Exploring Chaos

Ok so today I stepped on the scales *sigh* I was absolutely petrified and nearly chickened out – my relationship with my body has never been an easy one, I’m short and chock full of curves which is lovely when I starve myself and exercise like mad because I get this awesome hourglass big curves itty bitty waist look but have no life because I can’t eat anything and all my waking hours are spent at the gym… the rest of the time I’m kind of chunky. I’ve come to know that I can have a happy medium where I look good, not skinny – I will never be skinny, but curvy and toned not chunky and flabby.

Since meeting my husband I’ve gotten lazy – he loves me for me, why they hell should I kill myself to look good for other people when he doesn’t even see the fat? Unfortunately that mindset gave me carte blanch to do things like have chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner after every BFN. Surprisingly, despite all that bad eating I haven’t changed shape at all since I met him; I’ve just lost tone… all of the tone.

Having HG so bad meant that pregnancy for me was like going on a crash diet, I lost weight, a total of 11 kgs (~27lb) in fact and was only just nearing my pre-pregnancy weight in the last days of pregnancy. Breastfeeding is doing wonders for my shape but lately I’m wondering if that’s because my stomach now looks small in relation to my humungous breasts, seriously I have gone from a DD cup to a F cup – everything looks small in relation to my breasts, especially side on.

So I stood there, looking at the scales after taking off all my jewellery (because you know gold and diamonds are heavy) and I can’t bring myself to do it, I’m thinking that I’d rather think I was getting smaller than step on those evil things and know I wasn’t… but I’m starting a diet today and you can’t start a diet without having something to motivate you, and what motivates me is seeing the number go down of course. So I step on. Total loss for pregnancy and recovery over the last 6 weeks is 7kgs (~15.5lb).

That’s pretty good, especially if you consider my diet over the past 6 weeks has basically been everything you can’t eat during pregnancy – I even once melted Brie and dipped salami sticks into it. So, yeah, not exactly the healthiest diet, breastfeeding was doing a good job of sucking the fat off my body until I started putting four times as much back into it.

So, how much do I want to lose? I looked awesome when I weighed 36kgs less than I do now but I had to fight to get there and was always told I looked a bit too skinny so I think I’ll aim at 20kgs (44lb) over the next 12 months. That’s less than half a kilo a week, I can do that, in fact it might not be enough of a goal to keep me going but there’s nothing stopping me hitting it early I guess.

Wish me luck.

We hit 6 weeks post-partum on Thursday and I went for my check up today. I have healed well, which is awesome, and there are no further concerns so I can drive again, swim again, do aerobics, yoga and most importantly have sex again. I am not one of those women whose sex drive decreases during pregnancy/birth – we were at it like bunnies the whole pregnancy, right up to the very end (we had sex twice the night before my c-section) and the past 5 and half weeks have been hard for both of us… I know, TMI but you try not being able to have an orgasm for 6 weeks (when you really, really want to) because you might pop a stitch or something.

I can start to exercise again from today, but I’ve given myself until Thursday to eat whatever I like. Thursday morning I’ll step on the scales and actually figure out how much weight I lost during the pregnancy and over the last few weeks and then I’ll start to obsess again about food I can’t eat and worry about my flabby arms and deflated balloon belly.

I of course asked my Dr (who knows our infertility history) when we can start trying for number 2. I don’t know when we want to start trying but we will want to try to have kids close together. I nearly died when he told me that he does not want me conceiving until earliest 9 months post partum. For the moment let’s put aside how wrong it is, with our medical history to miss any opportunity to conceive, no matter how unlikely – for the first time in years, I need to think about birth control.

I can’t take the mini-pill as I bleed constantly while on it and although that in itself is a pretty good method of birth control; it’d be expensive as hell to buy all those tampons not to mention a pain in the ass to have to have your period FOR 9 months after being without it for 9 months. I can’t take the combined pill as I’m high risk for cervical cancer (1 sister had cervical cancer, the other had bad cells found). There’s no way in hell I’m getting an injection or implant so it’s condoms. Ick. I did try to sell my doctor on the fact that infertility is the most effective birth control method but he was having none of it

When we got the bounty bag from the hospital we were in hysterics because it contained free condoms, H asked me if we could have sex using one, just once, because he couldn’t remember what it was like… bet the poor guy is eating his words now! *sigh*, I guess I’d better go buy some shares in Durex – they’re going to have a profitable 9 months.

It does feel weird and wrong to be using birth control, especially knowing that we need to wait 12 months before we can do IVF… although some good came out of today, In a round about way we were also told that although he did not want to see me pregnant until 9 months post-partum, I should evidence ttc from now so that we can do IVF if needed in March next year and I did get my Dr to agree that in October/November we can try Clomid for a few cycles. This is good news, I have long thought that our UK Dr’s were wrong in their diagnosis and that refusing to try Clomid or IUI’s before pushing us through to IVF was imho stupid… especially given what happened! It makes me feel better about using birth control to have a plan in place for the future.

So I need to start charting, temping, etc from today and using condoms to prevent pregnancy. This is going to send me barmy!

I write so much better when it comes from a place of bitterness and hurt… writing about how happy I am doesn’t take much and writing about my day-to-day life with an infant seems like pouring salt into the wounds of women who are still struggling. I have many half-written posts saved on my desktop, some I might come back and finish and others I’ll probably re-open in a month before deleting. I’m still trying to decide how to write here, hell I’ve been struggling to write here since I found out I was pregnant… I feel in limbo, infertile yet not.

But they say the only constant is change, I’m afraid that the slip into mumsy blog is inevitable, I shouldn’t feel like I need to appologise for it, rationally I’m sure nobody expects it from me but the little infertile inside of me pipes up and tells me to never forget. So bear with me while I take some time to find a happy medium.

For nearly 6 years we dealt with the whole when are you planning on starting your family type questions. On the whole these didn’t bother me, I was quite open and honest about my infertility and would often answer with “when we can afford IVF” or something like that, most people who asked this question were friends or relatives and were well meaning with their intent, even if the question was intrusive.

When I was around 16 weeks pregnant H and I were shopping, trying to decide on a new quilt cover set when an older lady squealed “ooh a baby belly” and put her hands on my stomach. I froze, told her that I was just fat and stormed out of the store. H thought it was the funniest thing ever but I was absolutely fuming, how could some random stranger think it was ok to touch me?

That was the first time a random stranger thought it was ok to invade my personal space, it was not the last. Constantly throughout my pregnancy I was astounded at how rude people were, strangers asking personal questions and always trying to touch. I didn’t like it when my family tried to touch my belly, I wasn’t about to let some stranger cop a feel, and the questions… is it your first, how long did you try before falling pregnant, do you plan on having more, you’re not going to have pain relief are you (honestly, phrased just like that), are you planing a natural birth… I could go on and on, all totally invasive questions and almost always from a random stranger.

My sister told me that it only got worse when the baby came along, I didn’t believe her… but she was right. They ask, they touch, I’ve had to tell people off for sticking their hands into the pram and trying to touch my baby, I have had to re-adjust the sun shade after an old lady has pulled it back without even asking me, I even had a lady hold her kid up to my pram so it could touch the baby. Each time I’ve been polite, but firm. Please don’t touch my baby, please don’t touch the pram and only once did I snap and ask someone what right they thought they had to reach into my pram and put their hands on my baby.

The questions, well those are still coming too. I was in a café this week when D woke up for his feed, I pulled out a bottle of EBM, warmed it up in some hot water and had just started feeding him when a lady got up from a table across from me, walked over and asked (this is verbatim) “Is that boobie milk?” I asked her if she really thought it was appropriate to ask anyone, let alone a complete stranger, if they are holding a bottle full of their bodily secretions.

I may snap occasionally and give people a real telling off and I never, ever let anyone touch my baby but generally I’ll answer their questions, all the while raging inside and thinking: What is it to you? You don’t know me, you don’t know my story, you don’t know why I have made my choices. It shouldn’t matter at all and I can only conclude that you are asking me so you can silently judge me if I give an answer that you don’t approve of. *sigh* but I don’t say it, I think it and smile and say yet again that Yes, I had pain relief, no, I had a c-section and yes, I am breastfeeding.

Do you want to know something weird? Despite all the exams and dildo cams of TTC, I did not have one internal exam my whole pregnancy and was only wand-ed twice. I don’t know about you but that just strikes me as bizarre.

Just over 3 weeks post c-section and I’m starting to feel better within myself… note I said better, not normal, nothing will ever be the same again and I of course wouldn’t change things. I look fabulous, really, really good. I lost a lot of weight during my pregnancy and the weight I put back on was all baby, placenta, fluid etc, etc so apart from the puffy belly I looked pretty awesome 2 days post partum, add in breastfeeding which seems to be sucking the fat right off of my frame and I’m looking better than I have in years… well I would be if it wasn’t for the giant bags under my eyes and the slightly vacant look I give anyone who asks me a question that requires an answer outside of yes/no. I can’t wait to be able to start exercising and toning up.

Breastfeeding is going ok… other than the awesome side effect of weight loss, I will never understand how something so ‘natural’ can be so difficult, heartbreaking and just plain painful.. and that’s just dealing with the baby, not to mention the opinions and advice everyone seems to have for you. Some of my mums group ladies have it really bad with bleeding, cracked nipples or mastitis but I’m pretty lucky, D attaches well and only rarely bites me although I do have to watch him when he’s sleepy because he lets most of the breast slide out of his mouth and ends up just sucking on the nipple which hurts like buggary and is a surefire way to damage the poor things.

I’m not hating feeding him this way, I’m not loving it either, I don’t feel like it’s this huge bonding experience that everyone goes on about (there’s only so much mutual gazing you can do) and I find nothing productive about feeding him for an hour umpteen times a day but at least it reminds me to spend some time with my feet up… the alternative for me is to pump and feed him and although I do pump daily because I refuse to breastfeed in public and like to be mobile enough to leave him with family, attaching myself to that mooing machine a zillion times a day would drive me mad!

It is nice, to spend some special time cuddling D, he cracks me up when he feeds, he’s always so ravenous and he makes the funniest sounds plus I’ve always been well blessed in the chesticular area and it is hysterical to watch a tiny baby nomming away on a boob more than 4 times as big as his head – I have some of the funniest photos ever.

We’re adjusting slowly to the lack of sleep and the fact that everything we do now is wrapped up in that tiny little guy, I could stare at him all day and like nothing better than having him cuddled on my chest as I read or watch telly. We’re creating a monster but what’s the point of finally getting your dream if you can’t spoil him rotten?

This month I’m a wee bit late for the party but I think I can be excused for not being organised enough to have a welcome up for the start. I wasn’t going to join in on ICLW this month, I really wasn’t sure I’d have the time but when I got home from the hospital I knew that I’d be spending many hours reading and commenting at odd times of the night so signed up.

Everything now needs updating but you can read about me on the about page, it’s just over a week out of date. In a nutshell, I’m 28, married to H and after 6 years TTC we are finally holding Little Bear our beautiful miracle baby and I’m now home recovering from surgery and adjusting to life with this little person who makes my heart so full it hurts every second of every day.

I really enjoy ICLW, I read so many blogs daily but don’t always comment on them so ICLW reminds me to get out there and comment not only on the ones I read daily but also the new finds from the list. I usually do an intro with something about me but to be honest I’m too knackered to think.

I’ve written out my c-section birth story thingo in the post below, the password is my usual one (if you have forgot/would like it email me name@webpageaddress.com), it turns out that I just can’t bring myself to call him blob now that I can see his sweet little face. The story is long and I’ve added a few pictures of the birth – can you believe they let you take pictures of them pulling the baby out of the incision?

I’m doing well – they don’t lie when they tell you that the HG will disappear as soon as you have the baby, I had my last vomit on the operating table and my nausea disappeared not long after they wheeled me out of there, I’ve been fine ever since. Recovery is still taking longer than I thought it would, I had no concept of just how major a surgery this would be, I think I fooled myself into thinking that it would be a quick snip and sew affair and that the whole 6 week recovery thing was just a guideline. It’s not, a week after the surgery I still hobble around and spend most of the day in bed with D. H is awesome, he’s had to take over everything as well as become a new dad and he’s fully embraced everything about our new life. I love that man.

This morning I didn’t think we’d make it, last night I was sure we were in for at least a few more days in hospital but we’re here and glad to be back in our own space. D is fine, perfect in fact. I am not. C-section recovery is hard; especially if a crazy midwife decides to give you paracetamol instead of oxycodone… Major fuck-up. The midwives on the next shift could not believe what she did once they finally figured it out – for a while there we thought I may have split the wound.

I am exhausted, breastfeeding is proving painful despite the fact that he attaches well (having one of the most sensitive parts of your body sucked on for half hour to an hour every 3 to 4 hours will do that), the C-Section wound HURTS – the pain was bearable when I was attached to a PCA chock full of pethidine but they took that away pretty fast, and of course yesterdays screw up has left me feeling kind of raw… but I wouldn’t change a thing.

D has arrived. Born 8:34am 14th Jan 2010. 8lb 0oz, 54cm.

ETA: so in love, can’t believe we made something so beautiful. Recovering ok, birth story to come when we get home (next week) c-section not as scary as I thought and pain is bearable with meds.