Happy Valentine's Day

Dear Elle:

Happy first Valentine's Day! They can call this a Hall.mark holiday all they want, but if you look at it as a celebration of love and connection, you've made it my best Valentine's Day ever.

February is my least favorite month of the year, in general. It's cold and dark. There are no holidays from work. Winter is usually beating the crap out of us, and while the month is the shortest of the year, it always feels like the longest.

This time last year, I was pregnant. I was just starting to believe that yes, this pregnancy was 1) real and 2) was going to stick. When you're over 40 (by a couple of years ::ahem::) and pregnant the statistics are terrible. TERRIBLE. You're basically just waiting for something to inevitably go wrong, and it was hard for me to believe that I (and you) was a statistical improbability.

(I still don't believe it sometimes, to be honest.)

Some women-- and many single moms, I've noticed-- are much more excited during their pregnancy than I was. Please never take that as an indication that I wanted you any less, or that I wasn't impatient to meet you. It was the simple fact that I just couldn't believe it, couldn't believe you-- right up until I saw your face for the first time, all red and bright-eyed and taking everything in.

So you're here for your first Valentine's Day, and while I've had some nice Valentine's Days in the past, this one wins. Hands down.

Our Valentine's breakfast ended with you spitting cereal into your hands and mushing them together with great joy. You were so proud of yourself-- after all, a few minutes earlier you didn't even know you could do that. Our Valentine's dinner ended with you flinging your spare spoons on the floor (as always) and looking incredibly pleased with the noise.

And later, I sang to you as you struggled against sleep, rubbing your head under my chin.

I didn't even know you a year ago, but I'm so glad you're here. Happy Valentine's Day to my wonderful, tiny valentine. I love you.

Love,
Your Mom

What do you mean it's February?

Seriously, it's been too long since I've updated. Sorry about that. Not that my life is all that riveting, of course, but I hte it when blogs go quiet and you don't know what happened.

(Looking at the dates, it's been exactly one month since I updated. I had no idea I was so precise.)

I'm too tired tonight to do much of an update, even though a thousand things have happened-- all very small things, yes, but a thousand. Elle is seven months old and every day she's more interesting. Babies are great because they're tiny and sweet, but I have to be honest: older babies are just plain more interesting. To me, anyway.

So I have many things to say about my beautiful daughter. I also have many things to say about being a single mom, and what I learn every day (and what I'll probably never figure out). And I think all those things will have to wait until I'm way more awake.

So we're here, we're happy and busy, and more to come.

Dignity. Always dignity.

Elle is very, very busy these days with two things:

1. Sitting up.
2. Finding her voice.

The fact that she can't really do #1 doesn't stop her from trying one bit. She wants to be UP! UP UP UP! She isn't even rolling over (she can; she just doesn't) but darn it, if she's not sitting up, you are MEEEEEAN.

Girl's gonna have some nice abs.

She's a chatty little thing, as well, so #2 is a lot of fun. She'll talk to just about anyone and, often, anything.

In church this past week, she was chatty. My favorite moment, though, was in the middle of a very quiet moment when she let out a belch that was likely heard far and wide.

That's my girl.

Happy 2011

Happy New Year! I hope 2011 brings happiness and health to you, wherever you may be.

---

I know someone in one of my groups who has had a long and difficult road towards motherhood, and is now waiting to be matched for adoption. You can feel the yearning for motherhood just pouring off every word she speaks; it's defining her life-- her existence-- in ways it never defined mine. I get the impression, too, that it always has, but the difficulty of her journey has intensified it (for obvious reasons).

I wanted to be a mother, yes, but it never consumed me like it does her.

For some reason I was thinking back over all of this, and realized again how unusual (lucky) I have been. At my advanced age, I had my first visit with a RE (reproductive endocrinologist) in May 2009, and after a little cleaning up of things, was pregnant on my first IVF attempt in October of that year. Healthy daughter born in 2010.

That's still just... bizarre to me.

Now, the fact that I went straight to IVF was certainly a factor. If I'd played around with IUI at my age, I might have been dealing with a tiny/narrow window that ended up closing before I was successful. If there's one thing that's clear from my experiences and the experiences of other women I know (single OR married, it makes no difference), it's that you can be perfectly fertile one month, and fall off the cliff the next. (Especially when you're over 40.) I know so many couples and singles that had no trouble catching pregnant with their first child (or two), but after that simply weren't able to be successful without intervention. And sometimes they weren't successful even with intervention.

Fertility is such a gamble. Heck, there are 28 year olds who don't have viable eggs. You never know.

I was sure I wasn't going to get pregnant and would move to adoption, so I was ready for my IVF journey to end badly. And, if you read back, my insurance would not have covered further attempts, so I was pretty much going to be done at one. I might have tried a few IUIs, but I don't even know about that. I also never had any interest in donor egg/embryo, so that wasn't an option. For me, it was IVF -> possibly an IUI or two -> adoption.

So I was pretty matter-of-fact about the whole thing. I had always felt called to adoption (I still do, honestly, and if the universe plopped 40K in my lap, I'd start trying to adopt #2, however crazy that may sound), so I thought that's where the universe was going to lead me. I tried IVF because I wanted to rule it out so I didn't look back and wonder someday.

I guess I don't have to look back and wonder, hm? ;)

Anyway. It strikes me, sometimes, as unfair that my journey was so... concise. Straightforward. (I will not say easy, because there were points that were definitely not easy.) But it was a fairly straight line from A to B(aby)... for someone who never wanted it with the intensity and urgency that this other woman does.

Shouldn't she be a mother, she who wants it with every cell in her body? I know that has nothing to do with anything, but it still seems off. And I understand why I haven't seen this woman in person at gatherings for a long time; it must be incredibly painful for her to be in a roomful of people who have everything she's ever wanted, and often got their wish with little, if any, suffering involved.

I'd like to think her road has been long because, when she's finally matched for adoption, that baby is the baby that's meant to be with her, and the universe simply wouldn't accept anything less. I hope that's the case.

And part of my mind wonders if any baby is going to be able to fill that great longing within her. Because motherhood, while amazing and terrifying and spectacular, cannot in any way fix what's broken, or fill all of our empty spaces.

this I know is true

I loved my daughter from the moment she was born.

I fell in love with her a little bit later, I think.

Everything moves so fast

The danger of being the parent of a baby is just trying to keep up. Stopping to look around, to take a breather? Seems like a crazy idea. After all, even when you have a spare half hour, there are three hundred things you could (should) be doing. You could be cleaning or paying bills or washing dishes or doing laundry or or or...

And sometimes you just want to take a nap.

I was off today-- I switched my usual day off because the sitter had a conflict. Normally I'm off Fridays, and the long three-day weekends are busy and full of things to do. Being off on a random day in the middle of the week meant that there wasn't anything we had to do, and it was a really nice day full of nothing particularly important. It was good not to have to go anywhere (we did run an errand, but that was it) and to just spend some time with my daughter, who gets funnier and more interesting every day.

(I've always liked babies just fine, but I definitely like them more as they get older. I know my life as I know it will be over when she's mobile, but I am FINE with that.)

Taking the time to just be, to be present-- that's a good holiday gift.

---

Speaking of holiday gifts, I am not done with my holiday shopping, and I glare at anyone who is. I'm taking some time off this Friday while Elle is at the sitter and, come hell or high water, I'm finishing my shopping.

I have finally, however, ordered my holiday cards. They are freaking adorable. It helps, of course, that they're mostly made up of a picture of Elle's face. And she's pretty freaking cute.

Giving Thanks

I head out tomorrow to visit family for the Turkey Day weekend. I've basically put my foot down and said that I will not travel at Christmas (sorry, not risking a potentially snowy, nasty drive with an infant); that's an unpopular decision, so going to visit for Thanksgiving is my olive branch.

It's a terrible time to take three days off work, but it is what it is. And Elle will enjoy a few days with people who dote on her. As will I.

---

It's been a hard year for many people I know. It's been a hard year for me, in many ways. It would be wrong, though, not to stop and give thanks at this time of year for my healthy, sassy daughter, who is doing something new every day. She's discovering rice cereal, is thisclose to rolling over, holds on to toys (and sticks them in her mouth), and is interested in everything going on around her. She's getting more hair, is chubby, and seems to get longer if I look away from her for a moment. She likes her babysitter, does not like naps, and responds very well to prune juice should it be necessary.

I am very thankful for her. And for my friends reading this, as well.