My First Day of School: As a Parent

This is my sixth "First Day of School" post. Click HERE to read others.

Summer vacation has flown by, and over the past week I've been getting ready for the start of the new school year. As usual, there have been the preparations in my classroom, and the making of copies, and the bracing for the coming break-neck pace of life during the school year.

But this year, we're also getting ready for Kiara's first day of kindergarten. While I prepare for my middle schoolers, I imagine her kindergarten teacher seeing her name on a roster the same way I have looked at my students' names over the past 21 years. He or she is preparing the classroom and writing Kiara's name on a card for her desk, and making copies of information for us, and bracing for the coming break-neck pace of life during the school year.

I'm so thankful to be a teacher, because I know how that teacher feels, and I can't wait for my girl to start her educational journey at our neighborhood public school. Thank you, teachers, for all you have done to prepare for tomorrow. I'll try not to cry and to let her go have her experience. And then, after kindergarten orientation, I will head to school and greet all of my new students.

"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

What I Learned from Black History Month This Year: Part II

There were a few moments when I was organizing this assembly that I thought to myself, "Why am I doing this? How did I end up being in charge of the Black History Month assembly?" I said it to colleagues and friends in the overwhelm of organizing students and culling resources.

One of the obvious answers was that I have a hard time saying no particularly when it's something important or when it's a "teachable moment."

But being in charge of this assembly also forced me to ask myself: "What is my relationship to Black History? What do I have to contribute and learn?"

I knew from long ago nights of watching Eyes on the Prize with my mom that Black History was part of American history, a history of oppression, resistance, and iconic moments. But I also wanted to be careful not to appropriate this powerful part of history. I could identify with Black History as an ally, but as a multiracial woman who could pass, I could not claim it as my own. I had to acknowledge my privilege as someone who had never felt obligated to do something for Black History Month.

My thinking started to shift. Instead of feeling resentful for being in charge of this assembly, I started to feel honored. I was organizing something incredibly important. My students and their families were trusting me to do something with this opportunity and as an ally, I had an obligation to rise to the occasion.

It was with this shift in thinking that I thought about what Emerson's diverse student population could contribute and learn. I wanted all students to feel like they could speak up, so I showed a few powerful spoken-word pieces and hoped students would feel inspired. Then, at the Speech and Debate tournament, I spoke with Latrina Reed, the parent who started it all, and we brainstormed how the event might come together.

Then, it was SuperBowl weekend. Beyonce released "Formation" and her halftime performance and the media's response reminded me of how much people didn't know about Black History and our shared history.

LaTrina and I met again, and we started to see an assembly that could teach and push our students: not just the performers, but the audience as well. We agreed to show pieces on white privilege and The Black Panther Party. The cheer coach helped her students learn choreography for "Formation" and the drama teacher helped with microphones, staging, and lights. And when I spoke with my students about the assembly, they signed up. Students of all backgrounds agreed to a variety of levels of participation. Students signed up to emcee, sing, recite poetry, facts, biographies, and perform skits.

Before I knew it, we had prepared an assembly.

In my next post: Emerson's Black History Month Assembly and the conversations that followed.

2015 Blog Review

This is post number 33 for 2015. I hoped to post 4 posts per month, 48 for the year. It's the third most in a year for this blog and readership is pretty steady. Thanks for tuning in, y'all.

My third most visited post for the year is "The End of Our Fertility Journey." It summarizes the long journey David and I took to complete our family with lots of links to previous posts I made along the way. I hope couples struggling with fertility might stumble upon this blog and know that their struggle is one many couples share and that wherever they are on this journey, the only way out is through.

My second most popular post is part of my 12 Days of Blog Posts: "Two Kid Life." I introduce my 12 Days idea and describe the gratitude David and I try to feel as we live out our two-kid dream.

My most visited blog this year and of all time is "Fasting Again..." I've written a great deal about public education and the attacks from the corporate education reform movement. This post summarizes my one-day fast to show support for a school in Chicago. I'm not sure if it is the labels I posted or the desire for people to understand the subtext behind struggles for schools like the one going on at Dyett, but over 3,000 people visited this post, way more than any other I've posted.

There were three other posts that managed over two-hundred visits, so I think I'll link to them as well.  I think they do show that my blog is a little bit all over the place. After all, these are random bits.

"Remembering To Kill A Mockingbird" about teaching, reread, and writing about this classic American novel.

"Back to the Grind" about heading back to work after maternity leave.

"Culmination Address for the Class of 2015" about the end of my journey this past school year.

So, with that, 2015 is in the books. See you in 2016!

12 Days of Blog Posts: Can I Get a Day Off, Please?

Vacation with kids is no vacation.

Vacation with sick kids is no vacation.

Vacation when you get sick from your sick kids is no vacation.

And with that, I conclude 12 Days of Blog Posts! Happy holidays, all.

12 Days of Blog Posts: Road Trip!

Gantt and I have been making this drive for sixteen years. Our first drive from LA to Portland, Oregon was during spring break in 1998. That was when David first met my family. We've grown up so much since then. We've lost parents, and taken a long journey to parenthood ourselves. 

Tonight we're taking the trip with two kids in the backseat and driving through the night. We will drive a little slower this trip, knowing all we could lose.

Our winter drives usually coincide with winter solstice and this longest night gives us the chance to think about where we've been and where we are heading. 

With most of the year in our rear view mirror, 2015 was welcoming Gabe and completing our family. It was the awe of Kiara coming into her three-year-old self. It was exhaustion and trying to fit even more into full, full lives. It was absorbing a country at odds over #blacklivesmatter, an international refugee crisis, and a chaotic political landscape that too often leaves me feeling hopeless. 

But this past year's challenges taught me so much about who I am as a mom, a teacher, a writer, a coach, and a human and when we make this drive again a year from now our planet will have made another trip around the sun. Our kids will be one and four and 2016 will be nearly complete. I welcome all of the possibilities. 

12 Days of Blog Posts: A Conversation with Mom

Mom has been gone for a year and a half now, and I wish I could pick up the phone and talk to her about my daily challenges and then listen to her advice, her praise, and her take on current events. I knew her well, though, so I can almost imagine what she would say to me. She would most definitely tell me I'm working too much, that I'm a wonderful mother, and that she just can't believe these Republican candidates.

I remember when I was very young, Mom told me she was so happy when I finally started walking. She used to fear something catastrophic happening and she would have to leave me behind because she just couldn't carry me. I never knew how to respond to this, but this year, as the refugee crisis made its way across the ocean and onto our screens, I understood what she meant.

When I held Baby Gabe in my arms, or loaded him into a carrier, I couldn't get the image out of my mind, of a toddler boy's body washed onto the shore. The images of families torn apart as they flee violence and oppression haunt me. I can't imagine what I would do if we had to run away from our lives, what we would take, and then comes the guilt of the privilege I have in this peaceful, stable life. I begin to understand Mom's worry and now, I can't wait for Gabe to start walking.

I recently started rereading Toni Morrison's Beloved. It's one of the books I took from Mom's shelves. I turn the pages she once turned and we continue conversations through the books we both love. I remember us talking about Beloved when we were both college students. She told me I'd have to re-read it once I was a mom. "Then," she told me, "You'll understand." I'm starting to understand.

And if I take the time to listen, I can hear Mom tell me to keep things at work in perspective and to consider saying no a little more often. I can hear her tell me that Gabe is just teething and will get back to sleeping through the night; that Kiara will figure out how to get our attention without whining and feigning injury. I hear her complain about Trump and ask if I'm voting for Hillary or Bernie; to remind me that she has been fighting against war and guns and misogyny and we just have to keep fighting. Then she tells me she loves me and can't wait to see all of us for Christmas.

I hope she's listening too, so she can hear me say I love her too, and that she will most definitely be with us for the holidays. And maybe by Christmas, Gabe will be walking.

12 Days of Blog Posts: Two-Kid Life

Adjusting to life with two kids has been no joke. Trying again, to find a balance between parenting, working, reading, and writing has left me beyond exhausted. Gabe is an earlier riser than Kiara, so one of us is up early
every
single
day.

Increased coaching duties + an added prep for journalism + an increasingly anti-teacher, anti-public-ed, anti-labor climate + teaching about the refugee crisis = a teacher in tears (more than usual). The pile of books to read in 2015 has grown, yet the year is almost over and I've only finished a dozen of them. NaNoWriMo got me back to the page with one more draft to add to the back-log of manuscripts I need to revise.

But despite so much being all out of balance, I'm going to end the year attempting to make some sense of it all. Maybe twelve blog posts before Christmas will help bring some order to the chaos.

I'm counting yesterday's blog about my brother's punt return as number one, so here is number two and I'll keep posting up until Christmas and hope you'll read along with me. I'd love some company in my crazy.

Two Kid-Life: Living the Dream

Early on in our courtship, when David and I started having conversations about where we saw our relationship heading, we told one another we wanted two kids. Preferably a boy and a girl, but any two kids would make us happy. We would consider adoption, but wanted to try for kids of our own first.

After we got married, I thought I wanted kids right away, but there was grad school, and then there were travel plans, and then we had a new home. It never seemed to be the right time. It took an unplanned pregnancy and miscarriage for us to realize there would never be a right time, and we were ready to start our family.

It took a while, but after four long years, baby #1 came along, and then two years later a miracle conception brought us baby #2. Our little Nakada-Gantt family has been a long time coming, so how were we so ill-prepared for it to be so stupid hard?

After we brought Gabe home, in the chaos of both kids crying as we tried to get out the door we had to remind ourselves: this is what we wanted. This was our dream.

And we feel incredibly lucky. We know not every family gets the chance to fulfill their dream so when Gabe poops all over himself, the carseat, and me before we head off to LegoLand, we try to remember. When Kiara pukes in our bed and then in her bed in the middle of the night, we try to remember. When other parents glance at our chaos and nod knowingly, we try to remember. And when older parents tell us how much they miss that age and to enjoy it because it goes so fast, we try to remember. Within the chaos of our two-kid life, we try to remember just how incredibly lucky we are.

National Poetry Month: Life Poem

Yesterday's poem was a bit of a bummer, I know, so I'll try to lighten it up a bit. While writing Death, Life, Work & the Words In-Between, I learned that I tend to write pretty serious poems. Many of my students write about kale, the Illuminati, pickles, and raisins while others write about death, suicide, and serial killers. My poems definitely lean toward the latter, but this one isn't so bad.

"Morning Conversations"

Spring Day

A spring morning 

still in bed

with all of my loves:

the baby

the toddler

the partner.

A morning run 

after breakfast

under clear skies

still clean 

from the rain

of a few days ago.

A late-morning walk

for coffee

when the toddler notes

“It’s a beautiful day”

reminding you

that it’s a beautiful day.

A long nap

when we all sleep

and dream

and wake

taking a few moments

to reopen our eyes to the day.

An early bath in bright light

that floods our afternoon

and a cool breeze

under cloud-dappled skies

before an early bed time
on a spring evening.

Snapshots from 28 days Post-Partum: Our First Few Weeks at Home

Our new normal...

Here is my second post about my post-partum recovery. Click here for the first...

Home. Some women want to stay at the hospital for as long as possible and I can see why. Meals and pain meds appear magically and help is available at the push of a button. But I was anxious to get home. Going home meant no more nights interrupted by nurses and doctors, but more so it meant comfort and getting to see Kiara and beginning to settle in to the new normal of life as a family of four.

Days 3-5: My sister, Yukiko, and Dad stayed with us for these first few days which was an incredible help. Yukiko cooked and cleaned and held baby. Dad held baby too and although having him there reminded me of the loss and absence of Mom, his presence also reminded me of the preciousness of this time together. In terms of healing, I alternated taking ibuprofen and NorCo every three hours. I continued bleeding but not very heavily. My incision area felt numb but there was no bleeding. It was a challenge lifting myself out of bed or up from the couch with no abdominal strength, but I somehow figured out how to roll out of bed for late-night feedings. Baby-boy had his first check-up on day 5 and was putting on weight so we were looking good.

Kiko: best post-partum-helper ever!!!

Days 6-7: That first weekend home, exhaustion and possible postpartum depression started to seep in around the edges of my recovery. Lots of visitors, very little sleep, and nipple soreness had me cranky and wanting to be left alone. Nursing was easier the second time around only in that I knew what it required. It was still painful, particularly those first moments getting latched, but I knew i just had to get through this part and it would get easier. I started moving a little more efficiently with my compromised abs and at some point in here I weighed myself: 22 pounds heavier than I was when I got pregnant. Ugh.

Day 8: Baby-boy turned one week old and things quieted down a little. My sister and Dad flew back to Portland leaving David home to help. Kiara spent her days at daycare so I was able to get lots of rest which helped me feel less overwhelmed. After days of stool-softener and coffee the pipes moved! I can't say they were flowing freely, but we had movement that clogged the toilet.

Day 9: I walked half-a-block to get coffee on day nine and although I have no idea if there was a connection, I started bleeding from my incision that afternoon along with heavier bleeding (which had subsided to nearly nothing the previous two days). I called a nurse for advice and she wasn't too concerned but she told me if I developed a fever or redness and worsening to go to the ER.

Day 10: The next morning the bleeding was worse so I called the nurse back and scheduled an appointment to see an ObGyn that afternoon. The doctor checked out the incision, removed the surgical tape that remained and irrigated the wound. He collected a sample for the lab and sent me on my way.

Days 11-13: I tried to take it easy for the next couple of days to let the incision heal. I finished the NorCo and the ibuprofen alone was fine for pain management.

Day 14: After a nice walk to the farmer's market in the morning and feeling like I was doing better, my doctor called to let me know I had an infection and started me on antibiotics. Booooo.

Days 15-17: My incision was still bleeding and I still had some bleeding (last of the lochia?) but finally things started clearing up. Finally! Thankfully breastfeeding was going well and was less painful or I would have been a mess. David went back to work so Gabe and I settled into quiet days at home, nursing and binge-watching tv. I tried to write and read a little each day, but sleep usually won out over creativity.

Day 18-25: I tried to continue to take it easy even though I was feeling restless. Nursing sessions started stretching to two-hours apart and Baby-boy started sleeping more at night. I finished the antibiotics and figured I was back on track.

Day 26: Mysterious itchiness! I hadn't eaten anything different or used any new products but that night I started itching. It started at my knees, belly, and back. Itchy, itchy all night and the next day it got worse. I figured it was just hormone changes but who knows. The worse came when these hives hit my mouth and I looked like I'd had bad botox. I was convinced this baby had ruined my body and I'd be itchy for the rest of my life.

Day 27-28: The hives continued through the next day, but by evening my face returned to normal and the itching subsided. I was no longer bleeding. From anywhere. Yay! My milk production was good and Gabe started taking a bottle when needed so pumping allowed me to get a break from being the sole provider of nutrition which was a big relief.

So, after four weeks, I finally felt like I had my body back. Although it seemed like forever with that infection and a touch of the baby blues, overall my recovery was smooth but it only feels that way because it's over.

Snapshots from 28 days Post-Partum: The Hospital Stay

There is so much out there about birth stories, and pregnancy, and parenting but there is so little about the early days postpartum and the recovery for women. It probably has a little to do with the fact that new mothers are too exhausted, too caught up in day-to-day survival to take note of what those early days are like. And let's be honest, much of it is quite unpleasant to experience so looking back on it is no treat. But, while it's fairly fresh in my mind and body, I thought I'd try to capture my experience this go around. This first post is about the hospital stay and the next will be about those early days at home.

These posts are not for everyone. They will contain descriptions of bodily functions so proceed if you'd like. Here are a few snapshots from the first four weeks after the birth of Baby-boy.

Day 1: The immediate recovery after my early-morning scheduled c-section was all about getting Baby-Boy to latch and regaining feeling below the waist from the spinal anesthesia. Baby seemed to know what to do and latched naturally even though it was awkward to hold him because I couldn't sit up. Thankfully hospital beds prop up.

I was tired, but the adrenaline of the new baby and a steady stream of visitors kept me from sleep.

Initially my legs were completely numb, but feeling returned slowly after a couple of hours starting with tingling and then, suddenly, I could move them again. Nurses applied legs compressors to help with circulation. The IV kept pain meds flowing so I was comfortable and a little groggy.

 I was able to capture this moment from my hospital bed...
before getting sick.  

The rest of the day involved continuing to nurse and waiting for my appetite to return. I started slowly with water and then jello. Nurses took my vitals every two hours and I was able to stay awake and greet friends and family who stopped by to meet the boy.

A lactation consultant came in and gave me the latest advice for getting newborns to latch. Gabe found his way after a while and I was able to nurse in a pretty relaxed position for the rest of the day and night.

Apparantly, I wasn't ready for food. Twice that first day I threw up. The second time I managed to projectile vomit bright red liquid jello all over David (perfectly timed when the room was full of visitors, including Kiara). Awesome.

By the end of the day I was able to hold down crackers and juice. David tried to get some sleep, but with nurses in and out all night and baby-boy nursing most of the night, I was recovering but we were both pretty tired.

Day 2: The next morning a nurse removed the catheter and shortly thereafter I got out of bed for the first time post-op. After my first c-section, when I first stood up, I was caught off guard by the rush of blood. I didn't know anything about lochia shedding. This go around there was no rush of blood like I'd experience before and in general, my bleeding was considerable lighter.

Next, I made my way to the bathroom to start getting all of the water off that they pumped in me for the surgery. The bathroom was stocked with lovely mesh undies, pads, and chucks for me to where to soak up all the blood. I definitely needed all of it last time, but this time, not as much.

That morning the doctor removed the dressing from my incision and inspected the wound. For my first c-section, they'd used staples and this time they used surgical tape. She said things looked good.

For the rest of the day, I continued to nurse and get that skin-to-skin contact with Baby-Boy. My appetite returned and by the end of the day, I was ready to find out what needed to happen to get out of there and head home.

That evening I switched to oral pain relief, ibuprofen to start, and then NorCo which helped me get  some sleep that night.

Days 3: I wanted to get home on that third day and a handy chart on the wall let me know what needed to happen. These steps included things like lactation consult, hearing test, baby physical, and discharge orders. We took care of the paperwork for the baby and I continued on the ibuprofen and Norco for pain management. That morning, David and I walked with baby through the hall.

After a long discharge conversation with a nurse who gave us way more information than we needed about SIDS and baby care in general, we managed to get all of our items checked off. David picked up my prescriptions and transportation wheeled me to the car. My orders: take it easy, take pain meds as needed, don't lift anything heavier than ten pounds, and take care of that baby (which really means keep nursing so he gains weight). With that, I gingerly climbed into our truck and winced over every bump as we made our way home.

A Letter to Our First Born...

February 1, 2015

Dearest Kiara,

 

I am cherishing these last days with you, not because I won’t be with you any longer, but I know in ways you are likely to never remember: that you are our first, our favorite, our beloved only daughter.

Hopefully, you will feel that forever, just how special you are, how much love and laughter you have brought into our lives, so before the new baby joins us and completes our little family, I want you to know how precious these first years of motherhood have been with you.

You entered our world and have stayed so incredibly agreeable. Even though my expectations for how you would join us were unmet, you didn’t seem to mind being cut and pulled from my womb. You cried a little, the air a shock to your little lungs, your mother shivering on the table as your father held you, not knowing how to comfort either of his two women.

I looked for you, couldn’t wait to hold you, as they bathed you and struggled to take my blood pressure for what felt like forever when all I wanted was to feel you against my skin. And when they finally placed you in my arms, I couldn’t believe the love I felt immediately for this little girl. For my Kiara.

And in those early hours, when I didn’t wake you to feed you, when I slept and hoped I was doing it right, when, really, you needed to eat, and I wasn’t doing it right, you ate when I did bring you to the breast and you slept and responded to our shushes and swaddles.

And then I fed you, in a marathon of milk, when they told us you weren’t gaining weight, that I wasn’t doing it right, that it wasn’t about the milk production, it was just that I needed to wake you up and feed you every couple of hours. Even then you went along and you gained the weight and you and I, mother and daughter, fell into that unique space reserved for new mothers and their babies.

There was the exhaustion, the dawn feedings, the afternoon sessions, the evenings, when the day was nearly done and you figured out days and nights and started sleeping for longer stretches.

We traveled up to Oregon that summer to introduce you to my family, and to Bend, where I grew up. You traveled well and won the hearts of all of your cousins, your aunties and uncles, your grandparents.

You adjusted beautifully to daycare, where you made your first friends and we learned how to trust professionals who knew better than we did, who had done this so many times before.

And then, just as you were crawling, I tore my Achilles. And then the dog bit your ear forcing us to the decision we should have made long before: to re-home our dog and simplify our lives.

You turned one. You thrived. You started to walk and talk and you haven’t stopped since. You jump and hop and run. Your babbles have become words, phrases, and tall tales. I have loved hearing about what is going on in that head of yours.

You have been excited about the little brother about to enter the world. You gently tap my belly to say hello, apply little kisses, and imagine baby brother wants to dance and sing and play with you. You have already decided that your Super Sister t-shirt is your favorite and anxiously await Baby Gabe's arrival just like we do.

But in these last days that you are our precious only child, I will breathe in your energy and enthusiasm and hold on to my absolute and boundless love for you, my favorite little girl in the world.

Gratitude: Kid Birthday Parties Are Easier Than Labor

My dear friend Randy Hyde has been working on a happiness project that started with his 30 Day Experiment and has evolved into a 545 mile bike ride. He started it after seeing Shawn Anchor's TED Talk where he shares five daily tasks for finding happiness. You'll have to check out Randy's blog for all of the tasks, but one of them is identifying three things you're grateful for. This is one of the easier of the five for me, and after Kiara's second birthday I was feeling particularly grateful.

Kiara gets a kiss from Tavi, and a suburn...

#1 David and I survived the baby part.

Kiara has turned two and we have officially negotiated our first two years as new parents with varying degrees of success. Breastfeeding and sleep training are a distant memory and now it's terrible two toddler tantrums. Yep. Those are so much better than sore nipples and sleep deprivation. Grateful.

#2 Kiara is an extremely nice kid.

She played with her friends at her birthday party, and even though her mom forgot to apply sunscreen, she barely complained about her sunburn. Grateful.

Note to self:
Cupcakes means you don't need a cake.

#3 Planning a birthday party is so much better than going into labor.

Planning kid birthday parties isn't easy. There is the food and the cake and entertainment. There are the comparisons I cannot help myself from making to the wide variety of friend birthday celebrations we attend. We tried to keep it simple, but in the end it was still a lot of work. But I wouldn't trade this for labor. Nope. So much easier. Grateful.

If anyone has any hints for simple kid parties, David and I would love to hear them.

52 Poems: Week 15 "Haircut"

So, for National Poetry Month my students are working on collections and I am working on poems about motherhood. If you read last week's poem, you will recognize a few touchstones in "Haircut" in this call of words poem about those first snips of  Kiara's hair.

Haircut

by Noriko Nakada

Inspired Pablo Neruda's “You Will Remember”

Today I cut your hair

for the first time

just after your first birthday

because of Filipino tradition.

I consider keeping

those precious wisps of hair

like tiny feathers between my fingertips

and tying them up in ribbon.

I can hardly believe you—

the girl molded like clay

in my swollen womb—

are this little person sitting here now.

But the morning is busy

so I watch your feathery wisps

wash down the kitchen sink

and float away in silent water.

Thanks, Village.

I never read Hillary Rodham Clinton's It Take a Village, but after this first year of parenthood I am so appreciative of the village David and I have around us. We have our families and friends and the virtual community who has supported every moment of Kiara's well-documented first year. So, thank you.

Thanks for helping us prepare for our baby-girl before she came. Thank you for welcoming her when she arrived, and for providing parenting guidance in those early, frightening days, weeks, and months. Thanks for celebrating every little milestone along with us and for putting up with the over-exposure of KHarp on social media. We love our little girl and know she feels the love of this village. Thank you.

A Life in Revision...

As this past March came to a close, I knew life would be changing with baby on the way and Overdue Apologies finished. I decided to take advantage of an opportunity to workshop my writing with Lidia Yuknavitch (whose memoir I wrote about in January) even though I would be overwhelmed by life with a newborn.

Kiara came into our lives before I could submit work, but in the past two weeks I've had the chance to send her work and in an email exchange she said of childbirth, "what a revision it is of all the chapters of your life."

In that one line, Lidia captured precisely how I'd been feeling since the moment Kiara arrived. She changed everything. I'm not sure who I am as a writer, or a woman, a teacher, a mother, a wife, a daughter, or sister. Everything has a new context. All is subject to revision.

I don't even know who I am as a blogger! Is this a mommy-blog, a craft-blog, a baby-blog? I don't know anymore, and although I've been writing Kiara's birth story, I'm not sure it belongs here. And with David starting his own Daddy blog, I'm not sure how much of my baby-girl I'll be posting, but she has arrived, and she has changed everything. We'll see if I figure any of this out come next blog post.

Fertility Update II...

It's been a little over a year since my last fertility post and that's how long it's taken.

Infertility sucks.

But with some help from two different healthcare providers, unimaginable medical advances, a lot of poking and prodding, a dozen or so shots to the abdomen, and a specialist with a curly straw on a Saturday morning, we've got something brewing.

We are thankful for all the support from friends and family throughout this time and we feel quite lucky. This journey has opened our eyes to how hard it is for so many couples, but people say it's all worth it.

We hear our lives are about to change (early in April) and that's both scary and exciting. We're scared. We're excited. Please, wish us luck, unless you are supposed to say break a leg. I have no idea how this parenting thing works.

Really? I'll be happier without kids? No kidding...

Come on, look how happy I am with my niece and nephew.

I was on my way to meet good friends the other day, stuck in LA traffic, and this Freakonomics program was on the radio: "The Economists Guide to Parenting." David and I are getting pretty serious about trying to start a family so I gave it a listen. Hey, even though we're not parents yet, I might as well get a head start.

The show had economists applying rational economic theory to child-rearing and family planning. They talked about the investments parents make in their children (piano lessons, soccer camp, organic produce...) even though they are likely to have very little or no return. A couple economists argued that you should be a more chill parent so you and your kids will be happier. All of it was very interesting, but the part that stuck with me as I crawled along Fairfax was the scientific study stating that married couples without kids were much happier than married couples with kids. Really? David and I are happier than all of our married counterparts with kids? Can someone remind me why I want to have kids?

Anyway, I met up with my friends and their almost-two-year-old son. I thought about how happy I was not having to take care of a kid during lunch. I watched little Keanu's parents take turns walking with him, coaxing him to eat, or drink or nap and though I'm pretty sure his parents still had a nice time, it also looked like a lot of work. And still, as I got back into my car by myself, I knew I agreed with those economists. I know it's irrational to want the craziness of being a parent. I can't explain it, but when I talked with David about the story later that evening, we both knew, without a doubt, starting a family is what we both want. So, look at us now, we're pretty happy, but wish us luck. We hope to be less happy very soon.