I wish

I really wish I could stay at home with my son. I just didn't know how I would feel about work before we was born. And of course when we were buying a house and buying new cars, I wasn't thinking about having a baby and wanting to not work. I don't mind my job, I just want more time with Boo. I have thought up all kinds of crazy ideas that would allow me to stay home, but none are reasonable at all... Nathan could get two jobs... Win the lottery... Sell our house... (possible but there is a long road of repairs to be done and still possibility of not selling)...Nathan could get a higher paying job (not likely in this economy)... I could quit, get fired, laid off, but that wouldn't be good financially... I'm sure every working mother has these thoughts. I just seem to have them a lot. I am thankful that I have a good job in these hard times. I just miss my baby.

Still not sleeping

Boo only slept an hour or two at a time last night. Not sure what is going on. This is what is hard about nursing. He is now a certified momma's boy. And I have to do all of the feedings.
Even when Nathan wants to put him to sleep, I usually have to take Chesley for him to go to sleep. I let Nathan try for a while, but Boo is just a momma's boy.

Bumbo Boo

Here is Boo in his bumbo chair. We are feeding him cereals, and we even tried some banana, but he wasn't crazy about it. I think he's pretty cute in his chair. He still has the wobbly bobbly head, so we can't roam too far from him, but he really likes being upright and being able to look around the room. So grown up already... He even sits like his daddy, laid back and lounging.

He is not sleeping well (hence I am not sleeping well). Not sure what is going on. He woke up at 2:30 and really didn't want to go to sleep in his bed. Finally at 3:30, I stopped fighting and let him sleep with me. Not a habit I want to form really. But I was so tired... Yeah, I know, I shouldn't, but I did. Then we were at at 5... 6... 7 for good. He doesn't scream, just grunts and cries out until I pick him up. I let him lay there and grunt for a while before I get up, but he will not go back to sleep on his own sometimes. But I still think he's too young to let him cry it out. So I will love him and feed him and stay up with him for now.

Crazy day

I can already tell today will be a crazy day at work so I am going to post early. They are asking me to do a lot of work that I don't know if it can be done. But... baby food still must be made. I have my sign on the door and someone still just came and knocked. I know you need me, but it will have to wait. Must pump at some point. I figured I would do it early to avoid conflict. Oh well.

Boo ate some banana baby food last night. He wasn't so crazy about it. Maybe I will just mix in a little banana to his cereal tonight.

4 month check up

Chesley's 4 month check up went well. He is 14 lbs. 9 oz and I forgot how long. He was 42% on weight and about 60% on length. So he's not the biggest baby in town. Oh well. As I already knew from reading, he is a little bit behind developmentally, but I'm not really worried. Of course I want my son to be the best he can be, but I think he's ok. Every child is different. He doesn't have perfect control of his head. He can't roll over quite yet. He doesn't like tummy time. But he laughs, "talks", coos, looks around, and is a very happy child. The rest will come in time. The shots were terrible. Nathan did come so he could be there with me for the check up and the shots. Poor little boy cried a little longer than last time. But by the time we got in the car, he was ok. He was very tired and went to bed early. So he didn't sleep through the night. He woke up at 1:30 am and was a little cranky. He didn't go back to sleep till around 3:30 or so. Then he (we) were up at 5 am, then 6 am... I didn't get enough sleep. The dr recommends letting the babies "cry it out" but I am not going to do that right now. There may come a day where I decide to let him cry, but that day is not today. Dr also recommends starting solid food. We have done cereal now and then, so we will keep doing that and introducing new foods, maybe just at night for a while. Some nights, we don't get cereal because he is too cranky or too sleepy. I don't think he really needs the nutritional content of the food, maybe just to get used to eating food. It's such a huge responsibility to be a parent and have to make all these small yet important decisions for your child. But we do the best we can.

I started birth control pills the other night... Yuck. They are making me feel yucky and crampy. I don't know if I will continue taking them. I will try for another week or so and see if it gets better. It's hard enough to function with limited sleep, much less feeling crappy. I would rather not get pregnant quite yet for mental sanity and money reasons and health reasons. So we'll see how that goes.

More thoughts...

Thanks Caressa for that comment. I also believe that there are no good reasons for a healthy woman to not be able to carry a baby and deliver it. But it opens up questions about when the choice is between a woman dying or the unborn child dying. I believe that God should make those decisions and not us. But what if there is very little chance that the child would survive? Should the woman sacrifice herself? Such hard questions. There are so many situations that could possibly justify abortion. I hate even saying that... That's why I believe any law making abortion illegal needs to have a lot of allowances for different situations. But I think that it should not be legal for a woman to have an abortion when there is no justification.

Also, I mentioned this, but I didn't elaborate. When a couple does ivf (in-vitro fertilization), sometimes, many more embryos are created than are needed. We had 11 embryos. They are teeny tiny 4, 6 or 8 cells. They grew in a laboratory incubator for 6 days. 2 were placed inside me. One grew to be my wonderful son. One grew for 10 weeks and then died in utero. This was a very difficult loss for me and Nathan. There are 9 in a cryo storage facility in Clear Lake. We can transfer some of them inside of me if we want another pregnancy. I really struggle with some of this. Should we try on our own to get pregnant first before spending thousands of dollars on fertility drugs and dr bills? Then, if we do get pregnant on our own, what do we do with these embryos. If you define life as beginning at conception, then if I "discard" these embryos, is that murder? Or, does life begin when the pregnancy begins? Does it begin when the embyro develops a brain? It will be a very difficult decision if we ever have to discard these embryos. Were we wrong to create them and let them be stored?

All these questions of course are very controversial. Like I said, I struggle with these issues. We decided to do ivf because we strongly desired to have a child. And he is the light of my life. I can't say that I believe what we did was wrong. Hopefully we will give all 9 of these embryos the chance to develop into life. I think that ivf is a wonderful gift that modern science and drs can help women who dream of having children make those dreams come true. But it does approach on some touchy subjects.

Please feel free to share your thoughts. I don't have any problem with publishing any type of opinion as long as it is not malicious in nature.

Right to change my mind

As is the title of my blog, everything is my life is changing, including my views on some major issues. I feel that I have a right to change my mind, and I want to share that with you. I have always felt that abortion should be legal, and that a woman should have a right to a safe abortion. But I've changed my mind. It's wrong. It's murder. It's a human life that is precious and should be protected. By the mother. By the father. By our laws. It's such a complicated issue. I do think that if the mother's life is in danger, she should have the right to decide, and that doctors shouldn't be at risk for criminal punishment for saving a woman's life. And I do think people have a right to let go of stored embryos. So when does life begin? Conception? Pregnancy? Birth? These are the mysteries of life and cannot be answered by anyone on earth. But these questions have to be answered to make laws... There has to be a line drawn somewhere. In this country, abortions are legal, but killing a newborn child is a sinister crime. Killing a pregnant mother and her unborn child is considered double murder in some states. So how is abortion legal? I used to feel that abortion was inevitable and that young women should be protected against back-alley abortions. Now I feel that these women should be educated against abortion and helped with their pregnancy and birth of their child. Murder and rape and other crimes are going to happen, but that doesn't mean they should be legal. So I've officially changed my mind.

Little boy is going for his 4 month check-up today and shots... not looking forward to that.