Doing it all again

So as I hinted in my last post, we’re having another baby. Most of my friends have been guessing due to odd behaviours such as not swimming laps, having blood tests, cutting back on coffee and cutting out alcohol, soft cheeses, throwing up in car on way from picking them up from airport without an alcohol fuelled night beforehand, eating monstrous amounts, and random questions about whether or not they’d recommend their obstetricians. Or I’ve gradually told other friends because it felt odd not to given things we were talking about, and because they understand that you don’t blab about these things until the end of the first trimester public announcement, because of the higher risk of miscarriage in those first 3 months of pregnancy (speaking of which, we did have a scare just before Christmas, but all is OK, and baby is now 13.5 weeks old).

Now all I have to do is tell work. That’s another topic for another day.

We’re looking forward to having another baby. We love our little boy, and wouldn’t swap him for anything. He is a source of so much more happiness than we could ever have imagined. Sure the first 3 or so years of a child’s life is challenging, until you have toilet training and communication going well. But the journey is lifelong, and we love it so far.

So here are some of the things that have been occupying my mind regarding the birth and soon after:

- The delivery. We have to have a c-section this time. This is due to my injured nerve in my leg last time (see posts around July 2006 - probably a bit melodramatic, I daren't go back there), which we can’t rule out happening again, and could cripple me. You can’t really tell whether bub #2’s head will do it to me again. Depends on gestation time, gender, size, how the delivery goes, genetics (will they inherit their grandfathers unusually large head size?). The worry of not being able to walk properly again would do my head in. On top of that I had another injury during birth that I prefer not to discuss in polite circles. But it hurt, still does sometimes.

- Recovery from major abdominal surgery. Sewing up of 7 layers of flesh including abdominal muscles. Eeek. Gross. And EEEK! Not being able to walk at first, pain, not being able to lift, reach up, drive for 2-6 weeks. I need to talk to the few people I know who have had a Caesars and hear how they managed, where they needed help. But millions of women do it every year, so it must be manageable. I have 6 months to get used to the idea...

- On the upside, having a pretty good idea when baby will be born and how, and being able to plan family visits around then and the looking after of E-chan. And given experience from last time, perhaps coming up with some ground rules with house guests, or being ahead of the game enough so that we can agree on tasks so that our personal space isn’t invaded too far. Parents – mothers in particular – take liberties as house guests that others wouldn’t dare. All with helpful intentions, but often without just checking with you first.

- Breastfeeding. Where do I start? Didn’t go well last time, due to what I think was 4 major factors – 1) E-chan had difficulty sucking properly for the first 9 weeks of his life, 2) my body was in shock due to injuries mentioned above, 3) stress from not being able to feed ("I’m a failure, Ow that hurts, I’m so tired from feeds taking an hour or more when you add in expressing milk and having to supplement with a bottle" etc), 4) supply issues. Despite that I managed to partially breastfeed for 8 months. I know breast milk is best, and am going to put as much effort as I can into being able to breastfeed my 2nd child as I did my first. I personally can’t do it any differently. I can only hope this one is able to attach a lot quicker, I am a lot more relaxed about it this time, and I manage to get through the challenges that having a c-section imposes on feeding establishment.

4) is the big unknown – my physiological capacity to produce breast milk. I suspected last time that in the range of physiological ability to produce breast milk, I was at the lower end of the scale. I tried everything to increase supply, but couldn’t really produce enough. It’s hard when you leave hospital co-formula feeding to get to a stage where you are producing everything your child needs yourself. But it was the right thing to do at the time, I have no doubt about that. We got off to a bad start, we all did the best we could, but throw attachment issues into the mix, and it doesn’t give you much of a chance. So assuming we get off to a better start next time, I should be able to see what my full potential is. It will be interesting. If I could do away with needing bottles at just about every feed, it would be lovely. If I can do away with bottles almost entirely, I’ll be ecstatic!

And I don’t mind if we have a boy or a girl. Either would be nice! We may find out beforehand so we can plan the name, but we won’t announce it to anyone outside family until the birth.