2 months old

4 months old

6 months old

8 months old

10 months old

12 months old

15 months old

A little girl

with pigtails

has moved into our house to stay.

Where the baby went

I do not know!

I love this little girl more than words can say.

But I haven’t closed it down mainly for one reason and one reason alone.

Romans 28:8 declares that God makes good come from bad. The events that I have shared through this blog certainly are testimony of that truth. There has been much good that has come from my infertility.

One of those good things is that God continuously opens the door for me to minister to and encourage those of you who stumble across my blog while walking the same dark and painful road I walked several years ago.

I have received countless emails from readers whose hearts are breaking because of their infertility. They write telling me that something I wrote in my blog spoke to their heart at just the right time they needed to hear it.

How can I close something down that God is still using for good?

I’ve always just wanted my infertility journey to bring glory and honor to the Name of Jesus. It thrills my heart that God is still using my infertility to bring people to Him.

I also want to say there is no need to apologize for writing me an email and “taking up my time”! I love to hear from you! I love to see how God has used the words I’ve written (which I firmly believe HE puts in my heart to write) to minister to your hurting hearts. I never want to lose touch with those deep rooted feelings of pain, hurt and disappointment that I daily felt as I was waiting for God to reveal His Plan to me. Until the day I die, I pray God continues to take my infertility and use it for good.

So, keep your emails coming.

I am here for you.

Love,

Elaine

elaine@faithfullyinfertile.com

I seriously don’t know how I could love any other kid on this earth more than I love Little Bug.

Tonight’s been one of those nights were I just sit and reflect on life. Once again, I realize that I am incredibly blessed. I’ve been watching videos we’ve taken of Little Bug from last Christmas until now. Oh. my. goodness. So many emotions flooded my heart!

I’ll be honest and say this past year of parenthood has been a hard adjustment for me. You don’t realize just how much life will change once you become a parent – even if all you have ever desired to be is a mother! And even if you go through infertility and have to wait a long time to become a mother. Actually becoming a mother and taking on those responsibilities is a huge life transition. It wasn’t until Little Bug was almost a year old that I finally felt like I had “caught up” to my new life as mother and I had a new normal.

Looking back on Little Bug’s first year of life and all the ups and downs, one thing stands out.

It goes by incredibly fast.

To the mother who is up all night with a newborn who has his days and nights mixed up or a mother who is trying to sleep train her 6 month old, the days do seem to be creeping by. The reality is the “baby phase” is here today and gone tomorrow.

You may be thinking I’m beginning to get that itch for baby #2, but I’m not.

I never in a million years thought I would ever be totally satisfied with just one child, but that was before I became a mother to Little Bug.

Today I was thinking about all the things to come with just Little Bug’s life and it made me totally excited.

Learning shapes, colors, numbers, the alphabet, coloring her first picture, playing with baby dolls, dress up, learning to read, first day of school, recognizing her need for a Savior and beginning her walk with the Lord, learning to ride a bike, playing a sport, dance class, movie and pizza nights, slumber parties with friends … and the list goes on and on.

I do desire to bring more children into this family one day, but for now, life is complete with just Little Bug.

She brings so much joy to our family. More than I ever imagined.

Tomorrow marks one year since the court system legally made her ours.

September 1, 2009.

It is certainly a day we will never forget but, for some reason, I don’t feel the need to make a huge deal over September 1st each year.

Perhaps it is because I don’t think of Little Bug as my “adopted daughter”.

Little Bug is my daughter, plain and simple.

She always has been and always will be.

My precious baby girl.

Usually, on Mondays she takes a morning nap. However, this Monday she laid down at the usual time (10:30) but didn’t go right to sleep. It was around 11:15 when she did go to sleep.

This is good! More steps in the direction of dropping the morning nap, because if she can skip the morning nap for two days straight and then almost skip it again, that’s wonderful!

I’m going to still lay her down each morning at 10:30, but I won’t be surprised if this pattern continues more this week. (And I really hope it does because it will mean we are that much closer to dropping the morning nap!)

Little Bug did awesome today during Independent Play! She hollered out for me once, but then it was like she remembered what she was supposed to be doing or…

maybe she got sidetracked being a little stinker! When the timer went off and I went in to help her clean up her toys, I found she had gotten into her bottom dresser drawer where I store blankets. She had pulled some of them out and apparently had a good ‘old time dragging them all over her room.

Time to go wake Sleeping Beauty up.

***This is the second post of today! Don’t miss Little Bug’s 15 month update below!

Little Bug at 15 months …

• feeds herself for the most part now! I still feed her certain foods that can’t be cut up into bite-sized pieces and placed on her tray. While there is always a huge mess to clean up afterwards, it is nice to be able to eat my own food in peace now (for the most part). We tried self-feeding with a spoon/fork. Didn’t go so well. We’ll try again around 18 months.
• started doing Independent Playtime in her room on a daily basis. Certainly a work in progress, but we are making good progress towards our goal of 30 minutes twice a day.
• LOVES shoes. I have to make sure her shoes are not in visible locations in the house or else all she will want to do is hold her shoes and want me to put them on. (And shoes are dirty and germy.) As soon as she sees her shoes she picks both of them up (one in each hand) and comes to you saying, “Fff Fff Fff!”, which is her word for “shoe”. I must say, that is adorable.
• is doing really well with her shape sorter toy. She is getting really good at getting the shape in the correct hole.
• still takes two shorter naps a day. About an hour in the morning (or less) and then 1 to 1.5 hours in the afternoon. I usually have to wake her up from each nap to ensure she will be tired for the next nap or bedtime. I’m still predicting (hoping!) she will only be taking 1 nap by her 16 month update!
• Favorite toys: shape sorter, stacking cups, balls, links.
• enjoys reading books. (I hope this is a life-long interest for her!)
• LOVES to go outside. (I am looking forward to cooler weather!)
• called someone by their name other than Mama and Dada! She calls my aunt  “Mimi”. She was actually “Mimaw” but apparently Little Bug has renamed her!
• weighs 21 pounds and is 30.5 inches long! That is the 20% & 60% percentile.
• wears size 4 diapers.
• wears mostly size 12 month clothing.

Happy 15 Months, Little Bug!

We went to a baby’s first birthday party today and it really made me realize how different the 12 month old is from the 15 month old. Jack (the birthday boy) was born exactly three months after Little Bug. Three months ago Little Bug was still a baby. Now, at 15 months old, there is no baby left in her. It’s remarkable really. Jack is a baby today, but come November 27th there will be no baby left in him.

All this reminded me that months ago I intended to write everything I learned from Babywise during Little Bug’s first year so that I will readily have that information available to refer back to when our second child comes along. Then, I was looking in my post drafts on my laptop and found many of these posts I intended to write partially written but never published! So, all that to say… Those posts are coming. I’ll label them all “Babywise” and then I’ll share every “trick” I learned all the way that made life with an infant as smooth as possible.

Here are two photos for you to compare for yourself.

Little Bug at 12 months old:

Little Bug at (almost) 15 months old:

There is a HUGE developmental leap from month 12 to 15! A baby becomes a TODDLER within 90 days.

Might as well do a nap update …

Like I said, we went to a birthday party today. Little Bug skipped her morning nap. By 12:45ish she was sitting in her stroller with a blank stare on her face as we were walking out of the zoo. She was tired, very tired. But there were no meltdowns and overall she was fine. However, she loves the zoo so I am sure the zoo was a huge distracter to the fact that she was tired. I gave her a cup of milk and laid her stroller back around the time that she would normally lay down for her morning nap. I thought there was maybe a 2% chance that she would fall asleep in her stroller and take a little catnap at the zoo. Yeah, I was right. She would sip her milk and then sit up in her stroller to make sure she hadn’t missed anything in the two seconds she had actually been lying down in her stroller. She doesn’t want to miss a thing. Not a single thing. (I love that about her!)

Anyway, we came home, she got a bath and was laid down for a nap. She was out like a light. Tomorrow is Sunday (her usual day to skip the morning nap because of church) so it will be interesting to see how she does tomorrow with two morning naps skipped in a row.

Last week I mentioned she was taking her morning nap one day and then skipping it the next. Well, this week she took a morning nap every morning and also took an afternoon nap. I laid her down at 10:30 each morning and by 10:45 she was asleep. I woke her up every day at 11:30 so that she would be tired enough for her afternoon nap at 3. Every day this week she laid down at 3:00 and was asleep most days between 3:15 and 3:30. I woke her up at 4:30 each day to make sure she would be tired enough for bedtime at 8:30.

The plan for next week is to continue with the two naps and reevaluate each week. I’m not going to push for only 1 nap until I see that she is consistently not sleeping for one of her naps.

This method of transitioning from 2 to 1 nap is really working well for us. I feel there is still much predictability about her schedule and I feel she is getting the rest she needs to be my happy girl!

Independent Playtime …

It’s not happening this weekend because of the party and church. Which maybe is a good thing? Maybe the break will bring back the novelty of it on Monday morning? One can only hope!

I had been doing IP closer to her naptime and after a walk outside, but I am thinking this week I will do IP right after breakfast. It is suggested that IP be done when a child is most happy. Little Bug is always eager to get down and play after breakfast because it’s her first opportunity of the day to play. So maybe she would do IP better if it was done during this time. We’ll see next week, I suppose!

We are up to 17 minutes but more often than not, some of those minutes are spent unhappy instead of happily playing.

I’m sticking with it though because apparently it isn’t unusual for this to happen.

Also, I think there are some factors that are playing into Little Bug’s unhappiness during IP.

* She is starting to teeth again (incisors). She’s been whiny some during the day and has had her fingers in her mouth, which is a sure sign to me that she is teething.

* She is the definition of clumsy right now! She is always falling or getting herself into precarious situations that she can’t get herself out of! Twice now I’ve had to run into her room during IP because of an “I’m hurt” cry. I console her until I know she is fine and then I leave again (which of course brings a river of tears). I thought I had made Little Bug’s room completely free of “bo-bo” inducing areas, but this girl can get herself into mischief faster than I can blink.

Even in just the month that Little Bug has done IP, I’ve seen some positive changes in her, which gives me the encouragement to keep pressing on and hope that all this is just a phase or due to the factors I mentioned above and will soon resolve itself.

Little Bug now plays on her own happily while I am cleaning up after meals. She used to cling to my legs and whine the entire time and I could barely move around the kitchen to get stuff cleaned up!

Little Bug will go to her toy basket and get something and entertain herself. This morning she sat and read books to herself while I was folding her laundry. That was a first for her and a step in the right direction. I want to be able to do certain chores (like laundry) when Little Bug is awake because I feel it is important for Little Bug to see me taking care of things around the house. Life isn’t all about playing – there is work involved too! I also plan to have Little Bug help with chores so I can teach her at an early age good work ethic. (She normally does want to “help” fold laundry but today she chose to read which I was most excited about because at this stage in the ballgame Little Bug isn’t much help when it comes to folding laundry!!)

Overall, I’ve seen an increase in attention span. Little Bug used to never play with a toy for more than a minute (it seems) but now I will catch her studying the toy and actually playing with it longer than a split second.

Maybe this is because she is getting older, maybe it is because she is doing IP daily or maybe it’s a factor of both. I don’t know.

Either way, Little Bug definitely needed to increase her attention span, so I am happy with these results so far.

Sunday Little Bug skipped the AM nap because of church and then took a 2 hour afternoon nap.

Monday Little Bug took the AM & PM nap which both were about 1 to 1.5 hours long.

Tuesday Little Bug never fell asleep for the AM nap and then took an almost 2 hour afternoon nap.

Wednesday she went back to the two short naps of about an hour or so each.

Then, Thursday I had decided to not lay her down for the morning nap because of the pattern I had seen develop over the past week. However, Little Bug was acting very tired, so I ended up laying her down and she slept an hour. (Actually, I woke her up after an hour, which is what normally happens if she takes a morning nap.)

Thursday afternoon she lay in her bed for a hour and a half and never went to sleep!

Friday, I went to the school I used to teach at to visit the coworkers I hadn’t seen in 2 years. I got home around 11:15ish. Little Bug was being a cranky pants, so I laid her down for a nap. She went right to sleep and I woke her up after 30 minutes. I laid her down again for the afternoon nap at 3:15 and she went right on to sleep.

Saturday I let Little Bug sleep as long as she wanted for the morning nap because we were having friends over for lunch and I figured she wouldn’t lay down for her afternoon nap until late. She slept for about an hour and 15 minutes. After our friends left, I laid Little Bug down around 4 and she was still sleep at 5:30 when I went in to wake her up!

Today’s Sunday so Little Bug skipped the morning nap and is sleeping now.

So, there is a definite pattern developing here…

Seems Little Bug is alternating days and taking 1 nap one day and then two naps the next day.

I guess I could push her to just drop a nap, but I don’t want to deal with a Miss Cranky Pants every morning until naptime!

But this is progress towards being able to finally drop the morning nap!

Independent Play…

…is going GREAT!!! We are now up to 15 minutes!

When I tell her it is time to play in her room she walks towards her room!

It’s amazing really. At the beginning I had my doubts that we would ever go beyond the stage of standing at the gate and crying “Mama” for 5 minutes.

Amazingly enough that stage only lasted less than a week!

Once Little Bug learned that 1) It’s FUN to play in my room! and 2) Mama comes back when the timer goes off, she’s been a happy little camper during IP.

I’m proud of my girl!

We go outside to explore at least twice a day.

I am looking forward to cooler weather.

Because, right now, it is HOT HOT HOT.

The heat doesn’t bother Little Bug!