HELP!!!!

A couple things M. and I need help from the mysterious world of the internets. Maybe we have a babycakes reader who can give us some ideas...

#1. Bottles

We use the Second Nature nipples. They work with the Second Nature bottles (duh) and the Avent bottles (which we use). Both these bottles are made of the bad plastic and we would like to switch. We need a BPA-free wide mouth bottle that will work with the Second Nature nipple.

We've tried Born Free and they leak. We tried the Avent Tempo and they leak. We're considering the Sassy Mam but they have to be ordered off the internets and they will most likely LEAK.

We don't want to switch nips. This one works well for Finn. M. likes the way he can control the flow.

Any ideas? Anyone?

#2. Music

If we sing Old MacDonald Had a Farm one more time I think M. and I may shoot ourselves. We need MUSIC. Good music that we can sing to Finn. I'd love some suggestions that aren't Baby Einstein. Baby Einstein could have the same effect of gun to head if used more than once every couple months.

Thank you dear readers, purusers of the grand internets, people who have wonderful ideas. M. says I'm utterly, totally, strangely WEIRD. I say you should see me around any form of CAKE.

Sinking to New Depths

Breast feeding makes a person HUNGRY. So hungry that I sank to a new low today. I crashed someone's going away party. I had a irrational response to CAKE.

I was walking down the hallway and there it was. Cake. Ooey, gooey, sugary CAKE. So I walk into the room, right in front of the person going away, cut myself a piece then proceed to skitter out of the room, shoving the cake in my mouth and licking the sticky frosting off my fingers.

I was so ashamed. I don't think I realized how scavanger-like I was being until I was actually cutting the cake and then I just couldn't stop myself.

I mean it was CAKE...

KD Stuff

DtD leaving for a while has me thinking about our decision to use a known donor. M. and I are going to miss him quite badly and we think the whole thing sucks, sucks, sucks.

I know the decision to use a known or anonymous donor is a highly personal one. Each has its positives and negatives. I know some people have nightmare experiences using a KD. For us, using a KD has been the right decision. It's been incredibly challenging at times and has brought up more issues than I ever expected, but ultimately it's working and working well.

We love our donor. There's such a bond that comes from creating a life together. I've said this before, but we decided to use a KD for Finn. We wanted him to 100% transparency about his conception and background. Neither M. or I ever expected to get such an intimate relationship with DtD. I know that sounds a bit naive but I can tend to be a bit naive anyway. He's not perfect but he's an incredibly good person who is truly devoted to his friends and family.

In a strange way, having Finn here makes us love our KD even more. They are forever connected. When I look at Finn I can see bits of DtD and when I look at DtD I see parts of the son M. and I worked so hard for. I don't know what the future will bring, but I can imagine we will have a very special life-long friendship with DtD and that makes me happy.

Project Sibling

M. and I have always planned to have two children. I grew up with a sibling and M. was basically an only child growing up. She feels strongly that she doesn't want Finn to be an only child like her.

The biggest unknown for Project Sibling has been DtD. Would he agree to go through another round of TTC? It could be another harrowing eight tries. It could be more. M. and I both think that concieving Finn was probably harder on DtD than he expected. We both feel like we have so much riding on him agreeing to number two. We don't want to move to an anonymous donor. We aren't sure if we could afford that. Project Sibling cast a bit of a shadow over us as we moved into our new parenthood.

Then DtD decided to leave the country. This made it important to discuss getting M. pregnant a lot sooner than we had expected.

He said "yes". We'll start in a year when he gets back. It's six months later than we'd planned, but that's the way things work when you have a third party involved...sometimes you have to be a bit more flexible. He's such a great known donor that it makes it worth it.

It feels good to have a plan to start our TTC adventure all over again. It will give us next summer with Finn when he's a little older and can do things like camp and swim. It will give me more time to save leave up since I plan to take another four months off. It will give M. more time to get her body ready to have a child. It also feels like enough time to be emotionally ready to step back into the roller coaster torture experience that TTC can be.

The Adventures of Boy Tiny

Finn went to the doc for his 4 month checkup (at about 4.75 months) and he's officially a tiny little guy. 30th percentile height and weight - almost 15 pounds. We'd suspected as much, although we think the MA measured him wrong at 24.5 inches and that he's probably over 25 inches.

Life with Boy Tiny is fun. He can still wear a couple of his newborn clothes, but mostly 3-6 month clothes. He outgrows everything in the length and rarely the width. He's still on the smallest snaps on ONE side of his Fuzzi Bunz and they occassionally leak because he's so trim in his hips.

Some things about having a smaller baby suck, especially the clothes. No one makes clothes for skinny little boys. Everyone touts the benefits of things fitting their baby's chubby thighs but no one says something is great because it fits their little string bean. It's hard to find things that work for his body type.

And that's our little boy, out little joy. He he.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a TOOTH

Yes, it finally broke through the gums. There is one small, sharp little ridge in our son's mouth which he likes to chomp on our fingers with. It took lots of tylenol, teething tableets and approximately SEVEN weeks to finally appear.

Something Wicked This Way Comes.

My period started over the weekend. Welcome back to that old witch, Aunt Flo.

This means I'm getting back to my old body. It means I could get pregnant again. Project Baby has come to a close. Strange. I won't be pregnant again. Well, most likely not. M. will do number two and I am happy to remain a far fetched back up plan.

Welcome back cramps, blood, cravings and all that shit. Yay.

Weekend Cuteness

Funny Face, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Photo Friday: Show and Tell

Chaos, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

This is our (MY, really) cooking utensils drawer. It's complete chaos. All my tools of cookery are heaped into this drawer in one tangled mass. The best part is I can locate even the smallest tool in a matter of seconds. It's an amazing skill.

Plastic Not So Fantastic

There was a large front page article in our local paper about a week ago about the dangers of the hard plastic that's used to make things like Nalgene bottles and the Avent bottles.

Yay. Great. Considering that's what we're using.

So now M. and I are trying to figure out what to do. We have the wide mouth bottles and it's almost impossible to find glass bottles that will fit. Glass is heavy. And it breaks. We're thinking about moving to all Born Free bottles.

Then there's the BAJILLION baby toys that are plastic. Teething rings. Clutch toys. Rattles. He doesn't have teeth yet, but when he does he'll be chewing on everything. What's safe and what's not safe? Should we be moving to all wood and cloth toys? Then you do and you find out they're painted in China.

It makes a person insane. It was so much easier when I only had to worry about polluting my own body.

Neurosis

Motherhood has a way of making you neurotic. I consider myself to be mostly even keel. It comes from an entire childhood of my mother saying "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it", meaning we'll freak out, but only when it's time.

Being an RN seems to bring out my worst.

Because I don't work with peds, it's not kid stuff I worry about. If he has a break out, it's MRSA. If he blows bubbles...pulmonary edema (okay, I seriously only thought that for a few seconds). Slow wake up...neurological issues. Lots of crying...surely he's mentally ill.

I think it's worse since I've been back at work. I swear I never worried like this when he was a newborn.

I've found I'm much better when M. and I are together. Now we're flying solo with Finn most of the week, which gives my brain more time to come up with crazy stuff. And where I work seriously scares me. We get the tougheset cases. Have a scary infectious disease? Well, you'll come to my hospital, and there's a good chance to my floor. And I can bring all that crap home.

It's seriously crazy-making. CRAZY.

Right now we're worrying about Finn's weight for no obvious reason. He's healthy. He has wet and poopy dipes. He's eating between 21 and 28 ounces while I'm gone. He's just a skinny guy and tall. It's hard not to compare to all the chubbing out babies around us. Doc appointment tomorrow, so we can at least be told to stop worrying about it.

Adventures in Pumping

I'm almost done with my first long stretch back at work. I can't wait to hang out with Finn for my five day break. It's been okay being back. Having M. at home with our boy makes it 100% better.

Pumping has been an experience.

I pump four times a day. Once when I get up. Then I feed the boy. I then have to find three other times during the day to feed the mechanical baby.

The hospital I work at has one...ONE...lactation station. It's on the seventh floor in the wing furthest away from where I work. And to get there I have to take the most ancient set of elevators in the complex, which means I spend sometimes over five minutes waiting for the elevator.

Since we have ONE lactation station, I have to schedule my pumping times. Uh, yeah...that works for a busy floor nurse. Ha. I have to make sure all my patients are stable, pass my meds and find someone to watch my phone in order to go pump. And if I miss my time, I may not be able to use the room.

All for our beautiful breast-fed baby.

The states have a terrible average breast feeding time...I think six months. Considering that we mostly have no support for new mothers to stay home with their children, I'm not surprised that many women decided to stop breast feeding after they return to work. Pumping is a nightmare, and I have the benefit of a supportive environment.

Gimme, gimme, gimme your FOOD

We're waiting until six months to start Finn on table foods, but it's going to be a long, hard wait. I can see why people give in before six months. The boy is practically dive bombing for our food. We were at Ikea eating dinner and he was trying his best to get his mouth onto whatever we were putting into our mouths. Every time I took a bite of food he would whip his head around and lean toward it, mouth wide open as he tried to latch onto it.

Eating has become the MOST interesting thing we do.

We've started to give him spoons and cups to distract him, but he's making it almost impossible to eat while holding him. He watches our mouths when we eat. The other day the act of crunching a cracker caused him to whip his head around and stare at me intently. He's even starting to make chewing motions with his mouth.

Tonight we put a tiny taste of M.'s vanilla custard sauce on a spoon and gave it to him and he practically threw a fit when we took it away.

It's going to be a long six weeks.

Weekend Cuteness Old Skool

Three Weeks Old, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Neither M. nor I can remember Finn being this small. We were too overwhelmed and sleep deprived and those memories are just gone. I honestly have a hard time remembering what he was like a couple weeks ago or a month ago. Having a baby has a way of forcing you to live in the moment.

When #2 comes along, we're going to take pictures every day just so we can remember. I guess that's why I take so many now. I don't want to lose one second with our boy.

Dating Other People

I'm not the world's most social person, so I thought having a baby would be a whole new opportunity to bring more friends into our lives. After all, we were about to join the Happy Baby Club of new motherhood, where we all sit around and support each other while eating wholesome baked goods and singing children's songs.

Reality check.

It's still not so easy to make friends. Our lives are about the same as before Finn came along, except we don't see our five regular friends nearly as often. My dreams of days filled with play dates and nights filled with pot luck dinners and good conversation were slowly circling the drain.

Until today.

We were at our favorite Seattle baby shop when two women and a baby walked in. Since we live in the 'uh,-yeah-I'm-queer-so-what-about-it-I-have-a-lot-of-other-interesting-characteristics' world of Seattle, we lesbians don't usually go out of our way to acknowledge each other. As I was watching them from across the store I was praying this would go differently than the usual nod and smile. It was your basic 'hey, what's your sign' beginning - general admiration of baby clothes, asking baby ages, and all that other somewhat interesting crap we parents talk about. Then phone numbers were exchanged. Then we had lunch. And dessert.

Best. First. Date. Ever.

Yes, M. and I are dating other people. As in other people with babies. Maybe there's a play dat and pot luck in our future yet!

Surviving

At the park..., originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Well, we made it through my first twelve hour shift and are heading into my second. M. and I are both exhausted. Finn seems none the worse for wear. I've been having many adventures pumping at work. All for the boy!

One more day then I get a day off. One more day...

The Other Mother

I've been thinking a lot about the non-birth mother.

Even within the lesbian community there are all kinds of relationships. I'm actually surprised how many couples have one person who doesn't want to birth and the other who does. In our case one of us has birthed with the plan for the other to in the future.

I think we've done a good job of establishing The Other Mother (I realize this term is annoying and I'm using a bit tongue in cheek). Both M. and I saw the potential for problems in this area long before Finn came along, so when he arrived we both made a huge effort to bring equality into our relationship. M. being Finn's mother is as important to me as my own motherhood. I realize that my breastfeeding creates an inherent inequity, but on all other levels we work hard to always parent together. We've been successful to the point that often people forget exactly who birthed Finn.

Then I see other couples falling into patterns where one works and the other stays at home. This pushes the working mother, who is typically also the non-birthing mother, into the role that is traditionally taken on by the father. Men are typically unempowered in the parenting relationship, relinquished to the role of provider while their female partner is the caregiver, and boys are prepared for this reality by being raised in a manner that does not assume children and parenting are in their future. I see this in my twin niece and nephew. My niece is all about the nine children she's going to have in the future. My nephew never mentions any desire to have children in the future.

In a female same-sex relationship the person in the provider role does not have this preparation for their role outside of the primary caregiving relationship, so they become the provider with all the same expectations of motherhood that the primary caregiver brings to being a parent.

Does the Other Mother get shortchanged? Does having both parents work make things more equal? Does it equalize as the child(ren) get older?

How do you Other Mothers out there feel?

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Here I am singing Itsy Bitsy Spider with Mr. Bo Finner.

Baby Loves Dance Music

Okay, I admit it. I did NOT listen to peaceful zen music while Finn was in utero. He was grown on a steady diet of dance music and hip hop with some alternative thrown in. Music is really important to me and our house has been very quiet since the boy came along. It's not on purpose. I just haven't felt like putting music on as much as I used to.

Over the weekend our neighbors all of the sudden started blasting some Le Tigre from their back yard speakers, disrupting the quiet (ha ha) of our neighborhood. M., Finn and I did something I haven't done in a long time...we had a kitchen dance party.

Finn had a blast.

Then on Saturday the boy fell asleep at The Honey Hole to the sounds of underground hip hop.

That's my baby!

Tonight I pulled out my fave Erlend Oye and we danced around the living room. It was so much fun. Okay, we threw in some sea chanties as well. No one can say I don't have diverse taste in music.

I feel like I'm starting to crawl out of the post partum hole. Mommy is on her way back.

Weekend Cuteness

Rabbit!, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

This is a onesie from M.'s sis who brought it from Germany. I love it. It's long and skinny, so it fits our boy well. And it has these funky dancing bears on it...it's his Eurotrash onesie.

Finn does not fit the Bebe Pod well, hence the leaning to one side. And, as you can see, he's almost getting out of it. We have the Bumbo as well (yes, I need two of everything in our cozy 1100 square foot house) which works better with his build.

We're going to our food class tomorrow. A good weekend to all our readers.

Food!

Dinner, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

Finn is really watching us eat. Today I was sitting at the computer with him in the Bumbo. I noticed he was awfully quiet and looked down to find our son watching me shovel food into my cake hole, his bright eyes following every single bite. And he loves cups. We now give him cups to play with at coffee shops and restaurants. He stares at our Nalgene bottles (which I'm thinking of trashing and switching to non-plastic). He watches us drink.

I know it's the oral phase, but the boy is really all about the mouth. His and ours.

I had a brief moment of grief a couple weeks ago when I realized that Finn starting solids would mean my boobs would have competition. It's sad. It's yet another step away from us.

Food is one of my great loves. I love to cook, to bake, to feed, to eat. I can't wait to share this with Finn, to carefully pick out all the wonderful things in this world and learn what his likes and dislikes are. I know he will break my heart at some point and attempt to exist only on chicken nuggets and pizza (wait, I think I could exist on pizza!), but until that moment I will work to help him develop a varied palate.

I've started reading Feeding the Whole Family in preparation, and I've checked what day October 2nd falls on to make sure I'm not working. We're going to a first foods class this weekend as well.

We'll start solids no earlier than 6 months, but M. and I have decided in the meantime that Finn can start having tastes. His first taste? Mashed yams from Whole Foods, rich with cream and ginger. He liked it. Second taste? Oatmeal. Not as much of a fan. I can understand that.

Babies Can be Tiring

Good lord, babies can be tiring.

Finn will not stop rolling. You put him on his back and he rolls in a matter of seconds. But he HATES being on his tummy, despite the fact that he CAN roll from tummy to back, so he then cries. So we flip him onto his back and he rolls again. Over and over again. All. Day. Long.

He's doing this in his sleep as well.

We're still swaddling him and it makes us nervous to see our son trying to face plant himself while asleep and swaddled. So we put him in a sleep sack last night.

Nope.

After waking every couple hours, we brought him into bed and he finally got some sleep. Clearly we need to keep swaddling.

I know I'm whining. I need to whine just to keep my sanity. He's a sweet, adorable, loving boy who is annoying the hell out of us at the moment.

Back to Work Again

It's my first almost full day...eight hours. I've managed to squeeze my post-partum body into my scrubs and my breast pump is primed and ready to go. Good lord, my boobs have gotten HUGE. Finn and M. are asleep and I pumped a bottle ready for him when he wakes.

I'm going to miss my boy.

It's back to real life. Well, one more week then I start my 12 hour shifts. That will be REAL life. I don't mind working but I wish I didn't have to work as much as I do. The good thing? Okay, a couple good things. I get to see my friends. My job keeps me in shape and I NEED it right now.

I have my water bottle. I have some Luna bars. I have raw veggies, apples, zucchini cake, cheese and crackers. I am ready to rock and roll.

Rebel, Rebel You Tore Your Dress

M.'s twin niece and nephew were visiting for Finn's adoption. They're almost ten years old and it's interesting to watch them grow up.

One thing that struck me during this visit is that it's clear that my SIL doesn't want her kids to grow up. Instead of being guided toward independence, they are being indoctrinated with all kinds of things that my SIL doesn't want them to do. One thing is tattooes. My SIL hates tattooes and she's drilled it into the kids heads that tatooes are not only gross but somehow immoral.

I think she's giving them a really easy way to rebel against her.

Of course this makes me think about Finn. I think parenting is all about joy and loss. The moment your child enters into this world, you start the process of working toward them leaving you. And for me, part of leaving me is Finn starting to make his own decisions, even if they aren't ones I would make. This means I can't look at parenting as molding Finn into the image I want him to be but letting be who he is.

Really, all I want is for him to be a good person, be healthy and make mostly responsible decisions. I don't care what color his hair is, or what parts of his body he pierces, or if he has a tattoo. Those seem like such trivial concerns next to him having empathy and kindness.

Well, I do want him to have good table manners. Imagine, pink hair, piercings but asks to be excused after dinner. That sounds perfectly nice to me.

This is the way we roll, we roll!

Finn didn't just roll from back to tummy yesterday. He did it six times. He's become the rolling machine. Luckily M. captured one of the rolls on video.

Premonitions

When I was pregnant I had acupuncture weekly to keep me going.

One time I was lying on the table during a treatment and suddenly I had a vision. It was a newspaper headline declaring someone was dead. The first name of one of our charge nurses at work who has a nasty form of breast cancer. The last name was the last name of a close friend of ours. I remember startling awake and as soon as I got out of my treatment I called work to find out if there was bad news regarding the charge nurse. I knew my friend was okay but thought it was something concerning his future.

I think the charge nurse at work is going to die. Her cancer is spreading and spreading, and it just doesn't look good.

And my friend's dad died last night.

Sucks.

Scooter

Seems Finn has been working on scooting and rolling. This explains why we've had crabby, wakes a lot boy the last couple days.

He woke me up yesterday morning at 5:30 am to PLAY then proceeded to spend most of his day scooting his cute little butt around his room. He's pretty much leaping out of the bouncey seat now - there's no way I can turn my back on him. Then this morning he ROLLED from BACK to TUMMY.

Funny boy.

M. got me a tripod for my b'day years and years ago. It comes in very handy when you have a baby. I set it up and left the room so I could capture Sir Scoots A Lot.

Oh, seems yelling has come with the scooting and rolling. Lots and lots of yelling.

Check it...

Biology Schmiology

Thanks to Stacey for inspiring this post!

My family's need to attribute biology to Finn drives me crazy. My mother is especially bad. They like to take Finn's features and attribute them to various family members. So far he has my dad's eyelashes and he looks like my great grandfather. Blah. Whatever.

It's almost like they think Finn came into being through immaculate conception.

Every time they do this I want to remind them that there is another half of Finn out there. M. and I can see DtD in Finn, and I suspect that's where the eyelashes came from, not from my father. I keep my trap shut because the last thing I want is to end up with my family perseverating on our donor and further shutting M. out.

Then my mother asked me last night when we were going to tell them who the donor is. I had told her a long time ago that we would be keeping his identity to ourselves until after the adoption per our contract. Well, it's after the adoption and M. and I don't feel any strong need to tell our families who DtD is. We ourselves are working through how our family will take shape with DtD included. Our extended family will just have to wait.

My mother was not happy.

Because biology is important to her. And that's exactly why I am very hesitant to ever reveal DtD's identity to her. This is a situation where our families will have to think outside the box of biology when it comes to defining relationships and family.

Birthdays!

Nice Mama, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

35 years ago the end product of the fortuitious meeting of sperm and egg that happened to keep going was welcomed to this world. She is blond and firey, commited and dedicated. She is the best person I know.

Four months ago we happened upon a boy in a cold operating room, one they took out of my uterus who burst into this world with a huge cry.

He was born at 10:53 am.

M. was born at 10:33 am.

Here we are, all together, the amazing products of conception come to completion. It feels meant to be.

Happy birthday to my girl!!!!

Happy four months to my boy!!!!

Adoption Day

Mama and Finn on Adoption Day, originally uploaded by Sacha Digi.

As of yesterday we are officially a legal family.

We went to dinner with M.'s family and had a great time. Finn was mauled by his almost ten-year-old cousins. Her brother and sister were fantastic. I have to admit to loving my MIL. M.'s family didn't just welcome Finn, they welcomed me as well.

On Monday DtD came over and hung out for about four hours, talked and played with Finn. It was good.

Things feel very complete.

More pics of the adoption...