Momo Monday: Three Weeks Three Days

...But it feels like she's always been here. Or that she was always supposed to be here. Momo was actually made/frozen the year Noah and I started "trying," 2010. It just took five years to find her.

I hope it doesn't take five years for Noah and I figure out how to...be parents. Every day I feel like we are getting better. She's started looking around a little more and it seems like she is recognizing who we are, especially me, as the lady with the food. We've started calling Momo La Piranha because of the ways she latches and feeds-- needless to say she's gained a good amount of weight (mostly in her cheeks) which at this age is apparently the marker of good parenting, so maybe we are doing something right. When she doesn't eat well, or she passes out at my boob, I immediate feel like my body isn't working right. I realize that mentality is left over from IF Island-- this feeling that my body is somehow failing. I felt it all through IF, through my pregnancy with the hematoma and previa, and even through birth with the placenta accreta. It's like my body just doesn't want to cooperate and it's frustrating and makes me feel bad and inadequate-- but then I remind myself that I survived years of IF treatments, grew this baby from a tiny embryo, blasted her out of me despite all that went down, and she's healthy and chubby. If my boobs need some time to figure out what's happening, then I have to be patient. It will get figured out, and what I'm learning more and more is that this is normal. Most of the overwhelm and hormonal fluctuations and breastfeeding anxieties are completely normal. I've never been normal before. Hm.

I actually went to a breastfeeding support group the other day, and that's when I learned that there are so many issues with feeding and it is all normal. I also learned I have carpel tunnel from nursing...ugh. As I sat and listened to the new moms talk about their different feeding concerns, I thought about how much support there is for new moms. There was an instructor who validated everyone and addressed their issues. No such support group existed when I was on IF Island. If they did they were at a far distance-- no, there really wasn't much. Seems unfair to me.

Noah just put some tiny pink socks on Momo and is taking her outside to try and teach her that it's day time. She apparently is confused about that and sleeps all day and is up for much of the night wanting to hang out. She was like that in my belly too.  

Yesterday I realized I don't know the words to many songs, and I felt a slight moment of panic. How do I not know any songs? I find myself singing songs that are imprinted in my brain from my 6th grade graduation (Bette Midler's The Rose anyone?), songs from school plays (Momo will know all of the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack by the time she's two), and most frequently I find myself singing the Christmas song, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, but I change the words around so that it's I saw Momo kissing Santa Claus. Really?? Noah can at least sing a few Pearl Jam songs-- and one Tom Waits song Momo actually really likes. Between the two of us we aren't sure what kind of musical taste she might have.

But if that's what we are worst at, singing to her, I think we are in pretty good shape. Staring at her never gets old and I'm constantly visualizing her as that embryo picture we have, and am completely amazed that all of her perfect parts grew from that single cell-- or group of cells. I took the technology for granted when I was having transfers and what not. But now I see the utter miracle it all is, and how science has to meet chance in a moment of life. All the stars and organisms have to be lined up just so to create a person. There's no doubt in my mind that Momo was meant to be here, meant to be ours, and of course I think she is destined for greatness. How can I not? I'm her mom.

Comments

[Graace]

I can play The Rose on the piano!! Also try and work in some Copacabana, always popular with the cats and children. I'm glad you're doing well!!

[Candace]

I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your story. You've given me the inspiration to research IVF with donated embryos and the courage to get started with it. I'm so happy that my husband and I have an opportunity to start a family, even if it's not the traditional way.

[C]

Yay you went to a breastfeeding support group! I went at about three weeks too, it was still painful. The support group was so helpful. Take it one day at a time and soon you will both be pros and she will grow chubbier and chubbier and you will be so proud of what your body can do! No more of this body not working right! I found it helped to lay off the pump and only do it the original way but everyone has to find her way.
Infertility, IVF, donor conception, nobody understands, and I can't decide how much to tell people if we ever do have another child (we hope and pray). I'm leaning toward not telling much more than I already have to close friends. Most people just don't get it and they need to be at that perfect moment of receptivity for sharing to be successful. Usually they just say the wrong thing. I don't know
For me the doctors perform miracles of science but God performs the miracle of life. I do not believe at all that ART is "playing God" because we really don't control whether it "works" in the end.