Sickies, tickies and stickies

Baby boy and I are both sick right now. Some kind of sinus infection that started out with sore throats  and has ended up in post nasal drip. I am thankful that this didn't come up around ovulation time but it has been very hard on my sleep and health. Night weaning has also been harder. The first 3 nights went fairly smooth but last night was disaterous. He stirred and cried all night long. I finally had to give in and feed him but I tried to do so for a short time till morning. Then I skipped his second morning feed. I really didn't want him to dehydrate from all that crying. He refused everything I offer including water. I'm hoping for a better night tonight. I am going to try feeding him in a warm bath again because that worked well night before last. I also need to make sure he gets his Motrin for teeth pain. Last night he didn't swallow it all and I didn't want to accidentally OD him so I just had to let it be. Tonight I will be more careful he swallows the full dose. 

I really hope all of this sickness and lack of sleep won't harm my cycle this month. All I can do is try my best. I must be honest I am starting to really worry that this will be more than just a prolactin issue. The fact that I haven't seen much of an increase in my LP despite the B6 and vitex. Wondering if it would be smart to increase the B6 before ovulation. I've heard it can delay it somewhat but in my case it seems to be making me ovulate earlier. I'm gonna try upping it. 

I've also added a baby aspirin for my lining. I'll avoid it around ovulation but then use it just after to help thin the blood. 

I also have acupuncture tomorrow. It's super affordable here in Portland. I'm not sure when I did it last time I got pregnant but I feel like it can't hurt. I hope I won't need an HSG in order to get pregnant but if I do then that's the route I will go.  It may have helped to clear my tubes. I also want to try more missionary and softcups. Make sure my husband is not hindering things by urinating before sex or using anything on himself. I don't want to have that conversation with him but if I must, I must. I know for a fact we were in missionary when we conceived our son. So I will push harder for that. 

I hate all of this TTC business. It's stressful and not fun after a few months. I hate the uncertainty. I hate not knowing why it's not happened yet. I am going insane with supplements and diet and controlled weaning. I am so tired of all te ovulation sticks and negative pregnancy tests. Tired of bleeding way too early for my own good. Tired of the worry. Tired of high pressure sex and trying to keep my husband in line with things but also not spoil the mood. Tired. Tired. Tired. 

All I can do now is pray. I pray so hard that the universe will bring me at least one more precious baby to love. Someone to share a childhood with our son and enrich our lives. I pray for that for myself and for my sister who is also in the very early stages of this journey. I pray that our bodies cooperate and we see a healthy brand new baby in each of our arms by next year. This is my biggest hope right now. Second only to the health and well being of my son husband friends and family. This is my biggest wish. 

THE KITCHEN SINK!

Today is the first official day of my period. That's right, no pregnant. It was a very mellow month so I   Not surprised because we took it very easy this month. Only hit up to O-2 and I was still nursing my son ramped up his night nursing to almost every hour. I am starting to get really worked up though now. This will be month 4 of TTC and for some reason I have a really good feeling about getting pregnant this month. Don't ask me why. I just do. But I also feel really nervous because I had another short LP (spotting started at 7DPO and full flow started the eve of 8DPO and ramped up today which would have been 9DPO. I pray so hard that we can have another healthy pregnancy. It's so nerve wrecking waiting and I really really hope we can get there without weaning fully. I so do not want to wean.

Speaking of weaning we will be night weaning starting tomorrow. My poor baby. He will hate very minute of it and so will I. Bye bye sleep! I hope I can get him happily sleeping through the night without nursing. I hope we can both be happy. I'm sure he will have wake ups but I don't want them to require nursing. We shall see. I'm gonna give it my all this month and then we shall see.

The plan:

No coffee only green tea or red raspberry leaf
Lemon water
Vitamin D
Vitamin C
Macca root
Vitex upped
B6 upped
No more junk food
Eat more nuts beans fruits veggies lean protein quinoa millet
Lots of avocado
Daily yoga
Daily meditation
Daily rest and sleep
Night weaning
Less refined sugar and processed food
Acupuncture
Lots of water
Mucunex
Eat more fish
Eat every 3 hours
Pelvic massage


I really hope that I am right about April. This would give me a Christmas baby which I initially didn't like but now I don't care and I am very happy about the idea. So lets hope Tor gets a sibling soon!!!

fickle tickles!

this second journey has me so fickle. Like a steroetypical Gemini i feel torn between two ways of thinking as we get closer to ovulation on cycle three.

On the one hand I am more determined than ever to become pregnant. The emotional reasons stem mostly from fear i will admit. I feel like if the gods could guarantee me that i would be pregnant by september (september itself would be fine. then i might get a baby close to my birthday!) I would be a lot more relaxed. I am not in a huge rush to have a baby. I do want my children to be no more than 3 years apart in age so that they can enjoy each other but if i could be guaranteed that I'm not running out of eggs or facing 12 months of TTC I would be much less panicked about each month.

Another thing that is difficult is the process. It's so NOT fun to have to proposition my husband certain times every month. The stress of trying to get the timing right is another thing that makes me just want to be Pregnant already. I love when people try to suggest that we just go with the flow and relax. They mean well but I've done my homework and unless you are hitting a certain window you might as well not even be trying for a baby at all. People like to blame stress but statistically speaking stress is a lot less harmful on getting pregnant than bad timing. Plus I know myself and that would make me stress even more. No dice.

Then there is the flip side again. I love the fact that I get to enjoy this time with my son just the three of us. I love that i can continue to nurse him and cosleep with him. I can throw him high up in the air, run after him in the yard and let him jump hard on my stomach without worry. Some part of me does feel sad that he wont be getting all of me soon. i don't know this other baby but i know and love him. i feel a bit bad about the fact that he will have to have a tired more fragile momma but i would feel worse about him not having a sibling. His baby brother or sister will be with him when his dad and i are gone. They will share their childhood. It's a very special thing that i know is going to be worth the initial pain of sharing.

As for wanting a boy or a girl I go back and fourth. In the end i just want a healthy baby. There are days when I see a baby brother for our son and days I see a baby sister in our lives. I am so curious what the universe will choose to bring us. I hope we have a healthy fun sweet little person in the wings. One that will love our son and that he will enjoy.

I also recently found out that my sister may be trying in the next 4-6 months. It really excites me to imagine us being pregnant at the same time. Even if there is just a little bit of overlapping. What a fun thing!!!! I pray that she will have a smooth and fast journey to pregnancy as well. If i get pregnant too soon we may miss each other. Although it will still be fresh enough that we can share the experience and i am happy that no matter what i will be able to advice her and get her through the tougher days of pregnancy and new baby.

At this point i really take it for granted that i WILL get pregnant and have a second baby who is healthy and sweet. I hope so deeply that that is the truth. I think that for me is the biggest thing that trumps any feelings i might have that I have plenty of time. To me nothing would be sadder than wasting a month that could be providing me with the healthiest eggs. I wont pursue any sort of testing unless we get to a point where i have almost entirely weaned and things still aren't improving. I am staying on the journey though. Steady as ever. Some days I am more patient than others but in the end the real feeling is this: BRING ME A BABY UNIVERSE!

Boobie Trapped

A curve was thrown my way on this ttc journey in the form of prolactin! Perhaps because my mother got knocked up while nursing me and I've seen so many countless women go through it I was sure I would have no trouble. I also thought having a cycle at all had guaranteed my return to full fertility. This was not the case. I am plagued by the dreaded short luteal phase and late ovulation. B6 seemed to help me ovulate a few days early and vitex may eventually help lengthen my LP if it hasn't already ( i made it to 8 days instead of 6 last month) but it still doesn't cut the mustard. I took my son from bein weaned 7 hours a day to weaning him 12 hours a day and I'm hoping that helps me to get pregnant but who knows. I've read that every woman is different. For some it only takes a few tweaks here and there to their nursing schedule. For others it takes full on weaning. I hope I am not the latter. My son has really ramped up his night nursing since I day weaned him and with four big teeth coming in. He nursed up to 8 times a night between the hours of 8pm and 8am. I am very curious to see if the 12 hours has any effect on my cycles. If it doesn't then next month I plan to try the upset method. That's where you try to throw your body for a loop by having at least one night of no nursing at all or very limited nursing. As you can imagine this is not sounding like fun to me but I am willing to try it. I am also willing to try breaking the nursing to sleep association. Again not gonna be fun but totally worth trying. In the end I haven't decided exactly when I will fully wean if nothing works but right now I'm thinking by his second birthday in September. This is only if I am not pregnant however. If I can get pregnant while nursing my little guy I will try hard to meet his needs as best I can. 

In the back of mind are always concerns over my age and my long term fertility. I really hope that taking these extra months before weaning isn't the difference between giving my son a sibling or not. For now I'm trying to stay optimistic that its not and that even if it takes some doing we will get there.