And just like that, this little love is seven months old.
She's learning new things every day. She's lost her gummy grin, replaced by a cheeky face-pulling toothy monster. She's watching Georgia constantly, and she's saving the best smiles for her daddy.
Snuggle your babies tight, folks. They grow so darned fast. :)
My wee girl is now six months old - and growing into the sweetest little person.
She's learning to sit up now, which is awesome. We've started solid foods, and while I'm wearing more of them than she's actually eating, we're getting there. She was diagnosed with hypermobility and has been on the waiting list for Occupation Therapy, which our initial assessment in a few weeks will hopefully get the ball rolling.
When she sees her sister, her eyes light up. When she's happy, she smiles all the way down to her curly toes. When she laughs, it bubbles up from deep inside. This girl is a delight! ♥
Life with two is...
If there's one thing that infertility tears apart, it's the ability to have some kind of plan for your life. Most couples make the decision to add to their family, choose when to start, and let things progress naturally from there; each time frame is unique, but it always happens in the end. Then there's the decision about whether to have more children - again, dependent on many things; finances, space, pregnancy complications - but the choice is there. Do we, or don't we? If we do, we try. If we don't, we give the baby things away and move away from the high chairs and prams, and towards a new stage of life.
My hands have been full lately - in a good way!
I'm coming to realise that this little baby is not going to be the mellow, 'go with the flow' second sibling that I'd always heard about; the kind that gets lugged along to all of their sister's events and is content to follow along happily. Not in this household.
My kiddo knows what she wants, and I can see how strong her personality is already - at four months old! She laughs and talks with her whole face, and when she's happy, you can't help but be happy with her. But when she's not... oh man.
I often observe other babies when we're out and about, and the one thing that I've noticed with Claire is that she is loud. All babies cry, and that's perfectly fine - but when my baby cries? It's loud. LOUD LOUD. Loud enough to turn heads, that kind of loud. It echoes through rooms, it's the kind of cry that leaves her sweaty and red faced and sometimes breathless.
When she first did this at a few weeks old, it made me so nervous that I took her to the doctors for a check over, and again at the paediatrician. I was concerned it might have been silent reflux, or that something was causing her to be distressed. The verdict: physically, she was perfect. That's just her cry. Since then, I've come to realise that they were right - this is just her way. It's how she gets in the car, and we all know how much she hates that. It's how she gets when she's hungry, when she's sad, when she's tired. There's no soft little cry that escalates - it's just 0 to 100 in a flash.
She wants to be with you, to see what you're doing, to watch everything that's happening around her. She wants to sit up, even though her little body isn't quite ready for that yet. She lights up around Georgia & can recognise voices with ease.
Claire was a pleasant surprise from the start. That her transfer worked at all, that she made it through a rocky pregnancy; right up to when she graced us with her presence, looking so very different to her big sister. It shouldn't really shock me that her personality is her own as well - this spirited kiddo is going to be the best kind of handful; I can feel it already. :)
... And just like that, we're at four months old!
My beautiful baby is changing every day - it's so lovely to watch. Watching her smile is just the best; it lights up her whole face, right up to her eyes. She's delightful.
I mean, LOOK AT THAT FACE. I am totally smitten.
The most challenging thing about Claire is her sleep - it's not great. She's happy as can be, but she's up a lot. The longest stretch we've had is about 4 hours. I'm getting used to operating in zombie mode, but man, I miss my sleep like nothing else. It makes it a lot harder to parent Georgia calmly, that's for sure.
That said, she's still little. The late night snuggles and feeds won't last forever, so we're just going with the flow.
These last four months have gone so fast, I feel like I'm going to blink and I'll miss it. Love this little squish. :)
Annnnnnnnd, in my sleep deprived haze, I have only just noticed that I forgot to update Claire's three month stats - and I'm almost ready to take her FOUR month stats this week. Whoops! #zombiemum
She's not a newborn anymore, that's for sure. -sob-
I still vividly remember our last transfer day. It was hot, and I was nervous. Nervous that the embryo might not have thawed well, nervous about another miscarriage, nervous about starting yet another year off with the potential for disappointment.
I remember how many times the doctor had to attempt the speculum placement. I remember them commenting that the embryo looked lovely. I remember keeping my legs tightly closed the whole drive home; something I've done after every transfer, even though I know it makes not a shred of difference to the outcome.
For anyone who's ever done IVF or who has never fallen pregnant of their own accord, that window after a transfer is magical. It's full of possibility - for a while, even just for a few short days, you're closer to being pregnant than you've ever been before. That shot that most couples get once a month, it's finally yours, after what feels like constant waiting. Those days have a lot riding on them, since it may be several more months before you get that chance again, if you're lucky.
You wait, you pray, you scream at the universe, and you pee on a million sticks. Most times it doesn't work.
But sometimes.. just sometimes, it does.
One year ago today, we 'met' our Claire for the first time. And now, she's here. I can't think of anything more amazing.
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