Reflections on Cycle One in the Midst of Cycle Two

We waited until July to start our first cycle.  S and I are scheduled to take a belated honeymoon/extended trip without Peanut in November, so we wanted to time the process to line up with the second trimester of pregnancy during our trip (not the third), in case I should happen to get pregnant on our first try.  I'm nothing if not an obsessive planner at heart.

So I enjoyed the month of June with an occasional beer, some yoga classes, and all the summer breeziness I could muster, trying not to let me excitement/anticipation of the beginning of a new pregnancy get the better of me.  I didn't succeed.  I actually spent too much time staring at the calendar and counting the weeks (end of first trimester, telling people, vacation, end of second trimester, maybe one more trip to S's homeland, Peanut turning two, baby's birth, my parental leave).  I fantasized about reducing my work hours to spend more time with both kiddos.  I read pregnancy forums on the Internet.  And on and on. 

I went into Cycle One having built it up so much that I was holding back tears on the actual day of the insemination (July 31 / CD 20).  My body was overrun by too many hopes, plans, dreams, wishes, fears all wrapped into It Has to Work This Time.  Anxiety coursed through my body from the day S gave me the "trigger shot" to induce ovulation until the moment the insemination happened. And ultimately I didn't get pregnant.

I didn't think about what would happen in this scenario.  At all.  In June, I foolishly booked a flight to go visit a dear friend over Labor Day, not even considering I might be TTC at that point.  I now realize we can realistically only try one more cycle - right now - in order to be in the second trimester during our honeymoon.  Which means I need to cancel my Labor Day trip.  If it doesn't work this time, our next attempt will have to be in December.  DECEMBER.  It feels like an eternity from now, especially with Age 35 looming over the horizon of 2015, with the straight family friends with a kiddo just 3 weeks older than Peanut having welcomed their second kid already, with wanting to get the heck out of the Big City and move to a smaller city already, with wanting to quit our jobs and open our own business, with OMG my previously good insurance denying all the claims from the clinic and my copay went up to $50 per visit (and there are a LOT of visits) so how can we afford this, etc.

It has been hard to keep my optimism up.  I've been gloomy and moody, and frustrated with myself for setting up my own ridiculous expectations and "plans."  I'm trying to remember there can be no expectations in this process.  Things will happen when they happen.  I'm trying to get out of my head and focus on gratitude.

Here We Go

S and I took the train together this morning to our old fertility clinic - two years to the month since Peanut was conceived.  It was a blue-skied, fresh Spring day, and the morning light made everything seem lovely and full of promise.  I felt butterflies in my belly as we walked the familiar block from the train to the clinic.  We met with our wonderful doctor again, who has since had her own little one.  She was so kind and supportive, and indulged us in our many stories about Peanut.

Everything about the meeting reassured us that the right time for us to move forward is NOW.  I'm excited and eager to start the process!   

Number Two?

A few weeks ago, a colleague shared some significant news with me about her life, her subsequent plans for the upcoming summer, and how it would impact my own summer workload.  I discussed it with S as we worked in the kitchen that evening.

"I think this news is embedded with a message to me," I mused.  "It has some significance for my life.  I've been thinking about it all day, and I can't quite figure out what it is."  I continued to cut up fruit for our lunches the next day.  S worked his way through a mountain of dishes.

"Maybe I'm supposed to to try to get pregnant this summer," I finally speculated.

"Maybe," S responded neutrally.  The truth is, we've been toying with the idea of having a second child for several months.  We've gone back and forth on the question, unsure about the right thing to do for our family.  On the one hand, the thought of having a second child spending ten hours per day in daycare and just a few hours per day with me and S just makes me sad.  We don't have enough time with Peanut as it is, never mind if we were to add a newborn to the family.  Plus there are significant financial questions to consider, the constraints of our limited living space, and the fact that we've been seriously exploring relocating in the next year or so.  Now that I'm not breastfeeding any more, we've settled into a nice, comfortable routine with Peanut that affords us more sleep, more quality of life, and more ease as she becomes increasingly independent and capable of communicating with us.  I'm enjoying the way things are now.

And yet, I can't stop looking at the siblings all around me.  On my commute to work, at the playground, in the historical fiction I read.  In fact, I just today finished a book that is built around the story of love and connection between a brother and sister.

I've been seeing signs everywhere.

I decided to talk in confidence with another colleague of mine, who had two babies in quick succession during the past few years, to get some advice about being a parent of two.  She spoke directly to the fears that had been consuming my mind for months.

"I was so scared I wouldn't have enough space in my heart or my life for a second child after having the first," she said.  "My first child cracked me open in ways I never expected and my love for her was so big.  I didn't think I could love another child just as much.  I was so wonderfully surprised when my second child was born.  My heart got even bigger!  I quickly realized my for each of them individually was amazing.  AND I love them together."

My chest filled with emotion.  We talked about our relationships with our own siblings and how a positive sibling relationship - nor any relationship at all - was not a guarantee.  And yet, we agreed that to have another person with whom to navigate origin family relationships is an incredibly special thing, especially when that relationship is a good one (i.e. a person to deal with all the *stuff* S and I will inevitably put Peanut through!)  We talked about the logistics of juggling two kids and how important it is to have support.  We talked about how to handle a demanding work schedule and the different ways we can create space to spend time with our kids and still maintain a fulfilling career.  The conversation, to my surprise, ended up very quickly revealing to me that I am ready.  Really ready.  I want to try to have another baby.  Now.

S and I continued discuss our fears and excitement during the next few weeks, and (not surprisingly, given how we tend to be pretty in sync about big life decisions), decided it was a good time to move forward. We checked in with our cryobank to see if the donor we used to conceive Peanut still had vials available (YES).  During my annual appointment with my GYN, I spoke with my doctor about our plans and she, too, was incredibly supportive.

I went ahead and made an appointment with our clinic for later this month.  We are tentatively ready to board the baby-making train again!  

Ebbs and Flows

As you know, the frequency of my posts here have wound down to zero per month.  And I'm okay with that.  I've learned over the course of my ten years of on-and-off blogging, this is a pretty common pattern for me.  I keep up the writing for a while, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately.  Inevitably I go through periods of feeling very exposed/vulnerable, and I start to question how much further, deeper, more personal I will allow my writing to go.  Now that Peanut is a part of my life, I think about issues surrounding her privacy, too. 

For the past few months, I've been doing most of my writing about her, me, and our family on paper.  For now, it feels better.  Friends gave me a lovely journal during my pregnancy and it has proven to be a great space in which to begin a lifelong dialogue with her.  Perhaps I'll pick up writing here again, but for now, this blog will remain a quiet space.  Thanks for your comments and company over the years.

15oz

That is the entirety of the backup breast milk I have in my freezer.
2.5 bottles for Peanut.

During the past month, I have been forced to go through a process of
letting go.  grieving the beginning of the end of my time
breastfeeding my not-so-little baby.  for unidentified reasons, my
supply took a nosedive during the month of  November, and despite my
efforts to give it a boost (fenugreek capsules, tea, oatmeal, water)
the daily milk i am producing has not increased.  In the meantime, i
flew through my entire freezer stash of backup milk just trying to
keep up.  now just the few sacred packets remain.

For a while, I was in denial.  I pumped a measly few ounces at each
session and cheerfully dipped into the freezer stash, day after day,
as I prepared bottles for daycare.  And then one day, as i struggled
yet again to get even a few ounces from a pumping session, it hit me.
I came home from work that night, held Peanut in my arms, an sobbed
and sobbed as I rocked her to sleep, mourning the anticipated loss of
our breastfeeding relationship. I reached out to my former lactation
consultant, who assured me that a dip at 10 months was normal.  "Your
body is preparing to make another baby," she said.  "Ha," I thought.
Clearly my brain hasn't passed on the message that I am nowhere near
mentally ready to go down that road again.

The one fact for which I was grateful was that I was to make it to
Peanut's 11th month (a week ago) before having to begin supplementing.
 Crossing that milestone was important to me.  Many parents who choose
to wean their babies by their first birthday begin doing so at that
time, so I mentally felt more like it was a "choice" to introduce
cow's milk to Peanut, rather than a necessity, which it now is.  After
taking with the pediatrician, we decided to use cow's milk instead of
formula, since she is now only a few weeks away from her first
birthday (when it is generally considered acceptable for babies to
fully transition off of breastmilk or formula to cow's milk).

So this past week, I put an ounce of cow's milk into Zia's bottles.
And then a little more.  And she has taken to it well.  There is
something about the experience of opening a carton of milk from the
fridge- a full box of cold, white liquid, that had been simultaneously
odd and freeing.  It is a weird physical sensation to just be able to
pour milk into a bottle.  As much as I want is available to me, just
right there in the fridge.  After having spent nearly a year obsessing
about and measuring and counting and planning how many ounces of
breastmilk I can pour into a bottle, let me just say, it's weird to
just have access to tons of free flowing stuff.

And at the same time, I feel relief.  I see a light at the end of a
tunnel of hard work, the opportunity to get through a whole work day,
or go to bed, without having to pump.

And then I started experiencing anxiety again.  There were nights when
even during nursing, I didn't have enough milk for peanut.  She would
cry out of frustration, of  experiencing an insatiable thirst.
Watching her try to extract just a few more drops was heart wrenching,
and I couldn't bring myself to just offer her cow's milk from a
bottle.  It just didn't feel right given that she hasn't hit the one
year mark yet.  So the day before Christmas, I went out and bought a
canister of formula.  I offered her a few ounces at home, and again,
she took to it readily.

Again, I felt a huge degree of relief.  A nutritious backup option is
available to me, and in an abundance I haven't known now for several
months.  If I'm not making enough on a given day, I can just go make
some.  It makes me suddenly have perspective on how much pressure I've
been holding in my body around providing enough milk for little P.

Snow Outing

Dear Peanut,

Someday, when you are grown, I will tell you stories about how I pushed your stroller five miles uphill in several feet of snow to take you to daycare.

In reality, it was only a half mile and a half inch, but boy, was it a doozy of a walk.  Still, seeing you bundled up with oversized mittens, hearing your sweet singing as we slipped and slid down Main Street, and imagining what you might be thinking about the buckets of white stuff falling from the sky, I couldn't help but feel lucky to experience an urban winter wonderland with you.

Love,
Your Mama

On Breastfeeding at 8 months

A few weekends ago, at my parents' house, I sat down at the kitchen table to pump before heading to bed.  It was late, and I was tired, but as I've learned very well by now, it's important for me to get a nightly session in to help keep up my supply.  So I do it.  Night after night, no matter how late the hour.  This time, my mom sat down at the table with me, and caught me up on all her latest stories.

One of her tales involved going on a walk with two close family friends, one of whom is the grandmother of a child who is just three weeks older than Peanut.  As they walked, they talked about how the mom of the other child was no longer able to breastfeed, since her supply had dried up.  They asked if I was still breastfeeding Peanut, and my mom affirmed that indeed, I was.

"Well, that's because ss has good-sized boobs," one friend said.  "So she can make a lot of milk."

I was taken aback.  

"I told them that your aunt, who has tiny breasts, was able to breastfeed your cousins for a year," my mom reported.  "I told them that it's because you work really hard to breastfeed, and that you're pumping at work and at night.  That's why you still have milk.  Not because of the size of your breasts."  Her tone was indignant.

Once again, I was taken aback, but this time, in a good way.  A really, really good way.  While I know my mom loves me, she doesn't say it very openly, or often.  She's typically more quick to judge or criticize than compliment or affirm me, especially when it comes to experiences in which she and I have a shared experience.  "I did things X way so you should be able to, too," is a common refrain for her.  To hear her acknowledge how much work I've put into breastfeeding Peanut for 8 months, to hear her tell me that she acknowledged the fact to other people, and defended me from the reductionist idea that my breast size determines my ability to breastfeed, especially when her own breastfeeding experience was different, was incredibly moving. 

When Peanut was born, I set a goal to breastfeed her for a year, if my body and circumstances would allow.  And I am so grateful that they have until now.  I know not everyone has the opportunity, support, resources or privilege to make the choice to breastfeed, and I make no judgement on the situations or choices of others.  It's just that I now know, intimately, how physically and emotionally challenging the experience can be.  

I have now been breastfeeding Peanut for eight months.  I am so proud of that fact, because it has taken time, energy, effort, calories, planning, dedication, commitment, prioritizing, and willpower.  Every single day.  It has required me to endlessly count ounces, pump a minimum of four times a day, deal with painful plugged ducts, commute with bottles and ice packs and pump parts on my back, pull stunts like figure out how to travel internationally with enough pumped milk on ice to sustain Peanut for 36 hours, manage constant fatigue, and so much more.  And still, every day, I have made the choice to continue doing it.

It's not often that I reflect on how much of the past eight months of my life have been shaped by the experience of being a breastfeeding parent, when in fact, my current life is entirely built around it.  For my mom to take the time to tell me, in the most direct way she could muster, that she was proud of my efforts, well - it felt good, and helped motivate me to keep on pumping along.