Why we HEART Ergobaby

If you've known me longer than 5 minutes, you probably know that I am a big fan of babywearing. It has without a doubt made motherhood richer and easier for me in so  many ways. I purchased an Ergobaby Original Carrier a couple of months before our son arrived, and from the time he was 3 months old, he has been worn in that carrier daily. When he was little and slept often, I wore him while on conference calls for work, while cleaning the house, prepping dinner, you name it. As he's gotten older I still use it when we venture out to a festival or any crowded event that I don't want to navigate with a stroller, and it is our go-to to help him wind down his limitless toddler energy before bedtime. I can honestly say that it has been by far the most useful piece of baby gear we have purchased.

So, you can imagine my despair when buckling him in one night, the chest clip snapped. I called customer support at Ergobaby to see if we could order a replacement strap or clip. I spoke with a friendly customer care associate who followed up by sending me an email with instructions on what information they needed to process my request. After taking a handful of photos of our carrier I responded with the photos and details and crossed my fingers. I heard back from her quickly and learned that while my model did not have a clip or strap replacement, they would be able to offer me a warranty replacement. I sent a copy of my proof of purchase, selected a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW carrier from their website and a few days later had this beautiful baby in our possession.

I'll be honest. I expected one of two things to happen:

1) Pay $15 - $30 for a replacement part, or

2) Find out that any warranty had expired and I was out of luck

I am not a paid spokesperson for Ergobaby, just a mom who has loved their carriers and appreciates it when a company stands behind their awesome line of products and believes in taking care of their customers. If you are expecting or have a little one, check out the line of carriers, nursing pillows, swaddlers and more on their website.

If anyone from Ergobaby is reading this...please, please, please release a line of toddler carriers soon! :) My little man is rapidly outgrowing our original and I would love to continue to support such a fantastic brand. 

Building Your Emotional Toolbox: A Letter to my Son

Arlo,

There are many lessons I want you to learn in life and many character traits that I think will be important in shaping you into an honorable man. You already have a dogged determination when pursuing a task and a hint of budding charisma that I think will combine to make you a person who can be quite persuasive! As I look into your bright, inquisitive, 16 month old eyes; I do not see a hint of prejudice or hatred. No stereotypes have swept in to cloud your judgement of another person's character. Today my heart is heavy because the world is not like you. The world is full of snap judgements and assumptions. I take one look at my newsfeed on any given day and see this harsh reality. Between friends posting photos of their babies, and cute YouTube videos, there is a constant negative stream of judgement. The world can be cruel and taunting and I now see that the heaviness of motherhood is knowing the reality of the world and wanting better for your children.

It's my job as your mother to help you build your emotional toolbox. These are the first three traits I want to add:

1) Kindness. I want you to have a friendly, generous, and considerate heart. Kindness breeds empathy, and if you can understand the feelings of others, you will be a better person for it. 

2) Tolerance. I want you to have a fair and objective view when it comes to those who may differ from you in their own opinions and beliefs. I want your heart to be free of bigotry. Just because you may not feel the same way as someone else, doesn't mean you should have condemnation or hatred towards them. Remember that you have not walked in their shoes.

3) Bravery. I want you to have a fearless heart. I want you to be unafraid to recognize injustice and inequality and speak up. I want you to feel freedom to love others without fear of persecution. 

These aren't ground-breaking ideals. This is all some pretty basic WWJD, love your neighbor as yourself stuff, but somehow it seems radical. I know you will learn by watching, so this means I need to do undertake some realigning myself:

• I will work to model kindness for you. Even when dealing with a rude customer service provider, or being cut off in the parking lot. I will try to model kindness and realize that I don't know what could be going on in that person's life to spark that behavior. 

• I will work to model tolerance for you. It's hard for me to understand the struggles of the transgendered because I haven't walked in those shoes, but I can be thankful that I do not have that burden, and treat them with love and grace.

• I will work to model bravery for you. I will strive to publicly stand on the side of what is right and fearlessly show you that when Jesus said, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" that he wasn't speaking figuratively, or only about a small group of Christians, but to all of us.

I won't always get it right, but I'll do my best. 

I love you so much, 

Mommy

10 Things To Say To Your Infertile Friend

Photo by Don Harder, Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/dharder9475/

When my husband and I were dating, we went to visit his grandmother. She is the sweetest, tiniest little Texan grandma you can imagine. The entire time we were there, she didn't call me by my first name once. She was so fearful that she would accidentally call me by the name of his ex (our names are very similar). I wasn't hurt by this in the least because I knew her intention was to avoid an awkward situation and potentially hurting my feelings. After some time she dropped the "hers" and "sweethearts" and "darlings" and adopted using my name. It still makes me smile to think of it.

This got me to thinking, how many people have read the "Things not to say to an infertile couple" posts online and decided that rather than put their foot in their mouth, they would keep it shut? Let's face it, reproductive issues and infertility can be a bit of a tricky minefield.

Infertility can feel isolating, especially from the fertile friends and family you love. So rather than tell people what not to say, I thought I'd post the things that people have said to me that I have loved:

• I want to be supportive, but don't know how. Tell me how I can. (Take the honest and direct approach)
• I love you and I'm sorry you have this struggle. (Simplicity at its best)
• I'm thinking of you/praying for you during your treatment.
• I'm rooting for you! (everyone loves a cheerleader)
• Thank you for sharing what you're going through with me. (when you leave yourself emotionally open, this one means so much)
• Can I keep you company at an appointment/pick up your prescription for you/ bring over dinner when you're on bedrest? (make yourself available to be a present supporter if your friend needs it)
• I'm excited for your future!
• You will be an awesome mommy/parents.
• Do tell your friend when you are expecting, but deliver the news in email so they can deal with the emotions privately. We're happy for you, but it still hurts and reminds us of our scars. 
• Don't "say" anything. Give a hug, provide chocolate, treat your friend to a pedicure and a People magazine. :)

Bottom line, just start talking. Be honest and reach out to the ones you love who are struggling.

Infertility impacts 1 in 8 couples of reproductive age and can be a very isolating disease to face. If you aren't in the trenches of this fight, 1 in 8 is someone you know. If you are one of the 1 in 8, know that you are not alone. RESOLVE, the national infertility association, can provide support and resources. They also work tirelessly on behalf of the infertility community to bring awareness to the disease and educate our legislators and insurance companies. I'm here too! Contact me if you need an ear, or have questions that you aren't comfortable posting. I am so thankful that we live in an age where there are multiple family building options available and hope that all the parents-to-be find their path.

The Skinny on DE-IVF

When I tell people we struggled with infertility, people usually nod and lean in to hear more about our story. They ask if we did IVF because that's a term people are familiar with even if they don't know what all it entails. When I tell them we did IVF with a donor egg, I frequently get blank stares. In light of National Infertility Awareness Week, I thought I'd break down what DE-IVF is, how it worked for us, and some answers to the questions I often receive.

What is DE-IVF? 

For starters, let me start with a quick definition of IVF. In Vitro Fertilization is a reproductive technology in which an egg is removed from a woman, joined with a sperm cell from a man in a test tube (in vitro). The cells then fuse to form a single cell which continues to divide, becoming an embryo. The embryo is then transferred to the woman's uterus to (hopefully) implant.

The main difference with DE-IVF is that you have two women involved. Your egg donor and your embryo recipient. We went with an anonymous egg donor we selected through our infertility clinic. 

Why did you need an egg donor?

For unknown reasons, I had a "severely diminished ovarian reserve" and "poor egg quality". Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. For some reason, when I went through my preliminary infertility testing at 29, my egg reserve and egg quality were more suited to a 40 year old. Even if I were to pursue IVF using my own eggs, the odds of them fertilizing, making it to the embryo stage, and implanting were less than 2%. My uterus was, to quote my doctor, "Beautiful". I had the goods to carry a pregnancy, but not the eggs to kick it off. Our chance of pregnancy with egg donation was 85% and we liked those odds. 

How did it work?

Since there are two parties involved, we had to both go on a cocktail of medications to coordinate our cycles. This process takes about two months and involves more alcohol swabs and sharps containers than I'd care to remember. Once we were on the same reproductive page, our donor went through all the steps of IVF up until embryo transfer. While she was taking drugs to stimulate her ovaries, I was taking daily injections, pills and hormone patches to make my uterus a veritable Walt Disney World for an embryo (the happiest place on earth, get it?) :) 

This was just a third of all the meds/needles we used. :/

Our donor was closely monitored during the stimulation period, and when it was clear that the eggs were ready to be retrieved she took a trigger shot and I did the same. We actually triggered on my birthday and our donor had her eggs retrieved on Mother's Day. I took this all as the universe bestowing major good juju upon us! Once the eggs were retrieved they were fertilized using my husband's sperm and we waited for the report on how many eggs fertilized successfully and of those, how many grew to the blastocyst stage (5 day old embryo). 

We had plenty of eggs fertilize and what our embryologist referred to as a "rockstar" embryo for transfer. Our embryo transfer went smoothly and 8 days after transfer we received the blood test results that we were indeed pregnant. 

Arlo, as a 5 day embryo...our rockstar.

Was it hard to select a donor?

Yes. We reviewed hundreds of donor profiles. Our clinic did an thorough job of screening all egg donation applicants. They went through interviews, psychological screenings, and provided full genetic background information and health histories, but you are selecting someone who will be genetically linked to your child and that's a heavy decision to make. I also had to come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't be passing my genes on to my offspring. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but I came to a peace with it and knew that if this worked for us, I would have the joy of carrying this baby, nurturing him and being his mother and that that counts for so much more than 0.1% of his genes. (Side note: Did you know that 99.9% of your genes are shared with all humans and only 0.1% of our genes result in the variations we see?) Plus now that Arlo is here, people tell me all the time how much he looks like me. I think it's because I did such a kick ass job of cooking him for not 40, but 41 weeks. 

So, you aren't his real mom? 

This one sounds so much worse than I know people intend for it to come out. Yes, I am his real mom. I hoped and prayed for this little life for 7 years. I went to incredible lengths to prepare myself to carry him and was disciplined about what I did (and didn't) eat and drink during my pregnancy. I labored and pushed him screaming into this world and have nurtured, held, rocked, sang, fed, diapered and snuggled him through his first year of life. I am his real mom. (P.S. you don't have to experience pregnancy to be a real mom either).

This looks like a momma to me. :)

Are you going to tell him?

Absolutely. I've been telling him about his story for a while now. I've whispered to him about the special woman who gave us an incredible gift so we could have a baby while rocking him at night. As he gets older and can understand more we will share more age-appropriate details, but we plan to be very open with him. There are some really precious children's books that help open up the conversation and make it a part of his story from an early age. It really is a beautiful story to tell and I want him to grow up knowing just how loved and wanted he was and still is. 

What if he wants to meet the donor someday? 

We will support him in that endeavor. Our donor was anonymous, but there is a database where donors can provide their contact information and recipients can provide theirs in the event that both parties want to connect. We will cross that bridge when we get there, but I would hug her neck so hard and gratefully thank her for helping me become a mother.

Infertility impacts 1 in 8 couples of reproductive age and can be a very isolating disease to face. If you aren't in the trenches of this fight, 1 in 8 is someone you know. If you are one of the 1 in 8, know that you are not alone. RESOLVE, the national infertility association, can provide support and resources. They also work tirelessly on behalf of the infertility community to bring awareness to the disease and educate our legislators and insurance companies. I'm here too! Contact me if you need an ear, or have questions that you aren't comfortable posting. I am so thankful that we live in an age where there are multiple family building options available and hope that all the parents-to-be find their path.

Enough?

Alright folks. I need you to know that as a mother, I question myself on the regular. Is this the right way to do this? Is my son getting what he needs? Is this enough? Here's a sneak peak into my day and brain:

Mid-morning, standing at the sink washing dishes while my toddler runs circles through the kitchen and living room, hoisting a remote control over his head and sing-screaming. This is my life.

• Did he eat enough today? He really doesn't like to sit still long enough to eat these days. Does three bites of pancake, one blueberry, and half a cheese stick constitute enough breakfast? Maybe I can distract him long enough to eat some peas with his lunch. Puppet show, that's how I'll do it. It will be like dinner theater. Dining and culture. (pats self on back)

Son is now shaking his booty to the music from the Target commercial on TV (yes, the TV is on).

• He really does seem to love music. He hears a solid beat and stops what he's doing to baby-dance! Maybe I should take him to one of those mommy & me music classes and really nurture this. I probably should get some kid friendly instruments for him to play with at home. I wonder if he'll play guitar like his dad? Does he get enough music? Should I play more classical? Does Bruno Mars count as intellectual stimulation?

Dishes are done and we are now reading "How Do Dinosaurs Eat Cookies" for the 5th time.

• I can't read this one anymore. We have to go to the library and pick out some new material. Do I read to him enough? We read at bedtime and whenever he shoves a book into my hands during the day, but should we read more? I saw another mom on Instagram who reads Tolstoy to her 2 year old and uses flashcards to teach him French. I gotta get some flashcards...

Headed to the park to burn some energy. Son is happily digging in the gravel at the playground and trying to eat handfuls of rocks at the same time. 

• Again with the rock eating? I can't say "no". My pediatrician told me that I must use other words so I save "no" for the life threatening stuff. Do I say "no" too often? Probably. I should really try to find an affirming, nurturing way to say, "Stop. That's gross and probably going to hurt your pooper on the way out." 

Back home for nap time. I'm wearing him to help him wind down and rest. 

• Sweet lord, babywearing is my lifesaver. Seriously, I don't know how I'd settle him when he's so tired and super wired at the same time. I'm probably forcing some self-soothing, put-yourself-to-sleep gene into submission by doing this. 

Son sighs, wraps his chubby arms around my neck and hugs me before dozing off.

• This. Is. Everything. I'm enough. I'm what he needs. I'm his momma. I'm enough.

When parenthood makes marriage hard

When you are pregnant you get loads of advice from friends who have children. They tell you about sleepless nights, colic, and the lack of showering. Want to know what people don't tell you about having a baby? It can make marriage hard. 

In the 8.5 years I've been married, my husband and I have pretty much always been on the same page. For all the big life stuff we've seen eye to eye. We don't argue often and I think have had 3 "fights" in the course of our marriage.  

One of the lessons we took away from our pre-marital counseling was the importance of communication. It took some time, but we got really good at this. Don't hold onto anger, don't keep accounts of how you've been wronged. Bring it up, get it out, talk it through, love one another and move forward. Roger that. Somehow in the haze of having a newborn, our strategy got muddled. Suddenly it's not just the two of you. Suddenly there is this little person who needs every ounce of your attention and care. 

When our son arrived, we both threw ourselves into active, hands-on, compassionate parenting. Our focus shifted dramatically onto his care and nurturing. Care for baby, eat, sleep, repeat. There just didn't seem to be enough hours in the day for anything more. When there was time there seemed to be so much that needed to be done...

• Sleeping (sweet Jesus, yes!)
• Household chores
• Work 
• Paying Bills
• Showering
• Feeding yourself
• and oh yeah, maybe some sexy time?

When your baby doesn't nap longer than an hour at any given time, that's a lot to try to accomplish. We certainly weren't using that valuable time to communicate and over time, it started to show.

A few weeks ago, I realized things just didn't feel right with us. There was a tension. We were still going through all the motions, but something was off. I could sense unhappiness in my husband and I knew that I wasn't happy either. So after putting our son down for a nap, my husband looked at me and asked, "Everything okay?" and I teared up and honestly replied that it wasn't.

I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty, but what unfolded in the next 60 minutes was just what we needed. We sat at the table, holding hands with the baby monitor buzzing quietly between us. I laid out where I needed support, how I was feeling unhappy and unfulfilled and he told me how he felt pressure and stress and what he needed from me. I did some ugly crying, because it's what I do and we talked about changes we wanted to make. Instantly I felt that tension subside. 

In the days since we have made it a priority to really talk. Not the surface stuff, "did you take out the recycling?" "don't forget to drop off that check" but really talking to each other and checking in on how things are going. Even if it's just 5 minutes in the evening after Arlo goes to bed. We put down our phones and check-in. It's crazy how much that seemingly simple task has helped.

Marriage is hard, y'all. It takes work and effort and honestly I don't always feel like I have anything left to give my marriage at the end of the day. 12.5 months in and we're still figuring out how to be us + a baby. We probably will be for a while and that's okay. After all, nothing worth having comes easy, right? 

I'd love to hear from you. How do you nurture your relationship?

Postpartum Redux

This precious photo popped up in my Timehop app yesterday. 

Tiny, sleepy, 8 day old Arlo. Look at that adorable little man! I was immediately filled with nostalgia for the time when he was so small and wasn't a flurry of constant motion. Then I really started to reflect on those first weeks of his life and remembered just how HARD that time was. 

I wouldn't categorize myself as having had postpartum depression, but I will tell you that my days were not full of sunshine and new motherhood bliss. I remember feeling guilty for not feeling like the moms in the diaper commercials. Why wasn't I wearing a white linen gown and gazing blissfully at a fat, cherubic newborn? Why was I instead in the same yoga pants for 3 days with spit up on my softest college t-shirt swaying a colicky baby?

If I could go back to brand new momma Lindsey and hold her hand, I would tell her so many things:

1. This crazy surge of love, despair, hope and bewilderment is normal. Your body has been through a HUGE change, your hormones are all over the place. You will cry from happiness at how precious this perfect little life is, and then start to cry from exhaustion. You will cry for no apparent reason, and that's okay too.
2. Your baby is adjusting to this big, strange, new world. He's not crying because you're a failure at this parenthood gig. He just doesn't have any other way to communicate. Be patient. You will learn what his little cries mean very soon and be able to soothe him like no other!
3. Get the eff off the internet! Yes, the internet can be a fantastic resource when you find your community (and you will), but for the love of all that is holy, quit Googling every single thing that pops in your head during a 1am feeding. You will make yourself and your husband, crazy!
4. You can't spoil/ruin your baby. Do you feel better when you wear your baby close to you? Do it! Do you want to rock that baby to sleep at night? Do it! Does safe co-sleeping make sense for your family? Do it! Before you know it, that little baby will be an independent little guy and you will be glad you stole every one of those snuggles. 
5. Ask for help. Admit when you need help. It doesn't mean you are weak or a bad mother. It means you are smart. So many people love you and want to help you and your new family. Let them. 
6. Trust your instincts. You are his momma. You two just spent 40+ weeks together. You know him and will learn what is best for him and your family. Just because every other mom on the block isn't doing what you are doing doesn't make it wrong.
7. You will sleep again. It won't be like pre-baby sleep. Just let that fantasy go. :) But one day soon, your baby will sleep for a 4 hour stretch! You will be amazed at how refreshed you will feel with a 4 hour stretch of sleep. Then he will sleep longer, and a little longer. Eventually the bone-numbing tired feeling will lift. Hang in there.
8. Stop judging other moms by their Instagram feeds. Yes, your friend seems to have all her $%*# together. Yes, her 6 month old sleeps alone, happily in her crib for 12 hours straight. Awesome. Guess what? I PROMISE you there is another area of parenthood that sucks for her. Maybe her toddler won't let go of the bottle. Maybe her little one is hopelessly addicted to their pacifier. Maybe she has the awful task of doing an elimination diet to figure out what is upsetting her newborn's tummy. Whatever it is, all moms have some cross to bear. We all struggle in some area. Comparison is the thief of joy, sister!
9. Know that it does get better. One day soon, that baby that will only sleep when you drive him around in the car will snuggle down in your arms and drift off to sleep soundly. One day soon, that baby who has such terrible reflux will be able to eat without pain. One day soon, when changing yet another diaper, that baby will give you the world's best baby laugh and you will cry at just how beautiful the sound is. Hang in there momma, it's about to get so much better.