Thalia's fertility journey

Lurgy

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. First, the business trip. I pumped successfully, and made it home with just under a litre of breast milk. Pretty good going for 24 hours, I thought. The children survived, with Pob finding it harder than Junior, exemplified by this little incident:

Scene: Morning in Mummy and Daddy's bed. Mummy is away

Pob: Where is Mummy?

Daddy: Mummy is away for work, Pob, remember she told you she'd be away for 2 big sleeps? She will be here tomorrow morning

Pob: I'm crying (not crying at all)

Pob: Tubbies please, Daddy

I was fairly proud of the pumping. It included pumping in the lounge at Zurich airport. Before you throw up your hands in horror, I did investigate other places to pump. But there was no where, and the loos were a bit grotty. I found a place in the lounge where a sofa and a chair were surrounded on three sides by a wall. Only one other seat in the lounge could see in, and a man was sitting there with his back to me, about 10 feet away. I turned the chair so its back was to the entry, put my pumping bra on under my clothes, attached the equipment and pumped away. It wasn't the most relaxed I'd ever been, but I got 150 mls anyway.

The drama has come from illness. Pob came down with chicken pox just under two weeks ago. At first I thought she was going to sail through it as she didn't seem at all unwell, but the second day, while I observed new spots show up about every 10 minutes or so, she started to feel quite ill and certainly very itchy. I gave her oatmeal baths and covered the spots in calamine cream, but it didn't seem to give much relief.

Then she was suddenly better for the weekend, albeit with itching, but on Monday she became quite alarmingly lethargic and whiny, and clearly had a fever. When I eventually got in to see the doctor, she sent us straight to A&E. After three hours there Pob was given a breathing treatment which immediately helped, and after a second treatment we were allowed home with an inhaler. The following day she was back to normal, but on Thursday again she was lethargic, coughing and crying every time she coughed. To add to the fun, Junior by now had a stinking cold and a nightmarish cough which had kept him and I up all night between Wednesday and Thursday. I took them both to the doctor, who prescribed antibiotics and more use of the inhaler for Pob, and gave Junior a steroid treatment to avoid the worst of the croup he seemed to have. Thursday night was better.

We seem to be quite dependent on the inhaler for Pob. On Sunday she seemed to be having a good day so we didn't use the inhaler before we took them out for brunch. During her nap after brunch she started crying out and coughing in her sleep, and I ended up waking her to use the inhaler. She hates it and fought desperately against it, but within 10 minutes she was back to being chirpy again. So we have to keep persevering. The doctor has made little noises about childhood asthma but says it's too early to tell. Fingers crossed.

This would all happen the week I go back to work, yes? More on that anon.

Pob snippets number 8: the Charlie and Lola edition

Scene: Morning in Mummy and Daddy's bed. Mummy is feeding Junior, Pob is drinking her milk.

Pob: I'd like to watch Tubbies please

Mummy: Tubbies or Charlie and Lola?

Pob: Tubbies

Mummy: Ok (turning on the sky plus)

Pob: Actually, I'd rather watch Charlie and Lola Mummy

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We are in rather a Charlie and Lola phase at the moment. At Christmas, my mum took Pob and I and her cousin, Z, to see Charlie and Lola's play. It was pretty good, and despite my initial concerns, Pob handled the whole theatre experience really well, sitting still for most of the performance and asking just a few questions. It obviously had a big impact on her. I took her to the theatre to see a children's performance on Friday, a dance performance about the seasons designed for 2-5 year olds. About 3 minutes after it started, Pob asked politely "Where are Charlie and Lola, Mummy?"

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Scene: Climbing the stairs before bed. 

Mummy: When we get to Mummy and Daddy's bedroom, we can collect the present Granny brought you today

Pob: Yes!

Pob: I'm exciting!

Mummy: Yes, you are very exciting

Pob: Wonder can it be?

Mummy: Here you go Pob

Hands Pob a, wait for it, new Charlie and Lola book

Pob: Thank you Mummy, Thank you! 

Pob: (Climbing stairs) You can read half the pages with me, Mummy, and Daddy can read half the pages, too!

Losses big and small

Tomorrow I leave on my first business trip in about 9 months. Junior is 7 months old. I am still breastfeeding first thing in the morning, after his lunchtime nap, at bedtime, and through the night (more on that another time). I plan to give up the afternoon feed this week given that from the week after next I'll be back at work full time.

Dropping feeds has been hard, my boobs have felt pretty buzzy and I've had several leaks. While this makes me feel happy about my breastfeeding success, it is hard to be experiencing it just when I have to give up. I don't want to give up, but continuing to feed just isn't compatible with my work life. I am away tomorrow night and won't be home until after bedtime on Tuesday. I am supposed to be away again on Thursday night. And in mid-March I will be away for a full week - leaving Sunday, coming back Saturday morning (going to Toronto, anyone want to meet up? Aurelia?). While I can pump through a 36-hour absence, I'm not sure I can do so through a week - won't he simply forget how to feed in that time?

I am not ready to stop breastfeeding, and I really wish I wasn't going back to work so that I could keep going that bit longer. When he settles in for a feed, particularly the afternoon one where he's a little bit sleepy from his nap, I feel like I can really do this magical, but utterly basic, thing I've always dreamed of.

That March trip is just over 4 weeks away, so I'm not deciding today what to do then. What I do have to do is deal with my sadness at leaving him at all. Although I've left him for an evening, I haven't left for longer than a few hours, and it feels very sad that for two nights in a row he won't have me there at bedtime. Or that I won't have him. Or both. There all the niggly issues associated with being away. I had to buy a portable pump and it turns out Medela has changed its attachments for this new pump so my existing kit doesn't fit it. I need to dig around to find my passport, my adaptors, portable hair dryer, etc.. I don't know if I'll be able to get the hotel to freeze my icepacks, or if Zurich airport will let me transport the milk I pump. It's all irritating, all that little bit stressful. Not to mention that I actually have to turn my brain on to a different channel and start to engage with my colleague again. We will see how I cope. But mostly I'm not stressed about all of that, I'm just sad about leaving my baby for the first, and very definitely not the last time.