A wonderful new year

Happy new year to everyone. I hope 2010 brings all you and your family and friends all you wish.

I've just been reading my post from last new year. We had just discovered that our second IVF cycle had failed and we were in the midst of really wrenching grief.

One year down the track, how things have changed! We now have our beautiful girl and we are intensely happy with our life. Last year we had started to discuss what kind of a life we might lead without children and what plans we would start to make. I am just so grateful, and feel so lucky, that we succeeded in having a child through IVF. Modern science is a pretty amazing thing.

As for our new year's eve, we had dinner at home, then got the train into town to see the family fireworks on Sydney harbour. We actually watched from LH's office on the 28th floor, which was a great view. Unfortunately Zoe was less than impressed with the fireworks and was grizzly most of the time. Then we came home, put her to bed and watched the main fireworks on TV and then a DVD.

At least two houses across the street had new year's eve parties last night. Sounded like they really got into the spirit of things. It reminded me of my 20's and 30's and all the wild nights I had. But I wouldn't change my life at the moment for anything in the world.

Zoe seems to be having good days alternating with bad ones at the moment. She went off to sleep last night at 11 pm and slept through until 4am when I woke her. But then she really let fly, screaming loudly for another two hours. Poor old lovely husband took her downstairs in an attempt to let me get some sleep, but she didn't stop until I fed her again at 7am. Then more crying before she finally dropped off at 9am. So I had 3 hours sleep last night but the cause was a big difference from my younger partying days :-)

Yesterday, she was settling really well after a bit of a 5-10 min cry in my arms and then basically straight off to sleep in her bed with a little rocking - about 15-20 mins all up and much better than the 1.5 hour stints we have had lately.

We now need to wean her firstly off needing to be rocked once in bed, and then needing to be cuddled, rocked and walked before getting into bed. Apparently, the goal is to really nail the self-settling before 5 months because that's when her sleep cycles change.

I think the cycles change in terms of the balance between REM and non-REM sleep and she needs to know how to get herself back to sleep before that happens. Oh well, we've got another 10 weeks to achieve it.

We seem to spend so much time second guessing what is making her cry and I just think we need to give up trying to guess and just roll with it. Lovely husband convinced himself that she didn't like being in the dark room at 5am this morning and so shifted her downstairs but I just think that is too random. It didn't help.

It really helps me when she seems really unhappy, to just concentrate on managing her next feed and sleep. If I start to think about how many days or weeks she might be crying or not sleeping, its just overwhelming. Its back to taking things as they come. I also keep reminding myself about how I felt this time last year and how wonderful things now are, and that tends to make the crying and lack of sleep shrink in significance.

On Monday, I will weigh her again and I'm once again feeling trepidation about that. LH took her to the chemist for a quick weigh on Tuesday and she hadn't gained much weight. I think the last reading must have been high (it wasn't on a digital scale, so entirely possible).

I am feeling a bit more philosophical about it now and not so wound up. If the weight gain isn't great, we will just increase the formula. I am now starting to accept that if I manage to breastfeed her for 3 or 4 months, then I've done well and I must just accept that.

In any case, I may need to stop breastfeeding to launch into another IVF cycle as we try for a sibling for Zoe.