I just want to put down what is on my heart lately.
In lieu of Mother's Day last weekend I really thought about Mom's.
Because my kids are still so little, its more of like an anniversary or birthday becuase its the dad's that do everything. Yes, its odd but I was so happy that there wasn't much going on. I feel like although I am a Mom and a lot comes with that, a day right now is more to celebrate and thank my children for allowing me to be a mom.
There are so many women out there who want to be a mom, and cant, mothers who dont get to hold their trophies, mom's who never got to meet their children, etc.
I know being a mom is a tough job, but I feel like my job is very easy compared to a large portion of women and on days like Mother's Days I just want to take time out to be thankful for what God has given me.
Mothers take on a job they have no training for, dont know what to expect, have no idea what your body will do, especially your hormones. For some battling the body is a hard enough task, let alone trying to protect a baby that you have no control over. And that is just the small battle before your child arrives. You read all the books you can, you deal with strangers touching you, giving you unwanted advice, looks, comments, and everything any between. Then if you are fortunate enough to get to deliver your baby a whole new load of challenges come into play.
I have to say if someone placed a help wanted ad in the paper for all the jobs a mom had to do, I dont think very many people would apply, and the biggest difference is that a help wanted ad is offering to pay you, but as a mom you end of paying them, yet you love every second of it.
With all the choices a mother has to make; breast feed, bottle feed, nature vs nurture. I would not trade a single one for some of the things that other mothers out there have to live with, and the biggest difference is they didn't get a choice.
To my Mom's out there who never got to hold your babies, or ones who only had days to love on them, or months to enjoy them or even years but were taken too soon.
The mothers who dont have their "trophies" to show for their achievements are the ones that deserve the biggest trophies of all.
Some say a child is never really yours, they are on loan from God.
It breaks my heart that mothers dont get to have their babies and I appreciate every second of every day that I can hold my kids, but also every second of every day I think about the mom's who dont get those chances, and a part of me hugs and kisses my kids a little harder and more for them.
I just want to say to all Mom's who have lost a child pre or post birth, you are the most amazing women to me and I admire your strength and ability to continue to be successful in life.
If you have a woman you know that has experienced this please take a moment to tell them how much you appreciate and love them and admire their strength.
I LOVE all my MOMS!
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
It was meant to be
About August/September of 2011 I sat down with the Hubs and asked him to really think about what he wanted to do. Did he want to donate to our clinic and be done? Or continue with finding a couple. To my suprise he wanted to go through with finding a couple. Sounded great except he wanted to find a couple that would have slim to no chance to carry the kids. That was very difficult for me to handle and I took about a month to really pray about the direction we should take, and at the end of September I decided that I would no longer look into couple that contacted me but would search profiles myself and find ones that I liked and contact them.
~Yes I know Craig didn't want that but after we really prayed about it for weeks we both knew we needed a healthy young couple~
I was roughly a week into my search when I got an email from a couple. Like I had said I was not going to entertain couples contacting us but for some reason the names and pictures looked familar. I didn't put much stake in it because I had been through so many profiles. So I just let it sit in my inbox and the next day I was looking over my chosen profile list and they were on it.
Immediately I was like, yeah.... I liked them, but I needed to ask questions.
In search for a "suitable" couple you have to be respectful of peoples personal information, and you dont just flat out ask why they are doing embryo adoption especially since they tried numerous fertility treatments without success. And you especially dont ask those questions in your first contact.
I emailed the couple back, just letting them know we had not found a match yet, and I can remember the email I got back and it nearly brought me to tears. Tears of joy and relief and sadness, because she offered up all the "unspoken" information.
**I will be having her tell her side of the story soon**
All I can say is that we just fit, in so many ways. Our likes, dislikes, passions, faith, roles, etc. And what was an added bonus was that they had recently adopted a beautiful baby girl March of 2011, and they are foster/adopt family in the State of Texas, so they had a lawyer who was familar with adoption and embryo adoption/donation and made things very quick and easy.
Long story short, and yes we will go into detail about the whole event, February 2012 the snowflakes had a new, loving, happy home.
~Yes I know Craig didn't want that but after we really prayed about it for weeks we both knew we needed a healthy young couple~
I was roughly a week into my search when I got an email from a couple. Like I had said I was not going to entertain couples contacting us but for some reason the names and pictures looked familar. I didn't put much stake in it because I had been through so many profiles. So I just let it sit in my inbox and the next day I was looking over my chosen profile list and they were on it.
Immediately I was like, yeah.... I liked them, but I needed to ask questions.
In search for a "suitable" couple you have to be respectful of peoples personal information, and you dont just flat out ask why they are doing embryo adoption especially since they tried numerous fertility treatments without success. And you especially dont ask those questions in your first contact.
I emailed the couple back, just letting them know we had not found a match yet, and I can remember the email I got back and it nearly brought me to tears. Tears of joy and relief and sadness, because she offered up all the "unspoken" information.
**I will be having her tell her side of the story soon**
All I can say is that we just fit, in so many ways. Our likes, dislikes, passions, faith, roles, etc. And what was an added bonus was that they had recently adopted a beautiful baby girl March of 2011, and they are foster/adopt family in the State of Texas, so they had a lawyer who was familar with adoption and embryo adoption/donation and made things very quick and easy.
Long story short, and yes we will go into detail about the whole event, February 2012 the snowflakes had a new, loving, happy home.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
What about our snowflakes
I look back and time has really flown. I seriously thought it was maybe last November that I last posted about my snow babies. Nope it was November of 2010, yikes. Well a lot has happen since then.
The first half of the year was pretty uneventful. We did have the kids first birthday party (yet another later post) but really nothing besides catching our breathe from the holidays and birthdays.
So about April we finally got everything caught up. It really feels like now with kids life doesn't slow down enough to catch a breath until after Easter.
After Easter we started looking at our finances, and that's when I noticed I still hadn't made a decision on what to do with our four snow flakes. For those of you who don't understand "fertility" terms snowflake is frozen embryos. And before I get to far I want you to know a little bit about Craig and I. I don't want to give the impression that Craig doesn't care about the snow babies but he is a guy and doesn't look at it has they are our kids because they aren't here. He agreed with our initial decision of finding a research facility but I am left to do the leg work, so when I said that wasn't an option he was ok with donating. We both were completely against the transferring at an inopportune time. Even though that didn't technically involve him he knew that was not an option. So it came down to donating. Now you already know it wasn't an easy decision. I was the one that had a hard time and of course looked at every aspect of it; cost, accessibility, control, etc. Craig on the other hand was fine with the decision and didn't have much of an opinion either way on if we knew the couple or not. He was good with how I wanted to proceed and knew I would be the one doing the leg work.
I had explored the option of donation. I'm sure most don't think there are options but there are. We could donate to our clinic, strictly blind donation/adoption, or there are sites out there that are open, similar to putting a born child up for adoption, or sites in between.I encourage all of you who want to know more about this, or those who maybe faced with the decision to donate your snowflakes or want to adopt snowflakes check out Embryo Adoption Awareness Center. There is a ton of information on here, and its nice to know that others go through this.
Well, after drowning myself in information I decided that I wanted to have some control over who I donated to. So I looked into two main sites, Snowflake Embryo Adoption, and Miracles Waiting. I again had to weigh all my options and what would be best for me, and I do say me because again Craig doesn't look at the details. I decided I would go with Miracles Waiting. I will say they are a little "old school" with their website and set up. Its slightly confusing, but once you get the hang of it, its pretty easy. I wont bore you with the details, so basically I had to create our profile of us, a short version of what you fill out on your fertility paperwork, and then post. I was very shocked what happened next. I knew that I our situation was not common but I didn't know that I was one of few in the nation to do donate. Within days my email was flooded with potential parents. I have to admit it felt good, that our embryos were in high demand, but very overwhelming. What you don't think about it that you are going to have to turn people away. Also you realize that you get to be specific and for once feel like you get to be selective.
Because of the amount of people I held off on responding to majority of them, until I had a chance to look at the pool of potential people. The difference with this site is that there is not a middle person, unless you want to add a middle person. Its basically the donor talking with the recipient. Yes, very intense.
I was very "hardcore" for about a month, then it got to be too much.
I couldn't do anything with out thinking about it. so many questions filled my head;
*what if I make the wrong choice? *what if they don't love my kids? *what if they don't give them a good life? *do we want a young couple? *do we want an established couple? *do we want to donate to an older woman who wants to be a single mom? *same sex couples who this is their only chance of having a child?
Then went to questions like, *well maybe we don't want someone else having our kids, so should we pick an older couple that has had lots of trouble conceiving and the chances of it being successful highly unlikely, or do we want a couple that have a great chance to get pregnant? *Why are people needing to do embryo adoption? *what if they already have kids, and just want more? *Do we want a couple that are close to our ethnicity? *Have similar traits as us?
Then you have questions like, *if it does result in a child how much contact do we want? *do we want contact? *do we want to be close? *how close, will the child want to know us, their siblings? *will they be upset that we gave them away? *will they want to know why? *What if there is more than one kid? *can we keep track of all of them? *will the couple try it once and if they get a child will they donate the remainder?
These are just a handful of the questions that went through my mind, so needless to say I had to stop and look deeper into my next step. This was something that I didn't expect. I didn't expect to be so concerned. For whatever reason I thought it would be easy, post the profile, have maybe two couples, and go with one. Never thought I would have over 50 inquiries in less than a month.
I apologize for those who are interested, I will have to continue another day, even just putting this to paper (to blog) its very emotional.
***Please, please, please I encourage any person who is experiencing fertility issues in any shape or form, does not mean you are the one going through the hurdles, that you feel free to contact me, or if you don't want to talk with me directly, I can give you great resources, forums, informative websites, etc. --I will make a reference post in the next week or so---***
The first half of the year was pretty uneventful. We did have the kids first birthday party (yet another later post) but really nothing besides catching our breathe from the holidays and birthdays.
So about April we finally got everything caught up. It really feels like now with kids life doesn't slow down enough to catch a breath until after Easter.
After Easter we started looking at our finances, and that's when I noticed I still hadn't made a decision on what to do with our four snow flakes. For those of you who don't understand "fertility" terms snowflake is frozen embryos. And before I get to far I want you to know a little bit about Craig and I. I don't want to give the impression that Craig doesn't care about the snow babies but he is a guy and doesn't look at it has they are our kids because they aren't here. He agreed with our initial decision of finding a research facility but I am left to do the leg work, so when I said that wasn't an option he was ok with donating. We both were completely against the transferring at an inopportune time. Even though that didn't technically involve him he knew that was not an option. So it came down to donating. Now you already know it wasn't an easy decision. I was the one that had a hard time and of course looked at every aspect of it; cost, accessibility, control, etc. Craig on the other hand was fine with the decision and didn't have much of an opinion either way on if we knew the couple or not. He was good with how I wanted to proceed and knew I would be the one doing the leg work.
I had explored the option of donation. I'm sure most don't think there are options but there are. We could donate to our clinic, strictly blind donation/adoption, or there are sites out there that are open, similar to putting a born child up for adoption, or sites in between.I encourage all of you who want to know more about this, or those who maybe faced with the decision to donate your snowflakes or want to adopt snowflakes check out Embryo Adoption Awareness Center. There is a ton of information on here, and its nice to know that others go through this.
Well, after drowning myself in information I decided that I wanted to have some control over who I donated to. So I looked into two main sites, Snowflake Embryo Adoption, and Miracles Waiting. I again had to weigh all my options and what would be best for me, and I do say me because again Craig doesn't look at the details. I decided I would go with Miracles Waiting. I will say they are a little "old school" with their website and set up. Its slightly confusing, but once you get the hang of it, its pretty easy. I wont bore you with the details, so basically I had to create our profile of us, a short version of what you fill out on your fertility paperwork, and then post. I was very shocked what happened next. I knew that I our situation was not common but I didn't know that I was one of few in the nation to do donate. Within days my email was flooded with potential parents. I have to admit it felt good, that our embryos were in high demand, but very overwhelming. What you don't think about it that you are going to have to turn people away. Also you realize that you get to be specific and for once feel like you get to be selective.
Because of the amount of people I held off on responding to majority of them, until I had a chance to look at the pool of potential people. The difference with this site is that there is not a middle person, unless you want to add a middle person. Its basically the donor talking with the recipient. Yes, very intense.
I was very "hardcore" for about a month, then it got to be too much.
I couldn't do anything with out thinking about it. so many questions filled my head;
*what if I make the wrong choice? *what if they don't love my kids? *what if they don't give them a good life? *do we want a young couple? *do we want an established couple? *do we want to donate to an older woman who wants to be a single mom? *same sex couples who this is their only chance of having a child?
Then went to questions like, *well maybe we don't want someone else having our kids, so should we pick an older couple that has had lots of trouble conceiving and the chances of it being successful highly unlikely, or do we want a couple that have a great chance to get pregnant? *Why are people needing to do embryo adoption? *what if they already have kids, and just want more? *Do we want a couple that are close to our ethnicity? *Have similar traits as us?
Then you have questions like, *if it does result in a child how much contact do we want? *do we want contact? *do we want to be close? *how close, will the child want to know us, their siblings? *will they be upset that we gave them away? *will they want to know why? *What if there is more than one kid? *can we keep track of all of them? *will the couple try it once and if they get a child will they donate the remainder?
These are just a handful of the questions that went through my mind, so needless to say I had to stop and look deeper into my next step. This was something that I didn't expect. I didn't expect to be so concerned. For whatever reason I thought it would be easy, post the profile, have maybe two couples, and go with one. Never thought I would have over 50 inquiries in less than a month.
I apologize for those who are interested, I will have to continue another day, even just putting this to paper (to blog) its very emotional.
***Please, please, please I encourage any person who is experiencing fertility issues in any shape or form, does not mean you are the one going through the hurdles, that you feel free to contact me, or if you don't want to talk with me directly, I can give you great resources, forums, informative websites, etc. --I will make a reference post in the next week or so---***
Monday, May 7, 2012
Nanny, Home daycare, mother's day out, Daycare....
I have so many things to share and most are so unrelated to eachother, so it makes it hard to decide on what is the appriopriate please to start.
Needless to say, I will get to everything eventually.
I guess the biggest event that we are going through right now, and I actually get a decent amount of questions on that I thought was odd, was what to have.... home daycare, Nanny, Mother's Day Out, or Daycare. The only other option is being stay at home. Well I wont be talking about that because I only stayed home with the kids while on maturnity leave. ~Actually I will at some point talk about working mom vs stay at home mom. just not today.
So to give you a brief background, I made a commitment that if daycare was going to cost me more than my months pay I was going to stay at home. For my sake I am thankful I had an option that did not cost as much as my month's pay check, but I am very glad I was lucky enough to have a friend that not only had three kids, but also has experience with daycares, and had her own in home daycare.
*A side note story, I actually met her through a fertility forum and introduced her to my doctor, and it does sound a lot worst than it was but I gave her my left over drugs. (If you went through, going through or know someone who has dealt with infertility treatments, you would understand giving someone your unused drugs)*
In finding what to do with your kids, before they are born, is a tough choice. If I can give parents to be one bit of advice, have a back up plan. First decide if you want to stay at home, then decide if you can stay home, or if you want to do a full time daycare or a part time, such as a mothers day out program. Once you figure out what is best for your family, start doing your research, if you need to. And visit as many places as you can, because if it doesn't feel right, it wont ever feel right.
The twins are nearly 27 months old, and here is our timeline;
1-3 monthsstayed at home, maturnity leave, recovering from c-section and extra time off.
3-14 months, in home daycare
14-16 months, nanny 1
16-19 months, nanny 2
20-current/ 27months nanny 3
20-current MDO, tuesday and thursday only.
And yes as you can say we went through 3 nanny's. Maybe at some point in time I will write about picking the best nanny for your needs, but for now nanny 1, had to commute almost an hr to and from our house, so it was just getting tough to be on time and expensive, plus needed a lot of time off during the summer for her prior church engagements. Nanny 2 lived close and was very high energy, a little too high and loved the idea of family a little too much (trust me it can be a bad thing), Nanny 3 we LOVE she and her husband just want to move back home to be around their family in Michigan and her husband got a job opporunity they couldn't refuse.
Here is how and why we did what we did. Let me also say that the hubs has opinions but didn't want to do any of the research or leg work, so ultimately since I would be the one dropping off and picking up and dealing with the workers, etc it was my decision. Plus momma knows best ;)
Also a thing you must decide, and you will figure out very quickly if you didn't know before your kid(s) got here, is what type of parent are you. Are you the one that needs to read ten books, before making a decision because you aren't sure whats best. Are you the one that goes off instinct and needs no information to tell you how to raise your kid, Or are you the one that knows enough to get by and listens to people who give you advice, but really dont have time or care to read books.
Well I am the one who has little time to read books, but I want to make sure I make the best decision, and I look way to deep into things. What this means is that I know I want my kids to be in an educational enviornment, but as babies I didn't need them learning how to read before they were 2,etc. As a baby my primary concern was that they got individual attention and love, but also wanted them to have social interaction.
I guess another thing I need to say is that you need to know what type of person you are. OCD, Anal, laid back, etc. Also how will that impact your parenting skills? I am slightly OCD and anal-I prefer to call myself very organized :)
I knew that I did not want to stay at home, although I loved my kids, it was hard for me to stay at home while on "bedrest" pre kids, I couldn't stay in the house, and with twin babies you need to decide when is it worth the 5 minute run to the store once hubs gets home, or you get off work, versus the hour long trip and everyone staring at your at the store for your 3 items. Also I knew as the kids go older I wanted to make sure they had a schedule for activites, and had a decent routine, that was a combination of educational, creative, and relaxing. I knew I could not provide that to them daily. Although I love routine and structure I am horrible and doing something all day long every day, including weekends.
Because of having twins it was extremely important to me that the kids were on a schedule and stuck to the schedule, so I wanted to make sure they were in an enviornment that would keep them on a routine, but also could teach them things, that as a first time mom I would think about.
With that being said, as I mentioned earlier I had a friend who was helping figure out daycares and options, what to look for, the good and the bad, and long story short she offered to bring my twins in. Although she had not had her in home daycare open the year prior, she was debating on opening it back up (she closed it because she didn't need the income), so I went with her. It was the best thing ever!
In home daycare was great because they got fed balanced, nutritionist approved meals, got to socialize with kids slightly older then them, and best of all she got the "daycare" ready. What I mean by that is she taught them to sleep in pack n' plays not cribs, and to put themselves to sleep. And because she knew I was very "organized" she had daily sheets but made sure mine were detailed. Becuase they started there so earlier I think it really helped with their seperation anxiety. I believe all kids go through it at some phase, but how extreme varies by kid and preperation for the seperation.
I know most are probably wondering why I left in home, well she primarily watched teach kids, so they were they at 7:30 in the morning and gone by 3:30 and my work schedule didn't really allow for that and I didn't want to be a burden, because she had her own family to spend time with. Also she had taken on two babies roughly a year younger than the twins that were extremely needy (their siblings were already at her daycare) and although she didn't neglect the kids, I could tell they were starting to "act out" slightly because of the shift in attention. They also started to "regress" a little because they weren't old enough to understand that all a baby can do is cry for everything, so they thought they needed to cry for every little thing. So just after a year we decided that a nanny was the best way to go.
The kids were going to the church nursery three times a week, so that social interaction we felt was there, so now it was time to give them more individual, and together attention. The in home daycare had help establish a routine and schedule so we just continued that with the nanny.
Now I want to make it very clear that most people think nanny's are extremely expensive, well we have been EXTREMELY lucky to have nanny's that took very little pay, because they didn't need the money. To help put money in perspective, our in home daycare was 250/wk, and we paid the nanny the same. (not much money at all) so for you budget people you are looking at roughly 1k a month and a regular daycare for twins, was gonna run us about 1800. huge difference.
With a nanny, she was great with the kids, had a nice routine of learning video's, learning , sign language, play time and reading time, and art time. With this nanny we only asked her to clean up after the kids, make meals for them and keep track of their day. We did not have her do any extra things, like dishes, laundry etc.
Nanny 2 was great as well. She had just graduated college and was engaged and getting married in July, she had so much energy it was great because she would wear the kids out, and although our requirements were the same for her, she would do the kids laundry, all the dishes and make meals. -we were very spoiled. But nanny 2 liked family a little too much, she would have her fianc'e/husband come over when he wasn't working (and yes we said that was ok) and she would teach the kids to call him uncle mike, which doens't seem bad except my brother's name is michael.... slight problem. And they were taking pictures of the kids and posting them on their facebooks, which occasionally no big deal but often I didn't like.
Some of you ladies know what I am talking about when you can tell what time of pregnant woman a person is going to be, for example; you have the "Im pregnant I cant do anything even at 4 weeks, others are the ones that you cant stop them no matter what they are going to continue doing life as people." Well nanny 2 was the first example, and so I knew if she was thinking of getting pregnant that I would have very little time to get a replacement, so I continued to ask her, and she would tell me know what her facebook status would contridict that. Anyway, end of August she said she needed to get a job that had insurance because they were thinking about starting a family. So that brought us to Nanny 3.
Nanny 3 has been great, she and her husband actually went over seas for a missions trip to teach kids, so she had some experience and loved the thought of watching twins. She has been wonderful. She not only has them on a schedule and keeps track of their day but keeps the house picked up too. She is very timely and even can with her built in back up, if she ever got sick -her husband, who the kids LOVE. From the beginning she had told me that she was going to move back home before they thought of having a family, but also were semi actively looking to move back home. With that, she also pick and drop the kids off at mothers day out on tuesdays and thursdays.
Although Nanny 3 has been great it was getting to be too much running around and juggling people and schedules and payments to do mother's day out and nanny, plus MDO was only during the school year so we would have to go nanny full time or a daycare full time this summer.
I had said from close to the beginning that about age 3 I would put them in a daycare/pre-K and since the ideal school I want them to go to is out of our price range right now and wont take them till they are 3, and again going back to me being "organized" I want them to start out on a school year calendar, so I wont start them in Jan. it wold have to wait till they were 3 1/2. but that doesn't help me now. so daycare is where to go. Plus on the money side of things we went from paying 1k a month to 1100 when you add up nanny and MDO. Then the additional cost in utilities, and groceries, it only made since that paying 1200 for daycare will save us money. Plus the kids aren't stuck in the house all day.
Next step is daycare. The kids dont start till the 21st of this month so I will keep you posted.
I know this is a little lenghty so I apologize, but a quick recap
Nanny- The comfort of home, a mommy fill in.
In Home Daycare- a little more control for mom, and a little more personalized with a homey feel, with the benefit of social interaction
Daycare- less mom control, social interaction, and more emphasis on educational guidelines.
Needless to say, I will get to everything eventually.
I guess the biggest event that we are going through right now, and I actually get a decent amount of questions on that I thought was odd, was what to have.... home daycare, Nanny, Mother's Day Out, or Daycare. The only other option is being stay at home. Well I wont be talking about that because I only stayed home with the kids while on maturnity leave. ~Actually I will at some point talk about working mom vs stay at home mom. just not today.
So to give you a brief background, I made a commitment that if daycare was going to cost me more than my months pay I was going to stay at home. For my sake I am thankful I had an option that did not cost as much as my month's pay check, but I am very glad I was lucky enough to have a friend that not only had three kids, but also has experience with daycares, and had her own in home daycare.
*A side note story, I actually met her through a fertility forum and introduced her to my doctor, and it does sound a lot worst than it was but I gave her my left over drugs. (If you went through, going through or know someone who has dealt with infertility treatments, you would understand giving someone your unused drugs)*
In finding what to do with your kids, before they are born, is a tough choice. If I can give parents to be one bit of advice, have a back up plan. First decide if you want to stay at home, then decide if you can stay home, or if you want to do a full time daycare or a part time, such as a mothers day out program. Once you figure out what is best for your family, start doing your research, if you need to. And visit as many places as you can, because if it doesn't feel right, it wont ever feel right.
The twins are nearly 27 months old, and here is our timeline;
1-3 monthsstayed at home, maturnity leave, recovering from c-section and extra time off.
3-14 months, in home daycare
14-16 months, nanny 1
16-19 months, nanny 2
20-current/ 27months nanny 3
20-current MDO, tuesday and thursday only.
And yes as you can say we went through 3 nanny's. Maybe at some point in time I will write about picking the best nanny for your needs, but for now nanny 1, had to commute almost an hr to and from our house, so it was just getting tough to be on time and expensive, plus needed a lot of time off during the summer for her prior church engagements. Nanny 2 lived close and was very high energy, a little too high and loved the idea of family a little too much (trust me it can be a bad thing), Nanny 3 we LOVE she and her husband just want to move back home to be around their family in Michigan and her husband got a job opporunity they couldn't refuse.
Here is how and why we did what we did. Let me also say that the hubs has opinions but didn't want to do any of the research or leg work, so ultimately since I would be the one dropping off and picking up and dealing with the workers, etc it was my decision. Plus momma knows best ;)
Also a thing you must decide, and you will figure out very quickly if you didn't know before your kid(s) got here, is what type of parent are you. Are you the one that needs to read ten books, before making a decision because you aren't sure whats best. Are you the one that goes off instinct and needs no information to tell you how to raise your kid, Or are you the one that knows enough to get by and listens to people who give you advice, but really dont have time or care to read books.
Well I am the one who has little time to read books, but I want to make sure I make the best decision, and I look way to deep into things. What this means is that I know I want my kids to be in an educational enviornment, but as babies I didn't need them learning how to read before they were 2,etc. As a baby my primary concern was that they got individual attention and love, but also wanted them to have social interaction.
I guess another thing I need to say is that you need to know what type of person you are. OCD, Anal, laid back, etc. Also how will that impact your parenting skills? I am slightly OCD and anal-I prefer to call myself very organized :)
I knew that I did not want to stay at home, although I loved my kids, it was hard for me to stay at home while on "bedrest" pre kids, I couldn't stay in the house, and with twin babies you need to decide when is it worth the 5 minute run to the store once hubs gets home, or you get off work, versus the hour long trip and everyone staring at your at the store for your 3 items. Also I knew as the kids go older I wanted to make sure they had a schedule for activites, and had a decent routine, that was a combination of educational, creative, and relaxing. I knew I could not provide that to them daily. Although I love routine and structure I am horrible and doing something all day long every day, including weekends.
Because of having twins it was extremely important to me that the kids were on a schedule and stuck to the schedule, so I wanted to make sure they were in an enviornment that would keep them on a routine, but also could teach them things, that as a first time mom I would think about.
With that being said, as I mentioned earlier I had a friend who was helping figure out daycares and options, what to look for, the good and the bad, and long story short she offered to bring my twins in. Although she had not had her in home daycare open the year prior, she was debating on opening it back up (she closed it because she didn't need the income), so I went with her. It was the best thing ever!
In home daycare was great because they got fed balanced, nutritionist approved meals, got to socialize with kids slightly older then them, and best of all she got the "daycare" ready. What I mean by that is she taught them to sleep in pack n' plays not cribs, and to put themselves to sleep. And because she knew I was very "organized" she had daily sheets but made sure mine were detailed. Becuase they started there so earlier I think it really helped with their seperation anxiety. I believe all kids go through it at some phase, but how extreme varies by kid and preperation for the seperation.
I know most are probably wondering why I left in home, well she primarily watched teach kids, so they were they at 7:30 in the morning and gone by 3:30 and my work schedule didn't really allow for that and I didn't want to be a burden, because she had her own family to spend time with. Also she had taken on two babies roughly a year younger than the twins that were extremely needy (their siblings were already at her daycare) and although she didn't neglect the kids, I could tell they were starting to "act out" slightly because of the shift in attention. They also started to "regress" a little because they weren't old enough to understand that all a baby can do is cry for everything, so they thought they needed to cry for every little thing. So just after a year we decided that a nanny was the best way to go.
The kids were going to the church nursery three times a week, so that social interaction we felt was there, so now it was time to give them more individual, and together attention. The in home daycare had help establish a routine and schedule so we just continued that with the nanny.
Now I want to make it very clear that most people think nanny's are extremely expensive, well we have been EXTREMELY lucky to have nanny's that took very little pay, because they didn't need the money. To help put money in perspective, our in home daycare was 250/wk, and we paid the nanny the same. (not much money at all) so for you budget people you are looking at roughly 1k a month and a regular daycare for twins, was gonna run us about 1800. huge difference.
With a nanny, she was great with the kids, had a nice routine of learning video's, learning , sign language, play time and reading time, and art time. With this nanny we only asked her to clean up after the kids, make meals for them and keep track of their day. We did not have her do any extra things, like dishes, laundry etc.
Nanny 2 was great as well. She had just graduated college and was engaged and getting married in July, she had so much energy it was great because she would wear the kids out, and although our requirements were the same for her, she would do the kids laundry, all the dishes and make meals. -we were very spoiled. But nanny 2 liked family a little too much, she would have her fianc'e/husband come over when he wasn't working (and yes we said that was ok) and she would teach the kids to call him uncle mike, which doens't seem bad except my brother's name is michael.... slight problem. And they were taking pictures of the kids and posting them on their facebooks, which occasionally no big deal but often I didn't like.
Some of you ladies know what I am talking about when you can tell what time of pregnant woman a person is going to be, for example; you have the "Im pregnant I cant do anything even at 4 weeks, others are the ones that you cant stop them no matter what they are going to continue doing life as people." Well nanny 2 was the first example, and so I knew if she was thinking of getting pregnant that I would have very little time to get a replacement, so I continued to ask her, and she would tell me know what her facebook status would contridict that. Anyway, end of August she said she needed to get a job that had insurance because they were thinking about starting a family. So that brought us to Nanny 3.
Nanny 3 has been great, she and her husband actually went over seas for a missions trip to teach kids, so she had some experience and loved the thought of watching twins. She has been wonderful. She not only has them on a schedule and keeps track of their day but keeps the house picked up too. She is very timely and even can with her built in back up, if she ever got sick -her husband, who the kids LOVE. From the beginning she had told me that she was going to move back home before they thought of having a family, but also were semi actively looking to move back home. With that, she also pick and drop the kids off at mothers day out on tuesdays and thursdays.
Although Nanny 3 has been great it was getting to be too much running around and juggling people and schedules and payments to do mother's day out and nanny, plus MDO was only during the school year so we would have to go nanny full time or a daycare full time this summer.
I had said from close to the beginning that about age 3 I would put them in a daycare/pre-K and since the ideal school I want them to go to is out of our price range right now and wont take them till they are 3, and again going back to me being "organized" I want them to start out on a school year calendar, so I wont start them in Jan. it wold have to wait till they were 3 1/2. but that doesn't help me now. so daycare is where to go. Plus on the money side of things we went from paying 1k a month to 1100 when you add up nanny and MDO. Then the additional cost in utilities, and groceries, it only made since that paying 1200 for daycare will save us money. Plus the kids aren't stuck in the house all day.
Next step is daycare. The kids dont start till the 21st of this month so I will keep you posted.
I know this is a little lenghty so I apologize, but a quick recap
Nanny- The comfort of home, a mommy fill in.
In Home Daycare- a little more control for mom, and a little more personalized with a homey feel, with the benefit of social interaction
Daycare- less mom control, social interaction, and more emphasis on educational guidelines.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Recommitted
So I realize that I have not posted in roughly 6 months. yikes. I am not sure why blogging does not come that easily for me. I love writing and I think putting things on paper, or computer, helps me sort thoughts out.
I have decided that I am recommiting myself to blogging. Not only for myself but there are so many things in life thats happening that I want share with others.
Just a few points I will be getting to in the next few posts....
-Christmas
-Twins birthday
-superbowl/hubs bday
-easter
-vacations
-books
-church
-and Embryos
Although most of these topics seem typical, not so much. Its more thoughts, philosophy, etc.
Also I am extremely excited about embryo updates. I will be having a guest blogger to help shed light on the topic as well.
and in general I want this to be a blog that people can review and learn something new, or have a different perspective on things.
So
STAY TUNED........
I have decided that I am recommiting myself to blogging. Not only for myself but there are so many things in life thats happening that I want share with others.
Just a few points I will be getting to in the next few posts....
-Christmas
-Twins birthday
-superbowl/hubs bday
-easter
-vacations
-books
-church
-and Embryos
Although most of these topics seem typical, not so much. Its more thoughts, philosophy, etc.
Also I am extremely excited about embryo updates. I will be having a guest blogger to help shed light on the topic as well.
and in general I want this to be a blog that people can review and learn something new, or have a different perspective on things.
So
STAY TUNED........
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Embryos
I have thought to myself... FINALLY. Well I haven't forgotten about my embryo story. not a day goes by that I dont think about it.
This post was extremely hard, mentally to explain things but emotionally. Everytime I would start to write I would cry.
I know it seems weird I can say that this was hard to write before actually writing anything.... well technically I have written roughly 5 or 6 posts and deleted all of them on this topic. Why do I have such a hard time, its because when dealing with invitro to begin with people are EXTREMELY opinionated and embryos well that is even bigger opinionated topic. With that being said I welcome all comments, good or bad. I have come to terms with my decision and dont really care what others think, nothing anyone says will change my actions right now. -Sorry if that seems harsh.
Ok before I get into my process I know most know what an Embryo is, well let me say you know the technical definition of an embryo. Here is what it really is..... YOUR LIVING CHILD. Not just a fertilized egg. My embryos are my children. my egg fertilized by Craig's sperm and at 7 day gestation.
So why am I talking about embryos, no I am not thinking of getting pregnant, but in May of 2009 I had my egg retrieval and on May 13th I had my Embryo transfer of 2 embryos, leaving 4 embryos to freeze. The fertility clinic I went to give you a year of free storage. After that year you begin to pay 45 bucks a month for storage. Well this past June I got my first bill. The dollar amount was not a big deal its what the bill represented.... making a decision. I had not thought about my embryos since they told me four were frozen, so for this to be the way it comes back up was tough. Literally how do you put a price on love... well they did it for me 45 bucks a month.
For most IVF is not something you are super familar with but, before you begin the process you have to sign a TON of paperwork, they ask you questions like; in the event of a divorce who gets control of embryos? As a spouse do you allow the other to take your sperm/egg to produce a child, if they are not able to do so on their own, etc. When it comes to the embryos they give you options on what you would like to do. Well there is so much paperwork, they once we signed it all I never looked at it again, there was no question in my mind that we would be together, so not concerned. But they also had questions asking about once we were done with IVF our choices for the future of the frozen embryos. The choices were 1. allow transfer of all embryos at an inopportune time. (in a nutshell that means pay money to have them put the embryos in you during your period to cause you to essentially miscarry) -that was a HECK NO! 2. embryo donation, we give them to the clinic to allow a couple to donate the embryos. 3. donate to embryo research. 4. ask fertility clinic to dispose of them. (they would thaw them out and not do anything with them).
I know everyone is different but I think its pretty obvious that option 1 and 4 are out. I cannot imagine killing embryos. Even before going through any of this those would have never been options.
So my battle came between donate for adoption or for research. I know people feel that embryo research is killing a child, and to some extent I do agree, but for me I would rather my unborn children help benefit children in the future. With embryo adoption, the reason I had a hard time with this is that I have no problems carrying children and the only reason we would not have them would be because of money, and to give them to someone else and fast forward 18 years when they could contact us, I would not have a good answer on why I gave them up for adoption. The chances of that happening are slim to none, but it still haunts me. Now the costs of the two choices. donating for adoption, free, we just have to go to OKC to sign a form and give a vial of blood for testing. cost for embryo research minimum 750. that is for the costs of shipping the embryos to the research facilities-I know what some are thinking, if they want the embryos they should pay... nope not nearly enough funding for that. But 750 isn't that bad when you consider 45 bucks a month for a minimum of 5 years. I say 5 years because that is when my dr office would want me to make a decision to do something with them. and keeping them in storage is an option, but most are past their "baby making" time frame so thats not a typical option taken. Well even with the 750 costs I was willing to donate to research, well thats when it became really hard. Although they offer it as an option the fertility clinic does not have any research facilities to refer me to or help with contacting. And I know most have not tried researching embryo research facilities, and even if you have finding out if they will take embryos or who to contact to donate embryos is next to impossible. So since this has been so hard I have started looking into the idea of the only option for us is donating to embryo adoption. My problem with this is, I have looked into embryo adoption and for couples wanting to adopt, not only do you have to go through 5 hundred screenings, test, etc. but it will cost roughly 25k just to purchase the embryos. To me this seems like a huge scam. Fertility clinics are making a killing on embryos because you cannot get paid to donate embryos but yet they can charge nearly 25k for someone to have the embryos and even then, thats only for the frozen, the chances of a successful thaw are close to 1 in 3.
So I have been dealing with all of this for a few months now and when I talked to my doctor they recommended that I just pay the storage fees for atleast another 7 months (basically they said 2 years from when I did the transfer) they really said 2 years after the kids were born so I would have another year, but they said minimum 2 years from transfer, because my hormones are sitll all out of wack.
When I was told this I just kind of stopped trying every day to find facilities to donate too, but i still occasionally look around.
What I have decided to start looking at doing is trying to find a couple in need of embryos that cannot afford to go through the adoption process. I know that sounds crazy but you have to keep in mind that most couples who have reached the point of embryo adoption have tried and been unsuccessful in IVF, which for most will cost anywhere from 7k-18k a round.
So the final verdict as it stands today is I will keep the embryos until May 2011, and will reevaulate the situation at time.
***I know what you are thinking, why do this if you are going ot have more kids.... well that is the part I decided to leave out of the post, in a nutshell we do not want anymore kids, there are several reasons for this decision, which I may get to a post at some point in time***
This post was extremely hard, mentally to explain things but emotionally. Everytime I would start to write I would cry.
I know it seems weird I can say that this was hard to write before actually writing anything.... well technically I have written roughly 5 or 6 posts and deleted all of them on this topic. Why do I have such a hard time, its because when dealing with invitro to begin with people are EXTREMELY opinionated and embryos well that is even bigger opinionated topic. With that being said I welcome all comments, good or bad. I have come to terms with my decision and dont really care what others think, nothing anyone says will change my actions right now. -Sorry if that seems harsh.
Ok before I get into my process I know most know what an Embryo is, well let me say you know the technical definition of an embryo. Here is what it really is..... YOUR LIVING CHILD. Not just a fertilized egg. My embryos are my children. my egg fertilized by Craig's sperm and at 7 day gestation.
So why am I talking about embryos, no I am not thinking of getting pregnant, but in May of 2009 I had my egg retrieval and on May 13th I had my Embryo transfer of 2 embryos, leaving 4 embryos to freeze. The fertility clinic I went to give you a year of free storage. After that year you begin to pay 45 bucks a month for storage. Well this past June I got my first bill. The dollar amount was not a big deal its what the bill represented.... making a decision. I had not thought about my embryos since they told me four were frozen, so for this to be the way it comes back up was tough. Literally how do you put a price on love... well they did it for me 45 bucks a month.
For most IVF is not something you are super familar with but, before you begin the process you have to sign a TON of paperwork, they ask you questions like; in the event of a divorce who gets control of embryos? As a spouse do you allow the other to take your sperm/egg to produce a child, if they are not able to do so on their own, etc. When it comes to the embryos they give you options on what you would like to do. Well there is so much paperwork, they once we signed it all I never looked at it again, there was no question in my mind that we would be together, so not concerned. But they also had questions asking about once we were done with IVF our choices for the future of the frozen embryos. The choices were 1. allow transfer of all embryos at an inopportune time. (in a nutshell that means pay money to have them put the embryos in you during your period to cause you to essentially miscarry) -that was a HECK NO! 2. embryo donation, we give them to the clinic to allow a couple to donate the embryos. 3. donate to embryo research. 4. ask fertility clinic to dispose of them. (they would thaw them out and not do anything with them).
I know everyone is different but I think its pretty obvious that option 1 and 4 are out. I cannot imagine killing embryos. Even before going through any of this those would have never been options.
So my battle came between donate for adoption or for research. I know people feel that embryo research is killing a child, and to some extent I do agree, but for me I would rather my unborn children help benefit children in the future. With embryo adoption, the reason I had a hard time with this is that I have no problems carrying children and the only reason we would not have them would be because of money, and to give them to someone else and fast forward 18 years when they could contact us, I would not have a good answer on why I gave them up for adoption. The chances of that happening are slim to none, but it still haunts me. Now the costs of the two choices. donating for adoption, free, we just have to go to OKC to sign a form and give a vial of blood for testing. cost for embryo research minimum 750. that is for the costs of shipping the embryos to the research facilities-I know what some are thinking, if they want the embryos they should pay... nope not nearly enough funding for that. But 750 isn't that bad when you consider 45 bucks a month for a minimum of 5 years. I say 5 years because that is when my dr office would want me to make a decision to do something with them. and keeping them in storage is an option, but most are past their "baby making" time frame so thats not a typical option taken. Well even with the 750 costs I was willing to donate to research, well thats when it became really hard. Although they offer it as an option the fertility clinic does not have any research facilities to refer me to or help with contacting. And I know most have not tried researching embryo research facilities, and even if you have finding out if they will take embryos or who to contact to donate embryos is next to impossible. So since this has been so hard I have started looking into the idea of the only option for us is donating to embryo adoption. My problem with this is, I have looked into embryo adoption and for couples wanting to adopt, not only do you have to go through 5 hundred screenings, test, etc. but it will cost roughly 25k just to purchase the embryos. To me this seems like a huge scam. Fertility clinics are making a killing on embryos because you cannot get paid to donate embryos but yet they can charge nearly 25k for someone to have the embryos and even then, thats only for the frozen, the chances of a successful thaw are close to 1 in 3.
So I have been dealing with all of this for a few months now and when I talked to my doctor they recommended that I just pay the storage fees for atleast another 7 months (basically they said 2 years from when I did the transfer) they really said 2 years after the kids were born so I would have another year, but they said minimum 2 years from transfer, because my hormones are sitll all out of wack.
When I was told this I just kind of stopped trying every day to find facilities to donate too, but i still occasionally look around.
What I have decided to start looking at doing is trying to find a couple in need of embryos that cannot afford to go through the adoption process. I know that sounds crazy but you have to keep in mind that most couples who have reached the point of embryo adoption have tried and been unsuccessful in IVF, which for most will cost anywhere from 7k-18k a round.
So the final verdict as it stands today is I will keep the embryos until May 2011, and will reevaulate the situation at time.
***I know what you are thinking, why do this if you are going ot have more kids.... well that is the part I decided to leave out of the post, in a nutshell we do not want anymore kids, there are several reasons for this decision, which I may get to a post at some point in time***
Monday, November 15, 2010
To all the Mother's out there.
I know I need to catch up on my posts, but this couldn't wait.
*Invisible Mom*
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible..
The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie
this? Can you open this?? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a
clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer,'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'Some days I'm a crystal ball; 'Where's my other sock?, Where's my
phone?, What's for dinner?'I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the
eyes that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!? One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe .
I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:
'With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'
In the days ahead I would read - no, devoured - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: 1) No one can say who built the great
cathedrals - we have no record of their names. 2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. 3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. 4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.
I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend
he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he'd say, 'You're gonna love it there...'
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.
*Invisible Mom*
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible..
The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie
this? Can you open this?? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a
clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer,'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'Some days I'm a crystal ball; 'Where's my other sock?, Where's my
phone?, What's for dinner?'I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the
eyes that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!? One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe .
I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:
'With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'
In the days ahead I would read - no, devoured - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: 1) No one can say who built the great
cathedrals - we have no record of their names. 2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. 3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. 4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.
I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend
he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he'd say, 'You're gonna love it there...'
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.
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