200th Post!

In honor of my 200th post, I have found my top ten faves for your reading pleasure. Here they are, in the order in which they have appeared:

1. Making Babies is Hard for Some of Us - This was my very first post ever in bloggy land. Blogging has been the best therapy ever.

2. Lupron Fun - Seriously, is there anything worse than lupron? I remember throwing hubby's suitcase out on the front lawn before he left for a business trip. Seriously, talk about WTF?

3. The Wisdom of a 5 Year Old - This post makes me laugh. I really miss those two little foster babies and still feel lucky that I ever got to have them with me for the time I did.

4. Dear Embies - I'm seriously crying right now. When I walked in hopped up on valium, I didn't know how emotional I would get just looking at two little masses of cells. And yes, for those of you who might be new here, my mom watched me get pregnant. Weird, right?

5. Double Trouble - Our first ultrasound where we saw the twins. I'm crying again dammit.

6. In The Land of Fertiles - This post still cracks me up. I have learned that you lose your mind a little bit, but in my opinion, I've stayed much more sane than I might have thought. I have made friends with many of them, but at the same time, just hearing some of the things other moms say, I felt like I hopped on the crazy train.

7. Not For You Miss Ashley - This is the reason why I will never make a good poster child for teen pregnancy prevention, the message of an infertile isn't very good for trying to prevent accidental pregnancies. What does work? Showing teenagers my twin skin, stretch marks and deformed belly button. And yes, I have done that and although I should be ashamed, I take sick pleasure in the look of horror on their faces.

8. A Name and A Face - Everyone told me when I first saw those flickering heartbeats I would cry like a baby. I didn't. I went to ultrasound after ultrasound and never cried. I thought there was probably something wrong with me. But I cried at this one. It was the first time I saw their faces. It was amazing, so amazing.

9. The Good Thing About Infertility - Everyday of being pregnant was so terrifying. I know that's a bad thing to say, but if you are really involved in the world of infertility you have seen so many sad stories about unimaginable losses. I kept my Baby Beat all the way until after they were born and safely at home in our house. This day was different. I felt like I had won the lottery in life and was the most thankful person for everything I had.

10. My Beauties - Again, I'm crying. What the eff is wrong with me tonight? Anyway, the big event, what all this writing was leading up to! It's funny to read this and how short and sweet I kept the story of that day. Someday I will post the truth about it. The medical aspects anyway. Having kids is the most amazing thing. Not the birth part, but the actual holding of a child(ren) that is yours. It's crazy.

I hope you enjoy looking back if you get the time! It's been a crazy year, that's for sure.

Right now babies are spending the night with grandma, so you guessed it, I'm going to bed now and SLEEPING ALL NIGHT LONG!!! They were already gone when I got home from work so I had to hunt them down to give night night kisses, I just couldn't leave from the morning and not see them until tomorrow!

Have a fabulous weekend!

4 Months!!

The peanuts turned four months old on Sunday! They are just so cute and fun and I love them to pieces.

We had their 4 month visit to the pedi yesterday(where they are complete rockstars and everyone comes to see them).

Ocean Michael's Stats



14 lbs 8 oz - 40th Percentile
26 inches long - 81st Percentile

Ever Ieleene's Stats



12 lbs 0 oz - 19th Percentile
24 inches long - 38th Percentile

They have also achieved all their milestones: chatting, rolling (Ocean actually only did this once, but hey, we will count it!), picking things up, putting things in their mouth, recognizing our voices when we come in the room and giggles!

They got shots yesterday and while they did better than last time, Ocean was bleeding a lot! I definitely had something to say about how unhappy I was with this. My mom gave me the eye to chill out and she joked when we left that she thought someone was going to get knocked out! :) I feel (a little) bad about it today, but really having my baby boy's blood all over my hand and his leg is not going to end well. Watching your kids get shots sucks big ones.

WTF Wednesday

- Tiger and Elin Woods are now divorced. While I think there is something to be said for working through your marriage, there were far too many "other women" and I'm glad she bailed. But have you heard some of the things people say about Tiger, like they hope he is a failure now?? What is wrong with people? Infidelity sucks, but it's not the same as other terrible things you could do and I don't think he needs to live a life of misery just because he can't keep it in his pants. Let's just hope he doesn't get married again.

- I did not watch Teen Mom last night, but I did buy the US Magazine with the article about the Teen Mom's in it. Amber's article was particularly interesting. She has not yet made the time to obtain her GED. She was working at a tanning salon and her partner, Gary, is unemployed. In the article she stated that she quit because some women can work 9-5 and be a mom but it's not for her so she is thinking of becoming a mixed martial arts fighter. Oh boy . . . First of all, how do they pay their bills with neither one of them working? And if you're not working, how could you possibly not have the time to take the GED? This is my issue with the Teen Mom series, you can't show teens that those situations are going to work out. In real life, two people can't be unemployed and not work and there aren't many jobs available to people without a high school education that pay more than $7.25 per hour. Bad, bad example. Although I admit I am a touch jealous of anyone who can just say "well, I can't work a 9-5 so I'm out of here." Nice. Must be real nice.

- The Real Housewives of New Jersey finale was on Monday. It was pretty good, I love Caroline Manzo. She's super awesome. It was typical drama not worth repeating. I have a message for Danielle: The plural form of the word "woman" is "women." When you say "these woman are crazy," you should actually say "these women are crazy." She does it all the time and it makes me nuts!!

- Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt have a sex tape. Do I need to say anything else?

- Kelly Mom is a website that is dedicated to breastfeeding. I think breastfeeding is great if it works for you, but this site gets a tad fanatical at times. It is very helpful and I went there on several occasions in the pumping days to obtain information. There is a lot of information on there, though, because it is adamant about bfing that is reaching the limits of common sense a bit. Here is one I read this week about why you should delay solids:

Delaying solids makes starting solids easier.
Babies who start solids later can feed themselves and are not as likely to have allergic reactions to foods.

WTF?? How can feeding yourself make you not allergic to something? I have major outdoor allergies. Could it be because I wiped my own ass too soon? Am I allergic to grass because I started thinking advanced thoughts at a young age? Maybe I started walking too soon and that is why I have to go to the hospital if I get near a cat. Is this a joke???

- A personal WTF: As you know since it has been beaten into your head, I had mucho trouble getting pregnant. I now have two monkeys, and I can't fathom the thought of adding another because I am pretty exhausted these days. I have had two perfect periods. I ovulated at the exact time you should and I also got my period on the EXACT day it was due. Never, EVER did this happen when I was trying. And now, I am on birth control and am messing it up. WTF is wrong with me? This seems like a bad idea. And it pisses me off that this is happening NOW, after my bank account has been wiped out and I nearly ended up in the looney bin going through infertility. Major, big time, WTF. The universe can be one cruel beyotch sometimes.

Best baby moments of the week: Ever is the rolling over queen, she does it like a champion. She has also been sleeping through the night!!! 9:30 p.m. until 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. This is a big one from a mommy who hopes to be going to lots of sports activities in the future: OCEAN THREW A BALL!! He picked up his Taggie ball, put it to his tummy to check it out, and then threw it. Oh yeah baby!

WTF faces from the monkeys:

The Ashley Method

I never read parenting books. None. After my craptastic voyage with infertility, I would like to think that my body is able to do something naturally, like parenting. I thought mothers were supposed to have instincts, so I want some.

I honestly have no idea what I'm doing, but I just want to do what seems right for us. Here is a I list of things that I do "wrong" and why I do them:

1. I let Ever eat solids before 4 months. She was a huge fuss bucket all the time and was eating like a little piggie. We let her and Ocean try organic brown rice cereal mixed in with their soy based formula at three months. It didn't do anything for Ocean so he tried again yesterday for his 4 month birthday and he loved it! Ever was much happier since eating food.

2. The babies sleep in our bed sometimes. Okay, they sleep in our bed every night. I swore I wouldn't do this. They sleep longer and better with mommy and daddy. Ocean is very restless and he needs a pat on the butt or a back rub or just a snuggle to stay comfortable so I give that to him as he needs it and frankly I don't want to get up every time he needs that. They go to sleep in their beds and then once it gets out of control they end up in ours. I'm also not going to lie, I love to wake up to their sweet little faces. We have not rolled over on them yet, knocking on wood but I am so aware of them I can't imagine doing that. I also don't sleep well enough at night to be in that deep of sleep.

3. I do not keep my twins on the same schedule. This is crazy, I know it. But they are NOT the same baby. They don't need to eat at the same times or the same amount. Yes, it would be smarter for me to put them on the same schedule, but if one needs more sleep than the other I'm not going to wake one up for my own needs. If one needs to eat more often but the other is satisfied, I don't feel comfortable with either not feeding them or force feeding them.

4. I talk to them a lot so that they start learning. When I am in the store I tell them about everything as we go along, even if it sometimes makes no sense. People stare at me like I am crazy and/or annoying, but I don't give a f&*(.

5. On the flip side, I rarely ask people to wash their hands before holding the babies. People think I am absolutely insane. I am a little on the crazy side. :) I just want them to have healthy immune systems.

The basics: they're formula fed, disposable diapered, Ocean is circumsized, we don't do tummy time because they hate it and mommy doesn't like them to scream, we are going to start working on a bed time routine soon, they are immunized and we just started reading books last week. Am I missing anything?

When we were in Hawaii, there was a 3 year old on one of the tours with us. He kayaked in the river, he went off of a rope swing into a cove of water, he hiked, and he loved it. He never whined and he wasn't afraid of anything. Hubby and I both really wanted to have kids like that. They said the key was to expose them to everything. Let them do things with us and let them experience things at a young age. We were really impressed.

I have to ask for advice on a regular basis so maybe it would be easier to just read a book, but I want to make some decisions on my own. I'm sure (and I have been told) that I'm making some mistakes but I'm mostly okay with it. I did read a great article in a magazine about how every child, every parent, and every family is a little different so it's okay to try many things and if your kid isn't like other kids at the exact same time it's okay. I am lucky to have two babies at once because you can see everyday how different each kid can be (and boy, are these two different from each other).

I follow lots of blogs about families who do everything totally opposite, but I like to see what else is out there and I know that our ways may not work for others and vice versa. I just thought I'd share these things since we get asked about this stuff in real life all the time.

We're four months in and everyone is still alive and healthy, woo hoo!

I had a moment this weekend that I haven't had in awhile with all the chaos of non-sleeping babies and working full time. When the babies first came out, and I know this is true for many moms, I would just look at them and sometimes cry because I was in so much shock that these little beautiful people belonged to me. On Saturday night Ever wouldn't go to sleep. I put her in my bed while I was watching TV and she just sat there holding onto the strap of my tank top, looking straight into my eyes with a little smile on her face. She did this for so long trying not to fall asleep. It was so cute, I had to cry a few happy tears.

Bathing beauties:

Mama Fail

Being a parent is much harder than you would think. It's so easy to feel like a failure, mostly because parents are very competitive.

This is my blog, which I consider a journal, and I will say anything that I want to, whatever I feel. But in real life, I would only ever tell another parent that they are doing something wrong if I felt they were harming their child in someway and aside from an occasional dirty look I have never witnessed anything that required this.

It blows my mind when other parents ask me something that I do, look at me blankly, then promptly tell me to do something different. Example:

"How are the babies eating?"

"They both eat 4 ounces whenever they are hungry and Ever eats rice cereal because she wasn't satisfied with just formula. Ocean will try it again when he is 4 months."

Stare from person, followed by this response:

"You know that studies show babies that eat solids before 6 months are more likely to be obese."

Mental response. "You know that genetics with the combo of 44 ounce Mountain Dews twice a day followed by the bacon cheeseburger from the drive thru is probably a lot more likely to cause obesity?"

Real response: (smile) "Really? I didn't know that." Subject change.

Another example . . .

"What a cute picture of Ocean. Is that a Bumbo seat?"

Me: "Yes, he looks so cute sitting in it."

Person: "Oh no. If you let him sit in it then he is going to get messed up hips and need tons of physical therapy. Most places don't even sell them anymore."

Mental response: "Are you freaking kidding me?"

Real response: (smile) "Really? I didn't know that." Subject change.

I've already discussed breastfeeding in another post which always seems to bring out these types of responses as well. I know it is ridiculous to compare myself to other people. I also know everyone, including myself, always knows what they *think* they should do, but it doesn't always happen exactly that way. There are two things that will not be included in my parenting that I know for sure: yelling and spanking children in public places. Nothing would make me do that. Anything else though and we are a "go with the flow" and "whatever works best" family.

I recently received good advice from another person who I admitted to that I struggle sometimes with the weight of trying to do everything right, trying to be myself, trying to go to work and actually get things done, and trying to be a great mommy. In comparison to others, I seem to be failing.

Then I was told this about all the perfect parenting I see that makes me paranoid:

"They're probably lying."

I never thought of this! I guess I should have known that moms like to one up other moms. I just never have thought to lie to someone else about my monkeys. When people tell me their kid did this or that or their perfect methods of child rearing, I say "congrats" but I'm not sure how much I really think about it after the fact so it's not so impressive that it's worth lying for. Besides, I get impressed just by looking at my babies, do I really need to make something up about them? :)

So I may not be following a million parenting books to a tee and reading all the latest studies or running marathons two days after child birth or making six figures or teaching my 3 month olds to read, but my babies are healthy and happy. And cute. And they light up when I enter the room so clearly I am doing something right which gives me the continued ability to smile, nod, and change the subject.

WTF Wednesday

- A flight attendant for Jet Blue got really pissed at a customer, said expletives over the PA system, grabbed some beer, and then exited on the emergency runway. He is now a hero to many people and has thousands of Facebook friends and obviously doesn't have a job. Maybe I have just been unlucky, but I rarely have had a good flight attendant. They're really honestly pretty rude on a regular basis. I admit this is interesting and it would be a fun way to quit a job that sucks, but a hero? Really? I find that a little sad that he is now an American hero.

- Sprint is coming out with a cell phone that has a kickstand. People are officially so lazy that we need kickstands to hold up something that fits in the palm of your hand or could even lay on a desk or table.

- The Bachelor Pad. Has anyone been watching this? It is downright dirty stuff. These people will do anything for the money and they are hooking up like rabid animals. The girls are crying all the time. This week it was funny because in order to win the date the women had to do a pie eating contest. Since the girls are around a size 2 some of them starting throwing up after what would be a regular slice of pie. The reason this gets a WTF because I am ashamed to say I LOVE IT!!!

- Teen Mom has been interesting the last few weeks. The one couple who abuses each other on television (why hasn't social services been called yet??) got engaged for the third time last week while Amber argued with the poor guy about how he should propose to her. Farrah continues to act like a complete a#$%. She has always treated her parents terribly and it is gross. She needs to start thinking about what her daughter is going to act like when she gets older. I like the other two and nothing much interesting going on with them. I wonder how long this series will go on? I'm feeling like it is going to need some more action soon.

- Another flight attendant made the news by removing a child from a parent who slapped the child. Apparently the mother slapped the child across the face and told her to shut up. The flight attendant took the child from the mother and police met them at the airport when they landed. I am not a fan of spanking, and I truly cannot tolerate public spanking. Plus, the little girl is only one years old!! I know there is a serious issue these days with parents who can't discipline, but I still don't think spanking is necessary. Moms around the country were outraged because they have a right to spank and they would fight a flight attendant for attempting to take their child. WTF is wrong with people? If the only way you have to control your baby is to slap them you need to stay at home.

- A real life WTF: I took Ocean into the bathroom at JCPenney to change his diaper. A mom came in hauling her crying daughter who I would say was 5 or 6 years old. She took her in the stall and I started thinking "please don't hit your child, please don't hit your child." Thankfully she only gave her a tongue lashing. But would you like to know what it was for? Because she asked to go to the bathroom! What?? She was so "disgusted" and could not "believe" that her daughter would ask to go to the bathroom when she told her mother that she had gone before they left the house. Disgusted, she says. I saw the family shopping when I first walked in and that had been about 45 minutes ago so is it really unreasonable to think a young child would have to go to the bathroom with at least a 45 minute interval between the last time they went? Sometimes I can't stand people. I was sure to give her a dirty look when they came out and she gave me one too, which doesn't hurt my feelings because I wasn't the one being mean to my child. But I did get peed on by a smiling little Ocean. :)

Best baby moments of the week: They are getting so animated!! And the big news, EVER ROLLED OVER!! You would think it was the most amazing feat ever done by a 3 month old, but it was so exciting. She is so proud of herself she rolls over all the time. Ocean hasn't done it yet, but he has been talking and talking when you talk to him and it is cute. This was the first week I cried at work leaving them because they are getting so animated it has been much harder to work.

Little beauty:



Ocean chews on his hands all day and is not particular about chewing other hands as well. He looks like a little animal sometimes, it cracks me up!

The Case of the Missing Frostie

Frostie=Frozen embryo

In what seems like forever ago, I got a call from the embryologists lab that we had one embryo good enough to freeze. I cried my eyeballs out because I was sure that the first IVF would not work and how could I put all my eggs into one little frostie's basket? How did women ten years older than me get tons of frosties in storage? I had 22 eggs retrieved and ONE measly little frostie was left?? One thing is that my RE's office is VERY picky about what they will freeze, which is only day-6 fully expanded blasts (basically, the best). I know from doing tons of reading this is not always the standard at every office so I felt a little better.

I didn't think much of the frostie. I would donate the frostie to someone else or give the frostie to science. Until I realized that the frostie could possibly go from this:



to this:



Hubby is 100% sure he is done having kids. I was 100% sure I was done having kids. Here we are at three months, which I have heard is the honeymoon phase because the babies aren't just little and needy, they are little and heavenly and adorable and mom and dad start to think "we could do this again."

I went to get birth control from the OB. I was sure I would do this. But then I had a little panic because I would be taking away our chance at the surprise after IVF baby. But I don't like surprises so I got the prescription. I have had two perfect cycles with ovulation occuring at the exactly perfect time, which never happened when I was actually trying to have a baby. I am going to ruin it though, because I am certainly not ready now and hubby is definitely not ready and I think it is absolutely despicable to get pregnant when both parties aren't 100% on board (on purpose).

I can't drain my savings and my emotional bank doing IVF again while caring for two sweet babies because I feel that is selfish and I'm not strong enough to handle disappointment well. My OB said that there is a chance I could get pregnant without IVF so as soon as we feel like we might want more we should discontinue the use of birth control right away. Yeah right . . .

This caused my mind to wander to the frostie. We never received any type of confirmation that the frostie existed. We have no information on the frostie. During our consult they said any frosties would be saved for one year and then put on a plane to an out-of-state long term storage (I remember this because we had to sign a paper saying they are not responsible if the plane crashes and the embie thaws out, which might be one of the weirdest conversations I have ever had) and we would receive our rent bill (something else super weird to think about). The year has passed, so I thought I might have imagined this whole thing.

So I emailed the RE's office.

I did not hear from them.

I didn't hear from them once more.

I finally heard from them, FROSTIE FOUND!! Our ice monkey is still here in Kansas and they haven't gotten around to shipping it off, as I'm sure they don't have many with their stingy standards. We will receive a letter when it arrives at it's destination.

I KNOW that frozen embryos don't have the greatest success rates, but it's just a little bit of hope to hold onto that maybe in the future there will be a brother or sister for the monkeys and another little snuggle bug for mommy and daddy.

There will be foster brothers and sisters for Ocean and Ever, but we'll talk about that next time . . . .

The Name Game

My kiddos have very unique names. Even when they looked like little aliens with ADHD bouncing around in my belly, I knew that they were going to be Ocean and Ever. Ever has been called River on a variety of occasions by strangers (including at the doctor's office, they had her in the system as River, wtf??) because it is close to Ever and I guess it would go with Ocean.

They have also been called many other things by their mommy. So many other things I'm sure they have no idea what their names actually are.

Ocean: Oshy, Oshy Bear, Bubba, Baby Boo, Bubby, Handsome Devil

Ever: Evie, Peanut, Twee Twee, Monkey Moo, Princess

The top two are Peanut and Bubby so I'm sure those will stick in their sweet little minds. Someone told me my kids are going to hate me because they can't go to the store and get the little cups and things with names printed on them. Really? Who cares. If their hearts really yearn for cups with their names on it, Mommy will come through custom order style for them so it's not the end of the world.

A few people have had the balls to make fun of their names to my face. I'm sorry to America that I didn't name my kid Jacob or Isabella (the top two most popular names in America). Or Connor or Cayden, the two most popular names I have at work. My name is Ashley. There are millions of Ashley's and always another Ashley in my class, I was never the only one. I think it's safe to say that Ocean and Ever will be the one and only. Also, I don't take the name-making-fun-of very personally. I expected it and hopefully my monkeys will have inherited my sense of humor. I am their Mommy and I am a typical parent thinking there is nothing better or more unique and amazing than my kids out there, so they had to have unique names.

So there. :)

Baby Boo and Monkey Moo with Daddy:



Bubby



Peanut

WTF Wednesday

- Giselle Bundchen, a supermodel, believes she is now the expert on parenting because she had natural childbirth and breastfeeds. Giselle made a comment that has outraged women beyond belief. She believes they should have a worldwide law that all women should have to breastfeed and she can't believe that any mother would give their child chemicals (formula). After the insane amount of backlash, she issued an apology. Who gives a crap what Giselle thinks? I formula feed and I really don't need an apology because I don't give a shit about Giselle or breastfeeding. This is a double WTF - Giselle making a really stupid comment and the fact that people care. There will never be a law like that and no one should lose sleep over a supermodels opinion who has one child with a man who was in a relationship with a pregnant woman when they started dating. She doesn't exactly set my compass for how I should raise my kids.

- A judge in California rules that Proposition 8 (ban on gay marriage) is unconstitutional. One word: Duh. Denying someone equal rights is unconstitutional. The fact that everyone doesn't know this and tax dollars are being spent on this is a huge WTF.

- Rod Stewart to be a dad at 65 for the sixth time. Aren't men lucky? Women who get pregnant after 35 are considered a "geriatric" pregnancy and this dude is having a baby at 65 (almost 20 years older than my babies grandma). Must be nice . . . .

- Lawsuits. I'm sick of reading about them and hearing about them. People sue other people for the most ridiculous nonsense. I wish the government would put a cap on what other people can sue people for so maybe people will stop being so lawsuit happy.

I don't really have anything else. I am going to admit that I am unnaturally grouchy these days. I tend to be a blunt person in real life as well, but it is actually getting out of control. I don't know if it's due to lack of sleep for almost four straight months, leaving my sweet babies to go to work when I really don't want to be doing that, or what it is. I just want to be with my babies all the time, anyone else around is just annoying to me. I don't know . . . .

Best baby moments of the week: Every moment. I love sleeping with them, playing with them, talking to them, everything. I just love everything about them. They are perfect. When asked by a coworker today how the babies were my response was "amazing, perfect, and above average in the attractive factor." :) Love.

Drunky:



Baby Jesus of the week look alike goes to: Ocean!!

Oh My

If you are an infertile, you are used to rather senseless comments regarding matters of infertility. If you are now a mama of any sort, you are used to (or in my case, attempting to get used to) the endless nonsense of other's opinions with sheer neglect for the fact that different things work for different people.

An article came out this week discussing how the first IVF (or so terribly called in this article: "test tube") baby has just given birth herself.

The article was nice.

The comment section regarding the article was quite scary. I mean, some things are funny, but most were either absolutely embarassing or just plain hateful. Here are the highlights followed by my education on the subject:

There was never any doubt that Elizabeth would grow up to be a good person, but the act of her conception was cold and unloving. There are too many people in the world and there are children even in the US who would give anything to be adopted. In the meantime, the embryos who aren't lucky enough to be implanted are given a death sentence in the name of convenience or science.

Cold and unloving? We went to our embryo transfer with my mom. We took pictures of the embryos and I wrote them a love letter about how much I wanted them. Hubby spoke to my belly every night asking them to stay with us. I only had three embryos survive after the five days and two are my babies and one was frozen. I also do not think that anyone that does not adopt a child has any right to tell anyone who should adopt.

I wish on my second cousin's behalf that IVF didn't exist. Their mother was and continues to be a gold digger. She married their father late in life, became pregnant via IVF in her mid-50s (he was in his 60s), smoked and drank profusely during both pregnancies, and now is pretty much a widowed grandmother raising two teenagers. They grew up watching their father waste away due to cancer, and both have an unnatural fascination with violence and blood. By twelve, I know the oldest had already been drunk at least once. The few times I've been around them, I've seen them brutally attack each other, and once they both ganged up on my sister and I, when we were 19 and 16. They know no one their own ages due to home schooling.

This is a WTF times one hundred. This doesn't happen to kids not here because of IVF? I'm surprised this moron has the skills to even use a keyboard.

I'm very happy that this IVF baby was able to conceive and give birth in the natural fashion, but I think IVF is truly playing God too much. If your body is unable to conceive or fertilize, that's nature's way of taking you out of the gene pool. If it was an accident or surgery that made you unable to conceive or fertilize, that's different, but the majority of people who are having IVF are people who are simply incompatible with pregnancy.

Nature takes creatures out of the gene pool for a reason.

I love how this particular individual refers to people as "creatures." And you really think that nature is selecting crack heads, criminals, and abusers to populate the world? I always find it odd when a religious person pulls this out of the hat. Natural selection, or nature deciding what is best to further a species, is part of evolution. Aren't you supposed to NOT believe in theories of evolution? Think harder on this one genuis. And what about adoptive parents? In order to qualify to adopt you must be a healthy individual who can provide a loving home to a child. Aren't these the types of "creatures" we would want to have children? I really like this reply by another commenter on the article - ""Nature takes creatures out of the gene pool for a reason."

Yes, and rest assured your time is coming." Bwahahahaha!!

Is it just me or is that woman fat? Dont hate on me, but i have seen this trend, a couple of friends f mine have IVF kids, they re normal, but almost all of them are fat. well u may sa the parents are fat so are the children, but they arent! Maybe parents need to put IVF kids on a diet?

Oh my God . . . don't know what to say on this one . . .

I wont speak to the religious take on IVF – but from a societal standpoint, it's a little frustrating. There are lots of kids who need homes and lots of parents unable to naturally create kids of their own (either for medical reasions, or because they are gay). It just seems like an obvious solution, adoption...rather than invitro. Most people are just too selfish to want to do adoption – "it's not the same". Of course not, but why does it have to be?

This is clearly an individual who is not infertile or has never attempted to adopt. Adoption is expensive and hard. Yes, there are over 500,000 kids in the foster system right now, but there is not an adoption tree where you go to pluck from that fertile people seem to believe in. Adopting a child is a huge decision and you have to feel that you are ready for it, which does not make you selfish. Adoption is an incredibly special and amazing thing, not something you just do.

For those of you who believe in IVF, why do you insist of having doctors and scientists "play God".
Only God can create life, not some scientist in some laboratory. No one should become between a husband (male) and a wife (female) and God who is the creator of all life. This leaves your mad scientist doctor out of the picture.

This one always confuses me. If God didn't want you to have a baby, wouldn't you not have a baby? When you have a baby, you have a baby, right? So following this same logic, if you have a baby, even with IVF, doesn't that mean that God wanted you to have a baby, as in, if the baby is here, God wanted it. And a scientist in a laboratory can create life, that is the point of this article. And why would God not want anyone to have a baby? That doesn't make sense either.

I'm scared and you should be too. People are nuts. I hope my children are never spoken to about such crazy things or that they have the good sense to know that these people are mean. Hopefully they have a good sense of humor and will be able to reply that they were handpicked by the best mad scientists around and not the product of whatever came barrelling down the fallopians. **please note that I think all children are special, regardless of how they got here, but stupid comments must be returned by quick witted answers.**

I will leave you with two beautiful, healthy, loved, amazing, advanced petri dish babies:

WTF Wednesday

- Thanks to my pal at Life by the Day my attention was drawn to the hugest WTF around, the Pregnant Man had a third child. If you are a long time follower, you know that equal rights are very important to me and I am very serious about our society making sure that gay marriage become legal everywhere. BUT - this is NOT a man!! Why are we still saying that it's the pregnant man? He has the parts of a woman. Yes, I consider him a man and I would call him a man and I think (almost) anyone who wants kids and would be a good parent should have them. But he has woman parts, he is not really a pregnant man, this isn't a miracle of modern science. He did infertility treatments just like me. Get over it. Does anyone remember when Oprah interviewed him? It was her most awkward interview ever, super funny. When he had his first, I was in the throes of being a total mental mess over infertility and I thought WTF, now men are getting pregnant and I can't? It was rough.

- Bristol Palin and Levi have already called off their engagement. Gee, what a big surprise! I am seriously thinking that this kid just enjoys f#$%ing over the Palin family for fun. I don't totally mind because I'm not a Palin family fan, but it's getting a little old.

- The Duggars wouldn't mind having a 20th kid. I just truly don't even know what to say (I know, weird right?). I'm speechless . . . . One part of me doesn't care because they are homeschooled so the tax payers don't have to pay for them and they take care of themselves. Michelle seems to be a pretty decent mom despite her using her older children as slaves and the fact that her voice is creepy. The kids seem to be happy. Part of me is jealous that someone can be so incredibly fertile when so many of us struggle just to get one kid. Part of me thinks it's crazy and weird and I should make fun of them. So much for speechless, lol! I just don't understand how there are 500,000 children in the foster system and one family is popping out kids left and right. And what on earth does Jim Bob do to support all these kids?? Whatever he does, I want to do it too!

I know this is a pretty weak WTF Wednesday but I am so tired my thinking skills suck . . .

Best baby moments this week: Last night Ocean was super fussy and I held him and walked him and rocked him to go to sleep. He finally fell asleep on my chest with his little hand clutching my shirt. It was so sweet. Those moments melt my heart.

Our family:



Mad babies, two screaming babies at once is always a good time:

Sleep

I need it so bad. I am in an online community for babies that were born in May so our babies hit milestones at the same time. I constantly hear about how their babies are sleeping all night long. WHAT?? This makes me so jealous! I really do look forward to when they wake up around 5-6 a.m. because (and I totally know this is a bad idea) I pop them in bed with me and get a few hours worth of baby snuggles before work.

Last week I went to see my OB and I told her and the nurse they weren't sleeping through the night. They were surprised and the nurse said both her kiddos started sleeping 12 hours a night right at three months. I feel all the time like I have been hit by a truck. After my c-section we had a few bad experiences that made recovery a little more difficult. On top of recovering from major surgery, I wanted to make sure I always woke up with them in the night because I had waited for them for so long I didn't want to miss a thing. I was a level 5 nut job after about three weeks! I told my OB about some throbbing I have in the area and she said that a full c-section recovery actually takes NINE months to a YEAR! Nobody ever told me that before!

I would really love to work out also. I know I would feel better and sleep better with the sleep that I'm getting. I started strong and lost a few pounds, but have gained it all back because I don't have the time to work out and have sucked at dieting. I just feel too guilty if the babies are awake after a full day of work taking personal time to workout. I make it through the day by being cracked out on caffeine pills and actual caffeine, which is also not healthy. Last night we put them to bed at 8:30 p.m. which is really early. Ocean actually made it to 1:30 a.m. after that but Ever only made it until 11:00 p.m. but that would at least give me a workout.

Any ideas????? How can I get my babies to sleep? How am I going to start taking care of myself so I can be the best mommy I can?

I'm hoping to start juicing tomorrow and detoxing my body so that should make me feel better in about a week. If you know of any good juices leave them in the comment section!!

Daddy's impression of Ocean: