Cooking

I can cook. I can follow a recipe and the food tastes fine. I am not, however, a chef. I do not have verve. I am not inspired. Each day when it is time to cook it hits me in the face as if it had never happened before. I know that the best weeks are those where I plan on Sunday and shop once and then cook according to plan. That is hell for my husband. He likes the spontaneous cooking. He does not want a planned meal.

Before we had children and we were both working, he was the chef. We often ate late or went out. It was a brutal shock for me when I had this child that needed to be fed something other than breast milk. I did a lousy job with my first kid and I think that is why he is a picky eater now. I fed him the same thing day after day and now he doesn't like very many meals.

I want to eat whole grain healthy foods. I want them to be tasty. I want low sugar, but I still want crunchy cookies. I wish I was better at this. I need someone to guide me in this! Oh one more thing, did I mention that it has to be totally milk free and no beef? I do use goat cheese and soy milk.

I need a personal chef.

What brings happiness?

I am a big Oprah fan. I was watching an episode today that I had recorded on my PVR (Canadian TIVO). It was one of the travel shows. Oprah went and visited an AMISH family. It was interesting to hear them talk about the AMISH way of life. The husband and wife, I don't remember their names, both described themselves as 100% content. Their way of life focuses on family and eschews material possessions.

I cannot imagine changing my life to be like theirs. I like electricity and my washing machine. They do use some technology, but they say that they like to choose the technology. They have an ideal life, based on life in the 17th century. I did agree though with the idea that a life spent in pursuit of material possessions is not fufilling. We are so screwed up in that we allow ourselves to be led into the belief that spending our money will make us happy. Of course, our economy would be in big trouble if we all stopped buying the endless crap.

I don't know why we value money instead of family. I know that having a parent staying at home is often not a choice for most people. We work like we do because we need to pay the rent. I am lucky right now that we were able to have a life where I can be a stay-at-home mom and we are still quite comfortable.

Nothing in life is more important than our families and yet we don't value mothering. It is something that is so important, yet we don't give any training in it.

It has taken me a long time to adjust to life without a career. We are trained to live in a pace that does not mesh with a happy home life. For a long time I felt lost without deadlines and project completions. How could I have value without producing something that others could purchase?

I need to get a poster on the wall that I look at each day that reminds me of the things that value. I have two happy kids. A husband that loves me. It is hard to stay focused on the things that matter. It is harder sometimes to figure out what are the things that matter.

Well, time to go nurse my youngest.

IVF

I have been reading Julie's posts lately and I have been reliving my past failures at IVF. We did 3 unsuccessful IVF cycles before we were successful. I have craptastic ovaries. I had a history of empty egg sacs. In fact, both of our children are DE.

Not being about to use my own eggs was a journey for me. I felt angry and ashamed for a long time that I did not respond to treatment. Finally I realized that for me, children would have to come from my heart. I thought of it as controlled adoption. There are a lot of things that come with this. We are going to tell our kids when they are older. I am not sure exactly how, but I know that it is the right thing. Right now, I have started with the "Mummy and Daddy needed a lot of help to get pregnant." I think of the Donor and feel such deep gratitude that she gave a piece of herself to us. Both of our boys are amazing.

I think of the unsuccessful attempts and I know I was never pregnant, but each failure was like a miscarriage to me. I didn't tell people at first when we were cycling. I did not want to face other people's feelings if we failed. I did tell people that we were trying IVF when we did our DE pregnancies. We have not told our families that the boys are from donor eggs. I did not want to face any crap about it. I guess they will find out eventually, if the boys tell them. I just want to tell our boys first.

I am certainly lucky that the rollercoast of IVF brought my husband and I closer together. It was not always easy, but it made me realize that he really really loved me. I am lucky that I have a husband that is emotionally present.

I really don't think that I have dealt with the grief of all of the failures. Someone suggested to my that I should write a letter to those boys and girls that did not make it and then burn it. Maybe I will blog that some day.

We transfered 3 donor eggs in IVF #4 and two took hold. I was horrified. I did NOT want twins. My husband was happy. It made me want to puke. Oh, maybe that was just the horrible morning sickness. Luckily for me, one stopped growing about 9 weeks in. I cannot pretend that I was not relieved. Of course, sometimes I wonder, but I never wanted twins.

In IVF #5 we transfered 2 eggs and both took hold. But it gets worse, one of the eggs split into monozygotic twins. I was pregnant with triplets and sick as a dog. We had testing done and it was determined that one of the MZ twins was not normal. We decided to do a reduction of the twins, rather than risk the whole pregnancy. You cannot take just one twin as they are in the same sack. If you miscarry, it will often take the whole pregnancy instead of just the one abnormal fetus. Unfortunately we had to do a six hour drive to find a doctor that would do it. In case you don't know, a reduction is done by injecting saline into the heart of the fetus. This stops the heart. So the procedure is much like amniocentesis. You have a technician who does an ultrasound and a doctor who does the injection. You have to lie still and breath easily. The doctor then inserts the largest needle that you have ever seen into your belly and into the unlucky fetus. Our doctor tried to do both at once. You increase the risk to the pregnancy when you insert the needle more than once. Unfortunately, fetus B took several hours to die, instead of the instant death that we had been told would happen. Oh yes, and then you carry the dead fetuses inside you until you give birth. They will calcify, but they will still be there. It was probably the worst day of my life. (The day that I thought I was miscarrying my first son is also on that list. Luckily that was just a little bleeding.)

I will NEVER tell anyone about the reduction. Why? Because I do not want my son to ever have to think about our having a reduction to increase his chances at survival. If I don't tell, then he will never know. Yes, it was a selfish decision that benefited the whole family. Triplets with at least one with serious problems would have had a huge negative impact of our life. I am sorry that it happened. I am sorry that we had to experience it. It is the worst case scenario. However, I know that was did the right thing.

I have two healthy happy sons. It was not the journey that I wanted to take, but I am happen with the destination.

Bad Email Correspondent

I am one of the world's worst email correspondents. Even when I was on the computer all day for my job, I rarely sent personal emails. It is not that I don't care for people, I do. I enjoy hearing from them. The question is why don't I do it? Fear of rejection? Laziness? Or is it on the list of things that I like to do and therefore do not allow myself to do. I know that it is twisted, but I know that I am not always happy when I am doing things that I like doing. I feel guilty, or maybe that I don't deserve it. I talked to a Psychologist about it once. She said that my comfort zone is not being happy, because I got used to it as a child. She said that you have to just do the things and get past the feeling, and in time you get used to being happy. (Note: Starting a blog is one of the things that I have wanted to do for a long time.)

In person I am very warm and friendly, but I hold myself back from making contact. I guess, like everyone else, I am afraid of getting hurt. This probably explains why I have lived in a new town for 15 months and have really no new friends.

I don't know where this is going, but I just wanted to say it.

Flashbacks

I am a big fan of "A Little Pregnant". Julie and Paul have such honesty and they have travelled the road that I have been on. She had a blog recently, Whisper words of wisdom that gave me such horrid flashbacks to my first 3 unsuccessful IVF treatments. I know that numbers 4 and 5 were successful, but that does not reduce the awfulness of the first 3 failures. Luckily for me my marriage was improved by the treatments, we pulled together and not apart.

I remember the first one, holy crap, the pain and fear. It was overwhelming. Someone needs to write a book with step by step survival instructions. I just remember how I felt like everyone was talking from far away and how I was sure that I was not taking everything in. It really strikes at the core of what you think of yourself when you are not able to get pregnant by getting lucky on a Saturday night.

I am so happy to have the family that I have. I sometimes wish I had a girl, but I am NEVER going through that again. I am DONE! I hated being pregnant. Of course, I was sick as dog through the whole thing both times. I had complications that were horrible. I had the worst whole body rash during the second one. Thank god for oatmeal baths! I had the experience of going to neonatal specialists. I can remember one doctor saying "Do not look up this test on the internet. Just wait for the results." Surprisingly I obeyed, at least until after the results came back negative. What a nightmare!

Oh man, it was just such a painful, wrenching time. My two boys are totally great and certainly worth it. I no longer have the angry moments when I think of my path. But hearing about Julie going through it. I hope that she is having an easier time. My thoughts are with her and Paul.

Judge Not...well...judge a little bit.

Okay, I know that it is hard to discuss other people's parenting styles without seeming like a total bi-otch but I was watching Surviving Motherhood and I heard something that made my eyes want to bug out.

There was a mother of a two year old and she was having problems with her girl running amok. Her husband wanted to spank, but she didn't. One of the woman, a sane one, talked about time out and consistentcy. She wasn't interested. Another woman talked about using PINCHING. This is what this woman thought was what she would try. ARGH! What the F**K!

Here is what I think is wrong.

1. Using pain and humiliation does not raise a child that is whole and kind. It raises a kid that is resentful. Your kid will behave irratically if your punishment is not fair, consistent and compassionate.
2. You and your husband need to agree to a strategy. Get together when your daughter is NOT listening. Write it down on a piece of paper. Apply what you decide like it is the word of G*d. Do it each and every time for a long time, at least 2 weeks, a month is better. After that review it and change it if you want to.
3. Consistency is of vital importance. Do what you say every time. Never break your word, and I mean NEVER. You cannot say "I am too tired this time." This is your kid and it is important every time. No excuses. Enforce the behaviour no matter what the reason is for it. Okay, fevers excepted, but other than that you must persist. Believe me, it is worth it.
4. Keep your cool. Going apeshit actually reinforces the behaviour because it is exciting. It may not be fun, but it is not boring.
5. Use simple terms to describe what you want. "Come here now" and not "Where are you going?" Small kids don't actually get everything that you say. Use simple, direct, firm commands for direction.

I find that it helps if I think of my kids as little scientists. They are just conducting experiments to see what happens. They are not actually out to get you.

Okay, I feel better now. But holly crap, Pinching!

Blogging etiquette

I wish I knew of a blog that told blogging etiquette. I mean. What are the rules of polite behaviour.

Sometimes it seems like reading a blog is most like evesdropping on a conversation. When is it okay to comment? Should you comment to say hello when you like someone.

There are blogs that I have commented on, but sometimes I wish I knew the rules.