Sick, sick, sick

My nose is dripping as I write this. Baby and I have the flu. We had a cold last weekend and the week before that I had a sinus infection. This is no fun. I think we caught the flu from my partner who thought he had our cold but this is definately a little flu-like bug and we only had a head cold before.

Poor baby has been really feeling poorly. Diarrhea, a cough, and a bit lethargic today with a running nose. At the end of last week he had a fever that lasted a few days as well, along with vomiting and diarrhea. I'm thinking that it is just a mish-mash of viruses. I asked our sitter and she confirmed that she had not been washing his hands after they went to the park so that might be one way that we are all getting exposed. It seems as though there are a series of bugs working their way through Seattle at the moment.

The good thing is that with the continued nursing I can help my little baby both stay hydrated and fed even when he isn't really hungry for solid food. Nursing also provides him with extra cuddles and comfort when he isn't feeling good. I really see the value in nursing past a year. Honestly, my whole take on babyhood is that infancy lasts through at least the first two years.

The other thing that I think about is how the American Academy of Pediatrics says to nurse for at least a year -- that's at the minimum. The World Health Organization, not known for being a really progressive organization, advocates nursing for at least the first two years. Still so many women abandon nursing after one calendar year feeling like they put their time in. We are mammals though and isn't that what mammals do -- nurse their young? It seems crazy to me that gorillas and bears take better, more instinctive care of their young than we do as humans.

We were watching a program on cable this evening, about gorillas in captivity in comparison to the wild. The zoologists have been spending a lot of time trying to help support nature behavior and development in their captive populations. Makes me wonder what a human habitat would look like. Not our post-modern industrial homes but something that would support our natural behavior and development. I guess I would start by looking to what more simplistic societies do. Then maybe take a cue from camping. It sure as heck wouldn't involve including cribs for the babies.

The Boo-hoos Caught Up With Me

Yeah so I'm not invincible. Finally Friday night, when my partner came home from visiting with friends I erupted. Two of his friends are currently TTC with their girlfriends and finally he has guys to talk about it with. But for all his enthusiasm it's been an anguishing time for me personally, what with the miscarriages and anemia and all. I hate feeling like he's just lumping us in with these other women who have just started trying, even though I know enough about them to know that they both have infertility issues (a 21-day cycle for one and fibroids and a miscarriage for the other). He comes back from hanging and talks about how he told them about how I chart and all that and how so-and-so's girlfriend wouldn't do that because it would make her obsess too much. It just makes me want to scream. I'm not like them, it's been too many years, we both had surgery, I've been through two losses and seen all those doctors and charted and temped and used a fertility monitor and got bloodwork and still no baby after more than three years.

So I started crying and I cried and told him that he better leave me and I just kept crying in the dark on the pillow and so I got up and I cried more, for another hour at least. Crying and blowing my nose and all that for a good long while.

When I woke up on Saturday I pulled out a journal and made a list of all the things about our fertility that are bothering me -- and cried some more. I read it to him and the rest of the day Saturday I just felt emotionally drained. Sunday I felt a bit better though.

I'm still congested from the flu and a little queasy as well. Everyone in our office has been sick. Half of them have had the stomach flu but no one has had both. I hope that I'm just feeling the remains of the same flu and its just lingering and not because I'm going to get the stomach flu as well. Oh please no.