Breastfeeding

I was so worried about breastfeeding. Would my overly biopsied left boob do the job. Would it make milk? Would the milk ducts be blocked or would they work? Would it make enough milk for baby?
YES.
It did. I read a nice article while pregnant about a woman who had 5 children including a set of twins, who fed all of them on one breast. (She had a childhood accident involving a bad burn on the other side of her chest.) It was inspiring and left me hopeful.
So it started a bit crazy, my nipple seemed flat and almost inverted. The nurse showed me a nipple cover that would give baby something to grasp onto. I used it for her first 9 1/2 weeks and wanted very much to wean her off of it so that I could more easily breastfeed away from my little corner of the living room. I started to try to wean her as per the lactation consultant's advice, and try it slowly giving her the chance to latch first and then take it away once the milk was flowing. I tried that for a few days once a day and then amped it up to almost every time I fed her and then she refused to use it all. She only wanted the boob. She forced me to go cold turkey! Ack.
But it went very well and as long as I remember to put lanolin lotion onto the nipple after every feeding I am experiencing no adverse effects.
Or is it affects? How am I to know? I have studied the definitions and worked my brain silly and still have no idea if it is effects or affects. Alas.
A few days ago Fred and I introduced Ken and Diana to our favorite breakfast place, Barrone and our favorite classy Goodwill, Goodwill. :) I actually fed baby in the car! Wow, and it worked and we stayed out for longer than 2 hours. It was lovely.
Today, as it is Thanksgiving, we are once again venturing away from the home and I will be feeding baby out. I've never tried the boob cover, so will probably use a bedroom. It's nice that she is such a fast feeder. About 10 minutes is it.

Baby - 11 Weeks

As baby grows bigger we are figuring more out. She doesn't like a wet or poopy diaper for long. It must be changed. She doesn't like to be doing nothing and needs held or entertained, but then not for long and wants to be put down again to play by herself. She hates to nap and almost never does and then when she does it is only for 20-40 minutes and only when being held and rocked. Too bad if you have to go to the bathroom, she will wake up and not go back to sleep. She sleeps for about 2-3 of these small naps a day and that is about it.
But! She does sleep really well at night. From day one she has slept in 5 hour chunks. Usually from around midnight until 5 and then after a feeding, she will sleep again for another 3 hour chunk. So I have not had the sleep deprivation that so many people talk about, because I have gotten a 5 hour sleep every night since she came to us.
I love living where we live. I can put baby in her baby bjorn and walk her to the grocery store or the coffee shop or just a quick walk with people all around. Downtown Mountain View is a great place to be with a baby. I don't feel alone or cooped up because there are so many walkers on Castro street for lunch and so many stores to window shop.
Emily is very beautiful, everyone says. We say whenever we see other people's babies, how beautiful she is and what a good job we did.
I am so happy I found flylady before having baby. I keep things pretty well straightened here. I "take a lick at a snake" as the saying goes and whenever things aren't making me happy I fix them up. If I'm disturbed about the state of the stove, I wipe it down. If there are lots of crumbs on the carpet or the living room floor I vacuum or sweep. If the place begins to look sloppy I set the timer for 15 minutes and do a straightening. I keep the sink empty and clean during the day and most nights I do all of the dishes and shine it up before bed. I've been "flywashed" and clean for myself, not as a martyr but just because I know it will make me happier if things are the way I like them. I have also learned that it takes less time to just fix something up than it does to feel stressed and complain about it. It only takes me about 10 minutes to do the dishes.

Baby - 11 Weeks Old - So far

It's almost baby's first thanksgiving. We'll be visiting a coworker of Fred's and I have only to make stuffing! Easy peasy, I'll be making celery onion and apple stuffing in the slow cooker.
It has been an interesting 11 weeks with baby.
Fred was off the first 3 weeks of her life. We managed pretty well together but I was so worried for when he was to go back to work. Thankfully I only had a few days alone with him at work before Connie came. Whew! She helped with baby when she screamed during the night holding and bouncing her to ready her to eat as I pulled my boob out and placed the little plastic nipple cover on.
Then Bill came for a few days towards the end and they were sleeping in the living room. Connie on the couch and Bill on the folded over 2 inch memory foam cover that we had purchased for our bed. Even cramped, it was a nice arrangement and glad to have them over.
Then a few more days alone with baby and my mom came. Yay! She was able to manage through the plane ride, to her own consternation. She has claustrophobia and stress induced asthma and was worried that she would panic. But she held it together and made it here. Then stayed for 3 lovely weeks. It was nice, we got to walk together with baby and leave fred home with baby and go to breakfast etc... The she went home on the train, not wanting to face the airplane again. Not a pleasant 51 hour train ride so it seemed. Uncomfortable with people falling over you as they sleep and loud snorers. Overly expensive crappy food etc...
And then there were three again. But now it is Thanksgiving week and Fred has off Tuesday through Sunday.

Baby Emily Born! - Part II

After the Epidural was plugged into my back the pain mercifully waned significantly. Whew! It went from about a 9 with lots of moaning to a 5, then a 3 and I could talk through it again and I began to relax. But now I felt absolutely nothing in my bottom half. My legs were mostly numb and I could barely lift them. The nurse came in to rotate me every hour or so and I had a catheter put in. Definitely became the patient. But it was a blessed relief! I was supposed to try to get some sleep but I kept shaking all over, which is a common side effect about half the time. But I did sleep maybe an hour or so maybe twice. Another vaginal exam at 3:30 and I had become 4cm dilated and all the way effaced and then at 5:30 I was 9cm and mostly ready to go. But I guess they keep you waiting a bit to be more ready. The nurse shift changed and this amazing male nurse came it. (At my birthing classes for the hospital the midwife said that there is one male nurse in the labor and delivery section and that he is amazing.) So I was happy to see him. He gave me a great tutorial on how to push with lots of good examples, and actually laid on the floor and showed me how to hunch my body.

Then my doctor came in and we did a few practice pushes to see how things were going to go and the nurse gave me a few more tips. My doula was holding one leg up and the nurse the other. Alas, Fred had run to Peet's to get some coffee for the doula and some breakfast for himself and apparently stopped by the apartment as well! So we texted him to get back quick. He got back at 9:25 and the baby came out at 9:48. The pushing was actually not hard. Of course it didn't hurt at all and it was weird to have no reaction from the body. The nurse had turned the Epidural back to 50% a while before so that I could get some feeling back, but there was almost none. He asked me what my exercise regime had been during pregnancy and I was glad I ignored the advice of "Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy" which said exercise meant nothing during pregnancy. I told him that I had been doing 1-2 water aerobics classes a week, once a week strength training through week 36, once a week prenatal yoga, and a great exercise video once a week. He was very impressed. He thinks that's why I was able to push baby out in less than an hour. Which ended up being very good since she had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

So, Fred was there and baby came out pretty quick and the pushing didn't hurt and the stitching up the tear didn't hurt (until a little later, whew!) and baby was out.

Baby Emily Born!!! -- Part 1

As I sit here at 1:42am and have a pump attached to my left breast and overhear baby waking up, I wonder how long it will take me to finish writing this post!!!
Wow, I've had to rethink everything that is important and reduce my current life down to two goals. Feed baby and Get rest. That has to be it, because that's really all there is time for. So far...

The pregnancy was pretty easy, I didn't throw up at all and my nausea feelings were only for about 5 weeks and merely uncomfortable, not debilitating. I never had to run out of a grocery store or a restaurant from the smells. A few foods began to seem gross to me so I just stopped eating them for a few weeks and then they were fine again.
My stomach got big and stretch marky but not too big and not too stretch marky.
I gained an appropriate amount of weight and am optimistic that with work I can get mostly back to the way I looked before. Hopefully.
And now time was passing and baby was supposed to come into the world, On August 30th.
But she didn't, she hung around and now it was September and the doctor has decided to schedule an induction. This makes me nervous

Break: It is now 2:44am and we have tried unsuccessfully for an hour to get baby to latch onto the breast. Lots of frustrated baby screaming and sad-faced mommy and daddy later. She won't. Alas. After a little collostrum from a previous pumping fed to baby with a spoon and some formula to augment my sad one boob, Fred and baby are back off to bed and I am continuing pumping. The lactation consultant said I must pump every time baby eats so my breast can keep up with what demand would be if we weren't augmenting.

My birth plan was to try to avoid an epidural and work with the body through the birthing process. I read that once you begin the epidural you become a patient instead of a participant in the birth and I wanted to be more attuned to my body, etc... We hired a doula and she was going to help me with relaxation techniques and the process. I knew that getting induced made the epidural much more likely because the contractions would come much closer together and be more intense more quickly than in natural birth. I wasn't sure if I could take the pain.

Turns out I definitely could not take it!!!

The hospital called with a free room on Sunday morning. It was nice to get a full night's sleep before what I knew would be a really long 24-28 hours and then next three months!!! We stopped at the Country Gourmet for breakfast and got to the hospital at 9am. The doctor started the induction medicine that gets repeated every 4 hours until it works. By 8pm it was working. I called in the doula and she got there and helped me walk through and breathe through the contractions as they got stronger and closer together. Fred tried to get some sleep at 11pm on the little fold out chair-bed in the corner. I tried sitting in the shower on the birthing ball and using the hand held shower to relax my back as the contractions came. It was warm and comforting. But by 1:30am, the contractions were 1 and a half minutes long and coming almost every 30 seconds. There were no breaks in between. The nurse did a vaginal exam and there had been no change in my progress!! After almost 4 hours of contractions, my dilation was still only 1cm and I was only 50% effaced. The same as I had been at the doctor's office a week and a half before!!! Since you dilate about a centimeter an hour on average, and I had no idea if my body would go any faster than that I realized that there was no way that I could keep it up without pain medicine.

So, we called in the anesthesiologist. Luckily he was available right then and could come in and hook me up.

Going to save my poor boob for a later pumping time and continue my story later!!!

Pregnancy 34 Weeks 5 Days

Baby is almost here!! She could come whenever she wants I expect but it is better for her to stay all of the way to the end. (The end is August 30.)
It is getting a bit more awkward. Sometimes it is hard to walk because her head is jammed into my pelvic bone. Sometimes 5 minutes after peeing, she starts to push her hands into my bladder and I have to pee again. Such a strange feeling. After our flight to our Babymoon in the south, in June, my ankles and feet have started swelling and no matter how long I try to keep them raised, they seem to stay swollen. The only shoes that fit now are the Birkenstocks with the straps loosened to the last holes. It is challenging to bend over and to close the door to the car once I've gotten in and to pull my feet up high enough to put my pants on. I can't reach my tennis shoes to tie them when I go to the Y without grunting. But, I have no back pain, no food aversions or cravings, no queasiness or nausea, not bad hemmorhoids, not bad indigestion, not bad constipation and, based on all the crap that could be bothering me, am pretty lucky.
I'm getting good exercise though. I go to the Y on Mondays for strength training, Wednesdays for Aqua Aerobics and Sundays for Prenatal Yoga. I do my perfect pregnancy workout video on Fridays. It is one tough video. My weight is pretty good, so far 27 pounds, which is within average as per my graph which allows 3 pounds the first trimester and an average of a pound a week thereafter. I'm only 2 pounds over my dashed line.
My boob is apparently looking better according to my OB. I read a very inspirational article about a woman who breastfed her 5 children, 2 of whom were a set of twins, with one working breast. It gave me lots of hope.
We hired a doula to help out with the birth. She will come when I call and help me to know when to go to the hospital as well as help me throughout the birthing process with pain relieving techniques and advice and calming ways. It has relieved so much of my fear of the birth and I am hoping to not use an epidural. My doctor is skeptical about all of this though, I think she things epidurals are great and why not use them. But from what I've read, it takes you from being an active participant in your labor to being a patient who has to have lots of stuff attached and is basically stuck in the bed lying down the rest of the time and I want to move about and feel things and help baby out with my positioning etc... Of course I am not in the midst of any birthing pains right now and may feel very differently when the time to make the decision really comes. But right now, I am hoping to not do the epidural and I know the research shows that the Doula helping out makes that much more likely to happen.
I'm staying pretty well informed, reading 4 pregnancy books and "The happiest baby on the block" as we prep the apartment for baby's arrival.
We have the changing table and the co sleeper and lots of Ikea storage stuff for everything I'm getting from my showers. Got the yoga ball to sit on when I get too restless on the chair with my feet up. Practicing my flylady techniques to keep the apartment clean and dust free and to get the cluttered areas cleaned up so that the nesting that's supposed to kick in soon shouldn't be too bad.
All is well!
Also, think I didn't mention in the 20 week stuff that we have a name picked out.
Emily Katherine Gilbert.
mKat for short.
Initials EKG.

Pregnancy!!! - 20 weeks, 2 days

I suppose after the somber craziness of the post the other day, I should update. The doctor called and none of the biopsies showed cancer, and the skin scraped from the nipple had some bacteria. Which made him rethink the infection hypothesis. So, he put me on antibiotics and we cancelled the follow up "open breast biopsy" for now. Thank the Lord, I was not looking forward to that at all. If the antibiotics work and the boob is no longer swollen, warm to the touch and reddish, then yay! all in the clear. If not, we reschedule the crappy biopsy and keep looking for cancer.

Good news so far.

Going to have another ultrasound on Monday, hope it is still alive, and is still a girl. :)

Pregnancy!!! - 20 weeks

A few weeks ago my left (not the one that had cancer) breast became a bit pink/reddish and felt warm to the touch. I noted to mention it to my OB, but was not that concerned, as I expected craziness in the boob area as pregnancy brings that on.

When I showed her, however, she said it did not look normal. That it looked like a breast that was nursing and had become engorged and infected. She mentioned a CANCER SURGEON, which I thought was weird. We scheduled an ultrasound. Of course the ultrasound people wanted all of my previous MRI and Mammogram results. We were in the midst of acquiring all of that information on CD from my previous institutions as I did more research.

Ah, the anxiety provoking internet.

It seemed that I either had a breast infection, not a big deal and treatable with antibiotics, OR the signs of Inflamable Breast Cancer. That is a bad, BAD cancer that usually has spread by the time you found it and has 25-50% 5 year survival rate, and high recurrence rate. I was very scared.

After getting back in touch with the OB, she suggested that I go straight to the cancer surgeon and look into a biopsy and second opinion since that kind of crappy cancer can really only be seen with a biopsy anyways and the ultrasound would only show "suspicions that need to be followed up on" as every scan seems to do with my history and waste time.

So, I called the surgeon's office yesterday and he made time to see me that same afternoon! He seemed perplexed. He didn't think that it was Inflamable Breast Cancer (which is good, since it has such a bad prognosis) but he didn't think that it was an infection either. The nipple had some crusty stuff on it and was somewhat misshapen. This was abnormal, and possibly a sign of DCIS, an in situ cancer that has not left the ducts or spread and is therefore not nearly as threatening as many other kinds of breast cancer. He said that we should first do a couple biopsies and scrape the nipple (!!! ow) for skin and test those things first. If no cancer is found, then we would do an OPEN BREAST BIOPSY (which sounds really scary, hence the capital letters) in the surgery center (as lactating breasts bleed a lot and he didn't want to do that in the regular office) and then if that was negative, we wouldn't worry. We tentatively scheduled that for next Thursday.

I had the biopsies and nipple scraping today. He must be great at the numbing, because the only part that hurt was the numbing needles (which always hurt, because duh, you're not numbed yet). I was SO worried going in today, that it would hurt like crazy, as all of my other biopsies have. But, I was pleasantly surprised that it did not. Although a few hours later it is starting to hurt.

I'm sick of cancer and boobs and worry. I guess I should get the genetic testing done so that we'll know more about how likely it is to come again as well as how closely to watch the ovaries. I feel like cutting everything out (ovaries) and off (boobs) after baby number 2. The anxiety is a lot to handle.

It has been nice having so many people pray for me though. I let my bible study ladies know, as well as other friends and have felt lots of loving support.

Pregnancy!!! - 15 weeks

So, finally pregnant.

We'd decided to try plan B by the summer. A dear friend said she didn't mind being an egg donor for us and we thought it would be great if at least one of us could be genetically involved in the baby before trying adoption.

But I was putting off all of the work involved. We would have to find a lawyer and have papers drawn up and signed by both parties. I was also worried about the egg retrieval, whether it would hurt her or not, she was offering to do this and I was so impressed. I was relieved to have a plan B, so many people just try and try and try and get more and more discouraged, but we had a second option and I was getting more used to it. I was going to write a children's book about it helping to explain it to my kid early. My heart was not fully in it yet, but I was trying.

One of the hard things to take was admitting that the kid wouldn't have me in it at all. Not my eyes or my nose or my (I must say a gift from my mom) perfect toes.

But a plan B was better than no plan.

But, it seems unnecessary!!!!!!

I am now 15 weeks pregnant.

Of course very trepidatious as we approached the 8 week ultrasound appointment as the last two showed an almost empty placenta just sitting there. I was shocked to see a heartbeat! Such hope. (And savings as the egg donation, IVF procedure would have costed about 30k.) I knew (from my extensive online research) that the risk of miscarriage was down to about 2-3 percent now. Then at the 10 week ultrasound down to 1% and now at the 13 week down to less than 1%.

But still lots of people faithfully let me know about their or their sister's or friend's much later miscarriages. In the 18th or 20th or 24th week. Making it seem normal and very plausible. I smile and admit I'm still nervous. BUT PLEASE STOP TELLING ME!

The nausea has about left, mostly. And it was not that bad after all. I've always been nervous that my pregnancy would be like my mom's. She kept no food down for almost the first 6 months. Always weak and throwing up and feeling terrible. But, nope. I had some nausea from week 9 - 14 and it is about gone now. Only one incident of throwing up, after an ill conceived desire to drive down the twisty Route 1 to San Simeon and then eating a pretty heavy dinner. Ugh.

The stomach is getting bigger and the pants getting snugger. I've had to invest in looser yoga pants, from Target and the Goodwill. And ask a few folks for their old pregnancy clothes. I could buy new ones, but why? I checked out Craig's List too, there are options.

A little back pain the end of the first trimester but that is actually subsiding a bit, when I had expected it to continue and worsen the whole 9 months!

I've been tracking my weight on a nicely drawn graph in a little notebook. Only 6 pounds the first trimester, which I think is pretty good.

I got a great pregnancy exercise video (ha ha about 2 years ago in anticipation at the library book sale for $2), The Perfect Pregnancy Video. It is amazing, so well done and makes me sore for two days afterwards. I need to do it more than one time a week, but so far for the last three weeks have only done it once a week. I also go to the Y and do a very short strength workout on a few machines, seated row, pull down bar, overhead press, chest press and leg press, once a week. It takes about 12 minutes and I've not missed a Y workout for the last 4 months. (Body by Science)

I've also walked either once or twice a day for 30 minutes around the neighborhood. I hope this is keeping me in moderately good shape.

I asked the Y and they said that they will watch your kid while you workout for up to 2 hours a day!!! That seems like a great way to schedule some relaxation time into my week once the baby comes.

Still subbing a bit. The days that I do, I usually need a nap, even when it is an easy day.

I'd say all is well!