New Job Soon?

I'm still waiting for an official offer from the medical device company at which I interviewed FOUR times. I spoke to the GC yesterday and she told me that she had made her decision, was ready to pull the trigger and give me an offer. So that was great news. The problem is that the CEO of the company wants to be a part of the process and was hoping to meet me before the company gave me the offer. So that would be the FIFTH interview. The other problem is that the CEO is in Japan this week, which means we'll be slowed down at least 1 week if he insists on meeting me. So the GC is doing her best to convince him that he doesn't need to meet with me. She's putting together a list of everyone with whom I met, a summary of everyone's thoughts about me and a summary of my references. She's hoping that will get him over the need to meet with me. I told the GC that depending on what I saw in writing, I'd be inclined to accept and so that made her very happy. I hope this does happen soon. Not only am I excited about the new opportunity, but I'm in an awkward position at my current job. I've been invited to attend the BIO conference in Chicago next month and I need to give them an answer as to whether I plan to attend. And they're trying to give me new work to be the go-to person for a long-term relationship with a client. And it would look so bad for the firm if I took on that long-term work just to turn around and announce that I'm leaving 1 week later. So I've had to BS and dance around these issues and I'm hoping to just be able to tell the truth once I have a written offer.

In other news, today is day 29 of my cycle and still no signs of my period. Of course, before pregnancy, my cycles were 32-34 days long and so I'm not surprised there aren't any signs. I'm still just curious what caused me to have those uterine cramps 1 week ago. There is no way that was early PMS. Here I am, one week later and closer to my period and symptom-free. It's all very strange.

My right breast has finally gone back to normal post-weaning. I no longer have uncomfortably hard lumps (blocked ducts) in there and the pain is gone. Hooray! After 1 year of breastfeeding, I think my breasts are smaller than they were prior to pregnancy, but it's hard to tell. I had gotten used to them being larger because of breastfeeding and so now that I'm no longer nursing, they've shrunk. They seem to have held up okay. Perhaps they're a little droopier, but not bad at all! I'll have to get measured at some point to see if I am the same size I was prior to pregnancy.

**Update**

I actually ended up getting my period late in the day today. It surprises me a little because it means I had a 29 day cycle this month. I think my shortest cycle pre-pregnancy was 30 days and that was right after I got off the pill. As time went on, my cycle lengthened to 32-34 days. Perhaps I'll be a little bit more regular post-pregnancy.

Cold Turkey

I'm no longer nursing Ian. Yesterday morning at 5 am was the last time Ian nursed from me. As of today, I have gone cold turkey. My right boob (the only one I've been using for the last 2 months) is a bit full and achy, but I've taken some Advil and think I'll be able to get through the day. Just like when I dropped the nighttime nurse 1 week ago, Ian didn't seem to care much that he wasn't nursing. My husband got up with him this morning around 5:15 am and gave him a sippy cup full of 3 ounces of 100% breast milk. He sucked that down and then drank some more cow milk. So he's doing okay. I'm going to keep sending Ian to daycare with a mix of breast milk and cow milk until I run out of breast milk, but I already know that Ian will drink 100% cow milk, so that's a relief. I'm sad that we are at the end of our nursing relationship but happy to see that my son is still thriving and happy. And I can take the next 2 months or so to just have my body back before we head into a FET cycle!

We just booked a trip to St. Croix at the end of May and I look forward to scuba diving while on vacation. One of the benefits of not being pregnant is that I will be able to dive worry-free! We are traveling with my in-laws and so it will be nice to have 2 extra sets of eyes on Ian. When 2 of us our diving, the other 2 can stay and play with Ian on the beach. We were also able to use the points we have accumulated on our credit card to buy our 3 roundtrip plane tickets. So that saved us over $1500, which is super awesome! It makes me feel better about all of the credit card spending we have done lately. :-)

***Update***
I just called my RE's office to let them know that I stopped breastfeeding. I now have to wait 4 weeks for my prolactin levels to drop and allow us to move forward with a FET. The bloodletting is already in my calendar for April 22. :-)

***Update***
Have I mentioned that my right breast is full and sore? It could definitely be worse, but ow! I am looking totally lopsided. I stopped using my left breast to nurse Ian months ago and my right boob is as big as it could be right now! I hope no one at work notices!

No More Nighttime Nurse

Now that Ian is 1 year old, I'm following through on my plan. I didn't nurse him before bed last night. We did our same pre-bedtime routine which involves dinner, changing into PJs and reading 3 bedtime stories. I then took Ian onto my nursing chair and cradled him while offering a sippy cup full of breastmilk. He pushed the cup away a couple of times but then finally drank a quarter of an ounce before completely refusing it. I put him in his crib and bam, he was asleep! So the lack of nursing did not seem to affect his ability to go to bed, which was GREAT! And my right boob (the only one I've been using lately) also made it through the night without too much discomfort.

The only crappy thing about last night is that Ian woke up at 3:45 am. I got up to give him the pacifier and something smelled really bad in his room. So I went to pick him up so that I could sniff his bum (to check for poop) and I realized he was soaked and that the smell was puke and not poop. Gross. This is only the second time that Ian has puked. So I woke my husband and we proceeded to take off all of Ian's clothes, wash him up a bit and change the sheets in his crib. I then gave him a little water and he went back to sleep until 5:30 am. He nursed and then slept until 7:15 am. I was kind of hoping he puked because he ate SO much that night, but he had a little temp (99.2) in the morning. Putting that together with him sleeping-in, I decided he was sick. So I told daycare to watch him, but he was fine all day. Of course, right before bed tonight, he had a little diarrhea. So now I have some proof that he has a little stomach bug. Sigh. He just got over a stomach bug! But he seems happy and isn't acting sick, which counts for a lot.

And we had a lot of success again tonight. After completely refusing the sippy cup with breastmilk, Ian went right to bed without a fuss. I miss the nursing, but I'm doing okay and I'm happy to be able to successfully follow through on my plan.

8 days left!

There are only 8 days left before my little baby is 1 year old!  I can't believe it.  It's very exciting!  Lots of good things happened today!  

Good thing #1:  While at work today, I got my period!  I *knew* that all of that goo 2 weeks ago was cervical mucous and that I was ovulating!  This is now proof.  I was getting so worried that I wouldn't get my period back, but here I am, almost 1 year after birth, and I'm happy to be using a tampon!  This means that I can plan our FET without asking the doctor for drugs to get my period back.  

Good thing #2:  Ian is taking steps on his own!!!  My husband e-mailed me while I was on the train home tonight and said "i just saw him take steps voluntarily!!!"  And sure enough, when I came home, Ian showed off for me.  I'm sure he'll be running around soon enough!  



Good thing #3:  Ian is no longer drinking breast  milk from a bottle.  We are now only giving it to him in sippy cups.  He wasn't drinking a ton from the bottle and so I figured it wouldn't hurt to make the switch now rather than prolonging it.  And daycare said he did great today! Sorry for all of the exclamation points, but it was an exciting day!

Thoughts about Baby #2

I'm sorry if this is painful for anyone reading who doesn't yet have Baby #1, but I really want Baby #2. I'm the youngest of 3 children and I really want Ian to have a sibling (and I can only hope and pray that he and his sibling have a great relationship). I don't care whether that sibling is a boy or a girl as long as that little child is healthy. But I'm starting to get nervous. Ian will be 11 months old on the 16th, which means I really do have to start thinking seriously about Baby #2. And the anxiety has already set in. We have 3 little frozen embryos waiting for us and I'm desperately hoping that one of them will become Baby #2 so that I don't have to go through the misery of another IVF cycle. But Dr. Google isn't my friend and I learned some alarming statistics about how 30% of frozen embryos do not survive the thaw. That means that statistically, one of our little guys won't even make it to transfer, leaving us with only 2 embies. Two chances. I'm nervous. Our appointment with our RE is in roughly 3 weeks and since I know nothing about FETs, I'll have to get lots of information from her.

Oh, and by the way, I STILL don't have my period 11 months post-partum. Hrm. I'm still exclusively breastfeeding Ian, but now that he's eating lots (and lots!) of solid food, he's not drinking that much. He nurses at 5 am and at 7 pm and during daycare, he gets two three-ounce bottles of breastmilk. So I would have thought with this decrease in nursing/need for breastmilk, my period would have returned. Nope. As of next week, I'm going to stop pumping at all and we'll use my frozen stash of breastmilk for Ian's daycare needs. Hopefully, by dropping the pump, my period will return. Otherwise, I'll just need the RE to give me meds to start my period. And by that point, Ian will be just about 1 year old and we can start him drinking cow milk. I'll be very sad to stop my nursing relationship with him (extremely sad actually), but it really is time to get the show on the road for #2!

Mums the Word

There are two topics that I generally don't discuss at my Tuesday mommy group because if I did, I would look like a total biyatch.

The first is my weight loss. I gained only 26.5 pounds during my 40 week pregnancy (which makes it all the more shocking that I had a baby that weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces!). And except for 4-5 pounds, all of that extra weight came off dramatically and without effort about 3 weeks after Ian was born. As of this morning, 7 weeks after Ian's birth, I weighed 144.5 pounds, which means I have only 2 more pounds to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. (That being said, I would love to get down to 135 pounds, which would really be ideal for me.) Today, I wore a pair of my old jeans and I was actually comfortable in them. They are just a bit tight in the stomach area, but otherwise fit quite well. And I have a sneaky feeling that even after I lose the last 2 pounds, my stomach still won't look the way it did before I got pregnant. I can just tell that the muscles in my abdomen are stretched and I'm going to need to work hard to tighten them and pull everything back in.

The second topic that I don't discuss is my supply of breast milk. All the other mothers in the group have started supplementing their child with formula because they don't make enough milk. They ask the nurse what they can do to produce more milk and pride themselves on pumping 3-4 extra ounces of milk to keep in the fridge or freezer. I pumped 20 ounces yesterday, in addition to breast feeding my child. The milk pours out of my breasts. At this time, I have roughly 175 ounces of breast milk frozen in our freezer. We even went out and bought an additional fridge/freezer for the basement so that we have room to store all of my milk and not take-over the freezer in the kitchen. Needless to say, my problem is that I have an overabundance of breast milk. Now I'm certainly not complaining about having enough milk to feed my child. It really feels great to know that my child is exclusively breastfed and thriving on it. But I really do wish I made only enough to feed him. My breasts get so unbelievably full of milk during the course of the night that I have woken up from the pain. The discomfort I feel has even worked its way into my dreams. And my poor baby often gags, chokes and sputters when he first starts feeding from one of my overly full breasts. I know that breast milk will only last 3-4 months in the freezer and so we have been using the older breast milk in the 1 bottle that my husband feeds Ian in the morning. But still, I am pumping more than we use each day. At this point, I think I may actually look into donating my extra milk. I don't want it to go to waste and I think it would be absolutely fantastic if someone else could benefit. For now, I'm happy to feed my child and continue pumping. But I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm already anxious about the time when I have to wean my child. It is going to really hurt.

Growing like a Weed!

Ian and I went to mommy group again today. This time, we actually prepared to go and so I showered, dried my hair, put on some makeup and put just a little bit of thought into my clothing. I also put Ian in one of his cuter outfits. The nurse at the group brings a scale every week and so I was very curious to see how much weight this little boy gained in 1 week. Well, at 5 weeks old, he came in at a whopping 11 pounds, 5 ounces, which means he gained 9 ounces in 1 week. I'm really thankful and happy that he is thriving on my breast milk, but man, he is HUGE! He is one of the youngest babies in the group and despite that, he outweighs almost all of them! And the one baby that he doesn't outweigh has a mother who is 5'8" and a father who is 6'3"! I'm really not sure how me and my hubby produced this guy! I'm 5'5" and my husband is almost 5'10". I weighed only 5 pounds, 12 ounces at birth and my husband, while bigger, was 7.5 pounds at birth. People keep telling me that weight/height can change dramatically, but for now, I'm considering Ian a very big baby!

I decided to try feeding Ian from a bottle when we all went out to lunch today. I had planned ahead and brought a Dr. Brown's bottle full of 4+ ounces of breast milk. Ian took it like a champ! He took 2 ounces pretty quickly, slept for 30 minutes, and then finished off the bottle. Although Ian had taken bottles from my husband before, this was my first time feeding with a bottle. It was nice! I was actually able to hold him with my left arm and hold the bottle with my left hand and still eat my own lunch with my right hand. But I plan on only using bottles when I'm out and about with Ian. I'd still rather him go to my breast when we're at home. I'm also very proud that I'm still exclusively breastfeeding Ian. He has never had formula. All the other mothers have switched to pure formula or a mix of breast milk and formula. Some of them do it out of convenience. Others do it because their milk supply is drying up. As someone who already has 100 ounces of breast milk frozen (I just counted twenty 5 oz bags in my freezer), I will continue to breast feed him. And for all the luxury that I had using a bottle to feed Ian at lunch, I came home just as my left breast started soaking the shirt that I was wearing. Luckily, Ian woke up from his nap and fed..otherwise it would have been another pumping session!