New Language Skills

Ian is now saying "ball" pretty clearly and he can point to the ball or walk over to the ball if you ask him where it is. Daycare also says that he says "bus" and that he will fetch a truck for you if you ask him for it, but I haven't seen any of that personally yet. I was concerned that his language development might be behind given his physical prowess (:-)) but he seems to be just fine. He is resisting saying the word "more" but when he wants more food, he points to the food, whines and makes a "mmmmmmm" sound. So although he's not saying "more," he is clearly communicating his desires just fine.

This is my last week of work at the law firm. I'm excited about starting my new job on Monday. Apparently, they are giving me a work-issued iphone, which is just awesome, since I've been wanting to replace my simple flip phone and I will no longer have a Blackberry through my job at the law firm.

Last of the Initial Bloodwork

It's now been 4 weeks since I last breastfed Ian. My RE thought that was enough time for my prolactin levels to fall to a low enough level to start the FET process. So I got my blood drawn and tested and my prolactin level was 10.25 ng/ml. A google search shows me that a normal prolactin level in a non-lactating woman is less than 20 ng/ml, so I guess I'm okay. It also seems that she tested me for a range of sexually transmitted diseases and I'm happy to report that I don't have syphilis (or a bunch of other STDs). Who even has syphilis anymore??

So it seems like we'll be able to get the FET ball rolling very soon. I'm waiting until the beginning of May to call my RE to ask about next steps because when I switch my job, I'll also be switching insurance plans and I need to be on the same insurance plan from the start to the finish of the FET. And I don't want to start anything before our vacation to St. Croix, which is planned for the end of May. So hopefully we can get everything going in June. If I get pregnant from the FET (fingers crossed), our next baby will be roughly 2 years younger than Ian. I really hope that one of our 3 little frozen embies will become our next child. Not only do we know that we made good embies from the last IVF (because we now have Ian!), but I would really rather not go through another round of IVF (although it wouldn't be the complete end of the world and now that I've been through it once, my doctor has a better idea of how my body will respond).

I'm excited about all the new things that will happen in the near future!

Sleep Eating

This is what happens when a 13 month old wakes up at 4:50 am, only takes a 1 hour nap at daycare and then attempts to eat dinner at 6:45 pm. My poor little guy!

In case you're wondering why he has a bandaid on his forehead, he took a header at the playground the other day and bashed up his face.

Happy 13 month birthday Ian!

Uh Oh!

"Uh Oh" "Uh Oh" "Uh Oh"

That's my son's new favorite saying (although it is still second behind "Da!" which could mean anything from daddy to door to window to tree to a spot of dirt on the floor). It's so cute when Ian says "Uh oh" and he clearly knows the correct context in which to say it because he'll drop his sippy cup on the floor (for the zillionth time) and say "uh oh!" And he has this great big smile after he says it because I think he's proud of himself and he likes the reaction I give him. He's not really saying "hello" anymore, but when I say "hello" to him, he puts his hand or any object he may be holding up to his ear. It's so adorable. Gush gush gush.

I'm still trying to get him to say "mama" but when I say "ma ma" he says "da da" and when I say "ma ma ma" he says "da da da". It's pretty hilarious. He will repeat the number of syllables I say, but without the right consonant.

I'm looking forward to the weekend with him. We'll probably go to the pool again on Saturday because it will be raining and hopefully we'll be able to spend lots of time outdoors on Sunday. Momma needs to mow for the first time in 2010!

New Things

A lot of new things happened this week. I will say that all of the events this week were exciting, but not all of them were welcome.

First exciting thing: I no longer have a freezer stash of breast milk. Ian drank the last of the milk yesterday morning. We have been mixing breast milk with cow milk since Ian turned one and now, 3 weeks later, he's on 100% cow milk. My little boy is so grown up!

Second exciting thing: I officially have a new job. I received the written offer from the medical device company on Wednesday morning and accepted on Thursday morning. I also gave official notice on Thursday that I am leaving my current job. I think this will be a really good opportunity. I've been a lawyer for 6.5 years, but only at the large law firm. Now I'm moving into a company setting and it will be really great to learn all about the company. I'm going to continue drafting and negotiating contracts, which is where my skills lie, but I will also learn about labor/employment law and regulatory/labeling compliance and I will be expected to manage the company's patent portfolio with the assistance of outside counsel. The General Counsel at the company is super excited that I'm coming. I think it will be really great working with her. She knows that my parents are coming into town the first week that I'm starting work and she said that as long as she was going to be out of the office that Thursday/Friday, I should just take those days off. She didn't want me to have to struggle through the days without her there my first week. Awesome stuff.

Third exciting (but unwelcome) thing: My housekeeper had a psychotic episode while cleaning my house this past Thursday. So as I was returning from a partner's office, after telling him that I was leaving my job at the firm, I see on my blackberry that a police detective from my town was trying to reach me urgently. My first thought was that something happened to my son and so I started freaking out. But once I called him back, he told me that he was at my home with my housekeeper. Apparently, she had run out of my house, tried to break into 2 neighbors' houses in order to use their phone and get help for her kidnapped daughter. Ummmm....Crap. So the police were calling me for 2 reasons. They wanted to make sure that this woman was supposed to be in my house and they wanted to alert me to the fact that there was police activity at my house. I asked the detective how he had even found me at work and he said (amusingly), "Come on. Give me credit! I am a detective after all!" Apparently, my neighbor told him that I was an attorney and they were able to google me and find my profile on my firm's website. So I told them that my cousin had employed this woman for 10 years and she had been cleaning my house for 6 months and she has never shown any signs of mental instability or a mood disorder. I asked them to please not arrest her (they weren't planning to anyway) and that she needed medical attention. They also found her daughter in college and the police pulled her out of class (poor thing!) so that she could get her mom some help.

The whole thing was very upsetting. When I came home from work, her car was still parked in our driveway. And there were written notes on my kitchen table from her. Some of it is hard to read or illegible, but it went like this: "Maddy, the ____ manager from my property kidnap my Victoria and I will try _____ from your house. So please call police. FBI too is re: my ______." Then she listed her lawyer's name and phone number and said, "Please call police and FBI. Sounds scary but is really. Please SOS SOS. Maddy, call the FBI. SOS. My Victoria call me are kidnap. Please call [lawyer's name]. Our phone are trap so the calls are not coming true. It $5. Very important your phone secret may be ____ security trap too so go to your neighbor." Then she listed 2 more phone numbers.

About 3 hours after she was picked up by the police, she called my house and left a message on my voicemail. She told me that she had left notes on the table and to please discard them and that she was okay and that she was going to come back and finish cleaning the house. (As an aside, she actually cleaned the house quite well and just hadn't gotten around to mopping the kitchen floor.) She also called me later that night from the hospital. She told me that they were evaluating her and that she was staying at least overnight. When I talked to her about the incident, she told me that she "over-reacted" and "had some anxiety." I told her that it was more than that given that she had lost touch with reality and she denied that and called it an over-reaction. So that phone conversation didn't leave me feeling better about the whole thing. So now I have to figure out what to do. Part of me really wants to give her a second chance. But part of me wants to change the lock on our front door (she has the key) and call her next week to tell her that she shouldn't come back. But I think I'm going to have to let her go. Even if this is the only incident she will ever have in her entire life, I can't risk that there will be a second incident. The police called me at work. My neighbors are freaked out and want to know if their kids will be safe. I can't hire this woman and risk that she will do this again. My neighbors are my community and if something should happen in the future because I hired this woman again, I won't be able to live with myself. I'm also a little nervous that she might come over at 3 am, while my son is in the house, to finish the cleaning job that she didn't finish. She told the police as they were taking her away that she hadn't finished cleaning and she told her daughter that she was worried that I would be mad at her for not finishing the cleaning job. I really want her to get better and I wish her well in life, but I think we're going to have to part ways at this point.

My Favorite 1 Year Photos

We finally got some professional photos taken for Ian's 1 year birthday. I really wanted to have a set done when he was 6 months old, before he started crawling like a madman, but unfortunately, we just never found the time. But I'm so glad we finally went! We thought there were a lot of good photos and had trouble deciding which ones to pick. But here are some of my favorites.

I think the one that I made black & white is a very interesting photo. Ian looks like an almost completely different boy in that picture.

New Job Soon?

I'm still waiting for an official offer from the medical device company at which I interviewed FOUR times. I spoke to the GC yesterday and she told me that she had made her decision, was ready to pull the trigger and give me an offer. So that was great news. The problem is that the CEO of the company wants to be a part of the process and was hoping to meet me before the company gave me the offer. So that would be the FIFTH interview. The other problem is that the CEO is in Japan this week, which means we'll be slowed down at least 1 week if he insists on meeting me. So the GC is doing her best to convince him that he doesn't need to meet with me. She's putting together a list of everyone with whom I met, a summary of everyone's thoughts about me and a summary of my references. She's hoping that will get him over the need to meet with me. I told the GC that depending on what I saw in writing, I'd be inclined to accept and so that made her very happy. I hope this does happen soon. Not only am I excited about the new opportunity, but I'm in an awkward position at my current job. I've been invited to attend the BIO conference in Chicago next month and I need to give them an answer as to whether I plan to attend. And they're trying to give me new work to be the go-to person for a long-term relationship with a client. And it would look so bad for the firm if I took on that long-term work just to turn around and announce that I'm leaving 1 week later. So I've had to BS and dance around these issues and I'm hoping to just be able to tell the truth once I have a written offer.

In other news, today is day 29 of my cycle and still no signs of my period. Of course, before pregnancy, my cycles were 32-34 days long and so I'm not surprised there aren't any signs. I'm still just curious what caused me to have those uterine cramps 1 week ago. There is no way that was early PMS. Here I am, one week later and closer to my period and symptom-free. It's all very strange.

My right breast has finally gone back to normal post-weaning. I no longer have uncomfortably hard lumps (blocked ducts) in there and the pain is gone. Hooray! After 1 year of breastfeeding, I think my breasts are smaller than they were prior to pregnancy, but it's hard to tell. I had gotten used to them being larger because of breastfeeding and so now that I'm no longer nursing, they've shrunk. They seem to have held up okay. Perhaps they're a little droopier, but not bad at all! I'll have to get measured at some point to see if I am the same size I was prior to pregnancy.

**Update**

I actually ended up getting my period late in the day today. It surprises me a little because it means I had a 29 day cycle this month. I think my shortest cycle pre-pregnancy was 30 days and that was right after I got off the pill. As time went on, my cycle lengthened to 32-34 days. Perhaps I'll be a little bit more regular post-pregnancy.

POAS

Well, I did it. I POAS. And...of course, it was negative. Of course I'm not pregnant! So now I just await my period, which should come some time this week. I won't say that it didn't hurt a little to see the negative result, but I'm definitely not surprised. Now I just need to figure out why my uterus is so crampy and why I feel so tired. I think maybe this is all just a reaction to weaning and decreasing prolactin levels. I hope it's not just basic PMS because that would just plain suck.

This weekend is going to be beautiful and I can't wait to get outside with Ian. I just cleaned up all of the leaves, sticks and branches that had fallen on our porch over the winter and I plan, later today, to clean up the lawn. Unfortunately, Ian has some sort of upper respiratory infection and a fever, but I think I'll just let him outside to play anyway.

Blissful Sleep

Ian slept for an entire 10 hour stretch last night, from 7:45 pm until 5:45 am. I feel like a new woman!!! As they say, hindsight is 20-20 and now that I know that Ian has his 2 upper molars, I understand why he was sleeping so poorly over the last few months. Those teeth are HUGE! It must hurt a LOT when they are working their way through the gum. Poor little thing. Anyway, now that those teeth are here, it looks like we may have some sleep relief until the bottom ones decide to come in.

I've now changed my mind about the idea that I could be pregnant. It's preposterous. So I've decided to explain my symptoms as really early PMS symptoms. I shouldn't be getting my period for at least 4 or 5 more days and that's IF I have a 28 day cycle, which I've never had in my life. But I've also never really had periods post-pregnancy and so this is new territory for me. So I've decided the bloating and uterine cramping is just PMS.

I have a breakfast meeting this morning with the General Counsel of the medical device company at which I've been interviewing. Hopefully, it's the last meeting she'll need before she decides to make me an offer. 4 interviews is more than enough! I still have my current job and so I'm trying to hold it together there, but it is an exciting opportunity to take this new job and I hope that it works out.