with boy names. Girl names, that I can do all day. I’ve got enough girl names stored up that we could have identical octuplets and be all set for names. I am good for girl names. Boy names, on the other hand… eeeeeh. I had various ideas, but nothing really stuck, and Kyle refused to even consider the question until we knew for sure that we were having at least one boy. This caused me a LOT OF STRESS, as I kind of like, you know, planning ahead. Crazy, right?

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(this is fine!)

But whatever. Even if we didn’t come up with a name until we saw the anatomy scan, we’ve still got 18 weeks to go, a little more than four months. That’s plenty of time to come up with a good boy name, even if we dragged our heels and procrastinated and took our dear sweet time and waited and waited and…

Well. We didn’t really drag our heels and procrastinate and wait, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We had the anatomy scan today, the big look at how everybody is developing, if all parts are where they should be, and all of that important stuff. You can also, assuming everyone cooperates, find out the baby’s sex (and there’s a whole conversation about gender being a social construct and what if either of them are trans and so on and so forth and look, I just want to know if I can finally buy some sparkly Mary Janes for my baby without people looking at me funny).

Baby A was first, resting comfortably at the bottom of my uterus. Right now, said baby is head-down, which is the ideal position for any given baby, but that can change at any time (and considering how acrobatic these two are, will probably change at least a couple of times). Heart rate at 148 BPM, which according to old wives’ tales means that Baby A should be a girl…

…but old wives’ tales are wrong because Baby A is a BOY.

Very much a boy. There was no mistaking what we kept seeing on that screen (unless it’s a secret tail?), and honestly? Despite the name thing, I’m happy. He’s a much more chill baby than Sam was (or than his twin, more in a minute on that side of things); whereas Sam was always bouncing and kicking and moving, Baby A sort of languishes and lounges, stretches and moves his hands in long, fluid movements. He’s not dive bombing my cervix and not causing issues; he’s healthy.

And his name is going to be Isaac William.

Despite me thinking we’d need like four months to come up with a name, Isaac William actually came to us in about 15 minutes as we waited for the doctor to come in. We were going through lists of names we’d never consider (“Ebeneezer!” “Draco!” “Blayze!”) when Kyle asked, almost offhandedly, “What about Isaac? What do you think of that?”

As a name, Isaac means “he will laugh” or “laughter,” coming from the Hebrew tzachaq. The name first shows up in the Biblical story of Abraham and Sarah, another infertile couple, who were wayyyyyy older than anyone has a right to be when Isaac was finally born. As the story goes, a Visitor (implied to be God or an angel) came and told Sarah that she would have a baby; her response was, naturally, laughter, like, “Dude, that’s nice and all, but literally, my bits and pieces are dust and my wrinkles have wrinkles.” But sure enough, Isaac was born shortly thereafter.

(the next story about Isaac involves Abraham’s faith being tested by him being willing to sacrifice Isaac to God because not all Bible stories are pleasant)

So already, Isaac is a good name. It also has the association with Sir Isaac Newton (physicist and mathematician), Isaac Asimov (sci fi writer), musicians, designers, and artists. It’s not a super common name, either, but it ranks near Samuel in terms of overall popularity, which I am a-okay with. And it shortens well to Ike or Zack if we want to do a nickname thing.

William, meanwhile, means “resolute protection” (anyone else getting paladin vibes, because I sure am). Going through a list of Williams who could influence the existence of this name would take a decade; as a name, William is everywhere, and has been for centuries. We chose William as a middle name over Liam, though, because it’s a family name–my grandmother on my mother’s side was named Anne Williams before she married, so it carries on the tradition.

Isaac William. Our middle child.

Thus we moved on to Baby B. I’ve had suspicions about Baby B for a while; as babies go, Baby B has always been the more active of the two and was actually the first baby we saw as an indicator that this cycle was a success (tl;dr – Baby A is usually the baby closest to the cervix, but Isaac held off on making his presence known for a good week or so after we knew Baby B existed, so…). At every ultrasound thus far, Baby B has been SUPER active–jumping, kicking, punching, the works. Today was no exception. After giving us a dazzling profile shot, Baby B proceeded to do the usual gymnastics routine, which made the ultrasound take twice as long as usual. Usually the tech would have waited until the end to show us the sex, but in this case, she knew we were excited…

…because Baby B is a GIRL.

A healthy, bouncy, excited baby girl. Bigger than her brother by an ounce, but also with a slightly slower heartbeat (143 to Isaac’s 148). She’s the one who protests me lying down every night by squirming across the width of my abdomen at the best pace she can manage. At one point in the ultrasound, she had her hands above her head like she was dancing, and at another, she was very definitely punching Isaac in the head. She is going to give Sam a run for his money; he may think that his brother will be his partner in crime, but no. His sister will be right there with him and possibly leading the charge, and I am slightly terrified.

And her name will be Carolyn Jeanette.

Both names require a bit of digging to get to their meanings, because they’re both variants on other names. Jeanette comes from Jehann, which comes from John, which means “God is gracious.” That has nothing to do with why we chose Jeanette, but it’s a nice meaning nonetheless. Our reasons are more personal. First off, names in variants of John are pretty common for people close to us (my dad’s name is John, Kyle’s grandmother was Joan, etc.), so there’s a connection in that way. Closer to home, though, Jeanette was a dear friend of ours who passed away just a year or so ago; she and her husband were probably the biggest cheerleaders in our early relationship, and I can’t say how much we both miss her. Naming our baby girl after her was a no-brainer.

As to Carolyn (which means “warrior”), that name comes from my grandmother, Therna Carolyn Sturgis (before she married). By far, pretty much the most awesome person I ever knew, my Grandma exuded love and warmth. She always had a song in her heart and on the tip of her tongue (even when her hearing loss got a little too bad for her to be on key, pretty much ever). She embraced people and welcomed them into her life, and she loved people dearly. I can’t imagine a better legacy for my daughter to inherit.

And then, of course, there’s Carrie Fisher, late and great (why yes, part of my child’s nickname comes from Carrie Fisher, fight me). Her take no prisoners, give no fucks attitude is something I want my daughter to have; I want her to have that strength and courage, and the knowledge that no failure is permanent, that you can always fight your way back. I want her to embrace glitter and funny looking dogs and sharing her strength with others.

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(“Look,” I told Kyle, “if either baby flips us off during the ultrasound, their name is a variation of Carrie. Cary for a boy, Carrie for a girl.” He agreed)

Carolyn Jeanette. Our baby.

They’re both growing very well, and my doctor is actually expecting that I’ll go to term, making my delivery date around April 11, by hook or by crook. As for me, now that I know their names and am starting to know them, I just can’t wait until they get here. Isaac and Carrie, my long-awaited babies.

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Holidays are coming…

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It’s time for a rambly, unfocused, totally all over the place post because this is my blog and I can be rambly and unfocused if I want 😀

Last week, Kyle and I took Sam down to Texas for a visit with Kyle’s family and to celebrate Halloween. We do celebrate Halloween up here, to an extent, but our neighborhood is really not built for trick-or-treating (our little house is halfway up an enormous hill, and our road is twisty, turny, and poorly lit). Kyle’s parents’ neighborhood, on the other hand, is PERFECT for trick-or-treating, so that’s where we went.

Sam dressed as Jack Skellington, a costume he decided on after roughly two months of debate (first, he wanted to be Darth Vader, as he has been for roughly the past three years; then he wanted to be the cat from the Simon’s Cat videos; then he wanted to be Darth Vader, Simon’s Cat, and Jack Skellington at the same time; and finally, he settled on just being Jack). Kyle’s mom made the costume, since every store was sold out of Jack costumes by the time Sam made up his mind, and it honestly looked a thousand times better than any store-bought costume would have:

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It took Sam a little while to warm up to the idea of Halloween overall, mostly because he’s not a fan of change, and last week threw him for a loop (I mean, we flew down to Texas and then he was sleeping in a hotel and at his Nana’s house and there was no school and our singular cat had been replaced with three dogs and it was just wild). He was overtired, too, and reluctant to get into costume at all before Halloween itself. Still, he dove into Halloween crafts with his Nana (including ghosts for the doorway and little skeleton finger puppets and Halloween cupcakes) and was all too happy to help carve the enormous pumpkin we got from the local pumpkin patch:

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As trick-or-treat time approached, Sam was still reluctant to put on his costume, despite all of our arguments in favor of it (you’ll get candy! Look, we dressed your stuffed puppy up as Zero the dog! You can sing all the songs from the movie! You’ll look so cute!)… until Kyle told him, “Sam, if you put on your costume, you can have this umbrella.”

For some reason, that worked. The mind of a three-year-old is an enigma.

Trick-or-treating was still a challenge for the first couple of houses, though. Sam’s never really been, so the idea of walking up to complete strangers and saying, “Trick or treat!” to get candy was a little out of his league. He eventually got the hang of it, though, and by the time we’d canvassed the street, he was happily exclaiming “TRICK OR TREAT! THANK YOU! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!” at every door.

And he got a TON of candy that we’re still picking through.

So it was a good Halloween. I didn’t dress up, except to put on some Princess Leia buns I got for $10 at the Disney Store; in lieu of pictures of that, please enjoy this picture of me dressed as an “angel” (or the physical embodiment of the spirit of disco, depending on how you look at it) when I was seven.

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(shown here on the far right, with my younger brother as a cowboy and my younger sister as a ballerina)

While we were down in Texas, we got word from Kat that the huge windy storm that blew through Massachusetts about a week ago had not left our property unscathed. One of the many, many oak trees on our property hadn’t been able to withstand the storm and toppled over onto our driveway. Thankfully, it didn’t do any damage to our cars or property, but it was still a pain in the butt to deal with until we had a tree removal company come and take it away on Saturday.

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(we had several suggestions that we put up a sign that said “FREE FIREWOOD; CUT YOUR OWN!”)

So that was a thing when we got back. The other thing, the more exciting thing, was that I had a doctor’s appointment on Friday. Everything has been copacetic since the last bleeding incident, so this was just supposed to be a routine visit, and it was. Twins are harder to get individual heartbeats for, so we had an ultrasound to check on those (both very good!), and we saw some good movement as well (Baby B made “hook ‘em horns”–the hand sign for fans of UTA–so Kyle was happy). We were hoping to get a shot that would give us some insight into the sex of our Doublemint Twins, but nothing doing–Baby A was positioned diagonally, so we couldn’t get a clear look, and Baby B was just uncooperative.

But oh well, we figured. We’d had genetic testing done to check for any abnormalities, just so we could know what to expect, and while the test results came back clear for abnormalities, a mix up with our forms hadn’t given us any information on the gender(s). The office faxed another form over to the lab, and we expected to get the results at this appointment…

…and, well. We did. Just the results were “inconclusive,” which I don’t understand how that could be the case (look, either there are Y chromosomes in there or there aren’t), but okay. Error 404: Gender Not Found. Cool.

I laughed about it. It’s frustrating, sure, but not nearly as frustrating as two years of failed transfers and miscarriages and sickness leading to this point. The twins are alive and healthy, the ultrasound tech said it looked like one was a girl, and I’m okay with that. We’re going back for our big anatomy scan on December 7, so in theory, we’ll know at that point… assuming everyone cooperates.

(I’m looking at you, Baby B)

And then, my birthday was this weekend, the big 3-4. It was a pretty typical adult birthday, lowkey and laid back. On Saturday, my mom took me shopping for maternity clothes, my biggest need at the moment, and I got some really cute stuff. We had a good day together, with lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and a side trip to the American Girl store (hush, I need to pretend to be 8 sometimes), and it was cool just getting to spend time together (and to go shopping with someone as enthusiastic about going into Pottery Barn Kids as I am).

Sunday was just a chill day. Kyle let me sleep in as much as I could (which wasn’t very much; if your body’s used to getting up at 7 a.m., it’s hard to go past 8:30 without needing to get out of bed), and I got big hugs and kisses from Sam once I got downstairs. After that, Kyle, Kat, and I went to dinner at the Melting Pot, my absolute favorite place to eat (seriously, the fondue is amazing but then you have the main course stuff that just… I wish I was still eating it, it’s that good) before heading home for the night with a sleepy Sam in tow. The day overall ended with Sam curled up on my lap, chin quivering as he insisted on watching the “Baby Mine” scene from Dumbo. I, naturally, was sobbing hysterically because son, why on earth did it have to be that video? Any other video I can do. I mean, not any other video, but come on. COME ON. That video should be banned by the Geneva Convention for viewing by pregnant mothers–or any mothers for that matter.

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(gross sobbing)

So it’s been a good time. This is my second-to-last week of work (that’s a story worth telling), and I’m spending a lot of it helping Kat get ready to move out on Saturday (she’s heading out to her mom’s place before eventually settling back in California) and preparing for my mom’s birthday this weekend (she’s requested a rum cake but without alcohol, so that’ll be an adventure). And then it’s on to Thanksgiving and Christmas… my holiday season has officially begun!

Magic in a Jar of Dirt

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So there’s a scene in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies where Jack Sparrow is trying to avoid Davy Jones. Tia Dalma, a voodoo priestess and otherwise witchy character, gives him a jar of dirt, as Davy Jones can’t set foot on land.

“Is the… jar of dirt going to help?” Jack asks, utterly skeptical.

Tia Dalma stares him down. “If you don’t want it, give it back.”

Jack clutches the jar to his chest protectively. “No.”

At that, Tia Dalma smiles and steps back. “Then it helps.”

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There’s a weird sort of power in that kind of talisman, in a real life kind of talisman. I don’t necessarily mean an actual power, but that comforting power… the idea that maybe this will help, that maybe it will make things go right. It’s come into play both in my infertility journey and in my parenting.

I had a lot of talismans for my infertility journey; the most important were green fingernails, for fertility, and my Princess Leia socks, for strength. I started wearing them this year, after last year’s IVF treatments kept falling flat on their faces. I don’t think they really necessarily did anything, but then again, I could be wrong. I wore them to my two embryo transfers in the first half of the year, but both of those failed. But then again, I also wore them to my egg retrieval and transfer for this actual pregnancy, so who knows? The point is that they made me feel better, good luck charms, if you will. They made me feel like I had some control over a situation that has long been completely out of my hands.

In truth, the success of this IVF cycle was a combination of things: Kyle’s semenalysis had much better results this go-around, we used the right medication cocktail, I took it easy and carefully throughout the earliest days. Did the socks and the fingernails have anything to do with it? Probably not; but you bet your ass that if something happened and I had to go through this again for any reason, I’d be wearing those Princess Leia socks and painting my nails green.

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(which is to say, next time, I’m totally going for beetle wing green)

Talismans, rituals, magic, all of that is pretty important when you have a little kid, too. They need things to comfort them, because they don’t always understand the world around them. It’s big. It’s weird. It’s sometimes scary. And they’re small and often powerless, so giving them something to hold onto that makes them feel more powerful, even if it’s not really magical or powerful… it helps.

When I was really young, I was terrified of thunder. Absolutely bananas terrified. My parents gave me magic to help with it: they called it a thunder stick. It was really just a paper towel tube, sometimes even a toilet paper tube. It was my weapon against the thunder, though. I could shake it at the sky, and I could yell, “Stop that thunder!” and eventually, the thunder would stop. I was powerless, really, against the weather (sadly, I was not a pint sized shaman), but believing that I had that power made me feel less afraid.

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(I was not this vulgar as a three-year-old, but if I needed a thunder stick nowadays, I would be)

Sam has his talismans, three that we see regularly and a fourth that we consider breaking out the big guns. The three regulars are his lovies: Puppy, the ubiquitous stuffed husky that Kat got him for his first birthday; Pillow, which is literally just a Star Wars pillow; and Blanket, one of the Aden and Anais receiving blankets we were given when we were expecting him. They obviously haven’t got any real magic or power to them. They’re tools of comfort, things that make him feel safe. And he won’t go to bed without them.

The big guns talisman is his Darth Vader bear. That one, though, I actually believe has magic in it.

Eleven years ago, when Kyle and I first started dating, a lot of people in our community cheered us on. We were pretty well known in the small, tight-knit group of RPers, and it seemed like everyone was thrilled to see us together. None, however, were more thrilled than our guild leaders, Veri and Ged. They lived thousands of miles from both of us, but we may as well have been down the street. They cheered us on more than anyone; I swear, when we announced our engagement, we could hear Veri’s squeal of delight from across the country.

And that’s to say nothing of when we told them we were expecting Sam. Veri greeted us whenever we talked by asking, “Are there going to be any baby bears?” (Kyle’s nickname among the group was Kody-bear… it’s a long story) When we told her that yes, a baby bear was imminent, I’m amazed that the joysplosion didn’t take out half the country.

A couple of weeks later, a package arrived at our doorstep, our very first gift for Sam. It was a box from Build-A-Bear, and inside was a black bear dressed in Darth Vader’s robes. The bear was, of course, from Veri and Ged, and came with warmest wishes for a healthy pregnancy and greetings for our new baby. As soon as Sam was born, I started to introduce him to the bear; in recent months, it’s his greatest comfort when all else fails.

Like tonight, when the wind and rain were making him nervous. I rocked him in my arms for a while and let him talk out his anxieties. He wanted some of the stuffed animals that he knew he’d tossed out in the hallway, so we walked over to inspect them, and then he asked me to bring them into his room while he got into bed. He didn’t even ask for Darth Vader bear, but when Darth Vader bear came into his line of vision, it was all he cared about. He touched the mask, the hands, the feet, gently and almost reverently. He asked me to tuck him in (moments before he’d been asking to go downstairs), and his eyes closed as I slipped out of the room.

So Darth Vader bear is special, even more special because Veri passed away last year. She was this beautiful light of a person who could make even the most stubborn of skeptics believe that magic was real, and there’s an ache whenever I remember she isn’t here anymore.

Darth Vader bear may be just a jar of dirt. It may be special because it’s a gift from someone who loved us, who’s gone now. Sam may feel comforted by it because it’s a plush Darth Vader, the only one he has at the moment. He may feel comforted because it’s been part of his life since before he was born.

But for my own sake, I like to believe in a little bit of magic. I like to believe that the most magical person I ever knew put love and blessings into this sweet keepsake, and that maybe, when Sam hugs Darth Vader bear at night, a little bit of that love and magic is hugging him back.

 

Water Redeemed

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This was the weekend of another family trip, kind of a pair of day trips that got melded into a weekend getaway. The occasion was a celebration of Kat’s birthday (29 years young tomorrow!), and the destination was the Plymouth/Carver area of Massachusetts for some beach shenanigans and adventures at King Richard’s Faire.

Which went okay. King Richard’s Faire was, ultimately, a wash. We got there around 10:30 and were thrilled to get front row-ish seats for the tiger show, but around the time the show started, so did the rain. Within a few minutes, it went from spitting to a downpour, and the awesomeness of seeing big cats jump around the stage and show off their majesty was rapidly overpowered by the misery of palming handfuls of water out of our faces.

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Sam dressed up as a pirate but had no interest in the fair whatsoever because of the rain. He and Kyle went on a swinging boat ride, but after that, the whines set in and our attempts to keep Sam entertained despite the storm were mostly futile. He felt better once a few performers teased smiles out of him, and even better after he had a large pretzel and ice cream (look, you don’t go to the faire and eat healthy, ok), but the realization that we weren’t going to drop $300 on a shoulder dragon hit him kind of hard towards the end of the day.

Kat had initially planned an elaborate costume for this excursion, all feathers and corsets and the like. She wanted to portray the Raven Queen from Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder lore, but after we found out the weather would be iffy at best, she pared the costume down to just a feathery mantle and a gorgeous wrap that looked like wings. She looked awesome (though she won’t let me post the pictures; I have them on my phone, so I have proof) but also got drenched and learned that the black feathers of her mantle weren’t actually black feathers–they were rooster feathers dyed black, and the dye wasn’t set enough to not trickle down her arms during the downpours. That said, she got a gorgeous tooled leather collar as a birthday gift for herself, so all wasn’t lost there.

Kyle spent the entire time with a soggy Sam because I can’t carry anything that weighs more than 10 lbs (doctor’s orders; that along with pelvic rest make me basically the most pathetic wife ever). That said, Kyle was also sad that we didn’t have $300 to spend on a shoulder dragon.

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As for me, I managed to acquire a barometric pressure headache at around 3:00 in the morning before anyone woke up. The right side of my head felt like it was cracking open like an egg, and I ultimately shuffled off to the hanging swing chair building to rest both my pelvic muscles (which scream at me if I walk for more than 10 minutes or do physically strenuous things like rolling over in bed) and my head. To say I was disappointed is the understatement of the year; I LOVE King Richard’s Faire. I love exploring the shops, watching the shows, and overall just exploring. But my god, I was so miserable, I couldn’t even keep my head up.

And that headache lasted for two more days, until the stupid tropical rainstorm that caused it finally shuffled out to sea.

(I tried SO many remedies to calm things down, but ultimately, with a barometric pressure headache, you just have to weep and soldier through)

But that was just Sunday. Saturday, which we spent in Plymouth, was a fantastic day.

We went to Plymouth last summer, just on a fun day trip to Plimoth Plantation and to wander around on the beach for a bit; it wasn’t a bad day, though it was agonizingly hot. The beach was crowded, as beaches tend to be at the absolute peak of summer grossness, too crowded for us to get much farther down the shore than a tiny sliver of sand right beside the parking lot. This was meh in and of itself, but poor Sam had the worst time of it–being all of two years old, he was terrified of both the sand and the waves and remained either firmly planted in one place or attached to either me or Kyle like a lamprey.

So my expectations for a beach day on Saturday weren’t terribly high, especially as it’s October, and though the weather was nice, it was a little cool for the beach.

We started our jaunt at the Cabby Shack (if you’re in Plymouth, I recommend them very highly, though be forewarned that the cheese in the mac and cheese is basically queso–not bad, but a surprise), where we feasted on the thickest clam chowdah in the world, fried clam strips, and coconut shrimp. Sam was game to get his picture taken with one of Plymouth’s infamous lobsters…

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…and once we’d done that, we headed back to the same beach we’d visited the year before. Again, my expectations weren’t particularly high; Plymouth beach isn’t a bad beach, but I always prefer my autumnal beach jaunts to take place on rockier coastlines or somewhere on Cape Cod that’s removed enough from streets and bustle that all you can hear are crashing waves and seagulls.

(maybe I’m a beach snob)

(but not as bad as Kat is, though in her defense, she spent most of her life living in Santa Barbara)

Once we’d parked, Kat headed off to explore and Kyle and I escorted Sam down to the water’s edge. Things were already a little different–Sam eagerly kicked off his flip flops and ran through the sand, not at all wigged out by the different textures beneath his feet. He hesitated just a moment when confronted with ridiculously cold North Atlantic seawater (look, you don’t go swimming at New England beaches, unless you like turning into a popsicle) but a beat later, he was splashing through the waves and laughing gleefully as he found rock after rock to toss into the water with Kyle.

And they had a blast. Kyle isn’t a big beach person–his beach experiences mostly come from the Gulf Coast of Texas, and in his own words, those beaches “aren’t the best” (he’s very polite). Even when he’s not out of the car and splashing in the water, he’s expressed that the vastness of the sea and sky make him skittish (to which I always say, “You’re from Texas? Where you have nothing but sky?”), so when it comes to beaches, he’s reluctant, to say the least.

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But on Saturday, he and Sam dove in together. He tried to teach Sam how to skip rocks (that went about as well as you’d expect), and then they got to work trying to build a sandcastle. Kyle led Sam into the waves (pretty tame at this beach; nothing that went above Sam’s knees), and they both had an impressively great time frolicking about, as if neither had felt anything but love for a beach in their lives. Sam loved the beach so much that, at one point, he scooped up a handful of seawater in joy and tried to drink it as I squawked, “No, don’t do that!”

Well. It was a learning experience. And it didn’t ruin the day for him; he spat the water out and then went right back to playing happily, jumping up and down in the water and screeching, “Yay beach!” as loudly as he could.

Kat, meanwhile, returned to us with a handful of seashells (always her gift to me when we hit the beach) and a $20 bill (she called it her birthday gift from the ocean and used it to buy that tooled leather collar on Sunday).

Once we were all beached out, we packed up the car again, de-sanded ourselves, and headed back to the hotel. Most of Plymouth’s hotels are quaint little B&Bs or fancy spas, so our choices were either squeeze into a way-too-fancy room at a spa or B&B or the Hilton. Of the two, the Hilton seemed the better option, and we had a nice room on the second floor, just a quick walk from the pool and jacuzzi.

Yes, pool. An indoor pool, at that. Nothing terribly deep (the deep end was 4 feet even, the shallow about 3’9”), nothing too fancy, but we all wanted to get some swimming in, and Kyle and I wanted to give Sam a chance to try a swimming pool again, this time accompanied by our guiding hands.

He was reluctant to step into the pool, to say the least, but Kyle was right there holding onto him the entire time, and I was nearby (in a super cute suit, I might add; thank you, ModCloth, for still having cute plus-sized bathing suits despite your turn towards the awful lately). Gradually, Sam’s fear of the water began to disappear. He still didn’t want to try floating on his own (and every time we tried to sneak it in, he screamed, “I want to get out!”), but he liked “swimming” between me and Kyle and splashing about and playing overall. I couldn’t hold him as much because, again, lifting over 10 lbs (I gave myself some leeway because water makes things buoyant and that helps with lifting), but I held his hands and guided him around the pool and helped him get over his fear of putting his hair in the water.

So it went really well! Sam likes playing in pools now, though he’s still not quite independent in the water, but we’re getting there. Overall, Saturday was a day of redeeming water adventures, and I’m happy about that.

We ended the day with a trip to a local IHOP, an IHOP that was… surprisingly really nice inside. Most IHOPs have that really casual “yeah, we’re IHOP, don’t expect much” feel to them, but this one was decorated like some sort of fancy independent restaurant, with exposed industrial ceilings and the kind of shabby chic decor that would make it feel totally normal on any given HGTV renovation show. The food remained IHOP-y, but the fanciness and the fact that we were the only ones there turned it into this strange sort of liminal space, and I’m still not sure that it was a real experience.

And it was a good weekend. A wet weekend, a weekend that ended with us eating McDonald’s food instead of turkey legs at King Richard’s Faire and driving home at 2 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. like we’d expected, but a good weekend nonetheless. And best of all, Sam is no longer afraid of large bodies of water. Hallelujah.

Big Brother Blues

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Sam’s been having a rough week. Roughly every night has been punctuated with nightmares, usually about Kyle walking away from him or Kyle not being able to help him with something scary (like falling into a pond). We have these nightmare phases whenever Sam becomes aware of a big change coming up, and there are a LOT of big changes coming up, one of them bigger than the others.

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(hint: the big change is acquiring two babies, seen here at my 11 week appointment)

All my life, I’ve imagined having a gaggle of kids (the “gaggle” in my imagination has shrunk to a “few” since getting pregnant is such a pain in the ass). I grew up with two siblings, and my parents have four siblings apiece, so the idea of only childhood is kind of a foreign concept to me, and has been since my sister was born in 1986. Kyle only had one brother, but he, too, couldn’t imagine having just one kid, even though that one kid took a LOT of work to bring into the world and has the energy of roughly five kids combined.

So it was never a question that Sam wouldn’t be our only child, but as our attempts to have more kids took longer and longer, Kyle and I started to wonder about something that never crossed our minds when we’d talked about family size before: how was this huge change going to impact Sam emotionally?

Now, of course, that question wasn’t enough to keep us from charging forward–we’re both oldest siblings, and we turned out pretty okay (most of the time)–but it still gave us pause. Although we know that Sam will eventually adjust to older brotherhood really well, the transition is something that’s worrisome because neither of us really remember how to help him cope with it.

As I mentioned before, I’m the oldest of three. My sister was born several months before my third birthday, so I wasn’t quite old enough to feel established as THE child yet. I don’t remember any strong emotions building up to my sister’s birth; anything I remember from the nineish months leading up to my big sisterhood is completely unrelated to that and more related to things like the awesome green icing on my birthday cake or the hurricane that knocked down the entire woods behind our house.

I don’t even remember anything about when my sister was actually born. Pictures exist of me visiting my mom and sister in the hospital, sitting on a rocking chair and holding her, counting her toes, playing with my mom’s wonderful hospital bed. I don’t remember feeling anything, though; I’m sure I did, but it wasn’t anything strong that my brain decided to store as a memory.

Family lore has it that at some point when my sister was very young, I remarked to my dad, “Daddy, do you remember when it was just you, me, and Mommy? That was best.” This seems to be a pretty common thing for kids becoming big siblings, even if I don’t remember it happening. Kyle’s mom tells the story of him asking, a week after his brother came home from the hospital, “So when does he go back?” My favorite, though, is the story of Kat’s father, who apparently punched his younger brother the day he got back from the hospital.

BUT. I don’t remember this conversation. What I do remember is Christmas. As with every Christmas, we spent a good chunk of the holiday season at my grandparents’ house in New Jersey, along with the rest of my dad’s family. The two years prior, I’d been the star of the show–I was the first (and to that point, only) grandchild, and all of the aunties and uncles fawned over me and played with me and indulged my toddler whims. My grandparents made remarkable gifts just for me (some of which are still in my house, like the enormous toychest my grandfather built when I was two? Ish?), and overall, it was a good time.

But this year was different. I wasn’t the only grandchild anymore. Now there were two new grandkids added to the equation–my sister and my cousin Tim, born about six weeks apart. The attention was, naturally, almost entirely on the new babies–that’s pretty much par for the course at holidays. Any time a new baby or two or three (as was the case on my mom’s side of the family one year) shows up, that’s what everyone wants to talk about.

(as an aside about my mom’s side of the family: by the time I came along, there were four older cousins, and my first younger cousin was born a year after I was, so jealousy wasn’t an issue there)

I remember feeling really sad. I wasn’t angry, not really. There wasn’t anybody to be angry with, because it wasn’t anybody’s fault. I was still the cutest kid in the universe (Sam hadn’t been born yet, you see)…

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…and I was still lavished with presents. But I felt left out of all the excitement, like I was no longer important to the family as a whole. This isn’t logical, of course, but three-year-olds are hardly known for their feats of logic.

It was my beloved Grandma who eventually noticed that I was sad. This is the two of us in that moment (I’m playing with what I mentally called “mean Santa” because he looked like he wanted to destroy the world rather than bring it joy).

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(I sometimes wonder if Sam got any of my genes, but this picture is exactly what he looks like when he’s being serious)

Grandma took me aside and gave me a big hug. She made sure to tell me how very much she loved me and that the presence of my new sister and cousin hadn’t changed that a bit. She told me that I was always going to be special to her, that nothing in the world would ever make her love me less. She took the time out to let me know all of that, and I believed her because that’s what I had been waiting for all along–for her to tell me that I still mattered.

(of course, I’m sure that people told me that from the moment my mom got pregnant with my sister, but this is the instance I remember the most, and also no, I’m not crying, I just have allergies to human emotion)

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(but I do miss you, Grandma)

So that’s been the first step of what Kyle and I are trying to do with Sam. I’ve noticed that it works pretty well: on Wednesday, when I got home from work, Sam was acting pretty aloof. He didn’t want to talk to me or give me a hug until I said, “Hey. Dude. I want you to know that even when the new babies get here, you’re still gonna be my guy, okay? I still love you just the same; that’s never going to change.”

And then he tackle hugged me, and we had spaghetti.

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(the universal language of reconciliation)

By the time my younger brother came along in 1988, I was an old pro at the sibling thing. I was also five years old, which helped a lot, I think. I remember how I felt when my mom was pregnant with my brother; I knew from the get-go that he was going to be a boy, and I was SUPER EXCITED about that. The day before he was born, I remember dyeing Easter Eggs, and the kit came with a tiny sticker that said “brother.” I held onto that sticker, and when I met him for the first time in the hospital a few days later, I stood on tiptoe and placed the sticker on his swaddling blanket, just so the world would know, this was MY BROTHER.

Probably because of my age, I felt compelled to help a lot more as well. With my sister, I’d been pretty limited in what I could realistically do to help–again, two-year-olds aren’t really known for their childcare skills. As a five-year-old, though, man, what couldn’t I do? I remember helping my mom to give my brother a sponge bath when he was still little enough to have the stump of an umbilical cord (“eww,” I remember thinking, but my mom promised me that the stump would be gone soon). I remember that he cried a lot, and I remember that I could help with that–I’d play music for him from a copper windmill music box we had, and that would help him feel better. I remember feeding him baby food from a bowl, disgusted that he was so eager to eat this mush, but glad to help him do so.

Being a helper was HUGE. It made transitioning from having two siblings to having three siblings a LOT easier on my emotions; I never felt left out or like attention wasn’t on me because I was necessary the entire time. Nobody could get my brother to sleep like I could (so my five-year-old brain thought). I helped and I was needed.

That’s part two of our strategy with Sam, and it also seems to be working to an extent. All of the baby books we’ve bought to explain things to him talk about how he can help with the new babies–playing with them gently, helping give them baths, helping them calm down when they’re sad. I know I’ll be relying on him for even more than that, things like fetching diapers and feeding them and helping with tummy time and who knows what else? He seems to like the idea of being a helper, and we’re trying to involve him even now, letting him choose a few things for the babies… nothing crazy and major, but I think it wouldn’t hurt to have him choose some blankets or this season’s Wubbanubs.

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(“What should I buy?” ask first-time moms. “WUBBANUBS!” I roar without letting them finish the sentence)

And, of course, there’s my dad’s brilliant idea: we’ll have two gifts at the hospital for Sammy “from the twins.” The more like Santa Claus he sees them, the better.

It’s a rough transition. I don’t think it could ever be anything but. At the same time, though… I think he’ll be okay. We just need to keep reassuring him that he’s loved and letting him be a helper, and he’ll be okay. Eventually.

Party Party Party

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It’s been a big weekend for Sam, for a number of reasons.

The first reason is the most exciting for me: he actually has started running to the potty when he recognizes that he needs to pee!

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This is a HUGE milestone in potty training. For weeks now, he’s been reluctant to go, even when he needs to use the potty, and as a result, we’ve seen tons of accidents. Today, though, several times, he dropped what he was doing and RAN to the potty, doing a little dance as he did. You know the dance. That little panicked potty dance that toddlers do.

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(this one)

And holy crap, I was out of my mind with joy about it! This is potty training! This is success! He still doesn’t like to use the potty when he’s pooping (he’s super constipated because of it, which is SO MUCH FUN let me tell you), but he recognizes that he needs to go and he goes. That is potty training. I’m so pleased.

So that’s my celebratory thing. The second reason this was a big weekend for Sam was that he had his first ever birthday party at a friend’s house.

The friend was his best friend Hunter; the two of them are absolutely inseparable at all times. Hunter’s mom said several times today, “They’re meant to be best friends,” and it’s so true. They just will not go anywhere without each other, and I’m so glad. I love that he has a best friend from such a young age, and I’m hoping that neither of us ever move away from each other so that he and Hunter can go to kindergarten and first grade and every grade of school together forever.

So it was Hunter’s birthday today, and Sam had an absolute blast. Hunter’s family live on a wonderful plot with acres and acres of green land, apple trees, barns, the works. They pulled out all the stops for the party–they had a bouncy house and a piñata and music and everything. Sam had a fantastic time, he really did.

A couple of things stood out in particular, though: the pool incident and the Power Wheels incident.

The Power Wheels incident first, because that one doesn’t make me look like as bad of a parent. As toddlers do, Sam and Hunter have a hard time sharing things. At school, this isn’t a huge deal because nothing “belongs” to them–it’s just the school’s stuff that everyone has to share. At Hunter’s house, though, all the toys were Hunter’s, and it was harder to talk to either of them about sharing (I let Hunter’s mom take charge of that, because I’m not going to tell someone else’s kid to share with my kid).

So the Power Wheels incident began at the sandbox. Hunter had a cool front-end-loader type of gadget that he was using to “dig for treasure.” Sammy thought this was the coolest thing in history and wanted a turn, but Hunter was, of course, uninterested in sharing. Sam sulked and refused to play with much besides a large shovel until the managed to trick Hunter off the front end loader and steal it for himself. You could almost hear his little victorious thoughts. “Ha ha! You thought the front end loader was yours but IT IS MINE! Ha ha ha ha!”

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Hunter didn’t seem too bothered at this trickery, though, and a moment later, we saw why: Hunter came rolling out of the family garage on a Power Wheels John Deere tractor. He and Sammy met each other’s eyes, and he looked utterly smug as they passed; Sammy,  by contrast, was immediately awash in envy. Hunter had a tractor? That he drove? By himself?

Thus began Sammy’s quest to acquire a tractor of his own. In a shed next to the sandbox, he found a tractor, but it definitely didn’t drive on its own–it required foot power to go, like a Flintstones car. Sam discovered this the hard way by putting his feet on the footrests of the little tractor and not moving forward.

A beat or so later, Hunter abandoned the tractor for a four wheeler version of a Power Wheels that he maneuvered expertly around the apple tree and the sandbox and the shed and everything. Sammy was once again envious because although he’d snagged the tractor, he couldn’t get it to go forward. He wasn’t keeping his foot pressed down on the pedal, and the tractor was stopping and starting like an old jalopy driven by someone who’s never even seen a stick shift before. He thought the issue was with the tractor itself and watched sadly as Hunter zipped around without a care in the world.

Eventually, Sammy was so sad overall that he wasn’t running around playing. He stuck close to me and held my hand with a crestfallen expression. Hunter’s mom had to come over and convince Hunter to let Sammy have a turn on his four wheeler, and after that, they tag teamed–whatever it was they were doing. Zipping around, jumping in the bounce house, eating cake together. They had the best time.

The pool incident makes me look like a bad parent. Hunter’s family has an in-ground pool, and it’s pretty nice. We’ve been looking forward to it for ages. I got Sam some puddle jumpers and a new swimsuit, and I imagined hanging onto him and letting him get used to the water–after all, he’s never been in a big pool before.

He took a while to warm up to the idea of the pool–after all, there was a bounce house and a sandbox and Power Wheels–but eventually he decided that it would be fun. He’d been watching the other kids bellyflop into the water all day, and they were having a blast, so he was ready to give it a try.

We brought him back to the car and changed him into his swimsuit and puddle jumpers. Kyle then started stripping down to his swimsuit (I was feeling crappy; I swear to god, if there’s not at least one gestational sac and heartbeat when we go in for the ultrasound on Thursday with how awful I feel this pregnancy, I will burn something down), and we both figured that Sam would take his time getting into the pool.

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(expectations)

See, Sam is kind of… not the bravest child. He’s skittish about a lot of things, including being barefoot, petting cats OR dogs, eating new foods, sand, fried pizza, rain, and oh, ten billion other things that I could list that he has no reason to fear but does. When in a new situation, he usually sticks to me or Kyle like a barnacle until he’s feeling more comfortable. At the beginning of the party, even though he knows Hunter and Hunter’s entire family, he still would not leave us alone until Hunter finally wheedled him into coming into the bounce house.

So we figured the pool would be the same way. Even as he started to take the first step, we thought it would be the same way–the water was deep enough that he’d have felt that buoyancy right away, and considering that he’s scared of LITERALLY EVERYTHING, I figured the buoyancy would give him at least pause long enough for Kyle to get his shorts on.

Not so. In slow motion (from my perspective), Sam took the next step and the next, not pausing. His puddle jumpers lifted him up so he was floating. In the moment of confusion about “wtf is going on I’ve never floated before” he panicked. He flailed and sputtered. Never for a second did he go underwater (thank GOD, and thank you to everyone who suggested puddle jumpers), but his face went down for less than a second and came back up again in time for him to wail in terror.

He did an impressive doggy paddle for a kid who’s never swum before (thank you, puddle jumpers) as Kyle (also in slow motion, so it seemed) finished stripping down and got into the pool. He and Sam caught each other and Sam screamed and sobbed until Kyle put him back on the concrete.

I was frozen the entire time. From the instant I realized “that child is not stopping” right until he was back in my arms and wrapped in a towel, it was like I couldn’t move (which bodes REALLY WELL for future Situations). The other moms chuckled understandingly. “Ohh, is it his first time in a big pool?” they asked and chuckled knowingly when I nodded. They probably weren’t thinking anything beyond, “poor kid, oh well, now he knows,” but my guilt definitely projected into them thinking, “what terrible parents to let him just jump in like that.”

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(my expectations for the rest of the party)

We were watching him and right there the whole time. It was maybe three seconds between Sam stepping off the bottom step and Kyle getting to him. Logically, I know that he’s fine and we didn’t do anything wrong, but I’ve still been thinking that GOD, I should’ve been holding him, I should have yelled at him to wait for Kyle, I should have done anything to prevent that moment.

Anyway, despite his (understandable) fear, Sam tried the pool again with Kyle, but once he got a taste of buoyancy again, he shrieked and panicked and that was the end. He sat on my lap shivering and sniffling until he’d dried off and then mostly told us about the pool, “I was really scared until you got me, Daddy.” He didn’t have anything even remotely resembling a breathing problem, so we know he didn’t inhale any pool water, and his energy level was high until we got home after the party and he absolutely (and understandably) crashed.

And, of course, I’m now in a frantic search for well priced swim lessons near us because Sam thinks floating is the enemy.

But in the end, his memories of the party were good ones, and he had a grand time. He and Hunter remain inseparable, and he’s begging for both his own Power Wheels and a bounce house for his next birthday party (I told him “we’ll see” by which I mean I’ll be depending on Kyle and Kat and everyone I know to help me make Pinterest-worthy Star Wars stuff for said birthday party so that Sam doesn’t feel sad about the lack of bounce house). He fell asleep with a smile on his face. So overall: a win? Maybe?

T-minus four days until the ultrasound.

Triggered

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I’m finally triggered.

(cue seven billion assholes making a million jokes about trigger warnings and being generally awful)

In IVF terms, triggering is giving yourself a shot of a medication that prompts your body to mature the eggs you’ve been growing in preparation for retrieval after 36-38 hours. The medication I took this time around was called human chorionic gonadotropin, which is the same hormone produced by the body when a pregnancy actually takes place; 38 hours from now, I’ll drift off to peaceful anesthesia land and wake up with fewer eggs in my body, thank GOD.

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I feel kind of gross, but not as bad as I did when I had OHSS. That cycle, I couldn’t breathe because my organs were pushing up against my diaphragm, and let me tell you, that was not a fun experience. I can breathe now, but I’m horribly bloated–I look six months pregnant, easily. I’ve switched to my maternity jeans exclusively because my other jeans don’t button right now. I also haven’t had much appetite the last couple of days, but I’ve been forcing myself to eat protein-rich foods to try and keep my body’s fluids in my blood where they belong.

I have 37 follicles right now, and the largest follicle is the size of a grape. To understand the discomfort this causes, understand that usually, my entire ovary is the size of a grape. My ovaries are currently the size of 23 and 14 grapes, respectively. I am Spider-Mom.

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(less this, more a human wolf spider)

The trigger shot itself was an adventure. Usually, the HCG trigger is a subcutaneous shot that I can just give myself in the abdomen. Subcutaneous shots involve tiny needles and basically no pain (unless you aim wrong, which I do often). They have “cute” in the name for crying out loud! They’re baby needles.

This time around, for some reason, my doctor gave me an intramuscular needle. Intramuscular needles are three inches long, at least, and are BIG. These are not baby needles. These are NEEDLES. And they need to be injected either in the thigh or in the butt.

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I couldn’t bring myself to do a thigh stab, so I chose the butt and chose Kyle to do the honors.

The needle is honestly terrifying. I mean, you look at a 3” needle and you’re like “I do not want that going in me at all.” It just looks painful, and even when you’ve been through four cycles of IVF and have had countless blood draws and IVs and what-have-you, the idea of having that 3” needle in any part of is just terrible. Naturally, I was freaking out. Wailing and whining like a two-year-old. “I don’t want it!” I told Kyle and Kat, who’d come to watch the show, as I stood there with my butt cheek hanging out.

“You gotta,” Kat told me.

“I’m going to count down and do it,” Kyle said. “Stop moving. You don’t have a choice. Three… two… one…”

I winced, anticipating a stab that never came. Instead, Kyle stepped back and set the empty syringe down. “And done,” he said.

Somehow, this gargantuan needle, the likes of which made us all shudder in horror, didn’t cause me any pain.

I’m 99% sure this is because my butt is super fatty. Callipygean. I wouldn’t say we’re quite at steatopygian levels yet, but I have a lot of butt. I have a lot of boob, too, but I only ever get catcalled by butt guys (like one time, I was trying to order lunch, and the guy behind the counter would not. shut. up. about my butt. He just kept going on about how it was big and it was so awesome and why didn’t more women in Massachusetts have huge butts, and I was just like, dude, please just give me my sandwich so my butt can stay huge). Until now, it’s mostly served the purpose of making shopping really hard and making me a menace if I ever have to get up and pee during a movie.

But as it turns out, a fat butt is good for more than just wiggling. It also keeps you from feeling the pain of being stabbed by a three-inch needle.

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Retrieval is in two days; fingers crossed it goes well!

Mornings with Sam + Follicle Count

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It’s 6:45 a.m. I’m in the middle of a dream that’s complicated, emotional, and fantastic: after tearily dropping Sam off for his first day of kindergarten, I’ve encountered a teleportation beam, out of which my husband, Thor, emerges. “Where have you been?” I demand as the schoolchildren and staff begin to crowd around us. “Asgard,” Thor tells me. “And Hel is coming here to destroy earth.” Sure enough, Cate Blanchett is outside, in all of her made-up glory. My Husband Thor looks concerned and manly, but I squeal in delight: that’s Cate Blanchett, guys. That’s Cate Blanchett. She’s like. The embodiment of awesome, even if she is trying to destroy the world. I’m going to go give her a hug.

And then a pair of alarms go off simultaneously. My alarm plays “Wait for It” from Hamilton, kind of my theme song for the last two years of infertile misery. I groan and fumble for my phone; I should’ve known it was just a dream because my brain somehow thought that Thor was played by Chris Pratt, not Chris Hemsworth. Stupid brain, confusing the Chrises.

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(get with the program, brain. Hemsworth is Thor and is “dusty roadtrip in the desert” hot. Pratt is Peter Quill and is “Star Wars and Chinese food” hot)

Across the hall, Sam’s alarm goes off, too. The alarm was supposed to tell him when he was allowed to get out of bed, as he’s had this tendency to get up and demand attention at 5 a.m. Yesterday, when he tried to do that and Kyle told him to go back to bed until 6, Sam fell silent and then woke up again at 7, very put out with Kyle. “I fell back asleep!” he scolded.

This morning, though, Sam’s sleeping in, and I don’t blame him. It’s a gorgeously rainy day. The weather is cool and damp, and it’s the perfect day to stay in bed until at least noon, listening to the patter of rain against the roof and the windows, snuggled up in far too many blankets. Kyle rolls out of bed and goes to open Sam’s gate, a safety measure against our rambunctious three-year-old who doesn’t quite understand why falling down the stairs would be a bad thing. A beat later, I hear a shuffling of tiny feet, and then Sam hefts himself up onto the bed. He’s not quite awake yet; his eyes are wide open, but his face is still flushed and his expression is still serious.

He curls up on Kyle’s pillows next to me. “Hi,” I say. “Hi,” he says, and then asks me to pull the blankets over him. Why? “My legs are covered in Han Solo ice cubes,” he explains. He’s cold.

“Did you have a good sleep?” I ask. He nods. “What did you dream about?”

“The Death Star,” he answers. He always dreams about the Death Star. It’s his favorite thing.

“I dreamed about you,” I tell him.

He finally smiles drowsily. “Mommy, can we check the weather?” he asks. This has started to be a thing for him, checking the weather every day. He doesn’t know what most of it means–temperatures and radars and barometric pressure and stalled fronts–but he likes to see the pictures of clouds and sun and rain and thunder. I pull up my AccuWeather app, which I use almost exclusively since the Weather Channel app decided it wanted to forget where I was geographically.

“It’s going to be rainy today,” I tell Sam, pointing to a tiny picture of a raincloud, “and it’s going to be chilly out. There may be a thunderstorm this afternoon.”

He lights up. “I love thunderstorms!” And he does. He got his father’s genes in that area: Kyle, who grew up in Dallas, sleeps best when there’s a rumble of thunder outside. I grew up in Massachusetts and can’t sleep through even the gentlest of thunderstorms. Go figure.

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Speaking of Kyle, he gives Sam’s hand a tug. “Let’s go downstairs, buddy. I’ll get you some breakfast.”

Sam jerks his hand away and wraps it around my arm. “No! I want to stay with Mommy today!”

Kyle and I exchange looks and then shrug. “Alright,” I tell Sam, “but I have to get ready to go to the doctor and then to work, so I can’t play with you, okay?”

Sam nods and follows me dutifully as I shuffle through my morning routine. I have to leave early today, so I rush through the process, wasting too much time on uncooperative hair and trying to find my favorite socks. Sam asks all manner of questions: why are you wearing that? Did you put your boobs on? Can I have a hair tie? What does “chilly” mean? What day is it?

I answer the last one as we gather ourselves to go downstairs. “It’s Monday,” I answer.

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“Monday? Is that a Mommy and Daddy day?” Sam asks. He’s being a little too eager on the stairs, and I resist the urge to take his hand and steady him. He’s not falling, I remind myself, he’s just hurrying.

“No, Monday is a school day. We have to get you ready for school.” Once I say this, his face falls. He wants to stay home with us he argues, and loudly. I imagine that Kat is in her room, covering her head with a thousand pillows to drown out the cacophony that follows.

“I! DON’T! WAN! NA! GO! TO! SCHOOL!” Sam howls as Kyle tries unsuccessfully to change him into a pair of jeans. He eventually gives up and goes to the kitchen to work on Sam’s lunch, and I try to cajole Sam into the jeans.

“It’s a fun week at school!” I tell him. “Look, you’re going to do Halloween things, even though it’s July! You’re going to make trick-or-treat bags, and you’ll get candy and wear masks…”

“I! DON’T! WAN! NA!” he continues, though now he’s sniffling and calming down, sitting on my lap. Another minute or so, and he’s back to his usual self, though now victoriously pants-less and mildly concerned that we ran out of Mickey Mouse waffles. Five minutes later, he’s playing “pewer nap,” a game that involves him lying on the ground with his pillow, blankie, and favorite lovey (“Puppy”), and also the laser gun that Kat got him for Christmas.

“Is Auntie awake?” he asks of Kat, and when I say no, he says, “Okay, I will just pretend to pew. Tell me where to pew.” I point at the corner, and he aims his laser gun and says, “Pew! Pew! Pew!” shooting down imaginary enemies all over the place.

I have to rush now; the pants incident has eaten up a lot of time, and I’m running late for my doctor’s appointment. IVF monitoring today, and though it’s early in the cycle, I’ve had early ultrasounds take half an hour before, between counting follicles and finding follicles to count. I gulp down some breakfast (Pop-Tarts and cranberry juice, I’m so healthy) and my medication (antidepressant and prenatal vitamin, I’m unironically healthy), and then it’s kisses all around before I sweep out the door…

…and sweep back in because it’s pouring rain, and I forgot my umbrella. “I love you guys!” I call over my shoulder. “Have a good day!”

“I love you!” they both answer. “See you tonight!”

And that’s my morning with Sam and Kyle. It’s a trade-off: I have to leave earlier to get to work earlier, whereas Kyle has more flexibility. On the other hand, he doesn’t get home until almost 7 most nights, and I get home early enough to have a nice evening with Sam. Still, I miss the mornings. When I was at home, Sam and I would cuddle together after Kyle left. We’d play games and watch all the network TV available to us–he particularly liked The Price is Right and Ellen. Sam has always been a delightful morning baby, and I miss those precious early hours with him.

The precious early hours this morning belonged to the IVF clinic: a blood draw and ultrasound to check my follicle count. Currently, I’m sitting at around 20 tiny follicles, but those don’t count as much as the larger ones will in the days to come. I’m waiting for a phone call from the nurse, and she’ll tell me how many there were, how my progesterone and estrogen are looking, and what my new medication instructions are. With any luck, I’ll have a nice quick cycle, a smooth retrieval, and good news. Until then…