Fear

I've been wanting to write about something for many months, but alas 3 children keep me plenty busy and away from this blog.  Plus I would much rather spend time with my children then on the computer!  They grow so fast and I want to enjoy every moment of it.


The HG has left a lasting effect on me and that is: Fear.  Fear of what?  It is fear of getting sick and throwing up.  Twice this year my family has gotten a stomach bug that resulted in vomiting.   The feeling that overcame me was an incredible urge to run. Where?  Anywhere as long as it was away from the sickness.  The last thing I wanted to do was look into a toilet bowl.  Anyone who has spent 9 months fighting NVP knows what I am talking about.

How did I get through this journey?  Prayer.  Much prayer, 1st, that God would spare me from the sickness and, 2nd, that God would give me the strength to take care of my family without fear.  It wasn't easy, but each time God was faithful and brought me through the journey without getting sick!

I don't know how I will react the next time my family gets sick, but I do know that my God will be there by my side helping me whether I get sick or not, because he has promised He will never leave me or forsake me.   I do not need to fear anything with Him.

Almost 1 Year!

My baby is going to have a birthday next week - his first one.  Where has the past year gone?  Time sure does go by faster when you don't have HG! 

I thought I would give an update on delaying solid foods. 

I tried feeding baby some rice cereal at 10 months 4 days old.  It was a disaster.  I learned baby has a very sensitive gag reflux.  I don't know why I didn't realize it sooner because ever since he was born he has gagged himself while latching onto me.  So as soon as the food touched his tongue, he would gag until he threw up.  I even tried Baby Mum Mum crackers and after 4 days of trying to feed him, he would scream when he saw food coming.  So I backed off.  Occaionsally, I would give him some Mum Mum cracker and a sippy cup of water (which he loved to spit all over himself!). 

Then just a couple of weeks ago, I tired food again.  This time some pureed pears.  It's going slow and he only eats a tiny amount at a time, but he likes it!  And he is now eating the Mum Mum crackers.  

I plan to make apple sauce with some apples I just picked and mix it with pureed squash from my garden, then feed it to him. 

I had thought by delaying solids for so long I would be able to skip the whole baby food route and just feed him cut up table foods, but not with this boy! 

I am very glad that I was able to go as long as I did with delaying solids and wish I would have done it with my other children (they were both about 7 months when they started on solids). 

Now on to see when he will self wean - I hope it a longs ways away.  

Diapers

*Update - after using the Earth Best diapers for a week now, I have decided that I do not like them.  There is a different feel to this diaper (almost a plastic feel) and Wilhelm has gotten a horible diaper rash with the smallest of pee in the diaper.  The feel of the diaper leads me to believe it is not as breathable as the Huggies.  I will not be getting these diapers again.*

I've been reading another HG blog and that Mama is trying to figure out what the best "natural" diaper is.  Since I have 3 of the kinds she is researching I offered to post a picture for her to see.  The kind that I don't have, but have used in Seventh Generation.  They were a little stiff (nothing too bad), and worked well. 

Left to Right - Nature Babycare(sz 1), Earth Best(sz 4) and Huggies Pure & Natural(sz 4).  The first 2 are very square and are bulky between my baby's legs.  The huggies had the best shape as the actual diaper padding follows the green line on the diaper.

Back waist of Nature Babycare has no elastic. 

Earth's Best has a small elastic.  Wilhelm put this diaper to the test in a big way and it passed! Surprisingly this diaper has a slight feeling of plastic on the outside.

Huggies Pure and Natural has the best elastic and is by far the softest and the best shape for a baby.  In smaller size diapers that back waistband acts as a poop stopper - it prevented so many up the back poops for us.

As far as I remember, only the Seventh Generation diapers did not leave the gel deposits on his bottom.  What this ingredient is, I don't know, but it's in the Huggies, Earth Best and I'm pretty sure the Nature's Babycare.

As of now, my first choice is Huggies Pure and Natural.  I am able to get a good $ from target since they let you use one Manufacture coupon and a Target coupon (so 2 coupons) for each pack of diapers.  And often times they have buy 2 packs of diapers get a $5. gift card.

9 Months Today

9 months ago this morning (and it was a Wednesday) I was giving birth to my baby!  The past 9 months have gone by so fast in comparison to the 9 months of HG pregnancy.  Today also marks 9 months of only breastfeeding.  He is happy to go 2-3 (sometimes more) hours without nursing and has cute, fat thighs :) 

I plan to take the next 3 months day by day and if at any point it appears he is hungry and not getting enough from me, then I will start him on solids. 

Why I Delay Solids

I've always knew breastfeeding was best for a baby.  Growing up everyone I knew breastfed their baby.  I knew it was what I was going to do for my babies as well.  I think knowing that caused me to not read up on breastfeeding and learn the many, many benefits of it. 

With my first baby I delayed solid food until she was 7 1/2 months old.  My second was 7 months old.  This time around I would like to make it to at least 9 months and maybe even 12 months before giving him any solids. 

Why?  I did some reading and this is what I found out.

Food Allergies.  The longer a baby is only exposed to human milk he is avoiding foreign proteins that may cause an allergic reaction.   Babies are born with a very immature digestive system.  Giving them solids too early can make spitting up, constipation or diarrhea more common and also put a strain on their little systems.

Breastfed babies are hardly ever overweight and those that are is most often caused by the early introduction of solids (4-6 months).  They are less likely to get sick and when they are sick it is not as bad and doesn't last as long as non-breastfed babies.
  

Breast milk is 80% water.  As long as baby can nurse whenever he wants to and as long or short as he wants to there is no need to give anything else, even water.  This is the reason I do not schedule my babies.  I let them tell me when they are hungry.  Sometimes this means they only ate for 1-2 minutes.  Were they hungry then?  Maybe not, but they needed a little drink! 

A healthy infant is born with a store of iron that can last 6-12 months.  It is true that there is not much iron in breastmilk but the little there is, is absorbed at a rate of 49% compared to the 4% that is in formula and cereals.  Breastfed babies do not lose iron through their bowels formula fed babies do.

Breastmilk has many, many immune factors in it (some articles I read say 37 and others say 50+).  The greatest immunity a baby can get is when they are exclusively breastfed.  Once baby is exposed to anything other than breastmilk (even sugar water) 17 immunity factors are destroyed by the E. coli bacteria that are introduced into their gut, and can never be restored.

The digestive juice for carbohydrates, doesn't appear until  baby's 6-8th month, and hydrochloric acid - used to digest most protein - doesn't even appear in the stomach until the end of the seventh month and doesn't reach a peak until the eighteenth month. 
This is very interesting for me because I lack hydrochloric acid.  I was a formula fed baby and I have never been able to eat beef.  As a child when I was fed beef, I would throw it up soon after eating it.  Is there a connection?  I don't know.

I know that breastfeeding doesn't come easy for a lot of women and for some it is not possible.  I am thankful that I have been able to breastfeed all 3 of my children.  Sure we had a rough couple of weeks with the sore nipples and engorgement so bad that I could have fed a neighborhood of babies (yeah, were talking about so much milk that is was up to my neck and under my arms!).

But my biggest challenge came with this last baby.  Little did I know that he was born posterior  tongue-tied, but I didn't find this out until he was 7 almost 8 weeks old.  Due to this he was unable to latch on correctly and had a hard time staying latched. (I didn't understand why I was having a hard time, after all he was my 3rd baby and I had already spent 32 months of my life breastfeeding my other babies.)  So what happened?  You guessed it, he cracked my nipples pretty badly and viola, an entrance for bacteria to set up home.  The mastitis was so bad that it required 4 rounds of antibiotics and 1-24 hour hospital stay for IV abx. 
While I was on so many abx I struggled if I should keep breastfeeding or temporally switch to formula.  The abx really messed with my baby and it led to colic, reflux and digestive problems.  In the end I kept with the breastfeeding but gave him many probiotics. 

Now at almost 7 1/2 months old he is exclusively breastfed and by that I also mean no bottles.  I am his one and only food source.  It's the sweetest thing when my hungry baby starts looking for food in my neck!   It makes me feel so good to know I am feeding my baby how God planned it.  Yes, it does get hard night after night after night of being the one up to feed him, but this is my calling and it makes my happy :). 

Oh and did I mention that it uses more calories to make breastmilk than it does to grow a baby?!!  I need 3,500 calories a day.  This means I can eat what I want, when I want and as much as I want (ok - still within reason) - and at the same time I'm losing weight!!!  Can't beat that :)

It's about time

That I lost all the pregnancy weight!  It has taken the longest this time around, but just shy of my baby turning 6 month old I am at my pre-pregnancy weight of 119 pounds!

I'm sure being through a long winter, baking cookies and eating ice cream way too much didn't help  But to my defence after dinner we bathe the kids and get them in bed, then I clean up the kitchen and I am starving! A bowl of ice cream has been my treat more nights than not. 

 Wilhelm eats a lot of milk day and night, so I know I need more calories right now. 

Things that trigger the memory

A couple of weeks ago we drove on a road that I had not been on in almost a year.  I was at the end of the 1st trimester and we were just wanted to get out with the kids for a special day.  We were given a pass to swim at an indoor pool at a local ski resort and before there we went to some outlets.  So, nothing fancy just trying to get some fresh air, so to speak.  

I was getting a little better in that I was not spending all day on the couch trying to figure out what food I could eat that wouldn't taste too bad when it came back up. I was not able to cook or do much of anything around the house, I guess I was still mostly on the couch, watching the clock waiting until I could take my next Diclectin.  I lived by the clock out of fear of missing the next dose.

But I was also feeling the NEED to get away from the smells of my home.  The smells that only I could smell..... those down right awful smells.  For those of you with HG, you know very well what I mean.  I've had 3 pregnancies in 3 different homes.  During each of them I smelled smells in the houses that I didn't smell any other time.   My husband once said that I could smell the sweat on the back of an ant and I would have to say that he was correct.

Anyways, back to what I was starting to say.  It was amazing the feeling that came over me as I saw the sights on this road.  I actually felt a small wave of nausea, if you can believe that.  It got me to thinking about the pregnancy.  Out of the 3 this was the "easiest" one because the HG was controlled, but I still felt sick through out the whole 9 months.  It was like I was in the morning fog and try as I might, I could not clear it all away.  There was always a haze to my days.... a haze of sickness I was trying to ignore.  Once the throwing up slowed way down, my haze was a little clearer but it was not until my baby was born that the sun broke through and I was seeing everything clearly again.