Yesterday I was having one of those days where I was really feeling like throwing in the towel on the whole blog thing.  Why do I continue writing?  It takes up precious time and I oftentimes struggle with what to actually wrote.  I am not sure that many people are still reading other than the person who Googles and randomly stumbles upon one of my posts related to: "does CrossFit cause divorce?", "diastasis recti", or "do long cycles cause miscarriage?".  If I pulled my blog out of the blogisphere today, would anyone know or even care?

Since I started blogging, back in the spring of 2012, my content and tone have changed quite a bit.  I have gone from a very bitter and jaded "baby-less" person that blogged about miscarriage, temping, and pee-sticks to a mommy that blogs about her post-baby body self-esteem, running, and CrossFit issues.  The pre-baby and post-baby blogs are almost completely different audience types and, with the exception of people who have been following me for a while and have gone through similar circumstances, I am not sure how many new and regular readers I have.  What is the point of continuing?  For my own personal health and well-being?  If that was the case, couldn't I just write everything down in a private journal?  I seriously ask myself this all of the time.

Yesterday, I remembered to check my blog email box for the first time in several months.  Besides mounds of spam from people trying to get me to give them a shout out or let them "guest post", I had a few emails from a few different women who were writing to seek my advice regarding situations that they were in right now that I had once been in.  I was reminded of why I continue to keep my blog and the associated email box going.  For as many people that no longer follow me and read my posts, there continue to be a few people who come across my blog that find it helpful and comforting.  They have found themselves in an unfortunate position and the cosmic powers of Google have brought them to my tiny little space where they have been able to read about what I have gone through, relate either somewhat or completely, and apply things that I learned or tried to help them with their situations.  I seriously love that I am able to help even just one person a year because that is one less person who feels like they are dealing with a similar issue, alone.

One thing that a lot of these women that write to me have in common (and definitely how I once felt) is that they are alone in their situations and in their feelings about their situation.  They feel like the time is going so slowly and that they will never "be on the other side".  I am sure that there will always be extenuating circumstances that will make it medically impossible (for one reason or another) for someone who has miscarried many times, to have a child.  That said, out of all of the women who have ever taken the time to write to me personally, I cannot think of one that has followed up with me, that has not be able to eventually have a baby...somehow.  This makes me so happy.

I know that I currently don't have anyone's "permission" to anonymously post their story (and would NEVER do so unless I was given permission), but I would really love to share some stories of other ladies, who have been in similar shoes to my own, on my blog.  Maybe once a month or every other month or something like that.  I think that reading stories of others that have "been through it" helps those that are "still going through it" actually get through it.  Having some hope is half the battle and if I can provide hope to others by sharing positive stories, I am doing a world of good.

Old habits die hard...case and point...using Baby Connect to document my son's sleep, diapers, nursing, and my pumping nearly 16 months after his birth.  This past weekend, I quit using it cold turkey because it has just gotten too hard to guarantee that my husband and MIL are going to using it with any regularity.  I was tired of logging in and seeing that B was still "asleep" 12 hours and 52 minutes later since no one bother to "mark him as awake".

It was weird to be done with it, to put it simply.  I think I have been holding on to it in hopes that I could slow down the crazy fast progression of time and keep my baby little.  I know it sounds really silly, but since I have been tracking his nursing/sleeping/diapering habits since shortly after his birth, it is sad to me to not be doing it anymore.

To any prospective new moms out there, Baby Connect is a fabulous tool to track your baby's eating, drinking, sleeping, diapers, medical information, etc.  It is especially good for those analyst moms out there, like me, that like to see trends, irregularities, and inconsistencies in the form of charts and graphs.  Seeing sleep regression or a nursing strike on paper?  Helps you understand why you fell asleep on your desk yesterday or why you have yet another, clogged duct today.

 More than just tracking the basics, as mentioned above, I have basically used Baby Connect in lieu of a "baby book".  I have several baby books on the shelf that have collected a ton of dust because I have (guiltily enough) never so much as opened them.  I know that the first time that B smiled (for real) was on May 23, 2013 @ the ripe old age of 1 month and 5 days.  He got his first tooth on August 15, 2013 at 3 months and 27 days.  He said "Dada" on November 6, 2013 at the age of 6 months and 18 days.  I'll stop boring you with any more details about B's firsts.  :)

Another great feature of Baby Connect was the "Medical" section where you could document doctor's visits, illnesses, temperatures, and medicine dosage/distribution.  It was seriously invaluable to know what time I last gave B infant's Tylenol and what dosage that I gave him.  It was also great to take with me to the doctor's office so that when they asked me what his temperature was, I could easily whip out my phone and show them.  This is one aspect of Baby Connect that I am going to continue using.  I like seeing the percentiles and growth on a chart.  Yes, this is the analyst particles in my blood.

Wow, reading this back, it totally sounds like I am a Baby Connect sales rep.  Hahaha.  I can honestly tell you that I am not, although if someone high up at Baby Connect is reading this, I would love to work for you, so please email me!  :)

So, as I wipe away a few tears and try to embrace the fact that my baby is now a toddler, I will leave you with some of the charts that Baby Connect has compiled for me from the past few months.  This mommy thing is so hard; and I don't mean that because of the lack of sleep, lack of personal time/space, etc.  It is hard because, as much as you want your child to grow and thrive, it is so tough to let go of your baby.  Looking back at pictures of his baby self and remembering how "tiny" he was and how great he smelled.  Sigh.  I guess this is why people have more than one child.  ;)

I leave you with some summary graphs and charts from Baby Connect...enjoy!

You read about them all the time...mom accidentally leaves baby in the car, dad loses track of toddler in the grocery store, baby eats something they shouldn't which involves either a trip to the ER or a call to poison control, etc.  I'm sure some parents are perfect (...riiiiiiight) and have never had a really stupid and potentially dangerous oops moment with their precious cargo that they really wish they could do over.  I had one of those moments on Sunday.  Don't worry, it doesn't have anything to do with hot cars or accidentally ingested toxic substances.

I was in the bathroom getting ready to go to the grocery store with B.  The bathroom is one of those places that I don't really like him to be, but if I am in there, I would rather have him be in my sight than out of my site and doing potentially dangerous things.  Anyways, he was in the bathroom, doing one of his favorite things...watching ABC Mouse alphabet songs.  Seriously, this kid knows half of those songs by heart.  If you haven't downloaded the app to your iPhone or other "i" device, you should.  It may help get you out of a jam and keep your baby occupied while you stay sane on one many occasions.  Basically, there is an extremely catchy 2ish minute song for each letter of the alphabet.  At the end of listening to a song, you get 1-3 tickets towards "purchasing" another song.  You start with A, B, and C, and then go from there.  We have all of the letters on the iPad and an extra 300 or so tickets...so yeah...he loves those songs.

Back to the bad parenting moment.  Little B was sitting on the bathroom rug, listening to the N song (or "nee, nee," as he likes to call it).  I was trying to put my rats nest of hair into a my usual boring bun.  Well, the song ended, he collected his tickets, and then he wanted me to pick him another song, since he hasn't quite mastered the fact that you can only touch one part of the iPad screen at a time in order to select something.  He stood up, picked up the iPad and started carrying it over to me, when he lost his grip and dropped the heavy generation 2 iPad on his left big toe and my right pinky toe.

OUCH!  We both whelped in pain, but I thought he got me much worse than he got himself.  He started crying pretty hard, though.  I scooped him up, kissed him, and did what I usually do, try to downplay the injury and tell him that he is ok.  He seemed pretty upset so we left the bathroom and I tried to find a distraction in a different room.  I got one of his toys and started playing with him, but he was having none of my distraction.  He was really upset so we went back into the bathroom and I set him on the bench to take a look.  Good thing I did.

There was blood...EVERYWHERE.  It was all over my white (of course I was wearing white) shorts, navy white/blue striped tank top, and it was running down my leg.  It was on the rug, on the floor, and even on the wall.  OMG I was horrified.  First at the fact of how much blood there was and secondly that it had taken me so long to notice that he was bleeding so badly.  I was shaking, but trying to not make it seem like I was upset so that he wouldn't get more upset.

I got a wet washcloth and wiped his poor little big toe, which was extremely difficult because it hurt him, I'm sure.  I squeezed on some antibiotic cream and put a bandage on him.  Poor thing.  Of course we had plans to go to the water park later that day, but wouldn't be able to now with this injury.  Stupid Mommy!!!

The rest of that day, he seemed ok.  He was walking running around with no issue and didn't seem to be in any pain.  Then came the night, which was a different story.  He was up.  All.  Night.  Literally.  The kid was so upset and did not sleep from 12-4 AM.  We were thinking that he was getting sick, but it turns out that it was his toe that was bothering him because he kept trying to pull off his bandage.  We gave him some infant acetaminophen and he finally fell asleep for a few hours.  Everyone in our house spent their Monday in a sleepy, groggy, foggy, haze.

The next day...his toenail fell off.  UGH.  I knew that it was bothering him so I kept slathering on the antibiotic cream and tried to keep a sock on him even though it was almost 90 degrees out.  I called the doctor that morning to see if they thought that we should bring him in.  She explained that we were doing everything right and to monitor it for excessive redness, warmth, or puss, which might indicate an infection.

My poor baby.  There is one thing that almost all mommies have in common, which is that they never want their babies to feel pain.  I would much rather have the pain transferred to me.  I have no idea how bad it hurts him because he can't tell me yet so I can only imagine.  I know that this is small potatoes compared to other illnesses/injuries that children get, but it is still pain that my child is experiencing that I wish I could take away.  I can't imagine the pain that a mother or father would feel knowing that their child was battling cancer or some other type of illness.  I see stories like that on the news, which used to bother me before I had B, but now I get very teary.

The moral of this story is that I need to be more careful when B is watching is ABC Mouse videos and that I need to pay attention when he injures himself to make sure that his injury isn't worse than I thought.  I am still working on getting this whole parenting thing down.  I am definitely not perfect.  No one is (even if they think that they are).  We all make mistakes, but the difference between making a mistake that affects you and making a mistake that affects your child can be huge.  We never want our children to pay for our own stupid mistakes.

Before you get excited and defensive, the title of this post doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about my baby compared to yours, which is why it is in quotes.  Both of our babies are super fabulous, cute, and awesome.  Now that we have cleared that up, I'll start in on the post and the reason for the title.

During my years TTC and through the many miscarriages that I endured, the BBC (B.aby C.enter) website has helped me navigate some tough times.  When I was TTC, I used it to understand more about how to get pregnant.  When I had my first miscarriage, I found a great support group that I am still a part of this day (and have even met some of the ladies in it!).  When I was having issues keeping babies, I was referred to FF (F.ertility F.riend) to track my cycles, which took me to a whole different level of TTC knowledge.  When I finally became pregnant with B, I never joined but constantly read the posts from the April 2013 Birth Club.  When I thought my pregnancy was going wacky, I would no sooner than jump to the Birth Club page and find someone with a wackier pregnancy than mine.  It made me feel so much better.  All in all, BBC has provided me a knowledge, support, and entertainment for the past 2 1/2 years and for that I am extremely grateful (even though I am not a fan of their owners, Johnson & Johnson...barf).

Now that I have B, BBC has become my late night breastfeeding entertainment.  What else am I going to do at 2 in the morning other than read about how someone else's baby ate bananas for the first time and then had a green diaper which was evidenced in the post with a lovely picture?  Yes, this might make me a total loser for reading this crap, but it keeps me awake when I need to be and often provides me with a chuckle or something to chat with my husband about over dinner.

Yesterday, while perusing the halls of the April Birth Club, I happened to notice that there was a whole post dedicated to April babies and their accomplishments.  Yes, in case you didn't know it, babies in the age range of 6 months (plus or minus 2 weeks) should have already completed a long list of things on their "to-do" list.  This accomplishments list sparked my interest so I started casually scrolling through it.  The first thoughts that came to my mind were, "Holy $#!t, my baby is so far behind the other April babies" and then it was "Holy $#!t, my baby is huge compared to these peanuts".  Some of the things that the April mommies boast that there babies can do are as follows (in no particular order):

• "pulls himself up to a stand"
• "tries to walk"
• "started crawling at 5 months"
• "started saying mama and dada"
• "likes to drink water from a cup"
• "mimics sounds and words" 

• "sitting almost completely unassisted" (will fall over if he is tired, so we sit him in the Boppy just in case)
• "has rolled in both directions, but doesn't do it frequently"
• "screams at a high pitch and babbles nonsense"
• "reaches for his toes"
• "reaches for toys, grabs them, then throws them at the floor as hard as he can"
• "jumps in the jumper" (he loves that thing)
• "smiles and laughs"
• "has 2 bottom teeth" (the only thing I think he is "advanced" with)
• "stands when completely supported"

As I write this, I am going on about 5 1/2 months of less than 5 hours of a sleep at a time, so I apologize in advance for grammar/spelling errors and the fact that this post might be all over the place.  The lack of sleep is starting to affect my quality of life.  I forget things, I get agitated easily, I do stupid/careless things, I mess up at work and I am tired and hungry all the time.  The other day I scheduled a meeting (booked the conference room) and forgot to actually invite people to it.  I was sitting in the room by myself when I realized that I didn't invite anyone.  Face.  Palm.

My 5 1/2 month old son, who is the size of a 1 year old (for real), has decided that sleeping is not very high up on his list of his priorities.  He doesn't sleep at night and he doesn't do anything more than take small 20-30 minute cat naps throughout the day.  Lately, his pattern has been as follows:

6:30 PM - Bath
6:50 PM - Book
7:10 PM - Nurse, side lying
7:15 PM to 7:45 PM - Either lay with him in our bed until he falls asleep then transport to his crib or pick up put down in his crib.  He kicks and thrashes until he finally passes out.
8 PM to 11 PM - Sleep, B
9:30 PM - I go to sleep
11 PM - B wakes up to nurse, side lying
11:15 PM to 1 AM - Sleep, B (my husband puts him back in his crib)
1 AM - Attempt giving B pacifier in his crib, fails
1:15 AM - Nurse, side lying until we both fall asleep in our bed
1:20 AM to 3 AM - Sleep, B
3 AM - B wakes up, give him pacifier
4:40 AM - I wake up to get ready for work, B sleeps with Dad
5:40 AM - Wake B up to nurse before I leave

Things that I know I am doing wrong:

1.  Co-sleeping.  My husband and I swore up and down that we would not co-sleep.  That was until I found out about how real the effects of sleep deprivation are on a person.  We didn't want to co-sleep because we didn't want to be that couple that can't have sex because the kid is in bed with us.  I didn't really even take into consideration the risk of suffocation/SIDs, which I was reminded of the other day that I am a shitty parent for letting B sleep in our bed.  The only real reason that we started co-sleeping was because when I nurse the baby at night, in bed, we both fall asleep.  I am working/commuting daily from 6:30 AM until 4:30 PM.  I need some sleep.  The only way I get any at all is if I nurse while lying down.  I feel like we need to take a "vacation" from work to train him to sleep.

2.  Letting him lay with me to fall asleep.  After nursing him before bed, I lay with him on most occasions and hold down his arms because he bats them up and down like a wild animal.  Pinning them down does help him fall asleep faster, but I know the we need to let him learn to comfort himself.

The other night I put him down in his crib at bedtime, turned on his B.aby E.instein Fishy Music Box and attempted to let him put himself to sleep as I watched on the baby monitor.  Little B decided to flip onto his stomach and proceed to pivot so much that both of his legs became stuck in the crib slats.  By the time I came upstairs to rescue him, he was so flipped out that he was flailing and banging his head on his mattress while crying to the point that he could barely catch his breath.  So yeah, that was an epic failure.  I had to rock him for 20 minutes so that he could calm down enough to fall asleep again.

The past two nights he has been sick.  He developed a stuffy nose, watery eyes, sneezing and twice he has vomited (they told me I would know the difference from spitting up and vomiting and I didn't really believe them, but now I do).  He hasn't has a fever, though.  The poor babe has trouble eating or sucking on his pacifier because he can't breathe out of his nose.  We gave up on any type of sleep conditioning (training seems to be too controversial of a word these days) until he is better.  The past two nights, I have gotten a combined 7 hours of broken sleep.  Not good my friends, not good.

I have asked advice from several friends and family members and their responses for what I should do range from total CIO (cry it out) to attending to baby's every cry so that they keep trust in you (how they know that baby trust is associated with letting them cry to sleep is beyond me).  Usually people who are adamantly against CIO are very passionate about it, but the opposite is also true.  My mom is very passionately for CIO and claims that it worked for all of us and that none of us had serious attachment issues.  She is right.  We all slept through the night at early ages and were breastfed (I always get "give him cereal in his bottle and he'll sleep longer"...ummm no thanks).  We were also made to CIO at early ages.  My mom said it took 2-3 nights before we were able to "self-soothe".  She mentioned that it wasn't easy to listen to us cry and that she cried, too, but it was worth it.

Findings from a Temple University study that came out late last year, suggest that leaving babies to CIO is not harmful to them and helps them learn how to sleep on their own.  This NY Daily News article sums up the study.  Honestly, I am not sure how much actual scientific research they are using here to make that claim because, even after researching, I can't find the actual published study results.  I think that this method most definitely makes it better for the parents quality of life and many times a happy mommy/daddy equals a happy baby.  I am not sure that they went into disproving that it can cause psychological issues later in life, I think they just set to prove out that letting babies cry it out helps them to sleep better.

I belong to a FB group of mothers who miscarried babies that were due in April 2012.  Members of the group have left because their views on the topic caused major verbal arguments.  A few of them said it bothered them so much to hear about others abandoning their babies at night that it made them cry.  Drama, much?

An article in Psychology Today, Dangers of “Crying It Out”,  backs up the claim that children are generally damaged when being left to CIO. In summation, the article states that babies that are left to cry are more likely to have higher levels of stress and anxiety, lower self-confidence and less trust of others and the world around them.  The article even claims that the caregivers can become desensitized.  Read the comments after the article if you want to see fireworks.

I don't really feel passionate about any type of sleep conditioning.  You should parent your child as you see fit.  Everyone is going to have different views on exactly what should be done.  I don't know why people have to get so up in arms about how other people get their kids to sleep at night.  I personally don't want to give my baby cereal or formula to help them sleep at night.  If you want to, that's fine.  I hope it works out well for you.  I won't judge you, so you don't judge me, please!    

I don't think I will every be able to completely let B cry it out unless I get completely desperate.  I have been researching hybrid types of sleep conditioning, which I hope might be able to work for us.  Stay tuned, hopefully I can come up with the magic bullet.  Until then, I am going to continuing walking around in a sleepy, foggy haze.

Several years ago, a friend of mine, R, called me crying one evening when she realized that her daughter (who was several months at the time) had fallen off of her bed and hit her head on the floor.  She had called the doctor and answered a battery of questions whereby they determined that she would most likely be ok, but told her to watch her closely.  I rushed over to give any type of moral support that I could, although at the time, I was really not much help because I didn't have any kids of my own and had never experienced anything like that before.

I listened to my friend tell me that in the split second where she made the decision to go to another room, the baby just rolled right off.  She felt terrible.  She was worried about whether or not her daughter would be ok and was trying to pay close attention for any "out of ordinary" types of behaviors.  You would have think that I would have taken that experience and filed it in the mommy category of my brain for later use, right?  I guess there is only so much room up there for that type of info...

Over the past few weeks, I have not slept much.  B has been teething like crazy and pretty much has not slept at all (naps or nights).  This has caused me to go into a state of survival mode.  I am basically just crawling through each day and praying every morning that this coming night will be the night where he sleeps more than 3 hours, consecutively.  I have huge dark circles under my eyes that no amount of concealer will cover.

Yesterday when I got home from work, B was especially fussy.  It was about 85 degrees and humid in the house and feeding him was pretty miserable so we decided to go around the house and close all the windows so that we could turn on the AC.  After that I propped B up with some pillows in the corner of the couch and proceed to turn on the weather to see if the rest of the week would be so sticky.  B kept sliding down and I kept placing him back in the corner.  I ended up missing the future forecast so I grabbed the remote and proceeded to rewind to play it again.  In the few seconds that I was turned away, my baby managed to roll over at least twice and fell off the couch onto the floor.  I didn't even see him fall off it was that fast.  I just saw him lying on his side on the floor and heard him screaming.

In that moment, I was so shocked at what happened I didn't even cry right then.  I picked him up off the floor and hugged him so close, trying to console him.  He screamed and screamed with huge tears running down his face.  My poor baby.  How could I have been so stupid and careless?  I worked so hard to have him and I could be such an idiot to not be paying attention to him, the love and light of my life.

I first called my husband who let me know he was on his way home from Home Depot.  I tried calling my sister, who was at the gym with the car, but she didn't answer.  Then I called my friend R and asked her if she thought I should bring him to the ER (which would have been by ambulance because I didn't have a car at the moment).  She instructed me to call the pediatrician (who happens to be the same as B's) and answer their questions.

It seemed like an eternity before a nurse called me back.  B had already quit crying, had a massive poopy diaper, and was now giggling like nothing had even happened.  I had already taken him into the dark bathroom and made him follow a flashlight and made sure his eyes were dilating properly, which they were, thankfully.  She asked me the following questions (which may come in handy for you one day if you even have a momentary space cadet moment like me):

Did he cry immediately following the accident?  Yes.  He screamed bloody murder for 10 minutes until he was red in the face with tons of tears.

How high up was the couch?  Two feet or less from the floor.

What is the surface of the floor like?  Where he fell it is partial shaggy rug and partial wood floor.  He didn't make a loud noise when he fell either.

Does he have any visible lumps or red marks on his head?  His head is generally lumpy (like his Dad's haha), but nothing new that I felt.  No red marks on his head that I saw.

Did he vomit?  Not sure.  He spit up all over my dress while I was consoling him, but I am not sure how to tell the difference between vomiting and spitting up.  He had just eaten before he fell and has acid reflux, so this wasn't abnormal for him.

Was he grabbing toys like usual?  Yes.  He was grabbing toys, the spit up cloth, my hair...

What was his routine for the rest of the night?  Bath at 6:30 PM.  Dress, sleep sack, book, nurse.  Bed by 7:15 PM (hopefully).

What times does he usually wake up at night?  12 AM & 3 AM almost always (if not more).

She told me this...  Chances are that he was totally fine.  She said that babies his age are very resilient and that it probably hurt me more mentally than it hurt him physically.  That said, she told me to take him to the ER if I noticed any of the following:

• He seemed sleepier than normal, for example, during his bath if it was hard to keep him awake.
• He seemed fussier than normal.
• He started vomiting.
• We wasn't hungry and wouldn't nurse like normal.