School days

We had N's first parent teacher conference last week and I think it went really well. We were glad to hear that he is doing well in school and is proving to be a leader and a bit of a rule follower. He will remind the other kids of the schedule or the teachers instructions if they aren't following along. His teacher also said that he's a cerebral kid that likes to take it all in and think things through before acting.

The kids in his class are between 3 and 5 years old so letter and number learning is part of everyday activities and not learnt through letter of the week. The teacher keeps track of what the kids know and says that N is doing really well for his age. There is one formal evaluation that she does on the kids and he was one of the only kids that got it all correct! 

N still hasn't picked a dominant hand for writing so I asked his teacher which one she saw him using more. Interestingly she said left, while we have seen him using the right more. She said that he may never pick a dominate hand and that we can hand him things at his mid line and let him pick to see if it gets more consistent.

The only area of concern is that he needs to stick up for himself a little more. She told us a story of him being pushed over by another kid and when she encouraged him to talk to the other kid he told them not to push him....with a huge smile on his face! We hope that he will get better with that as he feels more comfortable with the kids, as we've seen with a friend's little girl who used to push him around all the time. We don't want him fighting back physically but we do want him to be able to stand up for himself and not be pushed around. 

N isn't signed up for any extra curricular activities right now and hasn't been for a while. He has tried soccer, tumbling and music class but none of them really held his interest. We aren't sure if it was because of his age or a lack of interest but we ended up feeling like it was a waste of time and money. I resisted signing up for anything in the fall as he got used to school and our new work schedule but he has talked about playing soccer again so we will see. J is thinking about taking him to try out karate so maybe that will be something he will enjoy and I often wonder if he would like gymnastics with all the jumping and tumbling he does. It's hard to know which activity he will like, especially when all he seems to want to do is stay home and play with his toys! 

After hunting them down we finally got his class pic. We weren't that impressed, but it does make him look very grown up already! 

Halloween

N couldn't make up his mind which costume he wanted to wear this Halloween so he ended up in 3 different ones. 3 days before Halloween he started saying that he wanted to be a mouse...but sadly I couldn't come up with a mouse costume without more notice so told him he needed to pick from the mountain of dress up clothes we have at home.

For school he was a dragon who spent lots of time growling at the other kids and staff. I tagged along to watch  the school parade and then helped with his class party afterwards. His class doesn't get to participate in the parade which is at least an hour long. The kids in kindergarten through 8th grade follow the band into town and along Main Street before looping back to school. It's quite a walk for the little ones so they got to trick or treat around school instead and I was surprised by the loot he got.

The party was fun. They made a little pumpkin beanbags, which were so cute and easy to do thanks to the sewing one of the other moms did and had a snack. Before I knew it the morning was over and we had a quick lunch before getting the big girl and bringing her to the Drs for her physical. Why yes, I am the mean nanny that schedules appts on Halloween! She wasn't happy about missing recess and was even unhappier when I took her back to school after her appointment! :-)

We ran a few errands and before we knew it were back at school to pick up the big kids. It was back to their house to change into costume number 2 for N and trick or treat with the kids for a while. N and the big boy had matching transformer costumes for this round. We only trick or treated 3 places but it was certainly not your ordinary trick or treat. First we went to the kids great aunt's house and then headed to the farm to visit the horses and then the cows! We've done the horse barn in previous years but the cow barn was a first this year. The kids love to get involved with milking but were all about the candy this time.

After dropping the kids off with their parents for more trick or treating N and I headed home to meet Mommy, change costumes and met our neighbours to trick or treat our street. There are about 10 houses on our street so it's the perfect number and we spent an hour walking around collecting lots of candy before the rain came. This time N was his favorite superhero Iron Man, minus the mask. 

He got so much candy and we had lots of leftovers as we didn't get that many trick or treaters here. We were actually surprised that the bowl we left out still had some in it when we came back from trick or treating with N. Now I am slowly working my way through it all.....It's so much fun to see N getting more into the holidays this year. He is already adding things to his Christmas list daily so Santa will have plenty of ideas this year :-)

Big week!

It's been a big week in our household. After far too many years of waiting I finally have my green card. It was a complicated process with lots of paperwork and a scary interview where we had to prove we 'live as husband and wife (had to let that one go, this time)' but it all was worth it in the end. I can stop looking over my shoulder all the time and I guess it means we really are staying in the US!

We also got marriage equality in our state on Monday! I was a little surprised that Christie gave up without more of a fight but the writing was definitely on the wall. It was a fight that he had little chance of winning and sadly he has bigger goals that I'm hoping he's not successful with.

The death of my Nanny last month has put the fire under me to get back on the TTC roller coaster. I scheduled our appt with the RE for next month and lined up a sitter for N. It's strange to be technically starting at the beginning while feeling like I already know all that stuff already. We  may be using a different uterus but we've both put in our time there. Here's hoping that we will get that BFP quickly.

N is loving his new school and other than some issues with the early morning starts its going really well. He has already been in the nurses office twice so I'm hoping that this isn't a patten he plans to keep while he's at school. We are scheduling parent teacher conferences in the next couple of weeks so it will be good to hear what his teacher has to say about him. So far I've heard that he's a mellow guy that likes to assume the super hero poses on the playground!! Not sure about the mellow part but I'm not surprised about the super hero part. As stereotypical as it sounds he's all boy!! 

We feel so blessed to have him in our lives. 

Conflicted

I got the email that I find myself constantly dreading last night...

My Nanny is really sick and they are doing what they can to keep her 'comfortable.' It's been a really tough year for her. Along with her Alzheimer's diagnosis she has had partial hip replacements on both hips, countless UTIs, has huge anxiety and has been hospitalized more times than I can count. Back in the spring we were told not to expect her to make it through the weekend. My Mum flew from Spain to England to be there and I waited here for news. She was in a coma and was not showing any response even to pain. She surprised us all by pulling through and being discharged to the residential home where she lives and has continued to have ups and downs since.

I'm towards the end in the process of getting my green card (my interview is scheduled for next month) and am not able to travel which leaves me feeling very conflicted (let's not even start on the $1,700 ticket prices right now).  The sane and sensible part of me wants her to find peace. She is not happy and I don't want her to continue to suffer. But the selfish part of me wants her to keep hanging on. To just wait a little longer so that I can get home and say goodbye to her. I've already given up on my dream of having her meet J and N as I don't want N to remember her as she is now,  I'd rather that his memories of her are from the stories that I tell him. But I'd love to get the chance to say goodbye to her. To thank her for being the constant in my childhood that showed me love and affection, in a way that my parents never did. She was the only person who told me that she loved me and I know that a large part of who I am today is thanks to the time that I spent with her and my Grampy. She is the reason that I'm constantly telling N and J that I love them. Even if they find it too much at times I don't care, it's important to me that I'm sure they know.

So here I am waiting again. Apparently I will get updates by text or email........WTF parents. This is probably one of those times when a phone call would be nice. They don't do emotional stuff very well (stiff upper lip gets in the way) so it's probably the way they can avoid dealing with me being upset.
Sometimes being thousands of miles away really sucks and this is one of those times :-( 

Showers and tea

I went to the third of my friend's baby showers today. I was at the first one too, a week after our m/c. 

This one was held at a tea room and we got to enjoy a somewhat authentic high tea. The lobster bisque was amazing and the tea sandwiches....interesting. What I thought was coronation chicken was actually some kind of curried tuna, it tasted better than it sounds, but some of the others were odd. Who wants jam with their chicken salad? Or apples with the ham and cheese? A nice cheese and cucumber or cheese and pickle would have been good. The scone wasn't bad - although I missed the raisins that I remember my Nan putting in hers. And I had to request milk for my tea, they only had honey and sugar on the tables. I don't know a single Brit who puts honey in their PG Tips or Tetleys! 

Anyway...baby showers are interesting things especially when you are still dealing with a loss. The first shower I strategically placed myself with a woman who doesn't have kids and my friend's stuffy, older in-laws. We didn't talk about kids, only work and travel. I made it through the food and the gifts, feeling proud of myself for holding it together. Was just getting ready to leave when I heard that a friend of ours is expecting her third. She has a 2 year old and an almost 1 year old. In the time we have been trying for number 2, she's already on 3. That tipped me over the edge and I got into my car after and cried all the way back to work. Driving while crying that hard is not recommended, but I was running late and needed to pick up the big boy and bring him to a friend's house. 

 

There was no crying after today's shower but it was still hard to deal with. Today there were 6 women (and 3 little girls), all of us mothers or mothers to be. The talk was all about kids, pregnancy and birth. I got asked THE question  - 'so are you guys going to have any more?' I've come to hate that question and I think I always pause before I answer it with one of my stock answers. 'We'd like to.' Or 'we're talking about it.' I use my stock answers because they are the acceptable ones, the ones people want to hear, without details that will make them uncomfortable and ones that won't piss off my wife. But I also feel guilty for using them. I'm denying that those BFP's ever happened. Saying that those babies never existed, even if they were only there for all to brief a time. J would say that I tend to over share, telling people things they don't need to know and she's probably right, but I guess I just feel that by not saying anything I'm taking away from that fact that those babies were loved, so wanted and will never be forgotten. We planted 2 new trees after our m/c last year, we call them our 'baby trees' for more reasons then many people will ever know.  

Calm after the storm

Thanks for the support and sorry for the silence. Things haven't been easy over here and I was staying away from the blog because it would have been seriously depressing!!!

Loosing the pregnancy was definitely the hardest thing we have been through personally and together as a couple. We don't handle these things the same way and for a while there we just couldn't get on the same page. It felt like we couldn't be around each other, didn't seem to like each other and I have to admit there were times that I wasn't sure we would get through it. But we did and are in such a good place right now that we are enjoying each other way more than we have for a long time ;-)

As far as TTC goes J is officially done and any future baby will be coming from me. We don't really have a timeline but we have started looking for a donor, I cracked open the fertility drawer (everyone has one right?) and started using the fertility monitor. 

I really want to loose a few lbs,  give up caffeine -my morning cuppa :-( and cut down on the addiction I have to sugar in my diet before I get pregnant. More than any of that I have to work through some mental stuff before we start trying. I have a big distrust/dislike of Drs and am not excited by all the stuff I have to go through to get that BFP - if there were a way we could do it ourselves I'd be all over it, (I'm already easing J into the idea of a home birth) but I know that our chances are higher if we go the monitored doctor route. The biggest issue that I'm working through is fear. I'm scared that I might miscarry too. I know that it may not happen to me, but there are no guarantees and right now I feel like it's a huge gamble. We watched our friend m/c just the other day, there is no rhyme or reason as to why or to whom it happens and because we shared about ours loss we are hearing about other people's more often. Learning that it happens more often than you know and just isn't talked about. I don't know if I or we can handle another loss and really don't want to find out.

While we were on the beach last weekend I asked J if she ever thought we were pushing our luck by TTC and maybe should be one and done. She said that even with everything she's been through that had never come up for her. That she wants N to have a sibling and from working in education sees what only children are like and doesn't want that for him. I want him to have a sibling too, but also wonder about what we are taking from him by having another child and about the ever growing age gap that will be between our children. I never imagined having children 4 or more years apart. I'm the worrier in our relationship...can you tell? 

I do really want to have a baby and get to experience pregnancy and childbirth so know that at some point I will have to take that leap and trust that everything will work out! 

guilt, grief and the miles between us

Every morning I wake and remember that there will not be a Christmas baby in our house. The heaviness hits my heart so hard that it's hard to breathe. Hard to get out of bed and harder still to go about every day things as if all this crap isn't happening to us. But we have a 3 year old, jobs and a house to run that make it impossible not to keep trudging on.

I know that it's early days and that time is a great healer but I feel like this time is the worst one yet. Maybe because we paid for the PGD and knew that we were transferring genetically healthy embryos. Or maybe it's because we knew the sex of those embryos that it seems to feel so much harder. To me that baby had an imagined identity already and we'd already been throwing around name ideas. All those hopes and dreams that went along with that baby are gone...just like that.

People deal with grief very differently, J and I are no exceptions there. She likes to put her head down, keep busy and get on with everything. I'm much more emotional and want to scream, shout and cry. Ask the pointless question of 'why?' 'Why us?' 'Why this baby?' Questions that we may never know the answers too....

We told very few people about the pregnancy so don't have lots to untell like we did last year. But it also means that people have no clue what we are going through - no idea why we don't want to go to this party or that baby shower.... Miscarriage is not something that is talked about very openly. Our neighbour had one the weekend of N's birthday and was almost apologetic when she told me about it - tried to brush it off, based on the response that she had gotten for others. We had already guessed that was the reason they didn't make it to N's birthday. But would that have been our guess if we hadn't already been through 2 at that point....probably not.

I feel very guilty that J is going through this again - facing her 3rd procedure and walking around still technically pregnant even tho we know the baby's heart isn't beating any more. She was alone when she found out the baby was gone. I was at work with N and was so sure that it would be ok, although I was disappointed not to go, I didn't think it would turn out the way it did...not this time.
I have no idea how she managed to drive from that appt to get N and then pretended that everything was ok - lied to me that it was. Until my work day was done and I got home. At first I thought she was joking, couldn't believe what she was telling me, then it sunk in and the tears started. I feel needy and want to be held while I cry for our lost baby. She can't go there yet, it's too soon for her so I feel the miles between us so acutely right now. We retreat to our own corners as we try to deal with it. Coming together occasionally but mostly apart - trying not to upset each other as we tip toe around our own house, around our 3 year old who we have no idea how much he understands. I told him that we wouldn't be getting a new baby after all. That the baby in mommy's tummy had died. That mommy and mama are sad. He only has a vague understanding of what death means and moved on quickly so who knows what he got from the conversation.