happy birthday AIDAN!!!!!

Aidan is 12 months old today!!!! He is such an amazing baby! He is walking more, trying to run, talking more, and climbing a lot more! I never thought we would have a baby and here we are celebrating his first year of life. I am so very lucky!!!

11 months

This is Aidan's last month as a baby!!!! I am sad but excited. I love watching this little man grow! 11 months old today! Aidan is talking more and more everyday and has tons of new sounds. He has been walking for a few weeks now! He has different facial expressions all the time! Aidan is so freaking cute. He has the most amazing laugh. He loves to climb on everything and push his toy box around the room. He is now signing milk almost every time he wants milk! Aidan is such a smart baby. He still is not getting much if any regular food, he loves the boobies! Shadow and Spooky are playing with Aidan more now. Aidan is still a bit rough with them but he is getting better. Aidan also loves to make a lot of noise, he loves to yell and bang anything/everything together. It is pretty cute! Darin and I are so lucky to have such an amazing child! We are going to soak up every last second we have with baby Aidan before we know it baby Aidan will become toddler Aidan!

the good

First I want to say that I am (now) so grateful for my infertility experience. Now that I have Aidan I look back and it all seems to have gone perfectly. I don’t want anyone to take this post the wrong way. Before Aidan was born there was nothing “good” about infertility in my eyes, but now looking back I can see some good things. 1. STRANGERS LEFT ME ALONE: Any time I leave the house with Aidan random people will come up to us and start taking to us. They want to comment on how cute he is or how well behaved he is. The thing that bothers me the most is when people tough him. I do not know why people think it is appropriate to touch a stranger, baby or not. So being able to shop without being stopped by tons of strangers was a benefit of being infertile. 2. GOING TO THE BATHROOM ALONE: We all know as infertiles we spend tons of time in the bathroom peeing on things. In the years leading up to Aidan being born I much have peed on hundreds of pregnancy tests and countless ovulation test. Looking back I miss the all the bathroom time I had to myself. Don’t get me wrong I think it is super cute when Aidan crawls around the bathroom opening cabinets and playing with toys but sometimes it would be nice to pee (or poop) alone. Even if Darin is home and I shut the door Aidan stand at the door and bangs on it until I come out, again I think this behavior is super cute. I use to dread going to bathroom to pee on a stick but now I look back and see that going to the bathroom alone was nice and I should not have taken advantage of it. 3. WEARING CLOTHES THAT FIT: Years ago if I lost (or gained) weight I would go out and buy new clothes. I have lost a lot of weight after having Aidan but I am finding it hard to go clothes shopping. I have always hated clothes shopping but now it seems like hell! Nothing fits right or it is not nursing friendly. So a benefit of being infertile was clothes fit me better before baby. I really see no point in buying new clothes because I hardly ever go out and when I am home I am topless 99% of the time. That’s all I have! I love every moment of being a mother. Being Aidan’s mommy is not always easy and sometimes I need to take a minute to collect myself but I would not change it for the world. Two years ago if you asked me what the benefits of being infertile were I would have laughed (or cried) and thought you were nuts. During our infertility journey I was sad, empty, lost, happy, hopeful, down, etc. It was the hardest time in my life! Now looking back on that time I can see some good. I see why going through what we did has made us better parents today. I love Aidan so much deeper than I would have if we got pregnant right away. Aidan will be our only child, we will never try to get pregnant again, I will never be pregnant again, Aidan will never have a brother or sister, our infertility journey is OVER! The day Aidan was born my dream came true. I will forever remember the pain of infertility and I will forever be infertile but I will never have to try again. It feels freeing to know we have the baby we always wanted and we can be done trying. I feel happy to close that chapter in my life and open a new one. I want this blog post to help other infertiles find hope. Your dream will come true and you will look back and know it all happened to lead you to that perfect child. I got that advise from a friend before Aidan was born and I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe I would ever think anything good of infertility but she was right. Aidan was always the baby that was meant for me.

10 months old!

Aidan is 10 months old today! He is a great crawler. He is standing all by himself. He is taking 3 good steps all by himself! It is amazing how far he has come since day one! Aidan is talking a lot more and loves to laugh. Aidan and I love to share apples and breastfeeding is going great. Aidan loves when daddy is here to play. He loves bath time and loves to play with straws. He is an amazing baby! Darin and I are so very lucky to have him!

41 weeks and 4 days old!

Aidan has been out in the world one day longer then he was inside me! I had him when I was 41 weeks and 3 days pregnant. My body has truly amazed me these past 83 weeks. It is so powerful knowing that my body grew him on the inside and my body is making milk to sustain him on the outside. For so many years I looked at my body as a failure. I was unable to get pregnant because my body was just not working. Now I feel amazing! My body is not failing me anymore. Aidan is growing and thriving and it is all due to my milk. It was overwhelming at first to know that my milk had to be enough to keep Aidan healthy. I stopped freaking out and just let my body do what it was made to do. Aidan eats whenever he wants to eat and my breast make all the milk he wants. Going from feeling like a failure to feeling amazing is awesome! I honestly feel like a super hero sometimes! I make milk! What's your super power?!?!

9 months old

Aidan is 9 months old today! He is crawling all over the place. He stands up all by himself for such a long time. He is trying so hard to walk. He still only has two teeth. On July 9th he weighed 21 lbs and 12 oz and was 28 1/2 inches long. The nurse said his top tooth would pop within a week but that didn't happen. Aidan is now trying to crawl on things. He loves to play with everything. He still is not really eating any food just breast milk! Aidan loves boobies and I could not be happier about it. I am s very glad we got him off the bottle. Aidan is doing great and talking a lot more. We are still cosleeping. Aidan still loves to wake daddy up in the morning. When me or Darin walk into a room Aidan gets super excited, smiles, and crawls to us as fast as he can. Aidan has been in 18 month clothes for a while. Aidan loves to blow raspberries on mommy and daddys bellies.

boxes!

The spare room is a mess! We have been going through all the boxes trying to cut down on some stuff. We are super excited to move but we do not want to take a bunch of crap we don't need. Once it gets cooler we are going to have a big yard sale and try to sell as much stuff as we can. We also went through all of Aidan's clothes that don't fit him anymore. We have a huge bin to sell and a huge bin to keep. I still cannot believe he is in 18 month clothes. In other news our front yard is now all rock instead of grass. It looks really good.