Piper Holds the Poo.

Because sometimes you have to help out and hold the poop bag. No matter how cute you are.

Chunky Field Monkey

Breastfeeding: Please Don't Confuse Me Doing it With Liking it

So, here's my thing. I am DONE breastfeeding (WAY done). However, I never got the chance to write about it. I figure there is no time like the present (because Piper is sleeping at this moment) so here goes:

The first time I cried about my boobs, I was 13. A girl in my class announced that I was flat-chested and my crush sitting beside her couldn't help but laugh and agree. It was pretty earth shattering stuff. So earth shattering in fact, that before bed that night, I went home and PRAYED TO GOD for boobs. I kid you not. I begged the big man for knockers. It seemed reasonable at the time.

The next time I cried over my boobs would be about 17 years later, after the birth of my daughter. For me, the decision to breastfeed was a no brainer. My Grandma had done it. My Mom had done it. My sister had done it. I would obviously do it. People say it's better for the baby and that it is so "natural".  Besides, it would totally help me lose the baby weight. Right? Totally. It would also help form the most special bond between Mommy and baby and having just gone through years of infertility, I was beyond ready. Who wouldn’t be?!

The first time I threw my daughter on the boob was about 5 seconds after giving birth to her and she ate easily for 20 minutes. I instantly connected with my inner cave woman. It really was so natural! Breastfeeding was my bitch!

However, that first feeding would be the last easy one for the next five weeks. Every day was the same. Excruciating pain and undeniable dread filled me. Every time she cried for food, I cried for my boobs. They hurt SO freaking much. My daughter had an insatiable hunger and a shallow latch that even with the use of my own personal lactation consultant and a nipple shield (which I used for 5 whole weeks, by the way), did not help the pain. Not to mention the milk blisters and severe pain of engorgement. I was so overwhelmed and couldn’t help but feel very alone.

All day, my thoughts screamed, "How is something so natural, SO FREAKING PAINFUL?!" and "WHY GOD, WHY?!" and "I’M GOING TO KILL EVERYONE WHO TOLD ME THIS WAS EASY!"

Staying inside all day to be a food machine was hard on my mental state but going out in public did not help matters. My daughter was not a calm baby. The best way to comfort her was with a big dose of warm boob milk but the struggle get her latched on was ridiculous. One day at brunch, it literally looked like I was wrestling a squealing baby pig underneath my hooter hider. How did these women do it? What was the damn secret? Everyday I became increasingly miserable for dreading the beautiful miracle of boob food.

The last and final kicker came when breastfeeding did not yield the model-like weight loss results that every stupid article everywhere told me it would. No, but thanks for the endless articles on it, world. Really, thank you. Breastfeeding may make some girls super slim but breastfeeding made me HUNGRY. And even if my diet was awesome and filled with organic everything - eating an entire organic pizza is no way to get ready for a non-maternity wardrobe. In fact, a few weeks after I stopped breastfeeding completely, I lost 5 pounds with ease.

Now, I'm not saying not to breastfeed. No way! I did it for 8ish months (emphasis on the “ish”) and I'm so insanely proud of that (emphasis on the "insane"). But I wish I had more realistic expectations going into it. I can't lie and say that it was magical for me. It wasn't. Sure, I had good moments throughout – like not having to make bottles in the middle of the night and the exceptionally cuddly days - but that was really it.

Mostly, it was a hassle that wreaked havoc on my mind and body. To me, nobody should have to see their nipples crack, turn bright red or wake up in a pool of milk night after night after they’ve just been pregnant for the better part of a year. They shouldn't feel trapped to their couch or like there is no use in putting on a tank top that doesn't already have breast milk residue lingering.

I wasn’t the biggest fan but I did it and would I do it again? Yes, because my body allows it and science tells me it's good for my kid. I'm all about taking one for the team but this time I would know that not everyone is a mush ball over this bonding experience. Even when it gets easy (which, I swear it does) it isn't necessarily rainbows and puppy cuddles. It's a constant, never ending job and that's OKAY.

Every child is different; every mother is different. So even if I roll my eyes before grabbing my boppy and breastfeeding my child, please don't judge. I love my daughter and if anything, breastfeeding has just made me enjoy the stages AFTER even more.

xoxo
L 

Mommypage.com

Mommypage.com printed my breastfeeding article...whoop whoop!

Link below:

http://www.mommypage.com/2015/06/breastfeeding-please-dont-confuse-me-doing-it-with-liking-it/

17 weeks!

Well, we've made it far enough to get a bump, so I guess I'll post. Aaaaah, still kind of refusing to believe this is real.

I'm 17 weeks here and my friend is 33!

Feeling: sad about no kicks or flutters yet, but excited for my early anatomy scan tomorrow!!! 

Symptoms: body acne! It's terrible. Poor sleep. But no heartburn this time and like I said before, no kicks. Hopefully soon:)

Craving: cream cheese and pb/j sandwiches.

Xoxo

L

My Recipe for the Perfect Family.

I'm a dreamer, an imagine-r, a stare out of the train window for hours-er. In moments where my brain is free, my mind floats away to the moon and when it does, mindless, endless ideas and lists form. It's something that occurs, like the morning sunrise, nothing I've ever planned. As a kid, I would list to-do's that I hoped to accomplish, but likely would not: History paper, Math homework, get a ride to volleyball, warn Mom and Dad that I'm probably failing French.

As I got older, the lists got older too. Errands, work goals, dreams, aspirations. Sometimes, if there wasn't a list to be made, I'd find myself rerunning a conversation in my head on repeat - my wandering mind never knowing how to rest. Yes, I realize that me talking about this might have you running for a xanax, but I actually barely notice it and who knows, maybe it's a really great brain exercise - or undiagnosed OCD. 

 

Then, two Wednesday's ago when I was showering before work, my mind wandered and listed as it tends to do. I didn't notice anything strange at first until I was toweling off and realized that I wasn't listing my to-do's anymore. I was listing stuff that had already been done. Stuff I'd already gone through. I was listing the major hurdles I had to overcome in order to grow my family.

septum surgery
IUI 
IVF 1
IVF 2
FET 
blood loss (during delivery)
D&C 
D&C 
natural pregnancy # 1
Miscarriage
natural pregnancy # 2 
please.please.please.letthisoneworkout.

So, there you have it. That's how you make a family.

It was something of a recipe, really. A little recipe that yielded one daughter thus far and always ended in a little hopeful begging because you see, I'm pregnant right now and for me, being pregnant has never been a carefree, happy time in my life. Instead, it has been filled with a lot of heartbreak, a lot of emotional roller coaster riding, and a lot of pushing the negativity into outer space and focusing on the complete picture. I am lucky because all of my hard work has not been without reward. My frozen embryo transfer gave me a daughter. A perfect daughter. And I promised myself that I would try very hard to give her a sibling. If it doesn't work out, she will know how hard I tried and in some way I hope that consoles her. 

So, as of now I am still in this phase of life where one tries to multiply their love with their spouse to create a little family tree. As much as I would love for the pressure of this all to be over, it is not. And so, I list. I list our journey over and over. A tortured mantra. A poem of empowerment. A prayer of some sort. Maybe I'm proud of everything I've gone through or perhaps just deeply scarred by it. Either way, it's my story. 

 

I wasn't always like this. Like most people I was really excited to have a child initially. It is my nature to be optimistic and jump into massive life decisions with deliriously positive abandon. Everything would work out! We had already been married a couple years and couldn't wait for the adventure to begin. These were obviously going to be the best days of our lives!

Turns out life was pretty great before. I never understood how hard some people have it. I never had to. But let met tell you, when you're in the waiting room of an infertility clinic and you can barely find a seat for the 57th day in a row, you find out a lot of people have it hard. There are basically 400 scientific miracles that must go perfectly every time someone gets pregnant with a healthy baby. When people call it "the miracle of life," it's probably because they've been through the mud.

For me, it started with a misdiagnosis (who has a T-shaped uterus anymore?), then correct diagnosis and subsequent surgery to remove a rather large uterine septum (goodbye, nature's birth control). This was followed by a failed IUI and two cancelled IVF cycles due to slow embryo growth and crappy eggs. Each of these things take an eternity, by the way. Lastly, I had a frozen embryo transfer where I placed two embryos in and was lucky enough to have one grow into my beautiful daughter (but not without 12 weeks of spotting and bleeding, hypothyroidism, bed-rest and a threatened miscarriage).  During delivery with her, my placenta adhered to my uterine wall (because why should anything be easy?) and I lost a LOT of blood. Two surgeries ensued and voila, I was a Mom. 

Who wouldn't want to go through all that again?! 

Right now, I am naturally pregnant. This will be my second natural pregnancy actually - the first ending with a miscarriage at 8 weeks, 5 days. On the first day of my in-laws visiting from across the country. While they ate pancakes on our dining room table and I cried alone in the bathroom upstairs. 

So yeah, everything is hard.

Infertility and pregnancy struggles are a very lonely place. Even if the waiting room is filled to the brim at an infertility doctor's office, nobody talks. It is eerily quiet. It is serious. The air is heavy with sadness and loss. Everyone offers half smiles while silently counting down the minutes until they never have to come back. This was not a club that people wanted to join. 

It is for that reason, that I would never want another person to look at my family and see something that isn't true. This did not come easy. This did not come without a fight. I wish I could wear this list on my chest. I wish fellow strugglers (and even non-strugglers for that matter) could know my family-making recipe because if they are going through even just a fraction of what I did, I would want them to feel less alone and give them the energy to keep going until everything is in the rear view mirror. Once it is, maybe we can all wave goodbye to these days together.

This is my family recipe. What is yours?

xo,
Laura

Hilton Head: A wonderful family getaway

This past week, our little family went on a getaway to Charleston and Hilton Head, SC. Here's what I learned:

A one and a half hour flight is enough. Piper has never been a child who knows how to sit still and I have to say, boarding time plus flight time plus exiting the plane = just shy of the amount of bag of tricks I have for Piper. So basically, it's short flights from now on.

Stay at the place with a kitchen. Hilton Head has a ton of options of where to stay. However, we stayed at the Omni Resort because the rooms were spacious and had mini kitchenettes. We made a quick stop at Whole Foods and Piper was set. Waffles for breakfast, fresh almond milk in hand, and a sink to wash out sippy cups. Hooray!!

Get the babysitter. Babysitters are scary for me, but after a very simple vetting process (does she have rescue dogs-yes? YES!) through an island nanny company, we were off to have FOUR hours of sweet freedom to swim and frolicking about the grounds. It was well worth it...and Piper was surprisingly cool with it.

Balcony. Balcony. Balcony. Where else will you go when baby girl goes night night?! To your refuge. Your safe place. The balcony!

Here are some of my favorite pics: