ERA EMMA ALICE infertility graduates/pregnancies thread 2

[Gardenlady543]

New thread @seven201 @Janefx40 @AM08 @thislittlebird @Spin101 @CB2805 @Dochas12111

@thislittlebird congrats on your arrival!! Feeding can be horrendous. It was for me both times. It's utterly miserable. Don't put any pressure on yourself to breastfeed if it is ruining the enjoyment of your baby.

We paid for private tongue tie but it was quite costly! I just happen to know the practitioner as they helped me with feeding too so it was easy to go down that route.

@Gardenlady543 glad the breastfeeding resolved and she can now feed from you directly

X

@Gardenlady543 if I’m honest I’ve let my husband do a lot of bottle feeding while I express because it upsets me so much that I can’t easily help her and produce food. I also feel very judged by my sister and mother in law for not breastfeeding, but they don’t know my history with breast issues and I’m angry that they clearly have opinions i didn’t ask for. The SIL referred to me feeding her “expressed milk” the other day and I wanted to correct her and say it’s still breast milk.

I totally agree about the tongue tie clinic referrals. I’m quite gobsmacked they prioritise babies who are clearly already feeding at the breast. My baby can’t do it, so no I do not feel confident about breastfeeding after it’s snipped but she won’t even get the chance unless we do it privately. I might not even be able to because I get nipple eczema, but it would be nice to have a choice.

So did you do the tongue tie op or not and she just eventually got it? My supply won’t last that long. Yesterday I had a meltdown over the fact I was hungry and had no time for proper food and basically didn’t pump all morning and today I stuck her on the breast with nipple shields and nothing seemed to be coming out for her, but some did when I expressed. It is just so draining that it dries up if I’m not perfect at it, it’s mentally and emotionally very hard.

I just don’t see myself being able to keep at it for months. My left boob has had biopsies but seems ok, my right one is definitely damaged and produces half as much as the other. I’m seeing this feeding specialist woman again tomorrow and I found the appointment last week rather hard. Everything I did was wrong, don’t do this, do this instead, and telling me baby isn’t interested in the boob because she’s had a bottle which just isn’t the case, she is very interested but I can’t help her.

@Janefx40 thank you! I really hate it and I don’t think my husband gets how hard I’m finding it. He’s supportive but it’s hard to explain how much I feel like I’ve failed her. I have eczema and asthma and my sister in law made comments when I was pregnant about how I’ve got these because I wasn’t breast fed. It really upset me, even though I know it’s not because of formula or breastfeeding really and probably more my genetics. But I feel like I can already here then blaming me for not breastfeeding if she gets asthma and eczema as she gets older.

How much did it cost? I’ve seen some consultants do it within the price of a consultation fee, so a few hundred quid maybe.

Other than the feeding thing though, she’s just such a great baby. I feel very grateful she’s so content or I might have lost the plot by now. She’ll sleep anywhere on anything, she goes a few hours through the night already, she’s mostly very chilled.

@thislittlebird

Firstly big hug! You know I said to myself that if my baby had any other issue whatsoever there is no way I could have done what I did, I was so lucky with her demeanor and sleep, that’s the only reason I could do the pumping. Ignore your family, they are being really unhelpful with these comments! As far as I’m aware you want to search for someone that is IBCLC registered to find someone to do it privately. I didn’t have the appointment with the NHS until my baby was gone 3 months, they said they would cut it if I wanted but since she had started to get some milk off me I decided against it in case we ended up in a worse position. Had I seen them earlier I would have had nothing to lose. It also didn’t help that at 3 months my baby was more aware of what’s going on and I didn’t want to put her through it when it may not help at this time, this is an age where she was smiling at the doctor so for the doctor to then do something painful, I would have found hard. They also ask you to put the baby on the breast every 3 hours for I think 24 hours and at 3 months with everything I’ve been through going back to that would have been really hard. Sometimes babies can have a tongue tie and it will just divide on its own so who knows maybe that happened, we have no idea what’s the reason that it took so long for her to get the milk off and there was no telling that it would have gone in the direction it did, I could have been unlucky and done everything I did (constant skin to skin and latch practice a couple times a day minimum with all the pumping) and still ended up with a baby that couldn’t feed. Things that made the pumping easier was my husband did almost all the bottles and he slept in a room with the baby in the next to me and I slept in a different room so I could pump. The feeding specialist you saw doesn’t seem helpful, I have seen so many people, we were lucky that my area has a really lovely lactation consultant on the NHS, we’ve also seen numerous people who were a bit of a mixed bag, eg a member of the feeding team who told me absolutely everyone can get a good supply, this felt like it was belittling what I'd done, I'd worked really hard to get my supply up and I know a lot of it is luck and I know people work really hard and don't get a good supply. I go to a really good local breast feeding support group (ask around in your area for this as it is such a nice and helpful group to go to).

By the way, I’m sure you already known this, but as they get older they don’t sleep all the time, I remember this phase we literally could eat at fancy restaurants with the pram and her sleeping, I downloaded napper when she transitioned from being asleep constantly to napping and this has helped a lot. I got the free version and used it every day and the app then let me buy a lifetime membership for really cheap (clearly they realized I was never going to pay for the full version at their advertised cost and they wanted something out of me). Anyway it lets you track sleep over night and night waking and naps in the day and then gives a schedule so you know when they will be napping.

Hi just writing to say that I’m 36 weeks now … nearly there. Was wondering if you could give one tip or one bit of wisdom for the first few weeks what would it be?

x

sorry for not replying @Gardenlady543. I was not doing great and then forgot. I feel like I've been super lucky to have a chilled baby but I still can't hack it. I got sick of the pump and then it malfunctioned, not really sure what's wrong with it but it isn't pumping properly. So anyway, I stopped using it. I have kept breastfeeding her with a nipple shield here and there, but my supply is so low that it's mostly for comfort now. I cannot face restarting the supply, but I haven't sent the pump back yet in case I decide to try to get a small supply going next week for her appointment at Kings.

The appointment is still 2 weeks away and I'm terrified they'll interrogate me on how much milk i provide her etc and then say they won't snip it, it's stressing me out. I don't even know if I want to go to it, I want my DH to go alone really :/ I might look into private where I don't have to jump through hoops to do it. Really at this point I'm only do it in case it helps her with speech in future, she's formula fed, but I'm still worried about putting her through it for no reason.

When do they start sleeping less? I know it's coming lol. She sleeps for 5.5 hours overnight at 8 weeks, which is good, but still feeds every 3 hours in the day. I think I might book us a meal at a nice local restaurant while she's still in the pram and will sleep well. We haven't been out with her yet, like that. I am also completely confused about where would be a good place to go with a pram, have you guys gone anywhere? I'm so sick of the non-summer here!

@Sar1010 exciting! I'd say have your bag packed already because we were slightly caught out when my waters broke at 38+2! Don't go in with any expectations, I suppose, I expected a newborn to be awful but it was fine, she surprised us. And prepare for the horrendous emotions coming your way for the first two weeks, I was in pieces and very emotional about anything and everything to do with the baby. Do you know what you're having?

@thislittlebird this is super helpful. My bag has got bits and bobs in it but this has urged me to get that sorted properly.

yes my expectations keep changing one moment I feel totally at ease and it will all be a breeze and the next I’m on the verge of a panic attack because it’s going to be the hardest thing in the world!

thanks I appreciate the advice ♥️

@Sar1010 yeah ours was a bit like that. I woke up, had a bloody show and realised my waters were breaking at about 3.30am but also knew c sections don’t start arriving until 7 (I had an elective booked 10 days later than the day it all kicked off) so we just finished packing, had a shower, called them about coming in at 5, then threw everything in the car and left for maternity triage at 6.30am.

It definitely seems like luck of the draw wrt what baby personality, but you muddle through. The worst bit is sleep and frequency of feeds, so if you haven’t done any freezer meal prep maybe do some or buy some ready meals. We did both and it was a lifesaver, the first couple of weeks were hectic, especially as she had some jaundice so feeding every 2 hours was a little intense.

Hi all. This thread just popped up in my "I'm on" section. Not read from before July, sorry.

@thislittlebird congratulations on the baby!! For what it's worth my girl had her tongue tie snipped at 5 or 6 weeks I think. It didn't bother her at all randomly! Not sure of the history of your feeding stuff but we had to add formula for a while as baby lost too much weight but was able to wean off it. Had that with both my dd's so I do think I have a supply issue as they were both often frustrated at the breast. The tongue tie snip meant I was able to wean off the nipple shields and somehow we eventually got there. It's really tough - you must do what feels right for you.

Can't advise on the sleep as my baby is nearly 9 months now and never done more than 3 hrs in a row since birth . Most don't do that though! For going out, just pick somewhere that has a bit of space to park a pram and personally I'd go at 6ish so you're with the family crowd, rather than the date night crowd, who might be more judgemental of an upset baby. Or lunch time. Have a lovely time.

@Sar1010 congrats on nearly being there. Hope you're doing ok in the heat. Just enjoy the snuggles and starring at them for hours on end. Also, I wish I'd banned myself from 2am Amazon purchases . My baby was very angry and would not be put down for first 4 months of her life, so I bought all sorts of crap in the hope it would help. Of course it didn't! If you fancy going somewhere do it, but if you don't want to, don't do it to please other people or because you feel you 'should' be going.

@seven201 oh no 3 hour wake ups sound tough! How are you doing, are you back at work soon? My baby is 6.5 months now and I'm back next week, DH has surgery and was told he can't lift the baby for 6 weeks so I'm doing everything right now :( where was this 6 weeks advice after my c section.

@thislittlebird I don't think they would refuse based on using formula, they did tell me I needed to feed every 3 hours for I think 2 or 3 days after the snip if we had got it. Meal wise you need a place big enough to get the pram in, we would call up and say it's 2 adults plus a pram and if they're ok with this then that's a good place, steps can be difficult, but you can just lift the pram up them between you. If they are wheelchair accessible then it should be fine. Quite a few places don't have baby changing, but we would just wheel the pram into the toilet and change in the pram.

@Sar1010 you're almost there now! Woop! Tip wise,

• family and friends buy a lot of things for the baby especially clothes, you can't go wrong with some zip up sleep suits though. My baby was in vest suits and long sleeves and long leg zip up suits. Ones like these are good: amzn.eu/d/08jGY9eU you want 2 zips ideally so you can open up at the lower end to check the nappy without unzipping all the way.

-We got the snuza hero, it's a breathing monitor that slides onto the nappy and really helped my anxiety and baby hasn't been bothered by having it on.

• nappies, you don't need the expensive ones, we were in lidl ones and just changed to Aldi for size 3 as lidl drop the wet line indicator for this size. (Nappies have a yellow line on them and it goes blue when wet so you know to change it)
• I've found the local child centre really useful the groups there have all been free and they do a breastfeeding support group that really helped me
• wearing the baby is really useful, the baby bjorn carriers are really easy to get the baby in and out of, we have just gone up to an ergo one now baby is bigger, but it's a faff to put on and get baby in alone.
• there is a fb group for car seats that's worth joining, the admin are experts in car seats, they told me to get the maxicosy cabriofix isize which is pretty reasonably priced, you may already have one though.
• we found the next to me crib really helpful, we had the halo swivel and had two one for the living room and one for the bedroom.

By the way aside from a car seat (never buy second hand) and pram (second hand ones are often really worn and you'll use it for years), get whatever you can second hand. We bought second hand baby clothes bundles and the halo swivels were second hand (you will likely need a new mattress though as that's really important for SIDS risk), eBay and fb marketplace are really good.

My tips seem to have been about baby stuff rather than actual tips! My tip is take loads of photos and videos, take videos even when the baby is doing something completely boring, I guarantee in a few months you will love looking back and watching the baby, just moving about and looking around, they grow and change unbelievably quickly! You can get baby milestone blankets from Amazon to take photos on which are so cute, but don't leave it to the week or month milestone, take videos of just day to day baby life.

@Gardenlady543 i didn’t actually know this about the nappies lmao. We’ve been using the Aldi ones from day one, they’ve been great but I had no idea about them going yellow.

She hated the carrier the last time we tried it. First time she was fine though. It put me off of it, so I should probably try again before she’s too big for it. We have an ergobaby embrace (I think?)

I’ve not been along to any groups or anything at the local centres so far, and I’m ok with that. It’s taken me a while to get used to getting out of the house with her and I’m not very sociable, probably also a little anxious about meeting other parents. I did try to join an organised walk on Thursday but I got the details wrong and I was the only one there :/

I got the Maxi Cosi pebble 360 and it’s amazing. It can lie flat and the base comes out of the car so you don’t have to lean in when you’re 40+ first time parents with iffy backs. Glad we didn’t get a travel system. The pram is great too, actually, we went with a Nuna.

Vinted is great for buying and selling baby clothes. I’m selling hers on there as she grows out of them.

Wrt the tongue tie, Kings are really strict is seems and they will not do it unless they’re 50% + breast fed, which seems silly when she can’t even breastfeed really. I’m going to restart pumping this week and hope there’s enough to feed her something at the appointment. I’m mentally over it all now, happy to move on, but need this appointment out of the way. Really frustrated in how much weight I’ve gained now i’m not expressing, I was super happy about my post pregnancy weight (in the scheme of things) and now it’s a battle to get it back down at 41.

@thislittlebird there is a yellow line down the middle, when the nappy is wet it turns blue. My baby doesn't really like the ergo one although now she's bigger she seems better in it. The ergo is supposed to be the best one for the ergonomic hip position. But we've only just been able to use it a bit more now, I still use the baby bjorn all the time as it's more comfortable for me and so much easier to get the baby in and out.

Oh that's annoying about the walk! The children centre stuff has been pretty good, I did the weaning course with them and baby massage sessions, I have done the under 1s and breast feeding groups, they've not been clicky or anything. That's really good about the car seat, my back won't be doing too well as I'm doing all the lifting all the time with my husbands operation. We have the Nuna pram too, the nuna mixx, I got a good deal at uk babycentre on it.

I just find the NHs tongue tie services so frustrating, I wasn't prioritized because my baby was using a bottle, without the bottle she would have died!! She wasn't able to get any milk off me at all! I hope they get it sorted for you.

It's almost been a couple of months now since the last message, how's everyone doing?

Hi @Gardenlady543 !

We're good thanks. Leo is 16 months and super cute. He's the youngest in our friendship group so here a lot of attention!

He's still a super picky eater so meals are tough. Basically only eats beige food and yoghurt! And fruit.

Finally got him out of my arms and into a cot this last week. It's going ok tho I am tired as I have to keep getting up. I got more sleep co-sleeping but was less comfortable.

How are you?

@Gardenlady543 how are you???

sorry I never replied. I was having a bad time with the tongue tie and breastfeeding at that stage. Long story short: my pump malfunctioned and I was getting very little out and I took that as a sign from the universe to stop. That was at about 8 weeks. I’m much less stressed now, although the guilt was horrendous. We cancelled the tongue tie clinic appointment because by the time it come round (11 weeks ish) my milk supply had dried up. Anyway, I tried, and she’s fine.

Oh, we were due to fly tomorrow to Italy but the weather looks awful because of storm Boris so we have had to move it to next year. So Eliza won’t be using her passport for a while :/

I’m disappointed but I’d rather have nice weather and enjoy the trip for (an unreasonable amount) more money next year than go and get stuck in a storm. We might drive to Cornwall for a couple of days instead, she’s been having weird sleep issues in the daytime but not at night, probably sleep regression so maybe staying home is a blessing.

@Janefx40 16 months!! Aww bless him, how's it feel having your bedroom back?

@thislittlebird aww bless you, I'm glad you're not in the feeding stress anymore. Oh that's a shame about the holiday, but better you're all safe.

We are good, baby is 8 months now, we haven't had sleep regressions up until now but apparently at 6-10 months is the worst time, my milk supply has gone down a lot and I've just been started on domperidone. We just got the news our surrogate is pregnant, just the blood test so far but hopefully this will work out this time, so the domperidone was a decision I couldn't wait for as the supply is going down and I want to be able to breastfeed the baby if we're lucky enough for it to workout.

Hi everyone - so good to hear your updates.

@Janefx40 cant believe Leo is 16 months, time flies, how did you go about transitioning from cosleeping? Any top tips? We still are in the throes of it, I’m enjoying it for now but my husband is pretty grumpy about it

@Gardenlady543 that’s amazing news on the surrogate - congratulations! sorry to hear sleep regression has finally kicked in, hoping that it’s just a short phase for you all.

@thislittlebird hoping you get away for a few days in Cornwall - I know cancelling trips is such a pain but it’s so much better than being stuck somewhere when something goes wrong - Noah picked up a virus in France last week and we had to delay our flights home etc and it was alot of anxiety and not worth it, given we weren’t even away for long

Everything all good our end - coming out of Noah being unwell. He is generally just the biggest bundle of energy and a very physical baby, super fun and playful but just on the go from the second he wakes up till the second he goes to sleep! He turned 9 months over the weekend and I imagine he’ll be walking in the next few weeks 😅 xx

@AM08 9 months!! Wow. Glad he is feeling better.

The end of co-sleeping was quite organic. From about 10/12 months he started going into his cot for the first stretch in the evening. Sometimes a couple of hours, sometimes 4. Then he'd come in with me on waking. Then the last couple of months he started waking around 4am and just chewing me for hours and not really settling. So I started putting him back into his cot then which mostly he took very easily and actually slept which he wasn't doing with me. Then about a week ago he started chewing me at 1am. So I put him down then and haven't looked back. I'm in the same room and I will feed him any time he wakes then put him back. Mostly he goes down happily but occasionally he has cried and had to be cuddled, resettled a few times. I've never felt he was distressed tho. Am going to keep doing this for a while then will gradually try to drop the night feeding too. He seems to be settling into longer stretches so that's good.

@Gardenlady543 what does domperidone do for breastfeeding? I thought it was anti-sickness.

@thislittlebird lovely to hear from you and glad you have settled into a happier place with the feeding. Why does it make us feel so guilty?!!! I remember with my first DD crying to a friend because I'd given her formula saying "I can't even feed my own baby" and she quite sensibly said "you've just fed your baby"!!! It's food and they are fine!!! With perspective it seems obvious but it's hard at the time with the hormones. Sorry about your hols!!

@Janefx40 it's an off license use, it increases prolactin and supply. I saw a lactation constantly who works in low milk supply and induced lactation who prescribed it. I have no idea what to do with sleep at the moment, baby is still sleeping in a cot in a room with my husband and he brings her through when she wakes up to be fed. It's so tiring at the moment with all the wake ups as I can't get back to sleep after :(

@Gardenlady543 congratulations! Fingers crossed for you.

6-10 months is right in time for our trip to Center Parcs in Feb lol. Wow, can’t wait to mess her sleep up again, which is what I seem to have done this week and any stays away from home now feel like a bad idea.@AM08how long were you away for? Can totally see what you mean about it not being worth it. We moved our Italy trip to June so she’ll be a year then, hopefully a better time. We went away for a few days and stayed with the in laws and it seems to have triggered her sleep regression at night. She was super clingy to me the first day we arrived, I think she found all the new people fussing over her overwhelming, and now she’s waking at night too. My baby who slept through from 5 weeks (in her cot from day one) now wakes at night to screech and squeak, I guess it’s something she’s recently learned to do! I’m a bit sad about it, feel like we’ve gone backwards and it’s my fault. A lack of sleep makes everything so much harder.

Also didn’t love the comments while staying with pil including being “surprised” we even thought about taking her abroad, comments on us planning on sending her to nursery (I wouldn’t want relatives to have her anyway, we’d clash) and sil commenting on her boobs having nothing in them because the baby put her hand there 🙄. It really bugged me after the issues we’ve had with feeding and she doesn’t care about boobs now. She did a couple of months back and would bob around for food on people’s chests often but doesn’t do that now, but she never bothered to visit us to meet her so she wouldn’t know about that. There was also a total lack of appreciation for us saying she needs to nap to a schedule.

So back to square one we go with the naps, feeds, night sleep etc. we got the huckleberry app and we’re going to try to get her wake windows sorted now and see if it helps her go back to sleeping through. She was eating loads from 3.5 to 4 months and now it seems to have reduced back down and plateaued, I’ll get her weighed this week.

When did your babies crawl? @AM08 did Noah crawl or is it a straight to walk situ?

@Janefx40 it really doesn’t help when people make comments on the feeding stuff. I felt quite judged about it all by the in laws, it’s not my fault she has a tongue tie and as @Gardenlady543 knows, the rules on tongue tie snips are ridiculous and we just gave up worrying about it in the end, decided she’d be fine with a tongue tie since lots of people have them and moved fully to formula. I still have some frozen breast milk I use on the odd occasion.

Has anyone here thought about or got the chicken pox vaccine? I know they can’t have it until 1+ but did read about it a bit.

@thislittlebird superdrug offer the chickenpox vaccine at 9 months so we're booked in exactly as she turns it! It's two vaccines about 4 weeks apart. Although the cancelled our second so hopefully they have the stock. You have to either have it on the same day as mmr or a few weeks apart I think, so that's why we want to get in early.

Some people say tongue ties can affect speech but I think it would need to be very severe for that, we didn't get anything cut if that was the issue and the baby said her first word at 7.5 months.

@Gardenlady543 just saw your name pop up on another thread! How are you? How are things?

@thislittlebird @AM08 @seven201 @Sar1010 @APSR @Spin101 @Jellybelly56 @InvisibleDreamer how are you all? Hope things are good

Leo is now 22 months. We just did a couple of weeks with a sleep consultant and he is now sleeping through the night (previously waking every couple of hours). She was amazing. Totally transformed things without any sad crying!

So life is starting to feel a little easier. Doesn't hurt that the sun was out today.

Sending love to you all x

Hi @Janefx40 good to hear from you :) I was thinking about you on than progesterone thread, I remember you reassuring me my level was fine :) that's so good about the sleep, that must be a big relief!

We are doing good, baby is 14 months and doing very well, not walking, but an expert crawler! I'm still breastfeeding, although on domperidone and have a plan to increase the dosage up with more regular pumping as we're expecting the baby through surrogacy in May. It's seemed to have gone so slowly! Still two months to go!

@Gardenlady543 yes I saw that thread and recognised myself in your comment although I'm not sure about progesterone levels pre transfer actually. The high levels that ARGC go for are after. Or at least those are the levels I'm aware of. But anyway it worked out for you which is the main thing.

Exciting about the new baby in May! Do you get to be there for the birth with a surrogate?

My daughter didn't walk until around 15 months. She didn't really stand or pull herself up either and then she just suddenly did it all. They're so cute at that age.

Leo is so gorgeous. His speech is really coming now and every day is a new surprise!