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Archive for August, 2008

Single Parenting

Posted in motherhood ... at last on August 11, 2008| 11 Comments »

I have the utmost respect for single parents.  I know I don’t have it in me to be a single parent.  Not even remotely.  That being said, Seth left for Pittsburgh yesterday for a two day conference.  He’ll be back late Tuesday night leaving me with three dinner times, three bed times, and two morning wake up routines all to myself.  Yay me.  Yes, I am superwoman, thank you for asking.  I need a cape.  Though a sidekick would be more useful, don’t you think?

Of course, not five minutes after Seth left, one of the cats threw up on the stairs.  It’s like they were mocking me.  One of my rules is that Seth is 100% responsible for any bodily fluids which come out of the cats.  I am not a pet person.  I don’t like being responsible for animals.  I would rather be pet-free (and thereby dander-free) than deal with puke, pee, poop, etc.  If I wanted to deal with bodily fluids, I would have had kids.  Oh, wait… I did that.

This morning started at 4:30 with an exploding diaper from Sam who then frantically nursed for an hour.  Then J threw up on the stairs on his way down to get his patch put on for the morning.  Also, he was bouncing off the walls all farkin’ morning.  It was a good morning.  I expect tonight to be more of the same.  Good times all around.

I don’t mind the single-parenting gig, actually.  I love my kids.  What I hate is the feeling of being trapped.  What if I needed to go out?  I can’t.  With four sleeping children, I’m stranded.  How do single parents handle this?  I leave in the morning, drop J at school, go to work, dash out of work, pick J up, run home, meet the nanny to relieve her, get everyone fed, into bed, get J fed, into bed, and then I’m stranded.  There’s no time for an extra errand, like if I had to stop at the pharmacy or grocery store or pick up the dry cleaning or whatever.  How would I do that if Seth weren’t coming home Tuesday night?  I guess I’d get a babysitter, but if I were a single parent with four young kids, how would I afford that?  Did I mention that I have the utmost respect for single parents?  I don’t know how you guys (and gals) do it! 

Did I mention Ellie’s teething? 

How many hours left until Seth comes home?

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World Breastfeeding Week – Who Knew?

Posted in breastfeeding on August 5, 2008| 14 Comments »

Hey, did you know that it’s World Breastfeeding Week? 

I’ve been breastfeeding my triplets for 10 1/2 months now, and I love it.  It makes me feel …  well, I feel like my body isn’t betraying me.  And I love that my babies are bonded to me, even Abby who doesn’t breastfeed, but gets my milk.  She shows a definite preference for my milk over formula. 

I never thought it would be possible to do this. I thought I’d pump for them while they were in the NICU and I thought maybe I’d struggle through a couple weeks at home, but I never really thought I’d make it through a whole year.  And now I find myself wondering if I’ll be ready to give this up when they turn a year old next month. 

I have these three babies – these three that started out teeny, tiny, helpless babies, that have grown from as tiny as 2 1/2 pounds (Abby) and are now as big as 20 pounds (Sam) and I helped do that!   

So, um, go me!

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Good Things and Less Good Things

Posted in Uncategorized on August 5, 2008| 3 Comments »

Good Thing:  Having reached my absolute limit yesterday, I called my mother and asked her to stay with the kids and declared that Seth and I were going out after the triplets were in bed.  We went to see a movie.  Since he wasn’t on call this time, he actually got to see the entire movie, and we had a great time.
Less Good Thing:  I really did reach my absolute limit on coping with my life yesterday.  This PMDD thing?  SUCKS. 

Good Thing:  Sam has figured out how to climb up stairs.
Less Good Thing:  Sam has figured out how to climb up stairs.

Good Thing:  Abby has one more physical therapy session, but will probably be discharged after that.
Less Good Thing:  Ellie probably will not be discharged from physical therapy for a while.  (That being said, she’s really doing fine, she’s just further behind than the other two.

Good Thing:  My babies are almost a whole year old.
Less Good Thing:  My babies are almost a whole year old.

Good Thing:  I’ve talked with my friend about the misunderstanding about my blog compromise.  Turns out that it may have been partially a miscommunication on my part.
Bad Thing:  I may have hurt her feelings by having approached it through a vent in my blog.
Good Thing:  The best thing about friends?  We’re already over it.

Good Thing:  We’ve added in a new medication to J’s regimen and it seems to be working nicely.
Less Good Thing:  It’s a real pain in the tushy to deal with because we have to crush a pill, mix it into 1ml of simple syrup, and then draw up .2mls of medicine each time we give him the medicine (2x/day).  Then, since he refuses to take any medicine of any kind by mouth under any circumstances, the only way we can get him to take this is to mix it in with ice cream.  So he gets a couple teaspoons of ice cream BID.  But the new rule is that he may never have ice cream any other time of day ever.  Ice cream is now reserved for medicine taking.  Still, it’s a whole lot of effort to go through twice a day.

Good Thing:  My kids are awesome
Less Good thing:  There is no "less good thing" for this one.

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Compromised

Posted in blogarama on August 4, 2008| 27 Comments »

One of the reasons that I moved this blog to TypePad  was because some "real life" friends, who I had not explicitly given the URL to my blog (so I’m not referring to you, Julie or Diana, or any of you others that know that I explicitly gave you this URL), had found my  blog over at My Perky Ovaries.  Too many had found it, really.  I had other things push me over the edge, but when I stopped feeling comfortable posting about my feelings about infertility, and knowing that I was getting closer to moving back to Ye Old Fertility Clinic, I knew it was time to pick up and move.

Some of my real life friends knew I was moving in part because I had been "found" and they felt badly about having found me, even though it was obviously through no fault of their own.  I have a public blog, for a reason, and therefore, I can’t expect everyone to stay out, now can I?  Even if I didn’t use my name, my likeness, or my childrens’ names, the fact that I’m an Orthodox Jew with triplets, an older child with a slightly-less-than-normal-legal-situation, etc. makes me pretty distinguishable to the people that know me in real life.  So removing my names and pictures from my blog wouldn’t really help me, and I’m not interested in creating a whole new internet personality for the sake of anonymity, because I try to be ME as much as possible.

When one of my friends found my old blog, I told her specifically that the fact that she and others had found it was precisely the reason I was moving my blog.  She asked with interest what the new name for my new blog would be and I very specifically did not tell her the new name of the blog.  I clearly said that the things that I want the whole world to know, I post elsewhere, in a blog that she already reads. 

I know that people I know in real life will find this blog. I’m not naive.  I also know that the vast majority of them read this blog in silence, and I thank them for pretending to respect my privacy, though I recognize that the only way I will have true privacy is to password protect my blog, which I have my own reasons for not doing.  They’re good reasons, which I don’t need to share at this time, but believe me, they’re good and valid. 

But this friend, who I specifically told I was moving the blog so that real life people would not be reading my thoughts on infertility and the like… this friend apparently went looking for my blog again.  And not only did she go looking for my blog, and not only did she find my blog and read my thoughts, she left footprints.  She commented in my blog.  Twice.

I recognize that I have no right to ask for privacy from the general public.  But when I ask a friend explicitly to respect a boundary, I think that’s another thing all together. Find my blog?  Sure.  Read my blog?  By all means, be a voyeur.  But rub it in my face when I made it clear I didn’t want you here?  That’s just tacky.

And now I feel compromised, even though I realize I have no right to expect privacy in the public world of blogging. 

I will continue blogging, but I do know this:  when I return to Ye Old Fertility Clinic in the fall, I won’t be blogging about it.  Or if I do, I won’t be blogging about the specifics of dates of retrieval, transfer, test results, things like that.  No one will know, from my blog anyway, what exactly is going on.  Because I don’t even have the facade anymore of pretending that my friends won’t know the inner details of my pregnancy test results.

In my community, we don’t tell people we’re expecting until we are beyond the first three months or so, though I’ve been known to let a few people in on the joke.  The first time I was pregnant, I told people in my community that I was pregnant when I got to three months, and a day later, I had a miscarriage.  I’ve sworn I’ll never do that again.   It’s one thing if people are reading and I don’t have it shoved in my face that they’re reading.  It’s quite another if they are reminding me of it.

I never thought I would censor myself on my blog, and I’m sorry to do it.  The reason I moved was so that I would stop censoring myself.  Maybe I’ll get over myself and just write about it anyway, but right now?  Right now I just feel… compromised. 

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Because I needed the other shoe to drop

Posted in One of Those Not So Fresh Days on August 1, 2008| 17 Comments »

I stayed home sick yesterday, what with the obvious breast infection.  Whenever I stay home sick, my nanny ends up sick or injured or whatnot.  Yesterday it wasn’t she that ended up sick, but her niece, for whom she is the primary caregiver.  Obviously, she had to leave if her niece was throwing up and sick and had a fever and whatnot.  Poor M but also Poor Karen.

This morning, M called to say that her niece has chicken pox. 

Let’s review.

Point the first:  Karen’s babies are 10.5 months old.  Babies receive the chicken pox vaccine at 12 months old (and another booster sometime later, I can’t remember when).

Point the second:  Karen is not immune to chicken pox.

Point the third:  Karen’s nanny has never, to her knowledge, had chicken pox OR the chicken pox vaccine.

Point the fourth:  The incubation period for chicken pox is 8-21 days.  Let’s average it out and call it 14 days. 

Point the fifth:  Regardless of the incubation period, her niece will need care and will not be able to return to her babysitter until she herself no longer has active chicken pox lesions, about a week. 

This, suffice it to say, has not been a good week.  I haven’t even gotten a shower yet today.  For the good of mankind, I must get a shower today!

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