Burns

Yeah my sister took a full year with both of her kids since she lives in Canada.

Honestly though, even if I *could* take a year, we wouldn't be able to afford unpaid leave for a year. Even with vacation time of a few weeks, that's a long time to go without a second income. I envy people who can do it though, it would be really nice.

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Gorrmae's Fantasy Red XIII CD RE CGC TDI
DOB 2/17/07, red/rust, male neutered Doberman

dobedream

I haven't heard of this...but another cost effective option is renting a pump.
Even those first 8 weeks is a great benefit to the baby. I would second the suggestion to attend a class...the more knowledge the better chance of succeeding (it is not always easy to breastfeed.)
Good luck - you look wonderful!
PS. I gained 60 pounds with my first baby and lost it ALL, plus some.

Rosemary

When my daughter was born, I was working at a pizza place. I worked Friday, and she was born on Sunday. I go that entire week completely off. Then, the following Sunday, when she was a week old, I "went back to work", in that my husband would go in, get all the manager's paperwork, bring it home, and I would do paperwork on Wednesday and Sunday at home, and then go in Monday morning to finish everything there, so it could be turned in. It was a pretty good deal, because the manager (while a good manager of people, was not good at numbers) got her paperwork done, and I picked up some hours. She would clock me in when he picked up the paperwork, and clock me out "whenever " she got around to it, which was usually at least an hour after the paperwork was back.

Actually, I'm not sure how legal this was, but the owner of the place had a policy of "if you are more than four months pregnant, you can't work here". Well.....somehow, nobody ever got around to telling him I was pregnant until after my daughter was born. Then, when he found out I'd had her, the manager was like "Well, I thought she was pregnant, but didn't know how far along she was".

With my son, I was working at WalMart. He was due the week after Thanksgiving. I went on leave the week before Thanksgiving, and was able to miss the entire Christmas shopping season.

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Burns

Wow! How did you do it??

That would be nice! I wonder why your manager didn't want people working after 4 months?

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Gorrmae's Fantasy Red XIII CD RE CGC TDI
DOB 2/17/07, red/rust, male neutered Doberman

dobedream

I have a slim build like you, to begin with. I didn't eat junk food, and nursed my baby until he was 6 months old. In my case, nursing sucked the weight right off me. Getting on your feet is a good idea too. I just took him for daily rides in his stroller. That's it, no big secret

Burns

That certainly gives me hope! Thank you!!

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Gorrmae's Fantasy Red XIII CD RE CGC TDI
DOB 2/17/07, red/rust, male neutered Doberman

Rosemary

The manager was fine with it. It was the owner who was a jerk. And his problem with it was that he was a jerk.

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Hilary

Financially I was able to take a year off after the birth of my first daughter, but it was back to work after 8 weeks maternity leave for my second. I kept her on breast milk until she was 6 months. I would have preferred at least a year, but my milk supply started to dwindle.

Pump it baby! And try to be as regular as you can to keep your milk supply up. The more you pump, the better your supply. You can start pumping in advance of going back to work and freeze your milk too. Keep some frozen milk at the sitters, or wherever baby will be so they'll have a nice surplus supply on hand! And if you and DH go out for a date night and you indulge in a couple of cocktails, you'll need to pump and dump to keep baby from getting a hangover.

Be sure to go with an electric pump. Hand pump's are awful, IMO.

Not sure about insurance paying for one, I shelled out the bucks for my own.

domina

You look fabulous judging by your pic!!!I am a slim girl, and I gained 59lbs throughout my pregnancy. Had no morning sickness, and was an eating machine. Hungry all the time. Lost it all, but it took me 17 months after birth to loose it. Lost it by watching what I eat, and doing Turbo Jam, and Tony Horton's 10 minute workouts for 5-6 days a week.

This was my belly at 7 months!!!It is too bad that I can't find a pic right before birth...but I was just huge ( belly was ). I was so big and "strong" that I pulled out my bathroom faucet out of the wall ( while I was showering ). No joke!!!Hubby almost died laughing. I also pulled the towel rod out of the wall. My normal weight is about133ish lbs, and I was about 192 when I went into labor.



My friend, that's just a bit taller than me, gained 20lbs total during her pregnancy, and lost it all within a month and a half. Both of our babies were of normal weight and healthy.

My hospital would write a prescription for a breast pump, but I didn't use that option, as I bought my own. I purchased Lansinoh Double Infinity Electric Breast pump at Walmart, for about $150 I believe. Served me great!

domina

Can't stress that enough. Noone told me that. I learned the hard way that if I don't pump often, my milk supply will considerably go down. That's exactly how it happened.

Dobesanddragons

Congrats!

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Happy to share my life with Dobermans

Leliel

Cutting back?? Why in the world? Trust me, NO ONE is going to tell the preggo lady she can't have seconds! ;p

Weightwise, I am currently 135lb, 5'6". I was 120-125lb before getting pregnant, and went up to 160-something when pregnant. My mom says she didn't lose the last few pounds of her pregnancy weight gain until she finished with nursing, so I suspect I'll be the same. I don't watch what I eat at all, except to make sure I'm getting enough to keep my milk supply up. I will lose milk before I lose more weight, so it is definitely not worth dieting! The number I was given was 750 add'l calories per day for nursing. Adding that to the calculator at Calorie Counter, Calorie Tracker & Food Journal | MyPlate on LIVESTRONG.COM | LIVESTRONG.COM gave me a daily caloric intake goal of over 2800calories! Pass the ice cream!

Rosemary

I had gestational diabetes with my daughter, and was put on an 1800 calorie a day/restricted carbohydrate diet. It was either watch my diet, or take insulin shots. I wound up only needing maybe a dozen shots in 5 months. Hating needles was a big motivation to keep on track.

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Burns

I swear I'm learning more in this thread than I have from all the websites I've gone to!

That was my weight too - I was 130-133 lbs at my normal weight. I guess I'm not as worried about how much weight I put on, but I just want to be able to get it back off easily without having to bust my ass with diet and exercise afterwards. I do plan on keeping up with walking, and I always eat reasonably well anyway, but I just don't want to never be able to look normal again.

Seriously! I still bought some chocolate frozen yogurt today when I went grocery shopping. If I want some damn ice cream once in awhile, I'm going to have it!!

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Gorrmae's Fantasy Red XIII CD RE CGC TDI
DOB 2/17/07, red/rust, male neutered Doberman

Jenny

Congrats! Not sure how I missed that you ar expecting! No name suggestions. I do have a nephew named Collin. Don't know why they opted for the 2 Ls. One of my friend's grandson is Keelan (sp?) she refers to him as muffin so I am not sure what the true spelling is. It took me almost 2 years before I could remember his name.

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domina

I've had a friend that had the same thing happened to her. She hated shots as well. I know that that's why docs usually don't like too much weight gain, cause it may lead to gestational diabetes. My doc was ok with my 59lbs weight gain, since all of my tests were normal, so he didn't mind at all.

That's great that you didn't need that many shots!My friend had to have them all the time it seemed.

Hope the OP won't deal with those issues in the later part of her pregnancy.

Hilary

Who knew DT would be the place to go for all your unanswered expectant mother questions!!!

Maybe we need to make this a special STICKY in the Breeders forum. LOL

Burns

Haha! Totally! Have our own little subforum and everything lol

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Gorrmae's Fantasy Red XIII CD RE CGC TDI
DOB 2/17/07, red/rust, male neutered Doberman

ACarrigDobermans

I always loved the name Tristan.

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Elbereth

Congratulations!

I love Celtic names. Some of my favorites are: Llŷr (absolute favorite boy's name), Alasdair, Eoin, Calum, Ciaran, Rhys.

Seamus (shay-mus) is the Irish version of James in case you were interested in further Celticizing the middle name.

Beware of pseudo-Celtic names that are said to be Celtic but are really not or are just modern bastardizations. Behindthename.com is a reliable resource.

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Adnohr

Zenith
Todd
Harper
Ryden
Leroy
That's all I could think of, haha!

Burns

Thanks for the site! I'm definitely going to check it out

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Gorrmae's Fantasy Red XIII CD RE CGC TDI
DOB 2/17/07, red/rust, male neutered Doberman

GrdnDelite

I gained 66 lbs. and lost it all without issue. I also nursed until Conor quit wanting to, shortly before he turned three. (Once he could understand me, however, and was eating other foods, we'd wait until we were in the car or at home. Also, by the time he gave it up, he was usually only asking to nurse once a day, at bedtime.)

La Leche League for all you could possibly want to know about nursing. I was horrified at nursing toddlers while pregnant and did not expect to become someone who did so.

Immunity conferred lasted a full nine years, and, unlike my grandmother, my mother, and myself, he has never had trouble with his ears. (Nursing reduces incidence of ear infections, especially reduces instances of needing to put in drains.)

My name suggestion is Kiernan James. Conor was not a common name when I hung it on him; at that time the only other one I knew of was Eric Clapton's son. If I had another son, at that time I would have named him Liam, as Conor is named after a character in the Leon Uris novel Trinity, about Ireland, and Liam is another major character in that book. At the time I was naming, both Ryan and Brian, I felt, were being overused by those not Irish.

I went to a birthing center and loved my MD, who never let me feel afraid. Advice to stay flexible is prudent: We ended up transporting to a nearby hospital after I had started pushing, and had a forceps delivery. Conor's head did not mold; hard-headed Irishman from the start. For the forceps part they did give me nitrous, which allowed me to have a full memory of all that went on, however, it appears to me that the "snapshots" were out of order in my mind. We went home once I finished my IV and demonstrated I could use the restroom; about three hours after birth.

At which point my mother sat on the bed next to me at home with my newborn and said, "Good! The easy part's over with."

Congratulations and best wishes! The only thing better than (wanted) children is grandchildren.

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Burns

Great post, thanks so much for replying!

Honestly I can't imagine breast feeding a toddler either. What changed for you?

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Gorrmae's Fantasy Red XIII CD RE CGC TDI
DOB 2/17/07, red/rust, male neutered Doberman

GrdnDelite

First, the extreme trauma it was to have had to have hospitalized him for the second week of his life due to his blood being too thick as a side effect (I was told) of our difficult delivery. The symptoms were blood pooling here and there on his left leg, including the big toe of that foot turning almost completely black-blue. There was talk of amputating that toe.

I am a pretty tough broad. Really. But I spent that week feeling pretty poorly myself due to the physical effects of that delivery combined with the emotional upset you can imagine at the situation, and the uphill hike to the NICU every three hours, skipping one feeding overnight, and pumping for that feeding in between the others.... I never, never wanted to see another breast pump after that week. (Kudos to the hospital, which did provide a nice, electric breast pump for my use.)

I was told he had a congenital heart defect; a coarctation (narrowing) of the aorta (mild, on the continuum of potential heart defects). I was told he might require surgery somewhere between age 7 and age 12. I was told, after they took two units of whole blood out of him and replaced them with two units of plasma, that he might become anemic as a result of the lowered red blood volume. But he kept his toe.

Was there anything I would not do if it might, even might enhance his health? No.

He would not take a bottle at nine months, which was generally considered weaning time then. Well, he would take it; and pull off the nipple and pour out the contents.

And I really, really did not like the idea of giving him either formula or cows' milk. So, you know; a little longer won't hurt. (I still think cows' milk is dubious as a food for humans.)

Next thing you know, I look up and it's been a couple of days since he's asked. It was not inconvenient the last year or so, when he really was only wanting to nurse at bedtime at night.

Oh, and he's grown to be a fine, healthy hunk of a man with only his father's asthma as a health issue, and even that milder than his dad's asthma was. He developed femoral pulses at about six months of age and has been fine since, though I continued seeing the pediatric cardiologist for a long while after that.

Between the lines you should be able to guess that we were heavily into health foods and supplements even then. And I was surrounded by professionals and laypeople with similar views; our childbirth coaches (also La Leche members), our MD, his nurse and midwives, our pediatrician.

You can Google "dangers of homogenized milk" and/or "nursing toddler" and see a lot of the very same stuff I saw wayyyyyy back then.

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