Tag: IUGR

A ‘Grave’ Situation

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My new primary care doctor is thorough, for which I am glad.  At my annual workplace medical she examined my thyroid and asked me if she could run one other test that wasn’t on the list my work requires me to do.  I said ‘of course, whatever you think is necessary’.  But then my test results (TSH and Free T4) came back showing I had a hyperthyroid and she wanted me to see an endocrinologist to figure out why. Cue Dr google.  What is a hyperthyroid?  What does it mean?

Turns out I had all the symptoms I had put down to postpartum and getting older in general.

  • Tiredness – I was struggling to get up in the mornings, feeling exhausted having just slept;
  • Heart beating hard and occasionally very fast, I’m always on the verge of feeling like I’m catching some kind of cold;
  • Pain in my neck I’d put to sitting funny at my desk;
  • Chris had noticed I was always warmer than him (very unusual because I am constantly cold!!!), I was feeling warmer in the office despite it being very cold!
  • When I got sick it was taking me a lot longer to shake it off. I caught a summer cold and the sore throat persisted for over two weeks.
  • Random sore throats that would come and go quickly. I have a toddler who exposes me to all the germs in the world??!
  • Also hand and feet numbness which has been going on for two years, my old doctor ran tests back then, nothing conclusive, decided it was probably postpartum arthritis and I would get over it soon when I stopped breastfeeding. It never went away.  It just never got worse.
  • My new doctor told me off for being underweight, I told her that was not true the scales in the office must be off, my clothes hadn’t changed. Actually I had lost 5lbs and hadn’t noticed so I was close to being underweight on the BMI scale.
  • Finally, the last thing was that I was getting quite short tempered and easily irritable. At work one day recently I slammed the phone down.  I was really mad at someone who wasn’t listening to me.  Everyone came to ask me what was wrong!  It just wasn’t like me.

None of these things I felt worth mentioning to my doctor at my workplace medical because on their own are little thing, but in hindsight perhaps I should have.  I did mention being slightly tired but put it down to being a parent of a toddler.  When in reality, Aviana sleeps incredibly well and is not a little night terror, there is no reason really why I should be tired.

The endocrinologist I was referred to was not available until November (I was referred in July), I thought that was an insane amount of time to wait so I called around looking for a doctor who would take on a new patient sooner.  Eventually I found one who was available in September so I asked my doctor to send a referral to this one.  Like magic, she managed to get me an appointment with the specialist for the following week.

So the following week, the endocrinologist asked me a few questions and took an ultrasound of my thyroid.  He explained that there were a few things that can cause hyperthyroidism and we needed to investigate all of them.  He did an ultrasound and ruled out any masses – my thyroid was swollen on the left side – just where I’d felt the pain in my neck and ignored it.  I also was now able to see what my primary care doctor had felt – my thyroid was clearly swollen.  I just thought my neck was getting fatter!  I had some more blood tests taken and my TSH levels were getting lower and my T3 and T4 levels higher, only just slightly abnormal.  Another test, TSI, came back normal – this was the test that would have given me a clear diagnosis of Grave’s disease.  The endocrinologist told me my symptoms weren’t that bad because many people with advanced hyperthyroid would be sat shaking, anxious, heart racing with their eyes bulging out.  So whatever it was it was caught early, most likely its early onset of Grave’s disease, an autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid.

The endocrinologist emailed me to say I had a choice (I have a choice?!): to wait and be monitored or to start taking a drug that would help control my thyroid.  Of course, given a choice I will always try the non-drug route.  But then in that time period I also found out my father had a stroke because his thyroid had stopped working and has been on thyroid medications since.  I mentioned it to the doctor and he changed his mind and told me given my family history, he would prefer I took the drugs.  OK so not much of a choice now.  So here I am on 5mg of methimazole every other day.  This is a very low dose given my blood test results.

Chris picked up my prescription and the pharmacist told him that these drugs take some time to get used to and can have some nasty side effects, they printed a detailed sheet for him to give to me.  That made me feel nervous.  I did some research online and many of the side effects included nausea, headaches, upset tummy, weight gain and pretty much all the other reactions someone may have to drugs in general.  I joined a support group on facebook and learned that it is best to take the medication with food before bed.  The first day I took it I was at a party, 20 minutes after taking the tiny pill I suddenly felt like the world slowed down, I couldn’t feel my heart beating as hard or fast that it felt really strange.  I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest.  Chris told me I looked like I was stoned.  But that didn’t last too long.  Over the next few days I started to feel less tired, I had more energy and my heart was not pounding as hard.  I guess I was ill after all, I just hadn’t noticed it.

I bought a fitbit to help monitor my heart rate.  I’ve been taking the medication now for almost four weeks and my resting heart rate has come down a little bit….however I have started to do exercise again as I have felt like I’ve got my energy back, so maybe that’s related to the exercise or a combination of the drugs and the exercise.  In general, I haven’t any side effects – I put the weight back on immediately, but not excessively and I sometimes experience nausea a few hours after taking the pill, but it’s not terrible.

I spent a bit of time researching the thyroid and infertility.  It turns out that your thyroid can mess up your fertility.  I took a look back at my TSH levels that my primary doctor tested every year for my annual medical and there were high-normal.  My Reproductive Endocrinologist never tested my thyroid, but if she did or looked at my annual results from my primary care physician some RE’s would have considered my TSH levels for fertility too high and may have given me drugs.  Perhaps this all explains my unexplained infertility after all?  I found out that thyroid tests are now included in the standard workup at the clinic since I least went 4 years ago which I am glad about.  But that doesn’t really matter right now as we are not planning to TTC.  Our frozen embryo remains on ice.  Even if we did want to TTC, the drugs I am on currently are toxic in the first trimester so that would be problematic. Plus I would have to get my thyroid levels back to being normal before getting pregnant.

Oh did I also mention that thyroid problems are relate to IUGR?  May be another explanation for something so unexplained in my life?

My next monitoring appointment is Friday.  I’m hoping for positive news that the drugs are working and I don’t need a higher dosage.

Micro Blog: The wee bean pole

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As for recognizing Aviana as an IUGR baby, you really can’t tell anymore.  Yes she has skinny arms and legs, but she is definitely one of the taller kids in her class, but not the oldest.  On Monday she had her 18 month wellness check up.  She was 21lbs 6oz (31st percentile, up from the 25th!) and 32.5″ tall (69th percentile, up from 60th).  But she has been wearing 18-24mth old clothes for a while and has outgrown many of her 12-18mth clothes in length.  She can still wear 6-9 mth trousers, they are short, but still fit her waist!  In my IUGR support group i is believed that many IUGR babies catch up in size by the time they are 2 years old.  However, that is not necessarily the case for all types of IUGR (symmetric and micro premie babes), and sometimes it is very easy to spot the IUGR baby in the class.  Aviana is one of those who has caught up physically!!! Good growing little Miss A.

Micro blog: The Hungry Caterpillar

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We are making a little bit of progress with Aviana’s food habits.  She actually ate a chicken nugget the other week! SHE ATE MEAT!!!! OK, so this type of chicken nugget is the kind which you can barely tell it’s actually chicken…but hey, it’s a win in my books! She eats any kind of fruit thankfully, but vegetables we are down to frozen peas and occasionally broccoli, but that’s it.  She still hates tomatoes, and gags on tomato sauce, but she has been willing to try new stuff, even if she has spat it out before.  So we just keep offering her whatever is the plate du jour in the Fenning house hold, praising her for trying new foods, and keeping it as relaxed as possible.  We know that she eats better when she is around other kids at daycare…sometimes, I wish I could be a fly on the wall whilst they eat their lunch!  On occasion we are sent videos of the class eating their lunch or snack.  I’m amazed at how quiet they actually are when they sit down for food together!  It’s the complete opposite of what you would imagine a toddler lunchtime to be like.  I reckon that must change as they get to the older classes because at the moment conversation isn’t exactly flowing at this age.  My lesson with food so far is not to stress over how much or what exactly she is eating and she seems to do ok, but honestly it’s really hard not to worry after IUGR.

More food please!

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The thing about being a parent to an IUGR* baby is that you get paranoid about their weight, lack there of . A few weeks ago Aviana was barely drinking any milk and refusing solids. For almost two weeks, it got to the point where I asked Chris should we make an appointment to see the doctor? I asked him if he thought I was making a fuss out of nothing? I had weighed her twice on her scales and she was dropping slightly off her own curve. As an analyst I know better that two data points don’t constitute a trend! But it got me worried. So Chris said it can’t hurt to talk to the doctor.

With that in mind and in typical fashion, literally the next day Aviana started eating like she was a giant who hadn’t eaten for months. She drank all her milk and ate all her food. Well, except for meat. Aviana does not like meat at all. We continue to offer, but to no avail. And the majority of vegetables, she won’t touch them anymore. But we have found cunning ways to get her to eat vegetables. Breaded with cheese, baked in muffins and cooked in fritters! That is with the exception of peas, she will eat peas til the cows come home. Go peas! Just give her a big bowl of peas and she will devour them delightfully. It was wonderful to see her eat!

Just as Aviana was getting good at eating…she got ill, and we are back to square one. She has even been refusing her firm favourites of yoghurt, fruit and cereal! But I’ve learned from the past few months that she will be ok. She won’t starve. Mostly because she now knows the baby signs for milk, more, and eat! It makes it a bit easier that she can communicate with us. So we are trying to teach her other signs to help reduce some of the crying and fussing.

I haven’t weighed her recently, but we did measure her height using a highly inaccurate method of her ‘standing’ next to her height chart. It looks lime she has grown almost 1.5″ in the past three weeks! She is tall in comparison to her classmates so it will be interesting to see her official height according to the doctors in a couple of weeks time. She still doesn’t have rolls of fat on her, but she has definitely grown some fat on her, it makes me proud how far she has come this year. It’s been an amazing and interesting year of milk and food discovery that’s for sure. I’ve learned a lot more than I thought I would have by now about how to feed a baby and a toddler. I know we have a lot more to learn as our baby grows into a stubborn toddler 😝

*intrauterine growth restricted

Let’s just be honest here

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Life is like a box of chocolates….you never know what you are going to get (well, if you have the picture guide then it’s not much of a surprise, but hey just sayin’!). It is true that you can’t choose whether or not your child is going to be an angel newborn or satan in disguise.  We all want the angels, but we don’t always get what we want.  I hear you say, “Yes, Dani, we know that”.

Chris and I have differing views looking back at our time with Aviana as a newborn baby.  We also have differing views on looking forwards on the subject of growing our family again.  But that’s OK because we often have differing views on some of our important life aspects and we still survive today to tell the tale.

Looking back, for me, Aviana was not an easy newborn baby, but she also wasn’t hellish either.  There was that time when we were figuring out her silent reflux when I thought what did I do to deserve this nightmare?!  There was the worry of whether or not I was feeding her enough because she was an IUGR baby (I still worry BTW!) There were times when I was creeping around quietly, anticipating Aviana to wake up because she didn’t nap well and I am not a good napper during the day so I struggled with the 2 hourly feeds.  The times when I counted down the minutes to Chris coming home from work because Aviana had been fussy and I couldn’t help her no matter what I did, wondering if I would always suck at being a mother.  The times when I wished our family and friends back in the UK could be there with us to see Aviana achieve her milestones.  But I also put a lot of pressure on myself.  I wanted to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months.  I wanted to keep up with my work’s executive development program. I wanted to shower every day – haha!

So being honest, looking back at the newborn months, it was tough.  And now it isn’t so tough – it is actually fun!  I wanted the newborn phase to pass quickly, in the moment it seemed to drag.  Now here I am looking at my daughter wondering how she grew up suddenly as an almost 6 month old, eating solids, giggling, interacting, playing, standing and sitting up.  I can already sense she will want to be an independent kinda lady.  And I’m cool with that.  And now I want to spend MORE time with her, not less which was how I felt at times during the newborn phase.  May be it’s because I know her better, I know myself better and I am catching on to the parenting thing that it seems easier.  But raising a newborn baby is hard, and it does get easier (Although I am not naive to think that there won’t be tough times in the future, so I’ve been told teenagers are the worst!!!)

Would I do it all again?  Yes.  Would I do it all again with a toddler?  Yes.  Would it be harder?  I think yes and no.  Many of our friends are on their second child and I get a sense that I’m on the right track with this answer.  It’s only until the next child comes along that they  ever realised that they had an angel or a devil newborn baby.  And their second one usually ends up being the opposite of their first.  Because that is the whole life is like a box of chocolates thing  (and it sucks if you were lucky to get two angels in a row then get a devil for the third!!)  So this leads Chris and I to have the conversation about what Aviana could be considered as (angel or devil), what would our second baby would be like (with a toddler in tow don’t forget!) and do we want to make life harder for ourselves?

Why does this all matter?  Because it begs the question what is next for our family (Oh and of course everyone always asks us if we will have another baby!).  For those of you who may remember from the great pudding club hunt, we still have one frozen embryo stored away (that we pay $60 a month to keep there).  It’s not an easy question to answer because we don’t have the luxury of planning when we can procreate another child.  We are infertile and unexplained infertility means our future remains hazy.  Plus there is the added risk of an IUGR baby again, we were lucky the first time that Aviana has not been affected too much, we may not be so lucky with a second.    All of this confounds the basic question of do we want to grow our family for the second time?  And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Chris and I have different views on siblings and age gaps….. :-p

3 month weight check & distracted nursing

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After some issues with Aviana taking the bottle when I went back to work (High lipase issue) and Aviana becoming more and more distracted at the breast I was worried that she was not putting on enough weight.  When I took her for her weight check at 3 months I was fully prepared to be told to supplement her again.

Aviana weighed in at 10lbs 12oz (4th percentile) at 3 months and 13 days old and 23″ tall (14th percentile).  Although she is still off the charts for her height/weight ratio, the pediatrician was pleased at her continued weight gain along the curve so told me she wasn’t concerned.  Looking at Aviana she is getting some nice little fat rolls on her thighs which the pediatrician was happy with.  We count her rolls of fat!  So no more weight checks until her 4 month wellness visit!

Aviana has become distracted and fussy at the breast noticeably since she has learned how to grab things…it was like she has become awake to the world.  Sometimes she latches and pulls off quickly to look up at me, then re-latches, pulls off, smiles at me, re-latches etc.  Which is actually sometimes so darn cute, I’m trying really hard not to encourage this behaviour!  But of course she pulls off hard sometimes and that hurts!!! Then she gets frustrated she can’t re-latch quick enough and cries. Also I have not been able to feed her in public because she gets distracted and pissed at noise.  I have resorted to feeding her in the car or under a nursing cover (which she HATES and I equally hate!).

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Aviana’s weight progress  – she is following her own curve nicely 🙂

I went to my local la leche league breastfeeding support group to ask about all of this.  Apparently this is very common at this age – it’s called distracted nursing.  There is no telling how long this will last for, but many of the women in the group have experienced this!  Phew…so it’s kind of normal! Their tips included: nursing in quiet places (ok i got that one!!), using a comfort toy or blanket at the breast to distract them from the distractions, singing to her and rocking. Yesterday I was out and about and needed to nurse in public, I sat outside in the shade and I tried rocking/bouncing, that seemed to work quite well.  I really hope this is just a quick phase because I want her to be able to feed anywhere! I feel soooooooo guilty and bad when she won’t nurse properly.  She is not the kind of baby to make up for it at other times, she will easily skip a meal if she isn’t happy.

It is good news that the doctor is happy with Aviana just following her own weight curve.   I enjoy breastfeeding Aviana (when she isn’t distracted) and I hope I can keep it up for at least 6 months is my goal – my stretch goal is 12 months.  But this distracted nursing issue and having her low weight on my conscience has made me feel like giving up at times.  They say to never give up on a bad day…and I’ve kept that in mind, it’s helped me to keep going. Plus going to the support group meetings and being a member of a facebook breastfeeding group has also kept me on the path to my goal.  Breastfeeding is not easy, and I have had a pretty easy time of it compared to some people I know.

5 Surprising things about my postpartum recovery

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When I was pregnant I geeked up on my pregnancy, what was happening day by day, how my body was changing, how it was going to change over the 40 weeks.  I read books, blogs, downloaded 3 different pregnancy apps and read them like the Bible everyday. Some of the articles touched on postpartum recovery, but really I didn’t pay that close attention. So there were some things that surprised me when it came to my postpartum recovery I wish I had known a little about before so I wasn’t obsessively googling!

1.Urinary Incontinence. I learned about incontinence fast. And I’m not talking about the kind of incontinence you get when you laugh or cough and just a little bit of pee comes out. I’m talking about standing up out of bed and your entire bladder falls out from between your legs into a warm puddle beneath you, with no way of stopping it no matter how hard you think about it.  Apparently postpartum incontinence is very common (1 in 3 will women suffer) – so how come I had never heard of this before?! What’s more…it can take months to recover.  When the nurse told me it should get better within a few weeks, I believed her.  But now, I am not so sure.  It has definitely got better since the immediate week after giving birth, but I am no way near being fixed.  Chris had me sit on towels on the sofa and in the car, he even put multiple layers of waterproof blankets under my side of the bed (a picnic blanket with a waterproof bottom, and one of the pads we took home from the hospital!).  Fortunately I haven’t had any real big embarrassing accidents.  I’ve been working on my kegels (I did do these when I was pregnant BTW) and trying to stop/start the urine flow when I pee.  Sometimes I can control the flow and other times I can’t no matter how hard I try, this gets me upset and frustrated at myself.  Here’s hoping the nurse was right and this doesn’t last long.

2. Night sweats.  The first night home I woke up after an hour (because that is all my sweet one would let me sleep) and I was DRENCHED – as if I had jumped into a bath in my sleep.  Weirdly, I had even managed to shape my duvet into a wet ball and was cradling it like it was my baby (that’s another story!).  The same thing happened night after night.  I suffered night sweats when I took the Progesterone in oil during IVF, so I hazarded a guess that it is hormonal related.  Again, a quick google, and apparently night sweats is very common in postpartum recovery! It is the hormones aiding the body to rid of all the excess fluid no longer needed that was made for pregnancy.  Oh OK then.  Could have warned me so I could be prepared with a few towels by my bed! Just as well Chris put those layers down in the bed for my incontinence!

3.  Body changes.  OK so I knew my body was going to change after giving birth – No shit Sherlock!  But what I wasn’t prepared for was how MY body was going to change.  Suddenly, I could sleep in what ever position I wanted.  I had got used to bending at the knees when I picked up things from the dishwasher/bottom cupboard etc.  But now I could put my shoes and socks on without having to contort myself into a yoga pose.  All of these things changed gradually when I was pregnant and now the change back was almost instantaneous…I couldn’t get out of the habit of doing my pregnancy moves! I only needed my maternity clothes for perhaps 2-3 days after giving birth, it wasn’t long before I was  able to fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes.  Yesterday I packed away my maternity clothes and I felt an overwhelming sadness.  I haven’t packed away my maternity trousers/jeans though because they are so comfy!!! I missed my pregnant body so I had a little cry, I don’t know why I felt like that because now I have more clothes I can wear!  Part of me was also deeply sad for myself as I wondered whether I would ever wear those clothes again.  It was hard to let go.

4.  Weight loss.  Speaking of body changes…within 3 days I was down to my IVF weight and within a week I was back down to pre-IVF weight.  Some of you are probably hating me right now.  But honestly I did not expect it to be that fast, I started to worry if that was even normal.  I must have lost my IVF weight when I was pregnant which would explain why I only put on a total of 12lbs.  Remembering that I felt guilty for Aviana being growth restricted (IUGR), this just reinforced my guilty feeling.  May be I hadn’t eaten enough when I was pregnant, may be I wasn’t nourishing Aviana.  I have so many questions about Aviana being IUGR and what this means for a future pregnancy if we decided to try again.  I am hoping that my OB will shed some light on this at my postpartum appointment with the results of my placenta testing.

5.  Phantom kicks.  It is the strangest feeling…I know there isn’t a baby in there, but I was still feeling ‘kicks’ for two weeks after giving birth.  Whenever I felt something I would rub my tummy as if Aviana was still in there.  So so weird.

None of these surprises are terrible (except for perhaps the urinary incontinence being rather a pain), just wish I knew about them before!

Breastfeeding my IUGR newborn baby: The first two weeks

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I had no expectations when it came to breastfeeding my newborn. Yes, it would be good to breastfeed, but if for some reason it didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be overly upset. Formula milk is perfectly fine for a baby. Well…that’s what I thought I would feel anyway!

Not long after Aviana came into our world, in the golden hour skin to skin, I attempted to breast feed her. Chris and my Doula helped me with Aviana’s first latch. Wait – help from Chris?? Although Chris isn’t an expert in all things breastfeeding related, he did attend the Breastfeeding class with me, and he was able to recollect our learnings far better than I could at that moment of time. My head was a bit foggy after being awake for so long and laboring hard! He was my walking breastfeeding text book (well the fundamentals at the least).  I am so glad we went to this class – one of the most beneficial films we watched was how to visually tell the difference between a good latch and a bad latch.

Fortunately, after a bit of fussing, Aviana latched quite quickly and easily, I was pleasantly surprised. Getting the position right as I held her was awkward. I had never held a baby so tiny in my life. I was afraid to break her!!! And here in her first waking hours I was planting her onto my bosom. It was so innate and natural for her to suckle.

This first feed was rather magical. Yes, it was weird having something tug at my nipple constantly, but it made me feel connected to her. She was mine, she was our responsibility to feed, nourish and love.  It also felt onerous at the same time.  I was worried before hand that I wouldn’t fall in love with her, but this experience banished that worry.

Aviana is a ‘IUGR’ (Intra Uterine Growth Restricted) baby, born 5lbs 1oz, weighing in the less than 1 percentile, but very long at 19.5″ in the 50th percentile! Because she was so teeny we had to stuff her up and feed her every 2 hrs round the clock. Whilst in the hospital, just before each feed she had to have her blood sugar levels checked. She wasn’t keen on this – I mean who would want their heel pricked and a cold thermometer shoved between your armpits every single time you were about to eat some food??  It was a tough first 24 hours, recovering from labour, the first several hours I was surviving on adrenaline, but later I don’t know how I was staying awake as I fed her.  Each feed was lasting at least 30 minutes as she kept falling asleep.  After changing her she slept for an hour or so and then it was time to feed again!

She was 4lbs 15oz 36hrs later when she left the hospital and 4lbs 8oz 60hrs later when we visited our pediatrician. When I heard this weight I was shocked!  She  had lost just over 10% of her birth weight. For most other babies losing this amount of weight was on the edge of normal and to be expected- for her low weight it was a concern. My milk had yet to come in yet, so we were told we should try supplementing the breast with 1 oz of formula with every feed.

Now, I said before Aviana had arrived that I had no expectations for breastfeeding and I would be totally cool with formula.  But in that moment when the pediatrician recommended supplementing, my tear bucket was almost full and I felt a huge level of guilt wash over me.  My brain blamed my body for not providing the sufficient nutrients for her.  What if after the ease of the first few days and my baby latching so well she decided to pack it all in and replace me with the bottle?  I had fallen in love with the idea of breastfeeding, and now it all suddenly felt to be at risk.

DANI-don’t be ridiculous.  Your baby needs the nutrients, supplementing is critical to her thriving.  Buck up – I told myself.

Then the pediatrician asked me how I felt about the supplementing?  I responded – “she needs to thrive and that’s the most important thing.  We can supplement, no problem”.  I don’t know if I had hid my initial reaction of disappointment well.  We didn’t have any formula at home, and with it being Christmas eve and getting late, the pediatrician gave us a tub of formula for newborns to go home with.

The idea of the supplementing was to give her all the time she needed at the breast, then when she was done, to offer her the formula.  Aviana wasn’t keen on the bottle at first, and I was secretly pleased she preferred my boob.  I wasn’t happy with the nipple we had, although it was a Dr Brown’s slow flow, I thought the shape of it was too different to my nipple.  So I sent Chris out to the shops to buy some new nipples.  We went with Nuk Perfect Fit Slow Flow.  This seemed to work better for Aviana and we lucked out at the second try.  We do have other nipples in the cupboard just in case.  Even with a better nipple, we were practically force feeding her the formula.  It broke my heart every time we tried to  give her the bottle.  But it was for her own good – she needed it.  Still on the two hour feeds the feeding sessions now lasted even longer with adding in the formula.  Chris and I worked as a team…he prepared the bottle whilst I breast fed her.  We took it in turns to burp her, then give her the bottle, then burp her.  It was exhausting at night because it required leaving the bedroom.

At night time, Chris and I took shifts to deal with Aviana’s fussing, change her diaper and burp her.  Chris took 9PM -2AM and I took 2AM to 7AM.  This suits us well because I’m a morning person, Chris is a night owl. Of course, I still had to be awake every 2 hours for every single feed.

Three days later we were back at the pediatricians for a weigh in.  Miraculously she had gone from 4lbs 8oz to 4lbs 15oz in 72 hours.  My milk was now in, so the doctor said we could reduce the supplementing if we wanted to but still stick with 2 hr feeds.

Another three days later we were back for a weigh in.  Incredibly, she had gone from 4lbs 15oz to 5lbs 6oz!!!!!  Chris and I high fived each other when the nurse called out her weight!  Aviana was gaining an incredible amount of weight just on my breast milk!  I was over the moon that my body had responded so well to Aviana’s needs.  The doctor said we could now extend to three hour feeds at night as long as we kept up the two hour feeds during the day. Woohoo – another high five!!!!

The prospect of an extra hours sleep in between feeds was worth celebrating!!! Except….Aviana hit her 7-10 day growth spurt and I was feeding her almost every hour.  I was on the verge of breaking down from tiredness.  I started to think that maybe my milk wasn’t sufficient for her.  But I educated myself on this kind of cluster feeding and took the advice not to give up and return to supplementing because my body would respond to the increased demand, I just had to keep up the breastfeeding.  Cluster feeding is normal.  As long as Aviana was pooping and peeing regularly she was getting enough milk.   It was a really tough few days.  But we came out of it and she returned to being an angel baby.

Another six days later (today) and we were back at the pediatricians for Aviana’s two week wellness check up. Aviana had grown from 5lbs 6oz to 6lbs 1oz!  She had moved up from the 1 percentile to the 2 percentile!  The pediatrician was impressed with her progress and said we could move to on demand breast feeding if we wanted to.  She told us that typically she would expect Aviana to be at least 5lbs 1oz (her original birth weight) – and we had exceeded that goal.

Admittedly, I have had it relatively easy with my breastfeeding experience so far.  My nipples have survived, yes they have gotten a bit sore, but the Lanolin the lactation consultant gave me to put on my nipples when I left the hospital has worked wonders.  Aviana latches well most of the time, we struggle a bit with my left boob for some unknown reason (I will go to the breastfeeding group the hospital runs with a lactation consultant every month next week to see if I can figure out why).

The only other thing I will mention is my experience of breastfeeding in public so far.  I bought a nursing cover a while ago because I thought that is how I would breastfeed in public.  My first necessity to breastfeed in semi-public was in the car after we had been shopping at the mall the day after Christmas.  That didn’t feel too public.  The next time was at the children’s health centre where my pediatrician is.  This was quite a benign environment to feed in, I felt comfortable whipping the boob out there.  This gave me a bit of confidence for my next public outing – the grocery store.  There was a starbucks in the store, so I sat with my back facing away from the public and fed Aviana there.  Again I didn’t use the nursing cover.  This all gave me the confidence for me to feed openly in Starbucks in Target and even at a restaurant when we had some lunch with a friend and his daughter.  I will still take the nursing cover with me just in case one day I don’t feel comfortable feeding so publicly, but I am surprised at my own confidence!

va-breastfeeding-law-card-front

Before Aviana arrived I mostly read about women’s stories of failure or problems with breastfeeding, which is why I didn’t have high expectations.  So that is why I’m sharing my breastfeeding story of success!  Here’s hoping it continues, because it is rather economical.

Dani

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