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Clean Bill of Health and Parenthood

Posted in parenting, triplets? on October 31, 2007| 20 Comments »

I had my six-week post-partum appointment yesterday. I have a clean bill of health. It's kind of sad for me, really. It feels like I'm closing a chapter of my life. I'm officially not pregnant anymore. I mean, I haven't been pregnant for six weeks now, but something feels different and final now. And I miss it. And I'm sad that this may have been my last pregnancy. Even though I have four children now, I never wanted to have just one pregnancy (well, two, but the first one doesn't count in this sense).. I never thought I'd have three at once. I never thought this was how I would build my family. I don't want this to have been my last chance. And if I were a fertile myrtle, it would be easy to say, "well, okay, so if you get pregnant again, so be it, and that'll be great." But we all know it's just not that easy. So I know a lot of you are rolling your eyes that I have four kids and I'm not satisfied, and some of you probably think that this is just postpartum hormones, but I don't think it is. I'm sleep deprived, overwhelmed, can barely imagine handling another infant right now, but I long for the experience again.

Today would have been an easy day for me to say that I never want to go through this again. I was supposed to take J to school, which would have meant piling the triplets and J into the van and getting him up to school. This doesn't sound so hard, until you consider that all the babies have to be fed, changed, and put into car seats before they can be brought out to the car. Add that to the fact that J has to be changed, fed, and clothed and his lunch had to be made. Oh, and then there's the fact that Sam was up ALL NIGHT. He will NOT stop eating. He just keeps going and going. He woke up screaming with hunger at 2am (an hour before I expected him to wake up) and nursed from 2-4:45 when my husband took him away and gave him a bottle so that I could get some sleep. He wasn't just using me as a pacifier either, because he was really hungry and he would scream bloody murder if he unlatched, and he wouldn't take a regular pacifier. He was still hungry even after the bottle. He whimpered and whined for an hour and a half until he started screaming at 6:45 begging for food. So I nursed him until almost 9am when I gave up and gave him a bottle and he was STILL hungry. Meanwhile, I had three other kids to take care of, and I had decided that the four year old wasn't going to make it to preschool since none of us were dressed, fed or ready to go.

Today is the first day I have felt completely overwhelmed. But I STILL miss pregnancy. I still want to have another baby someday, even if people think I'm greedy for saying so.

Anyway, odds are good Sam's just going through a ginormous growth spurt. Babies apparently go through growth spurts approximately every 3 weeks, and he's six weeks old exactly today, so it makes sense, right? Apparently this should "only" last 2-3 days. Which would be totally manageable if he were a singleton, but hey, did I mention that there are TWO OTHER BABIES and a four year old to take care of? But this shall pass, right? Oh, and a friend of mine came and picked up J and took him to preschool an hour and a half late, but he got there regardless. Thank heavens. So the day is looking up, and I can do this. Parenthood certainly has its challenges, but I can do this, right? RIGHT?

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The Great Debate

Posted in parenting on May 3, 2007| 13 Comments »

Yesterday afternoon I was speaking with a coworker about the whole triplet thing. She asked when I’d be leaving and I said probably mid-June and I’d be gone probably until close to the end of the year. She looked horrified and said, “I would expect that you’d be out a good deal longer than that!” I’d certainly like to be, particularly considering that by the time my disability pay runs out, the babies may not even be out of the NICU, but as it stands, I’ll likely be back to work in November or December. Still horrified, she said, “but they’ll be so young and little! How can you leave them alone!” Well, said I, I won’t really have much of a choice about it. It’s just the way it is. I will have 8 weeks off and that’s all I get.

I didn’t realize exactly where she was going with this horror at first. I thought she was empathizing with ME for not being able to take more time to get acclimated to three preemie babies in my house. But then she said, “but what about the babies? What about parenting? What ever happened to that?”

Frankly, she’s lucky I didn’t punch her. Let’s get one thing clear: every family has different needs. Some parents are good parents. Some parents are less good parents. Some stay-at-home parents are terrific parents and some stay-at-home parents are lousy parents. Some working parents are lousy parents and some working parents are terrific parents. Judging me by my so-called “choice” to work after my children come into my life is not fair. No one knows what has gone into this “choice” of ours. Yes, we could move to a less expensive house. And we’d be giving up an amazingly supportive community and the ability to practice our religion in the way that we are expected to (e.g. we would have to move to someplace NOT within walking distance of an Orthodox synagogue). We could give up, you know, food, so that we could pay the mortgage without my salary, but I wasn’t thinking that was a great idea either.

We can’t afford for me not to work with only one child in our house (a child whose preschool tuition is paid for and whose most expensive needs are covered not by us). How on earth would we afford to pay for FOUR children in our house? Yes, we have some luxuries we could give up, but we don’t live an extravagant lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination and giving up those few luxuries would not be nearly enough to make up the difference in what we’d be losing in my salary. And even if we DID lead an extravagant lifestyle… so what? Why should I have to stay home? Why should it be assumed that I will stay home and not my husband? What if I wanted to work? Okay, admittedly, I don’t want to continue working full-time. But I would like to continue working at least part-time. I like what I do (sort of). I like having a field I’m very good at. I would also like having far more time on my hands to spend with my children.

I’m tired of hearing people make assumptions about people’s parenting priorities based solely on decisions of day care vs. nannies vs. stay-at-home-parents vs. whatever. It’s really none of anyone’s business whether I work or want to work or don’t want to work or whatever. I am just as dedicated to my childrens’ futures as any other parent.

So there.

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The Great Debate

Posted in parenting on May 3, 2007| 13 Comments »

Yesterday afternoon I was speaking with a coworker about the whole triplet thing. She asked when I'd be leaving and I said probably mid-June and I'd be gone probably until close to the end of the year. She looked horrified and said, "I would expect that you'd be out a good deal longer than that!" I'd certainly like to be, particularly considering that by the time my disability pay runs out, the babies may not even be out of the NICU, but as it stands, I'll likely be back to work in November or December. Still horrified, she said, "but they'll be so young and little! How can you leave them alone!" Well, said I, I won't really have much of a choice about it. It's just the way it is. I will have 8 weeks off and that's all I get.

I didn't realize exactly where she was going with this horror at first. I thought she was empathizing with ME for not being able to take more time to get acclimated to three preemie babies in my house. But then she said, "but what about the babies? What about parenting? What ever happened to that?"

Frankly, she's lucky I didn't punch her. Let's get one thing clear: every family has different needs. Some parents are good parents. Some parents are less good parents. Some stay-at-home parents are terrific parents and some stay-at-home parents are lousy parents. Some working parents are lousy parents and some working parents are terrific parents. Judging me by my so-called "choice" to work after my children come into my life is not fair. No one knows what has gone into this "choice" of ours. Yes, we could move to a less expensive house. And we'd be giving up an amazingly supportive community and the ability to practice our religion in the way that we are expected to (e.g. we would have to move to someplace NOT within walking distance of an Orthodox synagogue). We could give up, you know, food, so that we could pay the mortgage without my salary, but I wasn't thinking that was a great idea either.

We can't afford for me not to work with only one child in our house (a child whose preschool tuition is paid for and whose most expensive needs are covered not by us). How on earth would we afford to pay for FOUR children in our house? Yes, we have some luxuries we could give up, but we don't live an extravagant lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination and giving up those few luxuries would not be nearly enough to make up the difference in what we'd be losing in my salary. And even if we DID lead an extravagant lifestyle… so what? Why should I have to stay home? Why should it be assumed that I will stay home and not my husband? What if I wanted to work? Okay, admittedly, I don't want to continue working full-time. But I would like to continue working at least part-time. I like what I do (sort of). I like having a field I'm very good at. I would also like having far more time on my hands to spend with my children.

I'm tired of hearing people make assumptions about people's parenting priorities based solely on decisions of day care vs. nannies vs. stay-at-home-parents vs. whatever. It's really none of anyone's business whether I work or want to work or don't want to work or whatever. I am just as dedicated to my childrens' futures as any other parent.

So there.

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Protected: Blood, Guts and Gore!

Posted in back to the drawing board, my stupid body, parenting on December 3, 2006|

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Blood, Guts and Gore!

Posted in back to the drawing board, my stupid body, parenting on December 3, 2006| 1 Comment »

So I don't care that this is likely in the realm of way too much information. This is an infertility blog, people! You guys write about cervical mucus and coochie-cams like they're the most natural things in the world to talk about. So I can discuss any TMI I want to in my own little realm.

For example, as I've mentioned, I have a three year old foster son. He's adorable, mostly, except when he isn't. And this morning he figured out exactly how to get my attention. (Note: Eema means mother in Hebrew, and that's what he calls me) He came walking up the stairs from the basement saying, "Eema, look, I have blood!" Ohmygodwhat??? As calmly as I could, I said, "What did you say, sweetheart? Let me see." Sure enough, he held out a tiny little thumb and there was a tiny sliver of a cut on his thumb. And it was, indeed, bleeding. I applied a spiderman bandaid to it and gave it a little kiss and asked him if he could show me what he touched that cut him. I was worried he'd found a sliver of glass or something. So he took me to the basement and showed me his book that is a glossy-paged pictorial history of the John Deere Tractor. One of his favorite books ever. And those glossy pages are perfect for causing paper-cuts, apparently.

Unconsoled, J started to cry. Apparently, spiderman is not good at healing papercuts. He wanted Spider man OFF his finger. NOW. And poor J looked up at me and said, "Eema, it really hurts me!" And I swear, I think he was more upset at his own fallibility than at the physical pain. I think the poor kid's feelings are hurt that his prized book could dare to cause him any unhappiness.

What? That's not the kind of blood and guts and gore you expected?

Okay, fine. No problem. I've got the good stuff, too. Never the master of good timing, my body decided that Thursday (when I was sick and drooling from exhaustion) would be the perfect time for my period to show her shy little self. This could not be worse timing. One more week and I would have been able to go get my E2, P4, hCG tests done so I could start Provera and get an IUI cycle going. But I couldn't just call that Day One and start an IUI cycle last week, because I still have to get my pap smear done (next week) and my Infectious Disease blood work updated (also next week) and Seth's ID blood work also needed to be updated (he did that on Friday). So now I'm going to have to wait ANOTHER four weeks to see if my period comes again (it won't) before I can do the E2, P4, hCG tests and start another round of provera. Which means January. Which means no more IUIs in 2006. Which isn't so horrible. But I'm running out of time. This time next year, I won't have fertility coverage anymore. I think I'm going to take this opportunity to go back to the clinic and consult with a different doctor and convince them to go straight to an IVF cycle instead of messing with another IUI. I'm running out of time. Pure and simple. I may be "only" thirty, but I'm thirty one next month, and next year I won't have insurance coverage for IVF, so you know… I'm running out of time, biological clock or not.

I've never heard that tick tock sound so loud. But it's all I hear anywhere I go. Tick tock. Tick tock. I don't care how "young" I am or am not. The point is biological clock or not, I'm running out of time. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Will I have a baby before I run out of time? Tick. Tock. Will this period from hell never end? Tick. Tock. I mean, I know it's only been four days, but holy heck I've never (okay, not never, but it's been a LONG time) had a period this bad. This is worse than the post-D&C bleeding I had. In fact, that was mere spotting, mostly, even if it did seem to go on forever. Tick. Tock. I can't stop feeling like I'm running out of time. Quickly.

Tick. Tock.

By the way, when is bleeding heavy enough that you're supposed to worry? Because I think maybe I should be worrying. It's really a lot. There, is that the kind of blood and guts and gore you were expecting?

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