My Lady of the Lantern

This is about a boy I haven't met. An ex-colleague/friend of my hubby got married a couple of years back. We could not attend the wedding. His wife had a son about a week off from their first wedding anniversary. He phoned us to tell about his new son, but there wasn't much communication between us after that. That boy, their only child, is now a little over two years old. And he has been diagnosed with a disease, where the doctors are talking of 'quality of life' rather than recovery. Simply put, there is no known cure to that dy.strophy. I am at a complete loss of words. That fellow mailed me his son's reports to see if I can get any references from SuperPed of good doctors, anybody...but so far, it is all in a discussion stage. What do you say? What thoughts you offer to a child who can't be saved? - - - - - - If you remember CBub's birth (and death story) , I added a tiny detail of someone who lost their son in-utero about a week before I gave b...

The Last Update was here ... - Figlia has umbil.ical hernia - not painful, harmless and likely to correct itself out. - She has started holding her head more steady. - On her back, she turns her neck to either directions. On her belly, she is able to lift, turn and position her head. - Figlia turns on her belly while sleeping (if I have laid her on one of her sides), and I realized that she naps longer on her belly - momma gene? - She turns clockwise and anti-clockwise while sleeping. - We are now sucking the back of our palms, putting fingers inside our mouth - she has been doing that anyways. - She has a stronger afternoon naptime schedule. She wakes up for feeds in between, but that's her call. I do not have to wake her up for feeds. - She fidgets a lot while sleeping. I can sense her stirring, and sometimes she makes noises like she is awake, but she will promptly go back to sleep after that. - She calls out if she thinks she is alone in the room. She loves someone ta...

Yeah, it must be warming you to read that post title. It warms me, for sure. I did report a sleep-related incident that happened recently, where my patience gave in. But I have been observant for another trend that seems to be now gaining strength, and I did not want to say it till it actually looked like a solid trend. Nadine told me that Figlia would either learn to sleep, or I would learn to live with the sleep-deprivation. Well, it seems both of us are making inroads into that territory. As I have previously mentioned, Figlia does nap after her massage and bath....earlier, it could be a couple of hours....now it lasts for four hours! The difference now though is that she takes two feeds, on an average, while this afternoon naptime is on...but I am glad that she shuts her eyes and goes back to sleeping once the feed is done. As far as the main woe of nighttime sleeping is considered, Figlia's first stretch of sleep at night is the longest, and then she would be singing lark...

She was still a little groggy from sleep, a little hungry, and stripped down to her diaper. I wanted to dress her, but decided to take care of the little grumpiness by feeding her first. I lay her on my lap, she fed a bit, and then stopped. She just lay there...I wrapped her fleece blanket a little closer to her, and slipped her in my blanket. I gently rubbed her skin a bit, and she seemed so content. She wrapped her right hand tightly around my left thumb. She watched me - expressionless. She moved her gaze away. It was a powerful moment that just came to be. It was a moment of love. I was swelling with the need to protect her and keep her warm, to love this little being and just revelling at the idea of her being mine. We stayed close for quite a while....it was a long moment. Mothers are fierce. Mothers are gentle. For more perfect moments, please visit Lori .

Currently traveling with Figlia seems to be a tremendous task. Going out for a walk is one thing, but going out for social dos is another thing. There seems to be giant appendages of diaper bags and such things travelling with her. But the luggage is not my sad thing. One thing I am fiercely protective of is, her sleep. If I am out in the afternoon with her, consider the post-bath afternoon nap curtailed. If I go out in the evening, the car trip is where she covers on her sleep, and the first night nap can be counted out of question, unless I am lucky. I am very uncomfortable taking her anywhere. Till there is some pattern (there is a new one emergent, will talk of it in another post) that solidly forms, I feel better to keep her where both she and I are comfortable. I am still living night to night - wondering what tonight will bring in terms of sleep. And I swaddle. And my host for lunch today decided to open Figlia's swaddle (I had gone to her kitchen for a glass of water) ...

We had been in touch with SuperPed much before I gave birth. The entire history of what had happened last time was clear to him, and we wanted to be prepared. SuperPed, the OT staff, and the NICU staff are the reasons behind my daughter's well-being post-birth. Figlia was born a week and a day later (in gestational age vis-a-vis her sister), and that's why we escaped the fruit of prematurity that CBub had to endure - P.DA (which is not fatal in itself but it complicated stuff)... but she had aspirated the amniotic fluid, just like her elder sister...( why does that phrase somehow take me to Gone With the Wind....just like Papa? ) Anyways, as soon as Figlia was out, SuperPed was all 'go go go'....making sure no time was lost in taking care of the neonate. He came to see me everyday, even when Figlia was in NICU. He updated me on what was up with her. The fact that I had been physically able to meet my daughter the day post-C section kept me sane. The evening he came ...

Much of the baby stuff especially clothes that Figlia has is either a hand-me-down or a gift. In fact, she has received the whole lot of former to suit her current needs, and she has a lot of the latter in sizes beyond her current age. And then one lady gave me stuff...in tiny lots, again. Then again. And another tiny lot - again. Ugh! I should just leave City X for the fact that if I continue to be here, Figlia would receive and keep receiving stuff from her cousins who are obviously going to get older year after year and turn out clothes they no longer fit in. Also, this too much stuff means that I don't want to purchase any more clothes, which I actually want to...but can see enough of it in the room already... 98 percent of the hand-me-downs that came my way were in good condition. The ones that seemed a little off? I have already disposed of them. And I look at the incredible amount of baby stuff that is now housed in my room. I came to UsualCity with very limited luggage...

If this were on twitter, I would have tagged it as #badmommamoment ... Okay I am not going to moan the sleep part again, except that Tuesday night saw us awake till 1:40 (approx) in the night...no going into patterns of usual sort, just drinking milk, crying, peeing and staying awake. I expected the sleep to commence anytime after 9 o'clock...then 10, 11, 12, 1 came by...I was dead tired, and could not keep my eyes open. She did not want to sleep, and did not want to laid down on the bed. We just wanted to be held and fed. I am going to say this. And I know that this won't be easy to hear. I snapped. She was on my lap, and was busy kicking her blanket off - again and again. After the last whiny cry, I kind of threw the blanket on her. Then I proceeded to fix and hold the blanket on the bed and partially on my lap with my palms. I just couldn't take it. The blanket didn't stay, and there was crying. I finally swaddled her, and asked my mum to take her. Mummy was sn...

My IVF attempt was sacred to me. It was like the ultimate fishing net I had cast in the ocean in the hope of a catch. When I had my embryo transfer back in 2008, in my lone IVF/ICSI cycle, they gave me a pic...of three embabies supposedly nestled in my uterus. I kept that picture in my bag. The attempt 'failed'...in fact, for a while, and sometimes now too, I consider it a miscarriage.  If you read my posts from after the episode, that word has figured in the text. The status of the outcome of that procedure was always suspect in my mind. And because I like to trust my instincts, I have accepted the dubiousness of it. When I am all rational, I label it implantation failure. Otherwise, it is a 'maybe' in my mind. Anyways, after the failure, I would randomly pop out that singular picture of the embryos that was in my bag. My bags changed, the picture remained. Initially, the reason was 'oh my bleeding heart', and then it somehow became a default. Then the pict...

I am not a member of the Healing Salon. Go here if that is where you intend to be. I am writing this post 98 percent for my own sake. I can't answer all the questions. Somehow, I feel like a culprit having joined PAIL. The entire thought of divisiveness for me on Mel's post was not because of what Mel wrote , but because people seemed to be either attacking or defending....there you go, we were definitely standing at opposite sides. I wrote two comments on her post, and I am going to place them in toto here: I am not reading the comments on this post, before I opine (But I am itching to do so.) I went on PAIL…but I did not really mean to offend or create some alternative universe for myself. I am happy being on your blogroll (I think I am listed under unexplained infertility). Or I am listed by my old moniker/blog. I have never felt alienated because I am now mothering. Never. I never left reading blogs because the authors were pregnant or parenting, and I think that wi...

The camera intentionally points away from the 'talker'. This is how we communicate when we are in the playful mode. And the talker is two months old today. :-)

So, I met She again recently. Before anything, let me just add two dots to the discussion. First, Figlia was tall (she could definitely compete with her cousins) enough at birth. And second, Figlia was an odd 70 gms heavier than the kid in question (at birth). I was changing Figlia's clothes, and she told me that her daughter never wore clothes that small. In fact, her daughter started with clothes meant for 6 month olds! (I think my daughter is not doing too well considering that close to 8 weeks old she is wearing 0 - 3 month size.) I reacted spontaneously. Just too spontaneously. I started laughing on She's face. " That's not possible ", I said. By this time, She was turning defensive, " She was very long! " I continued laughing while She seemed to not like my disbelief. She left the room. -- After She left the room, I wondered if it was now going to get difficult to be around She? Especially when it came to ' my kid the genius '...

A lady who happens to be an acquaintance came by in early-Feb to meet me and see the new baby. I was still struggling hard with the sleep-deprivation, and on that topic spoke to her. She has a 5+ year old, and she seemed to understand. And I told her that it must be so good to see her daughter grown and out of these issues. It must be nice to be able to sleep a whole night. She told me one thing - 'There are new challenges to every milestone the child hits' . They are simple words, but they immediately struck a chord with me. And even though sleep remains the issue, I know that tomorrow sleep might stop being the thing, and new issues would start emerging. Looking at things as greener in the future, was undermining my current stance over this problem. The baby turning over, crawling, grasping at things, putting stuff in the mouth, learning to stand, and walk and run, and there would be new things to deal with. So I might think her position is so awesome as compared to mine,...

Figlia decided after her last feed of the night, that it was time to play. It was 10:43 in the night. I was shot. I phoned my mum (currently we live in the same house, why yes, the same floor) and she held/fed/made her go to sleep. I handed the baby, turned on my belly, and promptly went to sleep. I haven't slept well on my tummy in a long time, and I did it. I was woken up at 2 o'clock by her, my feeding duty had started. Today morning, I did ask my mum if I woke up in between. I did actually, but I have no memory. So I have 3 and a half hours of sleep on the record for last night. - - - - Just wondering, when does this 'make a routine for her' begin to happen? I am currently just adjusting mine to hers. That's all I seem to be doing. - - - - What is your diapering philosophy? Do you have a strict schedule, as in changing the baby compulsorily after an interval? Figlia can't be held in those store-bought swaddle blankets...they are easy-peasy to kic...

Just wanted to share something really interesting....how about bleeding returning a week after it's over...and hey, how about it being Aafra Faafra! Yeah, hi! I am Elsie, and I got my periods back! Super! Forget the breastfeeding and all that, my uterus is all normal-o now! All normal-o! Before you say, Boo, and oh my, how has this happened, I will admit that the reason this has happened happens to be me. I could not handling the post-partum bleeding, especially when the blindsiding /midnight fun episodes happened. I could not see myself going through and bearing the flow, like I did last year (these very months), and hoping my body would hold it down. I went on a medication. My medication was tapered down in tune with the reducing flow to spotting to nada. And even though I had not quite finished and gone off it, my body decided to do the monthly jumperoo. My periods are back. And I am not mentally prepared for it. I can't handle bleeding. I am not saying it is over the...

I was trying booties on Figlia's feet - a hand-me-down from a cousin. And I realized that I have no recollection of CBub's feet. I just don't know how they were. Somewhere in the recent past, I have referred flimsily to the fact that someone confused CBub's pic for that of Figlia's. And then,on another day, I was told that I now had CBub back. I have another daughter. But she is Figlia, and not CBub. CBub is gone. It is like this. There is a park with two swings....Figlia can sit on one, and the other will remain empty. She can change the swing, but that would leave the previous one empty. There is no way Figlia will fill both of them for me, and still fit well in them. That park is my mind . If I were to think that Figlia was CBub come back to me, it would put tremendous weight on her shoulders...she would be living for me the life of her sister when she should be celebrated for what she is - another individual. Had CBub been alive, I would have had two daug...