A Different Conversation About Breastfeeding

This is not a post about the Time magazine article.

All I will say about THAT is to each his own (or her own in this case).  We don't need to fuel the fire of mommy wars with articles like these.  I have no problem with a woman choosing to nurse for 3+ years, but nursing your kid for 3+ years does not make you a better mother than someone who went to work 8 weeks postpartum.  Everyone's decisions that they make for their own family are OK and there's no need for one group to be fighting with the other.  We don't need a Working Mothers vs. Attachment Mothers.  We should all just be MOTHERS and be in this together.

So, moving on to another conversation about breastfeeding.

Most people can rattle off a whole list of benefits to breastfeeding both to baby and to mother, especially in the early months when baby has no immunity and uses mother's antibodies exclusively to ward off disease and stay healthy and when mama uses breastfeeding both to help her uterus contract back down to a normal size and to help lose a little baby weight.

And most women have a strong desire to give breastfeeding a go with their newborns.

But nobody talks about the other reason to breastfeed that has nothing to do with the health of mother or baby.

Breastfeeding as Birth Control.

Breastfeeding (let me specify ON DEMAND breastfeeding) has been used as birth control for centuries (we could even say thousands of years here).

Royalty has always used the LACK of breastfeeding to pop out as many kids as possible knowing full well that keeping the baby on the boob would delay the next royal heir.  Many devout Catholics use this anti-breastfeeding as a tool to have more children as well.  You can bet your ass Michelle Duggar does not do breastfeeding on demand.

Hunter gatherer tribes do the opposite.  They keep the baby on the boob FOR YEARS so that they don't have millions of children.  It works beautifully.  I don't have exact statistics for you guys but let's just say Irish twins (siblings less than 1 year apart in age) are unheard of in hunter gatherer societies.

Given my history and my possible PCOS I feel that breastfeeding is the only tool I have in my arsenal to have any choice about how far apart in age my children will be.

To refresh the memory of the masses I ovulated exactly once on my own in the year and a half that we were TTC and it was 8 weeks after a miscarriage.  

PREGNANCY WAS LIKE A MAGIC RESET BUTTON FOR MY OVARIES.

While it's possible there were other factors that led to my spontaneous ovulation I firmly believe it was the pregnancy and I feel strongly that I can ovulate soon after a pregnancy has ended in the future.

But I don't want Irish twins.

I'm aiming for 2 years apart.

But I don't know if I can ovulate more than once.

So, enter breastfeeding.

I NEED to be able to breastfeed in order to keep whatever ovulation may or may not happen at bay for at least a year.

If I stop breastfeeding at 2 months and I ovulate soon after.  WE HAVE TO TRY FOR BABY #2 AT THAT TIME because as far as I know my ovaries have a very small window of opportunity to pop out eggs on their own.

And I don't know what my window is.  Is it one cycle?  2 cycles?  More?

The only information I have to go on is that my periods ceased 6 months after I stopped my pills BEFORE we were TTC and were irregular the whole time leading up to the complete stoppage.  Unfortunately I wasn't temping so I have NO IDEA if I ovulated at all coming off my pills.  What I do know is that 6 months later I DEFINITELY was not ovulating.

And I know I ovulated ONCE after a miscarriage.  Luckily once was all it took to get pregnant again but I have no idea if I would have ovulated more than once had a pregnancy not taken place.

Unfortunately I also know that the first pregnancy did not leave my ovaries cyst-free, I had an ultrasound to confirm my uterus was clear a few days after the miscarriage and they were still polycystic but apparently they were just clear enough to pop out an egg.

I know there's a lot of skepticism about BOD (that's Breastfeeding On Demand) WORKING as a tool to delay ovulation, but I believe strongly that it does work.  It's an evolutionary tool after all.  

Evolution is amazing that way.

Tori Spelling, Michelle Duggar and Rosie Pope getting pregnant just months after popping out a kid do not count as using BOD as birth control....I guarantee they were not.  They were probably hoping that whatever amount of breastfeeding they were doing would work, but I'm certain they were not BOD. 

Cause you have to do it right.

Scheduled feedings will lower the effectiveness of this working.

Pumping can lower the effectiveness.

Basically anything that doesn't involve your boob being there whenever you baby needs it will lower the effectiveness.

But I'm ok with that.

Even introducing solids at 6 months, which is customary, can lower the effectiveness.

But I'm ok with that too.

If I make it to 6 months exclusively BOD with no ovulation and suddenly we introduce solids and I ovulate?  FINE.  We'll have kids 16 months apart.  IT IS WHAT IT IS.

I'll control what I CAN control and leave the rest up in the air.

If we get to a year and a half and I'm STILL not ovulating?  Time to cut the kid off the boob and see what happens.

Control what I can.

Of course this means I've just put a ton of pressure on myself to be able to breastfeed, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT?  I think of it as motivation rather than pressure.  I AM GOING TO DO IT.

I'm going to pretend I'm a cavewoman and if I can't breastfeed my baby THEN MY BABY WILL DIE.  No pumps, no bottles, no formula will be in this house.  IT'S BREASTFEED OR BUST.

Otherwise we have to deal with the rigmarole of going to the RE again and as much fun as that was it was way more fun to get pregnant like normal people.

So, I open this up to discussion, what are your thoughts on BOD as birth control and any of you plan to use it as your sole form of birth control post baby?

Things We Don't Talk About

We don't really talk about the baby.

My pregnancy, yes, a baby resulting from said pregnancy, no.

I know that I am emotionally scarred and too terrified to start talking about a pregnancy in terms of a baby.  The future in regards to the pregnancy and baby is Jan. 19, ultrasound day, and not a day farther.  As though not talking about it somehow keeps it from being real and if it's not real then it can't be ripped away, and it's becoming clear that my husband may be experiencing something similar.

I'm pretty sure it's normal, even in these early weeks to have discussions about the baby's sex and maybe even begin throwing names out there, just to see if the other person is on the same page as you.  After all, it's supposed to be an exciting new time and what's the harm in starting to prepare early?

We did this with the first pregnancy, as we got closer and closer to that monumental 12 weeks, we began talking names and gender. We concentrated on boy names, since I was getting a very strong boy vibe from my uterus and even decided on a few that we liked.

I had also begun crib hunting online, since they always say it takes months to get a crib I figured I would see what was out there.  I came nowhere near a decision, but I looked.

Once I even took a walk through the stroller section of Target.

We were tiptoeing, but at least we were moving in the right direction.

With this pregnancy I don't know when we'll do all these things.  But I know we're not doing them now.

We've never talked about the gender of the baby.  There have been no, It's a Boy! No, It's a Girl! "fights" that many couples have.  I'm getting a boy vibe again, but I've never told Dom that and he's never asked.  The honest to god truth is that it doesn't even matter enough for a discussion.  We don't care.  At all.

We've never talked about names.  Why would I want to name something I might have to give up?  I'm glad we didn't know the sex of Baby A and I'm glad we didn't name it.  How much harder would it be to lose a son or daughter than just a baby of unknown gender?

We've never talked about what goes in the nursery and what needs to be done to make it a nursery.  We've in fact barely been able to call it the nursery again.  Most of the time that we've been in this house waiting to have a baby it's been the designated "crap" room, then it spent a brief few months as a nursery and then became the crap room again.  We've just barely, as we approach 10 weeks started calling it the nursery once more. Again, it's like if we begin making plans for a nursery then it's all "real" and it can all be taken away.

We have tickets to the Olympics in London next year, they're in August, the 2 weeks before my due date.  Consciously we know if all goes well we cannot go on this trip since I'll be about to give birth.  But we haven't made any moves to sell our tickets.

I think we're kind of frozen. 

Will Thursday's ultrasound change things for us?  Will be able to look farther into the future after that?  I don't know.  I do not know what emotions seeing a heartbeat at 10 weeks will bring.  After all, it's only a week and a half farther along than Baby A, is that far enough past that point to get excited?  To let our guard down a little.

Only time will tell.  2 more days...just 2 more days.

A Short Blogging Break

I have to take a little blogging break guys.

My reasons are twofold.

One:  My MIL arrives tomorrow.

She will be here with us for 2 weeks and I feel like I'm supposed to entertain her rather than sit on my computer blogging about my feelings.

It is my mission in life for the next 2 weeks to be a good hostess.

I know...I dream big.

Reason Two:  I have a few things I need to sort out in my head that keep getting confused when I sit down to blog and when I read other infertility blogs.

Sometimes I can feel myself being in a really positive place, I can imagine a future healthy pregnancy and a life with children and everything is looking up.  Then I start reading infertility blogs and suddenly I'm in a much darker place, that place where thoughts of recurrent miscarriage overwhelm anything positive that I was feeling and worry and despair take over.

I love reading everyone's blog and I appreciate that you read mine in return, but I need a little break, a break from all the heartache that as a community we've been dealt too much of.

So, MIL is in town and I am stepping away from the world of infertility for 2 weeks.

I hope to have found the peace I'm looking for (yes, peace only takes 2 weeks to find) and I will come back in the New Year ready to face my infertility as well as all of yours with some positivity rather than the despair I am feeling lately.

Here's hoping I come back to tons of BFP's from you all and as few stories of miscarriages, stillborns and BFN's as possible.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Giving Back

I would like to do something nice this Christmas.

It has been a shittastic year to say the least but as they say, time heals all.

The pain from the miscarriage and death of my grandmother have lessened with each passing day, and while I will miss them both for as long as I live it's nice not to have that dreadful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that comes along with SO. MUCH. GRIEF.

I know that even though we've been dealt a lot of crap this year there are still others that are so much less fortunate and I need to get my perspective back about what is actually important during this holiday season.

We have a roof over our heads, we are financially stable, we have vehicles that run and we're healthy...aside from the whole infertility thing.  This is NOT the time to sit around feeling sorry for ourselves because there's others out there that have it SO MUCH WORSE.

It's time to do a little giving to others.

So, I'm asking all of you, what is your favorite charity to give money to or favorite way to give back during the Holiday season?

Worst. Year. Ever.

Just when I thought 2011 couldn't get any worse, it's decided to throw some more shit at us.

I was at another funeral last week.

Someone who became like a second mother to my husband passed away from breast cancer.

She meant a lot to him and it's all I can do to keep from crying and be the strong one when I see his eyes glistening with tears as he speaks about her.

That was the 3rd that I was waiting for.  Because bad things come in threes.

Miscarriage. Grandma. Dom's American Mom.

I was hoping it was over.  That all the bad was over.

And then, unexpectedly, I got news that my friend, the one that was due just a week before me, lost her baby at 20 weeks.

There are no words.

I was jealous.  Jealous that she was still pregnant while I had lost mine.

I was dreading her due date almost as much as mine.

And now, now her baby is gone too.

And my heart aches.

After going through one yourself you can never hear the word miscarriage and not have a rush of emotions come back to you.  It's like living it all over again.

Those first few days of soul crushing, mind numbing grief as you mentally try to come to terms that you are no longer pregnant and there will be no baby.

I am no longer jealous, I am now thankful.

Thankful that if we had to lose our baby that we lost the baby at 12 weeks.

But my fear of pregnancy has increased by like a thousandfold.  There really is no time during a pregnancy when you can relax is there?

I've never been so ready to say goodbye to a year more than I am to 2011.

2012 can not get here fast enough.

In Loving Memory

After much deliberation, much confusion and much indecisiveness, it has finally been decided that the memorial service for my grandma is tomorrow.

Back up to Oregon we go.

Feel free to drop by and leave a little note for my grandpa here if you happen to know me IRL.