*flicks microphone* Is this thing on?

Hello. 

It's me. 

I was wondering if after all these weeks you'd still like to read.

Hi, bloggy friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter with your families. If that included a new addition to your family, I hope it was magical and full of color and eggs and candy and wonderment. 

I have been a baaaad blogger.

Like, way bad.

I haven't written anything in way, way too long. Like it or not, writing is like a muscle; if you don't use it you start to lose it. For me, baby has taken up a lot of time (though I am quite proud of myself for how many posts I have been able to write since my son arrived) and I haven't quite worked out how to just SIT DOWN and make the time to write. Plus I'm still struggling with being an infertility blogger while looking at my son. It's like having stroganoff on one side of my plate and pizza on the other. Naturally I want to eat the damn pizza because the stroganoff makes my stomach hurt and gives me flashbacks to childhood dinner times when I wanted to just give up on life.

(I once had a teacher who told me metaphors were bullshit and to avoid them like the plague when writing. Apparently I didn't listen.)

ANYWAYS. No, I am not abandoning infertility posts at all. They just take a little more mental preparation than the rainbow and unicorn posts about my son that flow out of me like lava. You feel me?

I am going to be writing a new blog post (infertility related!) that actually has content rather than ramblings in the next few days, so stay tuned.

I hope you all are doing well and staying strong. Keep at it, lovelies!

XOXO,

Forget Harry Pottter, Merlin is my new boyfriend

I don't believe in magic. And I always promised myself I would never do product reviews, because, how totally annoying. I don't want to be an infomercial for anything.

                               

But no one ever said I keep my promises. So allow me to now completely contradict myself and become a walking infomercial for a product I love so much, I've considered marrying it.

Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit.

Dear baby Jesus laying in the manger, this thing is amazing. 

Here's the story: my son is almost four months old. Up until now he has been allll about the swaddle. And when I say swaddle, I basically mean a straight jacket. He wanted to be in that Halo swaddle suit so tight that I worried I'd dislocate his shoulders wrapping him up in it. 

For over three months, he lay swaddled every night and slept well, only waking up 3-4 times (he is a breastfed baby). But a few weeks ago, that all changed. If he were to be a super hero, I'd call him "The Waker". Nothing I did would keep him down, and I began to notice on the baby monitor that he would sporadically kick and wake himself up. This is when I became best friends with Google and learned about the Moro reflex. (Why do they not teach us about this when we give birth?) This lovely phenomenon will cause completely knocked out babies to wake up with gusto.

You can read about it on the link, but let me save you the trouble. It's a reflex that makes baby feel like he's falling.

Dude, I'd wake the hell up, too.

The good news is that your baby will grow out of it. The bad news is that while you're waiting for that to happen, you get no sleep.

UNTIL NOW.

(This is where I'm going to go full infomercial.)

I saw someone mention the Merlin Magic suit on a local Momma's Group on Facebook. She had nothing but amazing things to say. I was doubtful. Look at this thing.

                                          
This snow suit apparatus is supposed to help my child sleep? More like help him body surf down a snow bank.

I was not convinced. There were some hurdles to get past.

Hurdle #1: This looks stupid

It wasn't until I read up on the suit that bells of sense started to ring in my head. The gimmick is, the layers in the suit help to muffle or subdue the jolt of that Moro reflex we just discussed, making it easier for your baby to get himself back to sleep after experiencing one. Instead of fully waking up thinking he's falling, it just feels like a normal "move around", and therefore helps him stay asleep.

So, hurdle #1 jumped. Onto the next.


Hurdle #2: Workin' up a sweat

Won't my baby sweat like a whore in church in this thing?

                              

Answer? Maybe. There are some baby's that run hot, and wrapping them up in additional padding might seem counter intuitive. In that case, I'd recommend having the babe sleep in just a diaper and some socks. There's no need for a onesie underneath because the material is uber soft. You can also choose to get the cotton version rather than the microfleece, which is a bit lighter. My advice is to try it first. And if you're super concerned, turn a fan on to keep the room a bit cooler.

Hurdle #3: Show me the money

The Merlin Magic Suit is not cheap. It's $40.00. If you have Amazon Prime you can get yourself some free shipping, and that helps. Buuuut, to make matters worse, when you wash it, it takes for.ev.er to dry. So you really need two. That's $80.00.

                                                 

Yes, it's costly. Here's where you have to weigh your return on investment, though. I, myself, burned through at least 3 other sleep solutions (Woombie, Zipadee Zip and some other random thing) before I landed on Merlin. Each one of those products was probably $25.00 and they didn't work and I'm kinda stuck with them. The good news with Merlin is, if it doesn't work for your baby I guarantee you can sell it lickety split for very close to what you paid, if not the exact amount.

But you won't need to worry about that because it's going to work.

Hurdle #4: You can't use it forever

This is a sad one for me. My little man is starting to roll over when he's not in the Merlin suit. For the moment, it's bulky enough that he can't quite roll himself onto tummy while he's in the suit, but that won't be the case for much longer. The Merlin Magic website recommends that once your little one can roll over, they need to be out of the suit. 

Well, crap.

There's really no solution I can offer to this last hurdle, it just is what it is. It's not worth keeping my baby in something that might be dangerous past a certain point. (The concern being that if he gets onto his tummy, he could suffocate face down.) So this means eventually he's going to have to transition to another solution (like a sleep sack). 

All the tears.

Hurdle #5: Your baby might never sleep this good again

For the record, despite all the rave reviews I read, the first night we tried the Merlin Magic Suit, I had my serious doubts. Would my little buddy even sleep with his arms out at his sides? Wouldn't he be uncomfortable? Truth be told, I was so incredibly nervous it wouldn't work that I actually had the suit in my possession for two weeks before I actually tried it. 

I finally decided to bite the bullet on a Friday night. I fed him at 7:30 PM and placed him in the suit.

He looked ridiculous.

        







Anyways.

I put him down at 7:45 PM and went downstairs with my husband to wait. How long until i had to go in and switch him back to his Halo? 20 minutes? An hour?

At 10:40 I went to bed. He didn't wake me up until 1:45.

                                               

After a quick feeding, he went back down again and was asleep until 6:00 AM.

BUT WAIT...THAT'S NOT ALL.

On night three in the suit, he went to bed at 8 and didn't wake up until 4:00 AM.

Yeah, I'm a Merlin Magic believer.

Full disclosure, sometimes he still does get up 2-3 times in the night. But I think that's just how babies are. They're consistently inconsistent. I do know that with this suit I have seen a change in how well my son sleeps, and at the end of the day (or in this case the end of the night) that's all that matters.

So, what are you waiting for? Sleep like a baby because your baby is finally sleeping like a baby.

(If Merlin Magic starts using that tag line, I get royalties right?)

XOXO,

I am not being paid for this product review. I just really, really love our Merlin suit and want you all to get one. I don't have a special code for you to get a discount and I don't get any special swag for writing these words. I'm just a sleep deprived mom that likes me some Merlin Magic.

With All Due Respect: A Response to a Misguided Infertility Article

If the infertility community had a dollar for every inaccurate, misleading, or just plain ridiculous article about infertility, we'd never have to pay for our daily Starbucks fix again. 

Then again, caffeine caused us to be infertile.

(Oops, there's another dollar.)

                     

Last week, @gotnosperm tweeted a link to an absurd article that appeared on The Huffington Post. It immediately lit a match within the infertile Twitter community, and I feel like a response to the article is needed. 

Our voice should be heard.

Here's the article. When I saw the title, "Infertility: The Important Missing Piece in Health Education Classes" I thought, "So true! This is a conversation we should be having with teens. It's not a fun convo, but we can prepare them for what might be coming and where they can go for help if it happens to them."

Then I started reading - and got all kinds of angry.  Right away I noticed that the subject of infertility as it pertains to the health education curriculum is only discussed as an afterthought. The article disguises itself as a conversation starter, when in fact it is simply a vehicle to get the real agenda across, which is hating on adoption and surrogacy. Infertility is just collateral damage. The gist of the article is this: infertility is totally preventable, infertility doctors and clinics are just trying to get your money, and surrogacy is just a bunch of exploitative assholes looking to screw you. 

Oh, and "adoption" is just a code word for sex trafficking.

This article should have inspired a dialogue surrounding if/when we should inform teens about the possibility that they will experience infertility in their life. Instead, the facts and statistics are so random and twisted that the original subject gets completely lost in the alphabet soup. What we're left with is a distasteful and flawed sermon that places the blame for fertility squarely on the sufferer's shoulders.  Here's a disturbing quote:

"Infertility affects both men and women, is devastating, heartbreaking, and often extremely expensive, and many of the risk factors are rooted in behavior that begins in adolescence."

Is this true? Well, it's truth adjacent. Infertility has certainly been linked to age, obesity,  alcohol, drugs, etc. But so has cancer. And headaches. And depression. 

Do we tell people with chronic headaches or cancer that it's their fault for eating too many candy bars in high school and doing too many Jell-O shots in college? No. We do our best to give them love and support and remind them that this random life curve is in no way their fault.

Because it isn't.

Infertility is no different. Of course there are factors that could increase the chances of fertility problems later in life, but it's hardly responsible to tell young teens that if they maintain a healthy lifestyle they can avoid infertility. That's writing a check that nature can't cash.

A large number of infertility issues are unexplained. Mine was, and after four years and the birth of my son, it still is. Besides, infertility can be linked to many sources. An obese woman who loses 60 pounds isn't suddenly guaranteed a pregnancy. She could have been obese with un-diagnosed PCOS. A woman in her 40's might easily get pregnant where a woman in her early 20's struggles. Every single case of this heartbreaking disease (yes, I said disease) is different, and it is never the person's fault that is suffering.

Ever.

This ridiculous article even sights that riding a bike and wearing constrictive underwear can cause male infertility. And therefore, "it is important for young people to know that their present behavior may cause them heartache later in life when they are ready to have a family."

                 

So you heard it here first, kids. Stay healthy and get plenty of exercise, but oh yeah, steer clear of riding a bike, mmmk? And actually, excessive exercise can cause infertility, so maybe just be lazy. But wait, obesity will cause infertility...you're just screwed, so best of luck with procreating.

The most disturbing part of this article for me is the focus of blaming infertility on women who choose to wait to begin a family. 

"First pregnancies over 30 are more difficult to achieve and maintain and also add to increased risk for the health of the baby.", and shortly after, "Since it is never too late to pursue higher education and career, it is worth considering delaying those pursuits instead of delaying childbirth. The infertility industry in America has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry profiting from these preventable behaviors."

What in the actual hell? So we should encourage women to go ahead get pregnant (ready or not, partner or not) because, hey, you can always get your degree some other day. Besides, the infertility industry is just getting rich off of your ridiculously selfish feminism, you Melanie-Griffith-Working-Girl wannabe. Stop trying to break through the glass ceiling and make make your husband some stroganoff, please.

                                         

No no no no. This is all SO wrong and such an ass-backwards approach to family planning. When and if a woman chooses to have a child should be her decision. I don't want anyone (especially an impressionable teenager) being told to give up their dreams of a career in favor of popping out a kid. Hell, why even finish high school? You should just get pregnant now! Your junior varsity quarterback boyfriend Tommy will surely be who you spend the rest of your life with. And if he isn't, oh well, at least you'll have your baby before your eggs scramble!

(My eyes are rolled so far back they can see my hardly-ever working ovaries.)

At the conclusion of the article, we finally uncover what the true agenda is: hating on adoption/surrogacy. In fact, surrogacy is described as, "a controversial practice that is Illegal in most of the industrialized world because it exploits low-income women in the US and overseas." 

What bothers me is how broad a brush is being used to paint surrogacy as this seedy, underground machine that's turning underprivileged teenagers into baby-making slave laborers. I'm sure surrogacy has its problems like almost all large organizations do. But frankly, for some people, surrogacy is truly the answer. For lesbian and gay couples, it's a way for at least one of them to have their DNA in their child. For other couples, it's the only option for them to have a child that is biologically their own. To solely focus on the negatives of a potential path to parenthood is simply irresponsible and dangerous. 

With regard to adoption, the article shares goes for the throat, claiming, "because the demand so outstrips the supply, the adoption industry is plagued by corruption, trafficking, and scams, all with little oversight or regulation."

Hey lady that wrote this article, your bias is showing. 

Like surrogacy, adoption isn't problem free. But it isn't all cloak and dagger awful, either. I can count on more than two hands the number of people I personally know who would be childless had it not been for the selfless and beautiful act of a mother choosing adoption for her baby. I understand that there are those who have had bad experiences, but does that mean we shut the whole system down? Hardly. I mean, I had a shoddy cavity fill in the 9th grade. Do I just let the other cavities that I get rot in my mouth until I look like a cast member for Duck Dynasty? Um, no.

To close out her glass-is-half-empty-and-also-probably-filled-with-cyanide diatribe, Mirah Riben ends with this uplifting thought:

It is vitally important for our youth to be made aware that their behavior may cause them grief and costly, risky treatments later in life. Health classes need to include this important information.

The truth is, the "this is all your fault" approach isn't going to help anyone. I'm all for educating young people on infertility, but let's do it from a standpoint of support and information rather than accusation. After all, when we know better we do better, right? Would it maybe be better to educate kids about healthy living across the board, rather than make empty promises about avoiding infertility if we just stop having an extra doughnut or drinking a soda? 

I think so.

So there.

XOXO, my infertile friends. Just remember, you've done nothing wrong. You are beautiful.

PS: Here's the author's web page. It's pretty clear what her agenda has been from the get go. Maybe Huff Post Education should choose someone else to write about infertility. 

Make Like a Tree and Maternity Leave: 10 Tips to Prepare You For What'sComing

Maternity leave. Two tiny words that can bring up a wealth of all kinds of emotions. Fear, anxiety, joy. For the most part, the idea of maternity leave (if you're taking it) will make you feel excitement, and maybe even a little hopeful. After all, newborns sleep a lot. You're going to get SO MUCH DONE! You might even start and complete that novel that's been living inside you for the last 10 years. Move over, J.K. Rowling, there's a new best selling author in town.

Then you get home with the baby and you realize things aren't exaaaaactly like you thought they'd be. And with that, here are the top 10 things about maternity leave you never saw coming.

10) Time flies, even if you aren't having fun

You'll probably be up before 6:00 AM. And yet, somehow, when your husband walks in the door in the early evening and asks, "So what did you two do today?", you find yourself wondering exactly that. WHAT THE HELL DID I DO WITH THE LAST 12 HOURS?

I'll give you a hint. You changed diapers, fed baby, changed baby, soothed baby when he cried for two hours straight, attempted to load the dishwasher but gave up when baby woke up from his nap, and took a shower. (No promises you get one of those tomorrow, though.) When you look at that list, how in the world did those few items take up that much time?

Because they just do.

I'm convinced days with a baby are actually looped into some sort of cosmic time warp or dog year phenomenon, where one minute is actually 10 minutes. So hours really only last six minutes. And therefore, those 12 hours are really only 72 minutes long.

Trust me on this, I know what I'm talking about.

9) Television makes no sense

When you first started thinking about maternity leave, you poured through your Netflix account, looking for a great series to start (and maybe even finish!) while your babe and you snuggled on the couch.

Good luck with that, honey buns.

What actually happens is you watch the first few episodes when baby is sleeping 16-17 hours a day and get really into it. (For me, it was "The Affair" on Showtime). Then, right as you're getting into the meat and potatoes of the show, baby decides he's had enough of you eye-gulping television and wants to be fed smack in the middle of episode 4. So you pop the boob (or bottle) in his mouth and settle back in. But he doesn't want to be fed anymore, he wants to be rocked and cuddled. So for 20 minutes you look into his eyes and coo at him until he drifts off to sleep. But then you have no idea what the hell just happened on your show. You reach for the remote, but the movement startles baby and he wakes up...and you get to start all over again.

Bottom line? You aren't going to be watching any television unless it's something you've already seen.

8) You will learn efficiency at a pro level

This happens fast. Pre-baby, you could nestle on the sofa in the morning, drink in the morning peacefulness, and occasionally change the channels on the television.Those days are gone. Now you must learn to think in advance of what you could possibly need before you sit down. TV on? Check. Channel correct? Check. Coffee in arm's reach? Check. Bladder empty? Check. You will learn to anticipate every conceivable scenario and your response to it before you're seated. (I'm convinced this is actually brain training for when my child is older and is trying to think of ways to sneak out of the house.)

7) You might hate your partner a teeny little bit

Your days are spent changing poopy diapers, feeding your baby on demand and occasionally eating a meal. So when your husband gets home, you fully expect to be able to do a changing of the guard and hand baby over for a bit of a reprieve. Perhaps you'll finally pay the bills that have been mounting on the kitchen counter. Or eat an apple. But Hubs might have other ideas. And for the record, it isn't even his fault. He (or she) comes home from a hard day and wants to have snuggled with a happy baby. Not grumpy, smelly, hasn't-slept-for-hours baby that needs to be rocked and bounced. So when you give him that baby, don't be surprised when he immediately tries to give him back and say, "Oh, he must be hungry. I can't help with that." And then you want to throttle him.

This is going to take communication for both of you to get through. Hubs needs to know you need a break. After all, you've been working hard all day too, just in a different way. Both of you deserve a little downtime and you're going to have to take it in shifts. I remember the exact moment I realized Hubs and I needed to talk very seriously about what I was expecting from a help perspective when he came home from work. I was sitting on the couch nursing my son and realized I had left his pacifier upstairs. I asked Hubs to grab it and he replied, "Well, what would you do if I wasn't here?" I considered calling a divorce attorney right then and there.

The point is, you have to talk to one another. You both must understand that life is different now and "downtime" might just be a fond memory. And you need to be there for each other.

6) You will kick yourself for "powering through" your tiredness when you were pregnant.

Because naps were at least an option back then. Now your bed beckons you and you have to ignore it.

5) Your laundry will become biblical

Remember the feeding of the 5,000? This is what happens to your laundry. One tiny, little human will produce more laundry than you could ever conceive. Sometimes baby wears an outfit for literally three minutes. Then it's one go-around with a blow out diaper and baby needs new pants and you need a completely new outfit.

4) Your bank account will suffer

No, not because you need to buy diapers and formula and wipes, although those certainly cost money. The spending shenanigans comes from online shopping. But wait, you say, I thought I was going to be spending all my free time rocking baby and being tired. How am I going to shop?

Your body is an amazing thing and will learn to buy things with the use of only one extremity. Did you know you can rock baby with one arm and scroll through Amazon with the other? You will become next level amazing at it. 

To make matters worse, night time feedings may cause half-awake spending, which is both the best and the worst kind. The best is when a package arrives that contains an item that you've always wanted but could never pull the trigger on. Did Hubs buy this for you because he loves you? What a doll! And then the worst part comes...because you realize you sleep-bought this item for yourself during baby's 3:30 AM feeding. Oops.

If you want to try and curtail the damage, don't save your credit card info onto your phone. At least then you have to physically go and get your wallet to purchase something. Otherwise, you're just a few clicks and an Amazon Prime membership away from bankruptcy.

3) You will wear out Google

Is baby supposed to burp after breast feeding? When should she stop sleeping in her bassinet? Are these weird bumps on her arm normal?

Get ready for your entire search history to revolve around things that may or may not be wrong with your kid. And prepare to feel more judged than you've ever felt. For the first three weeks of maternity leave, I relied on Google or Mom Blogs to guide me through what I was supposed to be doing. The problem arose when I found great advice, then three minutes later found advice that counteracted the great advice I just got. It's a vicious cycle. 

Use Google if you truly think it will help, but more than likely, you'll end up more confused and fully convinced you're failing at motherhood.

2) You won't work out

I bought a set of workout DVD's my second day of maternity leave, and they're still sitting in my kitchen. It's not that I don't plan to use them, but I've made peace with the fact that they're going to have to wait until after my son is in daycare. This is the one time in my life I can spend an unprecedented amount of time with my baby. I'm not going to use it worrying about my gut and stretch marks.

The workouts can wait.

1) It will fly

Don't blink. Your time with baby will be over before you can even process that it's happened. Sure, eight or ten or twelve weeks sounds like an eternity, but it isn't. As the end of my uninterrupted time with my son comes to a close, I am floored by how quickly it's gone. I struggled with feeling like I got nothing accomplished, but then I remember that I had a baby. I kept him alive. I fed him from my own body parts every single day and he is happy and thriving and well. 

And now I have to turn him over to someone else.

It breaks my heart, but I know I soaked up every minute of my time with him and didn't take any of it for granted. Even when he was cranky and barfing or pooping every four minutes or refusing to go down for a nap, I was grateful for him. I was thankful to have him in my arms, a little piece of my husband and me.

And now I'm ready to go back to work and watch him thrive. 
XOXO,

Feed Me, Seymour: The Honest Guide to Breast Feeding You Never Knew You Needed

When I was pregnant, people would constantly ask me one question that grated my nerves more than any other...

Are you going to breastfeed?

                                         


As someone who had worked so incredibly hard to even get pregnant, I hadn't really taken the time to consider breastfeeding vs formula. I was way too busy thinking about whether this pregnancy would even go to term to focus on what I would do to sustain my baby's life after he came. 

But, as most babies do, he arrived. And he was hungry. Our nurses at the hospital were fantastic and the lactation consultants were extremely helpful in helping me to get breast feeding going. Now that nearly 13 weeks have passed, I look back and see how much my approach to breast feeding has changed since those first few days.

So let's get to the good stuff that 4,392 other articles won't tell you about breastfeeding. For example:

1. Breastfeeding is freaking hard

Yeah, yeah, you say. Everyone knows it's hard. All the mom's say it. But really, what's so hard about it? I mean, you bring the baby up to your nipple and off you go. Um, no. That's the forensic explanation. It is so, so much more than that. I mean, sex is technically putting part A into part B, right? But we all know how intense and complicated and wonderful and awful sex can be, don't we? Breastfeeding is the same way. It's all the nuances and little things that make it either fantastic or awful.

Full disclosure, though? At the beginning, it's pretty much just awful. So don't go into your first experience breastfeeding and feel like you're a failure if you aren't screaming, "YAY, I GET TO BREAST FEED TODAY!" 

That may never happen.

2. There is pain. No matter what you read that says otherwise.

Almost every "how to" guide I read clearly stated that if your nipples hurt while breastfeeding, you were doing it wrong. That is blatantly not true. Remember, before you had your baby, your nipples were rarely (or never) getting play. Maybe once a week? Once every two weeks? Hell, it might have been five months since your boobs last saw daylight because when you're pregnant, your boobs hurt and you're all " DON'T TOUCH ME THERE, OKAY!?" 

Now, this eight pound human being wants to chomp down on your practically re-virginized tata's and get liquid out of them 10 times a day. And this isn't supposed to hurt? Girl, please.

                          

The fact is, your nipples have to get used to being sucked on in a completely non-sexual way. It just isn't pleasant at the beginning. Now, that isn't to say that if it hurts to feed that you're definitely doing it right, it just means that if it hurts, you aren't necessarily doing it wrong. And you, my friend, get the joyous task of figuring out which category you fall into. For me, it hurt because the cross-cradle hold turned out to be a dud. My little man just couldn't latch correctly. The minute I switched to the football hold we were off to the races. But it still did hurt at the beginning. 

I highly recommend walking around shirtless and braless for at least a week if you can. Your partner will love it and your nipples will love you. Be aware though, you will have to thwart the increased advances made by your partner as a result of your free floating lady parts. Just "accidentally" squeeze some breast milk on him. He won't touch you for a month.

3. You will leak.

I spent a good month and a half waking up in the middle of the night swimming in my own liquids before finally realizing I needed to sleep with a bra and breast pads. And no one thought to share with me that when you feed your baby on one side, the other side is going to let down, too. You must prepare for the rain!

Sometimes the leakage happens two minutes after my baby's last feeding, sometimes it takes two hours. So keep close watch, as thou cannot know the time or the hour when the boobs will spring a leak.

Do yourself a favor and invest in the nursing pads and keep them in your bra 24/7. Don't bother taking off the sticky adhesive strips and trying to keep them in place, either. They're going to move, as are your boobs. You get used to it and eventually you won't have any qualms about fixing it in public. 

4. You'll Never Take Your Bra Off Again

Because #3.

5. Ounces matter

If your breastfeeding time table goals exceeds your maternity leave capabilities, you're going to have to pump. I'd recommend starting pretty early on so you can get the hang of it. 

Pumping sucks. In fact, they should just call it Sucking because that's what it is. Two weird, plastic, alien-looking things attach to your titties and siphon the freaking life out of them. If you're lucky some milk comes out, too. But guess what? Sometimes you'll pump for 25 minutes and not a single drop happens. It's super reassuring. Then out of curiosity you'll Google"how many ounces should I be getting when I pump" and you'll read things like, "I immediately got 10 ounces at every pump!" and "I loved pumping! I got 1,200 ounces in two weeks for my babe!" 

(I just tell myself that these women are ugly in real life. It's the only thing that makes me feel better.)

(Not really, those ladies are just super lucky.)

As an added bonus, here's something else you have to deal with. Your husband WILL NOT get it. One of the first times I pumped, I only got half an ounce and my husband said, "So just throw that out, right? It's not worth it to keep it."

               
                                               

Excuse me? Not worth it? I just spent 35 minutes with a machine making a sound that can only be described as several cows being disemboweled as I hunched over two giant vacuums who, I swear to God, get personal pleasure out of my pain, and you don't think the half ounce I pumped is WORTH IT?

I highly recommend keeping all sharp objects away from yourself when you've just pumped, because if anyone dares question how much you got, you will probably end up on death row.

6. Forget Text Neck. 

You will get Tit Neck from looking down at your boobs when you pump to SEE IF ANYTHING IS COMING OUT. Oh, and get ready to get genuinely excited when you see the milk start to spray. It's like Christmas morning.

                              




7. Eventually you will breast feed for all to see in public

Because...



8. The nursing cover sucks


Who wants to eat like this? Exactly no one.

                                  



For the purposes of research, I ate my breakfast today with a blanket over my head and guess what? It's not a pleasant way to eat. I couldn't see anything, it made me hot and it's stupid. Why would I expect my child to eat this way just because we're in public? I mean, if I do flash a nipple it's for less time than Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.

Also, the nursing cover is the most awkward thing on earth. How is anyone expected to thread the needle of a mouth to a nipple without the benefit of SIGHT? I am not a superhero, people. 


9. Cluster feeding is a real thing

As I left the hospital with my newborn son, basking in the glory of the beautiful human I produced, my lactation consultant called after me, "Don't forget about the cluster feed at two weeks! You'll feel like he's attached to you!" 

I wasn't really listening. 

Thankfully Hubs was, because around the two week mark, my son went on a breast feeding binge. He fed every 15 minutes for over two hours straight. As I sat there with red nipples, a sore back, and angry as hell, Hubs piped up, "Hey, didn't that lactation lady say this would happen around two weeks and you just had to power through it?" 

Those lactation peeps. They're always right.

Cluster feeding sucks but it is necessary. It's signaling to your body to up the milk production to keep up with what baby needs. If you supplement with formula, it might cut back on your discomfort, but you might not ever get your supply up to where it needs to be. Try and power through. Sit down with Netflix ("House of Cards" all day, erry day.) and a bunch of snacks and let babe eat as often as he needs. Have some lanolin on your nipples in between feedings and you'll come out the other side, I promise.

10. Your timeline will change

When I started nursing, my pie in the sky goal was to make it at least a year. After day two, I had decided I would make it a week. After a week, I decided one month...max. Now I've been successfully breast feeding for three months and my new goal is six.

The correct answer for how long to breast feed is: as long as you want.

There is no magic number of months or days or weeks. Frankly, if you're hating every second of it, you are transferring that energy to your baby. He can feel it. If you are absolutely despising the process to feed your child, then it might be time to move on. 

But here's a little thing to remember: breast feeding is like having contractions. If you knew you had 192 more to go before your baby arrived, you probably would have just given up and jumped out the window. Instead you took it one at a time, minute by minute, half hour by half hour. That's how I've learned to handle breast feeding. I take it week by week. 

So, new mama (or second or third time mama), give yourself a break. Join a breast feeding support group. Email me. Call your mother. Call your best friend who breast fed twins for nine months. Your body was designed for this, and you owe it to yourself to give it a try. If breast feeding isn't for you, that's fine. You will probably get questions from nosy people with good intentions. Try not to go too hard on them. They just don't know any better. 


Hang in there!

XOXO,

Looking back...

I don't know who "they" are, but apparently "they" say looking back isn't a wise thing to do because it prevents you from moving truly forward.

I say horseshit.

As an infertile, sometimes looking back is the only way to see just how far I've come. (Surely that's a Maya Angelou quote...or I'm just amazing.) If I didn't have the strength to look back, I wouldn't be able to see that one year ago, I was in Colorado, living at my friend's house, sticking myself with injections every day, and waiting patiently for my retrieval date. Every morning I would wake up, convinced I was at home, and then reality would set in. I would remember that I was far from home, without my husband (who would come later), living off of my friends' hospitality, all in the hope that this journey would end with a pregnancy.

It wasn't an easy time for me.

But, because I look back, I can smile at that time. I can laugh at the day I tried to go buy my in laws a Christmas present at a nearby Crate and Barrel, and was so terrified of the Colorado traffic that I turned the car around and went right back to the house (with a detour to buy ice cream, of course). I can finally grin at the memory of telling myself, "If you can get through this Gonal F injection, you can rent Serendipity," because I knew a Christmas movie would cheer me up. I can get all warm and fuzzy thinking about how my selfless friend Lindsey asking me what she could bring me home for dinner, as I sat on her plush couch, watching her TV, reading her books. 

Most importantly, I can look back and not have my heart break as I recall the pain and turmoil I was experiencing as my retrieval date grew closer. I don't have to wince at the memory of giving myself an injection in the Dick's Sporting Goods bathroom. I no longer live in fear of it all not working. 

Because it did work. 

My son is sleeping in his crib right now. I can go in and watch him breathe. I can look at his fingers and his toes and pinch them ever so gently to know he's real. I can hold him up to my breast and feed him, sustaining his life with my own. All because I went through that pain and suffering and misery a year ago.

Just one year.

I always thought that if I looked back on infertility, I would surely think about how it was the worst time of my life and how much I hated it. But quite the opposite has happened. I truly look back on my time in Colorado and throughout my infertility and feel proud. Accomplished. I feel invincible. Then I look back on my birth story and feel even more proud, accomplished and invincible. By golly, by George, I can do anything. If I can handle all of that, I can handle no sleep, engorged boobs, and crying fits at 3 AM. I can handle teething and potty training and first dates and puberty. I can and I will handle it all like a champ.

And I will look back on all of it. And I will smile.

Happy Holidays, all! Here's a photo from our fall family shoot. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season!

 

XOXO,

The Birth Story: Part 2

The other day, I shared with you all the story of how my little buddy came into this world. It was long, tiring and scary but we made it through and Hubs and I left the hospital with a perfect baby in our arms government approved car seat.

I was amazed about how my expectations of the birth were absolutely nothing like the reality, and I had a sneaking suspicion the "after baby" experience would yield the same results.

I was right.

Rather than tell you the long version of what happened after baby, I'll use one of my trusty lists to tell you about the post production of having a baby.

(I realize there are already a ton of lists out there on the internet, but they're all things like "you have to wear giant maxi pads after giving birth." I mean, duh. But I, dear friends, am going to tell you the real stuff.)

Things No One Tells You About Birthing a Baby:

1. You will have no modesty left

Like I mentioned yesterday, there's no need to cross your legs like a lady and try and hold your hospital gown closed. You will have more people up in your lady business than you ever thought possible. A few times Hubs even said, "the nurses are getting more action from you than I've seen in weeks." They've got to check your cervix, adjust really annoying monitors on your belly and after delivery, and take out your catheter. They don't care if you've shaved and they don't care if you fart. Do what they say and it will be over a lot faster than if you fight it.

2. You will forget how to pee 

I can't speak to vaginal delivery because I had a c-section, but I can tell you that after it was all said and done and my catheter came out, my nurse took me into the bathroom to pee. But I couldn't go. It was like my bladder had shut down and gone on strike. The nurse gave me a little bottle to spray warm water on my lady bits (like I said earlier, they see it all) to trick my body into peeing, but it didn't really work. Ultimately, there's one way to make sure it finally happens. (Brace yourselves.) When you take your first shower and the water hits you, your bladder will go "OH! I remember what to do!" and you will pee in the shower.

Gross, but you will be so, so happy.

3. You'll Heart Stool Softeners

If the doc and nurses don't offer you a stool softener as part of your postpartum care, ASK FOR IT. Constipation is a legit phenomenon after birth. I realize it's TMI, but I went almost a week after delivery without a BM. And don't think you can just tough it out, because you will regret it when you're pooping out what feels like glass mixed with sand paper and a splash of bleach. TAKE THE STOOL SOFTENER.

4. Your stitches aren't going to rip open- but it will feel like it

This is for you c-section gals. The first time you cough/sneeze/laugh, you will be positive you ripped open your incision and your guts have trickled into your lap. They aren't. Your stitches will withstand just about anything. If you're so lucky as to accidentally choke on some Jell-O like I did, you will experience a large coughing fit and get to feel your incision on a catastrophic level. It isn't fun and it doesn't feel good, but rest assured your stitches are going to hold. Also, be sure to check out your incision in the mirror...it's pretty bad ass.

5. Your first shower will be better than sex

A lot of things happen to your body while and after you giving birth. You sweat, maybe throw up, and leak various fluids out of every hole your body has. So it should be no surprise that you, well...you stink. A shower is necessary (if your doc okays it). Grab yourself a chair for the shower if your bathroom allows for it, and let the warm water do its thing. You will feel like a new woman. Oh, and you'll probably look down at some point and see a lot of blood going down the drain. That's normal and it will probably continue to happen for another few weeks. Yay.

6. It's open season on your boobies

Breast feeding? Lactation consultants will be your BFF...and they will touch your boobs. A lot. This sort of goes back to #1, where being modest is just not going to get you anywhere. When you first try to breastfeed, it will feel weird and foreign and you'll be afraid that you'll break your baby. Let the consultant help you. I didn't realize my milk wouldn't come in right away and freaked out. The consultant explained that my breasts would only produce yellow, gooey looking stuff called colostrum at first, and it is super good for my babe. But, there's a chance it might not come out without some coercing. When my colostrum wasn't showing up on its own, my lactation consultant massaged my boobies with both hands for a good 10 minutes. And I so didn't care. If it means your baby is going to get what he needs, you won't care either. It got to the point where I would have both of my girls out in the open when nurses would come in to check on me. No one blinked twice. They see it every day.

Not wanting to breast feed? I won't lie, you might catch some flack for it. Try not to take it personally; lactation consultants know the benefits of nursing and they want you to recognize it, too. But hey, it isn't for everyone and some women don't produce milk enough to sustain their baby. Don't be afraid to tell your nurse firmly (but nicely) that you have made the choice not to nurse and to please respect that.

7. Your nipples will be on fire

It's the truth. You will probably dread feeding baby the first few weeks. But trust me...it gets easier! Your nips will toughen up. If you're in total misery, it could be your baby has a bad latch. Don't be too stubborn to call the lactation consultant and ask for help. That is what they're there for. They want to help and they want you to succeed at breast feeding. Hang in there, champ. You're doing fine.

8. You'll want to leave...I mean stay...I mean leave

Leaving the hospital might be harder than you think. One would imagine that getting away from that sterile smell and uncomfortable furniture would be welcome, but you have to remember that once you've left, you're on your own. And that can be pretty scary. Be prepared to have mixed feelings about saying goodbye to your room and the staff who have taken such great care of you and been with you every step of your delivery. I was surprised at how choked up I got when we left. I knew we had to go, but a big part of me wanted to stay and continue to get help on demand. But alas, the time came, and it was time to move on.

9. You will experience love for your spouse/partner like never before

You already love your spouse. They've been with you for the entire pregnancy, dealing with your mood swings, cravings, and heartburn. But now? They are your rock. Your sanity. Your partner in every sense of the word. This little person that just entered your life will require more work, effort and attention than you ever thought possible, and sometimes you just won't have what they need. Your spouse will be there to make up the difference (and vice versa). They will scratch your foot when you can't reach it because your stomach (or vagina) is still on fire from delivery. They will move your water glass 2 inches to the left so you can reach it. They will wake up with you when baby screams and comfort you when you feel like you're going to lose your mind. They will be your third and fourth arm because I promise you, two arms aren't enough for all the things you need to do for a newborn.

Lean on your spouse, because otherwise you are going to fall over. Let him help you in your darkest moments. Shower him with "thank you's" because chances are, he's feeling as helpless and lost as you are. Together, you've got this.

There are many other surprises and pleasantries that you will experience after your delivery, but the most important thing is to stay positive and realize all of it will pass eventually. Being in the moment can be stressful, so call on friends and family to help you out. No one should go it alone.

Love to all my mamas and hopefully-soon-to-be mamas out there!

XOXO,