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2007-01-03 - 10.58pm��previous entry��next entry
Post-partum entry!
Hellooooooo!!! :)
Ohhh I love it here!! I have not got a very legitimate reason for posting an entry here, but I have just a little bit of boring vaguely related-to-this-diary news, so I grabbed the opportunity to visit my favourite place since January 2003, hehe! It has been exactly four years (well, on New Year's Day) since I started my pre-TTC/TTC/pregnancy diary here! I can't believe that. Wow.
I am still journalling away over at arthursmummy.diaryland.com but I'll just briefly catch-up for this diary. And because it's so much fun to, so there! ;) I have started using a Haloscan comments system over at my other diary, because the guestbook was being temperamental for a while, but I don't have that set up here. Hopefully if anyone wants to comment here the guestbook will be working okay, or I have my notes active. Or something!
Arthur is nearly 26 months old!!! He turned two in November. I can't believe I have a two-year-old. He is wonderful and a handful and just mischievously cute and uniquely "Arthur". I love him to squithereens. He is still breastfeeding pretty much on demand during the day, but sometimes I don't nurse him when he asks, so not always on demand then! I don't nurse him within an hour of his mealtimes, and I sometimes can't nurse him if I have to deal with Matthew at that moment. Or if I have 5 minutes to do 30 minutes worth of stuff before going out with the boys, otherwise we'll be embarrassingly late. That kind of thing. Otherwise he nurses on demand. He always breastfeeds first thing in the morning, but my first-thing (Neil gets up with Arthur) so after his breakfast (8.30ish?). He usually wants to nurse mid-morning (10.30ish?) and would again before noon if I let him. After lunch he goes for his nap at around 1pm and breastfeeds to sleep, just like he always used to! I like that though :) He only has that one nap, and it does not put me out to breastfeed him to sleep. It's wonderful snuggle-time with my sweetest boy (obviously I have another sweetest boy - no favouritism intended by that term!) and it will be over before I know it. So I love it! He then nurses when he wakes, or shortly thereafter (maybe 3pm is) and asks again in the hour before tea-time (5pm) but doesn't get given any then. He has a long feed in bed at bedtime (7pm-ish) but never nurses to sleep any more. I have night-weaned him twice due to complete knackeredness on my part! He was night-weaned during my pregnancy with Matthew for that reason, but he had a nasty nasty gastroenteritis bug that brought night-feeds back again for a while, and eventually I had to decide to night-wean him again a few weeks ago.
Matthew is 6� months old!! Already!!! That's crazy. But there we go. He is very different to Arthur in just about EVERY way! But somehow with all those differences he is just as completely and utterly lovely as his big brother. I am amazed how that is so. How I love him just as much to the very exact exactness as I love Arthur, and I remember a time when I was scared because I thought it would not be possible for me to love my second child as much as I loved Arthur. Now that seems a funny way to think, because I see how effortless and instinctive love is towards your own children, whether they are your first, second or tenth! It doesn't matter. Your heart just builds another chamber ;) So to speak! I don't think there is a limit to the amount of stretching a heart can do, when it comes to children. I think they are made to be stretchy.
Matthew breastfeeds very differently to how Arthur did, at his age. He is a baby who likes his regularly spaced meals at a frequency that is JUST SO for his taste, and also not-for-too-long please Mummy! Arthur was content to nurse and NEVER STOP (ever), seriously! Matthew wants one breast, maybe two, for each meal, and gets annoyed and very fussy at the breast for a whole 24 hours if I dare to shove it at him more frequently than every 2.5 hours! He is on the lower percentiles on the weight charts, whereas my roly poly boy (Arthur, that is!) was on the 90th percentile most of his first year! He is happy and healthy though. They both are :)
He sleeps better than Arthur ever did! He still wakes every 3 hours at night at the moment, so I guess over a 12 hour sleep period at night, he wakes 4+ times. Most would say that's bad for a 6-month-old, but I don't. Arthur woke me soooo much more, and he depended on me to get to sleep so much more than Matthew ever does, so it was very different. I am SO GLAD that Arthur was a bad sleeper! He conditioned me ;) Now I have a 6-month-old who still wakes 4x a night and I just feel relaxed and joyful about it, which is such a nice way to be. I love the night wakings with Matthew. I get to snuggle his little cuteness all I want, because I have him allll to myself and he is so so so EXTRA cute when he's half-asleep :) I love breastfeeding, and the night time gives me opportunities galore to do something I LOVE doing. Time is passing WAY faster with Matthew than it ever did with Arthur, so I am clinging to it with all my might. I can hardly bear to think of the day when my boys are both sleeping in their little independent beds all night long and no longer wanting my breast. I just want to sink my claws into Time and drag it's ass to the ground so that it is forced to SLOW DOWN! This is a wonderful time in my life. Such a blessed and precious time. It's like the most beautiful diamonds ground into the finest silkiest sand, and I'm holding it in my hands to examine its sparkling beauty, but it is slipping through my fingers too fast and I can't can't can't keep hold of it. I keep trying to just focus on how beautiful it is while I have some left to hold, but I can't help but be aware of how fast it's slipping and how little I have left.
*sigh*
But never mind! I am longing to one day have the opportunity to do it all again so that I get a whole new fistful of that lovely sparkly dust to marvel at! But hmmm. Believe me, I have every INTENTION of having more children! I honestly feel like I will be "missing" some children if I have fewer than four. I would be happy with five or six even. I always used to say that (actually I did say eight some of the time) at school and people used to tease me about it and call me crazy/stupid/naive, etc. I couldn't exactly answer back because I didn't KNOW whether I was being crazy/stupid/naive yet, since I didn't have the experience of having kids. I still don't, really. I only have two and they are only small still. But I still feel inwardly as though it is a genuine desire in my life, to have lots of children. I wonder if I'll ever get to prove those people wrong?!
Neil said today that he thinks it's nice to just have our two little boys. I did not have an immediate breakdown, hehe! But I just said that we could discuss it further down the line :) I will give him some time! Until now he's been ohhhkay with the idea of having another baby. Mostly up-for-it. It's only when we've had bad days coping with the two that we've got, that he'd say maybe we shouldn't have any more. He has never really been too happy about the idea of four children (he's one of four) though, so we'll see. I am just hoping and praying that he'll get to a point where he feels like another baby would be nice, and then we have that baby, and then we don't even discuss another until maybe years down the line from now the worst of the new-baby-tornado has passed and it doesn't seem like a big ordeal to perhaps have another? I am hoping to play it like that, hehe ;) If he is definite about NOT having any more then there's nothing I can do, I will have to respect that. But I will be heartbroken not to feel like I am "finished" having children, or to feel like my brood isn't quite complete. I know I'll get over it, but it will be hard at first I guess.
Anyway.
Matthew and Arthur are allll I could ever want for this moment. They are just so delightful! They are HARD WORK, but sooo worth it all! Matthew is on the verge of crawling (much earlier than Arthur) and is teething aplenty, but still no teeth (just like Arthur was). He started solids a few weeks ago, but we are doing full-on baby-led weaning with him, so he gets no purees (except the odd thing of that kind of consistency so that he gets to experience a big variety of new textures). He is doing great - eating chunks of roast parsnip, roast chicken, apple, pear, banana, rice cakes, and even a fistful of baked beans a couple of days ago! He LOVES his food. He doesn't swallow much yet, but he totally loves it. Nothing like his big brother (who we still have food issues with)!
Well, the purpose of this entry is to say that I got my first post-partum period today! I am quite excited!! With Arthur, my first PP period came at 5 months and 1 week, despite the exclusive breastfeeding. This time I am tandem nursing so I wondered if that would make any difference. I made it to 6 months and almost 3 weeks postpartum! At 5 months I did get a lot of fertile signs (EWCM) followed by an "ohhh my period's coming" feeling for a few days, and then quite bad period cramps for 5 days. It was just as though I had my period, exactly, except that I had no bleeding. Weird! I did not have that the first time round, after Arthur.
I had another patch of EWCM a couple of weeks after the first one, but no period. I charted everything, literally from birth onwards (including every single day of my lochia after the birth, haha, I am so charting-obsessed!) so I could see what my body was doing, and I know that multiple patches of EWCM are a good indication that the body is making attempts to ovulate. I did ovulate before my first PP period with Arthur. I was charting CM then and had a good patch of EWCM (unusual for me as I never really had ANY before I had Arthur - loads since though, hence my second child's existence, hehe!) with some cramping, followed my first period 4 days later. I know I ovulated, because I charted properly after that (with temps) and had the same symptoms at confirmed ovulation times after that in other cycles. My luteal phase after Arthur's birth was very very short. I had four PP cycles after he was born with short luteal phases - 4 days, 7 days, 6 days, and then I took Vit B6 supplements to lengthen it, and got a chemical pregnancy on a 10 day luteal phase. The fifth cycle was when Matthew was conceived.
So this time I have been charting again, wondering what - and when - my body would do. I had EWCM over Christmas, accompanied by a few weird things (for me anyway) - cramps that felt distinctly like ovulation to me, but which I felt too silly about to chart as ovulation pain (since I was convinced I didn't know what I was talking about after this long gap!) so I charted as mild cramps instead. I also felt different. I have been feeling different for about 3 weeks now I think. Just happy, and like a blanket has lifted off. It feels very distinctly hormonal to me. I can't explain it, and it's quite a subtle feeling, but it's quite noticable to me. I wonder if I was actually more depressed (hormonally) than I gave myself credit for in the earlier months. I found life very difficult. My GP said I did not have postnatal depression, and I would tend to agree. I did have my better days. But there are degrees of hormonally induced depression, and now that I feel so very different, I realise that I had been in a hormonal fog that made life more difficult for me that I would have found it if my hormones had been "okay". Or something. Anyway, the important thing is that it's so WONDERFUL to feel better from it now!!
But the most OBVIOUS thing to me over the time when I had the EWCM, was how I suddenly had like an anti-parsnip veil lifted from my eyes (hehe!) and kept on giving my husband lots of sideways glances and being suggestive, hehehe! Can you believe we still have NOT had postpartum parsnips yet though?!!!! Crazy, especially with actual interest on my part for a moment! The only reason we did not, is that it happened to fall over Christmas and we were just toooo busy and there was no time, and when there WAS a spare nanosecond, we were just beyond exhausted. Or a boy woke up. Or something. I was suspicious that I might be fertile, since I pretty much only get interested in parsnips when I am, and it coincided with EWCM. Plus the interest waned with the EWCM a couple of days later. Hmmm, very telling!
Since Christmas, well, a few days after, I have been kind of moody. Actually, RIGHT after the whole parsnip-ish-ness/EWCM episode, I went straight to irritable and cranky. Neil said later that he had wondered if I might be getting my period but he didn't dare suggest the idea because he valued his private parts, hehe! Not that I would EVER injure him in a fit of hormonally-induced rage! ;) But still. You know how men get around hormonal women - skittish and that ;) So yeah. THEN I got spots on my face!!! I used to get those before a period aaaages ago. So those were a good heads-up too. I have had headaches for the past 3 days. That could have been tiredness, but I did wonder. I also wondered if it might be just like last month, and I'd get all the symptoms but no actual period.
But this morning, lo and behold, there it was - my first period since before I got pregnant with Matthew! I thought I would be highly peeved to get my period back so soon, because I don't need to use it to get pregnant again for a good while, and also it will SUCK to be irritable and headachy and crampy every month whilst also having two little ones to look after. And with all my breastfeeding, my periods certainly did NOT need to come back so soon! But I am surprisingly thrilled to see it actually. I feel like sighing with relief. I love that my body is getting back to normal. I remember feeling like this about my periods last time too.
I am otherwise doing great - in a postpartum-ish sense! I feel like getting my period again is the final say on the fact that my body is back to normal again. I have lost almost all of my pregnancy weight, and I'm back in my pre-pregnancy (from before Matthew) clothes. I think the last time I weighed myself, I was 8 stone, 11lbs. I was 8st 8lbs when I got pregnant with Matthew (or was it 8st 7lbs?), so only a few lbs less than I am now. So I have lost 50lbs of the 54 that I gained during my second pregnancy! Yay! I have not done anything, I don't exercise, I eat all sorts of stuff, etc. I do breastfeed a baby and an energetic toddler though! :)
I had not got back to my pre-Arthur weight when I got pregnant again - before Arthur I weighed 7st 10lbs, which I hope I never go down to again, as I think it would be too light for me to function as energetically and stuff as I need to now that I have two little ones! I need more meat on my bones! ;) I hope that I'll stay around this weight. I have no desire to lose those extra few lbs but I suspect I will. If I do, that's okay, but I really don't want to go down to 8st, so I hope I'll stabilise or something. I am fitter than before due to all this weight-lifting that mothers have to do! Maybe that accounts for some of the weight difference? I was very unfit and had poor muscle tone from years of M.E. before I had kids. Today it felt effortless to pick my reluctant 30lb toddler up with one arm and toss him under my arm (between my hip and my arm) to wrangle him to the naughty spot for a disciplinary moment (!). I realised after I left him there that my body didn't even seem to notice that effort! Which is quite something really. I remember when my arms felt achy and quivery from holding Arthur for like 10 minutes straight, when he was NEWBORN!! How my body has had to change, hehe!
I currently have that hideous hair crisis that affects most mothers after having a baby. Urgh. You know the story - you trundle along merrily for a few months and then SUDDENLY you wash your hair in the shower and soooooo much hair comes out that it's like a small animal died in the plughole! You spend more of your cherished bathtime picking 50 million hairs out of the bath water and off your shoulders, than you spend actually luxuriating in the bath! It started a few months ago and I cannot believe it's still going. I HATE the hair issues that happen at this stage! There is hair everywhere. I have hair that has suddenly become WAY too long so it's extra pesky to find lonnnnng hairs all over everything. Every time I brush my hair after a bath or shower, I FILL my hairbrush and can't use it again till I clean it out. Matthew puts his mouth on the carpet and gets a lonnnng hair in his mouth, ugh. Even though we hoover the carpet much more frequently now. Tsk.
Stage two of the horrible hair crisis is RE-GROWTH. After I had Arthur, I noticed a new layer of hair growing in all at once, starting at about 5 months postpartum. At first I just thought, "Oh, look at that! How interesting!" but I was not so enthralled by 8 months postpartum when I had a vile-looking shaggy crew cut effect to my forehead, about 1.5cm long. That was just so fetching, really. I don't have a fringe, my hair is all the same length, so it was REALLY noticable as it grew in. The longer it got, the more noticable it became. And it's so THICK. Yuck. I tied my hair back a lot till someone commented on the thick new growth of hair round my neck - aaaargh, I hadn't thought of it being there too! Which, of course, it would be, since it was new hair growing all OVER my scalp. Anyway, it grows out eventually.
But, silly me, I hadn't even grown my After-Arthur hair out longer than an inch or so when I got pregnant again! When Matthew was born, it was longer but not long enough to tuck behind my ears. And then at 4 months postpartum, I noticed the first stubble of the new After-Matthew hair beginning. Yeurgh! Now I have JUST been able to get my After-Arthur hair behind my ears - it's about 4 inches long now - and my After-Matthew hair is now a horrible shaggy-looking crew cut about 1cm long. Yuck yuck yuck! It does NOT make me feel feminine!!!
But I know I'll cherish those two odd levels of hair growth for years to come, till I end up getting my hair cut and it takes them in too. I think I will cry when that happens! It's like looking at my stretch marks - every time I look at something that is part of my "look" on my body (or my hair!) as a result of having my boys, even if I dislike the look of it, I still melt inside when I see it because it reminds me of the treasured time when I was pregnant with each of them. I so so so SO love being pregnant! But I don't need to remind anyone here about that, do I?! ;)
I just feel so..... post-partum now. I am happy again suddenly, and now my body is telling me that everything is working a-okay with the arrival of my first period, and that it has finished recovering from pregnancy and childbirth (pretty much!). I love that everything is settling back for me now. I counted up from the EWCM around Christmas, and it looks like my luteal phase was EIGHT days!!!! I'm excited about that, because it's much better than last time. Still too short to support a pregnancy (although I am still pretty glad we didn't have parsnips over Christmas, all the same!) but then I don't need it to yet. And there's plenty of time for me to get adequately fertile for if there is a "next time". Which I sincerely hope there will be!
I am going to chart more obsessively (sigh) from now, because I want to examine more closely what my body is doing over the next few cycles, like last time around. I want to see if my luteal phase is lengthening, confirm when I ovulate, and just check my cycle length and stuff. It means temping again, but I get such a rush out of doing that because of the association from when we were excitedly TTC! It's going to be hard to do because of all the night wakings and stuff, and I'm SURE to forget to temp 8 times out of 10, but oh well. I'll try to remember, so that I can at least get enough temps to confirm ovulation and see a basic bi-phasic shift over a cycle. My temps were surprisingly stable despite the night-wakings after I had Arthur, so I hope they will be again.
I feel so excited to be back in the reproductive saddle again, so to speak! I mean, I'm not back in the TTC saddle - which would be WAY more exciting, but my body thinks it is ready to give it a go and that is exciting to me! Even if I am not going to make use of it for a while yet. I hope that I will get to though. I love this diary so much, I sooooo want to journal another pregnancy and birth and newborn-ness here again. And maybe even again after that.
I shouldn't let myself wonder about another baby if there is ANY chance my sweet husband might say no. I do truly think that we WILL have another baby. I would say that Neil is (and has always been) generally 90%+ committed to the idea of more than 2 children (just not sure about how MANY more!), so I am pretty sure we'll have another one day. I don't know how long we'll have to wait before he feels ready. I remember the day I tested positive with Matthew's pregnancy. I showed Neil my temperature (which had climbed AGAIN) and he'd seen my chart the night before. He said something like, "We are SO not ready to have another baby" and seemed anxious that I might actually be pregnant (we did not TTC, we had a hormonally-induced "oops"! Hehe!), but when I peed on the stick and called down the stairs to tell him we were having another baby, he came up with his face just SHINING and saying how he couldn't believe it, but how EXCITING it was! I told him we'd be ready by the time the baby was actually born, and we were. We were ready the moment we saw the second line on the test, to be honest. So I know his feelings can change. I hope they do again!
I DO hope and wonder though. I wonder if I will ever have a baby girl. I remember I kind of hoped Matthew might be a girl. I knew he wasn't. My pregnancy was absolutely IDENTICAL to Arthur's and I just KNEW it was another boy! It was very obvious at the scan, and we even thought we saw some boy parts at the 12 week scan like when we saw Arthur's at 13 weeks. At first I had this moment of I-don't-know-what about how I did not have any girls yet! But OH. MY. GOSH. I can't even put into words how GLAD I am that I didn't. I am thrilled to have my two boys. Two boys together are just such a blessing, especially so close in age. They are already becoming lovely little playmates and will have so much in common. They will be only a year apart at school. I could not have hoped for better. A baby girl would have been wonderful, but I'm so glad he was a boy!
I remember when I was pregnant with Matthew, a lady at playgroup talked to me. She has four kids and her first two (also boys) are also 19 months apart. She told me it would be hard hard work, but that they found that in hindsight, it was such a wonderful age gap that they decided to try for the same gap again with their 3rd baby! They couldn't conceive right when they wanted to (she said that her body probably knew better and decided she would not manage with 3 children under 3, or near enough!!) and so the next gap was 2.5 years. She said that was wonderful too, and the fourth child was another closer gap. Her third and fourth babies were girls, after her two boys! I can't imagine having a girl, ever. I asked her if she felt like that when she had two boys, and she said, "Oh YES!! I couldn't imagine I would ever have anything but boys!" She said she was shocked to realise she was having a girl after that, and then came another! So that was interesting.
I did think her thoughts about having another with the same age gap was pretty crazy though. I still think that it wouldn't be wise for us to have another gap of 19 months - waaaaaay too hard! - but now that Arthur is getting older (more specifically than Matthew), I am beginning to see what she meant. At 19 months, Arthur was at a MUCH more receptive stage/age to become a big brother, seriously. Every age he's been since then has been LESS ideal, if the situation had worked that way with baby #2. As we got into "the twos", it has seemed less and less of a great time to bring a new baby into the family, as far as Arthur's "stage" and various bits about his development go. I am only just emerging from the terribly hard work of the early months with two children under two, but already I see that it was a GOOD thing that we had them so close together. I am glad not to be dealing with him as he is now AND a new baby! He's delightful as always, just facing new challenges as he grows into new developmental stages, particularly the emotional ones that hit from around age 2. For that reason I can see it being better as far as MATTHEW is concerned, to have another baby when Matthew is 18 months or so, BEFORE he gets to Arthur's age. But it will feel too soon, so we won't do that. But I just wanted to say that I DO now see that lady's point, now that I have a little experience of The Two-Year-Old! The 19-Month-Old was a waaaay easier chapter! ;)
It's crazy to think that in 3 months and 3 weeks, Matthew will be the same age as Arthur was when he was conceived! Crazy.
DISCLAIMER (for "Oh my gosh, tell me you're not SERIOUS!" guestbook message purposes!): None of the following wistful musings have any bearing on what we are ACTUALLY planning to do, or even what I think is a good idea! I just want to waffle a bit about things I'd love in the ideal world :) I wasn't going to write it because I didn't want to get flack for any of my merry little daydreams (!) if people think I'm being silly for considering such things, or something! But I'd LOVE to just write here what I long for, even if those longings are just that, and don't actually come to fruition.
Here's a little secret dreamy dream that I have: I would LOVE an April 2008 baby. Since the month or so before I got pregnant with Matthew, I thought I would love to have a June 2006 baby (we then changed our minds after a chemical pregnancy that might have ended up in a May 2006 baby, and we got scared! But oops, we got a June 2006 baby anyway! ;) ) and THEN an April 2008 baby. I would sit and daydream about timings and stuff - you know how you dream about stuff you CAN'T plan, but you wish you could? I am so blessed that my June 2006 baby dream came true! :)
Before I got pregnant with Matthew, I was browsing posts at a Fertility Friend forum one day and I saw a lady whose signature had the MOST beautiful photo in it, of her two little ones. They were sitting together in a shallow pool of water (not a public swimming pool or anything, this one was framed with leaves) and the older child, just a toddler, had his arms around the little one, who was sitting bolt upright like babies do once they're sitting well. The embrace was so completely tender and his face was bent towards the little one's face as though he was saying something gentle to him. The lighting was just perfect. It just melted my heart. To this day I have never seen a single photo on a mother's forum signature that comes close to how this one made me feel. I feel kind of shameful to say that I saved it to my computer. I think I should have asked her permission, but I felt too stupid about it. I would never use it for anything, it will just sit there. I have looked at it two or three times since saving it all that time ago, just to warm my heart. That's all it's there for. But the other thing that caught my eye in her signature was that her oldest was born in November, a couple of years before Arthur - almost exactly his birthday.
I remember looking at the birthdate for the baby, and saw that it was another boy, born in June, 19 months after the older boy. I guess they must have been about 2� and 8 months in the photo. I remember thinking, "Oh, I had wondered about a June baby! I wonder if I'll have two kids that mirror those little ones?!" And sure enough, a June boy for me! A little way into my pregnancy with Matthew, I came across another post from this lady, and the beautiful photo was gone from her signature, but a new one was in its place. I also saw that she was expecting another baby, due in April (22 months after baby #2)! I had already done that dreamy thing about another baby in April after this one, and I know this will sound CRAZY, but at that instant I felt like I knew Matthew would be a boy (we didn't know yet) like her second child, and that we'd have the baby I had dreamed of in April a couple of years later, and for some reason it was going to be the same sex as her 3rd too. I know, that's so silly. But it just felt like, "Oh my gosh, I have just seen my future!" haha! Her 3rd baby was another boy :) I honestly can't imagine our potential third child NOT being a boy. Not because this lady's was a boy, but just lots of reasons. Maybe it's just because I have only produced boys so far, and I can't imagine anything else, like the lady at playgroup said. But she had two girls after her boys.
Statistically, I am much more likely to produce another son, now that I have had two already. A third boy is the highest likelihood. After we found out Matthew was a boy, I wondered if we would ever do that "trying for a girl" thing if we ever had another baby. After a few months of musing over the idea, I thought perhaps we WOULD give the girl-thing a try one day, if we had another child. I would like to have a little girl as well as my lovely boys. But now I am torn! I LOVE my boys soooooo much that part of me doesn't want to have a girl! I just can't imagine anything more wonderful than to keep on having these gorgeous little boys that we keep producing, hehe! I would honestly LOVE to have another boy. Almost more than I would like to have a girl, now. How lovely it would be to have three little boys! But I try to ask myself, "What if you were DONE having children? Would you be okay with the thought that this is it - you'll never have a daughter?" And I guess I would feel sad if I didn't have any daughters. I would miss the girlie relationship that I have with my mother, with a daughter of my own. I would miss my sons when they all fly off and meet "the new woman" in their lives, and don't call me and stuff! I would love to parent a girl, with all its challenges (some of which scare me half to death!) and rewards. I would love to give my boys a SISTER. But something in me feels sad at the idea of never having another newborn SON.
Honestly, I don't know HOW I will ever stop having babies! I know it will HAVE to be my husband's call. If it were left to me, I think I would keep on until my ovaries shrivelled in protest!
Well, it's late and this entry is long and waffly, and getting more so. It's not so likely that I will have that April 2008 baby, but a girl can dream :) It would mean a 22-month age gap between Matthew and April-Baby (a lovely thought to me all along, though more hard work - still slightly bigger gap than my first two but just before that "Age Two" thing hits!**) and how lovely it would be to have a baby born in the month of April! I've always loved that month for having a baby. Originally before we had any kids, I liked only THREE months of the year for perfect baby-having months in my daydreams - June, April, and September. Arthur was originally a "let's try for an April/May/June baby!" but it took a while longer than we thought, so November sounded WONDERFUL to me by the time I finally got pregnant! So April would be loverly. It would mean getting pregnant THIS July. Which is almost undoubtedly going to feel too soon for both of us. If it has to be put off a year or so, that's okay. Rather that than no more babies at all! Right now I honestly do not have a preference for a girl or a boy for my next baby. That is a nice way to feel, especially since I already have two boys and no girls. I know if I get pregnant again I will be in for a TON of comments about "Oooh I bet you're hoping it's a girl this time!" etc. I've heard that happens to pregnant mothers of two boys! I will be prepared with some appropriate answers!
My other little secret dream is a goal, sort of. I hope that I get to breastfeed through another pregnancy, and tandem nurse again. I mean, I am STILL tandem nursing, but I mean tandem nurse my NEXT baby with another child. I have this crazy wistful goal that I'm not sure is realistic at ALL, but it's there anyway. I am longing to achieve my ultimate breastfeeding goal of continually breastfeeding for a decade without a break! But I don't know. Matthew might well be the type to wean before he's two. Or wean if I get pregnant and my milk changes or goes. He doesn't suck for comfort, so it's almost definite that he'd stop during my next pregnancy :( Who knows when Arthur will wean though. Maybe it will be ARTHUR who I'm tandem nursing the next baby with, hehe! That would be fine and dandy by me :) He will wean when he's ready, and not before. Also, a ten-year goal means at least a couple more kids, and that might not happen. But again, a girl can dream, hey?
Well that's all. I know I won't have a good reason to update here again for some time. I have loved sneaking back for this entry! I suppose that's why I've draaagged it out this long, and why I've chosen to write it instead of the 10,000 word epic with 50 photos and 15 video clips that is the backlog waiting to be written at my other diary! Not to mention the MANY emails that are embarrassingly late to be written and sent to a few special people! I guess I could come back if anything interesting happens with my cycles. But that would make for rather boring entries. I did that last time, though, but we were thinking to TTC much earlier then.
Oh well! I hope I'll have reason to be back before I know it! I LOVE it here!
** - Not ACTUAL plans! Please don't forget my disclaimer! ;)
Recent entries.....
Babies 7 and 8! :) - 2016-01-10
Babies 6 and 7! - 2013-02-17
Baby #5 !! - 2010-04-03
Nearly 3 months postpartum! - 2009-10-05
6 weeks old already! - 2009-08-25