Over 40s

[Catharine]

Hey Ladies

DD seems to be on a schedule, Phew!

okay, it's only been 10 plus weeks since her birth, my question to ya'll is how long till you get your body back to pre-pg size? I'm just frustrated at the moment because I not only do not fit in my pre-pg clothes, I'm also not fitting into my largest 'fat' clothes . How depressing is that? This means short of going out and buying a new wardrobe , I'm limited to only a few items and when I say few I mean very few. Basically I have two pairs of maternity pants and a few maternity winter-ish tops. I try not to dwell on this too much because I wouldn't change anything to have our precious bundle of 'joy', our DD . Before you wonder, I am back to the gym, albeit twice a week not the daily routine I once was afforded before baby. In addition, I get quite the work out at home just taking care of her and the animals. When I do have time, I try to get to the local Mall with DD to walk with the walkers [it's climate controlled and IMHO safer than out at the local park]. I am breast feeding so that should help in weight reduction. My diet is on target for the activity level and breast feeding. But it sure would be nice to fit into some pre-pg clothes 'fat' or 'thin'.

Trying hard not to dwell on this.
Catharine

[children]

Catharine,

Can't help you there b/c I lost almost 5 lb after giving birth straight away and then gained back to normal weight after a full year of breast feeding. I actually believe I gain a little more weight than pre-pg after a year, but soon after that, I was pg again which confused me about my weight issue. I am now is 20 lbs over my prepg weight, I believe. As the baby is estimated to be big, I highly suspect that I will have any extra weight after the birth...

Sorry that you will have to work on your weight, but I was told breast feeding helps losing weight. In my case though, it did not. Also, I gained more after stopping breast feeding completely.

Good luck in loosing the "baby" fat!

Carolyn and Aunty,

Hope you are doing well and have a nice weekend!

Yasmina

[teachertam]

Catharine,

Breastfeeding is the way to lose the baby weight! I gained 35 lbs during my pregnancy and lost it all within 3 months after delivery. I did not work out but I breastfed Andrew until 15 months old. You burn an extra 500 calories a day by breast feeding.

Regards,
Tammy

[CarolineP]

Hi Catherine

Despite breastfeeding DD for 12 months, I struggled to lose weight after having DD. Eventually I joined a slimming club which help me get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.

I still have to be careful what I eat, I don't know whether this is a having a child or age issue, it never affected me before!!!

Good luck
Caroline

[teachertam]

Catharine: I agree with Caroline that it seems as we age it gets harder to keep it off. After I finished breastfeeding Andrew, I gained 10 lbs. My problem is lack of exercise. Once I get back into a regular exercise program, I will be able to keep it off.

Regards,
Tammy

[Catharine]

Thanks for the responses ladies. What I've learned is that like babies each pregnancy as well as each mommy is different and therefore each of us has/is had a different experience post baby.

Well, I've got a few 'pokers' in the fire so to speak. 2009 football season is officially here and rather than coach from the sidelines as I did in 2008 I plan on being on the pitch. Seeing how I can not make all the training sessions as they are an hours drive each direction from my home, I have made up a training schedule to follow here in my home town. Like I mentioned I started back at the gym twice a week sometimes three times schedules permitting. On top of this I've entered a fitness contest, which I plan to win. Can you tell I'm competitive? I don't know what I was expecting as my baseline but it's obvious I thought I'd be a wee bit slimmer than I am.

DH and I hope that DD has our zest for competitive activities. She will be traveling to all our matches. Who knows maybe she will pick up some of the sports we play.

W/r/t DD and sleeping: Thursday and Friday night a little rough around the edges. A phone call in the night woke DD and it was 2h before she settled back to sleep. this through the schedule off a couple of hours which through Friday nights off. Saturday evening back on schedule, phew! Tammy thank you for your reading suggestion, we're still trying to locate a bookseller with stock. Yasmina, the best baby on the block book is very helpfull, thank you. Tonight we read her some short mother goose nursery rhymes. She was really engaged with the pictures very cute. Now if only DH and I can remain 'consistant', perhaps we'll get that much needed sleep, all three of us.

Happy Sunday all.
Catharine

[children]

Hi all,

We are having a fussing baby recently. Ever since my father and his wife came to live with us (they stay upstairs as DD's neighbor), our DD started to wake up in the middle of the nights crying until one of us goes to check on her. We normally just give her some water and put her back to sleep within 5 min. However, she was not like this, she used to be able to sooth herself back to sleep while waking up in the middle of the night, except when she was sick or teething...

Another problem is that she does not eat as well as she used to anymore. My suspicion about her change in sleeping pattern is that we waited too long to do the potty training at night? But I really don't feel like to train her at the moment, I am so big and so immobile...We have no clue why she suddenly does not like to eat anymore

Any insights would be welcome...

Thanks, Yasmina

[Catharine]

Hey All

Apologies for not posting here in awhile.

Caroline-How are you? followed your suggested schedule and so far DD is sleeping through the night. We haven't set a bed time yet requiring DD to put herself to sleep. I have a feeling that will be another experience for us. Currently we are transitioning DD from our bedroom to her own room. She takes her daily naps up in her room, but we keep her close to us at night in a craddle. Soon she will outgrow the craddle.

Yamina-how are you doing? and of curse how are your adorable DS and DD? and DH and fam? How's work with two?

Okay the main reason I'm writing today is to rant. I'm infuriated with GA state legislators. Due to the recent 'Octomom' incident in CA, our legislators are soon to enact a law limiting the number of embryos to transfer to 2 for under 35 and 3 for patients over 35. I'm sorry, DD was conceived on 5 and therefore I'll never know if only 3's company was necessary for the one to implant and grow. How I really feel is that there are these gray-haired men trying to control women. Okay over reaction. I have no proof of that. But I suspect that these legislators have not consulted the various clinics in our state to understand how many over 40 women have more than 3 transfered to acheive their dream of birthing one live healthy baby. Again I have no proof of that, just suspicions. With DH and I considering number two at the moment this law brings another consideration into our processes. We were going to try first naturally and hope we get blessed knowing that there is the back-up plan ivf. Maybe by the time we get to that point the economy will have turned around and we could afford going through another cycle. But given our past cycle history, I feel that I would like to repeat what was successfull. If the law passes replicating the cycle will be difficult. It almost turns me into a reactionist wanting to go for the ivf now before the gray-hairs start micromanaging a business they have no understanding of. But that is reactionary behavior that must be suppressed till all the facts are in. Patience is a virtue

had to get that off my chest. Wishing everyone well.
Catharine

[teachertam]

Catharine: I can see why you would be irritated. I had 5 embies transferred during my last fresh IVF and still got a BFN. The problem with octomom is that she was less than 35 and had 6 embies transferred. I cannot believe that a doctor would do that. Since she had twins with her previous cycle, she should have not had more than 2 transferred. Of course, I think she should have been satisfied with the 6 kids that she already had!!

Tammy

[nidhi]

Hi Caroline,

I am so thankfull to you for starting this thread. I am 39 and just had a missed abortion from my IVF#2. Had a 5 day ET. I have been TTC for 4 years. Unexplained infertility.

My biggest worry is - I am told that I do not have a lot of time, as I will not have enough quality eggs to get pregnant after 41, and have to rely on donated eggs. This is killing me. After hearing this I have even thought of defering my PhD.

But then I saw your thread and found that I was misguided. Did you guys used your own eggs?

Love.

[CarolineP]

Hello Nidhi

I entered into IVF at the age of 42 knowing that my egg quality was not the best - given a 6% chance of pregnancy.

I also had further implantation problems due to scarring on the wall my uterus due to several procedures to remove fibroids - % not known.

We were very luckly to fall pregnant on the 4th (and last) attempt with my own eggs.

Good luck - it can work

CarolineP

[nidhi]

Hi CarolineP,

It is of great inspiration for me, thanks. Dealing with not conceiving is enough for driving me crazy. I really don't want to worry about my age.

Love.
Nidhi

[children]

Tammy and Catharine,

Thanks for reinforcing swaddling! I am in fact a swaddle fan, I have 2 miracle blankets, 1 swaddle me, and 8 regular receiving blankets, 4 regular size and 4 larger ones. However, my DH said I only bought them to satisfy myself, b/c I am not a faithful user - I only used each once exactly just try out. I swaddled our DS about 10 days and mostly just with regular receiving blankets (Catharine, you made me laugh by saying that you should have pinched few of these from hospital!) then I got too lazy when even the larger sized one don't swaddle him effectively. DS got himself loose so easily! Since both of you strongly recommend using them, I decide to reintroduce them to DS. Seriously, I am going to get some flannel material today and make few for him - did I tell you that I love sewing!

Hi Caroline,

Thanks for your tips for feeding. I am going to try that and see how that works with DS. Will let you know. As to the feeding issues, he used to be better, he could sleep 3h day time and 4h or so at night. However, his routine changed ever since I started to go back to work (2~3 weeks of his age) and have my father's wife to feed him with bottles of expressed milk. I think that is his way to have me stay home with him!

Anyway, you made me to go back to look at your schedule that you posted at Parenting after IVF forum and I am going to try to follow that schedule too. I also am very happy that you share how exactly that you did with feeding before bed. I sort of tried last night and DS did sleep longer, from 1 am to 4 am - don't laugh, that was the longest time he ever slept in weeks!

Kat,

Thanks to your link. I had so many dif versions of swaddling blanket, not going to invest another one of these anymore! I was stupid, I bought 2 miracle blankets without knowing how well it worked. Now I regretted b/c it was awful a lot of work to use! I was even stupider by washing them both before I even tried one. Now, I cannot return them!

Tammy,

Thanks for "larger" receiving blanket idea. As you know, DS was born large and regular ones just don't get the job done! I am so happy now he could calm himself down when swaddled most of the night times. I need to show my father how to swaddle him in the day if he does not go to sleep for him, which is often the case. He has be be held to sleep at day, as I am told...

Catharine,

Happy parenting to you too!

Yasmina

[children]

Catharine,

Can you travel to TN to do your ivf whenever you are ready? By reading Julie's blog, I think "the bill" has been referred to a subcommittee "for more research" and I hope it will never pass!


One of you asked me whether having two kids are a lot of work. I have to say it is not doubled, but tripled or more. Right now, we have our parents helping and I will know more when they will be gone in the end of April!

DD seemed quite nice so far to our new additions, which are two adults and one baby. However, she again comes to our room, in the middle of the night. Instead of crying loud at the gate waiting for us to go get her back to her bed, she new walks into her grandpa's room and waits quietly to his waking up, then she requests him to open the gate and send her down to us. She then enter our room VERY quietly also to check out her father (not me, if she sees me sitting up feeding her brother, she just say hi and leaves) and she would wait beside our bed quietly and patiently to see whether he moves, as soon as he does, she would put on her sweetiest smile and the father would take her to our bed instead of sending her back to her room, b/c she would comes right back down anyways if he did not wait for her to get back to sleep! She does this about twice a week for the last 2 or 3 weeks now. My sleep deprived brain does not remember things clearly, pardon me!

Sorry ladies, I am writing a lot lately about my lack of parenting skills. It's new to me and it's hard for me also - basically, I come to the office and pretend that I can work, but I can't! After pumping twice a day and attend few meetings, I really cannot get much done! Yet, I do need to get things done at work. Feeling guilty constantly, not a good worker, not a good parent either! With the DH away today until the weekend, and then my parents will go NY/DC for a visit for a week next week, I will be going crazy...

Hope your happy parenting stories cheer me up!

Yasmina

[children]

Carolyn and Catharine,

Questions for you two. When you follow Gina Ford's schedule, are you supposed to wake your baby to feed him/her when the next feeding time is up but he/she is still sleeping? This is new to me, I just started to train him but he tends to fall in sleep while being fed. Then I had to skip playing time after feeding. Today, he slept through his feeding time, I hesitate to wake him up since he has not slept well for long long time!

Thanks for answering.

Yasmina