I am so sick of being sick ...

Ugh. I think I have been sick for like a month. It started with a cold. I took 2 days off of work, and stayed home and slept while the babies went to daycare. I'm going to go on record and say that those two days may well have been the most relaxing days I have had since the babies were born. Yes, it's true. I was sick, I vegged, I took Nyquil, I slept, I loved it.

But then I felt better and I went back to work. And the kids were sick. Colds. Coughs. Slight fevers. Nothing too bad. And we got lucky that it happened on a Friday. So I had to pick them up early from daycare by a few hours, but then we had the weekend to recoup.

All was going well, but then I woke up this Tuesday, and I was sick. Again. My whole head was beyond congested. My nose was so stuffed. My head felt like a brick. I went to work. I wanted to cry. And then wednesday. oh, Wednesday. I woke up feeling just as bad. I had to go into NY. UGH! Can I tell you how much I didn't want to take the train to Newark, then NYC, then the subway, then walk 5 blocks to the office? But I did it. I couldn't breath. But I perservered. I made it through my two meetings, and left at 2pm to start the 2 hour journey home. I got home at 4pm, picked up the kids, fed them, waited for Eric to get home. Felt like DEATH. Had to give the kids baths. Which kinda sucks. My mom and bro came over and helped Eric feed them so I could change our sheets and start the laundry. Did I mention that it was my birthday??? Yes, that is how I spent my birthday. Happy
34th to me! I went to bed at like 9pm and the day was over. Not my most memorable of birthdays. Luckily my mom is coming to babysit tomorrow night so Eric and I can go out to dinner. Then today, I get the call at 230pm from daycare. Jake threw up and had a 101.8 fever. You know what that means?? It means Jake can't go to daycare on Friday. And as crappy as I feel, I have a 4 hour meeting tomorrow. So Eric is staying home with Jake, and Hailey is still going off to daycare. Will this nightmare ever end? Will this cycle of sickness come to a close? Ugh.

We did have a nice dinner on Sunday at my parents for my birthday. My mom cooked a yummy meal and I invited my friends Michele and Tom and their son Michael and my friends Jan and Joan. Good times. Got two really cute pics of Opa (Grandpa in German) and the kids. Check 'em out.



The kids are so super cute. Seriously. As crappy as I feel, their little smiles totally keep me going. They have a new favorite thing. We have a rocking chair in the nursery. They love when I sit them in the chair like a big kid and rock them back and forth. They totally crack up. I got the CUTEST pic of them together in the chair. I love the way he is kinda holding her. My little mushes.


I guess that's enough for now. It's time for me to take my Nyquil and drop into a sleepy coma. I have a fun four hour meeting to sit through tomorrow while Eric stays at home with Jake. Just for a bit, I want to be in that movie Click (ya know, with Adam Sandler?) I want to hit the pause button. I don't want to miss a thing, I just want to get some sleep. So I would pause life for like a day just so I could sleep non stop. Then I'll start it all up again. If anyone knows how to do this, let me know. Until then, I will heart my Nyquil.

Until next time,
Erica

Why it's great to be infertile...

I was going to write a post about how we were all sick and I can't kick this cough and how the kids didn't even make it through one week of daycare without getting sick. But I'm going to write about something else. And if you aren't in the mood for a "I love my kids" post it is now time to turn away from this blog.

Still with me? Ok. Consider yourself warned. I spend/spent a lot of time focusing on how I WASN'T lucky. How it was HARD to get pregnant. How bitter I was (am) that I had to travel this hard road to get pregnant. And that my family is probably complete because I can't afford to have another child. But... BUT. And here's the thing. If I wasn't infertile, I wouldn't have twins.

Twins. I have twins. Never in my life did I think I would have twins. Never even crossed my mind. I mean, I always thought it was a hereditary thing, and since I don't have them in my family, and neither does Eric, how would we have twins? I have since come to find out that identical twins do NOT run in families, but that is neither here nor there.

Now, there is something wonderful to be said for having one baby at a time (I assume). Mostly because you get one on one bonding time with that single child. You get to ease your way into parenthood. You get to really focus on giving that baby everything they need.

With twins it's so different. You can never focus on one baby for entirely too long. You never get a free moment. If one doesn't need you, the other does. If your husband is home, you can't hand the baby off and go do something, because there is another baby waiting to be fed/changed/etc.

But I've learned something in the past month. My twins are friends. They are each others first and best friend. They smile at each other. They play with each other. They chase each other around. They giggle at night when we put them to bed and they are supposed to be sleeping. They crawl to the end of each other's cribs and giggle through the slats at each other and make little high pitched shrieks and yells.

Their daycare teacher, Miss Andrea, said they are the first babies she has had in the infant room that really play with each other. Hailey always doesn't nap as long as Jake, and when she wakes up and comes back to the playroom, she crawls around and tries to find him and looks sad until he wakes up. Then she is all smiles and chases him around.

I am experiencing something right now that I am going to consider a gift from my infertiliy. I'm raising twins. A brother and a sister that are going to be best friends. Two completely different children that shared my womb and will always have a special bond. They will always see each other across the room in daycare, and know that they aren't alone. They will always have that familiar face by their side, and take comfort in it. It's just truly, the coolest thing ever.

I think it's so easy to focus on the bad side of infertily, but for me, there is a huge upside. My twins. There are days where it is hard. As they get older, and are more mobile, and get into everything, it's more work. I feel like I can't just get one babysitter, I need two. We NEED man to man coverage. So sometimes that's tough. And that daycare check, OH, that's a tough one to write. It's a heavy hit. And sometimes I'm just SO tired. I would love a break.

But the pleasure, the joy they bring, it's really immeasurable. How can you measure kisses and hugs? How can you explain how it feels to pick them up from daycare? To walk into the center, sit on the floor, call their names, and have their little faces light up, as they crawl over lightning speed to dive into my lap? You can't measure it. Sometimes I even get caught off guard tell people that I have twins. It still sounds super odd just coming out of my mouth. How the heck did it happen??

Oh yeah. I'm infertile. And maybe, just maybe, it ended up being the greatest blessing of my life.

Erica

Oh well, you've been good for reading this far. Here are some pics!

So much ...

There is so much to talk about. I could split it up into like 7 different posts. But I won't, because that is way too much work. I don't even know where to begin.

The twins are doing amazing. Today they are 10 months! 10 freaking months! How are my kids so old?? Hailey is crawling around all over, and pulling up on EVERYTHING! Yesterday I stupidly left the room, and Eric came down the stairs to find her already up two steps! Oh my! I will be making a run to Babies R Us for some gates tomorrow! Jake wasn't crawling, he was more scooting and flipping around. But as of this past weekend, he is offically on the move. He's starting to try to pull up too, and actually did it for the first time tonight! He was all smiles and very proud of himself.

What else? The kids attended their cousin Gracyn's first birthday party. They were ok. A bit crabby since they both needed a nap. Jen (Gray's mom) and I were pregnant at the same time, so it's unbelievable to me that we are already celebrating year 1! How the hell did that happen and where the hell did the time go? Here's a pic of the birthday girl. Click on the pic for more pics from the party.


Oh, did I mention that THE GIANTS WON THE SUPERBOWL!!! We are big Giants fans in this house. We had my sister and her husband over, as well as our friends Jan, Joan, Karen and Eric. The kids were dressed in full Giants gear. We even had their play area set up with a Giants motif.



My sister made her infamous superbowl cake, and it was very yummy!


Jake has started doing this weird thing. Both my kids used to get very worried looks when the camera came out. Jake has now decided to make this face every single time mommy points the camera in his direction.

Now seriously, have you ever seen anything cuter than that?? Maybe he is just trying to show off all his teeth (he has 7!). So he does that face all the time now! Here with Grandma ...

Here with Uncle Anthony...

And here with Uncle Jan...


Oh yeah, and the kids started daycare Monday. I didn't cry. I thought I would cry, I came pretty close to crying, but I didn't cry. I think I'm sad not because I don't think they will be taken care of, but because it marks the end of this era for me in a way. Now I'm back to work fulltime, in the office. No more time at home with my kids, except for weekends. And since I don't forsee us having any more kids, I'm kinda mourning the end of this maternity leave/time off with my babies thing. But we can watch them online at the daycare, so that's fun. Eric will send me emails just saying "Hailey is in the exersaucer" or "Jake is under the table". Yeah, I'm think productivity at both our companies may see a bit of a decline. hehe.

The final thing I want to talk about seems inappropriate within the tone of this post. Very light and all about my kids. But in some ways it belongs here. I look at my kids every single day, and I am so thankful for them. I read a ton of blogs, and my heart absolutely broke this past week for Mary Ellen and Steve. I'm already one who has a million questions about faith and God, but something like this, well, it makes you ask just another question. Why? Why does such a horrible thing happen to two people who so desperately want to have a child? But you never get an answer. Poor Mary Ellen has been through so much, and her journey has just begun. It just makes me angry. Angry and upset and so mad at the injustice of it. And it makes me appreciate my children, because one thing that is super obvious is that the sheer desire and passion to have a child just isn't enough. Because if it was, all my fellow bloggers would have children. Sometimes it's just dumb dumb luck. And I guess I have to realize that on some level I just got lucky. Because I don't deserve it more than anyone else. I didn't do something special that allowed me to carry them to full term. It's just dumb luck. And I'm so angry that luck isn't just knocking on everyone's door. Mary Ellen, my thoughts and with you and Steve.

Erica

Womans Best Friend

I'm sad today. And yesterday, and the day before. Our pug died. His name was Bucca. He was just the best pug EVER. My sister brought Bucca home without any warning like 15 years ago (give or take, we all get screwed up on the date). I was in college, but home for the summer. She didn't ask anyone, she didn't ask my parents, she didn't kind of hint that she was thinking about getting a dog. She just came home one day with this cute pug nosed little guy. We already had a dog (a collie) and a few cats, so it wasn't that my parents were against pets. But in typical and wonderful Chrissy fashion, she wanted something, and on impulse, decided she would get it. So Bucca came into our lives.

My mom told her she had one week to find another owner because we were NOT keeping that dog. Yeah, RIGHT! I think he won us all over in like 3 days. He was only a year old when Chrissy got him, and he seemed to be a normal sized pug. But he ended up HUGE! I mean really. Most pugs are like, I don't know, 20 lbs? He was 40!
Yeah, you read that right. He was so sweet, and so lovable. He wasn't super hyper, and he loved to cuddle and sleep. I can remember full weekends where Chrissy and him just stayed in bed and come out solely to take him outside, and to get some food, then back to bed.

He sold our whole family on pugs. They became our dog of choice. So then a few years later, we decided to go for pug #2. Zoe. She was Bucca's little sister, and followed him around from day one. I think Bucca didn't love it at the beginning, he simply tolerated her. But they became the best of friends.

Bucca had a great life. I always said if I came back as a dog, I would certainly want to be my parents dog, because boy was he spoiled! When I lived at home, I would come home from work and smell something cooking and be like "Mom, what's for dinner?" and she would say "Whatever you decide to cook yourself. I'm making this for the dogs." And there would be two hamburgers cooking. She would buy them a rotisserie chicken every week when she went grocery shopping that was just for them. We weren't allowed to eat it. It was for the dogs. They ate more table food then dog food, and every single night ended with the dogs and my dad splitting a bowl of Butter Pecan ice cream.

I can remember this one time when I was living home, and I was so sad, and I was crying in my room (don't ask me about what, probably some sort of stupid breakup with a stupid boyfriend) but Bucca walked into my room, jump up on my bed, and start licking my face. It's like he knew I needed some love, and he always gave it. Heck, he was even mentioned in the speech our best man gave at our wedding. Everyone loved him, and he loved to be around people.

He was old, and he lived a heck of a charmed life, for a dog. He was having trouble breathing, and he went to see a specialist, but it was too late. He died on Wednesday in an oxygenated cage at the specialist.

He was a wonderful wonderful pet, that brought my whole family a huge amount of joy. He will be greatly missed. And wherever he is, I hope he's got a never ending bowl of shrimp to eat (his favorite food!), a comfy bed to lay on, and a constant hand rubbing his belly! We love you and miss you Bucca!
R.I.P. Bucca





Love,
Erica

Book Tour #9: The Jane Austen Book Club

Ok, another stop on the book tour. This is what we call a "pepper" book. Which means it has nothing at all to do with infertility, and it's a nice change of pace. Here are the questions that I choose to answer.

Allegra is described as "liking being an aunt. That it offered all the kid time she needed. Probably. All she wanted mostly." If you don't have your own children, but are an aunt how important is that role to you and, what special rewards does it offer?
I have children, but this question immediately made me think about my sister. She doesn't currently have any kids of her own, but she does have these 2 little twins that she treats like her own. I knew that my sister would love my kids when I had them. That wasn't really a question. But I don't think even I truly understood exactly what they would mean to her. She is over my house more than any other person. She lives one mile down the road, so it's convenient. But take for example today, Eric and I wanted to go see Cloverfield. So did my sister's husband. So Chrissy came over to watch the kids and we all went to the movies. The funniest part about it was when my mom called and said "I would have come and watched them so Chrissy could go to the movies too". But she didn't want to go. She wanted to spend time with my kids. She buys them stuff all the time. She showers them with love. She has worked from home 1 day a week to help us during our day care crisis to take care of them. I feel so blessed knowing that when my kids are with her, they are with someone that loves them just as much as I do. My sister makes the best parent to my kids, and I feel beyond lucky to have her in my life, and theirs.

What are your thoughts on happiness? Do you think that our happiness in life is mostly luck? Do we have some control over how happy we are?
My whole life has been driven by the desire to be happy. I don't think that happiness is luck. I think you make your happiness. I fought so hard for my husband. It's a really long story, but I saw every bit of happiness in front of me, everything I had ever wanted in another person, my best friend in the world. I saw my happily ever after, but it wasn't mine. He was with someone else. Unhappily, and not married. Just dating (I'm not a homewrecker! hehe). So I told him how I felt about him, and left the ball in his court. And he did some soul searching, and he decided that I was his happiness too. It was ugly for a little while on both of our parts, as I had just come out of a long relationship too. But we knew what would make us happy, and what wouldn't and we fought for it. Now as a married couple for 4 years, we work hard at maintaining that happiness. It hasn't really been that hard. He truly is my best friend, and I can't imagine not being happy with him.

Bernadette asks that the club be made up of women only: "The dynamic changes with men. They pontificate rather than communicate. They talk more than their share." What differences did having a man bring to the group? If you have close male friends, how do they differ in relating to your infertility/everyday struggles?
I think men bring a completely different perspective. For the most part, all my close friends in college were men. That was partly due to my major (Computer Science). There weren't a lot of girls to begin with. And it just turned out that the people I had the most in common with were guys. I had girlfriends from home, and I definitely got different perspectives on things from guys versus girls. And a lot less drama with guys. There weren't a lot of males I discussed my infertility with. My husband obviously, and maybe a few couples here and there. But most of my friends were understanding and supportive. I didn't really get a different male perspective.

The author writes in an off-handed way something I imagine would be highly insulting to gay people ..."there would certainly be something challenging in a genetic code that made you gay but left your reproductive urge fully functional." I know gay people who have a strong urge to parent and have gone on to do so with more care than many self-absorbed heterosexuals.
I read this kinda differently than the person who posed this question did. I read it more as a kind of empathy. A gay couple can not make a biological child together, but just because you are gay doesn't mean you don't have the DESIRE to be a parent. And that's a challenging situation. But that's just how I read it. I truly feel that a gay couple can parent just as well as a heterosexual couple. I think homosexual couples should persue fertility treatments, adoption, surragacy, etc. Whatever it takes to complete your family. I feel in no way that your sexual preference is a determining factor in being a parent.

Did you find the allusions to the various Austen books distracting or helpful in understanding the characters in the book? Were there enough similarities to Austin's characters for you to distinguish who was who (i.e. Jocelyn = Emma)?
I did, only because I have never read a Jane Austin book! I must admit that I am interested now, and I will probably get a few of her books. But for me, I must admit that it was distracting, because I had no idea what the characters were talking about.

Intrigued by the idea of a book tour and want to read more about The Jane Austen Book Club? Hop along to more stops on the Barren Bitches Book Brigade by visiting the master list at http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/. Want to come along for the next tour? Sign up begins today for tour #10 (Embryo Culture by Beth Kohl with author participation!) and all are welcome to join along . All you need is a book and blog.

9 Month Check-up and Friends

So, the twins had their 9 month check up today. Yeah, it's about 3 weeks late. But it was a good appointment.

Jakey Jake has gone from 20.13lbs at 6 months to 24.1 lbs! He's a chubby monkey, and I just love it! He's 30.5 inches long, putting him in the 95% for height and 90% for weight.

Hailey Bird went from 15.3lbs at 6 months to 18.2 lbs! She is my petite little princess. She was 30 inches long, putting her in the 97% for height and 30th for weight. Here's hoping she stays tall and thin!

Otherwise everything was right on schedule. The pedi told us that we can basically let them eat EVERYTHING, with the except of honey, peanut butter, whole milk, shellfish and anything that is a choking hazard (raisins, nuts, etc). Wow! So that opens up a whole world of food to them! Meatballs and pasta, mac and cheese, soups, basically anything as long as it's cut up small and is soft. I can't wait to start experimenting with things! It's going to make for some FUN pics.

And last, but certainly not least, my little girl got 2 shots, in her ears. Yes, we got her ears pierced! Look how cute she looks!


She cried when she got them pierced, but not about the actually piercing. The kid is a total spitfire and wants to be on the move all the time. So she screamed bloody murder when we were just trying to hold her in place. I was trying to hold her arms so the pediatrician could just mark her ears for where they would pierce them. All the doc was doing was making a pen mark on her ear, and you would have thought we were sticking a knife in her eye. It took me, the pedi, and another nurse to hold her down, that is how strong that 18lb kid is! But once it was done, she was all smiles!

Last weekend my friends came over with their babies, and it was so much fun. Nicole, Karen and I all graduated high school together. Nicole's daughter Lilly is 2.5 years old and Karen has b/g twins, Jack and Mia, that are 7 months old. Then my friend Michele that also went to high school with us was there with her son Michael, with the crazy hair. He's made a few appearances on my blog before. We got this great pic of them lined up on the couch. In order, it's Lilly, Michael, Hailey, Jake, Mia and Jack.


It was a crazy day, with all the babies running around, or crawling and rolling, but it was a lot of fun to just compare notes and discuss the ups and downs of having kids.

Sometimes I feel like a fraud in these situations, wearing the mommy hat amongst a bunch of moms. I know I belong there now, and it's ok that I'm there, but I still don't feel like I fully belong. I can't really explain why that is, and maybe it's because of the whole infertility thing. I think its just that you spend so much time focused on the fact that you want to be a mom, that when you get there, you are used to the struggle, you have a hard time accepting your new place, so to speak.

What I want to say isn't coming out right, so I'm going to stop now.

It's late, and I must sleep now.

Goodnight!
Erica

Picture Day

So we took the kids to get their pictures taken today. For my shower, we had gotten a gift certificate to Kiddie.Kandids. They are usually located in Babies.R.Us. We were going to wait and get their pictures done when they were a year old, but the gift certificate was actually going to expire. Weird, right? So we realized that it expired next Saturday! So off we all went today.

My kids are TERRIBLE picture takers. Literally you have to do a backflip with a monkey on your head singing about a cow named Wilbur to get these kids to crack half a smile when someone is pointing a camera at them. But put the camera away, and everyone is ALL smiles. It's beyond frustrating. So we didn't really know how the whole thing was going to go today. Actually, that's not true. I knew it wasn't going to go well. I knew they were going to be crab apples and not smile for the camera.

Plus, it was hard to figure out a time to go! They had appts from 1230pm-6pm. We went with 1230pm because they have an 11am bottle, won't have to eat again until 3pm, and hopefully we can get it over with quickly in time for them to come home and take a nap. How foolish of me to think that it would be that easy.

First of all, we get there at 12:20pm for a 12:30pm appt. They tell us that the 12pm appt hasn't even started yet. That's how behind they are. GREAT! So we hang out and around 1:25pm it was our turn. The kids were dressed super cute. This was the first picture. See how hard it is with these two?


The guy took a bunch of them together, and that was the best. Ugh. Then we took a few of them by themselves. Hailey first, cause Jake lost it and started bawling.


Then Hailey started to cry, so we tried to get a picture of Jake by himself. This was the best result. (But how cute are his sneakers? He's like a little man!)


At this point everyone was crying, so we decided to do what any normal person would do when their children are screaming in public, COSTUME CHANGE! Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. Anyway, it did wonders! Jake was as happy as could be once I changed him. I think he wanted out of the whole outfit with pants and socks and sneakers and all that business. Put him in a onesie, and you got a happy camper on your hands! Hailey didn't seem to be as happy for being less dressed. Hey, can't please 'em all right?

So then we got a few really cute pics. Check these guys out! Yes, she is still on the verge of tears, but its just so damn cute.


And this one makes me laugh cause somehow Jake ended up with CRAZY HAIR! haha. And Hailey is sticking her tongue out. Which she does a lot. That one is going to be a handful. It really shows how much bigger he is than her.


And we did get a couple cute ones of them by themselves. Jake was being a goof and we did him first. It was funny, because as soon as I picked him up he was smiling up a storm for the photographer. Only when he was seated in front of the camera did the smiles become few and far between. But here's a cute one. Look at those fat things! Love them! And we got Hailey to smile. But only by giving her her favorite bear. Which was supposed to be Jakes (see the football uniform?)


And after it was all over, when we were picking out what we wanted to get, Hailey would not stop laughing! She was just hanging out in her stroller laughing outloud, to no one! No one was even playing with her! She was just playing with her bear and smiling and laughing. The photographer got quite a kick out of how happy they both were once picture time was over!

So there you go. What a day! When all was said and done, we didn't get home until like 3pm, and the kids were about out of their minds. Fun times, I tell ya!

And last but certainly not least, we are very excited that our Giants beat Dallas last week and are still playing football. Needless to say, if anyone asked in Sept which Manning brother would be in the playoffs longer, I don't think anyone would have picked Eli! But Hailey is very excited about the game, and although she will be sleeping when it is on, she still has to show her support.
GO BIG BLUE!


Enjoy,
Erica