Feeling The Tug

We're back from our summer holiday in the USA and back on London time. Wow, what a struggle that was! Jet lag plus little people is an awful combination. But alas in the life of an expat, jet lag is just part of the package.

It was so lovely to see Frostina interact with the family. It's amazing how much joy and light a baby toddler can bring to a room. She was showered with love and totally spoiled... basically she loved every minute of it. I had lots of free time while everyone was spoiling Frostina so I loved every minute of it as well.

Frostina is almost walking. I think she could already do it if she had the confidence. Sometimes when she's cruising she takes both hands off the wall and takes a few steps. I know it's just a matter of time before I will be chasing after her. In the meantime she's moving all over the place and it's super cute to see.

Just a little baby yoga at my Great Grandmother's house.

I do feel a bit more of a tug back home now that we have Frostina. In the old pre-children days, these visits were fun but they didn't make me want to leave our life in London. This time around, leaving was hard. And now that I'm back I do feel like maybe she is missing out by not being closer to family.

I know logically that even if we do move back to the US, it will most likely not be back where we came from. Which means we will most likely be on the other side of the country and therefore not really any closer to our family. But my heart does wish that we could move back there sometimes.

I'm not quite ready to leave the UK, but I can feel the tug much stronger than ever before. 

Jet Lag Is A Bitch

We are back in the UK after a wonderful trip home to the US to see family.

It's great to see family and watch Frostina interact with her family. But the coming home part sucks ass.

We are back to a land where it is 8 hours ahead,,,, after an almost 11 hour flight,,, with a 14 month old,,,,,,,

The plane ride was not so nice.

Our first night home was even worse.

Frostina went down at her normal 7pm bed time. Then she was up at 1am. Somehow thinking her bed time was just a nap.

So I was up with her from 1am until 4:30am until she finally went back to bed.

It's currently 9:45pm on day two.

Please let her sleep through the night!

Jet lag is a bitch!

Quick Catch Up

Hello all and apologies for not posting. We are home in the US visiting family and it's been busy, busy, busy.

We are having a great time and Frostina is enjoying swimming in various family member's pools and even in a lake. She's quite a water baby.

I am getting an actual tan for the first time in forever and am enjoying having all the extra hands to help out with my ever more mobile toddler.

I'll post more once we get home. Just wanted to do a quick catch up.

Family Holiday

We are on holiday! Or on vacation for my American friends. It's not the first time we have travelled with Frostina, but this is the first time it really feels like a family holiday.

We are somewhere in the sunny south of France and are loving every minute of it. My parents are here as well, visiting from the US, which makes it even more special.

Today we spent time hanging out at the pool. A first for Frostina who absoultely loved it. She was so cute splashing around. A true water baby.

So here's the view from where I'm sitting. What a lovely view it is!

Yes, that is an actual photo of Frostina. Even from the back you can see just how cute she is!

Crawling At Last

We have mobility at last! It's about freaking time!

I have been worried for a long time that Frostina wasn't crawling. When all the other babies in her playgroup were crawling around, she was happy to sit and play. She knew how to roll but hardly ever did it. Instead, she would play happily until she wasn't happy anymore. Then she would cry until I moved her to a new toy or the jumperoo or brought something interesting for her to play with.

Clever girl had me trained well.

She has been cruising for a while now and I started to think that she would be one of those babies who skipped crawling and went straight to walking. This was OK in theory, but I still worried that by not crawling she would miss some kind of development milestone that could hurt her in the future. *Note- I realise I sound completely neurotic, and I am. I accepted this fact about myself when it comes to Frostina a long time ago.

So imagine how shocked I was today when she decided that she wants to crawl. I swear it came out of nowhere. She has been rocking on all fours for a while now but no signs of real movement. I think all her new found mobility when she's cruising has motivated her to not just want to sit in one spot anymore. She was crawling and doing this funny scoot all over the place today.

The hubby and I are so proud of our little crawler. I know a year is quite late to get started, but we're so pleased she's finally figured it all out. 

I suppose it's finally time to do some real childproofing now.

Homecoming, A Year On

A year ago today we brought Frostina home from the hospital.

I was still in complete awe, amazed that I actually had a living baby to bring home this time. Coming home with baby in tow was so much better than the time before when I came home empty handed.

The house had gone from being completely lacking in baby things to overflowing with baby things. A sea of pink as I recall. It was a wonderful day even though I was super tired and still sore from my c-section.

A year later and my house is still overflowing with baby things. It never ceases to amaze me at how easily your house can fill up with baby equipment and toys. Some things, like her swing, have already been moved into the garage. So the pile up in there grows as well.

She is still not really crawling but she's an avid cruiser. She only cruises to the right at the moment which is pretty funny. As a solution I have placed chairs and her toys in a circle so she can keep cruising non-stop. Before I came up with my circular "cruising track" I had to keep picking her up and moving her back to the left whenever she reached the end of the line.

I also made the phone call today to have my saline sonogram done. It's one of the prep steps we have to do before we can move forward with trying for rainbow baby number two. As long as my uterus looks clear and healthy then we can take that leap.

A year ago I was staring at my tiny newborn with wonder. Today I stare at my almost toddler with the same wonder. I hope that feeling never goes away.

Happy Birthday Frostina

Today my beautiful baby girl turns 1.

I am overjoyed and without words.

For so many years I thought I would never reach this day.

Or any day where a living child of mine would reach her first birthday.

A day where I would be planning her birthday party.

A day where I would be inviting her playgroup friends over to help celebrate.

A day when I would buy expensive champagne to toast her first birthday.

It's a wonderful day, and I am so very lucky.

I Can Look At Babies Again

I've always loved children and babies,,, always.

I started as a very young babysitter for all the children in my neighbourhood. In fact, I babysat until I figured out that all the rest of my friends were going to parties that I was missing out on. I had dreams about my future babies; what I would name them, how I would dress them, and how they would fit into my life.

I loved when I would catch a baby smiling at me from across the room. That little cute face with it's little toothless smile. Ahhh, it used to melt my heart. I'd do anything for that moment.

And then something happened. My baby died at 36 weeks.

My beloved son died before he had a chance to be born. I will never forget seeing him for the first time, lifeless in the bassinet the hospital provided for him. Just a shell of a real baby, there but not there. His body was intact yet I knew his soul had already passed on.

After that I couldn't look at another baby. Whenever I passed a mother with her baby buggy I would look away, not wanting to see her living baby mocking me. Babies became a reminder of what I had lost. Each cute toothless smile was like a knife in my heart. "Look at me, I didn't die," they would say to me. "My Mom did something right and protected me, unlike you did for your baby."

Seeing a living baby became a slap in the face.

So I avoided babies for a very long time. As much as a person can avoid babies when she lives in a town full of babies.

But something has changed. Changed as a result of having my wonderful rainbow baby Frostina in my life. I can now look at babies again.

It came slowly I think, or maybe I'm just slow to notice it. But somewhere along the way, looking at babies doesn't hurt as much. Just today I was out without Frostina and I caught myself noticing all the baby girls I came into contact with. I was trying to figure out if they were older than her, or younger. If they were cuter than her or not,,,, of course none of them were cuter than she is!

That's when it hit me. I can look at babies again without it taking my breath away. Looking at babies used to be a grief trigger for me, but not anymore.

Now I just look at babies and smile again.

Progress

Last night I had a phone conversation with my fertility doctor. "Why a phone call?" you may ask. Well I have to talk to him on the phone because he's in the US.

If you haven't been following me for long, let me catch you up. We used a US based fertility clinic to add Frostina to our family. The reason we used a clinic in the US instead of one here in the UK is because there is a severe shortage of egg donors in the UK.

In the US the rules and regulations are different and as a result there are plenty of egg donors available. Lots of people from the UK go to Europe for donor eggs, but since we're American the US felt like a better fit. It's also a lot more expensive and takes longer to fly to, but it was worth it.

My doctor asked about Frostina and how my pregnancy with her went. After I filled him in on all the details and answered a few questions about my general health and monthly cycles he said we're fine to move forward. They still have The Hubby's "contribution" on ice so he won't have to do anything. I think he was a bit disappointed because he really liked the clinic's "collection room" which I wrote about back in 2011.

My next step is to have a saline sonogram at a clinic here in London. After that The Hubby and I have to get updated infectious disease tests done (HIV, hepatitis, and a couple more I think). We have had these tests done several times already, but as anyone who undergoes any kind of fertility treatment knows, they have to be within the past 12 months. Which means ours have expired.

After that we will be given access to the clinic's donor database and we go from there. Sadly, the donor we used for Frostina is no longer available and we have no more frozen embryos. I would have liked to be able to use the same donor this time so any sibling would be 100% genetically related, but alas this will not be the case. I suppose in the long term this is not a huge deal, it just would have been nice not to have to go through the selection process all over again.

Best case scenario, I could be booking a date for a transfer in 3-4 months. Though I think realistically it will take longer than that. These things always do.

So it's a long way to go, but at least we have some progress.

The Heart Says Yes, The Head Procrastinates

We finally came to the decision to try for another baby. It's not an easy decision by any means. It took lots of soul searching and listening to my heart, which finally said yes.

So that's it, right? Well maybe not. You see, I'm mostly a logic driven person so listening to my heart is not something that comes easy. Once I was done listening to my heart, my head had to kick back in to work out all the details. After all, we can't just go off birth control and see what happens.

*Insert me laughing hysterically. "Come off birth control? I haven't been on birth control in 10 years. If I was going to accidentally get knocked up it surely would have happened by now!"

No, this trying again will involve doctors and egg donors and flying halfway across the world for treatment. This trying again will be expensive and stressful. This trying again will be a concerted effort on my part. So that's where my head has to step in.

And my head still has fears.

Shortly after making the decision I sent an email to our US based clinic to get the ball rolling. I asked if our donor was still available and also about pricing changes. The reply came quickly. No our donor is not available anymore (so sad about this) and no the prices have not changed much. I just need to give them the go ahead and they will set the process in motion.

So did I reply immediately to get things started? Of course I didn't. Instead I found a million and one reasons not to reply to the email. First I told myself that we should have all the money in place first. Then I told myself that I would do it tomorrow. Tomorrow turned into tomorrow and so on. Until over a month had passed.

The Hubby asked me last night when I was going to send a reply to the clinic. I told him I would, and I finally did. Today I sent an email with a few follow up questions and told them we're ready to start the process. I'm not sure what my head was thinking, but it's time it stopped procrastinating and got a move on. After all, we all know that any IVF cycle, especially one using an egg donor, takes forever to get rolling.

And I'm certainly not getting any younger.