The kid thread: Planning, pregnancy & parenting

[ladyki]

Jan 12, 2011 19:59:43 GMT -5 moneymaven said:

Just when things feel their worst and totally gloomy, something amazing happens. My mom randomly stopped by my office today with some papers in hand. She handed over my car loan statement. It had a ZERO balance! My parents paid off my car loan as my graduation gift for finishing my Bachelors!!! It was just under $6K, and about $400/month in payments. This is AMAZING!!!!! I feel so blessed.

Insurance- that was so nice of your parents. At least you have one less bill to worry about.

[yogiii]

eh - Are you out there? Haven't heard from you in a while.

Also, did we lose reflector during the move?

[poohbiscit1]

Congrats Gusita!! Felt bad for DS yesterday. He looked outside and was so excited for the snow (took him sledding on Sunday for the first time and he loved it). All he wanted to do was go out an play but with 2 feet DH and I were just not comfortable with it. Anyways back to work today from a welcomed Snow Day yesterday.

[nasagreen]

alpha - I remember when you had him early...so glad everything is going well for you! Congrats on the first year I'm hoping for the 29th or later due to working issues, but I have a backup with my MIL if I give birth early. So exciting that it is getting closer though. And I'll wish you a happy birthday then

[krr627]

Hi ladies, it's been a while since I posted - I've been reading quickly to get caught up and there are lots of new ladies. Welcome!

Congrats to gusita, regina, and econ! Your babies are adorable. And thanks for sharing your birth stories. It's fascinating to me, having never been there myself.

Good luck to those of you TTC; stina and ladyki - and any others I may have missed.

Insurance and eternal - so sorry to hear about your work situations. Wishing you the patience to deal with it!

Meg - keeping you in my thoughts regarding your medical diagnosis.

As for me, I'm 9 days past ovulation and I'm trying not to go crazy in the next few days before I can test / AF shows. Other than yesterday when I had to get up early and didn't sleep well, my BBT temps post - O have been less erratic this cycle. Hmm. I'm telling myself it doesn't mean anything so I don't get too excited yet. Getting excited prematurely + BFN is not what I want to do again if I can help it. Too painful. (Wow, do I sound like a downer or what? )

Ladyki, if you don't mind me asking, how did you deal with the infertility diagnosis and waiting 6 years to conceive Kiani? I am so amazed that you were able to keep moving forward. I am only 8 months into TTC and some days I feel crazy with all the emotions! Journaling has been helping me deal with it but do you have other suggestions? Thanks.

[eh230]

Hi all. Yogiii, thanks for inquiring after me.

It's so exciting to see all of the new baby faces. I hope everyone is resting comfortably.

I've been working a lot, so I haven't been to the board much lately. We are also contemplating a move, so I have been doing some job hunting during the free time that I do have. Henry is well and will be crawling at any moment. His new favorite thing is to stand on one of our chairs and look out into the yard at all of the snow. It's really cute.

Henry will be 9 months next week, and I thinking about switching him from a bottle to a cup for his breastmilk. Any tips? He drinks water from both regular cups and sippy cups now, but he is not great with either of them.

[yogiii]

eh - We started with a sippy cup around 6 months. DS does pretty well except for the last 1/2 oz or so which is still hard for him to get out. Sometimes when my MIL is watching him he will refuse to drink from the sippy because she will cradle him when giving him a bottle. He also will drink out of the sippy slowly but with a bottle he will almost try to chug out of it. He gets a lot more excited about a bottle. I'm not too worried about it right now, I mostly just want him exposed to the sippy so when it comes time to switch completely he isn't tied to a bottle. I EBF when I'm at home so I'm sort of thinking maybe we can cut out bottles completely when he turns 1 year but I'm not sure how realistic that is. Any moms with older babies care to chime in on that?

[yogiii]

krr - I'm sorry that you want to be excited and at the same time are hesitant. I didn't have the struggles you have now but I feel for people that have trouble conceiving. I know I would be a complete mess and I wish you the best.

[Deleted]

I think Palmetto & zbear are next, and then Taz & I. I am probably missing a couple - we've had some new people lately! Its weird how people tend to pair up!!

I am due April 22nd. I know eternal's due before me. Anyone else?

[krr627]

yogii - Thanks! I am pretty emotional anyway, so combining TTC with that is difficult. I'm that girl who bawls at happy movie endings, gets really excited at Christmas or other special event, and cries when frustrated or upset. Good or bad, I tend to "wear my heart on my sleeves."

[yogiii]

I think eternal is the next one ... wow that was fast

There are also quite a few babies that will turn a year in a few months .... is gardeners Olivia next in line for that big day?

[stina72]

Sam-Good luck today!!

krr-I'm hoping this is your month! I am 10 DPO, so we are pretty much cycle buddies this time around! I don't temp though because I don't sleep more than an hour or two at a time. Sleeping is not my forte! Good luck!

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Krr you don't sound like a downer, that's actually a good attitude to have. I did the same thing after I went off the pill and I was so embarassed with myself that it took me quite awhile to accept that I was actually pregnant.

I waited till I was two weeks overdue before I tested.

I took four pregnancy tests before I'd believe I was actually pregnant. First time I thought I had peed on an ovulation stick by mistake. Went out and bought Clear Blues. .. yep I was pregnant.

[nasagreen]

palmetto - I'm due April 22nd too

[poohbiscit1]

Jan 13, 2011 10:06:09 GMT -5 yogiii said:

eh - I EBF when I'm at home so I'm sort of thinking maybe we can cut out bottles completely when he turns 1 year but I'm not sure how realistic that is. Any moms with older babies care to chime in on that?

Yogi - DS is now 20 months and we had a rough transition from the bottle to the cup. At 1 he only drank from the bottle for his milk any other liwuids was from the sippy. Whenever we tried to give him the milk he screamed bloody murder. At his 18 month checkup we asked the ped. for tips and she told us to only offer the milk in the cup. She also said that once the hit 1 they do not need to drink a certain amount of milk each day so if he went 1-2 days without drinking any he would be okay as long as we gave him yougurt and cheese. Well we were on vacation that week so that is what we did. The first day was really tough as he just screamed when we refused to put the milk into the bottle. By the second day he only cried for a couple of minutes and by the end of the week he accepted it fully.

[zbear]

wow insurance! That is amazing! What a great surprise!

krr, stina and ladiki- baby dust to you guys!

sam- hope your appointment went well. so exciting!

[mommax4]

It looks like Nasagreen & Palmetto are due 4/22, I'm due 4/26 and then starearedkid is 5/9 or 5/17. Z-bear, when is your due date?

Alpha-with so many of us due around your b-day, surely one of us will hit it.

[mommax4]

Ladyki- you asked about handling having them close together. Honestly, you just do it. Being tired in the 1st trimester is kind of difficult, but no insurmountable, 2nd tri is pretty easy, 3rd tri gets harder because your belly is bigger. With DD1 and #2 on the way, it wasn't too bad. When I had DD1 & DD2 and #3 was on the way it was more difficult because even though DD1 was 3 by the time DD3 came, she still needed a lot of help, as did DD2 (age 17months at the time).

One thing I really like about having (all girls) this close together is how well they play together. The 3 of them can play for a couple of hours (especially in the mornings) without needing me at all. That is nice for getting housework done on a Saturday morning.

One of the other "perks" is that you never get out of practice with the middle of the night wake-ups and diapers. But when you're done with diapers, you're done (assuming you're not having more like I am).

A downside is that now, I am still getting woken up several nights a week just because with 3 of them, even if they each only wake up once per week, they usually don't do it on the same day. I'm just trying to think of it as prep for #4's arrival.

[zbear]

My dd is 5/7, wow 5 of us all so close, that's so cool!

Does everyone know what they're having or is it a surprise? we're having a boy.

[mommax4]

We're going to be surprised, but DH is convinced this one will be a boy. We'll find out soon enough I guess.

[nasagreen]

i don't know but DH does...it was our only way to compromise on that one I can't wait to find out, but my heart is kinda set on a girl and so I bet I'll get a boy just to set my mind right. DH hasn't really let it slip and he alternates between he and she and references both names we have picked out so I really don't know. Seems like he uses boy more often than girl though but he could be doing reverse psychology so I just try to look forward to my surprise.

[ladyki]

Jan 13, 2011 9:51:21 GMT -5 krr627 said:

[Ladyki, if you don't mind me asking, how did you deal with the infertility diagnosis and waiting 6 years to conceive Kiani? I am so amazed that you were able to keep moving forward. I am only 8 months into TTC and some days I feel crazy with all the emotions! Journaling has been helping me deal with it but do you have other suggestions? Thanks.

KRR- I actually did not know about my infertility problems until about 2 years ago. DH and I have been together for 10 years. We have never used protection but also we were never really really trying to conceive. It was until about six years ago that we really started trying and nothing would happen. I kept on telling myself that maybe it was just not the right time and God had other plans for me at the moment, but it never stopped worrying me. I changed gynecologist a couple of times, everytime each of them would tell me that I had to TTC for a year before I was considered infertil. I changed doctors once again ( this was like two years ago). One day I started having some pain in my lower abdomen, I called him and they scheduled me for a ultrasound and they found a cyst on one of my ovaries. They scheduled me for surgery and it turned out I did not have a cyst, I had severe endometriosis which most likely was not letting me conceive. I got referred to a fertility specialist who also specialized in endometriosis. He did all kind of tests to see if anything else was causing us to be infertil. I was told by the specialist that I practically had no chances on conceiving naturally and our only hope was IVF. I cried alot but hey at least I still had some hope that IVF would work, the only setback was that I had to save to have that procedure done. We figured we would probably have all of the money last year by Feb. of 2010. We wanted to give a medicated artificial insemination one try before going to IVF. we tried it in Oct. of 2009 and it did not work. We were really bummed but we were now looking forward to IVF. But to our surprise without even trying we got pregnant naturally in the following month after the failed insemination. Wohooooo, we were in shock, so surprised and happy.

All I can tell you is not to loose hope. Ahhh, I use to cry so much, never wanted to go to kids parties or baby showers. Everryone seemed to be getting pregnant except for me.

You can always tell your gynecologist to send you to a specialist if you feel that it is already time. Everyone would tell me to stop thinking about and it would happen, I use to get so mad when they would tell me that. But hey you know what, it happenned when I decided to take a few months off from TTC, when I was not thinking about it and on a drunken night, it happenned lol.

Now I hope that I can conceive #2 without any problems soon. I was told by the specialist at one time that the endometriosis was eating up my ovaries and that they were starting to wore off.

Iam blowing baby dust your way, dont give up hope, Hopefully you will have a baby in your tummy soon.

[yogiii]

poohbiscit - Thanks for your experience. That seems to be the common theme that I'm hearing, kids being fine with anything other than milk out of the sippy. So we'll see if semi-introducing this at a younger age helps out.

[gardenergirl]

I'm finally back to work today. Roads still suck, have SO much ice on them, but DH drove me in. I was a nervous wreck! Our offics opened late, at 10. I got here close to 11 and I told my boss I was leaving by 3:30.

regina - I just saw the pic of Mallory. She's beautiful. It looks like she has strawberry blond hair? Although than can definitely change!

Gusita - congrats on the birth of Brett. I wanted to reach through the screen and hug him. So adorable. I love the face he is making especially in the first picture. He is just precious!!

sam - can't wait to hear about your U/S! How exciting!

ins - that is so awesome of your parents to pay off your car loan. That was SO nice of them!

I feel a little bit better about my parents. Thanks for the advice all! I know I really need to just let it go but it really bugs me sometimes. I guess because Olivia is their 6th grand-child they just aren't as excited as DH's parents because it's their first? I don't know. We ended up Skyping the next day with my parents for about 20 minutes. My mom called me (she remembered this time) but Olivia was sleeping. My mom was just like "Oh well!" and didn't seem to care. But Olivia woke up a few minutes later so I called her back up and they go on the computer! My dad is VERY technologically advanced. My mom, not at all, but my dad loves his computer. Ever since he retired a few years ago he spends so much time on that thing. SO that was another reason I was so mad that he couldn't bother getting on skype. It was nice talking to him too because he has no voice, it's really raspy still, so I can't hear him on the phone but I could hear him very well on the computer.

[Deleted]

It looks like Nasagreen & Palmetto are due 4/22, I'm due 4/26 and then starearedkid is 5/9 or 5/17. Z-bear, when is your due date?

Wow! We will really have some action late April/Early May!

We are having a BOY. We've already decided on a name: Asher Paul.

Whats the status on y'alls nursery? My DH needs to get moving on it. Right now it's an office/guest bedroom. So a lot of cleaning out/purging/organizing has taken place. But, now I need to see some painting and furnture assembly. I have all the baby stuff just stacked in my garage. I'm going out of town this weekend and I would just LOVE if DH gets really motivated and I come home to some PROGRESS!

KRR When we were TTC (although we didn't have fertility issues we took right at 6 months) I found it to ease my emotions if I was working on other aspects of life (monetary, home improvement, organization, etc) that would be "for baby" but for me right then. To let me do things to "prepare" while I was waiting.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

DH went into turbo nest mode and got his butt in gear when I reached 32 weeks and was declared "full term". Nothing like waiting till 8 weeks out to get your butt in gear.

However he managed to get it all done before she was born so I suppose my hand wringing was for nothing.

I am just one of those people who likes to get things done WAAAY in advance, so it was irritating that it took DH 32 weeks to get his butt in gear when I had been in gear since I peed on a stick!

[Sam_2.0]

Well, the u/s went well today Lil' one was flipping & kicking all over the place! The only bad thing is that the Dr couldn't get the baby to be still long enough to get a good pic. In the Dr's words - the baby was being ornery #shocked# Uh oh....I hope that's not an indicator of things to come!!

DH is really sad that we didn't get pics to bring home with us. I think he was more excited than I was to see the baby. But seeing the kiddo moving around & waving at us made it all more real to me. I am finally starting to get excited about the baby.

Drama[\b] - I think my DH will be the same way. We have the room cleaned out already, and I really want to get him to set up the crib soon. We got it from a friend (not drop-side, no recalls), but I want to make sure its all assembled correctly so we have time to purchase a new one or get replacement parts if we need to. He just thinks I am a nut for wanting to get it set up right now. I bet he does it the week before my due date....

[Sam_2.0]

Whoops, didn't do my bold right. Oh well....

[eternal sunshine]

Sam - Yay for a good u/s!!!

Insurance - Tell your parents that I'm stressed and due soon too I have a 6K car loan I'd LOVE to kill LOL just kidding

I think that insurance is the next due date. She got her BFP a few weeks before I did. I won't forget it because I remember having a LONG pity party for myself when she posted because I had just had my ectopic surgery and wasn't expecting to be able to try fertility treatments again until the fall of 2010 if ever again. Shockingly, like ladyki, SURPRISE the month after my heartbreak.

She is due just before me but will likely go much earlier due to preterm labor issues.

[mommax4]

Well, I don't think of it as setting up a "nursery" per say. Right now we're in a 3-BR duplex and have been having all 3 girls in the same room with the "spare BR" as their toy room. With the addition of #4, our plan is to split them 2 & 2 and divide up the toys. We probably won't do that until a little closer to time though. Since we're not painting any walls (beige is everywhere in this place), all we'll really have to do is set up the crib and move a bed for one of the DDs.

I have done the nursery thing twice though. With DD1, our landlord didn't care what we painted, so long as we didn't make a mess, so we (read-I) taped off some vertical stripes halfway up the wall with a chair rail (DH did to the painting, that was the deal) and did lavender and yellow. It looked great! So long as you didn't look at the floor. Nothing goes with orange shag carpeting, so we didn't even try. Our strategy was to put as much stuff on the floor as possible so you couldn't see the carpet! We probably completed the nursery for her when I was around 30ish weeks, maybe a little later.

With DD2, I didn't actually finish the nursery until after she was born. DH had gotten the room painted, but it had built-in bookshelves and he refused to paint those, so I did it while I was on maternity leave. It worked out ok, since we weren't sure if she would be a DD or a DS, the walls were a light blue and the exterior & shelves of the bookcase were white, but I didn't paint the backs of the bookcase (pink & yellow, alternating) or the dresser until after she was born. It worked out in the end.

With #4, it's harder to get excited about making a "room for baby" since baby will be sharing a room with an existing child who has definate preferences that don't tend toward the "baby" side anymore. Now if I went with Dora or Princesses, I'd probably be ok, but since we don't know if it will be a boy or girl, I think it's best left plain for now.