My Dear Watson

…I was complaining (what ELSE is new??) about beginning my IVF cycle and starting to take birth control pills. 

It was the opening salvo in our last stand in the long battle to become pregnant.

Here is some of what I wrote that day:

Q:  How Do You Make A Hormone?

A:  Refuse to pay her.

BOOOOO.

That’s bad even for ME and I have frighteningly low standards. In case you haven’t noticed…

But seriously, how DO you make all of these hormones required for
the IVF cycle??  My GAWD people, the drawing up of fluid and the
powders and the vials and the syringes, OH MY.

I just about fell off my chair when I read through all of my
instructions from Dr. Z.  Is this puzzling and overwhelming for
everyone just starting her first cycle, or is it me?

If it’s me, you can tell me…

I am hoping that from the outset it all looks very scary and
confusing and quite painful, but once you’re in full swing it all falls
into place and starts making sense.

Is this what happens?  IS IT?!?!?  [shouted in quaky voice with veins bulging in neck.] [Not a pretty sight, I might add.]

I feel like crap today and I’ve only taken one birth control pill.
ONE. I have taken one little teeny tiny baby step in this process and I
already feel like my body can’t take it.

PA-THETIC.

I was whining and flailing around in the kitchen today at work, all
flustered and pale and suffering from a migraine.  Always the drama
queen, it was obvious to anyone within a five-mile radius I was ill.

But you know those people who just cannot let you be ill?  They just
have to share in your misery and steal your thunder?  God I hate those
people.

The annoying super nerd guy in my office  came into the kitchen,
took one look at me and said, "Oh are you sick?? I feel terrible too. I
think I have the SAME thing!"

"Really?" I snorted in response.  "So you recently grew a
faulty uterus and a bunch of marginal-at-best eggs??  And even though
you want more than ANYTHING to be pregnant you started the birth
control pill last night?? Because if the answer to that is NO, then I
highly doubt you have the same affliction I do!"

That shut him up.

So I am taking to my bed chamber…flouncy nightie and
marabou-trimmed slippers and all, to wait out this headache.  And hope
that this isn’t the start of a very, very long few weeks.

And coming soon…the winner of the Name This IVF Cycle Category Contest. 

You people crack me up. Thank you for bringing some levity to this whole thing.  What would I do without you?

And here we are, one long year later…and still, I ask myself, what would I do without you? 

Thank you all, so much, for commenting and e-mailing me after my last couple of posts.  Many of you said you had no experience with PPD, but wished me luck.  And others of you wrote such understanding and supportive comments (and e-mails) it literally brought tears to my eyes. And that’s NOT the post partum weepiness talking.

Today Jax was crying in his crib after I put him down for a nap.  If he’s fussy, I’ll let him work it out for a few minutes.  After play time, as soon as he starts yawning or getting fussy, I’ll swaddle him back up (with a hearty "I’m gonna swaddle you SUCKA") and put him down.  This often works, today it didn’t.

His fussing soon went to Def Con 5, and I thought, what the hell?  I’ll change his diaper and see if that helps.  He was literally shrieking in Parker’s ear, since they sleep side-by-side, and although she can usually block out his monkey screeches and sleep through anything, I was afraid he would wake her.

So he had a wet diaper.  And after I changed it I held him up and patted his back, saying, "hey, maybe you have to burp… ???"  And seconds later he let loose a belch so loud it could have come from a Stanford frat boy after shot-gunning a six-pack of beer.

"What the HELL?!" I asked Jackson.  "How did I think of trying THAT?"

Maybe I CAN do this job, I said to myself, maybe I can…

(I know, it’s sad when a single burp is what I’m building my Mom Confidence platform on, but HEY, it’s a start, right??)

And now…SELF-INDULGENT MOM ALERT!!  SELF-INDULGENT MOM ALERT!! 

PS  Go to www.parenting.com to waste your own time making a self-indulgent fake cover like I did!  Good LORD, do I really have this much time on my hands?!?

PPD, how can I explain it
I’ll take you frame by frame it

To have y’all jumpin’ shall we singin’ it

P is for Post, P is for Partum
The last D…well…that’s not that simple

It’s sorta like another way to say you’re all bummed out

It’s nine little letters that are missin’ here

And it fills you with dread and doubt

Bust it

Okay, so I did threaten promise to write more often, but alas…I just don’t got it in me.
I want to write about what the babies are up to, since this will undoubtedly be the best diary of their early months and years and my memory is shot to hell. But every time I think about posting, something comes up.

Something like this damn anxiety I have had since the babies were born.

People? I think I have post partum depression and I’m here to tell ya, it’s no fun.

I’ve heard that PPD often presents itself as anxiety, and with me that appears to be true. I don’t feel all stay-under-the-covers blue.  Which I have felt in the past (after a terrible post-grad school breakup with Mr. Cruel and a humiliating move home to my parents’ house), and this isn’t that.  But almost every day, I feel this sense of dread come over me like a black cloud, even when I’ve had a good day.  I have lots of help, and most days things are really good, but STILL in the late afternoons this weird anxiety comes over me. 

I don’t have any physical symptoms (like having panic attacks) but out of nowhere, just feel rotten.  Blech. Blah.  And I worry about any upcoming change.  I freaked out daily in the weeks before BeBop went back to work after being home for six weeks.  I worried about the baby nurse taking a week off while my sister was here and then worried about my sister leaving.  I worried about my mother-in-law leaving after helping for two weeks and now I worry about the nanny starting and going back to work and Lord knows what else. Sometimes I worry about nothing, just feel worried…ANXIOUS.

And I’m tired of it.
So I’m starting Lexapro and we’ll see what happens.

Of course, being ME, I’ve already tried a veritable ASSLOAD of natural remedies, including but not limited to:  St. John’s Wort, homeopathics, chamomile tea (which?  WTF?  Why did I listen to THAT suggestion??), Bach Flower Remedies, some weird concoction that comes in a dropper – of course offered by my Mother – and another herb which is supposed to relax you but instead made my skin itch and God knows what else.

If you have any GOOD stories about taking medicine for PPD, please share.

If you have any horror stories, please DON’T. 

Good GAWD, the evil internet is chock full o’ stories warning me that Lexapro is the Devil’s Doing, and that if I ever decide to stop taking it I will endure  all nine circles of hell and wish I was detoxing from heroin.
I stuck my head in the sand (= resisted the magnetic siren song of Mistress Google) throughout my IVF cycle and my pregnancy and all that worked out pretty well for me, so I’m planning on repeating that now. 

But really, if you have some positive words to share, I’m all ears…

And in the meantime, here are the little lights of my life, PPD or not:

 

That extra padding I am now sporting is, I surmise, the reason I was snubbed from the Tyra Banks Show.

The producer called me one night and we chatted about my experience and why I willingly made an ass out of myself for all to see put those videos on YouTube.  It sounded like they wanted someone still trying to get pregnant, so my joyful outburst of "NO!  I NOW HAVE NEWBORN TWINS! TWINS I SAY!!" did not go over well.  But being the sharer that I am, I directed her to my blogroll and said there were many fabulous women out there in the blogosphere still trying….but HEY, I would love to come to New York and be on the show just the same.

So later that night despite the fact that I am delirious due to lack of sleep I e-mailed her several recent photos as requested and I guess the transformation (to put it lightly) from my pre-babies YouTube Self (which wasn’t any great shakes to begin with mind you) to….errrr….uh, what I look like today did not cut the Tyra mustard and I never heard from her again.

C’est la vie I guess.

I am continually amazed at those of you who continue to post regularly with new babies at home…I want to write almost every day, but I just can’t seem to find a block of time needed to sit down and compose anything close to a cogent thought.

Really.

I am one stick short of a corn dog and yes, I did just make that up and NO, it doesn’t make any sense but there you go.

I want this blog to continue to be a journal of this entire experience, but I am finding it so hard to write. I am finding it hard to do anything besides cope, for God’s sake, and truly things are good…I can’t imagine the basket case I would be if we had major issues with the babies.

I still have help from the baby nurse and I found a great nanny who will start in a few weeks.  My wonderful mother-in-law is in town for two weeks and she helps me change and feed the twins and she cooks and cleans like a MoFo, so I am being spoiled.  People do my laundry and empty my dish washer and still, STILL!, I am beyond exhausted and overwhelmed.

And the babies?  (ENOUGH of your whining Watson, for crissakes, what about the freaking KIDS I can almost hear you say.) Sweet Jesus they’re cute and I know that’s so friggin’ obnoxious but it’s true!  They now eat  about every four hours and so far, no major issues with colic or reflux and for that I am eternally grateful.  Really. Each night after the 10:00 PM feeding I take Bosco out to pee in the backyard and in the dark of night I look to the heavens and say thank you, dear God thank you for these babies and for their good health.  And I can see my breath in the cold air and as I look beyond our lemon tree to the night sky, I fill myself with gratitude, for just one perfect moment.

And so far they’re pretty good sleepers too…they still sleep a lot of the day away, but at six weeks they’re starting to stay up between feedings to ‘play,’ which often consists of me putting them on the jungle-themed play mat or the boppy pillow, sometimes posing them in fake isn’t that the cutest twin thing EVER poses and blinding them with the flash of the digital camera.

My mood has been crazy. If you couldn’t tell.  I spent the first three weeks crying my bloody head off, and the anxiety was almost crippling.  Although the hourly crying jags have stopped, I still have many moments of sheer terror that I am screwing these kids up for life, and many, many moments of self-doubt.  (But on the bright side I don’t have to worry about THIS.) At least I got that going for me.

And if that damn link didn’t work, it was to a story about twins, separated at birth, who unwittingly MARRIED EACH OTHER. Go ahead, Google it, you know you want to.

I will soon (and by ‘soon’ I mean before 2010 if I’m lucky) write a post entitled Motherhood:  Why I Am Ill-Suited To This Job.

But we go on.  Each day brings new joys and new fears and the lack of sleep is having a profound effect on me.  And NOT in a good way.  Thus you will also soon be treated to a post called Lexapros and Cons.

And if you’re really lucky, maybe a post titled Who Do I Have To Blow To Get A Clean Paci Around Here?

I know!  Can’t WAIT, can ya?

So in the meantime, feast your peepers on these shots, AKA the Damn Photos That Ended My Future Career As An IVF Talk Show Circuit Super Star:

Mommy put on lipstick, for the LOVE OF GAWD

Mommy and Jaxy Waxy Cottontail and YES, I do really talk like that now believe it or not

Mommy and Parker Pee Pants and SEE! I told you.

So my plan, for days now, was to

1) thank you all for your wonderful support and great advice after my last post and ask, yet once again, what would I do without you?!?

and

2) re-write/update my little take on ‘An Infertility Night Before Christmas’ that I posted last year:

GAWD.

There  is soooo much I want to blog about, but like a bad stereotype of a frazzled new Mom I walk around in my jammies all day with greasy hair and if I get to brush my teeth I feel accomplished…and we have help!

I don’t know what new Moms do without help. I really don’t.

I want to write about the night before the babies were born, when BeBop made a great dinner and gave me a book — a book he made. By hand!  A real book, bound and everything, with beautiful images starting with the two photos from Dr. Z of Embryo 3 and Embryo 8 who, in a few short months, would become Jackson and Parker.  BeBop designed beautiful images for each page, along with photos of me being pregnant and lyrics from different songs.  It was the most touching gift I have ever received.

I want to write about the birth story. But with a scheduled c-section, there’s not too much drama or mystery about the whole thing.  I was so, so sick at the very end and so thankful my dr agreed to do the surgery on that Wednesday instead of Friday which he initially suggested.

I want to write about how beautiful the babies are, how Parker is above her birth weight because she eats like a champ and demolishes every bottle.  She’s so small and pink, with feathery traces of light blond hair and the sweetest face you’ve ever seen.  She’s Mommy’s little angel.  And how Jackson is so sweet but also so stubborn, (how could a two-week old be so stubborn??)  and how he’s a tricky eater (more on this in a sec.) and still a few ounces below his birth weight.

There’s just so much to write about, to  much to be grateful for and excited about, but I have so little to say it with…

So for now, I’m going to ask for help.  Any words of wisdom for a new Mom?

–I still feel sooo overwhelmed.  I feel totally out-numbered with two babies, especially when I have to feed both myself (BeBop takes the late night feedings, I do early mornings). Any tips from other twin Moms?  I know it’s only been two weeks, but I feel totally anxious when it comes to feeding two babies.

–My milk supply is paltry, bad, whatever. Now they’re on formula 100%, and I’m trying to pump and take a bunch of herbs that supposedly can help with the volume, but it’s so frustrating and hard. After dealing with infertility for a million years, I just want my body to WORK.  To do what it’s supposed to. But it’s not.  I’ll keep pumping for another week or so, but at some point I have to face the truth and I might have to give it up.

–Thankfully, BeBop has had this whole time off.  He had to take a couple of weeks before the birth because I was sick, and he doesn’t go back until after the holidays. But I’m already FREAKING out about it.  During the day, I get help from a baby nurse we hired for a few weeks.  She’ll be here for much of January. She’s so helpful, BeBop isn’t even around much of the day, he’s getting things organized around the house and decorating for Christmas, whatever.  But I feel so much better with him around, and I literally feel panicky and anxious when I think of him going back to work.  He won’t be able to do the late night feedings and still function, so I’ll have to do more on my own.

–Jackson is very tricky on the bottle. He’ll take the first ounce great and then practically goes on a hunger strike.  We’ve tried millions of bottles, nipples, etc. but nothing seems to do the trick.  The nurse, of course, has much better luck than I do.  With me, he literally puts his tongue at the roof of his mouth to block the bottle, he gets very  sloppy and drips a ton out the sides of his mouth, he’ll stop sucking and swallowing if you actually manage to get the bottle in there.  It’s like he has a bag of tricks he uses to keep from eating the rest of the bottle.  His weight gain is okay, but not great.  The dr isn’t concerned, but of course I am.  I feel like I can’t breastfeed him and now I can’t seem to BOTTLE feed him either, what the frick is wrong with me?!

My sister is coming this weekend to help, and the baby nurse has offered to come back and help me through the transition when BeBop goes back to work. I think I have a ‘WARNING:  Good Candidate for Post Partum Depression’ sign on my forehead or something. But I’m grateful for the help, I really am.

I still can’t believe a year ago we went to LA to celebrate our 6th anniversary and talked so much about how we were ready to start the IVF cycle after the first of the year.  And how a year later, we are getting ready to celebrate the twins’ first Christmas.  What a  wild, crazy and wonderful year it’s been.

 

So much to say, so little brain power to say it with!

THANKS to the awesome Oneliner for sharing the good news, but beware:  friends don’t let friends text when hopped up on all sorts of pain meds!

Things are great — we’ve been home since Sunday night and the twins celebrate their one-week birthday today.

They are doing so well, after losing a little too much weight at first, Parker is back up to her birth weight and Jackson is still about 11 oz. off, but we’re getting there.

I will definitely try to write  a ‘real’ post in the days to come, when I don’t just burst into tears each and every time I look at them and cannot believe how blessed we are.

I mean, really, what else is there to say??