How did it get to be a year ago?!

Calm yourselves, ladies. We aren’t up the duff for the second time already – BB is modelling one of the 20+ pee sticks that we used and fretted over this time last year.

Yeah, exactly one year ago we were totally in denial that BB had been conceived, and promptly had a huge pee stick fit, accompanied as ever by you lovely IVPers, who were far more able to see the second line than we were, and you told us so.

So how did it get to be a fucking year? I have no idea. This time last year we were freaking out every time vee went to the loo, hissing; “IS THERE BLOOD?” “NO BLOOD!”, and right now we have  a 15 week old baby who alternates between grinning beatifically and wailing pitifully when he remembers that he’s currently under the weather with a cough and cold, bless him.

So yeah, a lot has happened in a year. We couldn’t be more grateful for our son, and still can’t believe that A LINE IS A LINE and he is here. Trust me, we pinch ourselves daily.

So a lot is different now. We have nappies on our washing line and sick on our shirts.  Some things don’t change much though. The pain of trying and trying and trying is still with us, and so is the bitterness. It sounds ungrateful but at least I’m honest. They are fading, but once an IF, always an IF, I guess. It’s true what they say though – it’s totally worth it in the end.

And onwards and upwards. I really can’t tell you how much I’m hoping for second lines for all of you who’re still trying. A line is a line is a line, and there are enough fucking lines to go round us all, darnit.

Thank you for sticking with us through thick and thin.

xxxx jay

Home, sweet home.

Well, we successfully navigated our first long distance road trip, slash “holiday” with a baby. The word “holiday” earns its inverted commas by virtue of the fact that we remain unconvinced that any trip away with a three month old baby could be defined as a holiday in the old, there-just-used-to-be-two-of-us-relaxing kind of way. Really, given that many people never get holidays at all, we shouldn’t moan, but we certainly wouldn’t have chosen to put ourselves or BB through such a long journey for anything less important than his Uncle and Aunty’s wedding.

The wedding was a lovely affair. I managed to get through my reading in church without crying, which was an achievement, believe you me. I love to cry at weddings (a prize for anyone who spots the show tunes reference). BB was the ultimate star all day, snoozing through the service and most of the meal and happily playing family members ping pong for the rest of the day and evening. And now my little bro is a husband! Bless.

We did our best to chill for the rest of the week, enjoying the beautiful sandy beaches. It was all good, save for one trip that ended in a screaming, sobbing BB mess which subsided to catatonic shock, a quick nap, a feed and voila – reset and ready to go.

The journey home, lengthened not inconsiderably by my insistence on visiting a dear friend’s parents who were not nearly as local as I’d imagined, was certainly an adventure. One memorable pitstop involved

• getting my breastfeeding tits perved by a lorry driver who was hoping to use the layby we’d commandeered for his rest break;
• getting shat on by His Lordship – bad combination of a particularly violent expulsion of the lower intestinal tract, a loose nappy and no vest;
• scoring vomit all down the other trouser leg whilst cleaning up the aforementioned poo, then realising, whilst mopping it up, that the rest of it had formed a large puddle at the bottom of the car door tidy thing (jay wants to call it a glove compartment, but you know what she means);
• knocking over an entire can of Diet Coke whilst attempting to clean up all the other mess, all without water because we foolishly hadn’t packed any;
• trying to work out where to put our muddy dog in the meantime.

You have to laugh, right?

Anyhow, more seemly evidence of our adventures away can now be viewed at your leisure over at our lad’s picture blog. It was an adventure, but we’re glad to be home safe.

vee xxx

Three months old.

My darling boy,

You are now three whole calendar months old. Not long on this earth, but you have already learned so much. It seems such a shame that, in all likelihood, you will remember none of these joyous days of discovery and wonder.

I’m writing your monthly update this month because, rather slackly, I’ve yet to write one, and your mother is on my case to do my share. I haven’t even finished writing your birth story yet, but that’s another story. Of course, my share of monthly updating would fall on the evening of a day where our little family have been out walking in the Devon sunshine for four and a half hours. Well, you weren’t walking, of course, but we were. Though you are, of course, a genius, you’re not so advanced as to be walking yet! I’m tired and sunburned and a little tipsy – I’m on my holidays after all and now you are three months old and you go down for 8 or so hours at a stretch every night, so I know you won’t need a feed for hours. Thank you for allowing me the time and space to reacquaint myself with the joys of alcohol in moderation.

This last month has seen you really become much more aware of the world around you. You can’t bear to miss out on anything that might be happening around you. Whilst I am sure this is wonderful for your mental and physical development, it is not so fantastic for my nipples. Child, if you really need to look round at something whilst feeding, I wish you would release your vacuum-hold first, before twisting your little rubber neck!

This month has seen you master the art of holding your head up by yourself. You do this very well, even insisting on straining forward when placed in your car seat, buggy or bouncer, just to prove that you think headrests are for the weak. I must say though, in the middle of the night you are still my sweet floppy-headed baby and I love those nighttime snuggles.

Your smiles and giggles melt both your mummies’ hearts at every turn, especially those you grace us with when you first see our faces upon waking. We’re delighted you’re such a happy, smiling fellow and we’re forever calling each other to come and witness some random cuteness of yours.

We love you son, more than I think we ever thought possible, and we can’t wait to share each day with you. I miss your tiny newborn helplessness and at the same time relish your growing engagement with the world around you. I’m so looking forward to watching and helping you learn more about the world.

Mummy Vee xxx

More screaming.

Once again, our heartfelt thanks go to you IVPers for leaving comment wisdom on our last post. What we’d do without you, I do not know.

So, incorporating bits of advice into one giant (improvised) Hope This Fixes It feed, this morning, I used a faster teat, warmed it up beforehand, got BB laughing happily and then fed him in my office chair, because he has never been fed there before. He managed maybe half an ounce of half-hearted suckage without crying, then started to get cranky so I quit while I was ahead and let vee’s wonder boobs take over the show. We were triumphant and hopeful.

This afternoon? Not so much. Unfortunately that was because he was in a rotten mood, I think, and not even his beloved white noise could calm him down.

Fail.

Sigh.

The fight will resume after our week away, and if it doesn’t work, I am going to have to follow vee to a work gig she has booked for the end of the month, and wait in the car or something. Fun.

Meanwhile; more packing for the trip. Even less fun.

xxxx jay

I hear screaming.

This means we have Fucked Up.

And our solution to put things right did not work.

So now we need your solutions, please.

I have been expressing, on and off, since about 3 weeks in. At around 5 or 6 weeks, Jay gave BB his first bottle of expressed milk. So far, so good. We continued this for a few weeks, just the odd bottle here and there, maybe two or three a week. Then things got a bit sensitive around the feeding issue and for one reason and another we didn’t offer him a bottle again for a few weeks. Can you sense what is coming here?

This week, we have tried and failed to persuade our stubborn boy to take a bottle no less than three times. And it’s only Wednesday. All we’ve so far managed to achieve is to cause the poor wee mite to go purple and scream bloody murder, to the point where he’s too hysterical to even take the breast. Real tears and everything. His and ours.

Perhaps it’s the teat shape, we thought, so today Jay went out and bought some “natural shaped” teats and new bottles to go with them. Not that they look anything like my breasts at all, but hey. Same result. Perhaps even a slightly deeper shade of purple outrage.

I have generally tried to stay out of sight when Jay has offered a bottle, we’ve tried to pick times when he’s not too hungry and he seems to be in good spirits, we’ve cut down any distractions in the room, the milk is fresh and warmed. What else can we do?

Jay says she’s quite nervous of using the bottle, unsure of how far or not to push the teat in, for fear of choking him. Neither of us have much experience bottlefeeding babies, at least not in recent years. She has also been sitting in the “breastfeeding chair”, which maybe leads him to expect a BREASTfeed?

I’m always devastated to waste the milk – having warmed it, I’m assuming it’s not safe to keep and re-use. Really, the only winner in this is the dog, who keeps getting what’s been rejected on his dog biscuits. It it truly weird to give your dog breastmilk? I just can’t bear to chug it down the plughole.

Help!

vee xxx

Spinning

Firstly, many thanks to those of you who emailed and commented on my last post.  You were really helpful, thank you.  We did wonder if I had PPD, but I have kind of decided I haven’t because how I’ve been feeling is a little bit like how I felt when we were TTC… so perhaps it’s leftover spillage or something like that.

Whatever. I’d rather just do something about it than analyse it too much, so I went to my lovely local herbalist and she gave me some Rhodiola Rosea as a kind of upgrade from my St John’s Wort (which I’ve been taking for, oh, about a year, but doesn’t seem to be working any more).  Anyway, this RR stuff works a treat and I’m feeling a lot better.  I’ve also given in to another addiction of mine and booked an aromatherapy massage, using up the second of the two vouchers that my dear son gave me for my birthday.

So, all is good. Well, it should be anyway.

Because this week we are meant to be packing for our trip down south (which Google estimates will take 5 and a half hours, but we all know that travelling with a baby, a dog and a virtual office do not make for reliable arrival times, even if you’re planning on leaving in the middle of the night, as we are) and getting the house ready for the cat sitter and sorting things out for the wedding that we’re going to, AND we have accepted extra work to do BEFORE WE LEAVE.

I don’t think we ever blogged about our (lack of) maternity leave, which has it’s pros and cons – perhaps mostly pros, but not this week – in a nutshell, we both work from home, and sometimes we have very little to do, which means we get to coo and grin a lot, but we don’t get paid for it, except for a bit of state benefit and vee’s maternity allowance from another part time job.  Not too bad, except we’re both kind of on call all day every day, which is why we have to carry on working while we’re on “holiday” next week.

I digress. The point of this waffle is that our trip down south to watch vee’s brother and his gf get married (somewhere miles away from where they, or any of their friends/families, live) is sandwiched between two different, demanding clients, with a three month old baby and several other clients to think about too.  Today was … interesting; kind of like baby ping-pong, as we both scrambled to do whatever we could do with our computers, in between reminding BB that he has two SAHMs even though they spend a good amount of time in their office, and trying to explain that his screaming all afternoon wasn’t really fun.

Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow, we have a plan. Ha!

Stupid? Possibly. I am just very glad that the RR works.

xx jay

PS: Olive is a genius!

Quick question…

… please don’t read too much into this, but does anyone know anything about postnatal depression in relation to non bio mothers?

Any references/info would be gratefully received.

Ta!

jay xx

Chronicling Pride

As I said to vee on Saturday, I never imagined myself to be pushing a pram around a LGBT Pride festival, but there I was, and having a great time at it.  You can kind of chronicle my life by my Pride attendance, actually, from the PVC and tight t-shirts I excitedly donned as a giddy teenager, to the cynical gaze I employed later on as Pride became Mardi Gras and the politics faded away like a strangely distant memory that begged to return.

I digress. Today is Blogging for LGBT Families Day and here’s our contribution:

[Happy family photo sadly now removed for privacy reasons.]

So there we were, with BB who slept blissfully through a lot of it; when he was awake he just drooled and giggled as he usually does, unaware of where he was and why he was there. In fact, we need not have been there at all, as we spent a lot of time sitting on a small patch of grass talking with our new-found mummy friends who have a baby just a month older than BB, and we could have been anywhere in the world, really. But we made up the masses, sitting right next to a banner that screamed “GAY“. And we were proud.

And here endeth my waffling Pride chronicle.

xx jay and LGBT Family xx