Saturday, February 26, 2005

Happy birthday

Happy birthday, Mari.

Friday, February 25, 2005

Good enough

From Chez Miscarriage :

The empirical literature on childhood risk and resilience has now confirmed Winnicott's original theory of "good enough" mothering: if a child is exposed to adequate parenting - not perfect parenting, not parenting that demands stewed organic peas for dinner every night, not parenting that requires a flurry of maternal solicitation at the first sign of whimpering discontent, just reasonably good parenting - the child's development will not be impeded or hindered. Human beings are a resilient, hardy lot. If children needed an obsessed parent's dialted pupils to be fixed on them all day in order to thrive, the human race would have died out long ago.
I'm not perfect. Nothing I do now is perfect; nothing I have ever done is perfect; I suspect that nothing I ever will do will ever be perfect.

That being said, I am good enough. Getupgrrl has been posting on 'good enough parenting' on her weblog. That is me. I am a 'good enough' mother. I bought the book on making your own baby food...but we used Gerber's (or whatever). Good enough. I breastfed my son...but supplemented with formula and stopped at six months (he had teeth! and he used them!!). Good enough. I am a working mom so he spends his days in daycare (hey! we've gotta eat!! we've gotta pay the mortgage!). Good enough.

Any 'drive-by mother' comments? I don't care. I have been 'driven-by' by my MIL enough to last my lifetime (she sent me a ten-page letter on my birthday full of criticism). I am immune to criticism. My son is beautiful and happy and healthy.

And very, very loved.

Good enough.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Where you are...where you've been...

This is kinda cool. Kind of scary the number of states I have lived in though...

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

For the girls

My neice has just recently moved out into her own apartment. She turns 26 this month. Just thinking of her in her own place gets me thinking about being her age. It makes me think of the song "This One's for the Girls!"

"This is for all you girls about 25;
In little apartments just trying to get by..."
I remember being there. And being 25. In a little apartment. Just (barely) getting by.

You go, girl.

Mildly to Moderately Delayed

We had some speech pathologists come to evaluate E a couple of weeks ago and Tuesday I got the results of his testing. They said that he was 'mildly to moderately delayed' in his speech. The gist of it is that he knows a lot of words (mostly nouns...I give him names for everything), but he doesn't seem to know/understand verbs/adverbs. He knows a lot and can follow simple directions ('pick the bottle up off the floor and hand it to mommy', 'let's give Ellie a cookie', 'where's Gemma?'), but he just is not making sentences.

He has started to say 'more milk' (actually 'mil'), 'more cracker', 'bye, dah' (he means 'dog') but that is the extent of it. At 26 months he should be saying 2-3 word sentences.

The speech therapist is going to try to arrange to go to his daycare once a week and work with him. I wish I could be there to see what she does, but I just can't take that much time off work.

Sucks to be me, I guess.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Hard Rock Baby

Yes, I always listen to classic rock. It seems that this has rubbed off on my little boy. On the way to work this morning the radio station I listen to was playing "Sympathy for the Devil" and I was blissfully singing along ("...I shouted out who killed the Kennedys? After all it was you and me...") when I heard from the back seat; "...hoo hoo; hoo hoo...".

E likes the Stones!

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Bioethicists...what a crock...

Oooo...this article has me pissed off. I know it is kind of old (last November), but I just found it today and I am SEETHING. What a total jerk, this so-called "bio-ethicist" is. I am wondering how many mothers of children conceived via donor eggs/children of older parents/IVF patients over age 40 he has spoken with. He must have done some...how else does he feel qualified to speak on this subject? He cites no studies on these subjects. Are these just his opinions?

"If you talk to children of older parents (did you talk to any? where are your statistics? where is this study?), most will tell you that they worried quite a bit about whether their parents would live to see them graduate from high school. Others will tell you that as much as they loved their parents they missed having someone who could do all the physically demanding things that younger parents can do."

As a child of older parents, I can truthfully say, we never even thought about it. I never questioned whether my parents would be around to 'see me graduate from high school.' I never had any 'physically demanding' things that I wanted to do (with my parents) that they weren't able to participate in. Now it could be that I was not that athletic (which I wasn't), but I seriously don't know what I could possibly have wanted to do that my parents couldn't support (I am really clueless here...can someone fill me in??? What kinds of things did you do with your parents that were so physically demanding???).

"Putting aside the proven risks to babies and mothers when women over 40 attempt childbirth, ..."

Believe me, REs don't blithely just do IVF on women over 40 (or 45) without doing tests. Sheesh, I had treadmill tests, blood tests, EKGs, the best physical I had ever had in my life before my RE would do an IVF cycle for me. In Dr. Caplan's defense, I did find a later article he wrote in which he quoted Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of Weill Cornell University and New York Presbyterian’s fertility services who said that some 50-year olds may be in better shape than some 40-year olds. I guess that he (Dr. Caplan) just didn't know that clinics already require that older women (over 45) have to have additional tests (at least the clinics I am aware of) before they will do IVF with them. Maybe he ought to do some research before he writes his articles.

"St. James said that it is never too late to have a child. And the miracles of reproductive technology do appear to support her statement. The parade of fifty-something celebrity moms who proclaim their pregnancies on the morning talk shows could give any young woman the impression that there is no rush to reproduce because medical technology can bail them out if need be."

I agree that young women (and men as well) need to be educated. Young women need to be aware at how ones fertility declines after age 35 and then plummets like a stone after age 40. They need to know that IVF is expensive and painful and invasive; that most of these celebrities having children after age 45 are probably using donor eggs; that IVF really is not that effective using old eggs (over 45 or so).

"...St. James had to use donor sperm and an egg, which was "donated" but more accurately bought from an anonymous stranger."

Oh, so sperm is "donated", yet eggs are "bought"? Gee, I thought sperm donors received compensation for their donations. Egg donors receive more compensation because the donation is so much more difficult than sperm donation. Considering what egg donors go through (the shots, the bloating, the drugs, the invasive procedures), I don't think the compensation is out of line.

"Keep in mind, too, that when donor sperm and eggs are used a potential legal minefield is created. If either the source of the sperm or the eggs decides to assert parental rights over St. James’ twins they will likely be successful. A court in Erie, Pa., has just ruled that a woman hired by a single man as a surrogate mother has just such a right."

Now Dr. Caplan, this situation that you cite is so much more complex than you hint at in this article. This is really not indicative of a typical donor egg/donor sperm cycle. The intended parents of these triplets did not go to visit their children for 6 days after they were born. The surrogate mother (not the egg donor) felt they had been abandoned and took them home with her. This is a case of a gestational surrogate (no genetic relationship with the child), not an egg donor. Egg donation is only secondary to this story (the egg donor was a different woman). Are you saying gestational surrogacy should be outlawed?

"At any time in the lives of the children the person who supplied the sperm may try to enter into St. James life. And despite the anonymity of the person who supplied the egg, she might be able to litigate her way to an answer should she ever decide to find out who has "her" baby. "

Oh, come on now. This would not ever happen. It would be the same as a woman who had given up her child for adoption who, after the adoption was final, perhaps years later, tried to reclaim the child. What judge in his right mind would rule against the adoptive (donor egg/donor sperm) parents? What were you thinking when you wrote this? Do you not realize that legal contracts are signed to protect the prospective parents? This is ludicrous in the extreme.

I am not impressed by you, Dr. Caplan.

Monday, February 07, 2005

A sentence! My kingdom for a sentence!

Today as I was getting in the shower, I said to E, "Mommy has to take a shower now, sweetie."

E then said, "Mommy shower."

A sentence! E made a sentence! This was the first time I had heard him put two words together to make a sentence.

A breakthrough.

Friday, February 04, 2005

Daycare

I don't like the daycare that E is currently in. I don't think they have enough workers to supervise as many children as they have. I also don't think they have any kind of age-separated education things going on. I don't like that E seems to be the youngest child there all the time. I don't think that he is getting the attention that he needs.

B picked the place out. All he cared about was that it was cheap. My dad used to say that you get what you pay for.

In this case, at least, he is right.

Sleep Woes

E wouldn't or couldn't go to sleep last night. Usually he is out by 8:30, but last night, he didn't get to sleep until about 10:30. Then he woke up at 1:30 and stayed up until 2:45. Then he woke up at 4:30 and went back to sleep at about 5:15. This is not like him. He must still be feeling sick. He was coughing quite a bit and did manage to throw up once. Poor little guy.

We both slept in until 7:30.

Late to work.

Again.

Car Rant Addendum

Oh, yeah...I forgot that the rear-view mirror fell off the window a few months ago. It is sitting on a shelf in my kitchen now.

Being real useful there...

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Miracle drugs

E has been sick. Very sick. On Sunday, he threw up his lunch and then slept the rest of the day. His temperature was over 100 and he was very listless. I took him to the doctor on Monday and the Dr. said it was probably viral. They did a throat culture to rule out strep throat (negative), listened to his chest (sounded good) and looked in his ears (no ear infection).

Diagnosis: Take him home; make sure he drinks (clear liquids) and see if he will eat bland food (didn't).

Result: He threw up everything he ate (as little as that was). He did drink and his diapers were wet so he wasn't dehydrated.

Tuesday his temperatue got up to 102 that evening. He hadn't held any food down since Sunday (threw up 3 times on Tuesday).

Wednesday his temperature was 101.8 at 8 AM so I called the doctor's office and left a message for the doctor asking if he should be seen again. The doctor said to bring him in so we went in on Weds afternoon. Doctor asked if I wanted to wait on starting tests as he was still in the range of it being something viral (viral infections usually run their course in 4-5 days). I said we might as well just begin testing now. They took blood (E cried), a chest x-ray (E cried) and attached a bag to his little penis to capture his urine (E cried).

Doctor called back before we got home.

Diagnosis: pneumonia, a mild case. Good thing I decided to go ahead and test.

Result: antibiotics have already begun to do their thing and little E is starting to act like himself again.