11 Weeks!

I CANNOT believe we are 11 weeks today!! The time is kinda going by really fast, which I LOVE! In 29 short weeks, we will be meeting our sweet boy or girl and I can't wait!! Christy had an Dr. appointment today and she has LOST 6lbs this month! She said not to worry she has lost anywhere from 17-30lbs each pregnancy!! :-O!!! OB used the doppler and said everything sounded perfect!! Have a listen! :)  Heartbeat


Just what I needed to hear today! Next up? NT Scan on WEDNESDAY!!! Yup, just a short wait until we get an ultrasound, yippeeee!!!! Enjoy your weekend everyone!




 

Lactation Nation: Chronicles of Induced Lactation Post 1

Thank you to the lovely Nini for giving me this awesome series title, it makes me laugh every time I think of it!

OK.. So, as I have said several times, I planned on inducing lactation to breastfeed this baby. My goal is to exclusively breastfeed for AT LEAST ONE YEAR! This will include Christy pumping colostrum and breastmilk for us in addition to me pumping too. In order to induce lactation, I had to start on a medication protocol of progesterone (the same drug that is used to support a pregnancy such as crinone, pio shots, or in my case PROMETRIUM taken orally) AND a drug called Motilium or Domperidone. This medication is used to treat motion sickness, but was found that a side effect it had was causing lactation in women AND MEN. As soon as I was reasonably sure things were going to progress normally with the pregnancy, I jumped in there and started my pills.

 You start off on 1 Prometrium pill ideally at night (DO NOT take this during the day if you want to be able to function, OMG I learned that the hard way!) As well as 40 mg (4 pills) of Domperidone a day. After 7 days, you up the dosage of "Dom" to 80mg (8 pills a day). You are supposed to do this for AT LEAST 2 months, but ideally 6 months so you can have the full effect. Also you are not supposed to pump until approximately SIX WEEKS before baby is due. This plan would not work for me for several reasons.

1.   I have no patience
2.   My previous breastfeeding experiences were MORE THAN SUCCESSFUL, meaning I produced enough milk to feed a small village! (NOT KIDDING)
3. In the event I couldn't pump a full supply, I wanted to start stockpiling.
4. I have no patience (yeah, I know I said that already!)

So I started on the protocol and waited for the changes that are supposed to happen. (Your boobs grow about a cup size bigger AND become very tender all the time!!) I started noticing a tingling feeling approximately 1 to 2 DAYS in to meds.... Just for kicks, I tried to see if I could express a drop. To my surprise I got about 5! I was super excited! So excited in fact that I texted a pic of my drips on my fingers to Bobbie! (She is my official "Milk Buddy" since we are inducing lactation together!)

 She was very encouraging and that really pushed me to keep going. I love having a buddy to go through this part with! So then I noticed the cup size change about a week after that. I was anxious to try pumping but was scared I would mess something up. (After researching, I realized I couldn't mess anything up, as some women exclusively induce just by pumping) I would say about 2 to 3 weeks of meds later and I felt like I was going to BURST! I decided to give pumping a try. Now the actual pumping schedule is something like every 2-3hrs for 20 minutes at a time. I just wanted to casually pump when I had that painful full feeling. So on my first pumping session I didn't keep because I take a blood pressure medication for pre-hypertension and it is NOT baby friendly. So I had a few sessions of pump and dump (throwing the milk out! Yes this pained me beyond words!) So I decided to cold turkey stop my meds and ask my Dr. for a breastfeeding friendly bp medication. I waited about a week to 10 days of stopping my bp medication and then started gearing up to pump and KEEP! My first session of pumping to keep I produced this:

 That is about 2.5oz!!! Not a bad showing at all! I am sure you noticed one bottle has more. Apparently just like before, one side is going to be my slacker side and one side is going to be my overachiever side! The overachiever is ole righty! After this, there was no stopping me! I started pumping one time a day at night and drinking LOTS of water and juice during the day. I can tell when I have had lots to drink because I FEEL it almost immediately! I have also had to purchase a couple of nursing bras because the girls are not OK with being squished in to one of my regular cutie bras.. Annnywho, so I have been on my pump once a day schedule now for a couple of weeks and I continued to see progress:

This is about 3.5oz, so definitely building up a little bit of a supply! I decided NOT to pump yesterday because I didn't feel like it (LOL!) and I was feeling kind of blah and tired.. I slept terribly last night and had pains all night in the girls! By this morning I was dying from not pumping and super engorged, so I am at the point now that not doing it is no longer an option. Today when I got up, I immediately got my supplies and headed to my "pumping station" or my chaise in my reading spot in my room, LOL! When it was all over 15 minutes later I had this:

5.5oz= BOOYAH!

So far that is a record, but I am sure it was due to me not pumping at all yesterday. My norm for the day is about 3.5oz to 4oz, nowhere near the 28oz to 30oz a baby will drink per day (Thank you Med.ela for putting that info in the pump booklet!) So knowing this, that is part of the reason I wanted to get ahead of the game with pumping so as of today, this is my stockpile:

 Not a bad start, huh!? Most of these bags have 1.5oz-2oz in them with the more recent ones having 2.5oz to 3oz. I plan on having MANY of these bins full by the time baby makes his/her debut! I am a looong way off from 30oz a day, but I am hoping to be close to that by September or October! I will update on my progress along the way! Wish me luck!


 

10w3d

Seriously little one, make up your mind!! These were taken like SECONDS apart, what in the world!?!?!:

  Followed by this!!

 Color me CONFUSED!?!?! This baby is a trickster already! :)

 

10w1d

Happy Saturday everyone! Nothing much going on still.. I know bummer.. I asked my sister-in-law if I could use her name on my blog. Previously I hadn't because she hadn't told her work yet. But, she told them yesterday so tah-dah! Christy has been feeling the effects of morning sickness pretty much everyday. Sometimes it is coupled with a headache and being extremely tired, other days take your pick of two.. Today is just headache and tired (not sure if that is better than morning sickness!) I am hoping once we hit the 2nd trimester, that this will all alleviate! Each week (Friday!) she sends me a belly pic, so I can make a scrapbook for the baby to share this amazing journey when he/she is old enough to understand. Friday is my favorite day of the week for this reason! I usually get a belly pic AND a pic of the heart-rate!

Speaking of heart rates, this baby's has been all over the place! It's anywhere from high 130's to high 150's! So my theory on boy or girl is shot! I was totally convinced it is a boy but the other day when Christy checked it was higher than 150 so I am back to "I dunno" LOL! Time seems to be going super slow and fast at the same time, I don't know if that makes sense, lol.. We hit 10 weeks yesterday so 1 more week until we have another OB visit (six days now!) No ultrasound at this visit (not really liking the laidbackness (yep that's a word!) of Christy's new OB.. How can you go so long without an ultrasound??? Boggles my mind.. I guess after you are used to dealing with RE's you have to readjust to OB's way of thinking, but dude, 20 weeks? That's just insane.. So I am guessing they will just listen on her belly for the heartbeat and do whatever else they would do at this visit.. We will find out when the NT Scan is at this visit so hopefully it is just the next week and we will finally have a detailed ultrasound and see what is going on in there! Then our plan is to do the 3D (or is it 4D) ultrasound package so we can find out the sex. We will do that somewhere after 16 weeks but before the 20 week ultrasound the OB has scheduled.. So that's about it for now in baby news! Working on my next set of posts, involving inducing lactation.. Stay tuned!

 

 

9w1d

Nothing new to report, so that's a good thing! "C" is still feeling sick most days or puking. Not good for her, but is a sign of a healthy pregnancy (or so I have read) so I take that as a good thing although I feel terrible for her. She is also very tired all the time. I am hoping once she stops the meds in 2 weeks that this will subside some. If you have to be sick, at least do it with your energy intact, ya know? Heart rate still not loud enough to record for us yet :( but I know that day is coming soon. Still working on cleaning and DE-cluttering lots of nook and crannies and whole rooms! And today I am taking a break to go see Hunger Ga.mes with my youngest son! I am sure he will ask me can he drive since he passed the permit test but NO, is the answer. Since he did it online he has to go pick it up at the DMV.. Just because you TECHNICALLY have a permit son, doesn't mean the police will ACTUALLY let you off if you were stopped. Nice try though. LOL! That's all for now, enjoy your weekend everyone!