Feed away little one

I have a dirty secret to admit that sometimes I let Brynn breastfeed nowadays for a prolonged time while I type, check email. or read the mail or talk on the phone. I'm sure she's not feeding the whole time, but she's sure to be quiet as long as I have the boob in mouth. I'm such a loser mom. Anyone else in the same boat?

There will be good days and not so good days. But I'm not out yet!

Today I feel like we have come up against a bit of our roadblock in our journey to adding to our family. As most of you know - we would love to give our daughter Brynn a sibling, and with the recommendation of our doctors feel that surrogacy will be our best option of doing so. We have an amazing friend who is willing to help us proceed along that journey. Brynn's godparents are both my best friend and my husband's best friend and are amazingly enough willing to help us with adding to our family. Yet over the last day and a half I have come across some disturbing news. I knew that by living in Michigan that compensated surrogacy was illegal, however I thought that uncompensated surrogacy was legal. I have now come to find out that Michigan along with about 4 other states are the only ones to have the most stringent surrogacy laws even persecuting unpaid surrogacy. Needless to say I'm beyond frustrated. We have a loving couple (my husband and I) wanting to transfer already fertilized embryos to a known and trusted friend to help us carry our future child. Yet because we live in the state we do it is illegal.


Brynn is bummed a bit too so she decided to give her furry sibling a little hug, LOL! (It's funny because I have caught Brynn unwilling to roll over from back to front or front to back. Yet when Neela is around she will roll over and try to snuggle. How crazy is that?)

Needess to say, I am trying to weigh all of our options. I need to talk to our RE, fertility doctor some more, I need to talk to the lawyer that I have left a message for in our area who states that she deals with our RE's office and surrogacy in Michigan. I need to talk with our friend some more, and our OB/GYN and perinatologist office who have dealt with surrogacy patients and have recommended that course to us. Needless to say this is not going to be as straight forward or simple as I thought. September may not be such a possibility. But what I know is that I want to add to our family. I feel guilty for wanting another child when we have been blessed with one such miracle already. I feel greedy. But I also know that there is nothing I won't do to give her a sibling. To hold another child of our own in my arms. I would fight to the ends of the earth for that...so because of that I will not give up so easily. Brynn deserves what every other child has, siblings, a complete family and a brother or sister. Just because she has my goofy anatomy and abnormal uterine anomalty to deal with doesn't mean that she shouldn't have what every other child has. And to boot...she has the means available through my amazing friend to make that happen. Our struggle now is just to figure out how to make that happen. But I will do that ...I must. For both her benefit and our own....I will find a way to make this happen.

Hopefully it is okay with her, but I have been blessed enough to have the help of someone here through the blogosphere to help start the process to make this happen. She is an amazing person and has pointed me in the right direction to start making some progress. So for that, I thank you. You have given me hope when I felt a bit down. After talking with you on the phone today I feel re- energized!

So for now, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. I'm not sure if things are going to work out or not. But I sure do know that I would love to have another little one to call our own. I just want the same opportunity that millions of other couples have. I want the chance to have a family. OUR FAMILY....since we have everything else lined up. We just need the legal means to do so.

It's so funny...sitting here typing this I feel such a sling of emotions...frustrated, greedy, blessed already...but even though I have my miracle sitting here in my arms....you want to know what....I still feel most of all.....INFERTILE. Will this feeling ever go away? But in the meantime...I will cherish each day I have with Brynn...I realize it is not one I will ever get back. And maybe...just maybe....we will be blessed to even get the chance to dream of another.

Brynn is still my hiccuper

Brynn and her dad spent yesterday hand in hand while I was at work.
I've written so many posts about Brynn being my little hiccuper. Yesterday while my husband was watching her for the day (he had the day off for the holiday weekend) he caught a quick glimpse of it on video. Funny how she used to keep me awake at nights when it was just her and I in the hospital when she was being monitored while I was on Mag Sulfate, hiccuping away. Then on Christmas Eve I remember being up most of the night with her and her hiccups. And then here she is at five months old in her exersaucer hiccuping away! She looks a bit like a drunken sailor in the video since my hubby didn't put blankets along side her. Yet he said she still was having a good old time. Hopefully everyone had a nice holiday season and I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone!



We also booked our week trip to Chicago in June. I'm really excited for a vacation and best of all we decided to take my friend's sister as a nanny since we rented an apartment downtown adjacent to the Mag Mile and shopping. That way we'll be able to hang out with Brynn during the day and still be able to have a few quite dinners just the two of us. Hopefully it'll all work out well and be something that might work for future vacations as well. My parents will watch Neela and she'll have her own doggie vacation at grandma and grandpa's. I don't know whose more excited...us or them!
Easter weekend was great - I'll have to upload and post some photos tomorrow. Friday night my hubby and I went out for another date night with my friend's sister watching Brynn and Neela, we ate some Mexican, had some margaritas, got a bit tipsy, did some shopping (bought more clothes for Brynn AGAIN), and stopped at Dave and Busters (a place you can play games like skeeball, basketball, video games and other fun stuff while drinking and having adults night out only. Saturday we went to Ohio and spent it with my in laws and then Sunday spent time at with my family. As I said, hopefully everyone had a great weekend and I'm trying to catch up with each blog! Ah yes...five months and counting til round 2...Holy crapola!

My teenage sleeper

Brynn is totally my little teenager today. She wouldn't go to sleep until 11:30PM last night and today has wanted to sleep in until 11AM. Seems she thinks she a little teenager today, LOL!

Five months old and folic acid

Well Brynn turned five months old, and although my husband and I were pretty excited for her, as you can see - she spent most of the day sleeping! In fact she fell asleep with her pacifier half hanging out of her mouth, and when she was sucking it in her sleep it was popping in and out - like Maggie from the Simpsons does with her pacifier. I know every mom says that their kid grows up so fast, but she really has even from week to week.

As I said before, Brynn broke the 11 pounds mark this month - almost tripling her birth weight. These days I hate to curse things....but she sleeps through the night almost all the time. She might wake up here and there with a short cry, but it's usually just brief and she falls back asleep. Her typical days when I'm home have fallen a bit into something that resembles a schedule. Although - I say that loosely, but still I know how lucky we are to have any sense of a schedule.

When I'm off from work it's usually:
7AM I wake up and pump
8AM-9AM Brynn wakes up and either bottle or breastfeed with her Zantac
9:30 - 11AM play or other stuff (like being carried - still not fond of the swing)
11-1 or so hopefully nap, I pump again
12 or 1 wake up and bottle or breastfeed
1 - 3 awake and play, bath, etc., I pump again, Zantac
3:30 - 5 nap hopefully
4:30/ 5ish - bottle or breastfeed
5- 7PM Brynn awake, I pump once the hubby gets home and takes over baby duty
7-8:30 PM Brynn sleeps on the hubby in the recliner
9:00PM last night time bottle (usually formula) plus Zantac, I pump for the last time
10:30 - 11PM settles down for bed and goes to sleep.

When I work Brynn's days starts a bit earlier around 5AM at my parent's house when I drop her off, but it usually just includes an additional bottle and 2 hour nap between 5 and 9AM or so. I need to finally make a decision on a high chair (thank you for your imput to those of you I've asked!) because I'd like to start some cereal over the next few weeks with Brynn. Although I know I won't need one right away - I'm sure it'll be no time before it'll come in handy.

Brynn's reflux is doing a ton better these days with the feeding routine we use, I thankfully can say. I also love those Playtex DropIn bottles and liners. They make feedings so easy! She has spent the last few days and nights getting used to sleeping in her crib as well.
Although she still fits easily in her bassinet, by the time she's 6 months I know she'll have outgrown it.
Part of it makes me sad because she'll no longer be our very little girl, but part of me is so excited with how far she's come. I have to admit the transition from bassinet to crib is going way easier than I though it would. (Don't worry - I took all the stuff animals out before we put Brynn down to sleep.) Neela now sleeps at the bottom of the crib on the floor in Brynn's nursery or on the chair nearby to watch over her little sister as she sleeps. As soon as Brynn stirs, Neela runs to wake us up. Neela is way better than any baby monitor, video or otherwise, LOL!

Brynn's still not too fond of tummy time, but my husband is pretty good with getting her to roll over a few times at night from tummy to back. Just over the last couple of weeks has she gotten to be better at this. Some nights she doesn't do it at all, and other times it's a bunch. She loves things that light up and play music, sucking on both thumbs now and her burp cloths, and she is just beginning to discover her toes. Although I usually play this Little Piggy goes to Market with her...the first time she grab her toes with her own hands a light went on in her head. Like "Wow, those are my toes!" She still doesn't have any teeth yet, but that's OK with me since it makes breast feeding easier. Oh yeah...she is loving breast feeding! Weird since it took her the last two months to decide that she loved it, since the first three she wouldn't touch the boobies. I had no idea kids did that, but my little weirdo has.

She also has loved forward facing in her Baby Bjorn. Until they're 8-9 lbs you have to leave them rear facing, and Brynn is totally loving looking forward when the hubby carries her around the house. She also loves looking at her reflection in the mirror. My dad (her grandpa) is famous for this one and will spend a half hour making silly faces with her in the mirror. She shrieks with delight. And yes..the verbal changes. She makes so many new noises and pitches over the last few weeks. She will make noises and pause waiting for you to make sounds or words back like you're having a conversation. She also will try to talk (shriek or coo?) to the characters on the TV. It's enough to make your heart melt!

And last but certainly not least is changes in poo. What post from a nurse mommy wouldn't be complete without poo talk. Brynn has completely changed her poo schedule from pooing 5 times a day to once every 6 days. That is a huge difference! And yes, watch out. When the poo does let loose, you better be wearing goggles, LOL! At first this greatly alarmed me....But hey, we're flexible right?

I also starting taking my folic acid and multivitamin more religiously. I'm not sure what our meeting with our RE will bring in just 8 short weeks. If their suggestion is to do a fresh IVF cycle versus using our frozen embryos come September, then it'll only be about 4 months or so before I start on our medication schedule. I know how important it is to have decent levels of your folic acid up to 3 months ahead of time so I figure it's a good time to get my butt in gear just in case. I also need to start looking more closely at the other things we need to do to get our surrogacy journey in check. This is all so exciting, overwhelming and crazy it's enough to make my head spin!

Thank you again for always following along with us - I give you all a big bloggy hug!

Hospital Bill

As a crazy sidenote...I got our final hospital bill from my stay from 27-34 weeks gestation and it was $126,700. That doesn't include my stay at 22 weeks or 25 weeks when I was contracting and received terbutaline and procardia. Also not included is my cerclage ($12,000) or my D &C afterwards ($6,000). Crazy....thank heavens for insurance! Even though I work in the medical field I'm shocked at the costs. Even though Brynn took a lot to get here that wasn't covered by insurance ($30,000 +) since Michigan doesn't have infertility coverage...I have to think that surrogacy is still going to be cheaper to the medical field. Even though I complain about our cruddy hospital based insurance...the final cost of it all....$10. (Plus the $30,000 out of pocket due to infertility treatments...but that is A -OK) Yup. What a blessing!

There I did it again!

Can't believe it's been a whole week since I posted...I swear, some days go quickly and others like when I'm at work drag by! Brynn is doing great - she will be 5 months old tomorrow and has changed so much in the last week or so. I'll save most for her 5 month birthday post so that I'll have it to remember. However, one thing that she has come to love recently is getting a bath. The picture is from her bath this past Sunday - she used to scream so loudly the whole time I put her in the baby tub, but now she smiles, splashes around and loves to kick her feet in there. She coos and smiles and occasionally lets out a squealing shriek of delight. Next she flashes me a toothless grin. Yup, still no teeth. But that's okay - plenty of time ahead for that!

Last week I had a couple of midnight schedules which went off without a hitch and then on the weekend my friend's sister watched Brynn so we could have a date night. When getting ready Saturday night I realized it was the first time my husband had been out to a nicer restaurant just the two of us since Brynn had been born. I actually wore a skirt with tights and my black boots. It was a far cry from my normal mom sweat pants and long sleeved t-shirt. We hit up a restaurant called Ocean Prime and I had some yummy pecan crusted salmon. Then afterwards we did some shopping and stopped for a few drinks at our favorite bar while watching Michigan State in the Final Four basketball game. We tried not to do the typical new parent thing by talking about Brynn the whole time, but it was hard not to think about my favorite girl several times. In fact, while shopping I of course had to buy her a new 6 month sleeper for the months ahead. Don't worry - I did buy a new pair of shoes and some shirts from J Crew for myself, LOL!

Then Sunday night "It Happened AGAIN." What you might ask..well it involves a late night pumping session. Although several nights I no longer get up to pump if Brynn is actually sleeping through that night, I happened to be up at 3AM this Sunday night. After feeding Brynn, I pumped and was taking my milk and Medela parts out into the kitchen. Normally the lights are off in the kitchen and I leave the adjacent room lights on. But for some reason I happened to flip the lights in the kitchen on and while I was cleaning off my Medela horns in the sink I looked up and locked eyes with my next door neighbor coming into his side door. He is a 50+ recently divorced dad who is to politely say...well...a little creepy. Not sure why, just creepy is the vibe you get. Also, why he was coming in at 3AM on a Sunday, who knows? This 3AM eye locking shouldn't have been a big deal, but I noticed he was looking at me a bit strangely before ducking into his house. I glanced down and realized that I had not put my shirt back on after pumping! I must have been so tired in the middle of the night I didn't noticed. I had officially flashed my creepy neighbor AGAIN. Yes, I had actually done this same thing a few months ago but was too ashamed and embarrassed to admit it. However, to do it once was embarrassing. I am now officially mortified and am not sure how I will ever look him in the face again when I bump into him outside. Needless to say, I will be especially careful not to be shirtless any time soon!

Yesterday I worked my 12 hour day for the week and it was a pretty good day. I did one of my bigger cases since I've returned to work by myself being a thoracotomy and it felt good to be back in the swing of things. I placed the double lumen endotracheal tube correctly on the first time and was able to place the arterial line on the diabetic patient without too much trouble, so that helped me a little better about getting back to the normal routine of things. In the afternoon I was in the lithotripsy room and we broke up quite a few kidney stones. The click click click of the litho machine makes me swear I hear that noise in my sleep when I go home. On each patient about 2500- 3000 clicks (or hits to the stone to break it up) occurs so you get that rhythmic noise stuck in your head. I also actually got to pump three times during my 12 hour shift instead of the normal two so that was a double perk! I'm loving the new on call room suites that they built outside the OR that I can use on break to pump, instead of having to pump in a more public room. Each room has a recliner, TV, bed, and phone. So it's a really nice set up.

Well I totally need to get caught up on everyone's blogs from the past week. I've been missing in action and I always feel badly when I miss something that has happened for someone. Today Brynn is napping away after getting her Pentacil and Prevnar vaccines. She weighed in at a whooping 11 pds, 4 oz. Which is the 2nd percentile...Beefcake! But more importantly, for the first time she had no developmental delays according to what the pediatrician was looking for. A very good day indeed! Now only if I could get rid of the 6 inches of snow we got yesterday. It's April and Easter week, what's up with that, LOL!