Hello gals. I hope all are doing well. I never thought that I would even have to worry about what I am worring about, but here I am. I am TTC while bf my 7 mo old dd. I have two older children that I nursed for a full year. With both of them, I didn't have AF until I stopped nursing. There is a big age gap between my two older children and my 7 mo old. My dh and I want to have our last one asap and we were surprised when I had AF so soon after this pregnancy (big mess up in bf schedule due to hospital stay for my baby and she wouldn't take a bottle or pacifier and so I was her comfort while in the hospital every 2 hours or when ever they had to mess with her- Hospital beds for moms are not comfortable by the way). When we went home after a three night stay and all is well, she went back to her regular bf schedule (she is such an angel! Has been sleeping through the night since 2 months! Very good baby! If not, I don't think my hubby or myself would be so eager to get going on number four). I think this is why I had AF so soon. I think my bf routine got confused and bam, AF! I started taking my bbt and charting from the first day of cycle. I was excited because my niece and I were on the very same cycle day and both of us ttc. I used OPKs and with temp, cervicle fluid and opks I showed I ovulated! But then AF came 4 days sooner than expected and one day sooner than when I was going to do a pg test. I was bummed out. Now I am on my 2nd cycle post partum and on CD 4 and waiting to "O". My niece called me last night and she is pregant! I am so excited for her! I hope this is my month, but I am worried about m/c or the possiblity that it might be hard for me to get pregnant while bf. I will not stop bf until at least 10 months for my dd. Anybody out there ever dealt with being pregnant while bf and have some advice? I almost wonder if this last cycle where I started early was a possible pregnancy but not successful since my bbt stayed up until today and the bleeding and how it started was different than my usual af. I have to chalk it up to my hormones being all weird since just 7 months postpartum and bf and all. I want this month to work (it has never been hard for me to get pg and for that I am very thankful. I just hope this time isn't going to be hard). If this cycle doesn't work, then we are going to wait a month or two to avoid a december due date. By the way, I am 37 this summer and would love to be done with our family by the end of this year. I would love to hear any advice or stories of being pg while nursing such a little one. Thanks! ↓
Hi, My daughter was about 7 months when I got pregnant. I was exclusively bf for 5 1/2 months, then had introduced rice cereal. I got my period immediately after introducing cereal and had one more period 6 weeks later. Then I was pregnant. I nursed her for a couple months into the pregnancy and noticed she wasn't getting much milk. I didn't feel any milk letting down and her nursing was really starting to tickle and feel odd. So I mixed up her first bottle of formula at 8 months and she downed it. I never got engorged, maybe one night of pressure, and my supply was gone. My son was born 8 months later and my milk came in on the second day! He had seedy yellow poops before we even left the hospital! I have no tips on how or when I ovulated. Based on my second period I should have been two weeks ahead of what I was with my son. So I ovulated at 4 weeks after my period. They made a due date based on his ultrasound size rather than my last period. I'd say if you really want to get pregnant just keep at it and try not to plan too hard! I had a December baby and it was actually fun. They had little holiday shirts and hats for them at the hospital and the whole family was in town for the holidays and to meet him while he was still a week old. So that was nice. Anyway, good luck to you and your family. Hopefully #4 is ready and waiting! ↑
Oliva, Thank you so much. I am hoping that this cycle will work. I would like to bf until at least my dd turns 10 months so I hope that I can have milk until then. She loves rice cereal mixed with any veggie or fruit. But she wont even bat an eye at formula. I have tried just to see if she would take it. She wont even take MY milk from a bottle. I am working on getting her to take a bottle with some water and a very little amount of apple juice and she is thinking about it. LOL Thanks again for your response! ↑
my dd never took a bottle either! She was so stubborn and had never had one no matter how hard we tried. I would leave her with my in laws for 5 hours after she was 6 months and she'd still just wait for me to come home (maybe take 1 oz if she was starving). by the time i was pregnant and she weaned she just took it. I was so surprised and proud of her. I am not promising yours will be the same, but it does happen. We did the bottle for 3 months after she weaned then went to sippy cup when she turned 1. Some bf moms go to a cup directly but i did not have the patience for the spills so we did sippy cup mostly. I say just keep bf and when you get pregnant see how it goes. It was actually a pretty easy transition when i look back. let me know if you get pg, i hope you do! ↑
Hey, I'm currently bfing my 2-month old son, and we're ttc number 2. DH and I decided a long time ago that we wanted two back to back, within 1 year if possible, but I want my son to get the benefits of breast milk. I haven't had a period, and I was just wondering if anyone knew how common it is. I'm hoping to drop the 2am feeding sometime this week or next week, I think my son will be ready. I just hope that's enough to give me back my ovulation! ↑
Olivia, I know what you mean about the stubborness, LOL. My ds (who is 81/2 yrs old) my first, and he was the worst of all my three! We tried everything under the sun but to no luck. Had him take a sippy cup of water (he wouldn't even do juice mixed) at 6 months old and on. It took a little work with doing it, but at least with water there was not the sticky mess (I am a little nuts about cleaness-not too extreme now that I have three children, LOL) My first two wouldn't even take a pacifier! This was not good when I had to even go out to grocery shop. So on my third, I let the nurses in the nursery run the show while I got sleep at night in the hospital for those first two nights, and let me tell ya, that is the way to go! THEY got my third to take a pacifier and a bottle (just twice with 1 oz of formula) so I kept it up with one bottle of pumped milk a day with her and then all of the sudden at 3 months old she didn't want it even with my milk. She almost wouldn't take a pacifier but I was so persistant with that part. Now she will take the pacifier to go to sleep and sometimes to play with. We will keep working on the water and juice in the bottle and sippy cup. She mainly makes a wet mess of herself, but yesterday she actually drank like an once with real effort, so I hope we are on the right track. I just hope she will drink formula if my milk drys up before she is 11 months old. Thanks for the advice and comfort! ↑
Brooke-----Oh darlin, I sure hope it works for you- to get your af this soon. I know I was really hoping to get mine back to get pg right after this one (my 7 mo old). With my first two kids I nursed for a year and didn't get af until I dried up and then af came. I believe I only got af so soon with this one (my third) because she had a stay in the hospital (with me since I was her food supply) for three nights and her feeding schedule got so screwed up. She went back to eating every 2 hours (because that is how often she was bothered by medical tests and vital signs, poor little thing. We had a big scare with kidney infection due to a bad urinary infection (she almost got bacterial meningitis!) she was a very sick little girl and was such an angel through the whole ordeal too! She has urinary reflux grade 3 come to find out. The urine backs up to the kidneys and if there is any poop (microscopic) it can go up with the urine and cause major problems. SORRY, I got off track (you know how us gals can gab and gab, LOL). My point is that my milk supply went from feeding every 3 to 4 hours and her sleeping through the night (10 hours) to back to every 2 to 3 hours or as needed to calm her down around the clock. Then when we got home from the hospital, she went back to her usual bfdg routine (thank the Lord that she sleeps through the night again!!) and for the first three mornings I would wake up totally engorged like when the beginning when your milk comes in after the colostrum! I wasn't expecting to start my period at all and when it came, looking back at my body signals, I could have realized that I was "o"ing and maybe skipted the start of af all together (wouldn't that have been sweet!). I read online that if your milk supply DRASTICALLY changes, that this can sometimes bring on AF. I read this before the whole hospital ordeal because I was trying to find out how to bring on my af by April. I was even going to see if the docs could make me start having one--SO I feel your stress about it! You could try to bring on a "fake" drastic feeding change by pumping round the clock between feedings for two or three days and see if it will work for you. But be willing to lose your milk supply by after the first trimester because from what I read, it seems to happen to most women. Do you want your little one to not have breast milk that soon? If it were to happen? I know how you feel about wanting them back to back, but keep that in mind. If it doesn't bother you or your little one to have formula if nessisary, then go for it. I think my timing is just right (I get the chance to get preggo but my little one will be 10 months by the end of my 1st trimester (if I get pregnant this cycle). Stay on this chat board with me and we can do it together and support one another! Best of luck to you! ↑
congrats oncemore! I'm still without AF, but i've been supplimenting with formula in the hopes that it will make me O sooner. plus pumping every day at work is no fun... but dh and i are certainly bding as often as we can, so that if i do O, we'll hopefully catch that first egg! good luck to you all! ↑
Hello! I am 8 dpo and I have a faint (VERY VERY faint) positive hpt! My temp is staying up as well. I am on CD 27 and no AF. I am going to test tomorrow and then I can confirm the faint line on the hpt. But I think I am PG!!!!!! I have been charting for two cycles this time around and I think if I would have been paying close attention to my body before the first af I could have missed the AF altogether and got the first egg post partum. So good luck with that Brooke!!! My first post partum cycle (since first AF post partum) was short. I started AF on cd 25 heard and heavy. I was using opks and thought I had a + opk on cd 16 (which was late for me because usually I O by cd 14 and I have 28 to 29 day cycles) but I was heart broken when the day before I was going to do a hpt I started:( I then returned to my bbt charting and a new cycle. I was determined to catch my O day but was discouraged due to what I read about bfding and ttc. You can have a period without oing and you can lose your af again if bfding back on schedule. The point is that it is not a sure thing to get pg while bfding BUT there is the chance! Brooke- if you want to try to catch the first egg then maybe start charting your bbt and also bd every other or every two days. Sperm can live that long and even longer. Also pay close attention to your cm. It will become very very wet or egg white right before you O (this is what I could have paid close attention to and maybe missed my first af and been pg had I bd during that time which I didnt). Another thing is that bfding can make you o later and this is true because I went through a hand full of dollar store opk test and then three name brand boxes of 7 to catch my o day which was on cd 19 according to fertility friend. I was testing twice a day and three times on cd 18 - 20 and could have missed the lh surge had it not been for that. I had one for sure positive lh surge on the middle testing time on cd 19 and that is it. If I was testing once a day I could have missed it! I am shocked that I got a faint positive on the hpt today only 8 dpo! We bd cd 18,19,20 in the p.m. and then in the a.m. on cd 22 just for good measure, LOL. I am posting under the pregnancy test posts under 2ww started 3/14/07!!! Anyone else? you are welcome to share there as well. Baby dust to you girls!!!!! ↑
hi there! About the same. The test line was very hard to see, but I did see it. I have also been having symptoms like my other pregnancies starting yesterday that confirmed to me that I am pg! I knew with all of my pg's that I was pg before the actual test told me (except this time I tested two days earlier than I would have so it was just a bit before the symptoms started). Last night I was so sick feeling and its been all day today. Peeing a lot as well. I sure hope this bean sticks and stays stuck. I am using natural progesterone cream twice a day just incase my luteal phase is short and I don't have enough progesterone. I plan on contacting my doctor next week and asking him about my concerns over this. I hope you all have success with ttc while bding too! baby dust to you! Thanks for your support! ↑
CONGRATS!!! Are you going to get a blood test? I wish my dh would agree to ttc soon. I would like to have one more and for them to be close in age. He says no, though. I guess it started getting on my mind a couple of weeks ago when I suddenly realized that I'd had several signs that I could be pregnant, but as each one came up, I didn't think any thing of it; until it suddenly hit me. It's slim chances, though, as it would have had to been one time when he used withdrawl method, and I'm exclusively bf'ing. And about a week later I had light spotting. And also a week later, my hemmorroids (from my pregnancy) suddenly got worse. I thought "why would they suddenly get worse when I'm not pregnant anymore, and they were getting better?" Suddenly today, I have diarrhea. I shouldn't get my hopes up like this. I did have a BFN about a week ago. ↑
Thank you Lala! I'm not going to call the doc until I get back from my trip next week and then I will just make the first ob appt. I don't know if they will follow up with a blood test or not. I am sorry that you and your dh are not seeing eye to eye on whether or not to have another one. I know how that goes (hence why we have an almost 9 yr old and an almost 7 yr old and then my 7 1/2 mo old. My husband was the one who said after my second that we were done (one boy, one girl) and for a year I would bring it up and then I just let it go (didn't want to force it on him). Then, out of the blue (17 months ago) he decided it would be nice to have a little bit bigger family (he was enjoying the older kids more) so I made him promise that if we did one, that I wanted to have one more right after so they would have each other to grow up together with closer in age and not just a third "side kick" ya know. So maybe your dh will come around to the idea. Don't give up hope! Best of luck to you and have a great weekend. I am gone after this post until Tuesday. ↑
BUMMER! I am so about to ovulate right now! I'm surprised how soon my fertility returned; and I'm exclusively bf'ing. I guess it's probably b/c ds sleeps 6 hours straight for over a month now. I have all the signs of ovulation. I wish dh would agree. :( ↑
Lala-how are you! I was just reading all of these, thinking how I miss my pregnant belly (at times)!! I'm having hard time convincing dh to ttc when dd is 18 months!!! Well, I hope your dh changes his mind and you two can get busy. =) ↑
I am well, thanks! How is everything with your dd? sounds like you are all settling in. Call me crazy, but I have been so thinking how I'd love to have the babies right at one year apart in age. That means I'd have to get busy : ) Yet, dh won't ever agree to that. To make matters worse, I never thought I'd be fertile this soon anyways, and it wouldn't happen even if dh would. Nope, I am so ovulating right now. Yikes, that means I should expect af in two weeks. Ick! It must be b/c ds sleeps 6-8 hours straight at night. Once, you have any decrease in bf'ing, it signals the ovulation back. I was looking forward to not having af's while bf'ing. And it's killing me that I'm missing out on the perfect change to get my wish to have one second and last baby close together. And I'd really love a little girl so much! dh's never understand these things. ↑
Hey ladies...mind if I join you? I'm looking for some suggestions. My ds is 7 months, & w/in the next 2-4 months dh & I would like to start ttc. (I'd actually like to conceive in July). I am exclusively BFing & AF has not returned. I don't want to wean him just so I can become pg., but my window period would I would like to become pg. is so small that I'm not sure what to do! (I am a teacher & there are only certain months that I want to have a baby...& June-September are out of the question). Besides the ovulation predictors (those never worked for me) is there anyway else for me to figure out if I am even Oing? Also, is there anything I can do while BFing to help AF return? Thanks so much!! ↑
Meg, a sudden decrease in bd'ing is what ususally triggers ovulation to start up again (which would happen about 2 weeks before your first period). Usually that happens when baby starts sleeping through the night, or when you start supplementing or starting solids. Isn't your baby old enought to start on some solids, and you can continue breastfeeding? The best way to know if you're ovulation (if you don't have obvious symtoms like me) is to temp and chart. Take care! *****isn't three days of obvious EWCM a bit much?? maybe it's just to torture me?! ↑
thanks Lala! Yes, my ds is on solids...some days he eats more than others. But he also still breastfeed's quite a bit...especially at night! He only sleeps about 4 hours at a time...that's on a good night! I have read that cutting out the middle of the night feeding is very helpful in getting AF to return. I told dh that beginning in a month or so he was going to start giving ds a bottle of expressed milk at night, to see if that helps! Have you talked your dh into ttc?? ↑
Ha ha--I just read my post to you. decrease in bd'ing????LOL LOL. Of course I meant bf'ing!!! so funny! I guess still having to feed your lo so often every night, would lead to a decrease in the former, though!!! lol!****Anyways, no dh won't agree to that, I'm sure of it. I wonder how you can get your lo to sleep longer. That must be terrible! You know, a 7 moth old is capable of sleeping longer. Do you think it's more of a behavioral issue? All babies are different so I don't know. ↑
Lala-LOL! Thank you for clarifying!! Although I suppose I should have figured out what you were saying...but I didn't! I was thinking that it would be tough to decrease bding from what we are doing right now. :) I'm working decreasing the amount of times he is bfing during the day/night. I have no idea why he wakes up so often in the middle of the night...he always has, although he used to just wake up once a night...now he's averaging about 3 times. I really have no idea why he wakes up so often, but I can't let him CIO, so we are up with him. Most of the time he just needs to be comforted & goes right back to sleep, but other times he needs to be nursed. He is an extremely happy baby during the day, so he must be getting enough sleep...apparently he just doesn't need that much. Lucky us!! I have tons of frozen milk, so I think we may start using that soon for the middle of the night feeding. I just keep thinking that one of these days he will sleep for 7 or 8 hours straight!! If you have any ideas as ti how to get him to sleep longer...let me know! I think that we have tried most of them, but I'm sure there are always more out there. As far as charting temps, should I just pick a day & start? & if there is no spike in temps during the month, should I assume that I am not Oing? ↑
How long will she cry if you don't get up? Have you tried just to see? Sometimes ds will cry once or several times just very shortly and not really be awake. If I rush to pick him up, I'll wake him up! Babies have "active sleep" periods, and they are actually not awake. And waking them then is actually bad for them. just a thought. Yes, for temping, just pick and day and start. However, do some reading on it. You have to do it "just so" for it to work. You need a basal thermometer that measures to the hundreth. Also, the timing is important. I believe that charting it on Fertility Friend is free, and it gives imterpretations for you. Probably all the instructions are on there. Also, when fertile (a few/couple of days before ovulation) you should notice EWCM and a high soft open cervix. And yes, decreasing BREASTFEEDING not bd will signal your cycles back. lol. ↑
Hi there! I have been having the pregnancy sickness pretty much all the time (not throwing up though). I am starting to feel a bit better. I got to see my little bean yesterday because of some intense pain but all is well and I got to see the heart beat and the sound (vag. u/s) they are measuring it at 6 weeks even though I am 7 weeks but I did O late (cd19) so that could explain it. I have my first official ob appt on April 23. Meg- I was so concerned about the "decreasing" my bfding but here is a suggestion- try to pump (making your body think you need to nurse more often (I mean every two to three hours either pump or bf for three days and three nights) and then go back to your regular bfding routine with your little one and see if this will fake your body into thinking you decreased. I say this because this happened to me naturally when my dd had to stay in the hospital for three nights and she would only take me and not even comfort from a pacifier and so my milk supply got all wacked out and when we got home she went back to her normal routine which was a lot less often and my af came within three weeks. If I would have been paying attention to my cm and/or charting, I would have caught my first O. I started to chart right from my first af and after two cycles I got pg (I am still nursing my 7 1/2 month old three to four times a day). Fertility friend online is very helpful and free to use. Best of luck to all of you. I may only be popping online now and then because I am still not feeling that well and very tired. But very happy to be pg with #4 and the last! My final count down! Woo Hoo! Lala- I hope you are able to convince your dh. I have heard a lot of possitive feed back from those that have little ones real close in age. Ask around and then share the info with your dh and maybe that will calm his nerves about it. Best of luck! Baby dust to you all! ↑
Thanks oncemore, I'll give that a try...hopefully it'll work! He is definitely eating a lot of solids (I'm actually worried on some days that he isn't drinking enough milk). Lala, he will scream if we don't come get him...& he won't stop! he just looks so scared to death...it's so sad. The past week or so, regardless of how often he wakes up, he is only getting fed once. Starting tonight he is going to get a bottle of EBM. I'm hoping this may make him realize that just because he wakes up doesn't mean he gets to nurse. I'm also hoping that it will enable me to go longer at night w/o having to BF...hoping that may make AF return?! (I never thought I would want AF to return! Oncemore, good luck to you throughout your pregnancy!! ↑
