Happy Halloween!

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The Chooch’s First Word

Choochie’s first birthday was two days ago, and I had a plan to write the big “We survived the First Year” post, complete with thoughtful, funny, and decidedly not-boring reflections on the past year and all the ways in which this lovely baby has changed my life.  I was going to tell you about how she has developed a personality, and preferences, interests, and even a few skills (not many, but a few).  But life is busy, and it got really busy this week with class and work and my Mom visiting for the Big Day, and planning for (and pulling off!) various celebratory activities, so the post never happened.

Fortunately, something more interesting did.  The Chooch said her first word.  (We think.)

Just to be clear, she’s been making noises and sounds for quite awhile now.  I think we’ve heard all the vowels and many consonants in a variety of combinations.  She’s even said “Dada” to Josh and “Mama”  to me and looked at her bottle and said “Baba”.  However, these words happen inconsistently, and she’s also Da’ed at the chair or a toy, or Ma’ed at the cat or her shoe, and so we didn’t count the few times that she got it right as words.  According to our rules, saying a word means saying the right word at the right object (and not other objects) on more than one occasion.  Not surprisingly, we thought for sure that her first word would be Dada or Mama.

Wrong.

Her first word was “Eeeee!”  Now, Eeeee! might not seem like a word, but you must consider that it was directed at EeBee.  EeBee was a birthday gift from some dear friends, and Choochie’s affection for this plush doll was quite a shock to Josh and me.  Chooch has expressed little or no interest in any stuffed animals or dolls until the arrival of EeBee.  I must confess that my initial reaction upon opening the package was, “Great.  Another toy that Choochie will completely ignore.  It has no zippers or buttons or snaps or straps, and it’s not even wearing shoes.”  (The Chooch’s interest in shoes is consistent and long-standing.)  The thing is, she loves it.  Really loves it.  She grabs it around the neck, squeezes it, and drags it around.  After Josh and I called it “EeBee” a few times, she began shrieking “Eeeeeee!”  (I think she even got the Beee in there a few times, but I might be wrong.)  If I asked her where EeBee was, she would crawl over to it, put it in a choke hold, and once again, “Eeeee!”

So, there you have it.  Two days after her first birthday, Choochie has her first word.  And EeBee, even though you are an “eccentric looking toy,”* Chooch loves you, so welcome to the family.**

* My mother’s description of EeBee.
** After months of trying to get Chooch attached to a small toy or blanket, it would be just my luck that she would choose a 17″ plush doll as her attachment object.  Great.  Well, it hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

The Chooch’s 1st Birthday Party

Choochie got to ring in her first birthday a little early with a family dinner tonight… and she raked in the loot, including her beloved Radio Flyer.

Admiring the first snow

A long night

The Chooch woke up last night around midnight, and didn’t really fall back asleep until about 2 am.  This is completely unheard of for her, and as a result, Josh and I were totally unequipped to deal with the situation – which is why it took us two hours of trying various interventions (snuggling, rocking, shushing, changing her diaper, etc.,) before we got her back to sleep.

The night went something like this:  Choochie cries, one of us gets up and snuggles her back to sleep (or at least a relaxed state in which her eyes are closed, she is quiet, and we are led to believe she is asleep), Chooch goes back to the crib, parent sneaks back to bed, is questioned by other parent, status update is shared, and all is quiet.  For about five minutes.  Rinse.  Repeat.  For over an hour.  In the middle of the night.

Finally, around 1:30, I decided to make her a bottle.  This may seem like an obvious step to take, and you may be wondering why I didn’t try it earlier.  No, it’s not that I was worried about creating a little monster who wakes up in the middle of the night wanting to eat.  The reason I didn’t give her a bottle earlier was because I just didn’t think of it.  I’d like to blame my stupidity on the fact that it was the middle of the night and I was half asleep, but the truth is, that’s just how I am at times.  I’m the person who will wander around in a haze of snot and headache and coughing for hours before it ever occurs to me that I should take cold medicine (and even then it’s usually Josh who reminds me.)  Sometimes I just don’t think of things.

Anyhow, back to the kid.  I take her down to the kitchen, start making the bottle, and as I’m bouncing her on my hip while I shake the bottle, she makes the tiniest little burp, stops fussing, and looks up at me through her teary eyes with a smile.  I instantly remembered a story my mom told me about my younger sister as a baby.  Apparently she had been screaming for quite a while, and nothing my mom tried soothed her at all.  My mom finally called the doctor, who agreed that perhaps they should come into the office.  As my mom was strapping her into the car seat, blerp!  My little sister emitted the most pathetic little burp and immediately stopped crying.  As I stood in the kitchen last night, I kicked myself for not thinking of it sooner.  Obviously it was the burp.

I took Chooch and the bottle back up to her room, and she fell asleep in my arms, so I put her back into her crib and tip-toed back to bed.  “It was a burp.  A tiny little burp,” I proudly informed Josh.  I felt triumphant.  For about 90 seconds, until she started screaming again.  “It’s not the burp,” Josh grumbled at me as he stumbled back into her room.

Josh gave her the bottle, which she inhaled, but I could hear her fussing for several minutes.  Finally she was quiet, and Josh came back to the bedroom.  Minutes later she was crying again.

It was my turn again, so I went back and got her.  She was fussing and uncomfortable, and my attempts to snuggle her just seemed to make things worse until she was just flat-out crying, so I decided to try something different.  I turned on the small light on the bookcase and started reading her a book.  By page 2, she had stopped crying and was riveted by the blue blueberries and blue ball and orange fish and orange towel and red shoes and red apple.  We read the book twice.  Then she laid back into my arms, fell asleep, and stayed asleep.

I have no idea what was keeping her up.  Possible suspects include teething, gas, a foreshadow of the cold that came on in full force this afternoon, or some weird developmental thing keeping her up.  I also have no idea what ultimately put her to sleep.  Was it the book?  (I know I find that particular book incredibly boring after only one read – perhaps two readings were enough to get her back to sleep.)  The bottle?  The bottle and the book?  No idea.

Speaking of boring reads, you may wonder why I just wrote an entire blog post about the Chooch being up in the middle of the night.  Well, to be honest there’s not much more going on in my life right now, and besides, that’s what parenting is – trying to solve a problem when everyone involved is exhausted, coping and problem-solving skills are low, and communication skills are essentially non-existent.  You have little or no idea what the hell is going on, so you fumble around, try one thing after another, and eventually, if you’re lucky, you stumble onto something that works, and then you stumble back into bed.

Possible Halloween costume #1: Pink fleece monster

Photographing children (and a shameless plug)

Remember that time I wrote endlessly about photographing babies?  Yeah, forget that.  Instead, check out “How to photograph children and other ways to entertain kids for half an hour” by Tobia Imbier.  (There’s a reason why she’s the professional and I’m not.)  Anyway, Tobia is a good friend of mine, and an amazing photographer.  Her advice is great, and her pictures are lovely.  You should also check out her business website, and if you’re looking for someone to shoot your children (no, not that way, silly) or family event, you should give her a ring.  She’s terrific.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my Mom’s birthday, so I’m going to tell all you loyal readers a little bit about this amazing woman (who probably just read that first sentence and laughed out loud at someone describing her as “amazing”).  Now, there are lots of things I could tell you about her, like how she makes THE BEST PASTA EVER, and does all the voices when she reads stories out loud, and has read Dante’s Inferno in the old Italian (which is actually more freakish than it is cool, but I’ll leave it in nonetheless), and busts out with stories about hiding under a bed during the Six Day War (and yes, she was in Israel at the time) and sweet-talking Mexican banditos (yes, in Mexico), and how she kept chickens in her suburban yard long before it was cool, and how when my sister and I were younger she once let us draw all over her legs with magic markers (washable, of course) and we though it was the best thing ever, and… well… you get the point. She’s awesome.  But that’s not what I want to write about today.

What I really want to write about is how my Mom has been such an important, and wonderful part of my becoming a new mother.  Mommy (yes, I still call her Mommy) is absolutely devoted to her four children and three grandchildren, and the Chooch and I are no exception.  Which leads me to my first tangent.  Awhile ago, one of my commenters asked how Chooch got her nickname.  (I do hope you all realize that “Choochie” is not my daughter’s given name.  Yes? Good.)  Well, the name came from my Mom, who was holding a fussy 3 day old baby, and as she was shushing her to sleep (as only she could do in those early days), she started calling her “Choo Choo Bella”.  The nickname stuck and has become a huge part of the lexicon in our house.  She’s the Chooch, Choochie, Chooch-a-Pooch, Choochie-Pot, Choocharina, Choocharella, and on very special occasions, Choo Choo Bellarina.  (We even have a little song based on the name, and no, we will never sing it for you, so don’t even ask.)  My mom has given just such fabulous nicknames to all of her children and pets, but if I share my sibling’s monikers with you here, they will likely never speak to me again.  And that would make me sad.

Back to the point.  My mother spent just about a month with us when the Chooch was born.  She did all of the stuff one would hope a grandmother would do when her daughter becomes a new mother – she cleaned, she cooked (oh man, did she cook), she ran errands, she held the baby while I showered, she scolded me if I was holding the baby too long and not sharing her, and most importantly, she watched (and enjoyed and discussed) endless episodes of NCIS with me.  Fine fine.  None of that is terribly interesting.  What is most interesting is what she didn’t do.

She didn’t give me any advice.

Close your gaping mouth, clean up your spilled coffee, and read it again, because it’s true.  My mother came over to help after my daughter was born, and I can honestly say I don’t think she gave me any advice.  (Ok, she did say things like, “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out” and “Well, if you’re really worried, call the doctor”.  You might call that advice.  I don’t.)  Now, it’s not because my mother doesn’t have advice to give.  She has years of experience with babies, and LOTS of opinions*, but somehow (and I have no idea how, as I have not yet mastered this skill, although I am trying) she managed not to share any of them with me, unless I asked.  If I asked, she offered her thoughts.  If I didn’t, she went off to find another Diet Coke.  Seems reasonable to me.

The advice my mother didn’t give me really set the stage for my experience of myself as a mother – it gave me the confidence I needed as I fumbled around in a haze of new mom fatigue.  The underlying message my Mom was sending me every time she kept her mouth shut was “I trust you. You can do this.”  More than anything else, that’s what I needed.  Even now, almost a year later, I know that even if I don’t know the answer to a particular parenting question (When do I start weaning the baby off her beloved bottle? When do we switch her from family day care to a proper pre-school?  What kind of warm winter coat is best?  How do I get the kid to keep mittens on?), I will figure it out, and we will both survive just fine.  It’s an amazing gift, and one that I will be grateful for for the rest of my life.

So, thanks, Mommy.  Happy Birthday, and I love you.  The Chooch and I can’t wait to see you next week!

* My Mom has given me approximately three pieces of unsolicited advice in my life.  I think they’re all fairly reasonable.
1) Don’t layer your hair.  (Keep in mind this gem came out in the 80’s, the high point of terrible layered haircuts, and long before Jennifer Aniston’s long luscious layers.)
2) Never eat in restaurants that don’t have any windows.
3) You can judge a town by the quality of its bookstores.

Follow up to my previous post

The New York Times ran a second article today about the immensely painful challenges associated with fertility treatments titled “Grievous Choice on Risky Path to Parenthood“.  I have no commentary on this one, other than to say my heart goes out to the families profiled in this article, and to all families facing this unbelievable choice.

IVF and Twins

The New York Times ran an article today about the high rate of twin births associated with IVF, and all of the related risks.  And it got me thinking… which gets me writing.

I’m not going to rehash the entire article, but it makes a few good points about why there are so many more twins and why that’s not actually a good thing (twins are much more likely to be born prematurely, which can lead to a host of short- and long-term problems).  But before I get into it, I want to say this to all of the parents who have gone through IVF and ended up with twins:

I get it.

I totally get it.  I so understand the difficulty of the decision, the desire after so many months of trying, after so many months of appointments, injections, tests, and procedures, to do anything you can do to maximize your chances of getting pregnant.  And so you hear that your chances of getting pregnant will increase if you transfer two embryos instead of one, and you know that your chances of getting pregnant with twins increases, and that having twins is risky, but then you think about all of your friends who have had healthy twins and it doesn’t seem like such a big deal.  And if you only want two kids, well, how great would it be to never have to go through IVF again?  And, if you’re paying for all of it (which Josh and I didn’t – we’re lucky enough to live in a state where fertility is covered through insurance), then the pressure is even higher.  What if it doesn’t work this time?  Will we be able to pay for it again?

Like I said, I get it.  I’ve had all of these thoughts, and more.  Josh and I really struggled with the question of how many embryos to transfer.  Our doctor would have transferred two if we had really pushed, although she strongly recommended only one.  In the end, we transferred one, and I delivered a healthy, full-term baby, for which I feel very blessed.

Anyway, back to my thoughts about the article.  It points to two financial incentives for transferring more than one embryo, one which is patient-initiated, and one which is physician-initiated.  I already mentioned several reasons why patients might want to transfer multiple embryos.  Physicians are motivated by their success rates – first, they got into the profession to help people get pregnant and have healthy babies, so they feel better when it all works.  Secondly, and more cynically, fertility clinics’ stats are public record, and fertility treatments are big money.  The more embryos transferred, the more likely you are to get a pregnancy, the better the clinic looks, the more patients seek treatment there.  Despite the guidelines of several national organizations discouraging multiple births (as noted in the article), fertility docs keep transferring multiple embryos.

So, what can we do about this?  First, this is yet another reason why we need serious health care reform (and, in my perspective, a public option plan, but let’s not focus on that here).  If fertility treatments were covered by insurance, patients wouldn’t feel compelled to transfer multiple embryos because of an inability to pay for a second IVF round if the first one didn’t work.  Furthermore, the cost of a single IVF treatment pales in comparison to the astronomical costs associated with taking care of premature babies, both in the immediate aftermath of birth and in the long-term.

Secondly, although I do appreciate that doctors need to earn a living, and I do believe that most doctors make decisions based on their patients’ well-being, I also think that doctors are only human.  Thus, I think fertility doctors who have high rates of multiple transfers need to review and re-evaluate their practices and procedures.  Perhaps they are making the best decisions possible, perhaps they aren’t, but they need to seriously consider what is motivating the choices they make.  Health insurance reform might take some pressure off these doctors, because it would take pressure off the patients to want to get it all done in one shot.

The reality is, it’s a hard decision, and having been there, I don’t envy any of us who end up having to make it.  I guess the best we can do is to stay informed, seek support, and make the best choices possible.  Read the article and share your thoughts – I’m interested.