Elizabeth

Sending love to you and hope that your treatments for cancer are going well. And it totally gets better once kids can talk! When you can teach some simple sign language signs. The ones for “more” and “all done” changed our lives and our kid picked them up so quickly at daycare when he started at 16 months. We didn’t think to teach it to him earlier. My nephew used the sign for “milk” before he started talking – so cute signing “more milk.” Our kid didn’t really start talking a lot until he was 2.5 years old so it was a long guessing game of why he didn’t like something. Lane Rebelo’s book “My First Book of Baby Signs: 40 Essential Signs to Learn and Practice” is excellent. It’s in the form of a story so it’s nice to just read it as a bedtime book.

You have received a lot of great advice about things to think about when deciding to have a kid or not. For your “friends who seem so isolated and blah” make sure that you are still in touch with them and doing things with them so that they don’t feel so isolated! I don’t know in which way they are now blah – some of us are still trying to figure out how to dress our reshaped bodies so our clothes may be blah and our hair is weird now – sorry. Perhaps they are blah because they are sleep deprived and/or stressed and therefore could benefit from seeing a good friend and hopefully they will feel better and become less blah as time goes by. If you find your friends who are parents blah because of what they do or what they talk about, then perhaps you don’t want to be one too. If any of your relatives have kids see if you like hanging out with them because they might give you a good estimate of the personality of your potential kid. Freeze some eggs if you have the means and want to see how you feel later. Heads up: You may not get many eggs to freeze per cycle and there is no guarantee that any frozen egg or embryo will result in a baby. I’m very happy that we have our 4 year old but it isn’t a requirement and it isn’t for everyone. Good luck deciding!