7 Random Things Meme

I was tagged by a couple bloggers to do this meme – Shannon and Alli. I'm just now getting around to doing it.



7 random things about me:



1. Since it's snowing outside right now (or at least it was when I first wrote this on Friday, March 28), I thought I would say I like to see the snow come down, but I don't like so much being out in it. I really don't like the cold all that much. However, I will go out in the snow if my children want to.

2. I work around 24 miles away from my home. I really wished I either lived closer to work or worked closer to home. Since I doubt I'll be able to afford a house in the city I work in, I'll have to find a job closer to home. Someday I will get my resume updated. I guess it isn't that much of a priority. I do like my job most days (though not today so much).

3. Like a coworker of mine, I'm starting to want to read books, and then quickly watch the movie that was based on the book to do a comparison. The longer I wait, the more likely I'll forget certain events in the book. That may be a good thing though. Last night, I watched The Nanny Diaries. I had read that book about 3 years ago.

4. My goal for this year is to read 52 books. So far, I'm on track to make that happen. Right now, I'm reading this month's book club pick of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade – The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes. I'm about halfway through it already – it goes by rather fast. Any recommendations for books to read?

5. I have ganglion cysts in both of my wrists – thankfully, neither one is currently bothering me.

6. I like to check the traffic before I go home just to have a rough idea how long the commute might be, but I don't really need to listen to it on my way home. The main driver of my vanpool seems obsessed with listening to the traffic – which means he turns on the radio every 10 minutes to listen to it "on the 4s". Sometimes he keeps the radio on for a while and I start to listen to a story, then he'll turn it off right in the middle of the story. It drives me crazy! Speaking of my vanpool – we have a bigger van these days which means when it is full, we are no longer packed in there like sardines. Yay!

7. I like basketball o.k., but I really don’t get into to it that much until March Madness rolls around. For some reason, I just get all caught up in it. And how great is it that for the first time in the history of the tournament, the four #1 seeds are meeting in the Final Four! My husband wants me to root for UNC because his boss is a HUGE Tarheel fan, but I may have to root for a Pac-10 team – UCLA! However, I did fill out a bracket and had UNC winning the whole thing against UCLA.

I'm not going to tag anyone in particular today - if you want to complete it, it would be fun to read more about you!

Oh, and Alli, my homepage at home is news.google.com. :-D

Weekend & More

This weekend brought some new skills for Ella. On Saturday, she figured out how to get back to a sitting position after she’s been crawling somewhere. She also pulled herself to her knees using the couch. Then the next day, she pulled herself to her feet using the couch and starting cruising along the couch until she got to the end and got down to crawl. And, of course, she’s pulling herself up in her crib – well, at least to her knees. I haven’t seen her get to her feet there…yet.

Benjamin keeps saying “momma, mommmmmaaaa, mommmmmm”. It’s so cute! We got some video of him saying it. He hasn’t picked up any new skills over the weekend, but he is trying. I’ve seen him push his butt into the air a few times. Oh, but the other day he did get onto his tummy and pushed himself backwards quite a ways before I made him go back to his starting point. He was not happy with that – he made it all that way!

Over the weekend, I took Benjamin to Target and then onto the library. This trip was a lot better than last time we went to Target. Benjamin was a happy camper throughout the time at the store. That might be because I got him something to play with. I got him a little soft car to play with while we were in the store. I didn’t notice until we got to the checkout that he had put the tag into his mouth, chewed on the tag and tore it off the car. Luckily, I remember we had it just a few moments before, so I went to go get it to buy it. And this time, they had the lamp I wanted and it wasn’t broken this time! Yay! Let there be light in my living room!

The next day, Ella and I went to the grocery store and got some food for the week and for the play date we were about to have. Ella seemed to really enjoy being in the store – she was so cute. Unfortunately, out of the 4 women from my support group who said that they would come, only one was able to make it due to issues with their children. I was so looking forward to seeing them and their babies, but I guess life with babies can be rather unpredictable at times. One friend has a daughter who refuses to take a nap in her bed, but would rather pull herself up to a stand in her crib and cries because she can’t get back down. Anyone have any helpful ideas? I’m sure I’ll be there myself very soon.

Oh, and my sister will be happy with this – they LOVE the “shake your booty” song. If they are fussy – I just need to pick them up and sing that song, and they calm down (most times).

This coming weekend is going to be a busy one – on Saturday, there is the Seattle multiples sale, Ben & Ella are going to their first wedding, and a friend is having a concert (and Jon is helping with that)- check out her music! Then on Sunday, we have a play date with a friend of ours that has 2 children – one of which has his 1st birthday on Wednesday. Speaking of birthdays, my sister’s birthday is tomorrow. Happy birthday, Trina! Lucky her, she’s going to Vegas this week for a few days without her 4 kids!

Alright, that’s all for now.

Melts My Heart

Benjamin's new sound: Mom-ma Mommmmmma. He said it over and over again. He may or may not know what that sound means, but in either case, it still melts my heart. He did say to Jon this morning "Hi Da" or something that sounded a lot like it. :-D

Ella has apparently pulled herself up with the toy bin - she pulled herself up to her knees to look into the bin. She tossed aside toys until she found the one she wanted. I didn't see it (Jon did), but I imagine it was super cute.

The daycare lady said not only is Ella going through the tunnel at the daycare, she would much rather go through the tunnel (crying all the way) than go around the little playmat. Silly girl! I did make her go through the tunnel for me last night - she cried all the way through and when she got out, she gave a big smile. Am I mean or what? I just had to see if for myself. All the while, Benjamin was on the other side of the playmat saying "mom-ma". :-D

Pictures!

Here are some pictures of our Easter weekend and some from the daycare from last week.

The first few are of Ella going through the tunnel at the daycare. The daycare tells me that she has become a pro at it now and does it several times a day.

Movie News

I don't know if anyone has read The Memory Keeper's Daughter, but if you have or are interested in the story, Lifetime made a movie out of it and it will air on April 12.

Easter Weekend

After I got home from my acupuncture appointment and we packed up everything in the car, all four of us went on our way to Spokane. It was Benjamin & Ella's first trip to Spokane and my first trip since last April.

It took a long time to get there. Benjamin & Ella were good most of the way, but the last 2 hours were not fun because the sun was in their eyes and we didn't have anything we could do to help with that except stop every so often to relieve them. So it took us 7 hours to get there. 7 HOURS!

Once we got there, they were o.k. though since they hadn't seen my family in 6 months, my family was like strangers to them so they weren't too happy to be held by anyone but Jon and I. Eventually, they warmed up to them though but still they liked it when one of their parents was in the room. It is always fun to have two babies who don't know how to stand quite yet on their own pull themselves up on you.

Friday night, we didn't do too much. Saturday was a busy day. My aunt and grandmother come over to visit for a little while. When they left, we went over to my sister's house. We were going to go to my other grandmother's place, but the WSU basketball game was on at that time, so she had to watch it and didn't want visitors. A basketball game is more important than meeting your great grandchildren. I have to say I was a little hurt by that. So instead of going over to my grandmother's, we went to go get something to eat and then off to Babies 'R Us to buy some shades for the car (we bought these shades that supposedly stick to the windows, but they don't). After that, we went back to my sister's for a bit before getting the o.k. to go over to my grandmother's. I was a little nervous about going over there because I knew my babies were getting tired and ready to go to bed for the night, but we went over anyway so my grandmother and my aunt (whose house it is) can meet them. My aunt's grandchild was there at the time - I don't know if I had ever met her before or if I have, it was a long time ago.

Sunday, we spent the entire day at my parent's house. My sister and her kids came over (but not her husband). Benjamin & Ella had their first Easter egg hunt - I don't think they were too excited about that. ;-D They also got some cool toys from the Easter Bunny. Later on, my aunt and her husband came over along with her husband's sister. It was funny while my aunt was holding Benjamin, Benjamin was super excited by everything that his cousins were doing. Ella liked them but wasn't nearly as excited by them as Benjamin. It was really cute to see. At another point in the day, Ella played cards with my dad. I have pictures of both things, so eventually I'll post them to flickr.

After everyone had left and the babies were in bed, I watched Children of Men. What a bad adaptation that was. It was NOTHING like the book. There were a few things that were the same, but they changed A LOT.

On Monday, we made our goodbyes to both my grandmothers and my sister, then we went on our way. Things were much better on the way home for the babies since the sun was in our eyes and not theirs, but about 30-40 minutes left in the trip, Benjamin cried the whole way. I thought it was just because he was hungry, but I think he might have gotten a bit of heat rash. His rash seems better, but his voice is still a little hoarse. Poor guy.

Surprisingly, neither baby was put off by the fact that they were sleeping in a different bed or in a different place. In fact, I think Ella enjoyed having her parents in the same room as her. Both babies slept the entire night and didn't cry at all when we put them in their beds.

Well, that's about all I can remember of the weekend. We had a good time (except for the car rides to and from - luckly, the pass was great). I'll hopefully get those pictures uploaded soon and onto flickr.

Answer to Benjamin's Al Bundy pose

By the way, to answer Kerry Lynn's question. I think it might be the angle the picture was taken because I don't think his hand was actually in his pants. However, if it was, he put it there. :-D

More Pictures...

The daycare sent me a bunch more pictures. I haven't had time today to upload most of them to flickr yet, but I wanted to share these two.




Ella has learned to crawl through the tunnel. The daycare lady said she hadn't seen a child under a year attempt it, but my little girl did at 9 months. So daring! But she got into the middle of the tunnel, lifted her head a bit and found she couldn't, so she started to cry. The daycare lady put some toys on the end of the tunnel to get Ella to crawl out by herself, and she did!

Here is one of Benjamin that they took that I thought was cute.

Pictures - Finally!

I've added some pics to flickr if anyone is interested in seeing my cuties.

I do have to point out these two though...

The Sippy Cup And Solid Food Adventure Continues

I gave Benjamin and Ella sippy cups and some little pieces of peaches last night. Benjamin thought the sippy cup was hilarious. I would put it up to his mouth to show him that it was to drink from and he just thought that was funny. Was he thinking, 'silly mommy, you don't drink from this. This isn't a bottle!"? Ella at least picked up the cup and put it into her mouth - she hasn't quite figured out that she needs to lift it in order to drink from it though.

As far as the peaches. They both picked up the pieces, but only Ella put it into her mouth...and promptly spit it back out while giving this disgusted look. Benjamin tried to pick it up but got bored after a minute (to be fair, the pieces I gave them were quite small - I was nervous about possible choking - so that could be the issue). I put the peaches into Benjamin's mouth and he gave the disgusted look to but he, at least, munched on it and swallowed the pieces. We'll try again tonight with the sippy cups and the pieces of food.

Not much else going on besides that.

I do have a question for those who have children - do you ever feel that once you have children people think that you no longer want or can do certain things that you did before you had children? I'm getting that feeling these days.

weekend & baby talk

After we told the doctor on Friday that Ella doesn't talk nearly as much as her brother and that Benjamin hates tummy time, what do they do? Ella starts talking more (a lot of time with the dadada sound but sometimes other sounds) and Benjamin stays on his tummy for longer than 2 seconds. He actually tried to get up onto his hands and knees - he stuck out his butt a little. And when that wasn't working, he rolled all over our livingroom. He seemed to actually be enjoying it. Ella is getting very good at crawling.

Saturday afternoon, Jon's mom came over to watch Ben & Ella for us so we could go out to dinner with some friends to celebrate one friend's birthday. I'm so glad we did that because taking Ben & Ella into that crowded restaurant would have been a pain. Plus, Benjamin was sleeping when we left.

On Sunday, we had a couple friends over for some dinner and pie. It was nice to chat with them since I didn't get to the night before (actually, I didn't get to chat with a lot of my friends as we were at a different table from most of them) and well, we don't go out too much these days.

Oh, and last night, we brushed their teeth for the first time. Well, Benjamin doesn't have any, so we brushed his gums. I think he thought it was ticklish. And Ella was o.k. with it until she wanted to play with the toothbrush, so I let her stick the toothbrush in her own mouth.

This weekend, we also started finger foods with the babies. They don't quite get it and will start to gag at times. They don't even get yet that they need to pick up the food and put it in their mouths. We'll keep trying though. Anyone have any good tips for this? We also tried the sippy cups, but they don't quite understand that either. Benjamin kinda got it, but not for long.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure Ella knows when I'm about to leave. This morning, I handed her over to Jon and I put on my coat and picked up my bag and she started fussing. :-(

This weekend we are making our first trip over to Spokane with Benjamin & Ella. I'm a little nervous about the ride over, but it should be o.k. We'll take plenty of breaks to let them stretch their legs and for us to do the same. It will be nice to see everyone and for my extended family to finally meet my babies! My parents and siblings haven't seen them since they were 3 months old!

9 month checkup

Today, Jon and I took Benjamin and Ella for their 9 month checkup. Good news is that Ella has gained weight since her 6 month checkup and even since the doctor visit a couple weeks ago. Here are the stats:

Ella

Weight: 18 pounds 14.6 ounces (50%)
Height: 27 ¾ inches long (65%)
Head Circumference: 43.5 cm (45%)


Benjamin

Weight: 23 pounds 3.4 ounces (85%)
Height: 30 inches long (95%)
Head Circumference: 48.5 cm (95%)


So they are both doing really well. They didn’t have to get any shots today, so that was good.

While Ella was getting checked out, Benjamin took a little snooze. Ella really found ripping the paper that was on the bed in the exam room exciting. She smiled so big when she first saw the paper rip. Who knew that could be so exciting. Ella wanted to move around so much – she needs her practice, I guess. She even went over to Benjamin and tried to scratch him while he slept – maybe she didn’t like it that her playmate was sleeping. I was jealous of Benjamin getting to take a nap. I could seriously use a nap. I think we were both hoping that they would sleep in this morning until 7, but no, they got up at 6. Benjamin’s nap didn’t last long as it was his turn to get checked out around the time he started to snooze. He didn’t particularly like being woken up by a cold stethoscope on his chest.

We had them check out their ears as we were nervous about an ear infection because Ella keeps grabbing at her ears, but no ear infection, thank goodness. They said it might be just because they discovered their ears and want to play with them or their ears feel interesting and want to play with them. Either way, I’m just glad it isn’t an ear infection.

I can’t think of much else to write about. We’ll see the doctor again when they are 12 months old!

9 months!!!

Today Benjamin & Ella are 9 months old!!!! Amazing it has already been 9 months. I really need to add some new pictures to my flickr site.

My husband told me that this morning Ella crawled over to Benjamin, who was lying on his side playing with a toy, and crawled on top of him. She then continued to grab his face and she scratched him. Poor guy. Ella is being a little bit of a bully. Ella seems to have another tooth popping through!

Earlier this morning, Benjamin was talking away as his diaper was being changed. That little boy loves to talk. It’s so cute.

This past weekend, we watched a Baby Einstein video all about signing with your baby, so we’re going to try to do that a little more than we have in the past. Hopefully, they catch on. We only know a few of them – like sleep, milk, drink, eat, more, play, bath, all done, help, story, cereal, and a few others – but that should be enough, for now.

I checked into the pre-K program in the city I live in and holy wow, it’s more money than what I was expecting, but I guess it isn’t much more than what we’re paying right now for daycare (which is going up another $25/month per child). The preschool program is better but it’s only for a few hours a day unlike the pre-K program which is however many hours a day you need them there between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Neither one starts before 2 ½ and they are potty trained though.

Faith asked yesterday when the babies start to know you’re leaving. I’m not sure. They both seem to know what it means when we put on their coat (maybe that started 2 or so months ago), but I don’t know if either knows I’m leaving without them quite yet or maybe they do. Ella was upset at me because I wasn’t picking her up – though maybe she was fussing because I was leaving too.

It is wonderful, like Jessica says, to pick them up at the daycare – that is really fun. They both seem to light up when they see me (most days – sometimes Ella is concentrating so hard on the toy she’s playing with that she can’t be bothered to acknowledge me – sometimes I think she doesn’t want to leave the daycare because they have cooler toys than we do at home).

A friend asked why people put asterisk or whatever in the middle of a company name and if it was to keep the blog from being found, why talk about the subject at all. I thought I would ask the question here so maybe someone else can provide a better explanation that I think I did.

This morning

Poor Ella. Both babies were playing this morning, but Ella wanted me to pick her up…just as I was leaving. I put on my coat and said see you later. I gave them kisses and headed toward the door. Benjamin smiled up at me. Ella looked up at me with such sadness in her eyes and tears rolling down her cheeks. Do you know how hard it is to leave when you get those kind of looks – a sweet smile from one baby and a sad look from the other?

As I opened the door, Ella moved over to her tummy and got up on her hands and knees ready to crawl over to the door where I was. How I wish I could have gone over to pick her up. I had to leave her with those sad eyes looking up at me and her crying. :-(

Not much else going on. I wish it was time to go home as I really want to snuggle my babies. There have been too many sad stories lately of children being hurt or abandoned that I just want to show them that I love them. I need to stop reading the news (I keep saying this) because it just depresses me.

Other Stuff

Question - how have others introduced sippy cups to their babies? I'm trying to get them more used to sitting upright and drinking from their cups, but they don't quite get it. They like to use the sippy cup as a toy.

I accidentally deleted something in my spam folder that I didn't notice until the spam was gone that it wasn't spam. Ugh. I will never know what it is. If you're looking for a response from me and you don't get it - that may be why.

I've been tagged by Alli. I'm going to try to work on that very soon. :-D


I wonder what Benjamin and Ella will think of the stuff I write on this blog when they're older...

Exciting News!

Ella is a crawling girl now! She's been getting ever closer the past few days, and on Friday, the daycare told me she actually crawled. This whole weekend, she was crawling. She's still working out the kinks, but she will go a couple movements forward, then go down to her belly, then get back up to start the whole process again. She likes to practice this new skill in the middle of the night - I heard a strange sound from their bedroom at 1:30 this morning - it was Ella on her hands and knees crawling around. I left, and surprisingly, she didn't cry out. I went to use the restroom and came back out and still nothing, so I went back to bed. She must have fallen back asleep - on her tummy.

I guess this morning, she crawled over to Benjamin to try to take a toy he was playing with. Poor Benjamin.

Benjamin still won't stay on his belly for too long, so who knows when he'll start crawling.

Ella also has a tooth popping through those gums and it looks like there may be a second one about to break through too. No signs of teeth for Benjamin yet.

As for Benjamin, he's so funny. He LOVES to talk. He says new sounds all the time. Ella is starting to become more of a talker. I'm pretty sure that both of them are saying something that sounds an awful lot like mommy.

For a long time now, Ella seemed to be a papa's girl, but this weekend, she seemed to want me more. I would leave the room, and she would fuss even though Jon was right there. This morning, she didn't want to play pass the baby - she wanted to stay in mommy's arms. Benjamin was still sleeping when I left to come to work. :-(

This weekend, Jon and I took turns hanging out with one baby for some one on one time. Saturday, we walked around Northgate and to B&N so I could use my gift card. I hung out with Ella while we were there that day. Sunday, Ella went to the mall with papa to get a battery we need for our alarm system and our scale. When they came back, Benjamin and I went to do our alone time. We went to Tar&get because I wanted to buy a new lamp for our livingroom. We had gone through the store with the lamp and some other stuff when Benjamin was starting to act fussy. It was really hot in the store, so Benjamin probably was getting too warm. I had taken off his coat, but that wasn't enough, I guess. He started to fall asleep though he had just got up from a nap. Anyway, we get to the register and I didn't notice until then, the lamp was broken. UGH! I wasn't about to go back and get another one since Benjamin was upset. After that, I took him to the library since I needed to drop off some things. He was o.k. there since it was cooler there. We hung outside in the little park for a little bit before heading back home.

We also went on a couple walks this weekend around our neighborhood since it turned out to be a nice weekend. We put Ella into the baby swing for the first time yesterday - she seemed to like it - she really enjoyed it when she saw me swinging too. Benjamin was taking a little nap so he didn't get to enjoy the swing. Hopefully, this coming weekend is nice so we can go back to the park and let him enjoy the swing. I think he'll really like it.

Well, that's all for this post!

Baby Talk

Well, Benjamin & Ella seem to be doing a lot better. I’m getting there myself. All of us still have a bit of a stuffy nose and a cough, but it doesn’t sound nearly as bad as it did over the weekend. Because of our sickness, I told my fellow support group members that we weren’t going to be able to make it to the playdate. It turns out (I would find out much later) that the playdate was cancelled because the host’s child was sick too.

I should mention that in one of my recent posts that I was worried about Ella weighing 16 pounds – it’s not so much that she’s 16 pounds that worries me but the fact that she was 16 pounds nearly 3 months ago that worries me. She didn’t gain anything. They have their 9 month checkup on the 14th, so I’m hoping she will have gained something on what she was at 6 months, even if it is only an ounce. She may end up being a stick like I was for a good 24 years of my life before my metabolism slowed way the hell down and I started to pack on that weight.

Benjamin, I know, is a big guy. 22 pounds for a nearly 9 month old – that’s a pretty good size.

In wonderful news, Ella has sorta made forward progress. And in the middle of the night, it hit me, holy crap, we really, really need to get some childproofing done. The way she made her forward progress last night was by getting up on her hands and feet and pushing herself forward. She did this twice. At one point, she even may have moved her right knee forward. I said “yay Ella!” She smiled up at me. Then, when she tried to do it again, she got frustrated and started to cry as if she couldn’t remember how she did it before. I may have distracted her, I guess. I have gotten Benjamin up on his hands and knees just once. And he didn’t stay there for too long. He has gotten a lot more interested in standing though. And one time, I was holding him up to stand and Ella was sitting and he kinda looked at her with this triumphant look on his face as if to tell her that mommy was holding him up to stand but not her.

Last night, while I was changing each baby’s diaper, they were not a happy bunch. It had been a long day, I guess. They were both crying and I tried to sing them songs to console them, but nothing was working. They were tired babies. At one point, they were crying, then they slowed down the crying a bit – in that slow crying period, they looked at each other as if to say “Should we continue?” “I think we should.” “O.K. Let’s do this.” And the crying continued. It was kinda cute.

When I went to go pick up the babies at the daycare, they were playing in the room designated for infants, and one of the daycare ladies to go help a mom with her child, and Ella cried at the daycare lady leaving the room. And I’m like “Ella, mommy is right here. Ella! Mommy is right here!” She then looked at me and continued on playing. Silly girl!

Benjamin has become quite the “drummer” in that he likes to hit stuff. The telephone toy at the daycare. The CD player toy we have at home (it’s not an actual CD player, but I have no idea what to call it).

Ella has started to dance from front to back like Benjamin has been doing. She still does the side to side, but I guess it was time to mix up her dancing styles. :-D

And to end, I actually got a comment from the author of the book I talked about. That was kinda surprising and cool. :-D

Book Tour - Embryo Culture

This month, I decided to be part of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade as this month the book pick was Embryo Culture. I had wrote about it before, but I was curious what other questions other had of the book. Here are some of the questions given to me (hopefully, my answers make sense - I'm writing them in a drug-induced state to try to feel better during this cold).


1. The author researched different religious views on ART while she was in the decision process. How did you make your decision to pursue ART, adoption, childfree living etc? Did your religious views play a big part in that decision?

I honestly did not think too much about my religious views when making the decision to go forward with ART. I certainly believe in God, but that belief didn't make or break the decision to move forward with ART. I briefly may have thought about whether this was right, but it was really a fleeting thought. The biggest thing we thought about was how were we going to pay for it and how far were we willing to go? In the beginning, I thought I was not going to go to IVF because of the cost and because it felt like a huge gamble. It may not work and we would have put so much of our money into something that didn't work. So we did IUIs but when that showed it wasn't going to work - something changed. I just didn't feel like we had done all we could and we should try IVF before deciding what to do next. We found a way to make that happen and thankfully, IVF was the procedure that would make us parents.

2. Did religion shape the decisions you made about treatment? And in turn, did your infertility change the way you looked at your religion?

Same as above for the first question. As to the second, there were so many times during the course of trying to get pregnant, that my faith took a nosedive. I just couldn't believe in a God that would let people who I felt mistreated their children have those children in the first place when there people like myself who wanted children so badly and would, I thought, be great parents. Somehow, my faith stuck around - it went through a rollercoaster much like my emotions while going through infertility. It definitely is hard to have faith when things are bad.

3. If you have children via ART, did you every wonder some of the same things that Beth wondered? Would they be "different"? Would others who found out they were ART babies treat them differently?

No. I never did think that they would be different. After all, so many couples before me had children via IVF and they were all fine. In this time, IVF is so common that it wouldn't have occurred to me that my babies would be different. However, I do wonder about other people. Do they treat my babies differently if they know they were conceived via IVF. I have to believe that most people around my own age would not because it is so common today. However, if IVF is against their beliefs, then maybe they will. Also, I do want my babies to grow up knowing other ART babies - particularly IVF babies - as I think it is important for them to know other babies who were conceived in the same way. I'm not sure why I feel that way though.


4. In Chapter 5 ("Professionals"), Beth writes about her clinic experiences. I got a chuckle out of her observation that "my early-morning posse and I seemed to be codelinquents doing time in juvie hall," as well as her description of George, the (male!) u/s tech. How was/is your clinic experience similar to or different than Beth's? Did you meet/Have you met any particularly memorable people (either fellow patients or clinic staff)?

One of the doctors at my fertility clinic seemed like a wonderful guy. He seemed genuinely happy to make people parents - to help them fulfill a dream. I remember him writing on one of our early ultrasound pics "TWINS!!!!!!!!!!!" - the several exclamation points just made me smile. My OB is also a wonderful person and I am so glad that the fertility clinic doctor recommended her.

5. I had a different experience from the author concerning the type of clinic she went to. She went to a big clinic where she was treated as a number, whereas I went to a smaller clinic where there was a more personal touch. What was your experience? If you went to a big clinic, was it by choice? Did you feel like you still were treated as an individual? Did you have to deal with a Carol-like person? If you went to a smaller clinic, did you feel it was adequately staffed, etc. for your needs? Did you research various facilities (or did you do like me--go with the recommendation of my personal doctor)?

My clinic was a big enough clinic but I feel like I was treated as a person rather than a number. I can't remember one person at that clinic that was anything like Carol. I chose this clinic mostly because they were the only ones that offered the shared risk program, however, we did look into the other major fertility clinic in town. I'm glad we chose the one we did though because of the people at that clinic.

That's about it. If you want to read my earlier "review" of this book - you can find it here and here.

I did like this book a lot. It brings up a lot of questions that I had thought about and some that I hadn't. It is definitely a book I would recommend to others.

Intrigued by the idea of a book tour and want to read more about Embryo Culture? Hop along to more stops on the Barren Bitches Book Brigade by visiting the master list at http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/. Want to come along for the next tour? Sign up begins today for tour #11 (The Mistress's Daughter by AM Homes with author participation!) and all are welcome to join along. All you need is a book and blog.