She makes this face…

…when she isn’t happy to be in Baby Jail.

But she has to stay in there sometimes when I’m folding laundry or watching Orange is the New Black while blogging.

(I’m kidding. I don’t watch that show in front of her.)

(I’m lying. I do. I’m a terrible mom.)

(But seriously, this show is addicting.)

I set up an email address for her last week, which is late in coming because I wanted to get it all set up right before she was born. The plan was to send emails there with pictures and stories and thoughts so she can have it when she is older. But of course that didn’t happen and Chris doesn’t know what the big deal is because “Risa, she’s still only nine months. I think you’re fine.” So whatever, I guess I will have to start it now only I have yet to send her anything so far.

I need to be writing down these things. Like how her favorite thing to do right now is climb me. Crawl over, smoosh her face against my boobs (I think that part is purposeful) while she gathers her feet under her, and stands proudly, bonus points for letting go with one hand and wobbling. Which is completely adorable, but since that’s literally all she wants to do now, it makes it very hard to get things done while she’s awake.

Another thing that just about kills me is how much she loves her Touch and Feel books. She’ll sit there quietly while I read, daintily scratching one finger (just one) on the fuzzy parts, and then will politely sit back while I turn the page.

She’s also into those square books that show one picture with the word below. I got one from her pediatrician visit and it’s all just pictures of animals and she. loves. it. Probably because I try (badly) to make the noises. Have you ever tried to imitate an elephant? I try to read her other more stimulating books like Llama Llama Red Pajama or Outlander and she’s all like, see ya!

But really, it makes me happy that she is actually interested in books now. I mean, reading is such a big part of my life. It’s my favorite past time, it’s something Chris and I like to do together and it is my one way to get my mind off of worrisome things. I always hoped my baby would like to read as much as I do.

And seriously. Look closely at these last three pictures… Notice something consistently in the picture?

Toby.

You can see him, or some part of him in every picture I take. He loves her. He’s obsessive. He’s slightly obnoxious, but I can’t fault him, because seriously, with a face like that, would wouldn’t want to stand creepily behind it and pant?

In other news, I (or Chris rather) purchased my domain name last night for the new blog. You guys. I have my own web page. I’m like, important now.

If you didn’t see my post about all these changes, you can read about it here.
I admit, I started getting cold feet about all this. First, there were the messages over the last two days. Everything from “I hope you’ll still keep this blog up!” to “Don’t leave! Please stay in this space!” And while I am humbled by all the sweet comments both on here and on Facebook, it also makes me wonder if I’m making the right decision.

Which of course I am. I had some good discussions with other bloggers and even they admit with a blog title like mine, it’s hard to break out of infertility blogging. I’m not sure if my post was clear. Actually, it was kind of all over the place and I know that’s something I shouldn’t say about my own writing, but I think there are some of you who are getting the wrong impression.

1) While I may be switching to a different web site, with a new title and blogging platform, my writing will remain. I’m still going to talk about Olivia. I’m still going to talk about infertility and IVF and donor eggs. But I will have the freedom to talk about other things too.

2) There are no plans on me leaving this site open indefinitely. My plan is to keep it open for a few months to give everyone who wants to follow me over time to find the new site. But then this will go into private mode. The point being that I don’t want it to sit out there while the same content will be on my new blog. Plus, it’s a gold mine for spammers.

3) That being said, the plan is to move all the posts on here, all the comments, everything, over to the new site. There will be an infertility tab so that people can still have access to my infertility journey.

4) The Facebook page will remain the same. No need to go and “like” another page to get the post updates. Only instead of my blog title, it will just be my name. So absolutely nothing more will change there. I have received several friend requests on Facebook because people saw I was turning the page to my own name and wanted to follow me over, maybe not realizing it was my personal page and I haven’t made the change yet. So, I felt bad because obviously I didn’t send a good enough message.

I hope this clears it up. It’s a huge change for me. For awhile after I switch over, it’s going to be a lot of work gearing my writing back to people who would want to search for Who Shot Down My Stork?. So I’ve been talking with my techie husband about SEO and keywords and blah blah blah. Even last night when he was talking about the importance of putting SEO into my posts I interrupted him saying, “This is so confusing. All I want to do is write.” But he reminded me that I am essentially starting over in the search engines for people to find me. Whew. That’s depressing.

So it’s been a bit stressful, but again, I have the domain purchased, and we are almost to the point of picking a host for the site. Once that is done, then it’s on to creating the site itself. I need to take this step by step, not unlike what I did during infertility treatments.