almost 5 months

little miss laila is doing great, rolled over (belly to back) a few times, and lost a bunch of hair. she now has a funny faux hawk. she's a little bruiser this kid, she's nice and solid. she loves to stand, grab things with her hands (like her feet) and put them in her mouth (not her feet), play in her exersaucer, smile, and drool. her hands are in her in her mouth a lot lately and im afraid that teeth are on their way shortly. i plan to breastfeed until thanksgiving, but im really afraid of breastfeeding a child with teeth. i'm sure i'll do it, but im definitely scared about it. she'll be 5 months old in 2 days. TIME. FLIES.

she's eating baby food now and loving it. so far sweet potatoes seem to be her favorite, no surprise there coming from this momma. she also really enjoys sweet peas. anyone see a pattern here? she didn't love bananas, which is fine by me, bc they really constipated sofia when she was little, so if we didnt balance her banana intake with prunes, she got pretty uncomfortable sometimes. anyway, laila eats really well, and a lot, which i think is awesome. speaking of 'awesome', its one of sofia's new favorite words. we're making most of the food she eats, so we'll make a decent sized batch and feed her that till its gone. we also just bought this bc we have a this cuisin.art and its the loudest fucking thing in the world. so loud that it scares the children. so loud that lovedove has to hold her ears when she uses it. so loud that we don't want to use it. so we bought a new one. it arrived today, im excited to use it.

sidenote, sofia is currently engaging in nap wars with me. i think part of the issue is that her "winding down" time is difficult for me to handle. when she does bed time with mommy monday through thursday while im at work, she typically gets up a few times to use the restroom, and comes out of her room a few times with lame excuses like getting a tissue, giving one or two more hugs and kisses, asking some random question, grabbing one more toy to take to bed with her bc shes a bedtime hoarder. thats their thing. lovedove is fine with it, the routine works for them. i on the other hand am far more confrontational and asinine about it. i have no patience for the stalling tactics. i said its nap/bed time, so stay the f in your bed. got it you little almost 3 year old? i get really frustrated because she is clearly tired and needs sleep on some days to function. today im not letting her out of her room again until she sleeps. she was up at 5:45am and definitely needs a nap. i'll allow one trip to the potty and thats it. i've implemented the "im not talking to you" strategy and i dont answer her yelled questions or requests. we'll see who wins this battle today. i really hope its me.

on a happier note, sofia is now able to put together a 24 piece puzzle all by herself. we the easter bunny got her a do.cmc.stuf.fins puzzle, and we've done it a lot together, so much so that she can now do it herself. she accomplished this for the first time over the weekend. a few hours later she accomplished something else big, drawing on her walls with a crayon. i hope that was the first and last time, cleaning that was tedious and annoying. we tried to make her do the clean up but she couldn't push hard enough with the mr cl.ean mag.ic eras.er. that thing works miracles i swear.

laila's adoption date is set for the 19th, happy and excited to have this process be over so much faster than it was the first time around. our experience with a different lawyer for sofia's adoption briefly chronicled here. we recently met up with another lesbian couple who just had their first baby through our adoption social worker, and im hoping that their adoption is scheduled for the same day. we'll see. i have to email her.

im completely intrigued by baby boogers. their snot is just incredible. i feel like its the stickiest but also the slimiest sometmies. the biggest boogers come out of the smallest little nose. im amused by them, always.

my basketball season is almost over, if we win this saturday we've got one more week, if we lose we're done. its been so good to be back on the court. this was definitely not my strongest season by any means but i've loved it more than ever. i love being in the recreational division, no one wants to rip anyone's heads off, and the ladies i play with are actually friendly. i definitely made the right move for myself and im looking forward to coming seasons. i seriously need to do some practicing over the summer though. i haven't played a post position since high school, and i went like 5% from the free throw line this season. SAD.

first game of softball was last night and i played great, if i do say so myself. 3 for 4 with 2 RBIs and one nice catch in the outfield. i coached first base for my team a bunch of the time and i had fun doing that too. i was pleasantly surprised by my post pregnancy debut and cant wait to get on the field again. oh, plus, we won! surprise, we're very used to losing on that team, but we got some new youngins that look pretty good. i love softball.

hope all is well with everyone, keep feeling good shanna!

4.5 months

laila is now four and a half months old and she's doing great. despite her incredible disinterest in rolling over, she's advancing nicely and developing new skills every day. she is a big time talker, squealer, giggler and smiler. She weighed in at 13lbs5ozs at her four month appointment, two weeks ago, and she is really chunking up quite nicely. shes grabbing things with her hands, drooling all over everything, and really enjoying her exersaucer. i don't have much to say right now so here's this...

top 10 public places i've breastfed laila (in no particular order)

1.  ikea's mini restaurant
2. denny's
3. the park
4. on a plane
5. in our moving car (when i leaned over the car seat bc she was inconsolable so i had lovedove drive and i just fed her right then and there)
6. on the bleachers at the gym where we play basketball immediately before and/or after one of my games
7. the auto body shop (while i waited for 3 hours for my car to have the window fixed)
8. the pediatrician's office
9. the beach
10. the Long Island Children's Museum, they had a lovely little nursing nook

i feel its necessary for me to note my breastfeeding accomplishments for several reasons. first because i had a pretty rough time at one point. next because it reminds me to feel proud of myself in an age where so many women choose to formula feed bc of whatever reason, i feel like im in an elite group of moms who choose to breastfeed. also because i feel like im part of a breastfeeding movement, and like im an activist/awareness raiser/supporter and i like that.

so if anyone reading this is struggling, just hang in there. it does get better, and easier. it is still the most rewarding thing ive ever done.

so happy to be reading lots of good news all around blogland about happy babies and tired mommies.

i dont have the time or mind to write much more right now, but will try to soon.

here's two recent pictures of my little meatball with accompanying text from a friend.

4.30

4.30.12 is likely the most optimistic day of my life thusfar, it was the day of my single embryo transfer. i dont remember all of the day, but i remember being on the table for the transfer, and the doctor telling me the embryo was "a good one". i dont have a fancy schmancy picture of laila as an embryo (like everyone else in blogland seems to) but truly i dont need it. today, a year later, i have her. its almost completely unreal to me, that as i type this, she is thrown over my shoulder half passed out because i just breastfed her. biological motherhood is everything i thought it would be, and the pride of being her biological mother, knowing that i made this amazing little person, is boggling to me.

she was teeny tiny when she was born, and even tinier a few days later when she weighed in at 6lbs bc my milk wasn't fully in, and today people were telling me how big she looked for her age. she visited my dad's office for the first time and one of his coworkers said she looked like she was close to 6 months old bc she was so alert and so big. she's all i could ask for her to be at this age, a healthy smiley drooly meatball ham (i say ham bc when she gives you a smile, she really gives you a smile).

ill actually get to see how "big" she is at her 4 month appointment next friday, i'm looking forward to her measurements. 

actually, im looking forward to everything.

watching the nb.a playoffs with me <3

confessions + church

yes, my weirdo momma confessions. i've already divulged some of these things to friends who are non moms, and im pretty sure they think im a lunatic. even lovedove thinks some of these are totally nuts.

1. i kind of love the smell of (solely) breastfed baby poop. to me its just so sweet and not really stinky at all. clearly a very odd thing, but its the truth.

2. baby pee. also no big deal, i mean dont get me wrong i do my best not to get peed on, however, i feel like baby pee is similar to rainwater, like i could shower in it if i needed to. yes an extreme example, but im sure i could. rain comes through dirty air pollution and smoggy crap, and baby pee just goes through your baby, so really to me they are the same kind of thing. when i think about it like this, baby pee is less gross than rainwater. i think its an interesting theory.

3. lately ive noticed that im jealous of pregnant ladies, for being pregnant. it was one thing for me to realize that i would consider being pregnant again after being so "done" with it once i hit month number 9, but to see pregnant ladies and be jealous? im a lunatic, its official.

4. sometimes i sleep on the couch when sofia is watching sesame street at 7am.

5. sometimes im happy when sofia cries when she is refusing to nap, because it helps her to reach the point of exhaustion where she can't fight off heavy eyelids anymore. mean momma.

enough of that.

church.
went on sunday to have laila baptized. we're not huge church go-ers by any means. we went a few times before we had sofia baptized, and then weren't back in there until this baptism a little over a year later, but i'm happy to have a church to go to as a family, when we choose to. the whole family was there, like 40 people, we're italian like that. pretty sure the deacon was drunk, ok maybe he wasn't but he could have fooled anyone. he was stumbly any time he took steps backwards, lost his train of thought a few times, rambled on and on, and had a very creative spin on a baptismal ceremony. my favorite part was after baptizing each baby, he would hold them in his arms (or by the hand if they were big enough to walk) and present them to the church by walking them up and down the aisle saying "this is laila" or whatever their first name was. it was funny and cute. we had her luncheon/dinner in a party room at a bar my sister used to work at. we did the food ourselves, my mother and our grandmas made food too. it was a beautiful day out so all of the cousins were able to run around outside and everything worked out as well as we could have hoped. laila opted out of the party. after being pretty close to perfect during the ceremony, she found herself completely exhausted at the party and slept through the entire thing, just like i did at my baptism (according to my mother). now both of our babies are baptized, and will be able to attend catholic nursery school and be a God parent if they're asked by anyone in the future. as wonderful of a day as it was, im so glad its over. we planned and prepped so much, im spent.

everything else on our end is going well, other than sofia refusing to nap almost every day. i dont want her to grow out of napping yet, because she still needs them. she does so much better when she's sleeping well in terms of listening, not getting hurt - she gets so clumsy, etc. shes currently been fighting off this nap for 90 minutes. i usually set her free after a max of 2 hrs bc im not going to have her sit in her dark room all day, but i also feel like im giving in to her refusal when that happens. she just plays and sings and "reads" and looks out her window and does everything she can to keep her little peepers open. i hope she gives in soon.

breastfeeding is going well, i'll feed her absolutely anywhere (if i have to, i usually wind up being significantly more uncomfortable throughout due to the absence of pillows) and my most interesting location thusfar has been at a floral consult for a friend's upcoming wedding. the florist worked out of her basement office in her home and was super nice and told me i didnt have to cover myself which was sweet, but i always do, unless im home and its just the 4 of us. my boobs are way too big not to cover up. sometimes, and this is one of only 2 situations where i am jealous of small breasted women, i wish my boobs were smaller so it wouldnt be such a project to feed her. the only other time im jealous of small breasted women is when im playing sports, hence wearing three bras. one for placement and support, and two for compression. trust me its necessary.

laila's poop face is hysterical, she scrunches up and turns super red, my little tomato. she talks more than sofia did, but sofia's speaking is now non stop. questions, declarative sentences, "reading" books, its wild. she also "lies" ("momma said i could have candy") and does a pretty great job at trying to play me and her mommy against each other when there is something she wants but has been told "no" for.

we are just so blessed with our two girls, im thankful every day. cant believe our baby is  3.5 months already, time is flying.

hope you are all well.

april

now im sure i wont have time to post again tomorrow, but a year ago tomorrow i started my stim meds, which led us to baby Laila. Tomorrow she will be exactly 13 weeks old and it truly is amazing how much change can happen in a year. i know how fortunate i am that we were successful with our first ivf attempt, and i am always thinking of women who have been ttc for long periods of time without success. what i'd like to say is that i hope that pieces of this post speak to women who are ttc, and remind them that so much can change so quickly. at the same time, i'm very aware of how devastating, scary, and assaulting the process can be. i pray for happy endings for every woman ttc, and i hope that each woman trying to get to biological motherhood has the support system she needs. i know im rambling, i just want to instill some hope for those in the process.

Laila is awesome, she's a great baby, we've been sooooo blessed. She's a chunky little monkey with big chubby cheeks and a few rolls on her arms and legs. She is a happy, smiley, talkative baby and she LOVES to lay on her play mat. her baptism is this coming sunday and we're really looking forward to it. we'll be doing most of the food ourselves so we'll be busy busy busy this weekend. I'm excited for more of the extended family to meet her, and im excited to all of my cousins' kids since we only see them a (very) few times a year. i'm hoping that everyone is feeling well that day. lovedove has been fighting off a cold, that sofia just got, but luckily they're both hanging in there. we skipped sofia's playgroup today in an effort to keep her somewhat still and rested, and to not get anyone else sick. my MiL will be receiving some radiation treatment for the next week and a half, so i hope she feels ok on sunday. she's been hanging in there but has been having some more discomfort lately, i'm hoping the radiation helps with the pain management and gives her some relief.

what else... OH. we registered our little baby Sofia for nursery school in the fall. what?! how in the world is she going to be 3 already? my God, time truly flies. she'll be going to school, 3 days a week, 3 hours a day starting the week after she turns 3. im excited for her and i really think she'll do great. i believe that she will enjoy school. i'm a little worried about the first day, with the first drop off, but we've already been talking to her about the fact that mommies can't stay with her at school, and that she'll have to listen to the teacher. im a little worried about me that day too, but i guess it will just be the beginning of 1 on 1 time with Laila, who will be 9 months old by then. crazy. the school she'll be going to is the least expensive school we were able to find in the neighborhood, because i feel like its crazy to pay for schooling in general, because i believe in the public school system* (disclaimer: i grew up in public schools and was in advanced placement classes. i feel this shaped my view and allowed me to have a positive experience with school. i believe in the teachers in the classroom today, but i also acknowledge that some public school programs are better than others. im not sure what my 2014 and forward thoughts of public school will be, but at this point in time i am a big believer in public schools). so we're paying approx $2500 for 9 hours a week september-june. im happy with that and that tuition is do-able for us. schooling can get crazy expensive, like in park slope brooklyn. this season our league is using the gym of a private school. i googled the tuition rates, for pre-k (purely out of curiosity) and saw this ----> $18,395. SHOOT ME. who the hell has that kind of money for their 4 year old to go to school? the rates go up (to almost 36,000 for grade 12 students) as the child gets older. im all for taxing the rich. call me a socialist, im find with that. why the hell does any 4 year old need an $18000 education? give me a break. that is almost the poverty line for a family of 4 (i think that line is around 25,000). my mind was blown. sorry for the crazy school/money tangent.

i need to get better at writing myself a note when i think of topics to write about, bc i feel like this post is just rambly, but i will try to be a more substantial blogger in coming posts.

anyway, following along with everyone's stories as usual and wishing everyone the best.

still waiting for spring over here in ny, hope its springtime by you already!

we're back

got home from vacation late tuesday night and we've been settling back into reality ever since. the trip was fantastic, we had a great time, and everything was almost perfect. the girls were great on the plane rides, no screaming or fussing, though Sofia does a heck of a job at fighting sleep on long flights. Sofia got to swim in the pool at the hotel, jump on her cousin's huge trampoline (everyday), go to the beach, go to Dis.neyland, have a ton of play time with cousins and family, and meet Cinderella. I thought she was going to lose her shit when she met Cinderella, well she was overjoyed, but i kind of lost my shit. i cried a bunch, but how could i not? my 2.5yr old got to meet her favorite princess. here's a piece of Dis.ney magic:

i could cry right now looking at that picture. i dont think ill ever forget that moment. i cant believe the 4 pictures i managed to take came out so well, i was fumbling over my camera like an idiot bc i was so excited for Sofia. anyway, we got great shots of the 2 of them and Cinderella was so sweet. Sofia ran right into her arms and she hugged her for a long time. i think sofia is trying to kiss her in this picture but who cares?! she loves her!

our day at dis.ney was great, we got kind of a slow start to the morning, but did a few rides before we went home (to cousin's house about 15 minutes away) for lunch and a nap. i had pumped several times a day in the days leading up to our trip so that we could leave Laila with her Gramma and other family and luckily there was plenty of milk for the day and night. we headed back to the park around 5pm and stayed until 11. it was a fantastic day.

we saw tons of family which was good, but highly emotional with the ending of visits. for easter we had a huge gathering at the cousin house and Laila got to meet almost the entire side of the family that is out in cali. she was really good the whole trip, smiling and cooing at almost everyone who held her. she's quite the little chatterbox, and she's also a ham. none of her hair has fallen out though it does appear more sparse because her head is growing. her eyes are still blue and im hoping they stay that way. she sleeps really well but requires a tight swaddle as her arm and leg movements often keep her up longer than she'd like to be up. she's been sleeping a bunch lately so im thinking she's growing. she's a lot of fun and an awesome happy healthy baby, thank God. shes still terrible at binkies but shes making slow progress.

after the frequent pumping of the first half of our trip, i took some days off. its been a little rough getting the results im used to seeing after the mini break so im back to pumping a bunch to try to get back into the swing of things.

i feel like im so out of the routine of blogging, but i just dont seem to have any time lately. im drowning in a crazy amount of paperwork at work, but i feel like im always rushing home to try to get to Laila in time for her next feeding. my mon-thurs time with lovedove is so scarce that i never want to blog at night, but the days seem to be so filled with child care. plus i feel like i barely have anything to blog about anymore, i mean im sure i would have stuff to write about, if i had more time.

signed Sofia up for nursery school in the fall. she'll go for 3 hours in the morning,  days a week. im looking forward to it, but im kind of nervous about it. how is my little baby girl ready for school already??

anyway Sofia just woke up from her nap.

oh, proud breastfeeding mom moment of the week: i fed laila while making & flipping pancakes in my kitchen  yesterday  morning. yea try to picture that lol

who would have thought...

i've been missing being pregnant lately. don't ask me how this happened. i kind of miss being "huge" although i don't think i was that big compared to most pregnant ladies, and i miss my stretchmarks making me feel good about baby's growth. now they just make me feel mostly gross, only proud here and there. i think that i just felt majorly important when i was pregnant, you know? with all of the close care from medical professionals, the constant "how are you feeling"s from everyone friends/coworkers/family, and the mindfulness of the job i was doing, creating a baby every day. people are still asking me how i' feeling which is nice, it just feels obligatory at this point. i've felt a few of the phantom baby "kicks" lovedove used to tell me about, its soo strange when it happens. definitely just a weird gas bubble or some other shift of organs, but holy moly it takes me right back to when little laila was on the inside. i'm so glad she's here and im so glad that i dont have to freak out about my diabetes constantly anymore. don't get me wrong i'm still taking good care of myself, i just have a lot fewer freak outs when my sugar is high bc i know that i can't hurt (not that i ever did hurt her, luckily she came out perfect) the little one anymore. anyway, i do miss it, and the words "i would do it again" came out of my mouth earlier this week. i think i feel this way mostly because giving birth to laila was pretty much the best moment of my life. labor was rough, but giving birth is completely amazing. no more babies for us though, we donated our leftover embies to research which was hard to do, but i totally do not have it in me to donate potential full siblings of laila's to other couples. i would have loved to save them forever, just in case we ever change our minds, but its not do-able financially.

 i dont think that i have the baby blues, i'm pretty happy with life at this point, other than my MiL's cancer of course, but the fact that she's currently taking on chemo round #4 like a champ, yea - i'm happy. we are heading out to california for a family vacation in a week and a half. i cant wait. its going to be so wonderful to have everyone in one place. laila is going to meet all of her family out there and i can't wait to see everyone hold her and kiss her.

i feel like things feel totally different when you're the birth mom. with sofia i couldn't wait to share her with my family, but i think i just felt like the sidekick who had like, babynapped her and made her my own. i know that is completely ridiculous, but i felt so overjoyed to be a mom to this perfect little angel who i did none of the hard work to create. and with laila, i feel so proud to be the person/body who added another member to lovedove's family. i swear i feel like rafiki in the lion king, i'm just going to step out of the car when we arrive at our family's house and hold her above my head, and some amazing california sunbeam will shine down directly on her and our little cousins will cheer. i'm so looking forward to it. plus we're taking sofia to dis.ney.land for the first time. i'm way too excited about that.

anyway i have 15 other things i should be doing. i'm reading along with everyone on days where i actually have a few minutes to sit down and turn the computer on, wishing everyone luck!!!


oh ps, thoughts on renaming this blog.. should i? shouldn't i? do i make a new blog since this isn't a ttc/pregnancy one anymore? i feel like everyone makes a different one, is that the way to go?