almost 1 year a mommy!

hi y’all

So my baby girl is almost 1 year. She’s such an awesome cutiepie!

some random thoughts about this one year roller coaster:

-labour and giving birth was hell

-being a stay at home mum is ok for 4 months but then the brain drain starts to hit and I just wanted to get back to work to do something WITH MY MINDDDDD.

-still searching for that pink fluffy cloud. I think I’m just not a fluffy, dancing around in green meadows, cheering “everything is always great” type of mommy. I’m ok with that.

-we have a ton of nicknames for the baby. There’s “baby”, “cutiepie”, “little girl” but also “Dino” and “Godzilla” 🙂

-I still find some time to go out with friends (although it’s strictly limited to dinner dates which ends really early because we’re all too tired) and do 1 hobby (not 3 at the same time, I’ve learned to say no and alternate music bands 🙂 so yay, I’m not locked up in my house all the time because I’m A MOM now. hurray!

-I don’t find enough quality time with hubby 😦   he has a job with irregular hours and I don’t, so it feels like we “alternate”: he’s leaving when I get home or vice versa. Maybe we should go on a romantic weekend? but we don’t have the time! he also works on weekend! Where’s the romance people??? we went on one dinner date without baby and then he got sick in the middle of the date. So that didn’t work out so well. So we try again next weekend. That means: two dates and one wedding we attended together in ONE YEAR. help!

-I feel guilty about everything: I don’t spend enough time with the baby, I don’t do my job well enough, I don’t see my friends enough, I don’t see hubby enough, I don’t clean the house enough… trying to find a balance here! Still didn’t find it!

lots of love to all those TTC’ers and new mums!

 

 

 

being a parent episode 1

So let’s sum up what parenting is all about. I’ll do it in episodes.

Episode 1 is about breastfeeding. And it’s not what you’ll expect to hear but the raw truth.

Breastfeeding sucks. I’m doing it for more than 5 months now and I’m gradually stopping since last week. I didn’t bring a part of my pumping device to work so I saw it as a sign that I should stop this ordeal for good. I don’t get mommy’s who get all dreamy when talking about breastfeeding. I don’t get one daddy who said to me that it must create an immense bond between you and the baby, which he would never get.

Let me tell you the truth about breastfeeding how I experienced it: the first weeks your nipples bleed, you are in pain with explosing breast, you are in constant fear of infection, your baby wants to feed every hour, you get freakin tired while still recovering from hard labour. After a few weeks I got annoyed because YOU ARE THE MUM AKA MILK COW and therefore you cannot go anywhere because YOU are THE SOURCE of THE FOOD. You get the advice that you shouldn’t give the baby a bottle of pumped milk so you literally have to be around constantly because, what if she wants to be fed?

Luckily my little girl was a natural at breastfeeding. She got the hang of it from day one and I overproduced, so I had to let the preassure every time because otherwise she couldn’t take all that milk! I consider myself really lucky because you hear enough stories about babies who don’t know how to drink, too little milk, etc. No complaints in that department!

Then, after a while, you get used to the breastfeeding: it’s easy, environmental-friendly, always at hand, etc. So I even gave breastfeeding in public and felt somehow comfortable. I still saw it as an ordeal, but washing bottles all the time is also annoying. So I felt okay with it.

When I got back to work after 4 months however, I totally collapsed. It was NOT FUN to leave your job twice a day to get pumpin’, to get back home and to hear from hubby that I didn’t produce enough milk because she had a good appetite (hurray for that!). So it was stressfull to sit there and wait till the pumpin device sucked the last drop of liquid gold out of my tities. I missed meetings, and got all worked up about it. I WANTED TO STOP!

When I breastfeed, it feels nice because the baby is happy and she looks content with the amount of food. But I don’t experience it as a bonding happy moment. I gave her some bottles and my feelings about that are just the same, and even more pleasant. It’s all about the feeding, not the way how you do it that feels nice.

Maybe I just have very sensitive breasts or maybe I just don’t have the same squishy momsy feeling about this breastfeeding thing. It may be frowned upon by other mothers, but that’s just how I feel. I did it because it’s recommended and because I had the time for it. Now I want my breast back and I don’t want any more milk leaking out and sore nipples. That said, I’m very proud that I got through with it and provided my little girl 6 months of Nature’s best. I also experience an immense guilt that I’m taking this Nature’s best away from her. But it just cannot go on like this. So I’m gradually stopping. I hope she won’t hate me later or be sick all the time. Because of course I have a very low esteem about my mommy skills. When you look at my baby girl growing like a mushroom, you could really question my low self esteem though 😉

So there it is, my (controversial) opinion about breastfeeding!

a nice tumor

hi guys

the weird swollen cheek appears to be a tumor, but not the aggressive kind.

what a relief!

she’s taking medication now and it’s slowly getting smaller.

also, from this week, I’m a working mum!

I will try not to stress too much. It’s already quite a fuss with pumpin breaks (yeah breastfeading is such a laugh!) and working at home while hubby takes care of her and I get occasionally downstairs to feed her.

I’m glad to say that I really getting the hand in this motherhood thing. I’m having fun with the baby, she’s such a sweety!

Unfortnately, my new co-worker who sits next to me just had a miscarriage at 9 weeks. How terrible she must feel when everyone popped in to congratulate me and she was at the same time phoning the hospital to get an abortion…

What a situation! But I’m glad she opened up about it, because now I know I will see that it’s not all babytalk around her. Because I know how that feels like…

 

the weird swollen cheek

hi guys

So, you get pregnant after TTC for 2 years. you go into labour for 22 hours. your epidural didn’t work properly. you get all torned up in the hoohaaa so they had to stich you for almost an hour.

then we take the little miss home. mommy dearest is recovering for a good two months before she was herself again. mommy get panick attacs over spoiled milk. mommy hates breastfeading (bleeding, hurting, exploding, always being there, it’s always your turn, you cannot leave the house for more than two hours). Mommy stares at the baby who doesn’t do anything else than sleep, poop, suck al the energy out of her breasts, and cry.

but then, the first smiles! and she’s such a good girl! you have the best time together

So hubby says: “we are so lucky with such a sweet child that sleeps well”.

Finally, you get to enjoy motherhood.

and then, suddenlly, there is a weird swollen cheek. the doctors said: oh it’s nothing, just a virus, it will go away. The baby is eating well, sleeping and has no fever.

Now, we had an echography, and a blood exam, AND THE DOCTORS STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS.

Now I’m back to panic. And when I panic, I decide to write it off. So there you go WordPress.

On Monday she will be put asleep (WTF SUCH A SMALL BABY) so they can do a MRI-scan. They will also do a second blood test.

When you type “swollen cheek” in dutch on google you get cancer as a result, but, I will not panic.

I only hope that the doctors will find what it is!

Enjoy your maternity leave they say. Babies don’t get sick when breastfed, they say.

It’s not easy to enjoy motherhood while you’re waiting in a doctors office with a screaming child and you have to book several appointments and wait and wait and wait for test results.

But I’ve TTC for 2 years and done 3 IUI’s so I’m good at waiting, am I not?

Just kidding. I suck at waiting.

my little girl!

hi everyone

it’s been awfully silent here, but since december I’ve been waggling about being the size of a whale and with the grace of a pinguin and I just didn’t know what to write about.

On March 11 our little baby girl was born! The delivery was very traumatic (for example: the drugs weren’t working, but hey, I had a natural birth then *sigh*) but the baby was doing a-okay and is still going strong!

Lots of love for all you ladies TTC -ing out there, I’m still thinking of you guys!

xxx

ps: you cannot believe the amount of people already commenting on having a second child. Can I please try to raise this one first?

inspiration

I came across this quote from R.W. Emerson (1841, which is why I will ignore the use of only the word “man” 🙂 , while I’m thinking why I’m feeling insecure all the time when I don’t do what society expects of me, and recieve all kinds of comments from people who are not minding their own business:

 

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

 

Great quote!

Happy Christmas everyone!

Society and the pink fluffy cloud

*trigger allert: pregnancy discussed*

Society never liked me, and especially now I’m pregnant, Society thinks she may bitch even harder about my way of life.

You could NOT believe how many times I already heard that I will have two kids. I waited 2 years for this baby (it’s a girl by the way 🙂 and I’m scared and excited at the same time (because of course, being incertain doesn’t magically dissapear when one gets knocked up) for the delivery and the fact that I will be raising an actual child but, hey, let’s already discuss me wanting of course two children, because that’s what society expects of you. No I don’t want to talk about childREN. I want to talk about this baby, and we will see. I don’t care about stories like “my friend got IVF and then magically got the second child natural” or “you can always do IUI again to have your second”. Or the most annoying one: “one child is not enough, it will be spoiled and lonely.”

Wait. Can I get over my little depression I got from all those infertility problems? Can I first have my child and see what it’s like to be a mom, before already wanting a second one? If infertility taught me anything, it’s that you cannot plan life and it’s better not to hope hope hope for something which cannot be planned. Things will happen if they will happen. Maybe I will get pregnant without problems. Maybe in a couple of years we’ll decide that we are boarding the rollercoaster of IUI and it will work like it did this time. Maybe IUI will not work and I’ll have to do IVF. Maybe plural times. Maybe I will suffer depression from all that TTC stuff. Maybe I will not condenm my daughter to a depressed mom who so desperatly wants to try for a second child, that she forgets her first.

Can’t I just wait en see? I don’t want to plan my life anymore. It was planning who got me so anxious when I had to wait so long before getting pregnant.

And then there is the pink fluffy cloud I’m supposed to sit on. Especially after those fertility treatments! You ungrateful bitch, society thinks when people ask me how the baby is doing and I reply that she’s doing great, but that the mommy finds carrying a child freaking difficult. I already had 4 months of nausea, then my belly muscles started to hurt very bad at every step, I begin to waggle, I could not bend over, I’m tired, I’m MOODY, I eat tons of shit, I’m ANGRY when NOT FED, and I feel constantly guilty about this and am a bit afraid to complain because people expect you to be on your pink fluffy cloud.

Other people just float through pregnancy without any problems and make nasty comments like: “you waggle a lot, you seem to have some difficult times being pregnant, it’s funny”

NO SHIT SHERLOCK

“That’s just your hormones”

LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE

“How’s the baby?” asked everytime someone sees me

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASK HOW I AM DOING FOR A CHANGE. BABY’s FINE BUT I’M FEELING IGNORED

“can you still do your job?” (some sexist male collegue)

OF COURSE I CAN I’M NOT DEAD YET

You see, it’s not a pink fluffy cloud. I don’t like pregnancy at some moments of the day. I don’t think most women like all those little symptoms, but they just don’t mention them. I don’t like to mention them either, but if someone asks how the belly doing, then I like to give an accurate response 🙂

But the other moments of the day… they are priceless!

When you feel her kick gently. When you think about her room. When you’re assembling babystuff with hubby. When you let hubby feel her kick. When you make jokes with hubby about that the baby will have to take care of her crazy mother. When you get a ton of cute little baby clothes from a friend. When you think you will teach her all the nerdy cool stuff and see her first Star Wars movie or read Harry Potter 🙂 when you are feeling down at work because you are stressed out and then you rub your belly and say hi to the baby, and imagine her saying back that everything will be ok.

I love being pregnant, really.

I just wished it was acceptable to complain a bit about it.

 

 

 

 

stupid, people will be…

My baby and me are still going strong! 15 weeks pregnant! I won’t bother you with my happy thoughs (I have a lot of them now, my mood changed completely, yay!), nor will I bother you with my nausea and so, because this blog is meant for bitching. And bitching I WILL.

So, I told almost all my friends and family by now about the pregnancy, and the IUI road to get there.

I thought I would learn some people who don’t have a clue about what it is to TTC for 2 years and going in hospitals on a weekly basis. I thought I would teach those people not to ask those stupid questions like when will we “begin” to start to have a family? Instead I learned this:

• the people who are nice and empathic in general, react the same nice way about my TTC story. They respond with “I’m so sorry you had to go through this”, and “You are right, people should stop asking about children”
• the other people just don’t get the POINT. They go all: “oh I know a friend who had IVF and her second child just came out of nowhere” like for saying that TTC for 2 years isn’t a big deal and if I want a second child it will happen in just a whimp of a second. They don’t pause and think “maybe I shouldn’t have dug into her privat life like that”. Even when I say “sorry that I reacted so emotional when you asked me when we are having babies” they just don’t seem to get it. They just go all “look your third IUI worked so what’s the problem” but they don’t see my general point I’m making about being more considered and not sticking your nose into other peoples business. Of course I’m glad I had to do ONLY 3 IUI and waited ONLY 2 years, I know it could have been a lot worse, but this isn’t all about me, it’s about infertiles in GENERAL. Aaaaaargh!

It feels like I better said nothing and pretend everything went honky dory, like at work. It just makes me sad. It also reminds me of all this sorrow that I had those past few years.

Most of the time now I feel happy but when I just don’t get people to understand what infertiles go through, it brings me back to those months of mourning (like my hubby calls it) and then I just feel those tears in my eyes again and I’m incredibly anxious that something will happen to the baby.

Well, at least I tried. I think I will not stop trying to explain TTC, but it will not be easy. I don’t think I’m healed enough.

Did I mention that people already start about my second child? This one isn’t even BORN, YOU BITCHES! Can I concentrate on this child first perhaps? THANK YOU.

how to be a complete chicken

soooo

I told work today.

And I only told work that I’m pregnant. I didn’t tell my boss or most of my collegues about the IUI’s and the 2 year wait.

So far for my quest to advocate infertility in the workplace 🙂

I just could’t do it. I imagined all those questions from some nosy collegues who would dig into my personal life much deeper than I would want them to. I’m a terrible lyer so it would make me feel awkward with questions like “so, which fault was it?”. Plus, my boss will go all dramatic and say things like “why didn’t you TELL?” and so on.

If I really wanted to get all my frustrations off my chest I would have to tell my boss how much she hurt my feelings by asking me all those years when I’m having a baby. But that’s not something you can say to your boss. So if I only tell the IUI story, she will never ask herself “oh maybe I was too nosy with her” or ” maybe I should stop asking people when will they have children”. It would only stop if I tell her the hurtfull truth right in her face. And I just don’t want to risk my (otherwise good) work relationship with her, so I chickened out.

Plus, I have a bunch of other collegues who I think it’s not of their business how many fertility treatments I had, but if I tell my boss and some collegues I have to tell everyone, to avoid gossiping. Imagine all those people behind my back whispering “Oh she’s having TROUBLE to have kids, with me they just popped out when I wanted them to”.

What I will do, is to tell my story to all of my friends. I really want them to know that babies are not just some things that you get when you want it or when you are ready. So I’ll be an advocate to my friends and maybe even random people I meet.

I will never forget my struggle and I want people to know that it’s not okay to ask questions about having children. It just has to stop.