What do you do when you're at your wits end and you feel like you've tried everything? And nothing is working?
D is still not going to bed without a fight. At this point, whatever may have started it, it has simply become a battle of wills. He doesn't want to go to bed and he's going to fight me at every turn. He's totally fine through the whole bedtime routine, until I tell him it's time for his drink and hugs and kisses. Then he gets all wimpery and starts telling me he hates bedtime and doesn't want to go to bed, ever. He doesn't like to sleep and he doesn't like being in his bed. He wants me to stay in his room all night.
Sorry kid, not going to happen.
So every night we go through the same crap. He claims he's going to do a good bedtime, but when the time comes, tantrum city. We've tried putting him back in bed over and over, taking away various toys and privledges, and threatening to make him throw away his Halloween costume. After he keeps escalating the situation, we usually end up grabbing his beloved Halloween costume and handing it to him, telling him to go downstairs and throw it away if he's going to get up out of bed. He flips out more, begs to keep it, and usually that's more or less the end of it. Tonight he still threw up in bed, but only a tiny bit on one blanket. And he didn't get up, just started yelling "I threw up!"
Making my mood so much better is the fact that I've been awake since 2:30am this morning. D woke up then and was basically up and down until about 5:00, when again I had to hand him his Halloween costume and tell him we might as well just go downstairs and throw it away. He stayed in bed after that, but I never went back to sleep and G woke up bizarrely early this morning. So here I am, running on less than 4 hours of sleep and really pissed off about it.
I'm SICK OF THIS. I'm sick of every bedtime being a huge battle. This is so stupid and ridiculous and I have no idea how to make it stop. I'm sick of this being the only thing I feel like blogging about, sick of it making the rest of my day miserable. And I'm sick of not knowing what to do to end it.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Angry.
I'm angry tonight.
I'm angry that my son won't go to bed without a fight. We did the fighting, when he was younger, to get him to sleep well and I can't help but feel like we did things right, he shouldn't do this now. Yes, I know how silly that is. It isn't like you fix something once and it's forever fixed. They are always growing and changing and adding new challenges. But damnit, this has gone so far into the realm of ridiculous, I feel like I hardly remember what normal looks like. Unfortunately, I think he feels the same way.
I'm angry that my husband had to resort to telling D that if he got up one more time tonight, we'd be throwing away his Halloween costume and he would not go trick or treating. I'm a bit angry that he did it, although much less so for the fact that it actually worked. He was in full tantrum, freak out, almost making himself puke mode, and when DH laid that one on him, he was done. He didn't get up again. But my freaking goodness, why do we have to take it out to the furthest possible extreme of consequences? He is OBSESSED with Halloween this year (he's always liked it, but he's already beyond excited), so clearly this was the button to push. But I'm going to be utterly heartbroken if tomorrow night he flips out at bedtime and we actually have to throw the costume away. Because we will. And that's going to suck beyond belief.
I'm angry that my husband isn't sticking to our new financial strategy. We've not been doing a good job of budgeting, or rather actually sticking to said budget. This has gone on for years, and although we're not experiencing financial hardship, we need to do better because we don't have a lot of leeway with just one income. So we decided to go all cash except for bills, which I either pay online or write checks for; gas, which we don't go over on anyway and it's so much easier to pay at the pump with a card; and groceries, since I do the shopping and I don't want to have to worry about whether I have enough cash on me (and we don't tend to go over on groceries anyway). But everything else - lunches, coffee, eating out, random trips to the store, anything, has to be from the stash of cash that I take out when I deposit his check. I've been sticking to it like glue, hoarding my last $2 so I could by myself a tea when I went to Bible study yesterday. Him, not so much. We were out of money this weekend and he knew it and he has since put $50 worth of purchases on the debit card. I'm furious about it, especially because the cash thing was HIS suggestion. But after the night we had with D, I don't know if bringing it up tonight will be very productive. I'm super edgy and I know he is too.
Pretty much I'm pissed off and this is a lot of complaining. Life is like that sometimes. Now I have to go attempt to write an article about something I don't give two shits about so I can make a little extra money and perhaps not charge half of what we spend on Christmas to our credit card.
Sorry for the bitterness. It's been one of those days. Weeks. More than that.
Just go to bed D, damnit.
I'm angry that my son won't go to bed without a fight. We did the fighting, when he was younger, to get him to sleep well and I can't help but feel like we did things right, he shouldn't do this now. Yes, I know how silly that is. It isn't like you fix something once and it's forever fixed. They are always growing and changing and adding new challenges. But damnit, this has gone so far into the realm of ridiculous, I feel like I hardly remember what normal looks like. Unfortunately, I think he feels the same way.
I'm angry that my husband had to resort to telling D that if he got up one more time tonight, we'd be throwing away his Halloween costume and he would not go trick or treating. I'm a bit angry that he did it, although much less so for the fact that it actually worked. He was in full tantrum, freak out, almost making himself puke mode, and when DH laid that one on him, he was done. He didn't get up again. But my freaking goodness, why do we have to take it out to the furthest possible extreme of consequences? He is OBSESSED with Halloween this year (he's always liked it, but he's already beyond excited), so clearly this was the button to push. But I'm going to be utterly heartbroken if tomorrow night he flips out at bedtime and we actually have to throw the costume away. Because we will. And that's going to suck beyond belief.
I'm angry that my husband isn't sticking to our new financial strategy. We've not been doing a good job of budgeting, or rather actually sticking to said budget. This has gone on for years, and although we're not experiencing financial hardship, we need to do better because we don't have a lot of leeway with just one income. So we decided to go all cash except for bills, which I either pay online or write checks for; gas, which we don't go over on anyway and it's so much easier to pay at the pump with a card; and groceries, since I do the shopping and I don't want to have to worry about whether I have enough cash on me (and we don't tend to go over on groceries anyway). But everything else - lunches, coffee, eating out, random trips to the store, anything, has to be from the stash of cash that I take out when I deposit his check. I've been sticking to it like glue, hoarding my last $2 so I could by myself a tea when I went to Bible study yesterday. Him, not so much. We were out of money this weekend and he knew it and he has since put $50 worth of purchases on the debit card. I'm furious about it, especially because the cash thing was HIS suggestion. But after the night we had with D, I don't know if bringing it up tonight will be very productive. I'm super edgy and I know he is too.
Pretty much I'm pissed off and this is a lot of complaining. Life is like that sometimes. Now I have to go attempt to write an article about something I don't give two shits about so I can make a little extra money and perhaps not charge half of what we spend on Christmas to our credit card.
Sorry for the bitterness. It's been one of those days. Weeks. More than that.
Just go to bed D, damnit.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
I feel like I'm on the Supernanny
D is having another fabulous bedtime. Since this is typed and you can't hear my vocal inflection, I'll tell you that comment is dripping with sarcasm.
Once again, he was upset when I started to leave the room because he wanted another hug and to go potty. That would be no, and no. He absolutely does not need to go potty less than 10 minutes after he already went; it's just a stall tactic. The kid goes hours upon hours during the day and does not have accidents anymore - we're not buying it. And, as we've been doing the last several nights, we gave him a "warning" if you will - two more hugs and two more kisses and then bedtime is done. He knows what is coming, and decides to totally flip out.
It's been about half an hour so far and my husband (who is definitely getting some later, by the way) is handling it, Supernanny style. D gets up, hubby puts him back in bed. D gets up again, hubby puts him in bed. Rinse, repeat.
He's yelling that he wants his elephant (which is in his bed), that he wants his monitor light on (he still has a monitor in his room and it has a stupid nightlight on a timer - it's since gone off, but he knows perfectly well how to turn it on himself), he wants his covers fixed and he wants more hugs and kisses. Crying, crying, crying, yelling, banging on his door. How my husband is keeping his cool out there, I do not know. Patience and calmness are not usually his strongest virtues. But after talking about it, and after the last really bad night we had that resulted in a lot of vomit, we decided to change our tactics a little - he gets up, we put him back in bed. Tomorrow we'll talk to him about the consequences (as in, what he's losing for the next 24 hours) but for now, he's being put back in bed over and over. It's rather insane.
I wish I knew why this was happening. I don't know that we've ever had such a rough time with him at bedtime, well, ever. Or like I've said before, maybe I've just blocked out the details of the worst times. This is bad, though.
We had three decent nights - two where he cried when we left, but didn't bother getting up, and one where he got up once but my husband gently guided him back to bed and he went silent after that. Of course, he's also added waking up in the middle of the night and coming to our room to his antics. Last night was only once, at about 4:15, but the two previous nights he was up numerous times equalling both he and myself being awake for 2-3 hours in the night. I've been one cranky mommy.
I hope my husband can hold it together, because I think he's doing the best thing. If he loses it on D and starts yelling or goes back to a time out, the plan fails. He needs to realize bedtime is for bedtime and we're just not going to play his game anymore.
Wish us luck...
Once again, he was upset when I started to leave the room because he wanted another hug and to go potty. That would be no, and no. He absolutely does not need to go potty less than 10 minutes after he already went; it's just a stall tactic. The kid goes hours upon hours during the day and does not have accidents anymore - we're not buying it. And, as we've been doing the last several nights, we gave him a "warning" if you will - two more hugs and two more kisses and then bedtime is done. He knows what is coming, and decides to totally flip out.
It's been about half an hour so far and my husband (who is definitely getting some later, by the way) is handling it, Supernanny style. D gets up, hubby puts him back in bed. D gets up again, hubby puts him in bed. Rinse, repeat.
He's yelling that he wants his elephant (which is in his bed), that he wants his monitor light on (he still has a monitor in his room and it has a stupid nightlight on a timer - it's since gone off, but he knows perfectly well how to turn it on himself), he wants his covers fixed and he wants more hugs and kisses. Crying, crying, crying, yelling, banging on his door. How my husband is keeping his cool out there, I do not know. Patience and calmness are not usually his strongest virtues. But after talking about it, and after the last really bad night we had that resulted in a lot of vomit, we decided to change our tactics a little - he gets up, we put him back in bed. Tomorrow we'll talk to him about the consequences (as in, what he's losing for the next 24 hours) but for now, he's being put back in bed over and over. It's rather insane.
I wish I knew why this was happening. I don't know that we've ever had such a rough time with him at bedtime, well, ever. Or like I've said before, maybe I've just blocked out the details of the worst times. This is bad, though.
We had three decent nights - two where he cried when we left, but didn't bother getting up, and one where he got up once but my husband gently guided him back to bed and he went silent after that. Of course, he's also added waking up in the middle of the night and coming to our room to his antics. Last night was only once, at about 4:15, but the two previous nights he was up numerous times equalling both he and myself being awake for 2-3 hours in the night. I've been one cranky mommy.
I hope my husband can hold it together, because I think he's doing the best thing. If he loses it on D and starts yelling or goes back to a time out, the plan fails. He needs to realize bedtime is for bedtime and we're just not going to play his game anymore.
Wish us luck...
Thursday, October 9, 2008
A tough week
We've had a tough week with D's bedtimes. The last two nights have improved, but the few nights before that were a nightmare. He's fine until we try to leave the room, then all hell breaks loose. He wants a drink, another hug, another kiss, fix my pillow, fix my covers.... etc. etc. etc. We've reached the point where we've had to say enough is enough and stop with all the extra requests, because he's so out of control. And we all know how much preschoolers like being told no, especially when you're raining on their bedtime stalling parade. I've been feeling like a demon has taken over my child at night.
D has such a strong will. It helps to know that will serve him well later in life, but it sure makes life hard on us sometimes. I'm determined to keep his boundaries in tact; this is a child who has the potential to be a total monster if we let him. As it is, he's pretty well behaved for an almost-four year old. But there are times, like now, when he decides to push back as hard as he can to see if those boundaries are still there and if they're going to stick. He wants to push down that wall, so he beats his head against it for a while to see what happens.
Kid, meet your parents - you've met your match.
The only people in this house more stubborn than D - probably the two of us, with my husband taking a slight lead. I think it's a good thing in this situation - he's not going to get his way and learn that he can throw mega-fits and get out of going to bed. But it's been exhausting, frustrating and downright maddening getting through this phase.
A few nights ago he was put in a time out and promptly threw up all over himself. On purpose. So the next night, my husband told him he was getting a time out and if he threw up, we'd take his jammies off and he could sleep naked. Yeah, he slept naked that night. My sweet darling boy gags himself so hard he vomits all over. See, strong willed. But he did learn that puking no longer gets him a free pass out of a time out. He sat in the puke until the time out was over before we stripped him.
That night we were both left feeling awful. It reminded me a lot of when he was younger and we let him cry it out in his crib to go to sleep. That same questioning, the same worry - did we do the right thing? Will this work? Are we horrible parents and somehow causing this mayhem?
Ultimately, I know we aren't really causing it and I don't think we're peramanently screwing him up. But these are the times that really test our abilities to handle stress. I'm grateful right now for my husband; he's assured me over and over that we're in this together and we will get through it in one piece. It's nice having that reassurance and acknowledgement that I'm not the only parent in the house.
The last two nights have been better and I'm optimistic we've turned the corner. Two nights ago he only got up once (in a fit of rage because he wanted his lion, which 5 minutes before he said he didn't want, and the freaking thing was on the end of his bed anyway), and last night he cried for us for about 10 minutes, insisting he needed a kiss on the hair, but gave up eventually and went to sleep. Since he didn't get up, we're calling it a victory. Hopefully some night soon he'll just go to bed and not flip out at all. One can hope.
D has such a strong will. It helps to know that will serve him well later in life, but it sure makes life hard on us sometimes. I'm determined to keep his boundaries in tact; this is a child who has the potential to be a total monster if we let him. As it is, he's pretty well behaved for an almost-four year old. But there are times, like now, when he decides to push back as hard as he can to see if those boundaries are still there and if they're going to stick. He wants to push down that wall, so he beats his head against it for a while to see what happens.
Kid, meet your parents - you've met your match.
The only people in this house more stubborn than D - probably the two of us, with my husband taking a slight lead. I think it's a good thing in this situation - he's not going to get his way and learn that he can throw mega-fits and get out of going to bed. But it's been exhausting, frustrating and downright maddening getting through this phase.
A few nights ago he was put in a time out and promptly threw up all over himself. On purpose. So the next night, my husband told him he was getting a time out and if he threw up, we'd take his jammies off and he could sleep naked. Yeah, he slept naked that night. My sweet darling boy gags himself so hard he vomits all over. See, strong willed. But he did learn that puking no longer gets him a free pass out of a time out. He sat in the puke until the time out was over before we stripped him.
That night we were both left feeling awful. It reminded me a lot of when he was younger and we let him cry it out in his crib to go to sleep. That same questioning, the same worry - did we do the right thing? Will this work? Are we horrible parents and somehow causing this mayhem?
Ultimately, I know we aren't really causing it and I don't think we're peramanently screwing him up. But these are the times that really test our abilities to handle stress. I'm grateful right now for my husband; he's assured me over and over that we're in this together and we will get through it in one piece. It's nice having that reassurance and acknowledgement that I'm not the only parent in the house.
The last two nights have been better and I'm optimistic we've turned the corner. Two nights ago he only got up once (in a fit of rage because he wanted his lion, which 5 minutes before he said he didn't want, and the freaking thing was on the end of his bed anyway), and last night he cried for us for about 10 minutes, insisting he needed a kiss on the hair, but gave up eventually and went to sleep. Since he didn't get up, we're calling it a victory. Hopefully some night soon he'll just go to bed and not flip out at all. One can hope.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
The verdict
I went to the pharmacy today.
I figured out that if I went off BCPs now, had a reasonably normal cycle in that I ovulated somewhere around day 14 and actually got pregnant, despite the "not trying, not preventing" status we would have given ourselves, I'd be due in early July. If I'm going to stop birth control, I have to be prepared for that possibility, even with PCOS. After all, I have a 16 month old that did not take ages to conceive and there have been many times I've told people, "You really need to wait to try until you're truly ready, because you just never know!" Although I don't know what to expect when I hop on the TTC train yet again, I do know that I have to be prepared for one of three possibilities: one, that it will happen right away; two, that it will take a bit of time but not long enough to worry over; and three, that it will take forever and we'll be faced with a lot of big questions as to what to do. But it's the first possibility that concerns me right now.
In any case, I thought about the idea of having a baby next July. I wasn't so crazy about that idea. Right smack in the middle of the summer, when things are a little chaotic and our routine is flimsy; right about the time my family is planning a big vacation. I'm not ready for that, so to throw caution to the wind would end up being more of a stress for me than anything else.
It seems sort of silly that the difference of two or three months seems so significant to me, but it really does. The thought of having a baby in September versus July is a whole different thing. September, I can handle. It's about as soon as I can imagine it being ok, about the soonest I can imagine being prepared. Anything sooner feels well... too soon. Even the difference between being due in August and being due in September seems like a big deal. I don't know if I can even explain why, at least not in a way that anyone else might understand. It just doesn't feel right.
So there you have it. I picked up two more packs of BCPs and I guess the plan is to take those, then punch my ticket and board the train. Now, my feelings on opening that can of worms... that's another post entirely. For now I'm just praying that the roller coaster is small and short and I'm able to handle it with a bit of grace.
I feel better now that I have a plan. Of course, I've said it before - how do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans.
I figured out that if I went off BCPs now, had a reasonably normal cycle in that I ovulated somewhere around day 14 and actually got pregnant, despite the "not trying, not preventing" status we would have given ourselves, I'd be due in early July. If I'm going to stop birth control, I have to be prepared for that possibility, even with PCOS. After all, I have a 16 month old that did not take ages to conceive and there have been many times I've told people, "You really need to wait to try until you're truly ready, because you just never know!" Although I don't know what to expect when I hop on the TTC train yet again, I do know that I have to be prepared for one of three possibilities: one, that it will happen right away; two, that it will take a bit of time but not long enough to worry over; and three, that it will take forever and we'll be faced with a lot of big questions as to what to do. But it's the first possibility that concerns me right now.
In any case, I thought about the idea of having a baby next July. I wasn't so crazy about that idea. Right smack in the middle of the summer, when things are a little chaotic and our routine is flimsy; right about the time my family is planning a big vacation. I'm not ready for that, so to throw caution to the wind would end up being more of a stress for me than anything else.
It seems sort of silly that the difference of two or three months seems so significant to me, but it really does. The thought of having a baby in September versus July is a whole different thing. September, I can handle. It's about as soon as I can imagine it being ok, about the soonest I can imagine being prepared. Anything sooner feels well... too soon. Even the difference between being due in August and being due in September seems like a big deal. I don't know if I can even explain why, at least not in a way that anyone else might understand. It just doesn't feel right.
So there you have it. I picked up two more packs of BCPs and I guess the plan is to take those, then punch my ticket and board the train. Now, my feelings on opening that can of worms... that's another post entirely. For now I'm just praying that the roller coaster is small and short and I'm able to handle it with a bit of grace.
I feel better now that I have a plan. Of course, I've said it before - how do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Here we go again.
I thought my husband and I had a plan in place with regards to trying for another baby. He thought we had a plan too. It turns out, however, that our plans aren't exactly the same. And forgive me, but this is going to be LONG.
Originally, he wanted to start trying in September. He had this thing about wanting all our kids to be two years apart in school. D and G will be, but due to the fact that G is a spring baby, our third kid would have to be two years younger or less in order to be only two years behind G in school. I guess if we had a summer baby it would be debatable, but I think most people these days are waiting until their kid is six for kindergarten if their bday is in the summer, rather than having them be really young for their grade.
In any case, that felt too soon for me, and we had a big conversation about it a few months ago, and I thought we worked it all out. I had a list of reasons that I wanted to wait longer and in the end, he actually agreed with me. We decided (I think) that we'd wait until after the new year to start trying, which would mean the earliest we'd be having baby #3 would be in the fall (if we get lucky enough to conceive easily again - that's always the wild card with my f'd up hormones).
Then we had another converstation. I think that's where things got screwy. He came away from the conversation thinking I was going to finish this month's cycle of BCPs, then go off of them; and while we wouldn't be actively trying until January, we wouldn't prevent either. I came away from the very same conversation thinking I would keep taking my BCPs for a few more months, but stop them one month early and have one cycle where we weren't really trying, but not preventing, so we could get the artificial hormones out of my system and see what my body does in terms of a cycle.
Over the last couple of weeks he's asked me more than once where I'm at in my cycle of pills. Last night he asked me again how many I have left, so I asked him why he kept asking me about it. That is when it came out that he thought I was going to stop taking them now. We were both sort of dumbfounded, because we thought we were on the same page, when he was actually about five pages ahead of me. He had no idea I wasn't thinking the same thing he was; and I felt the same.
So now I'm in the predicament of what to do. He'd like me to stop taking them now, throw caution to the wind for a few months, and then really start trying in January. He thinks it would be good to get the hormones out of my system, give my body a chance to rev up and start working, and lose a few more pounds which will hopefully make conception easier, and certainly make a pregnancy more comfortable.
Here's where my overthinking kicks in. And if anyone is actually still reading, I'll say for the record that I'm writing this more for my own good than because I think it will make an interesting post - many times writing all my thoughts out helps me make sense of it all.
Originally, I thought it would make sense to start trying in January. If we did get pg right away (and I know I need to plan things that way, despite my past issues with infertility - we got pg right away the second time), the baby would be born in the fall at the earliest. That would give me all summer with just the boys, and they'll both be at great ages to play outside more independently. Last summer was hectic with a newborn, and this summer was spent with G mostly crawling, so hanging out outside a lot wasn't as fun or relaxing. My time was spent chasing G around as he crawled through anything and everything, getting filthy in the process and trying to eat lots of rocks. I love the idea of a summer where the boys can run around in the backyard and I can do more watching, rather than fishing rocks out of the mouth. If I have a newborn next summer, it's yet another summer where I feel like I can't relax as much.
If the baby is born in the fall or later, D will be in school and have more of a routine. Plus, I'll have time three times a week with just G and the baby. Granted, I'll have to juggle dropping D off and picking him up with G's schedule, as well as the non-schedule of a newborn, but that's basically inevitable.
We don't have 100% coverage of maternity care on our insurance, so we'll have a fairly large bill to pay. Waiting a bit longer will give me that many more months that I'm working, therefore that much longer to save up.
My family is planning a big vacation for July and I'd like to be able to go. Pregnant, I can go - with a newborn or too close to my due date, not so much.
As much as we might say we'd avoid my fertile times if we're not using BCPs, that's a little ridiculous. We don't usually go more than a day or two without having sex. And sperm lives for like 5 days, right? And I know we wouldn't use anything else. We just wouldn't.
When I first went off of BCPs to try for D, I gained a bunch of weight right off the bat. Of course, I didn't know I had PCOS, didn't know about the whole carb/blood sugar/insulin/hormone thing, so I'm sure I wasn't eating right. And I didn't have the same experience when I went off BCPs to try for G. But I worry that it's because I'd already lost enough weight that my hormones were good and not in weight gain spiral mode. This time, I'm not as overweight as I was when we were trying for D, but I'm not at the weight I was when we got pg with G either - so I just don't know what to expect from my body. And I'm trying to lose weight to make conception easier - not looking to jump up another 20.
However...
I don't know how long this is really going to take, and the thought process starts down the "if we start trying sooner, it might happen sooner" path. I'd hate for a year to go by and we wish we would have just started trying sooner. Of course, I don't know that when you start has any bearing on how long it will take. Like, if we had started trying for D sooner, would we have actually gotten pg sooner, or would we have gotten pg at the same time and the amount of time we were trying simply have been longer? Or if we had started trying for G in say, July instead of September, would we have gotten pg in July instead, or would it have then just taken a few extra months and been in September anyway. Impossible questions, obviously, but still...
Maybe my body will do better with a longer break from BCPs and a chance to start having cycles. And it would give me some time to judge when I'm ovulating (assuming that does happen) so we can more effectively try when the time comes to really make the effort.
This is sort of hard for me to admit, but I have a hard time saying no to my husband. If he really, really wants me to go off of BCPs now, it will be hard for me to say no. If I was adamantly not ready, I would tell him no and that would be that - I'm the one potentially getting pregnant here. But obviously I'm considering it, so it isn't an out and out no - which means I'm feeling the pressure to say yes, even though he's made it clear to me that he's ok with whatever I decide to do.
This is harder for me to admit, but we've talked about doing some things to "try" for a girl - mostly timing of sex in relation to ovulation. We'd both like a girl (although I'll say again that we'll both be more than happy with another boy) and kind of figured, why the heck not? Why not do things a little differently in order to possibly increase the odds of having a girl next time. Neither of us think it's foolproof, nor would we be putting a lot of faith in it - just a "why not give it a shot" kind of thing. But if we are in "not trying, not preventing" mode, I wonder if we'll just end up having sex whenever, and not give ourselves the chance to try to throw the odds in favor of a girl. And if we do start timing sex that way, aren't we actually trying - not "not preventing"? Where is that line between "not trying, but not preventing" and "trying" anyway?
There's also the feeling of excitement over the possibility of getting pregnant again. Sort of like being on the verge of the Christmas season, but not quite there yet. Wouldn't it be fun to just jump the gun, break out the Christmas tree and enjoy the holiday season a little early? There's a tingling of excitement I get when I think about just going for it and going off the pill now and I think that has a lot to do with why I'm considering it.
Then I have this (probably irrational) fear that I'm messing with fate somehow, or with God's plan for me. That the reason my husband has pushed for this is because we're supposed to get pregnant sooner - that the baby we're meant to have is just on the cusp of coming into being and if I don't go ahead and go off of birth control, I'll be missing my chance. But on the other hand, maybe my original plan was right and if I go off of BCPs too soon, I'll be messing things up that way. (did I mention I'm a little bit insane?)
Complicating matters is that I'm out of pills and if I'm going to keep taking them, I have to decide by tomorrow so I can get a refill from the pharmacy. I need to start a new pack on Sunday if I'm going to start.
Today I've been thinking about it a lot and jumping positions faster than the most fickle politician. One minute I'm feeling confident that my original plan was the best thing and I'll take a couple more months of BCPs. Then the next minute I feel like it's only a couple extra months, it'll save me the copay on another round of pills and I probably won't get pregnant right away, anyway, so what's the harm.
I'm hoping that writing all this out will help me figure it all out. It usually does.
Originally, he wanted to start trying in September. He had this thing about wanting all our kids to be two years apart in school. D and G will be, but due to the fact that G is a spring baby, our third kid would have to be two years younger or less in order to be only two years behind G in school. I guess if we had a summer baby it would be debatable, but I think most people these days are waiting until their kid is six for kindergarten if their bday is in the summer, rather than having them be really young for their grade.
In any case, that felt too soon for me, and we had a big conversation about it a few months ago, and I thought we worked it all out. I had a list of reasons that I wanted to wait longer and in the end, he actually agreed with me. We decided (I think) that we'd wait until after the new year to start trying, which would mean the earliest we'd be having baby #3 would be in the fall (if we get lucky enough to conceive easily again - that's always the wild card with my f'd up hormones).
Then we had another converstation. I think that's where things got screwy. He came away from the conversation thinking I was going to finish this month's cycle of BCPs, then go off of them; and while we wouldn't be actively trying until January, we wouldn't prevent either. I came away from the very same conversation thinking I would keep taking my BCPs for a few more months, but stop them one month early and have one cycle where we weren't really trying, but not preventing, so we could get the artificial hormones out of my system and see what my body does in terms of a cycle.
Over the last couple of weeks he's asked me more than once where I'm at in my cycle of pills. Last night he asked me again how many I have left, so I asked him why he kept asking me about it. That is when it came out that he thought I was going to stop taking them now. We were both sort of dumbfounded, because we thought we were on the same page, when he was actually about five pages ahead of me. He had no idea I wasn't thinking the same thing he was; and I felt the same.
So now I'm in the predicament of what to do. He'd like me to stop taking them now, throw caution to the wind for a few months, and then really start trying in January. He thinks it would be good to get the hormones out of my system, give my body a chance to rev up and start working, and lose a few more pounds which will hopefully make conception easier, and certainly make a pregnancy more comfortable.
Here's where my overthinking kicks in. And if anyone is actually still reading, I'll say for the record that I'm writing this more for my own good than because I think it will make an interesting post - many times writing all my thoughts out helps me make sense of it all.
Originally, I thought it would make sense to start trying in January. If we did get pg right away (and I know I need to plan things that way, despite my past issues with infertility - we got pg right away the second time), the baby would be born in the fall at the earliest. That would give me all summer with just the boys, and they'll both be at great ages to play outside more independently. Last summer was hectic with a newborn, and this summer was spent with G mostly crawling, so hanging out outside a lot wasn't as fun or relaxing. My time was spent chasing G around as he crawled through anything and everything, getting filthy in the process and trying to eat lots of rocks. I love the idea of a summer where the boys can run around in the backyard and I can do more watching, rather than fishing rocks out of the mouth. If I have a newborn next summer, it's yet another summer where I feel like I can't relax as much.
If the baby is born in the fall or later, D will be in school and have more of a routine. Plus, I'll have time three times a week with just G and the baby. Granted, I'll have to juggle dropping D off and picking him up with G's schedule, as well as the non-schedule of a newborn, but that's basically inevitable.
We don't have 100% coverage of maternity care on our insurance, so we'll have a fairly large bill to pay. Waiting a bit longer will give me that many more months that I'm working, therefore that much longer to save up.
My family is planning a big vacation for July and I'd like to be able to go. Pregnant, I can go - with a newborn or too close to my due date, not so much.
As much as we might say we'd avoid my fertile times if we're not using BCPs, that's a little ridiculous. We don't usually go more than a day or two without having sex. And sperm lives for like 5 days, right? And I know we wouldn't use anything else. We just wouldn't.
When I first went off of BCPs to try for D, I gained a bunch of weight right off the bat. Of course, I didn't know I had PCOS, didn't know about the whole carb/blood sugar/insulin/hormone thing, so I'm sure I wasn't eating right. And I didn't have the same experience when I went off BCPs to try for G. But I worry that it's because I'd already lost enough weight that my hormones were good and not in weight gain spiral mode. This time, I'm not as overweight as I was when we were trying for D, but I'm not at the weight I was when we got pg with G either - so I just don't know what to expect from my body. And I'm trying to lose weight to make conception easier - not looking to jump up another 20.
However...
I don't know how long this is really going to take, and the thought process starts down the "if we start trying sooner, it might happen sooner" path. I'd hate for a year to go by and we wish we would have just started trying sooner. Of course, I don't know that when you start has any bearing on how long it will take. Like, if we had started trying for D sooner, would we have actually gotten pg sooner, or would we have gotten pg at the same time and the amount of time we were trying simply have been longer? Or if we had started trying for G in say, July instead of September, would we have gotten pg in July instead, or would it have then just taken a few extra months and been in September anyway. Impossible questions, obviously, but still...
Maybe my body will do better with a longer break from BCPs and a chance to start having cycles. And it would give me some time to judge when I'm ovulating (assuming that does happen) so we can more effectively try when the time comes to really make the effort.
This is sort of hard for me to admit, but I have a hard time saying no to my husband. If he really, really wants me to go off of BCPs now, it will be hard for me to say no. If I was adamantly not ready, I would tell him no and that would be that - I'm the one potentially getting pregnant here. But obviously I'm considering it, so it isn't an out and out no - which means I'm feeling the pressure to say yes, even though he's made it clear to me that he's ok with whatever I decide to do.
This is harder for me to admit, but we've talked about doing some things to "try" for a girl - mostly timing of sex in relation to ovulation. We'd both like a girl (although I'll say again that we'll both be more than happy with another boy) and kind of figured, why the heck not? Why not do things a little differently in order to possibly increase the odds of having a girl next time. Neither of us think it's foolproof, nor would we be putting a lot of faith in it - just a "why not give it a shot" kind of thing. But if we are in "not trying, not preventing" mode, I wonder if we'll just end up having sex whenever, and not give ourselves the chance to try to throw the odds in favor of a girl. And if we do start timing sex that way, aren't we actually trying - not "not preventing"? Where is that line between "not trying, but not preventing" and "trying" anyway?
There's also the feeling of excitement over the possibility of getting pregnant again. Sort of like being on the verge of the Christmas season, but not quite there yet. Wouldn't it be fun to just jump the gun, break out the Christmas tree and enjoy the holiday season a little early? There's a tingling of excitement I get when I think about just going for it and going off the pill now and I think that has a lot to do with why I'm considering it.
Then I have this (probably irrational) fear that I'm messing with fate somehow, or with God's plan for me. That the reason my husband has pushed for this is because we're supposed to get pregnant sooner - that the baby we're meant to have is just on the cusp of coming into being and if I don't go ahead and go off of birth control, I'll be missing my chance. But on the other hand, maybe my original plan was right and if I go off of BCPs too soon, I'll be messing things up that way. (did I mention I'm a little bit insane?)
Complicating matters is that I'm out of pills and if I'm going to keep taking them, I have to decide by tomorrow so I can get a refill from the pharmacy. I need to start a new pack on Sunday if I'm going to start.
Today I've been thinking about it a lot and jumping positions faster than the most fickle politician. One minute I'm feeling confident that my original plan was the best thing and I'll take a couple more months of BCPs. Then the next minute I feel like it's only a couple extra months, it'll save me the copay on another round of pills and I probably won't get pregnant right away, anyway, so what's the harm.
I'm hoping that writing all this out will help me figure it all out. It usually does.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Bedtime
We seem to go back and forth lately with D on bedtimes. Generally, he does fine - goes to bed without a lot of drama, sleeps all night, etc. But once in a while we start to go through an "I'm going to make bedtime really hard" phase. Apparently we're entering another one of those.
He's the king of stall tactics - wanting to get up and go potty even though he just went 5 minutes ago, one more book, one more hug, one more kiss, fix my covers, I need a drink.... On and on and on. And he is a child who epitomizes the whole "give them an inch and they take a mile" thing. If you start giving in on anything, he pushes HARD to see how much more he can get. There was a time when his naptime routine (back when he napped) had grown to include so many steps it would take 45 minutes just to get through all of it. It's like, if you do something he requests, even if it seems like a one time, no big deal thing, eventually it becomes a big deal.
Part of the problem lately is totally our fault. We haven't been great about getting him to bed on time. Realistically, he needs to be in bed by 7; we've been pushing it to 7:30 or later way too often. Once in a while is fine, but he's always been very sensitive to keeping his sleep schedule. Although he's become more flexible as he's gotten older, the fact still remains that when we don't do a good job getting him into bed on time, bedtime starts to get ugly.
Tonight... well, tonight isn't going so great. My husband is doing a good job handling it, but it is so frustrating. I keep telling myself he's going to bed early tonight, and like tonight, something comes up and it doesn't happen. He seriously needs like a week of early bedtimes to catch up so he'll quit acting like a monster when we try to put him to bed.
And I swear, if either of them wake up before 6am again tomorrow, I'm going to scream. But that's another story.
He's the king of stall tactics - wanting to get up and go potty even though he just went 5 minutes ago, one more book, one more hug, one more kiss, fix my covers, I need a drink.... On and on and on. And he is a child who epitomizes the whole "give them an inch and they take a mile" thing. If you start giving in on anything, he pushes HARD to see how much more he can get. There was a time when his naptime routine (back when he napped) had grown to include so many steps it would take 45 minutes just to get through all of it. It's like, if you do something he requests, even if it seems like a one time, no big deal thing, eventually it becomes a big deal.
Part of the problem lately is totally our fault. We haven't been great about getting him to bed on time. Realistically, he needs to be in bed by 7; we've been pushing it to 7:30 or later way too often. Once in a while is fine, but he's always been very sensitive to keeping his sleep schedule. Although he's become more flexible as he's gotten older, the fact still remains that when we don't do a good job getting him into bed on time, bedtime starts to get ugly.
Tonight... well, tonight isn't going so great. My husband is doing a good job handling it, but it is so frustrating. I keep telling myself he's going to bed early tonight, and like tonight, something comes up and it doesn't happen. He seriously needs like a week of early bedtimes to catch up so he'll quit acting like a monster when we try to put him to bed.
And I swear, if either of them wake up before 6am again tomorrow, I'm going to scream. But that's another story.
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