Those two lines...

I saw them last week (Mon December 5th to be exact) and they are a beautiful sight . I'm pregnant!!! I did an injectible cycle followed by IUI. It was so much easier this time than in the past. I only had to take injects for one week...in the past I had to inject (on much higher doses) for over 2 weeks! I only had one day of monitoring and I had one follicle ready to go! So, hubs and I went in the next two mornings and did back to back iui. Then the two week wait went by so much faster than in the past...obviously because I was chasing around my little monkey and enjoying her rather than simply focusing on the "am I pregnant or not" worries! We took a pregnancy test two days before the beta, it was positive. OMG! But we thought it could still be the HCG from the trigger shot so I tested again the next day...more positive! Then beta 1 gave us a nice number of 231. Beta 2 (48 hours later) gave us more than doubling at 631! OMG! Ultrasound to detect heart beat is scheduled for December 23rd. I'm so over the moon happy, so over the moon TIRED, and so over the moon scared that we won't see what we want on the 23rd. But all in all, I feel so much less pressure than in past infertility treatment cycles since I am so thrilled that I already have my angel who I love more than life. I'm hoping and praying that all goes well and this little baby keeps growing in my belly. This is love. xo

Party Pics

Woah!!! All these presents are for ME!!!!



Mommy! I love this teddy bear!!!


MMMMM... presents AND cake!!!


Now that my belly is full I'm ready to relax in my new rocking chair!


I think I like birthdays!

One Year...

It's been one year of laughs, tears, sleepless nights, cuddles, diapers, lots of crying and an abundance of LOVE. One year ago today my heart exploded. I fell in love beyond what I imagined I was capable. Happy Birthday to my precious princess. This year has been the best of my life. THE BEST.

At one year Alexandra:
-crawls all over, climbs up on everything (stairs, furniture, boxes...) and has taken one or two nervous steps.
-is just not quite confident to walk, I think she could but she's scared, and she's good at crawling so why bother!
-finally will eat off a spoon, but still prefers finger foods
-is extremely picky eater and basically eats the same thing everyday despite my efforts
-drinks whole milk like its no big deal (one question...did anyone else's kids poo get more runny when you made the switch from formula to milk? Also the colour is much lighter than her formula poo....?)
-has 7 teeth and the 8th on the way
-says mama....mostly when she's whining
-babbles all the time. She is LOUD!
-loves books. All books. They taste good...oh and the flaps on the peekaboo books are so fun to rip off! ha ha! She loves turning the pages and pointing at stuff in the books and listening to us read them. My little literary buff.
-sleeps great at night 8pm-7am
-takes 2 naps. one around 9:30 for about an hour and one around 2:15 for about 1 to 1.5 hours. All sleeping is in the crib.
-HATES the car. Screaming battles in the car are always guaranteed.
-HATES the stroller. I'm lucky if I get 10 minutes of peace when I attempt to walk with her in the stroller. My left bicep is huge. Carrying her is getting very difficult as she is definitely atleast 20 pounds now!
-will hopefully (fingers crossed that all goes well and i'm not jinxing anything by putting this out there....) be a BIG SISTER in August 2012!!!!

What a wonderful year it has been!!!

xoxo LTB
-

Woah!!!

Slow down world! How is it possible that baby A is almost 1 YEAR OLD??? Where the heck has the time gone! She is so amazing and learning every day. I often find myself wishing "she could walk", or "she could talk" but then I look back at all that she has learned in her short 11 months and I feel so guilty for wishing the time away! I honestly would be happy if she would stay at this cute, smiley, crawling, cruising, getting in to everything age forever! So much fun!

Lots going on over here in the last month. I'm a bit overwhelmed with everything actually. Here are a few highlights:

1. We bought a house. Outside of the city. We bought a beautiful home Oakville (a suburb of Toronto). It is very close to the GO Train, which means my husband can easily take the train to work and avoid traffic. It will take him about 30 minutes to get to work. Not too bad considering the subway ride if we bought within the city would be almost equivalent...and grosser! I never thought I'd want to leave the city. I love our condo downtown. Then we had a baby...and got lots of baby stuff...and need more space! Like...lots more space! A yard is going to be fantastic. But I'm scared. I will no longer have everything at my fingertips. I'll have to use the car more. I have no friends in Oakville. I have no job in Oakville....which brings me to my second highlight.

2. I resigned from my teaching job. I am going to stay home with Alexandra for atleast another 9 months. The school I worked at was not near the GO station in Toronto, so the commute for me would be way too much. Not worth it. So, we decided that since we are fortunate enough to be able to have me stay home, I will do it...for a while. I'm nervous about not having a job. I loved my job. But I also love being home. And I was scared shitless about the stress of going back to work...let alone finding daycare! We were on 2 lists for a year and did not get a spot! And if day care is going to cost us $1700 a month (INSANITY!) it almost seems ridiculous to go back to work. I'd be working for pennies! So, I will likely look for work in our new town for next September...unless we are expecting another baby...which brings me to highlight #3!

3. We are back in the throws of fertility treatments. I fully weaned Alexandra about 3 weeks ago and yesterday I went back to my fertility clinic and got my meds. Yesterday i did my first injection for this cycle. We will be doing an IUI once/if my follicles grow nicely and we get a good egg ready for baby making! Please cross your fingers for us!

So....that's what I'm up to. I am still reading all of your blogs but besides dealing with the above, and now selling our condo (major pain in the ass!!!) and also working on my masters in math...I am having a hard time blogging and commenting! But I am here, and I am following you all!

xo LTB

Happy Halloween from my little pumpkin!

Update

I feel so in touch with the blog world because I read blogs ALL THE TIME! Yet for some reason I never drum up the energy to do my own posts. :( Bad blogger.

Alexandra is now 9 1/2 months old. She is doing great. Getting really big and really active. She has been crawling for over a month now and she now cruises everywhere along furniture, climbs up steps, walks pushing her little walker-car-thing, and is generally into everything. This kid can not sit still. She is not a cuddly one at all. Sometimes I'm sad and wish she would just cuddle in my arms but she will not sit still for a second. She's also very tempermental. Either very happy and smiley or super pissed off. She's always been like that so I guess that's just her. She can go from a huge smile to a crying mess and back to giggles within a matter of seconds! I'm definitely anticipating an emotional teenager!!

She loves playing with other kids. She hates being home alone with just mom. BORING! We go out everyday for a play date, otherwise the whining would just kill me. Good thing I have a big network of mom friends to keep me company while the kids play. There are also a lot of awesome coffee shops nearby that cater to babies/kids and have big play areas with mats and toys and slides and swings etc. Very handy!

Alexandra has 2 teeth now and by the amount of snot and drool that is coming out of that kid I swear there are more on the way but I can't spot any. We don't go to the doctor this month but if I had to guess I would say she is 18 pounds. Getting heavy to carry (and unfortunately for me she still hates the stroller). My left bicep is huge.

In my last post I talked about weaning. Well, now is the time i'm going to get serious about it. I went back to the fertility doctor today and we are good to go with trying for a second as soon as I wean her! I had blood and baseline ultrasound done today and when I want to start my protocol (menopur injections and IUI) I just call and we begin! Crazy!

I am currently nursing Alexandra in the morning, before her afternoon nap and at night. I give her two bottles of formula a day. One with lunch and one with dinner. I'm thinking that I will next cut out the feeding before her afternoon nap. I don't think I will be ready to fully wean her for a while (a month...or 2? ) but maybe in November we will be ready to start the meds. It is exciting and scary to think about the possibility of a second baby! I really hope to give Alexandra a sibling (or 2 ...or 3!) but atleast I have her no matter what!

Anyways, my teething angel is waking from her nap and sounding miserable (wish me luck! ooooohhhh the whining!!!!! Argh!) , here's a pic of my girl on the go!


BEEP BEEP!!!

Weaning

I thought I wanted to nurse Alexandra for a year and then switch her directly to milk in a sippy cup, thus skipping the formula and bottle all together. Well, I'm having second thougths on that. I want to continue to give her some breast milk until atleast a year but I am feeling like such a prisoner and am ready for her to take a bottle. Until last week, my girl had NEVER taken a bottle. Utter refusal. And so, I have NEVER been away from her for longer than 3 hours when I went to get my hair done ONCE. Other than that it has been max 2 hours apart. In 9 months. That's a long time. Now, that she is crawling (yes...at 8.5 months that girl was off to the races!), sitting in my lap is SO. NOT. FUN! She is squirming and not interested in nursing. But the problem is that she is not interested in eating solid food either. Or bottles. In the past week I have been trying to get her to take breast milk or formula from a bottle once a day. I have some success when she is strapped in her carseat and I sit in the back with her. Or when she is really sleepy, but then she does this weird nursing/sipping the bottle thing. Probably not good. I should just put my boob away! I also decided to cut out night feedings completely since she was not eating during the day. That has been surprisingly successful and this weekend she actually slept from 8 pm to 8am without waking! (actually... not entirely true...when I cut out night feeds I introduced a dream feed around 1130pm so that if she wakes at night I can rest easy knowing that her tummy is full, she doesnt' wake for the dream feed though and I wish I had started that months ago!) So, this is major progress from the multiple wakings to nurse I was having just 2 weeks ago!

Most of this post is just my babbling, but I wan to know from others who have weaned, are weaning...how do you do it ? Did you cut out one feed and replace it with a bottle? Which feed is the best/easiest one to cut out? Cold turkey? Easier for you or dad to give bottle? How do you know how many ounces to give? She doesn't seem to ever want more than 2 or 3 ounces and I read about babies wanting 8 ounce bottles! Also, would love to hear how much solid food other babies are eating. she was eating a ton! but when she started crawling and got her first tooth all in the same week her appetite disappeared. Now we are lucky if we can get her to eat a couple cubes of squash and a butt ton of cheerios a day. She is obsessed with cheerios. That is one food she will always eat!

anyways, would love any advice! Hope you all had a great long weekend!

LTB