Month: September 2010

if this doesn’t confuse him, nothing will

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

How in the world will baby Theodore ever learn his name when he has so many?

Itty Bitty Boo (my husband is Big Boo…I’m Little Boo, so this one emerged when I was pregnant)

“Buddy” and variations:
 – Little Buddy
 – Bud
 – Bubs
 – Bub-Bub
 – Bubsy
 – Bubsers
 – Bubsy Wubsy
 – Bubberton

“Sweet Pea” and variations:
 – Sweet Pete
 – Sweet Peezus
 – Sweetie Petey
 – Sweetie Bee-bee

“Sugar” and variation:
 – Sugie

“Theo” and variations of Theodore and Theodore Jack:
 – T-Doh’
 – T-O
 – Theodoh’ (Thee-uh-doh’)
 – Theodorable
 – T-Jack
 – TJ
 – The “O”
 – Theus
 – Theo Leo
 – Theo-doe-doe
 – T

Poor kid.  (Um, that’s not one of the nicknames…just my final thought.)

~C~

to cry or not to cry? sigh…

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest


By the time Theo was 10 weeks old, we could count on him sleeping through the night.  All we had to do was feed him, rock him for a few minutes, and lay him in his bed.  He was out like a light from 9pm-7am.  We were feeling pretty confident about our awesome routine and how well he was adhering to it.  


Around the time Theo hit 4 months, a couple of things happened.  First, I learned through work about a baby who was born 5 days before Theo who was a rule-following back sleeper.  He was placed on his belly at the babysitter and ended up becoming hypoxic and nearly died.  He had seizures and suffered irreversible brain damage and will forever be a different baby, child, and adult.  And that was the end of Theo sleeping on his belly.  

His adjustment to back sleeping was fair to good.  Better than expected, I guess.  There were a few rough nights but it was less than a week and he was sleeping through the night again.  Just when we thought things were back on track, he started teething.  Life has never been the same.  

He started waking up repeatedly throughout the night whimpering and whining.  We would put his pacifier back in his mouth and he would easily fall back asleep.  And the hubby would go back to sleep.  But me?  When I wake up in the night, I am on high alert.  Since I had Theo, I can’t easily go back to sleep after he’s been awake.  I think it’s anxiety that as soon as I go to sleep I will have to get up again, which is even more exhausting than just staying awake.  

But for the last two months, Theo is needing more and more attention to get back to sleep.  Rocking.  Singing.  Bouncing.  Pacifier replacements.  All of this is fine at 8:30pm but not at 3am.  But we do it instead of letting him cry because it’s faster.  Lately, it hasn’t been working.  This is where we are now…

Last week I decided to try a modified version of “crying it out,” also known as Ferberizing, which involves going into his room at set intervals and saying the same thing to him so he is reassured, but never picking him up.  The first night, it went so much smoother than I expected.  He cried, which didn’t amount to much more than moaning and groaning, for about 25 minutes and then he went to sleep.  The next night, it was bloody murder and I picked him up.  The next night it was bloody murder and I picked him up and ended up nursing him.  So much for Ferber. Then he started throwing the bloody murder screaming fits during the day.  We have been averaging 4 hours of sleep a night with Theo’s ups and downs.  Tonight, I stuck to my guns and let him cry again.  I checked on him every 5-6 minutes for an HOUR.  It was torture for both of us.  His entire face was soaked with tears and every time I went in his room, the crying got more intense.  I knew he wasn’t hungry and he had been in a good mood all day so I was pretty certain he wasn’t in pain.

But the thing is, you can’t know that for sure.  He looks so desperate.  I want to help him be able to self-soothe.  I need to get more sleep.  But how do I know if he is in pain or if he is just so tired and he’s not getting the cuddling that he’s used to, so that makes him hysterical?  It is impossible to know and I keep going back and forth about this.  

Is it a growth spurt? Is it a behavior?  Is he in pain?  Should I pick him up?  If I do, am I reinforcing the behavior, in turn making both of our lives more difficult, or am I giving my infant the attention he needs?

No one said it would be easy.  Now I understand why.




~C~




does BD mean Baby Dance or Bed Down?

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Just wondering, because there are so many acronyms that you learn when you obsess over having a baby… anyway…

Before we were even married in 2003, DH (dear husband) and I had a ten year plan.  I don’t think we ever called it that, but we had talked about how we hoped things would play out.  I would graduate from college in 2 years.  We would start trying for a baby in 4 years, and deliver that bouncing bundle of joy in no more than 5 years, and so on and so forth…

Well, it took 4 years to graduate from college.  When we had been married four years, I had been at my job for 2 months and wouldn’t qualify for FMLA unless I worked there for 1 year at the time the baby was born.  Even then, I didn’t feel right getting pregnant at the same time I was just getting my feet wet with my new social work-y, super stressful job.  Not to mention the fact that we. just. weren’t. ready.

After 5 years, we started talking about it and decided that we would start TTC (trying to conceive) in the Fall of ’08, because, well, wouldn’t it be lovely to give birth in the Summer of ’09?  We could put little sunbonnets on our newborn baby and life would be all daisies and butterflies.

The Fall of ’08 rolled around and I heard about an Aflac disability policy that would mean I could get paid a nice little chunk of change for my maternity leave, so I signed up.  Problem:  You could give birth no less than 10 months after the policy activated.  Of course, to be safe, it seemed like the responsible (and non-money-wasting) thing to do to wait 2 months instead of 1, just in case said baby was born 4 weeks early.  Because naturally, I was going to conceive the very first try.

With the way things worked out, we ended up not being able or ready to start ttc until late November 2008.  Not too shabby…just in time for that Summer ’09 babe.  I had thought of all kinds of cute ways to announce at Christmas to the in-laws and my family that we were expecting and knock their baby booties off with the surprise.  Two days before Christmas… AF (aunt Flo).  And of course she was 4 days late, just to be a wench.

No big deal, must have just been a fluke.  Our timing was off or something.  You know, because, you’ve spent your ENTIRE adult life trying NOT to get pregnant so it seems like the first time you have totally unprotected sex, BOOM!  Knocked up.  Uh uh.

January:  BFN (big fat negative), AF showed up
February:  lots of BFNs because AF didn’t show up at all
March: BFN, AF.
April: BFN, AF.
May: BFN, AF.
June: BFN, AF.  And lots of crying because it had been 7 months since we started TTC and nothing.  This was supposed to be easy.  It’s what a woman’s body is biologically created to do, right?  Six unsuccessful cycles and trust me, we weren’t just “winging it,” we were taking advantage of just about every product on the market that is intended to increase fertility and chances of getting that ever-evasive BFP (getting the hang of this?). 

I researched fertility on the internet.  I talked to my doctor.  I read forums and Yahoo! Answers.  I bought books about fertility.  And then a friend bought me the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which is all about charting your ass off and taking your temperature every day, etc.  I won’t go into the ooey gooey (heh heh) details of it all, but I started charting.  Coincidence or not, I don’t know, but …

July ’09: BFP!!!!

The day we found out was the day after our 6th wedding anniversary and I kicked myself for not obsessively taking the test the day before I was technically supposed to, like I had every month before.  I was in shock and disbelief.

It was 8 months from the time we started trying until we got that BFP and it felt like a lifetime.  Every month was full of anticipation and heartbreak, followed by growing feelings of desperation.  And we were still in the “normal” range of how long it takes a couple to conceive.  I cannot imagine struggling with fertility for years on end like some folks we have known.  I was already trying to decide if fertility treatments were in our future and if that was the road we would choose if we were unable to conceive on our own.  I had received some disappointing news from my doctor when I had labs done and had begun to give up.  Already….after 6 unsuccessful cycles!  I feel for those who have to try for a long time to get pregnant, because once you have that desire in your heart, you can’t turn it off.

My pregnancy story to come at a later date…

~C~