Please don't point that gun at my daughter

I know that kids love play guns. I know it's probably darn near impossible to keep a boy from wanting them and having them. Maybe I will deal with that someday. I choose not to have toy guns of any kind in our house and have been dismayed when my brother bought my daughter a "bubble gun."

I just don't like it. Gun owners talk about how people with guns can learn how to handle them and treat them with respect. I'm cool with that. But I don't think toy guns are a real learning tool for this lesson.

Maybe I'm just being a crazy mom, but I really don't like when kids bring their toy guns to the playground. They inevitably run around pretending to shoot people with them. Today is happened again. It seems to spark up often.

My message to my daughter is that we don't play with guns in our family and we don't point them at people or animals. Different families have other rules, but these are ours.

The last time there were kids with toy guns pretending to shoot me and my daughter at the park, I picked her up and we left. She pitched a royal fit, too. It was really ugly. But I also thought that the father allowing his boys to pretend to kill us was also pretty ugly. He barely looked up from his phone to notice the fake killing going down.

I asked the boys not to point the play guns at us, but it didn't work. I choose to leave. This took place about a week after the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy.

As we were leaving, I was struck when one boys, who was maybe about 7 years old, asked his dad why my daughter couldn't have a gun and if he was going to be killed a school. His father responded that bad things like that don't happen in nice neighborhoods like ours.

We live precisely 4.5 miles from Columbine High School and 17.4 miles from the Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

I guess I beg to differ, sir.

Thoughts on Motherhood

Happy Mothers' Day 2011!

1. Cribs make fabulous places to stack clothing. Co-sleeping is much easier.

2. I have exactly zero photos of my daughter drinking from a bottle and continue trying to capture the look in her eye while she nurses.

3. Putting a clean diaper under the dirty one when you change it has saved me a number of times.

4. Rice cereal is disgusting and unnecessary.

5. Wipe warmers, however, are not unnecessary.

6. I sometimes wonder how moms didn't go bonkers with video monitors.

7. Motherhood is a lot harder than it looks. It's a lot more awesome than can be imagined, too.

8. You'll do a lot of things to your kid you wouldn't do for anybody else - like pick her nose and kiss her toes.

9. Baby giggles are like a serenade.

10. Sleep beats sex.

11. There's a reason that the sayings about parenthood are cliches. It's because they are most often true.

12. I wouldn't trade motherhood for any job or career in this world.

13. I better understand the Mother Bear instinct.

14. I really think God sprinkles mommy dust when you give birth. Life changes in strange, wonderful ways.

15. Naps are like a God.

Someday: I do!

Today the world celebrates the royal wedding of Kate and William. Many congrats go out to them. It's nice to see the world stop and celebrate love and devotion. Kate looked amazing and gorgeous!

While I am happy for them, I can't help but pause and wonder when I will get my turn to legally say, "I do." It feels so deeply unfair that I am unable to have the same rights as straight people in this country. Normally, I don't really think much about it. I guess I'm just used to it. But it feels really gross that my daughter can't have both of her parents with legal parental rights. It feels gross that I have to sign papers at the doctor's office saying my partner is allowed to bring her own daughter there.

I don't like it. It's not fair. I guess people have all of their various feelings toward the issue - without much grey matter in between. But ultimately it comes down to a matter of simple fairness to me. Since I was laid off two months ago, the matter of health insurance has been weighing heavily upon me. I've insured our daughter on my plan, because we had no other choice. It's really not right that her other parent can't insure her, and if I go on my partner's policy - we have to pay federal taxes up the ying-yang on it.

I hope that someday my daughter will see her mothers legally marry.

I wrote this post back when they were married, and I got pulled away by life. ;)

It's been awhile

I am not going to lie. I haven't really missed you. Oh, I *know* we spent countless hours together over the past year or so. And let's face it - the time was pretty dang intimate. I mean, just hours and hours of you slaving away for nine months, five days a week, three times a day for 30 minutes a session. It was practically a freaking love affair, but I would be a liar if I said I thought about you longingly these past weeks when I haven't had to drag you to take care of business.

You don't have to tell me that the fact that you and I even still see each other from time-to-time may raise the eyebrows of some. Well, whatever. Here we are again today - albeit for just a short spell. This new-found flexibility to just go once a day sure is nice. That would have helped about nine months ago when I felt like my life revolved around you.

Oh, well. I'd do all of those hours all over again for my girl. She never had a drop of the fake stuff. And I'm really proud of that.

Catch ya later, Freestyle. You've always been faithful to me even when my feelings toward you harbored on dread.

An Open Letter to the Easter Bunny

Dear Mr. Easter Bunny,

This year we dyed your eggs white. Err. Well, uh, I got them hard boiled this year, but I guess they technically didn't get dyed this year. See, try as I do to be "MomTastic," I seem to have MOMMY FAILS every so often. So, I hope you'll understand the special color this year.

Martha would be so disappointed, but in my defense they are the same color as some of the paint she sells at Home Depot - "Glass of Milk" and "Picket Fence." I will do better next year. Promise.

Love, Mom

PS: The Easter Basket tent extravaganza and bunny cake worked out pretty well though, right?!

Already 10 months?

It seemes like time has flown right by. Zoom - and now my baby's already 10 months old.

There's so much to say, and so little time to do it in.

Along the way, I guess I've become what I'm calling an accidental lactvist. Why bring this up? Well, I had to drag out the old Medela Freestyle pump to get in my last of the three pumping sessions I've done at work practically everyday since returning when my daughter turned three months old.

That means I've been pumping for...about 210 hours. I can't say it's always been fun. Um, no. But worth it? Yes, every single minute.

She's had exactly zero drops of formula, which is not to say I'm bad mouthing formula. That's a different post for a different day. But, that's not my choice for her. And I feel like it's darn awesome considering I work full-time.

I always love the question, "How much longer are you going to do that?" But that, too, is a different post for a different day.

How We Got Here

Hello!

Happy July 5th to all. What a nice three-day weekend. It was very much needed by me. Fhew. The Phoenix heat is blasting, and forcing me to hide inside under the cool A/C. Normally I feel I can handle the AZ summer heat much better than I am doing this year. It almost feels like the first two summers I spent here. I wasn't sure I'd make it! :)

I skipped yoga this morning because my stomach felt off. I really wanted to go, but I knew it would not make me feel better to go - only worse. So, we went to breakfast and ran errands. Now we're home. DP is taking a nap, and I can hear the TV and remote calling my name very soon!

We had some friends over to our new house yesterday for the 4th. It was great to see everybody. It was also nice for us to have actual room to spread out and not feel so jammed into our tiny little house. I really like our new house. I just need to figure out how to rent the old one. The Phoenix housing market sure has been on a roller coaster, but without that, there's no way we could have ever afforded this place. So I guess you pick up on one end what you lose on the other - if that makes any sense.

I've been thinking I need to do a little background on how we got here - 7 weeks and 1 day, officially. Well, our journey here wasn't as dramatic as many others. We were very, very, very, very lucky and blessed. Not that all families aren't lucky and blessed, but we got a positive pregnancy off our first insemination - a very rare and surprising feat. Not only was it the first one, but we also had an exceptionally LOW sperm count from the bank. We should have had a minimum of at least 10 million - or closer to 15 or 20M. But we got 5.9M after the thaw and wash. We also used two vials, so the count should have been higher.

In fact, I filed a complaint with the sperm bank because the count didn't meet their warranty on the goods. They supposedly give you a refund or credit if this happens - however the fine print of the warranty clearly states if you get pregnant they don't care what the sperm count was. No money back. And frankly, I don't really care at this point. I'm happy it worked. I don't want any refund. :) It's just a bit mind boggling for some of our friends that the count was so low and it worked on the first go around. It shocks me too. We know other women who have had +60M and +70M on ONE vial - let alone two.

So, I guess it just means what is meant to be is meant to be. That and I also think there's somebody trying to bust into this world. Uh, oh. Ha ha. We could be in for it!

Although our process with the doctor was somewhat short, this is something we have been talking about and looking at for a very long time. I started doing research about a year ago and have poured over the online sperm bank catalogues for at least as long. It took me a veryyyyy longgggg time to find a donor we liked and felt good about. I also flip flopped back and forth over which sperm bank to use and whatnot.

I read books and tried to do online research for a long time. I also had an appointment with an ob/gyn in December 2008 when we were thinking we'd have her do an in-office IUI. It would have been a lot cheaper, but it also would have required us to get the specimen shipped directly to our home. Something about that just felt really weird to me and not right. Heck, I get nervous about buying makeup online and having it ship and then sit in the heat here! Can you imagine me head if we were shipping the equivalent of liquid gold to the house????? Gahhhh. No, thanks. Plus, I decided not to go with the ob/gyn because I felt like there was a real lack of specific process. I'm not sure if that makes a lot of sense, but I felt like we needed a checklist and to know exactly what we should do and not do. Her approach felt very free and loosey goosey to me. It just didn't feel right. Plus, I knew the idea of DP driving around with a big ole tank of sperm in the back just wasn't happening!

I ended up calling quite a few doctors. It turned out I have infertility diagnosis coverage on my insurance, so that was helpful for the consultations and whatnot. Although I'm not "infertile" (and I hated that term when we were starting this) using that coding with insurance was very helpful in terms of saving tons of money on these appointments and tests.

Some of the doctors I called were flat out jerks. Some doctors, I'm told, won't work with same-sex couples. I went to one seminar at a clinic and they didn't return 7 calls from me. So I ended up moving on and fell into using a great doctor with an excellent staff. Plus, our doctor was in North Scottsdale, and not to sound like a jerk, but doctor's offices in that area tend to be nicer. I also think the staff is more responsive. I think they probably overall have more demanding clients, so they have to offer that kind of service.

Our doctor had me do a slew of tests:
-HSG
-Full Adult Physical
-DP and I had to go see a therapist to make sure we weren't crazy, I guess. I guess we had to do this because we used donor sperm. Whatever. It was ok. The lady was nice, but it was rather annoying to have to pay $275 to be told I'm sane. Duh.
-Trip to ob/gyn for more tests
-Blood work up the yin yang

Honestly, I thought we'd wait to try the insemination. I thought it would make more sense to do it after we'd moved and were settled. I didn't really envision us starting until July or August. But we had our last appointment with the doctor to go over the tests and talk about next steps. He had us do the ovulation predictor kit tests. I knew when I saw him that I'd be ovulating in the next one to three days. And I was right.

We sat on the doctor's couch, and DP said - maybe we should just go for it. And so we did on May 28 at 2 p.m. We waited the two weeks to test (torture), and we took the home pregnancy tests (two, no less) at 5 a.m. on June 11. I stared at them in total disbelief and shock. I was sure they would sat NOT PREGNANT and only have one line. But nope. I stood there crying and laughing at the same time with a wave of emotions pouring over me. DP didn't understand, because she didn't have her glasses on to see yet. She said, "Don't cry. It will be ok. We can try again." Then she looked down and stared in shock.

Ah, it was a miracle. I had prayed and told the "Swim Team" to swim, swim, swim. I guess they did! And one found the prize! I'll have to type more about the Swim Team later. But for now, that's some background.