I can't believe it's already the end of October. Eli is almost 15 months old and in teething hell, we sold our house, went to Taiwan, bought a new house, and are moving in a week! To say life has been hectic is an understatement. Through all of this, we've been somehow managing to get through another IUI cycle.
So, I'm officially pregnant. My beta this morning was 83. However the bad news is that I've been bleeding since Saturday. My RE's office are staying optimistic about it, but I know that the most likely scenario is that I'm miscarrying. We will know for sure on Wednesday after a followup beta hcg test. I'm okay with whatever the result is. It's good to know that I can still get pregnant. If this one fails, we will do one more IUI (probably in December) and be a lot more aggressive with the meds to give it one last solid try.
Anyway, in better news, Eli is doing great. He's walking and climbing and getting into everything. He's talking a lot too -- I think he's up to 10 or 11 words at least. His favorites right now are, "no," "up," "more, and "car!" He can't pronounce "r" sounds yet, so he sounds like he's from Boston. =)
Look at all those teeth!
My favorite boys. =)
He's been teething like mad -- working on 6 at once, including 4 molars! We had a few pretty rough nights last week and my mom had a difficult time with him the week Chad and I were in Taiwan. Fortunately now that all of the molars have broken through he has been much better.
Eli is walking! Over the last week he has really been practicing a lot, and he's starting to get much steadier. I suspect he'll be running before we know it...
In other news, we had a very successful open house yesterday. Over 80 people came to see our home and we received 3 offers, with more coming today. The top offer is currently at our asking price, so we are thrilled!
I've been thinking about what to say at this milestone for awhile now. Unfortunately, I've been really having trouble coming up with something that isn't trite or overly melodramatic. Eli is one. Wow.
We thought about doing a birthday party for him, but ultimately decided we'd rather wait to put on a big production until a time when he can actually stay awake through it and remember it. Instead, we celebrated with family. First, Chad's parents came down for a visit. We had a fun trip to the beach and Grandma Jacque baked Eli a surprisingly good low sugar cake. We topped it with whipped cream and cherries (which of course he preferred over the cake).
Then the next day we drove the 7 hours to my aunt Shelley's family cabin in the high sierras at Huntington Lake, CA. I've been fortunate to go there every few years since I was a young child and it's a very special place to me. It was great getting to share it with Eli!
He had a great time with my family and especially enjoyed played in the sand at the lake's edge. He crawled in the icy cold water a bit, too. Brr!
We spent some time on the dock warming up after swimming, and tried floating in the paddleboat for a few minutes (Cairo had to try it out, too).
On his actual birthday (Sunday, August 5th), we gave him the rest of
Grandma Jacque's yummy cake. He tried a bit more of the cake that time, but
still mostly ate the whipped cream and cherries.
On the development front, Eli is doing great. He's crawling really fast now and can stand up without holding onto anything. He's taken a few steps on his own, but still lacks the confidence to really start walking. I don't think it will be very long though.
He likes to laugh, especially at silly Grandma Kerry!
I <3 my little man more than I can ever express.
We are all going through a lot of changes right now. We decided to put our house on the market to take advantage of the rising home prices (and hopefully not take too much of a loss). We have been decluttering, fixing stuff, and painting like mad to get the house ready by the end of the month. The target date for getting it listed is Saturday, 8/25! Yikes!
On the TTC (Trying To Conceive) front, our first IUI was unsuccessful. I'm having surgery on Monday to remove a couple of pesky uterine polyps before we try again.
12 month stats:
Weight: 19lbs 11 ounces (8th %)
Height: 29.8 inches (47th %)
Head Circumference: 45.1 CM (15th %)
Teeth: 6
Words: Dada, uh oh, all done, mama (which really means "give me my milk NOW")
As usual, life has been too busy for me to update as frequently as I'd like. Here's a brief recap of the past few months:
- Eli finally started crawling (around 10 months). He has a silly way of doing it -- he uses his left knee and right foot. He can actually move pretty fast that way, surprisingly. Also it makes transition to sitting or standing easy. - At 11 months, Eli started really enjoying walking while holding onto someone's hands for support. He's currently able to walk with only 1 hand being held and can stand unassisted for a few seconds. I'd guess he's probably just a week or two away from being able to walk on his own!
- We had a really nice visit with my mom and dad in June.
- We had a really nice visit with Chad's parents, siblings, and our friends in Seattle. Eli did (mostly) great on the flights there and back. After nearly getting bumped from the return flight, we learned that we should always bring 24 hours worth of baby supplies on board with us...
- I finally finished crunching at work (yay!).
- Chad has started crunching at work (boo).
- We are probably going to put our house on the market next month-ish and hopefully upgrade to something bigger. Keeping a home in show-ready condition with a toddler, 3 cats, and 1 dog will be interesting...
And to explain the title of this post, we are back on the TTC (Trying-To-Conceive) roller coaster. Are we crazy to go through this again? Quite possibly! Are we looking forward to pregnancy and the first 3 months of newborn hell? No, not at all. But we would really like Eli to have a sibling who's close in age.
I met with our Reproductive Endocrinologist, Dr. Abdallah (now at American Reproductive Centers), on Monday. We are going to take the conservative route this time and have opted for IUIs (intra-uterine insemination) instead of IVF. The reasons for this are twofold: 1. My insurance actually covers IUIs, so our out of pocket costs will be minimal. We can't afford another IVF AND purchase a new house (after selling our current at a loss). 2. We're not convinced that we actually need to do IVF in order to conceive. I did get pregnant 5 times before the IVF (including 2x from IUIs). Assuming that my primary problem is my blood clotting issue, IUI should work if I start the blood thinner injections right away.
I started Clomid (an inexpensive fertility medication that will likely have a very minimal effect on me, but will hopefully regulate my follicle development a bit) last night. On Monday I'll have an ultrasound to see what my ovaries are up to. Assuming everything is going well, the IUI will probably be around July 26th.
Eli is 9 months old and growing up so quickly! I think he's really starting to look more like a toddler and less like a little baby. Developmentally he's doing great with everything except for gross motor skills -- he's still not really interested in crawling. I guess in some ways this is a blessing since it gives us more time to finish baby proofing the house... He only started sitting really well around 7.5 months, so it's not surprising that he's not ready to crawl yet.
Ooh, sand is so cool...
He's very talkative these days and can make quite a few different sounds. His favorites are "dada," "guh," "nyanya," and "ayaya." We're not sure how much context there is yet though. His favorite silly sound is clucking with his tongue.
He usually loves mealtimes and will eat just about anything. I make most of his food and freeze it. So far he has tried the following foods:
Mmm, cheerios!
Apples
Avacado
Pears
Peaches
Prunes
Mango
Pineapple
Papaya
Watermelon
Sweet Potato
Yams
Carrots
Broccoli
Peas
Zucchini
Summer squash
Butternut squash
Red Bell Pepper
Eggplant & Tahini*
Green Beans
Potato
Black Beans
Red Lentils
Chicken
Organic cheerios
Multigrain hot cereal
Rice
Pesto Pasta
(*He may or may not be allergic to the eggplant with tahini as he developed hives after eating it for the 4th time. We will try it again once we have some Benadryl on hand)
I <3 bathtime
He's getting pretty good at eating chunkier foods and can pick up cheerios and feed them to himself (and Cairo) with ease. He has 4 teeth (two on the bottom and two on the top) and is a drooling machine. Thankfully the excessive reflux he has had since birth has finally eased up. He still spits up sometimes, but it's significantly less. He puts everything in his mouth and bites/chews on anything he can... including mommy's shoulder (ow)!
His favorite time of day is bathtime. He loooooves the water and it's the only place where he's really motivated to move around. I usually take a bath with him so he can really enjoy the water and practice rolling, standing, walking, etc. He gets VERY excited about the faucet and handles and loves to hang onto the side of the tub while sucking on the faucet handle.
Just hangin' out
Overall, we are doing really well and enjoying every minute we get to spend with our sweet little boy. So long as he is well rested, Eli is happy, easygoing, and full of smiles.
We had a great first mother's day this past weekend. Chad bought me a fancy Blendtech blender since I'm constantly cursing out our old blenders while making baby food (seriously, this shouldn't be so hard!). It was pretty amazing to get to celebrate a holiday that had been such a sad reminder of my fertility challenges the past few years. I'm so thankful for my precious baby and for having so many supportive family & friends. =)
9 Month Stats
Age: 9 months, 10 days
Weight: 18 lbs (11th %)
Height: 28.8 inches (64%)
Head Circ: 43.8 cm (11th %)
Teeth: 4
