When I Grow Up...

When I was a kid I wanted to be an actress; I was never very outgoing. I wanted to be a fashion designer; I now wear jeans with a tee or tank top every single day. In middle school I fell in love with books and wanted to be a YA writer/author; never got past the writer's block. In high school... well... I got pregnant. I was good at web design and all things computer related. When I graduated high school, I went on to major in computer information systems. I didn't finish because... you guessed it, I got pregnant again... and then again immediately after that!

In the past two years I've become really passionate about childbirth... and all things related to it. So, I have decided to look into becoming a doula and child birth educator. When the kids get a little older, I may try to become a midwife. I never hired a doula during my pregnancies because it always sounded so expensive and it also seemed as though doulas were for women who had husbands that weren't as involved. I now see that neither are true and I may have benefited from having a doula. Some doulas operate on a sliding scale and some doulas in training even offer their services for free.

Because of my experience as a pregnant teen, I would like to help out other pregnant teens. It is really tough to go through pregnancy as a teen for a whole variety of reasons. I know there isn't much money to be made as a doula, especially not as a doula to teens, but I can help out a pregnant teen at least once every month or two in addition to regular, paying, clients.

My Post-Pregnancy Body

I'm only two months postpartum and I'm already getting frustrated about my body...

 I was raised on chile and beans (Mexican, not chile bowl) and all things cooked in lard, but I was blessed with a great metabolism that kept me nice and thin. Even now, after giving birth to my third baby, I weigh just under 120 lbs and I'm not quite 5'4. I supposed I don't have much to complain about, but I'm soooo tired of looking pregnant! I have the pregnancy pooch. It's only been 10 weeks since I pushed out SF, but I'm already getting irritated.

After my first I think I slimmed down pretty quick. My weight and body was the last thing on my mind back then. I was raising a baby and finishing high school (oh man it was tough doing ACTs just a couple weeks after AV was born). I went to a school for pregnant and parenting teens; they had a day care, so I could still breastfeed - they would page me to the nursery - while attending school. There were no guys at school, AV's dad was in the military (we were broken up anyway), so I didn't feel like I had to impress anyone physically. I do know that a year and a half later I weighed only 97 lbs. It was too thin and under my pre-pregnancy weight of 108lbs. I had to exercise to get back up to my normal weight.

By the time AV was four I got pregnant with KJ, so my body had quite awhile to recover. I remember not feeling comfortable with my body until he was 4 months old. Just as I started feeling better, I got pregnant with SF.I weigh less post-SF than post-KJ; however, I liked my body better post-KJ because I had a nice bottom and it balanced the rest of me out.

I suppose I shouldn't be complaining, but I miss the great butt KJ gave me, and I'm sick of this pregnancy pooch. on a positive note, I like my tandem-nursing-size-breasts. I went from being between a 32A-32B to being 32D-32DD. Time will help my body heal. I just stopped my postpartum bleeding at 10 weeks, so I know the back to back pregnancies took a toll on my body. Maybe my pooch will start to go down on it's own.

It's only been two and half months... it's only been two and a half months... it's only been two and a half months...

Oh the Chaos!

Things are a little crazy with a six year old and a one year old running around while I'm trying to calm a crying two month old, but I love my kids!

I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl (we'll call her SF) on March 9. My first daughter (AV) was born via c-section after I went through labor and pushing without pain medicine at the young age of 16; she was almost 9 lbs and "sunny side up". My son (KJ) was much easier; no pain medicine, successful VBAC, 7 lbs 12 oz. SF, on the other hand, was difficult like her big sister. Although she was around the same size as KJ, she was "sunny side up" and gave me a tough time. I pushed for nearly 2 hours with no pain medicine. I was almost ready to give up and ask for a c-section, but I'm glad I did not. She finally came out making it my second successful VBAC. So proud of myself!

I have been tandem nursing KJ and SF for the past two months. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. KJ holds SF's hand during it, then pats her back when he's finished and turns over to fall asleep. It's adorable, but, oh my, the back pain. Occasionally I even wake up with pain in my thighs. KJ loves SF and has been very sweet to her, but he has become very emotional and more attached to me. He's still not sleeping through the night.

I'm going crazy being stuck in the house so much. We go out with the kids a lot, but it's a huge production every time. My fiance and I have gone out alone a few times (my 23rd birthday!). He says he's going to give me time to go out alone soon. So we will see!

I'm knitting a sweater I would like to finish, but I don't get as much time as I would like. It's called White Pine and you can find it on Ravelry. Maybe when I get that time to myself...

  

The color is slightly off. It's a bit darker and greener in person.

When I'm done with the sweater, I'm going to knit a shirt for AV with the Monster High skull embroidered onto it. She loves Monster High.

Milk-All-Gone

The reason I started this blog was to record my progress in breastfeeding during pregnancy. My milk started drying up pretty fast. We had to start supplementing with formula (we chose Baby's Only) when my son was around 8 months old. I've been nearly (there's still a very very small amount) dry since I was around 5-6 months pregnant. I'm almost 3 weeks from my due date, and I can't wait for my milk to come back in! I plan to breastfeed my son and my new baby girl.

I had hoped to give useful information on keeping your milk supply up, unfortunately there wasn't much I could do. Hormones seem to take over....

Paying Attention to Your Body

Warning: TMI post.

Tonight I was watching that show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" and I still don't understand it. Some of the missed signs seem believable, such as already having weight from a previous pregnancy or being really heavy to begin with. The one thing that just seems weird to me is the baby's movement. How can you explain that away? There's nothing else in the world that feels like that. Gas bubbles...maybe, but only if you're in complete denial. Another thing that struck me as strange was labor. They describe the pain and I'm thinking, yes, that's how it feels, then they say they felt like they were going to die. If it's a first time mom, okay. Second time mom, how do you not recognize it? Then I remembered that most women use pain medicine/epidural.

Watching this reminded me of how much more aware of my body I am than before I had my daughter. For the past 5 years I've known exactly when I ovulate, with the exception of breastfeeding (could never pin point it). When we got pregnant this last time we were using VCF strips every time. During the time I thought I would be ovulating we'd use condoms as well. I knew almost immediately that I was pregnant because TMI I noticed a change in discharge. I quickly shook that thought off because we were protected and I wasn't ready to get pregnant so soon.

We can learn so much from paying attention to our bodies! The thing I noticed tells most, as women, is our discharge. Another amazing thing is during pregnancy, our cravings usually mean that there's something we're lacking. I've also read theories of some dreams being our subconscious trying to communicate messages of underlying conditions. Who knows?

Pregnancy/Breastfeeding Update

I'm approximately 12-13 weeks pregnant and everything seems to still be going okay. I definitely don't have as much milk as I once did, but my little man is eating homemade, organic solid meals three times a day. I still have enough milk for him when he's not eating solids and he's happy and healthy. His doctor recommended we cut him off from his night time nursing (he does 2-3 times a night) and get him used to his crib. We put him in the crib in the beginning of the night, but when he wakes up for his first or second feeding I pull him into bed with us. I refuse to cut him off from his night feedings, I feel like they're really important during this time of decreased supply. He needs all the mama milk he can get. I pretty sure his doctor hates us co-sleeping "over-breastfeeding" hippies. When we denied getting our baby the flu shot he tried to belittle us for our decision. Oh well! Everyone has their own parenting style. My fiance prefers co-sleeping. When our little man is in the crib, my fiance checks on him every 5 minutes. Anyway, crossing my fingers everything continues to go well!