Two Months

Dear Henry,

I cannot believe you are two months old today. I guess this is how many of these letters will start..."how are you this old already!?!" will just be something I will continue to be shocked by. People told me before you were born to enjoy you when you are little because it goes by so fast. I thought I knew, but I really had no idea how right they are. You are two months. Already. Time is going so fast, and you keep getting bigger. It makes me so happy as you grow, but at the same time I want time to slow so I can enjoy you more each day.

You went to the doctor today and we found out that you now weight nine pounds and five ounces (10th percentile). You are growing so fast! In no time at all you will be totally caught up with other babies your age and we won't be able to tell you were three weeks early. Even though you are still on the small side, you are right where you should be for a two month old. You are now following things with your eyes and constantly studying things around you. You love to coo and make sweet little noises for us. You are smiling now, but we are still waiting for those true smiles of recognition when me or your papa come in the room. Now you smile more randomly, but we know those smiles of true joy are just around the corner!

I think you are going to be a thumb sucker. When you are stressed you automatically look for your hands to get them in your mouth. You have even started noozeling them the way you do when you are going to eat. It makes me and your Papa laugh to see you trying to nurse on your own hands! You actually love to eat and so easily take a bottle, but also latch on to anything (like your hands, my arm, someones finger...ANYTHING at all!) just to see if there is a chance milk will come out! Nursing you is so easy now, it is hard for me to remember that it was such a struggle in the beginning. I am so glad we made it and that I am able to now breastfeed you so easy. I love that time.

AS you grow you are developing such a sweet personality. You have things you are starting to love. You love when I take you for a walk. I let you sit up a little and you just look around totally amazed. You still love your swing, but now you also love your mobile in your crib. I think you have a love of music. The mobile and the swing sooth you so well, and so does your papa playing the guitar. You just sit and watch him play for you, completely content. You love to look out the window and you love to sleep in our bed! We try to make that a special treat, but there is nowhere you sleep better. We still have you in the bassinet in our room at night, but that is now more for us than you. I think you would be very happy in your crib, but I want to keep you close to us for a little while longer!

Oh Henry, you are such a good boy. Your Papa and I are just totally amazed with you every single day. As hard as it is for me to believe you are two months old, it is also hard for me to believe you were ever not here. You have taken such a large part of my heart I just can't imagine it being whole before you came along. It is like that part of my heart must have just been on hold, waiting for you to be here so it could love you this much. You are our perfect growing boy, and I am so thankful for you every single day.

XOXO,

Mama

Morning Routine

So yesterday morning I was nursing Henry before work. We are getting a pretty good morning routine down, which is super exciting. It helps that the sweet boy loves to sleep at night. He goes to bed around 10:30 and sleeps until around four, then he is back up between seven and seven thirty to nurse before I head off to work. Once-a-night feeding that has me out of the bed for a total of thirty minutes. This boy is awesome.

Anyway, I obviously still love my sleep, so I have been working on getting the morning routine down as fast as possible. One time saver is for me to eat breakfast while he nurses. Seems smart to me. We get to enjoy our breakfast together! Genius, right? So he was nursing and I was having my coffee and doughnuts (I am healthy, I know). When he is done I burp him, then I pull him away from me and I see my bra has something all over it ( I was nursing shirtless...less mess in the morning) my thought process was as follows:

What is THAT? is that...is that BLOOD?!?!

Oh my GOD he is BLEEDING!!!!!! He is totally BLEEDING all over the place!!!!! *starts frantically searching for the open wound. It MUST be here somewhere!!!*

Wait...what is THAT?? *inspects baby's outfit a little closer*

OH. Right. Chocolate.

Should I lick it off?? No no...that would be wrong. Obviously.

So..yeah, I totally dripped chocolate off my doughnut on to my tiny baby. Then I panicked and thought it was blood. Poor poor Henry. His Mama is clearly a crazy person...who is a messy eater. A bad combination.
Here is our very first self portrait just to show I don't let him ALWAYS sit around covered in chocolate. I do occasionally dress him in extremely high waisted sweat pants though...like I said, poor poor Henry.

First Love

Well, it's official. Henry is in love. His first girl friend has now been born! Our sweet family friend Mandy (and bio girl reader! helloooooo new Mama!) had her sweet little girl Leighton Lane on Monday. Clearly her and Henry are meant for each other!

I can hear Henry's thoughts now, "MAMA! WHY did you take the picture where you can see STRAIGHT up my NOSE! What will Leighton think of me???" And then I say, "Oh Henry, at least there isn't any boogers up there!" and then Henry says, "Ahhh hahaha! BOOGERS" (he is a boy...boogers are funny to boys right?? I am out of my element here...)

Anyway, here is another shot of the new Mama's with enjoying each other's sweet new babies. Welcome to the world Miss Leighton Lane. You are so adorable and we can't wait to see you again!

Planning

Nick and I both come from families of three children. We both are extremely close in age to both of our siblings (both middle children...what are the odds?). I have a pretty strong suspicion that very little family planning went into the timing of us and our siblings (or rather, that our parents went with the "whatever happens happens" planning), but I know we both love that everyone is so close in age. Because of this, and because Henry is like the best baby ever, we both like the idea of having another baby close to him in age. Not like, right now, but not years down the road. Maybe two years apart. Maybe even closer than that. What we know is that we want them close in age.

But deep down, what I REALLY want, is to not have to plan. To not have to think about WHEN to have another baby. To not have to start injections and mood swings or have to deal with doctors and procedures to make our next baby. What I really truly want is to one day realize I am late, and to take a test. To be surprised with the news. Henry is so perfect and I have no regrets about how we got to him. I just wish it didn't have to be so hard.

So, the point of all of this is that I had my six week follow up last week, and I was asked about birth control. Nick and I had talked about it before we went, and really we were both okay with the "let what happens happen" approach. How do I get on birth control now when every infertile bone in my body says it is CRAZY. I don't WANT to be on the pill. I want the chance at an accidental pregnancy. But I have to be realistic and grown up. I know we have our six frozen embryos. Embryo's I am not okay destroying, or donating to another couple, or to science. Embyo's that I want to give a chance. So how can I be reckless and "let what happens happen" when we have these six maybe babies that we have put on hold. How do I make that decision??

BUT, what if none of those six take? What if we wait and we lose our window of good fertile time and then we can't have any later? How do you decide? How do you chose a plan when you don't know what will work? Infertility is such a bitch.

So, we decided the best thing to do is be responsible, at least for now. I feel like we made a commitment to our six embryos. It doesn't feel right to just ignore them. We are going on birth control. Soon, maybe in a year, we will go in and talk about a frozen transfer. We will not wait long because we don't want my time to be out due to my endo and us to be out of options. But our first shot has to be the embryo's that we have. We will just have to go from there. It just feels so wrong to be on the pill after all we did to get here. I just hate that it can't come easy for us.

Happy 4th of July!

Hope all my readers that are in the US are enjoying the holiday weekend! (and all non-US readers are enjoying a totally normal summer weekend too!) We spent the day with friends and family over at my father-in-laws house. We had big plans for out door events and a pool party, but the rain sorta ruined all that. Still, we had a blast spending time together, eating great food and setting off fireworks. All in all a really great 4th of July!

PS. I officially wore a pair of my very own pre-pregnancy shorts to the cook-out. It was a holiday miracle. What?? You haven't heard of 4th of July miracles?? They can happen. They just aren't as common as the Christmas miracles...

Six Week Pictures

I am doing so much better. It gets a little easier everyday. I hate being away from my sweet boy, but I am happy to be back to work. I love my job and my coworkers and it is really going okay. It helps to make the days easier that he is so darn cute and loving when I get home!

Monday, as a reward for me being a big girl and going to work, I decided to reward myself with pictures of Henry! Well...it was a reward and it was just time for his first professional pictures. Anyway, I thought I would share them with you all! I don't have a scanner, so I just took pictures of the pictures. Not the best way to see them, but you will get the general idea. Trust me, the real ones look way better and are totally in focus and what not. Still, he is basically the cutest baby in the entire world in these pictures (according to a totally un-bias Mama)

This is the actual outfit I brought for the pictures, but as you can see he was totally not interested in waking up. Still, he is pretty darn cute while he sleeps!

Then I decided to strip him down to his diaper. The look on his face totally says, "MAMA! WHY is this strange lady taking pictures of me NAKED?!?!"

Then I put him in one of his gowns long t-shirts and he was finally awake and let us take this completely adorable six week pic!

For the record, DO NOT change your child's clothes when going to get pictures taken unless you want to buy as least one shot in each outfit. It is impossible to just ignore the other options. Also, it is hard as hell to pic the PERFECT picture of your sweet baby. Did you all know that? Boo and I sat there and watched other mom's look at pictures that were basically identical and be all like, "well...I just love them BOTH! How do I CHOOSE???" and I was all judgy-judgerson and like, "MY GOD, just PICK one!!" *in my head of course* Then...it was my turn...and I was all like, "Hmmmm....I am just not sure...can I see the first ten again?? Can I see them next to each other?? Can I start over from the beginning??? I can't DECIDE!" So....right. No more judging other moms*.

*this may be a promise I cannot keep.

First Day

I made it.

I only got four hours of sleep last night. I cried when I went to bed. I cried when I woke up. I cried as I nursed him this morning. I cried on my way to work. I cried a little at work too.

Still, once I got to work and got rolling I was able to get things done. I thought of him constantly, but I was okay. I knew he was safe and loved. I knew I had work to do. I knew it was only five hours. I knew in my heart he was okay.

I got home at one and he didn't look any bigger than when I left him. He didn't look like he forgot me. He didn't look mad. He nursed and I kissed him a million times and we were both okay.

It will be easier tomorrow.