Mommy Milestone...

Today is the six month mark of me exclusively pumping. It seems like the time between my post celebrating Liam's six month birthday and this post for the six month mark of exclusively pumping took quite a while. I don't know how we made it through those first exhausting weeks, especially while I was trying so hard to make breastfeeding work and I was in so much pain. I'm still going strong with pumping. Around the beginning of December I finally made it down to six pumps a day. You have to drop pumps gradually after the twelve week postpartum mark to ensure you maintain supply. I saw a drop in how many ounces I get a day, but I'm still able to meet LD's needs-and a little more. The difference between pumping twelve times a day and pumping only six is indescribable. LD and I are finally able to make more, and longer, trips outside the house. He is so interested and alert and fascinated by everything in public, he really enjoys being outside the house. I haven't for even the slightest moment regretted or resented what I'm doing, all the long hours or discomfort don't even register on my annoyance radar.

I have filled our chest freezer twice over with all the milk that I have been so fortunate to pump. A few months ago I was devastated thinking about having to throw away some of the older milk to make room for the newer. I went in search of a solution that wouldn't mean the precious milk would be wasted. I was able to locate an amazing woman who has a baby who is in need of milk and she gives the baby donor milk. I've donated milk to her twice, and once my freezer is full I will donate to her again. To know that the milk that I'm pumping helps not only my son, but another growing baby as well is a feeling I can't put into words. To see how her baby has filled out with donor milk from myself and other donors is just incredible.

Yesterday was another important milestone for me, my postpartum endocrinologist visit. During our journey to Little Dude, after our first miscarriage, I was constantly asking the RE's and OB's about my thyroid. My levels never seemed right to me and from what I was reading they could certainly be responsible for the demise of my pregnancy. Since it was just our first miscarriage I allowed myself to be more open to the possibility that it was an unfortunate thing that can happen to anyone since m/c's are quite common. After the second one I just couldn't believe it was bad luck, especially since they happened at the same stage of development. I stressed my concerns about my thyroid again and again was met with resistance from the doctors to take what I was saying seriously. Right before our second IVF, when I knew I could not survive another m/c-physically or emotionally, I finally got to see an endocrinologist. Because I was on so many crazy fertility drugs there was little he could tell from tests, but he did confirm that my TSH should have been right around 1. It had always been at least three times that. I was put on thyroid medication and he agreed to monitor my levels, stressing that once I was pregnant we needed them checked as soon as possible. After an initial spike of more than 7 in my early pregnancy he was able to keep my thyroid controlled throughout the pregnancy and we all know this pregnancy ended in a much happier fashion. Yesterday based on my bloodwork he was finally able to give me a diagnosis, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Basically my immune system is attacking my thyroid gland. My feelings are incredibly mixed about this. On one hand I want to go back to every doctor who told me my thyroid was "fine" and slap them upside the head with this information. On the other hand, all things had to happen in the way they did in order to ensure LD was in our lives so how can I be angry? There's no other baby that I want. He's perfect and he's the one we're supposed to have. In the future knowing about the Hashimoto's will hopefully help us take the proper steps to maintain a pregnancy if we get pregnant again. The endocrinologist agreed that my previous pregnancies were probably lost due to the Hashimoto's.

Little Dude's 6 month appointment was Tuesday. He weighs 16 pounds 12 ounces and is 26 1/2 inches long. So despite everyone commenting on how big he looks, he does look big, he's only in the 31st percentile for weight and the 50th percentile for height. Here's a picture of LD trying on his sun hat during the blizzard, hoping it would bring the sun out.