Still Going...

Hi there. I'm still alive. I haven't blogged for a looong time. Other things have taken up time in my life, and I didn't like how I was feeling like blogging was a chore. But here I am, with an almost nine month old baby girl (shall I call her Cave Baby II?) and my eldest about to start school!

Since I last blogged we've moved house and I've reached the latter stages of NCT breastfeeding counselling training. With any luck, I'll get the last few assignments done before Christmas and I'll be officially up and running by early next year. Maybe I'll write more about that some time... it might be useful for anyone considering NCT training. I thought I was already quite a complete, self-aware person, but the reflection and counselling skills training has taken me even deeper. I can step out of situations more now, and analyse more objectively why I react to things in the way I do.

So, another baby! I wrote a lot on this blog about my journey back to fertility. My periods restarted when Cave Baby I (now Cave Girl?) turned two. I had made no obvious change to our nursing habits. We immediately started trying to conceive, but after a couple of months I became frustrated at our lack of success. I seemed to have a short luteal phase and I took vitamin b6 and agnus castus (vitex) to improve it. There was no appreciable effect and I felt that my only option was to cut down on our still-frequent nursing sessions. I began by spacing sessions out to no more than four hourly. After another couple of months, I took what I considered to be the drastic step of cutting out all sessions other than morning and nap time and reducing sessions to 15 minutes. This might still sound like a lot of nursing to other people, but my daughter was a super keen breastfeeder! Even at two years old she would happily suck away for an hour in the morning. I am happy to say that the sudden drop in breast stimulation worked, and that very month I fell pregnant. I continued to breastfeed my eldest throughout the pregnancy despite my milk drying up by nine weeks (That was how keen Girl I was on feeding!). Nursing was annoying and a bit sore, but hey. I could take a bit of pain if it meant a quiet nap with my daughter in the afternoon :)

So fast forward nine months and my beautiful baby girl was born at home in a birthing pool with no complications. I tandem fed for three months but, by this time, I honestly felt that my eldest would be fine without it. Sleeping separately (me with newborn, Cave Father with eldest) had broken Girl I's association between feeding and sleep, and she had spontaneously dropped her naps when she had turned three. I felt like my breasts were becoming something of a battle ground, as a way for Girl I to assert her ownership over me. I was starting to resent her feeding and as a result I was finding the sensation of her suckling intolerable. There comes a time when it is in the interests of the family to draw breastfeeding to a close. Our time had come. She asked for the breast occasionally over the few days after I decided to wean, but was always satisfied with an explanation that it was time to stop. There were no tears - she truly had moved on emotionally from breastfeeding. At this time she needed my attention and love, and whilst feeding had been one way to meet these needs, other ways had become easier and more fulfilling for us both.

So here I am now, with an independently minded, highly spirited and still highly demanding almost-four year old and a sweet, smiley, relaxed baby. Who would have thought that the genomes that brought us Miss High Needs could have produced such a contrastingly pleasant second child?

One final thing - Cave Girl sleeps through the night. In her own bed. Yes, I know, it surprised me as well. Only after experiencing the joy of sleeping for most of the night with a "normal" baby can I appreciate how extraordinarily sleep deprived I was for my first 18 months of parenthood. I guess there's hope for us all.

Ovulation, Delaying Nursing and Some Other Stuff

This post is going to go into a little more detail than you may be used to about something that we don't often talk about: cervical fluid. But it's also about breastfeeding and how I'm getting on with delaying my daughter's nursing, so it's not all icky. Don't worry.

I'm still period-free after almost 20 months of breastfeeding and whilst I'm not worried about it, I would quite like to get back into the old routine some time before I hit the menopause. According to Sheila Kippley, 8% of ecologically breastfeeding mothers (that is those who feed on demand night and day, co-sleep and do not use any artificial nipples) go for over 2 years postpartum without having a period. So I'm not alone.

But the thing is that if you are one of those people who have a long amenorrhea, your cycles tend to need a bit of a kick to get them started again. Basically your body gets in a really nice groove with the constant flow of ovulation-suppressing prolactin and even if your baby feeds a little less and the prolactin decreases slightly, you don't necessarily ovulate. La Leche League suggest kick-starting ovulation by making an abrupt change such as avoiding breastfeeding for 24 hours. This gives your ovaries a break from the prolactin released during breastfeeding and allows them to raise you oestrogen level high enough to trigger ovulation.

I'm not going to do the 24 hour break thing because it wouldn't be fair on my daughter. But my body has been giving me signs that it is trying to ovulate, so I am hoping that if I help it out a little I will be rewarded with a cycle. Cave Baby's night-time sleep has improved a lot recently and she often wakes just once in the night, so I am already nursing less than I was. A small reduction in daytime nursing might be all I need to get my oestrogen level over that threshold.

So how do I know that my body wants to ovulate? Your cervical fluid (the stuff that your cervix makes and which makes a white patch on your pants) can tell you a lot about what is going on in your body. In a normal cycle you start by having a period then your vagina is fairly dry for a few days. As you approach ovulation your ovaries produce oestrogen in increasing quantities. The oestrogen causes your cervix to produce fluid. Most people will first experience sticky whitish cervical fluid, then a couple of days later it will become more lotiony like hand cream. Finally, a day or two before ovulation, the cervix makes a clear, stretchy fluid that is perfect for sperm to swim through. It's your body's way of making your vagina a welcoming place for sperm so that you are more likely to get pregnant.

If you are experiencing a period of anovulation like me, your cervical fluid does not follow the usual pattern. In fact I currently have sticky or lotiony fluid all the time, and it is this that tells me that my oestrogen levels are quite high. Sometimes it even starts to get a bit stretchy like true fertile fluid, but then I am required to sit through a nursing marathon and the ovaries are squashed back down again. I am obviously making a lot of oestrogen, but just not quite enough to cause an egg to be released. By the way, I know what my cervical fluid is like because most days I wash my hands then use them to feel for my cervix and take a sample of the fluid surrounding it.

So without wishing to do anything drastic like weaning, I'm just seeing if delaying nursing sessions will make a difference to me. I read all the advice on my last post and I think it helped me see that everyone reaches a point where they want to adjust the nursing relationship a little bit to fit around their lives more comfortably. And I am not reducing the amount of nursing we do purely to help me regain my fertility; it is also about my convenience since the frequent feeds were starting to become a nuisance. So at present I am not offering the breast (though I never have done; my little girl has never needed reminding to feed!) and when she asks for it, I am routinely offering food and/or a drink and/or a distraction to see if the breastfeed can wait. It has struck me how ironic it is that in the early days I was concerned that my baby should feed only when she was hungry and not just for comfort, whereas now I am avoiding the hunger feeds and trying to restrict myself just to the comfort ones!

In my head, I am now playing the part of the ewe who starts to kick her lambs away occasionally when they want to feed but she would rather walk to a juicy new bit of grass instead. Placing restrictions on nursing seems to be a perfectly natural thing to do at this stage in the breastfeeding relationship. I will give it a month or two and see how things go. I am not going to be worried if I do not ovulate in the next few weeks because I know it will happen eventually (she says, keeping her fingers crossed).

Have you any experience of altering your nursing patterns so that your body can resume monthly cycles? Or have you used fertility awareness to help you avoid or achieve pregnancy?

PS If you are reading Liz, I have finally read Taking Charge of Your Fertility and I thank you for the recommendation.

A Mother's Christmas

Welcome, Carnival of Breastfeeding readers! December's carnival is all about keeping healthy during the festive period and there are (or shortly will be) links to the other wonderful posts at the bottom of this one. Enjoy reading them, and have a lovely Christmas time.

Christmas is a time for families to be together. We have always made an effort to spend time with our parents, brothers and sisters at Christmas, even if it meant that by the end of the holidays we were more exhausted than at the beginning.

Things were no different last year. I had a four month old baby, breastfeeding most of the time and waking me up at least every couple of hours through the night (in fact every hour is probably more accurate). But in those early days of motherhood I still believed that I should be trying to have it all. Yes, I should be taking it easy and spending lots of time nursing my baby, but I should also be cooking fantastic Christmas meals, hosting family at my house, making mince pies, buying gifts for everyone and generally being the life and soul of the party. So, as usual, we arranged a punishing Christmas schedule that would allow us to be all things to all men, as is expected at Christmas. We spent the big day and Boxing Day with my parents, then Cave Father's parents arrived to stay at our house; on the 28th we hosted a party for all the family, and the following days we continued to wait on our house guests.

It was about as far from "fun and relaxing" as you can get. We ended up absolutely exhausted, and Christmas felt more like an ordeal than a pleasure. Instead of enjoying ourselves, we longed for the time when our parents would go home and we could spend some time alone with our baby.

So we are determined that things will be different this year. But if we believe that Christmas is a family time, how can we balance our needs with the needs of our relatives?

Family means more than grandparents, aunts and uncles. Though it sounds strange to my ears, my partner, my daughter and I are a family unit now. Our family bonds needs nourishing, just like the bonds with our extended family. It is too much to expect a new mother to play host to her relatives as well as breastfeeding and caring for a baby. That is just a recipe for illness. So this year we are going to concentrate on nourishing the relationships within our tiny family. We are going to spend Christmas Day at home, cooking a small but (hopefully) perfectly formed Christmas dinner and going a bracing walk with Cave Baby in the backpack. We are going to visit my parents, but not push ourselves too hard by staying the night. We are going to see Cave Father's relatives at New Year, when there is less pressure to conjure up forced Christmas cheer. Above all we are going to put ourselves first for a change - not in a selfish way, but in a "we really just need a break" way. And we are even hoping that (whisper it) Cave Father and I might be able to have sex! Just think of it! After weeks of illness, colds, teething and worry, there has been precious little romance around here.

So here is my recipe for a new mother's healthy Christmas time. See your family, but let them do the cooking. Have guests, but only the ones who will help out around the house and won't complain about you sitting on the sofa breastfeeding all day. Space out the festive activities with luxurious time at home spent enjoying the family that you work so hard for all year.

Most importantly, make sure you make time for your baby and your partner, because the closest bonds are sometimes the ones that get forgotten at this family time.

Happy Christmas.

Photo from Daily Mail.

And while you're here, why not have a look at the other carnival posts:

Mama Knows Breast: A Breastfeeding Poem: Twas the Breastfeeder's Nighttime
Chronicles of a Nursing Mom: Don't Forget the Pump!
Blisstree.com's Breastfeeding 1-2-3: Breastfeeding and Dehydration
Accidental Pharmacist: Motherhood Statement
Hobo Mama: Breastfeeding and the holidays: How to take care of yourself
Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: Taking Care of Yourself and Your Baby During the Holidays
Breastfeeding Moms Unite: Caring for a High Needs Baby During the Holidays
Breastfeeding Mums: Looking After Yourself During the Holidays: 7 Tips for Breastfeeding Mothers
Mommy News & Views: The Holidays And Being A Breastfeeding Mom
Happy Bambino's Blog: How to Take Care of Ourselves During the Holidays
The Adventures of Lactating Girl: Breastfeeding and Holidays

What Happened To My Breasts?

Things are confusing around here. There is Christmas, and a tree, and shiny decorations, mince pies and mulled wine. There is also the prospect of a life affected by Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. These two things do not go together, and my brain is struggling to cope. So I will use that time-honoured technique to cope with something that upsets me: talk about something else.

So, in other news, something strange has happened to my breasts. They used to be round, fleshy, not quite the same size, a bit saggy, but perfectly serviceable. You know, I had no complaints. Then pregnancy happened and they got bigger, but not stupidly big, and that was interesting. They got a bit smaller as I lost weight post-pregnancy but I am still breastfeeding so they have maintained a certain modest size. And I was pretty happy that my body had been through all that with nary a stretch mark in sight.. but then, the other day, I noticed something a bit disturbing. You see, my boobs might look fine most of the time but the skin has lost a certain elasticity. Remember the "pinch the back of the hand" test you used to do at school to see how youthful your skin was? Well my boobs would now fail. What happens is, if the skin stretches a bit (say, I lie down to feed my daughter and I let my boob flop down towards the bed) and then unstretches (say, I put the breast back in my bra) then the skin does not spring back to its previous state. No, it goes wrinkly. For a few minutes I have crepe paper cleavage. It's not a good look.

But come on, this is me writing. I'm not going to complain about the loss of my youthful skin stretchiness. I'm going to celebrate the work that my body has done, and will hopefully continue to do for more babies (just like these women). And apart from this unfortunate development, my body seems to have come through pregnancy and birth pretty unscathed.

Is it rude to ask whether your boobs are wrinkly as well? Hey, it probably is, but this is my blog and I can write what I like. So, go on, tell me what lasting effects of pregnancy and birth your body has sustained.

SAHM Inferiority Complex

This is how I feel about being a stay at home mum. I feel inferior to mothers who go out to work. I feel that I am not pulling my weight in the household. I don't believe that the work I do each day, caring for Cave Baby, cooking and keeping the house clean, bears any comparison to a real work day. I feel that I'm exploiting my kind partner who goes out to earn the money. I feel embarrassed that we can afford to have just one of us working, when other people have it much harder. I feel like my education is going to waste. I feel that my family must wonder why I'm squandering my talents. I wonder when my partner is going to come to his senses and realise how unfair the arrangement is.

Why do I feel like this? I'm not short of stay-at-home role models - my mother took seven years out to look after me and my brother, and my mother-in-law never worked. My partner thinks it is perfectly right and reasonable that I should look after our daughter while he earns the money to support the family. He says I am doing a valuable job. He knows how hard it can be sometimes.

I think that I have been brought up in a culture that places a very high value on mothers going back to work. My family was full of very strong women. My mother has had a successful career, both my grandmothers had good jobs and worked until retirement, my aunts are both wealthy high flyers. Our government constantly encourages women to go back to work by offering money off childcare and withdrawing benefits from those who do not find work once their children reach a certain age (yet at the same time, politicians bemoan the collapse of the family unit and the resulting social problems).

But I am here at home because my partner and I have agreed that it is the best thing for our daughter at the moment. We think it is good for her to have her mum all the time, and we know that we are very fortunate to be able to make this decision. She has quite high needs and the parenting philosophy that we have developed over the past year means that we would feel uncomfortable about handing her over to someone else to care for until she is a little older (though again, I know we are privileged to be able to make this choice).

Being a stay at home mum can be frustrating but I am under no illusion that it is about a million times more fun than going to work. I have never had a job I liked and I have never looked forward to going to work. I cannot identify with women who say they need to get out of the house and work, though I do not doubt that their feelings are perfectly valid. Many studies have shown that stress at work is often caused by a lack of control over your own time, and one of the great aspects of being a full-time mother is that you have almost total control over what you do each day, baby mealtimes and naps permitting. There is a lot of angst amongst full-time mothers (not least amongst bloggers - see recent posts by Mon at Holistic Mama and Jessica at This Is Worthwhile) and I can empathise with their themes of martyrdom, isolation and compromise. I know staying at home is hard - I really suffer from a lack of any time to do anything on my own, for example - but I am satisfied with my lot. I am confident I am doing the right thing for our family and I can't really believe how lucky I've been to have the opportunity to be a stay at home mum. In fact I wonder how long I'm going to be able to get away with the improbably good deal I've got.

If Women Were In Charge

The Mosuo people of southern China have a matriarchal society. I came across a fascinating article on the German website Spiegel written by a male Argentinian writer, Ricardo Coler, who spent two months wth the Mosuo. Here are a few choice quotes for you to enjoy.

On whether the society is a feminist's paradise:

"I had expected to find an inverse patriarchy. But the life of the Mosuo has absolutely nothing to do with that. Women have a different way of dominating. When women rule, it's part of their work. They like it when everything functions and the family is doing well. Amassing wealth or earning lots of money doesn't cross their minds. Capital accumulation seems to be a male thing. It's not for nothing that popular wisdom says that the difference between a man and a boy is the price of his toys."

On the most astonishing thing about the culture:

"That there is no violence in a matriarchal society. I know that quickly slips into idealization - every human society has its problems. But it simply doesn't make sense to the Mosuo women to solve conflicts with violence. Because they are in charge, nobody fights. They don't know feelings of guilt or vengeance - it is simply shameful to fight. They are ashamed if they do and it even can threaten their social standing."

On love in the Mosuo society:

"The sexual life of the Mosuo is very distinctive and very active - partners are changed frequently. But the women decide with whom they want to spend the night. Their living quarters have a main entrance but every adult woman lives in her own small hut. The men live together in a large house. The door of every hut is fitted with a hook and all the men wear hats. When a man visits a woman, he hangs his hat on the hook. That way, everybody knows that this woman has a male visitor. And nobody else knocks on the door. If a woman falls in love, then she receives only the specific man and the man comes only to that woman."

On partnership:

"Love is more important for them than partnership. They want to be in love. The one reason to be with another person is love. They aren't interested in getting married or starting a family with a man. When the love is over, then it's over. They don't stay together for the kids or for the money or for anything else."

On fatherhood:

"There is a word [for fatherhood] but nothing like our concept of what a father should be. These duties are taken over by the mother or the family. Often, the women don't know which man is responsible for the pregnancy. So the children also don't know who their biological father is. But for the women it is usually not important because the men barely work and have little control over things of material value. The family is what's important and they would never separate themselves from it."

How different would our world be if women were in charge?

The full article can be found here.