Getting Ready For Baby

Now that we (finally) believe that a baby is definitely coming, we have been furiously working to get ready for said baby.

The nursery is pretty much ready - the furniture is put together and arranged, the walls are decorated, the changing table is stocked complete with a diaper genie, the crib is made with mobile in place, and Baby S even has a fully stocked dresser and closet.  (Mark jokes that Baby S will be better dressed than he is - that may be the case).

Childcare is in place and they have confirmed our start date.

We have found a pediatric practice that is close to home, has night and weekend hours and is accepting new patients.

Decisions have been made regarding cord blood banking and whether or not Baby S will be circumcised.  We have even called insurance to find our when and where the circumcision is covered.

The car seat has been installed and the matching stroller is assembled and already in the trunk - along with a packed hospital and baby bag.

All baby equipment has been registered and checked for recalls.

I have already been in contact with a lactation consultant and have found my nearest La Leche League group.

Pretty much the only thing we need to do is figure out what to do with Baby S once he actually gets here......

In order to start finalizing preparations we went to a baby class today.  This class was sooooooo needed.

After my miscarriages I have been purposefully detached from children - especially babies.  I have become quite adept at avoiding babies when they are brought into the office and always "have a cold" whenever someone wants me to hold their little one.  I have basically spent the last 15 years of my life avoiding children and probably due to this fact, really don't know a lot about them.

So, now that I am (finally) having one of my own I need some crash courses on what to do.

We had trouble finding the room and got to waltz into class a good 5 minutes late.  I felt like everyone was staring intently at my suspiciously absent baby bump (the only baby bump that was missing in the room by the way).  But.....it may have just been that we were late.

It turned out that we all were pretty much in the same boat - that in a very short time we were all bringing a tiny human into the world and that none of us really knew what we were doing.

The class was great - by the end we knew how to give a bath, swaddle, diaper, (hopefully) read our babies subtle signs of being engaged or disengaged, and when to call the doctor (to name just a few of the important things that we learned).

I realize that no baby is the same and that I need to just be flexible and roll with the punches...... but at least now I feel a lot more prepared to do so.

The Uber Baby

We found out today that we are having an Uber Baby.

At every appointment Baby S has been measuring right on track - exactly at the percentile that he should.

Until today.....

Today Baby S is measuring ahead.  And not just a little ahead.  He is on track to be a 10 lber.

Seriously.

I can't say that I am surprised.  Myself and all of my siblings were all between 9 - 10 lbs.  Mark was also not a small baby.  And, they say (again the mythical "they") that baby size is genetic.

Our GC also wasn't completely surprised.  She grows big babies herself.  Her two children were close to 9 lbs and delivered a week early due to their size.

What did surprise me was that all of sudden he is measuring ahead. 

Maybe he went on a binge with the rest of us over the holidays?

In any case, 10 lbs. is pretty big.  We are now estimated that our GC will be induced a week early (like in her first two pregnancies) to try to help keep Baby S. a bit less uber.

Making Milk (sort of)

I would like you to meet my new best friend, the medela pump in style double electric breast pump.  It feels like my best friend in the fact that we spend so much time together - 4 hours if I get all 8 scheduled pumps in.  We are together in thick and thin, even in the middle of the night.  My entire day revolves around trying to get together for 30 minutes, every 2-3 hours, 'round the clock.

Wait....

This sound more like a metaphorical albatross than my best friend.

Oh the joys of pumping.

I started pumping right after Christmas.  It already feels like all I do is pump.....and I have a long ways to go until Baby S. arrives.

The goal is that by starting to pump (and taking a handful of herbs and other supplements twice a day) 8 weeks before our expected due date, that I would be able to breastfeed  Baby S when he arrives.  It is important to note that most women do not reach full supply when inducing lactation and will need to supplement, but more important is that we are able to breastfeed at all.

When I started my inducing lactation journey back in August I was very hopeful.  I had read success stories of some who were able to exclusively breastfeed from inducing lactation.  I was so sure that I would be one of those women....that everything would just work perfectly.

Ha, ha!  Reality just laughed in my face and stomped all over my hopes and dreams. (yet again)

I have no idea why I totally thought that for once my body would work exactly like I wanted it to....especially in something "female" related.  My uterus is less that 1/2 there, my ovaries don't like to produce eggs (and especially not good quality eggs) even with high amounts of hormones, why did I think that my boobs would work?

So if you haven't guessed by now, the process of inducing lactation is not going exactly as I had hoped.  Granted it is still pretty early - I am only 3 weeks in - but the production is LOW.  By low I mean drops.

Not bags or bottles full.....just drops.

Mark has been really great and keeps trying to reassure me that even though it is only drops, it is more and more drops every day.

Too bad babies eat around 25 ounces of milk a day and drops are not going to cut it.

I keep reminding myself that this was never about trying to breastfeed exclusively, that this was always about the experience of breastfeeding.  The experience of being able to nourish my child.  The bonding that breastfeeding helps to create.  The ability to feel a little "normal" in a less than normal pregnancy and birth.

Mark finds it fascinating that me who is a perpetual pessimist was quite the optimist when it came to inducing lactation.  I think that I just wanted it to work so badly, I found a way to convince myself that it would.

And, technically it is working.  I am producing milk.  Maybe not a lot of milk, but milk all the same.

PS - I have been pumping while writing this post :)

Breastfeeding Mothers Have the Right to be "Disgusting"

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/trump-to-breastfeeding-mom-youre-disgusting-125350815777.html

I usually try to stay away from politics and especially politicians, but I had to comment on this one. 

The actual incident happened in 2011, but just recently came up again the news.  In short, Trump told a mother of a 3-month old that she was "disgusting" for requesting a break at work so that she pump.

While some may find a woman pumping at work "disgusting", it is her right to do so and is protected by law. 


http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs73.htm

http://breastfeedinglaw.com/state-laws/minnesota/
 

Reflecting on 2015

2015 sure was an interesting year. 

The year started out with us being disappointed that our 2 embryo transfers with 2 different surrogates did not work in India.  We were getting ready to ship our 4 remaining embryos over and try again.

Then, like it seems to always do, things changed.

A family member offered to be our gestational carrier in January. 

I admit that I did not get very excited about this at first....we've been burned a couple of times before. 

But then things started to fall into place.  Her paperwork got sent in to the clinic.  The clinic approved her medically.  The psychological screening came back OK.  We all met to discuss contract terms.  We all worked with a lawyer to execute a contact.  We had our consent signing.  Our GC started her medications.  Our GC's lining looked good.  One embryo made it to day 5.  One embryo was transferred.  We had a positive first beta.  We had a positive second beta.  There was a heartbeat at 5 weeks.   The Harmony test came back negative.  The nuchal scan came back negative.  We made it out of the first trimester.  The quad screen came back negative.  We made it out of the second trimester.

By yearend our little guy was doing well - measuring right on track and so far seems normal and healthy.

Who would have thought?  Especially not us.

What a difference a year makes! 

I'm Back!

Last week I received an email letting me know about the upcoming meeting of the Infertility Support Group that I had regularly attended.  Included in the notice was that the leader of the group was stepping down as of the first of the year and that they were looking for volunteers to to lead the group in order to keep it going.

I was dismayed surprised to see this.  The group had been so helpful for me and for so many other people.  What would happen if no one stepped up to lead and the group went on hiatus?

I admit that I had thought about coming back to help with the group since it had been so helpful to me, but the timing right now was not great.  There was no way that I could commit to leading with Baby S coming right around the corner.

I decided to respond that I would be interested in helping out, but only in a co-leading capacity, and that I would need to take a couple of months off around the birth.  Best I could do.

Luckily there were a couple of other women in a similar boat - those who wanted to help keep the group going, but just couldn't do it all themselves.  They were happy with co-leading and could cover the couple of months that I would not be able to attend.

Our contact information just went up on the Resolve.org website, so it's official....

....I'M BAAAAACK!!!!

A Very Special Hospital Tour

Sometimes being pregnant via a gestational carrier has its perks.  One of these perks is that we got our own personal hospital tour.

When I met with a lactation consultant a while back she mentioned that adoptive and intended parents can get their own room at the hospital when the baby is born so that the baby can room in with them.  I was ecstatic to hear this since the days and really hours after birth can be crucial in beginning to establish a breastfeeding.  Being able to stay at the hospital and have our baby room in with us would give us time for bonding right away.

I called the hospital to find out what we needed to do to "reserve" our room.  The care coordinater that I spoke with was so happy that I had called.  She explained that they would start a file for us with all of our paperwork and that we were encouraged to come in for a special tour for just us and our GC to go over any questions.

That is pretty cool.  Our own special tour!

We are very lucky that in Minneapolis there is a third party reproduction agency that has worked with several surrogates/gestational carriers.  And, that the agency encourages births at our hospital.  So, our hospital is well versed in surrogate/gestational carrier births.  Since there are less than 1,000 surrogate/gestational carrier births across the entire US each year, we are very lucky that our hospital hosts around 10 of those each year.

Our care coordinator was awesome.  She answered all of our and our GC's questions and was very reassuring that all of our needs would be met during and after the birth process.  She went through our file and made sure that all of our paperwork to date was in order and even contacted our lawyer for us to ensure that everything would be ready for the time of our birth.

So, there is a perk to living where we live :)