Breastfeeding over and out.

Breastfeeding did not come easy to me. At first it was damn right painful and then there was the whole issue of not having enough milk for JBB's needs so I had to supplement with formula. So, that being said, I am sad to say that we are at the end of the breastfeeding road. This also signals the end of JBB's dependence on my body. After nearly 14 months, I can now say that my body is again now my own. I am surprised that I actually feel quite sad about that. It has been a special time (sometimes quite hard), having that bond with JBB that no-one else has.

Happily, this does not end my special bond with JBB, it of course just changes it slightly. It is quite amazing how engaged and curious he is. He looks at every item that goes into our mouths now (sometimes it is a little disconcerting with both JBB and JourneyDog looking at me so intently when I am having something to eat!!) and we are certainly trying to make sure that we are setting a very good example with the foods that we are eating.


There are some things that I will not miss about breastfeeding - such as waking up in a pool of milk. Forgetting to wear breastpads and leaking through my shirt when out and about. The hours spent with a breastpump glued to my breast. I will miss JBB's little cheeky smiles when he looks up at me. I will miss be able to settle him with a little bit of breast milk (yes, I know that they say don't do that but 'they' sometimes drive me bananas!!).

A girlfriend said to me the other day that as soon as you get used to something with your baby, it all changes. I think that she's right.

Decision made!!

Well, after much thinking and debate, we have decided to go to Thailand again for baby number 2 in September - yay, I am very, very excited!! We though that it was just too good an opportunity to miss to be able to give JBB a full blood sibling - hopefully it will all work out fabulously!!

So, we are all systems go on 'operation healthy'!! Both JourneyMan and I have been very strong this week, totally focussed on our goals and all about the action to get ourselves in shape.

I have to admit, there is a big part of me that is quite nervous about delving into another cycle - can I really handle the heartbreak if it is negative? For JBB's sake, I want to try. I want him to have someone to grow up with, play with, fight with, confide in, tease mercilessly and support to the ends of the earth.

So, my strategy for the moment is:

• Enjoy every moment of little JBB
  
• Get back to work to save money
• Focus on getting healthy
• Keep up the weekly counselling to ensure that I am mentally healthy

In JBB news, he had his first solid food this week - rice cereal and I tell you, he took to it like a duck to water. He has his mouth open like a little sparrow - I can't keep up with how much he is wanting to eat!! Tomorrow, he is having a go at some mashed banana - hope he will like that!!

We also went to the maternal health nurse today and he has grown gangbusters - he has gone from the 45th percentile for height to the 90th - what the!?!? He is very long - everyone comments on it.

I am so happy that we have made the decision - once again, we are on a countdown to Thailand!

Let the training begin!

So, tonight I started with the new fitness regime with some girlfriends. We went to an outside bootcamp type class and it was really good though I came dead last (not only out of my girlfriends who I have motivated to get fit many times in the past but the whole class - gah!!) in the running 2km time trial. I have to admit, when I was walking sections of it, with the whole class of around 50 out in front of me, my mind was screaming - I have run a half marathon for crying out loud - what is going on!?!?! Then I realised that I am 25kg's heavier and have had a baby since then and so I have cut myself some slack. This is just the first session, my friends - the only way from here is definitely up!!

In addition to my new training regime (2 nights a week and Saturday morning), I am on an eating detox to get rid of all the bad habits and cravings. This new detox was suggested by my good friend Lifeslurper and although I wasn't that excited to have a look at it, when I read it, it just made good sense. JourneyMan has joined me on this oddyssey and there have been some cranky pants around the place - okay, I confess, I have been wearing the cranky pants but two more days of headaches, fuzzy headedness, cramps, incurable sleepiness and all over body hurty will do that to a gal but I am working my way through it. We are on the arse end of the third day and only have two more days to go until some other goodies are added back into the diet.

I am definitely feeling a little bit better today though - certainly a hefty dose of righteousness that I have completed three days and also trained up a storm has me feeling, well a little bit more like myself again.

JourneyMan and I also went to counselling today - that certainly helped. I really like the woman who is doing the counselling - she is challenging but in a gentle way - I like that. I still have some work to do on feeling worthy of that precious little dot, JBB but I tells you people - I am getting better.

I'm also excited to tell you that JourneyMan has secured a permanent job in a company where he can really go places - whoo hoo, go JourneyMan!!

Physically Sickened.

There was a story in the paper in my town last week that I just cannot comprehend. You can find the link to the story here. It is about a couple who terminated an IVF pregnancy of twin boys because they want a girl. Their reason is that they have 3 boys (conceived naturally) and they had lost a daughter soon after she was born. In Australia, you cannot choose the sex of your child unless for medical reasons (ie. a friend of our family went through IVF to have another girl because they already had a son who is a haemophiliac) but not for choice reasons only. They are petitioning authorities to be able to have a girl through IVF on the grounds that they want one to assuage their grief from losing their daughter.

Honestly, I just can't even take this story in. I don't feel that I am in a moral position to judge this couple because of the lengths that we have gone to have our family but I cannot, cannot, cannot comprehend anyone terminating two baby boys because of their sex. Honestly - I can't even think about the morality of the rest of the story - I just can't think past those two baby boys. Surprisingly enough, I have always been pro-choice but for me (even before I knew that I had any problems) I knew I would never be able to terminate a pregnancy, even if it was accidental. On the other hand, I also cannot comprehend the pain that these people have felt at losing a daughter that they so wanted. I can't help but question the IVF process that we have here where the emphasis is on police checks but the counselling (that is mandatory for every couple / patient) is a crappy tickbox 'I understand' that is basically classic arse covering by the clinic. Could a proper counselling session have uncovered the desperate lengths that this couple would go to to have a girl? What of the termination process - were there other options discussed such as adoption? Baby adoption is extremely low in this country - I am sure that many couples would be clamouring to adopt these boys.

JourneyMan and I discussed whether we would choose the sex of the baby for the next cycle of IVF (in Thailand you can choose) and at first both of us were for it (me because I would love to have a daughter and JourneyMan because he knows that I would be tempted to try for a third child if we have two boys). It is also no secret that I wanted a girl when we tried for JBB but I can tell you with my absolute whole heart, JBB is the miracle of my life, if I don't have another baby, he is enough. He is loved by every fibre of my being and I do not for one minute wish that we had a girl. If we ended up being blessed by two sons, I will be ecstatic.

My heart aches for those twin boys, they deserved better.

Is sound addictive?

I definitely think so!! My absolute favourite sound in the world is JBB laughing. Honestly, it is literally music to my ears and I spend the better part of most of the day trying to make him laugh (no wonder the cleaning is not done!!).

He is a pretty serious fellow, he doesn't give out smiles willy nilly and he laughs only if you are particularly entertaining. But when he does smile or laugh - well, I challenge anyone not to become addicted to it!! I only have one photo of him with a genuine smile and boy is it a cheeky one - it is the wallpaper on my phone, I only have to look at it to feel better.

Yesterday he laughed when I rubbed my face and made a funny noise on his tummy and tonight he laughed when we were throwing JourneyDog's puppy toy for him to chase - he has really discovered JourneyDog over the past few days - he give him a half smile (what we call the Mickey face) as he romps by him when he's in the play gym.

I am, of course, addicted. I have an addictive personality plus I am a pretty auditory person, added to that - I am totally, completely, irrevocably in love with this charming little boy.

Feeling craptacular...

So, as you know, we started our healthy eating on Monday and now it is Wednesday night and I am eating biscuits (cookies to the US folk) - okay, so they are Weig.ht Watch.ers biscuits but still, they were not in the plan. So what has happened?

Well Monday was okay though I ate chicken in the morning and the band did not agree with that, oh no, precious, not at all! So that set me on a bad road because then I couldn't eat that much for the rest of the day. Yesterday I was able to eat better but I had the most horrendous headache of all time - unfortunately, this headache followed through until today and my first period after the pregnancy turned up.

Needless to say, I feel horrible. Headache, leg cramps (this is a new one - yay), back ache, cramps and starvingly hungry and not just for the turkey curry that I made for dinner (which was okay) but I wanted some sugar dammit. No excuses, I really wanted some biscuits. This is not helping the weight come off I wouldn't guess.

Oh well - back to the drawing board tomorrow.

A decision to make....

So, I heard from our Thailand clinic last week - they just wanted some details for their stats of JBB's birth weight, birth type etc. When I answered them, I asked them if the donor that we used for JBB would be available this year for another go. Journeyman and I have been talking about it and we would like JBB to have a full sibling - not that it matters but I would really like for him (and JBBS) feel that there is someone else in the world in the exact same situation as he is - is that crazy?

I got an answer back today and she is only available in September and we will have to let the clinic (and her) know whether we want to go ahead in September by then end of this month. It has sent me into a bit of a tailspin, we were still discussing what we wanted to do this year. There is a lot to think about - we need to get the money together, we need to make sure that we are ready, we need to get ourselves healthy and in shape and I need to start up all of my fertility extras. Cripes - I really didn't want to have to make this decision so soon.

The other side of it, of course, is that we could always use another donor. It is also scary to me using this donor again considering JBB was the only embryo that was a survivor and the 'what if we don't even get one?' next time. It was fine this time because we had JBB and he is wonderful and gorgeous but I can't help but think, what if next time the little mite doesn't stick and we have to try again - it would be good to have some embryo's on ice so that we didn't have to go through the whole process again.

I am not sure what to do. On one hand, I really believe that if you set a goal, you will achieve it (ie. you will find the money, get the time off, get healthy, lose the weight) but on the other hand, do we want to put ourselves under such pressure?

We have a lot of thinking and discussing ahead of us.

A dream...

Two nights ago I had a dream that I was pregnant. Not only pregnant, 4 months pregnant (that would be pretty fast work considering JBB is 4 and a half months). It was a confusing dream because someone else was also pregnant - I think it was either my younger sister or my bestie and we were talking all things preggo.

There is a little yearning in me that wishes it could be that simple for us. The world of people having sex and **poof** after 9 months, there is a baby who joins the family. Sometimes I wonder if there are any of those people left in the world but I was at a one year old's birthday party yesterday that showed me that there definitely is. I suppose the dream is a prelude to JourneyMan's & my healthy eating plan that starts tomorrow. The theme of which is to 'eat only that which we would want JBB ] to eat'. We are both a bit of junk food addicts and generally whilst we try to eat healthily during the week, we go a bit crazy on the weekend. This healthy eating plan is our first effort in getting our bodies ready for Thailand trip take 2.

This small step throws me back into the IVF world of healthy eating, acupuncture, herbs, fertility tea, castor oil packs, not eating peas because they are not conducive to fertility (who knew?), handfuls of vitamins and supplements, caffeine free days, wearing orange pj pants because orange is the colour of fertility - in essence, this throws me back into my crazy 'do everything I can' mode. I don't know if I am ready for it yet. One thing that the holiday away showed me was that I still have some unresolved issues to discuss with the counsellor and certainly I would like to be in a better place mentally before we start trying for JBBS (JourneyBabyBoy'sSibling). I want to enjoy JBB's every little minute - he is precious and growing sooooo fast I just can't believe it!

So, as I dip my toe back into getting back into shape (probably a long road, I put on a lot of weight during the pregnancy), I am going to focus on the fact of being healthy for myself, JourneyMan and JBB, both of whom need me to be at my best and healthiest. I will separate these efforts from the next Thailand trip - I will get back to being fit, yeah - this will be fun (and scary!).

Wouldn't it be great though? You have sex with your beloved, you get pregnant and have a baby - simplicity itself and nary an orange fertility pj in sight!

A New Year

Happy New Year everyone - I hope it is a beautiful, wonderful year for you all!!

Firstly, let me clear up my last post. No, I am not pregnant - as my friend Lifeslurper deduced, I was referring to Christmas 2009 when I found out that I was pregnant with the beautiful JBB.

We have been away camping for 10 days from 27 December (not down your way LS, we were on the Sapphire coast - absolutely gorgeous!!) so I haven't had access to update you on the latest Journey adventures. It was a rocky holiday. JourneyMan wasn't there for the first four days and as I had most of my family there with me, I thought I would be able to cope with camping and a four month old. Hmmm, that proved me wrong - it was hard, desperately hard and I felt like a total failure because I couldn't cope with it by myself.

JourneyMan ended up coming up a day earlier than originally planned because I begged him to and then it was a bit easier. It has been a strange couple of weeks. The absolute joy of Christmas was followed by the desperate disappointment of my inability to cope on our trip. JourneyMan and I were also squabbling and it took until two nights ago for us to sit down and to really talk out what has been going on, we are okay now but I found it a bit disturbing because we were having difficulty communicating with each other - misunderstandings were the order of the day.

On the very positive side of things, JBB is a darling. He is 4 and a half months old now and is more and more delightful every day. He is such a good baby. He has been sleeping through the night for a while now and is babbling (and squealing) all the time, I think he is going to be quite a chatterbox. He is learning at a rate of knotts - he can pull himself up to a standing position when he is holding our hands, he has learned how to grasp items on his own - he is an absolute treasure.

My New Year's resolutions for this year are:

1. To work on feeling deserving of all of the wonderful things that I have in my life
2. To be nicer to myself
3. To enjoy every moment with JBB and JourneyMan
4. To get back my fitness and lose weight again

It is not a nice realisation to discover that you are hideously mean to yourself - honestly, I wouldn't say some of the things that I say to myself to my worst enemy. I am going to continue on with the counselling to keep on learning and growing.

I am also going to get back to using this blog as an outlet for my feelings moreso than an update of our daily happenings - I hope that will be interesting and not to tedious for you all!!