When a Movie Represents Infertility Emancipation

Nothing like a random movie to remind me how lucky we are. The release of Baby Mama is a milestone for me. Two years ago, I would not have even entertained the idea of seeing that movie. Even living a mere hour and a half in a pregnancy movie is too difficult when you are TTC. I had to avoid movies like that, baby sections in stores and all pregnant strangers on the street and every freeking bump watch headline. But now, years later, with two beautiful babies, that fact that this is a movie I can see amazes me. And I still may not see it, but it is my choice. I am so grateful to have that choice.

One of my best friends just had a baby, a beautiful little girl. Since her birth a week ago and after holding her little body in my arms, I felt that ache to have a baby. I started thinking about the third embryo transferred into me. Who would that baby be? In my perfect little world, we have a gaggle of happy, healthy children, guaranteeing huge Thanksgiving dinners and college cost nightmares. But in my practical world—the one that includes a lot of years of struggle and hurt and pain and miscarriages—I don’t want to get back on that roller coaster. I look at our girls and I can honestly say I feel like our family is complete. More children would be such a gift, but I really am happy with the amazing girls we have. Wanting more is like winning the lottery and then praying to win again.

Though calling them girls might be overstating the case! Madeline is becoming a pacifier monster. She has always enjoyed it at nighttime and naptime, but now, rather suddenly, she has become attached to having at least one in her mouth and one if her hand at all times. If Avery somehow ends up with one, she wants that one, too. Madeline, we think, hides the pacifiers in places only she knows about (under her crib, behind things) and will later find it, pop it in her mouth and swagger around. When I say to her, like I did this morning, “Give Momma the pacifier. That’s just for sleeping,” she takes the pacifier out of her mouth and balls it up in her fist and won’t let me at it. Is she starting to understand us? Could that be happening already? Or is it coincidence? When we do wrestle it away from her sticky clutches, and put it out of her reach, she plants herself below where the pacifier is and cries and stretches and tries tot reach it.

I cannot stress enough how much the blackout curtains have changed nighttime. Before the curtains the girls were having a rough time going down t sleep. Who could blame them, as plenty of brightness filters through the blinds, giving the allusion of “It’s still playtime” as opposed to “It’s time to sleep.” Since the day we installed them, the girls have had only one wonky putting-down experience, and that, I believe, was de to a poopy diaper and teething issues.

Sleeping through the night is a different issue. I never thought we would get there. Avery sleeps 12 hours still: Put her down at 6:30 and she sleeps clear to 6:30 the next day. Our sleeping champion. She has been doing that for a long time. She has random night wakings, but more along the twice-a-month timeframe.

Madeline is doing great as well, but she has gotten use to coming into our bed. Sometimes she cries out and instead of letting her work it out and risk waking Avery, we swoop in, pick her up and bring her into our bed. Having two babies crying in the middle of the night is the worst. They sort of egg each other on and crescendo and escalate and then it becomes impossible to calm them both down unless both Nicole and I drag our sleepy selves out of bed and hold them until they are completely asleep. And completely asleep usually means an hour or holding and soothing and saying “No, Avery, this isn’t the time to stand.”

Truth be told I love when Madeline is in or bed. I love seeing her little body and holding her. I love how she wakes up with a shy smile on her face, stretching and yawning. Our sleep is awful, though, as both Nicole and I wake up often because it is nerve-wracking to have a mini-person between us. Last night, Maddie didn’t cry out at all, and this morning, I was sad she wasn’t with us. But we all get a better sleep in our own beds. And besides, I feel sorry for Avery, all b herself in the room, when Madeline is with us.

Pictured above, guess who likes pancakes? Well, let me correct that: Guess who liked Momma’s homemade pancakes yesterday but pushed them around refusing to eat them today? Children are strange eaters. Yesterday they ate the pancakes like their lives depended on it. Today, they wanted nothing to do with them. But they both are still loving watermelon. I ran out of watermelon, so I gave them some of mine from my own fruit salad, which is covered in lime juice, and they loved it. In case I haven’t raved about this already, lime juice squirted on watermelon is dee-licious. Really. Try it. I also put salt on my fruit salad.