Notes to remember

Some things from Stake Women's Day that I want to remember:

From the general assembly:

• if you're focused on "doing" and not on "becoming" then you're seeking to fool yourself and others, by reading your scriptures and going to church, etc, but not letting your heart be touched by the spirit. We have to worry more about becoming the person we want to be, which we can only DO by putting combining the doing with becoming.


• the only thing we can quickly become is angry, contentious, offended. Becoming Christlike, or becoming anything worthwhile, takes time and we need to give ourselves credit for every little progress we make.

From Colleen's workshop

• Story of Abraham and Lot. Lot pitched his tent facing Sodom. He knew it was bad to be IN Sodom (at first) but still wanted a front-row seat, so he could watch what it was Sodom was doing. Later, when he was captured and held in the city, Abraham's household attacked the city to save Lot, and also managed to save the King of the city who was being held captive as well. The King offered Abraham all the goods of the city, asking to keep the people for himself, and Abraham's response was that he wanted not one thread, nor one shoe latchet from the city. Abraham forsook everything to do with Sodom and Gomorrah, was blessed for it.


• I felt the strong need to read scriptures and have FHE as a family during her workshop.

From Peggy's workshop

• read Tad Callister's book on the atonement, with the foreward by Rob Millet


• We MUST think about all of the negative things in the world, can't turn a blind eye to them if we are to ever understand Christ's atoning sacrifice. We need to acknowledge them so that we can gain a testimony that, not only did Christ suffer for a person's wrongs, but that he suffered for the pain that person felt at their wrongdoing as well as for the pains of all those that person affected. We need to understand this so that we know we can RUN to him, not because he can imagine what it'd be like, but because he KNOWS what it is like, because he suffered for it. Every possible terrible or trying thing we could possibly experience, He has suffered for, and we can run to the Savior with all of our sorrows and cares.


• When the Savior was in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, we were still in the premortal life. Imagine every spirit focusing their attention on that great event. We KNEW it was happening, we KNEW what depended on it, and we were waiting with bated breath. Imagine our joy, knowing what he did for us, the gratitude we already felt before coming to this earth. At that time we looked ahead to the atonement and our life here on the earth, and now we look back on it, hopefully with the same gratitude and excitement, even if we have passed through the veil and can't remember where we were ourselves at the time the atonement was being wrought on our behalf.


• "If you don't like a person, you don't know them well enough." (Elder Maxwell)

 

How could I forget?

A conversation between me and this random lady I don't even know from yesterday:

Her (a second after I sat down between her and my one friend) - oh, how old is the baby?
Me - 4 weeks today
Her - Can I hold her?
Me (feeling completely awkward and put on the spot. I don't even know this lady!) - Well, we're not really letting anyone other than people we're around really often holding the baby... (99% true. Exceptions are people I'm around long enough to get exposed to whatever germs they might be carrying, like my friend from the other night.)
Her - Oh, well I was a pediatric nurse for years, and really you shouldn't even bring her out before she's 2 months old anyway.

!!!

This was said factually, and NOT like she was trying to persuade me to let her hold Abigail. What on earth was she trying to accomplish by saying that though?! Making me feel like crap, as if to say, "Well, what's point in not letting someone hold her if you're idiot enough to bring your poor, helpless 4-week old baby out? Not only are you a terrible mom, but you're a snob too!"

At least, that's how I felt. I seriously sat there for 1/2 the meeting feeling a little panicky and upset, wondering if I had made a huge and selfish mistake by bringing her to Women's Day, and just...I don't know. Feeling mad at the lady for putting me on the spot and then backpedaling so rudely.

Have I mentioned before that I hate confrontations? I know it's not an uncommon fear, but I really go out of my way to avoid them, and while I might seem pretty outgoing at times, I'm actually quite shy when it comes to a situation that involves me having to step even a little out of my comfort zone. I recognize this about myself and do try to do things that feel scary or intimidating, or just downright annoying to me, just for the sake of getting better at it, but only when the purpose of doing so is a good one that involves helping someone else. For instance, I'll try to talk to someone new at church, and help them feel a little more welcome. But when it comes to people I feel don't like me, I tend to clam up and stutter a little, and feel like they like me less and less as I talk. Also, if I'm worried someone is going to push me around I avoid them entirely, like telemarketers. I don't even answer the phone if it's a number I don't recognize.

So the point of all of this rambling about confrontations? You know I feel rather strongly about people I'm not comfortable with holding my baby if I'm willing to tell people 'no' when they ask. Because whether I know them or not, it's not an easy conversation and could so easily lead to me offending someone, or them having a negative opinion of how I feel. And yet I do it anyway, because I KNOW that they can't make me give up my baby, and I feel so strongly like I need to protect her that I'll brave the annoyed comments and mini-confrontations along the way.

I guess this lady threw me off in how drastic her back-pedal was, and what a low-blow it was, to respond to a mother that way.

I'll let it be known that I still managed to keep my cool and respond with, "Well, I'm breastfeeding, and if I feel I've been exposed to a person's germs long enough for my body to build antibodies to a cold or whatever else, then that person can hold my baby, but unless that's the case I don't pass her around" (all while smiling sweetly.) It was fine, it's not like she was angry or anything, but I felt tense for a while afterwards. I was also upset because I wanted to let my SIL (Abigail's aunt...) hold her for the meeting, because she doesn't get to see her often, but I all of a sudden couldn't do so because it'd seem pretty rude.

OH and then! I was cracking my knuckles (yes, I'm a coward who cracks her knuckles. I know, so many terrible confessions in this post!) and this lady reaches over and grabs my hands with this look on her face, like, "Don't you dare! If you do it again, I'll just have to hold your hands the rest of the day!" It upset me to no end, I think because my personal space was so entirely violated, and also because I just told her how I felt about germs and here I am holding my baby while she rubs her hands all over mine. Then later in the meeting she started sniffling pretty bad, blew her nose 10 times, and then rubbed her hands all over her face. Needless to say, I washed my hands at the first chance after that, and felt pretty relieved that I hadn't let her hold Abigail.

So I know this all sounds pretty snobby, but to be honest, I don't care. I feel so strongly about keeping her safe, and it sucks that I need to have such a blanket rule of no-one holding her because there are people who I wouldn't mind holding her, but I have to keep the rule in place for when the crazies come asking. If for nothing else but my own sanity...because I lose enough sleep at night fearing for Abigail's safety without passing her around to all and sundry. I will never have the ward baby and I'm okay with that. I love my babies, and don't want them passed to everyone.

And yes, I fully realize that I am a hypocrite, for saying that I try to be nice to the person at church, and then call this lady crazy for grabbing my hands and responding randomly to my 'no, you can't hold her' response. I've been thinking about this too, and I'm so on the fence. Sometimes when I think about the experience I get upset all over again ("The audacity of her!") and then other times I try (REALLY, I do!) to give her the benefit of the doubt ("Maybe, if she was a pediatric nurse, she really just misses holding babies? Maybe she was trying to make me feel better about my decision to not pass her around to all and sundry? Maybe she was actually being supportive, as if to say I'm doing the right thing?") Also, the advice that if you don't like someone then you don't know them well enough. I'm working on that too. I guess I need to be careful what it is that I write down and record because that tends to be the feeling that is more cemented in my mind than any other.

So I will say now. She had a sweet smile, obviously thought my baby was so darn cute (because, let's face it, she is!) and has the admirable trait of courage, or at least the lack of fear of confrontations, because she was bold enough to ask me to hold my baby. I do envy her that one. ;)

On a different note, I've remembered that I need to carry extra snacks and hard candies with me wherever I go, because when I get hungry these days it feels like I'm going to puke and/or faint. I know it's because of nursing because I got this with Elijah, but I had forgotten until the last 15 minutes of church where I was starting to seriously doubt my ability to drive home safely.

Ah, Abby is awake and fussing, I've gotta go. I'm going to be taking some photos later so I'll post one of those once I've played around with it in photoshop. :) Oh, and I just re-read my post from yesterday and it occurred to me that I tend to end every post with Abigail fussing. She IS rather fussy when she's not being held (every waking moment...) which is why I wrap up my posts, but I'll try to find a more inspired way of ending my posts from now on. Kapeesh? (and oh my goodness, spellcheck wants to replace the word "kapeesh" with Grapeshot. Someone really needs to come up with a spellcheck that sounds out a word that has simply been typed as it sounds, and then come up with the proper spelling based on that. It'd be great for words like epitome and pneumonia. Also, maybe instead of ending this post with "kapeesh?" I should end it, and maybe ALL posts with, "Grapeshot?" Let's give it a try!)

Grapeshot?

(I like it. ;) )

Another Short One

I really need to stop doing these blog posts late at night when I don't have much time to write about them, and when Abigail is getting fussy because she's tired and ready for bed. It doesn't give me long to sit down, reflect and write, and it's hard to concentrate on what I want to write about because Abigail is sitting there fussing in my ear (or so it seems.)

I had a great day today, that involved showering (always a plus!) Stake Women's Day, delicious food (seriously, what is better than a baked potato bar? And tuxedo cake?) and shopping at Once Upon a Child. I love that store! I think they're strictly Canadian, so I'll just explain now that they're a chain of consignment shops, and the best place (in my opinion) to buy cheap, nice kids clothes and other stuff. Some of them are run down and have yucky things, but the one we went to is in a wealthy city, so the things there are generally nicer, and you see more expensive brands there, because parents in wealthy cities can afford to buy designer clothes for their kids. And I come along and buy it second-hand! Ha, I love it.

Anyway, then I came home and Matt had made dinner, followed by his amazing milkshakes, and life is just...complete. Or it was, until Elijah jumped on me, elbowed my spine repeatedly, and grabbed a fistful of my hair as Matt was picking him up. I'm not going to lie, I shrieked like a banshee, it hurt so bad. I felt bad for upsetting him and Abigail, but it was completely involuntary.

So, some things I decided today, in list form:

-I want to play the violin. Like, buy one and take lessons. I think I will.
-I am going to do family home evening and scripture study with my family. We WILL do this.
-I love Peggy and need to be more like her, listening to the Spirit and being excited about the Gospel and the Atonement. Also, read that Tad Callister book, and anything by the guy who wrote the introduction (Rob Millet I think?)
-it's not something I decided, but a quote that I liked, by Elder Maxwell. The gist of it is that if you don't like someone, it's because you don't know them well enough.

There were other things, but, true to form, I can't remember them all. This seems to be a recurring theme for me.

I feel like there are so many good things I want to do with my time, and that I don't have time to do them all. It gets a little frustrating sometimes, but is rather exciting too. It is SO nice having a ton of things I want to do. Right now I'm loving crocheting, editing photos, taking pictures, reading my book, and working on Elijah and Abby's memory binder.

Ah, and there's Abby crying, letting me know it's bedtime. I'm reeeeeally not looking forward to this time change business! Argh!

Oh, and before I forget, a couple photos. I'm not going to lie, I totally took these just so I could say I took a photo today. I'm feeling sleepy and not very excited about taking photos at this exact moment, but I'm trying to take one photo every day for a year (lofty, I know. Really, let's just get through this week, this month, this QUARTER, before we talk a year!)

But, either way, I do like the photos. It's Matt concentrating on his model-building, and then filing a miniature. Except, he's not really filing. I posed him for my picture. But that's okay, because that's what photographers do, right? Either way, I love my man, and I'm glad he has a hobby that he enjoys so much.



That's all for now. G'night!

Short Post

This will just be a short one today, as I feel mentally drained.

It was a good day, that involved going to Michael's with Farrah to buy some new yarn for a hexagon granny square blanket I'd like to make, making some cream of carrot soup and delicious dessert, and then having Dave, Farrah, and their two kids over. It was great having them over, but SO tiring. Elijah was rangy and barely ate anything all evening, and I have a really hard time with toddlers around Abigail because they are so in-your-face about their interations with babies, and it makes me really nervous, I'm not going to lie. I can't stand ANYone in Abigail's face, let alone a little girl who is always coming down or getting over a cold. I felt bad asking Farrah to not let her do it, but it was okay in the end, I just had to always be holding Abby, so she slept more than I'd like in the evening.

I'm having a hard time relaxing now that our company is gone, it's so loud and go go go with 4 kids in a rather small apartment. I'm also feeling upset because I just found out via FB that Tiffany (who, you might recall, was over last night, and holding Abigail a lot) came started feeling unwell late last night and is apparently so sick right now that she feels like death, apparently. I feel like crying. I try so hard to protect Abigail, but what more could I, or Tiffany, have done? She wasn't feeling unwell when we were around her, but that's when she was the most contagious.

I know this is going to come off as over protective, or more than a little neurotic, but I hear about people being sick after they've been around Abby and my mind immediately assumes she will get sick too, and that she'll die. I have a way over-active imagination, and a really hard time letting go of these fears that I have, and I honestly feel a pit in my stomach right now, like something is making me sad or uneasy. I can feel it there even when I'm not thinking about it, so then I think, "Why am I feeling this way?!" Then I remember why, and get worried and upset all over again. A cold is a cold, but I just don't want my little not even 4-weeks-old baby to be exposed to one, because their little bodies just don't handle it well. Honestly, it's why I haven't gone to the Early Years Centre yet. I don't want to go out anywhere where she is exposed to so many children (because of the in-your-face-ness) at least until she's 2 months old and has had her first set of shots, thus being vaccinated again chicken pox, the whooping cough, and whatever else. I'm just...so afraid of losing her. AND I don't have the flu shot yet, so I'm no good to her on that head either.

Sorry, I know, this is a really big downer post. I meant to get online, check blogs and respond to comments, post comments, etc, and I just can't right now. I want to go snuggle my girl, and go to sleep.

Tomorrow will be a better day, I know. It's Stake RS Women's Day, and I'm looking forward to going up with friends, seeing some old friends, attending the workshops, having lunch, etc. I need a day away, I think.

In the meantime, a couple photos from this evening, when my little girl insisted on being held but I had to make dinner. We compromised with the Ergo.

[caption id="attachment_1226" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="She fell asleep within minutes."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1227" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Love it."][/caption]

TVT

I'm not going to lie, I'm excited to do Thought Vomit Thursdays. I've never done one, but come on, bullet points? Random thoughts with no cohesion? That's totally how I roll. And at 10:17 at night, I'm definitely not going to be able to form a cohesive paragraph, with segues and transitions between thoughts.

So...watch me go!

-I love crocheting. I know I've said it before, but I love it. It's so relaxing, and I'm really excited about the blanket that I'm making, mainly because the pattern is hard. Like, crochet the blanket to about a 6-inch width, tear it all apart, and start over again hard. But I WILL prevail! And did I mention that I made a hat and a couple flowers for Abigail? I love it, but need to wash the hat before I put it on her.

-I went out to a restaurant with a couple girlfriends (Julia and Tiffany) tonight, and we had a great time. I love catching up with those two. And then afterwards we came back to my apartment and we continued catching up while Matt went out home-teaching, and when Matt got back he made us milkshakes and we all caught up. It's so fun to spend time with the 3 of them, and it reminds me of the "good old days" when we were in YSA together, and we'd ditch activities to go to Kelsey's (a restaurant,) Matt would make us yummy food, and we'd sit around and talk about serious and not-so-serious things. We're all grown up now, but at heart we'll still the same people we were then, and I love that we're all still friends (well, I sure hope I'd still be friends with Matt...I did marry him afterall!)

-I feel so sad about a couple I know who is getting a divorce. It is surprising me less and less these days, to hear of peers getting divorces, but it's still heartbreaking. This is the first divorce of a peer that has involved children (in this case 3) and it involved infidelity. How tragic is that? It makes me want to strengthen my marriage even more, and show my love for Matt even more. I want to say it'd never happen to me, and I trust Matthew that it wouldn't, but part of me feels like those spouses who were cheated on trusted THEIR loved ones, that they would never be unfaithful, and then they were. I'm not scared, but it does make one want to hug their loved ones a little tighter, and let more things slide than one otherwise would.

-Abigail is almost out of her newborn sleepers. Like, the neck is being pulled down so that it's a bit of a lowrise now. Sad doesn't even cover it! The fact that I need to buy a tub to put her retired clothes into is shocking to me. For so long it felt like she'd never be here, and now she's big enough to outgrow things? Impossible!

-I have the most boring dreams ever. Examples? One night last week I dreamt that we got the piece for our filter that would allow us to drink the tap water downstairs instead of filling up our jugs from the upstairs' tap, and I was SO jazzed about it! Last night I dreamt that today was Stake RS Women's Day and I had forgotten my coat at home, and then I was sad to wake up to find it was actually Thursday and not Saturday (when our Women's Day is.) Why can't I have crazy interesting dreams like Matt does? He even talks in his sleep, and says the most hilarious things. One time he woke me up by pulling me over onto my back in the middle of the night, and I asked him what he was doing. He said he had just saved my life and should be thanking him. I accordingly thanked him, and then asked what the danger was. He said I had been laying down next to a pit that I was about to fall into. When I asked if it was a very deep pit, his response was, "It had zombies in it." The funny thing was, afterwards he vaguely remembered this conversation, and in his mind he knew he was making up the zombie detail, but he was starting to feel bad for waking me up, so he had to make the peril more sensational, hence the zombie invention. I love him!

-I love the faces babies make when they cry. I know it's sad, and I don't let Abigail cry much, I promise, but if I'm already taking photos of her when she starts to cry, I allow myself a few photos before I put the camera down and comfort her. Here is my example from today:

And yes, that's a bow in her hair. We decided to get dressed up to go out tonight. ;) Seriously, though, it's amazing how girly she looks in this photo. Cut that bow out of the picture and she looks way less feminine.

-a couple other cute photos from today's flash-fest:

[caption id="attachment_1217" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Delicious baby chub."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1218" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="I FINALLY managed to capture on camera a sweet moment where Elijah is kissing Abigail."][/caption]

I promise to post some pictures that are outside of the confines of my 1-room downstairs apartment, or even off of my couch, but not today. I figure the red in Elijah's shirt provides enough visual variety for now.

I know I had more to say, but I'm tired, and Matt's Batman game is distracting me too much to remember it all, so I think that's all for today.

Weight Gain (the good kind!)

I don't know if I've ever been more excited about weight gain before, but Abigail is up! Woo hoo!!! Well, I should clarify. She was always gaining, but this time she's up by a GREAT amount, and we're no longer worried about my supply, her latch, etc etc.

So from day 9 to 18 she went from 9lb 14oz to 10lb 3.5oz (net gain of 5.5 oz, sufficient but still disappointing...) and from day 18 to 25 (today) she went up to 10lb 11.5 oz, so a gain of 8 oz in just 7 days! "Relieved" doesn't even cover it, AND I can now go back to letting her dictate her own night-time schedule (which I was half-doing this week anyway.) Hurray!

In other related midwife appointment news, I did not get the go-aheads I had been hoping for today. I think (though she didn't say specifically) that I can work out lightly, but that's it, as apparently my stitches are still serving their purpose of stitching me together in one place, so I need to let that heal a little further. Oh well. I see the MW's again in 3 weeks, so we'll see at that point how everything looks. I'll also be fitted for the diaphragm then, so...woo hoo??

Other than my appointment, nothing is new (since yesterday...ha) I have to go out to a meeting tonight (RS secretary and all that good stuff!) and then afterwards Mom and I are going to this local greenhouse's Christmas open house, and I am so excited about it! I love their Christmas stuff, which is always either really fun, vintage, classic or chic. I know, quite the mix, but it's true. None of the cheap yucky Christmas stuff for this place, just a smorgasbord of everything else, and it's great. I might also be excited about the hot apple cider and desserts, but who's counting?

I am feeling pretty uninspired today, so I'll finish this post off with a cute photo of Elijah with a goatee (a.k.a. brownie drool):



PS - I just told Elijah to eat his "crappers" accidentally. I tried calling his crispers his crackers and crispers at the same time, and "crappers" is what came out. Am I really childish if I find these kind of truly accidental slip-ups to be funny?

NaBloPoMo - Day 1

I've seen others participate in NaBloPoMo (national blog posting month, as per BlogHer) but never have done so myself. I always wanted to, and have tried posting every day before, but it always fell through the cracks.

This month though? I'm doing it. Who cares if I don't have much that's interesting to say right now. Who cares that I'm not a member of BlogHer. Who cares that I'm not even American, so I don't qualify for a national (as opposed to international) blog posting event. I'm doing it anyway! And I'm going to take a photo every day to go along with it, and see if I can't figure out how to use this stinking flash at the same time.

So here I go.

First of all, may I just say how ridiculously blessed I am? I don't say it to be prideful, I just so frequently find myself in awe of the blessings I have been given, and my complete (personal opinion here) unworthiness of them.

I mean, look:

She's so perfect and beautiful that it hurts sometimes. And check out that back spike! It's not quite as impressive as Elijah's, but I think that, given time, she might have a rooster-do to match even her brother, in all of its double-crowned glory.

[caption id="attachment_1203" align="aligncenter" width="199" caption="Case and point."][/caption]

Really, though. What did I do? How do I deserve this much goodness? It reminds me of that song from The Sound of Music, that goes,

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth, or childhood
I must have done something good 

I don't know where or when, I feel so unworthy of it even now when I'm living life and trying to be good, but at some point I did something well enough to enjoy the many good and beautiful things that I have now, and the things I will yet have.

Anyway...

We're surviving life with Matt at work, and I have to say that it's a lot easier than I thought it'd be. Sure, it's hard at times, but I actually don't find it any harder than life was when I was pregnant with Abigail and had Elijah to take care of. In many ways it's easier, and in some ways it's harder, but that balances out to be about the same to me.

I came across a blog post from when Matt went back to work after I had Elijah, and I realized something then that I had forgotten about, which was that life MUST become normal and easier and livable at some point, so why forestall that day, but refusing to adjust right now, and make life hard on myself by telling myself it's hard? That probably made no sense to anyone but me. Let's see if I can explain it better.

I have two choices. I can get stressed out about life with 2 babies, or I can learn how to deal with having 2 babies. The more time I spend stressing and saying, "this is so hard!" the less time I have to learn how to make it not hard anymore.

It's funny, because I really did find having a newborn hard when it was Elijah. I didn't know what I was doing! This time though? It's a piece of cake. I need to learn Abigail's personality and preferences, but beyond that, I know how to change diapers, treat diaper rash, nurse, burp, clean puke off the carpet, the whole 9 yards. That's not the funny part, though. The funny part is that I never consciously realized that I had learned how to take care of Elijah, I just did. It became the new normal.

So, back to having 2 kids. Hard? Sure, of course it's more hard than having one. But I'm consciously choosing to learn and adapt, rather than feeling victimized by puke-capades, short nights and temper tantrums.

Holy hannah, that was a long ramble. If Matt were reading this, he'd be bored by now, and would be saying, "Okay, you've already said and resaid that 3 times now!" Hahaha, sorry about that.

On a different note, I am LOVING crocheting right now. I made a hat and 2 little flowers for it for Abigail, and she wore it to church on Sunday. I shamelessly showed it off to my friends (who got me into crocheting in the first place) and had some requests to show them how to make one too. It was fun, and I hope that I can learn more and more techniques, and get faster at it. Some hat patterns say they only take 20 minutes to whip up, but then the author forgets that they just designed a beginner-level hat. Oh well, I'm sure it'll come in time.

Yesterday I bit the bullet and ordered some Zumba dvd's that I'm hoping to get the go-ahead to start using tomorrow. I'm going to ask that my MW check my stitches and let me know if it's safe for me to start working out and to start...**ahem**...again. I feel so fantastic, and have for at least 2 weeks now, that I have a hard time imagining not being allowed to do those things, but we'll see. My stitches have never bothered me, so I really can't be the judge of how well they're healed if I'm simply basing it off of how I feel.

(next part is TMI for some, if you don't want to read about choosing which birth control method we're going with. It's not graphic, I promise, but I'm honest about it.)

Here's the dilemma of the moment, though. After Elijah, Matt and I never felt the need to use any form of birth control. After years of infertility, you tend to be anti-birth-control because, hey, getting pregnant? A miracle. A miracle of miracles. Getting pregnant TWICE? So very welcome and exciting, and who am I to dictate when that should be, if Heavenly Father sees fit to bless us with that? But all of a sudden, when you have TWO babies under the age of two, you start to think that maybe, just maybe, it'd be wise to do something active to prevent yourself from getting pregnant quite so soon. But then there's the question as to what to do, because the one perk to infertility (if there can possibly be ANY) is that you never have to worry about not getting pregnant, so all of a sudden when you have to think about it again, you realize that it was actually nice to not have to use co.ndoms, and to not worry about being on the pill long term and how the hormones of that or an IUD would affect your body.

So I, for one, am anti-BCP, because I don't want to pump myself with more hormones than I already did having done IVF once before, and also, my cycles are so irregular that it bothers me to no end, having no clue what they would be throughout the next 1.5 years before we consider "trying" again. I want to know my body. Also, co.ndoms are gross, and not an option. The end. That really just leaves the diap.hragm, because the IUD's are for longer term than 1.5 years. We'll see how it goes.

Want to know something crazy though? Part of me doesn't want to think about this or care. Logically, I know that it'd be best for my body, and more importantly for my FAMILY for me to not get pregnant again so soon, but part of me still feels like it's ridiculous to use birth control and to think that I could get pregnant right now while breastfeeding, even though there definitely ARE post-infertility women who are nursing who do get pregnant in that time frame.

And then part of me starts down the missing-being-pregnant path, and I have to go read my post that lists all the perfectly good and logical reasons as to why it's a good idea to not get pregnant right now. Because I have such a rosy-tinted memory that I needed to write a post for myself to read whenever I get the itch and Matt, Heavenly Father and I are not on the same page as to trying. I just didn't expect to need to read that post 3.5 weeks after having Abigail.

PHEW! Any other thoughts I've been stewing over lately, that I want to toss into this random blog post/journal entry?

Oh, CHRISTMAS! I am so excited for Christmas, and all the more so now that we know Joel and Heidi will be home for Christmas. I'm hoping to do Abigail's baby blessing on Christmas Sunday, because that's the only Sunday they'll be here. I don't know how it'll work out for my family, though, if they'll come or not because it's Christmas, and we're hopefully not celebrating until the 26th.

And now that I'm thinking about blessings and Christmas, I think I'm going to finish this up and go and look for some cute crocheted blessing gowns or cute dresses that I can crochet with white yarn. If anyone has a pattern they know of, feel free to let me know.

**Edit** Abigail smiled her very first smile today! 3 weeks and 3 days old. It feels so momentous, maybe because it's the first real milestone that you look for them to hit, and she has now. She's growing and growing, and it's...strange. She's almost not a newborn anymore, and I know time is going to go so fast to the point where I'll look at her like I look at Elijah, and she won't be a baby anymore. BUT until then, we have lots of baby moments to look forward to. :)