It's Really Going to Happen

I have to admit that with all the running around after three children and the fact that I really thought Colden was my last baby, I've been a bit detached from this pregnancy. It hasn't felt real. When you are pregnant with your first, you notice everything. You are eager to meet your baby as soon as you test positive. Your whole world becomes baby-centered. By the fourth, you almost forget about it unless you feel a strong jab to the bladder or ribs.

Since I had donated almost all of Colden's 0-6 month clothing, I've been kinda keeping an eye out for deals on clothes for the new guy. Zulilly has had some really great deals. I've ordered three or four outfits and the first two came in today from Sage Creek Organics. My heart did a little squeeze as I opened up the packages and looked them over. I'm really going to have a new little guy in those in just a few months (I'm six-months tomorrow). I'm finally starting to get eager to meet him and so are the girls, Olivia especially.

Student and Pregnant Single Mom

As most you know, Matt deployed last week for nine months. So, aside from supporting us financially, he's almost an non-entity. I'm a pregnant, single mom to three children. So far, all has been relatively calm. On day two a bird flew into the house but I was able to successfully get him out. One of my professors didn't update her online blackboard with the correct assignment due dates. I thought they were due in August. When I checked my university email early this week, I found I had six assignments due by the end of this week. Yikes!! No biggie, right?

Environmental Science Textbook - A subject that bores the living daylights out of me

Well, depends on how you look at it. I have mornings to work on homework while Colden is at school, however, I had appointments and/or events Tuesday morning, Thursday and Friday. So, when I am home, I'm doing homework. My house is getting a mess again. I sweep, cook, load and unload the dishwasher, and that's about it. The floors need a good mopping, laundry needs to be done, general pick-up is lacking in each room. But, if I did all that, I wouldn't sleep. Single, pregnant women need sleep. I could drop my two classes but I really need to make some forward progress here. The classes aren't hard but they are time consuming. I have four quizzes to take between now and tomorrow night. That's about four hours worth of work. I can do it and I'll just have to live with the fact that I'll be spending my weekend cleaning. Yuck. Anyhoo. No need getting upset about it all! I'll promise the kids a couple hours at the local pool and, maybe a short play date over the weekend. Good enough, right? Anyone with three kids knows that they will cry boredom in between each of those things and call me the "worst, most boring mom ever." Spoiled much?

Gender Revealed!!

Place Your Vote!

It's about that time! I'm 21-22 weeks pregnant. We had our "big" ultrasound last night (no more after this, despite the fact that the nice doc would like me back in 10-weeks for a final one). The baby looks perfectly healthy, which is what my main focus was, especially given that I am planning another home birth in a foreign country.

We are having a very very small BBQ on Sunday afternoon with a few friends and will have Skype on for family. A cake decorator knows the sex of our baby. I had decided to have cake at the party because Matt is deploying soon. Not that I really want to celebrate a deployment. But, a "sweet" send off is always fun, right?

So, despite the fact that I am not a fan of food coloring, I have told the decorator to make the filling either pink or blue, depending on the sex, so we could have a little gender reveal party. My young girls will surely get a kick out of it. Liv has asked to cut the cake and I have agreed.

So...place your vote!! Are we having a boy or a girl??

A Shocker

I can hardly believe it, but my little man is weaning. Early in my pregnancy I blogged about how incredibly unhappy he was that my milk had almost entirely dried up. It was a very difficult adjustment for us and I was so heart broken (My milk did not dry up nearly as quickly with Olivia and she nursed until the end the my pregnancy with Lila. She was not phased in the least. A reminder that every pregnancy can, indeed, be different. Comparing one mother to another or one pregnancy to another is fairly fruitless) about the entire situation.

After several weeks, he started to eat more table food and found a happy place. He would nurse at nap times, bed time and a couple times in the middle of the night. It was comfort nursing, but it worked for him. He was content. I was relieved.

Recently, we traveled to Slovenia and Croatia and he nursed every morning for at least one hour straight. We laid in bed together while he nursed through his last hour or more of sleep. It was a bit trying for me because I don't sleep and nurse easily. However, it kept him quiet which, in turn, let everyone sleep an extra hour or more each morning. Weaning was not on the horizon - or so I thought.

Upon returning home a couple of weeks ago, you can imagine my surprise when he stopped asking to nurse. At times, when I offered, he would pull away and grab for something else, distracting himself. As it stands now, if I don't offer, he doesn't ask. When I do offer, he will nurse for a few seconds, smile up at me, play with my hair, come unlatched, point to my nipple, say "ball" and run off.

I had planned on tandem nursing. While that is not entirely out of the question, it will be up to me if I want that to happen or not. I can continue to offer and keep him nursing up to a few times a week (so he doesn't "forget" how to latch properly), or I can discontinue altogether.

Both situations require some thought. If this baby is as tongue-tied as he was, my main focus will be getting tongue and lip tie revisions and a proper latch. In my experience as a lactation counselor, I've noticed that most toddlers, even if they were mostly-weaned during the pregnancy, love the new milk coming in and take up nursing whole-heartily. In some cases this contributes to over-supply of milk, which I have struggled with each time (Yes, it is possible to have an over-supply instead of low-supply. Both can present great challenges). If I'm dealing with newborn latch issues, over-supply and an over-eager nursing toddler, I could be in for some very big challenges. Then again, it may go better than expected and I my worry will have been for nothing.

It's another journey in my life as a mother. We'll figure it out as we go along. I'm not going to stress too much about it. These things have a way of working themselves out. I also have more resources available to me than many other moms have (or know they have).

On the plus side, as Colden has weaned himself, he has started sleeping through the night. Yes, finally!! He's 21-months and with Matt deploying soon for 9-10 months, it couldn't have come at a better time. I am beyond thrilled! Since I fiercely disagree with crying-it-out (I let my toddlers whimper a bit, however, screaming ones self to sleep is a no-no in my book. I'm not comfortable with my child's stress hormones becoming elevated due to my selfishness. I say that even as a mother who has a chronic illness which requires me to get proper sleep or suffer the consequences), I was worried I would be up with a toddler and a newborn several times a night. Looks like I can put that worry aside!! Phew!

If you are pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant and have a nursing infant or toddler, KellyMom provides some excellent information here: Nursing During Pregnancy and Tandem Nursing

My Boy is Back!

The past couple of months have provided me with quite the learning lesson. Not just as a mother, but also as a certified lactation counselor.

If you read my previous post Unhappy Boy, you know that Colden did not adapt well to my pregnancy. I wasn't entirely sure if it was related to my drop in milk supply or something unrelated. I nursed Olivia until I was seven-months-pregnant with Lila and she never flinched. Then again, my milk supply didn't diminish quite as quickly and when it did, she naturally weaned, not willing to spend more time on the breast, waiting for a let-down that wasn't going to come.

Early last week, however, Colden came around. He started to ask for more food, stuffing his face as often as possible during the day. He eats so much, he has up to four bowel movements a day! With the increase in appetite came a happier boy. It was then that I realized he had been nursing quite often during the day and probably was receiving a tremendous amount of needed calories through breast milk. When that stopped flowing as freely, he panicked. Even when I offered him water and more food, he refused, patiently waiting for the milk to come back. The poor boy was heartbroken and so confused!

He now has it all figured out. He eats well, drinks plenty of water and gets drops of mama's milk (and lots of cuddles that come along with nursing) when he does nurse, which is up to three times a night and about three times during the day. He's happy again at his German kindergarten, he once again plays with his sisters and even independently at home. He's back to singing and dancing. I missed him so much!!

It's so nice to have him back and it's good to know that nursing toddlers can be greatly upset at the onset of a new pregnancy. I didn't learn about this in lactation classes (so far) and I haven't found any information in my books. Learning it first hand was beneficial, however. I will surely never forget this invaluable lesson and will be able to help reassure and guide moms of nursing toddlers through this tough time in the future!

The Deployment-Baby Dilemma

As most of you know, Matt is deploying in the near future. I can't say when, but he won't be here for the birth. When I found out I was pregnant, the deployment was a non-issue. I've had a baby while he was deployed in the past. My parents arrived the day before I went into labor. They were able to stay for two weeks, after which Matt's parents arrived. Matt was home by the time Lila was three-weeks-old. Olivia was a fairly easy toddler and the whole thing was easy-peasy.

Fast forward to now. We will have two children in German elementary school and one in German kindergarten.  Just recently I began to think about the logistics of the days before and weeks after the birth. Logistically speaking, it would be better for me to move back to Vermont, rent a house, and give birth there. My dad is semi-retired and could help watch Colden or bring him to his preschool, and pick up the kids after school, bring them to dance, etc. I have two sisters who also live in the area. Lots of help. But, I'm not moving back. It's kinda too late for that and I like it here.  Here are the logistical issues I'm running into as they play out in my currently jumbled brain:

• Neither sets of parents are fully retired. My mom can take two weeks off, at best. Colden was 10-days early. When to get my parents here is going to be tricky. They can't come two weeks early because that would eat up my mother's entire vacation and the baby could, in fact, come two weeks (or more) late. They will probably come one week before I'm due (8NOV). They can stay until one week after I'm due. No matter what, I'll have help for only a very short period time. 
• My close friend, Amy, from our year in Kansas, will be moving to the area in another month or two. Her husband will not be deploying. I'm so very excited and very grateful to have her here. However, she will be living a half hour away, has a child in elementary school, a toddler and an infant. There is only so much she can do. Military friends who live closer may or may not be able to help and this is because their children go to American schools and my children go to German schools. Their schedules do not coincide (not even close).  If I have the baby on/around my due date, my parents will be able to help for the first week. During that time I intend to stay in bed and have lots of skin-to-skin time with the baby. Getting my girls on the bus in the morning, getting Colden to kindergarten (he attends for three-hours daily), picking Colden up from kindergarten, picking girls up from their after school program, bringing girls to dance classes and Scouts, cooking, cleaning and doing laundry will be challenging if the baby comes early or late. If that happens, I'm kinda on my own to get up and do it because military friends who live close by will be getting their kids off to school and then doing the same for them as I do my children in the afternoons. I've always had lots of help after previous children were born and I honestly cannot imagine doing all that running around right after the baby is born. In the case of not-so-great timing of birth, I'll have to pull the kids out of their events for a couple of weeks. But that still leaves me getting up early in the morning to make school snacks and seeing the two oldest off on the bus and bringing the youngest off to kindergarten. A few hours later, pick up begins (and so on).
• What about Matt's parents? Again, not retired. Matt's mother doesn't have vacation time until Christmas. We haven't asked them to come yet. But, I'm certainly not flying home for Christmas with a newborn, a toddler and two school-age children. No way. My plan is to ask them to come for Christmas, and pay for their tickets (of course). 

Possible solutions:

• Hire an American college student, nanny or senior in high school to help with the after school pick ups and, possibly, dance, scout, ice skating lessons, etc. for a couple of months. 
• Hire a post-partum doula who will help out with laundry, cleaning, and cooking. 
• Hire a housekeeper (This is almost a certainty anyway. I've looked and have yet to find someone, however). 
• Beg a family or friend to take a leave of absence from her job and come help. We pay for flights and help with bills. 
• Have a great birth, easy baby and just do it all. 

I know as it gets closer, solutions may present themselves. The Army family is just that. A family. Deployments bring us closer together and we work out solutions, even when the obstacles are overwhelming. We are strong. We are powerful. We are extraordinarily capable. I know I'm in good hands. However, that doesn't mean it will be easy. It will certainly be an eventful chapter in my Army Life book!