Soy cappucino

(That's what I'm drinking now. I made it myself with my fancy-shmancy coffee machine that my mom once got as a gift. It's not very good.

My youngest, Nomi, is 8 months old and she's been miserable for about 7 of them. She's had rashes, we thought she had colic, we thought she had reflux and allergy tests last week showed that she's allergic to eggs, milk, sesame and cats. (Hey, we only tested a total of 6 things.)

[I tried, I really did try to drink it, but I just got up to pour it down the sink. I hope the sink isn't in a vengeful mood...]

So, since she's exclusively breastfed & refuses any solids, we know the allergies have passed through my milk. The doctor told me to avoid dairy products, eggs and sesame. It might not sound so tricky, but the idea of soy milk disgusts me and my husband (who does most of the cooking around here) is a vegetarian (no fish either)... This leaves me with nuts, grains, fruits & vegetables (pretty much, though I'm also avoiding peanuts)... and here I was thinking that breastfeeding protected my baby...

Nomi is the miracle baby of my dreams. She was conceived so fast that she's only 12 months and 11 days younger than her sister. She's also the one who makes me realize that it makes no difference how long you wait. No matter what, you're ready to do anything you can so your baby will be healthy and happy.

Guilt...

I'm definitely guilty of not updating my blog frequently enough. I have plenty of reasons - all 4 of my girls have had some virus that makes them vomit. Nomi (7-1/2 months) had a wicked case of bronchitis. My husband test-runs his weekly lectures on human factors on me & has been under a lot of pressure to finish his dissertation proposal. I'm taking a course in decision-making this semester (for me, it's a correspondence course, since I can't make it to any of the lectures)... and the list goes on. Oh yeah, I try to work. Any of my clients reading this would tell you that try is the right word. I work in bursts, whenever I happen to find some time. That's why my emails are usually sent around 1 am...

FertilityStories has gotten a lot of updates lately & some candid new stories.

Scientists from the Reproductive Research Centre at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio found a correlation between heavy cell phone use and low sperm count.

Peter Nagy, of Reproductive Biology Associates in Atlanta presented results of his study at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in New Orleans showing that women born to older mothers were more likely to suffer from infertility. Scary... I would like to understand why this is and whether the older sisters of these women were, in fact, less likely to have trouble conceiving... I would also like to know what percentage of daughters born to older mothers suffered infertility as compared to those born to younger mothers - and whether there was any difference if the child was a first child or not...

How do you treat news like this and does it change your feelings about fertility treatments?