It’s been about 7 months since my baby was born. It has been very hectic. I will do my best to fill you in on everything you have missed. That means this will be a , Kyle and I are still together. We moved across the state with a 1 month old for a last-minute job offer a few days before school was supposed to start. He is a stay-at-home dad. It was tough leaving my son at first. It’s still sad leaving sometimes, but I have learned to deal with it.
Since I had the c-section, my libido has been through the floor. I’ve read a few different reasons for it, but most of the people I have talked to say it comes back once I’m done breastfeeding. I have also heard that it will return when my period returns (it still hasn’t). It could also never return. I remain hopeful and Kyle remains patient.
The first few months of our son’s life were AMAZING! He learned new things and did new things almost every day! Now that he’s getting a bit older, we’re waiting for some of the bigger milestones. He’s already said “da da” and had his first teeth come in, but we’re still waiting for him to crawl. He’s pretty close though and manages to get around on the floor pretty well regardless.
We have been having a tough time feeding him. From the start, I didn’t produce quite enough milk for him. It wasn’t that big a deal to supplement with an extra 4oz of formula daily. As time went on, he seemed to do okay with just breastmilk, so I was really happy about that. Then his 4-month checkup occurred. He was down to the 15th percentile in body weight. Since he was above average in length, this wasn’t good. The pediatrician didn’t even notice unless I pointed it out because “to look at him, you wouldn’t think he was underweight”. I got really worried and we started the formula again. We also started him on ‘solid’ foods. He didn’t eat more than a taste of the new foods, but he drank a lot of the formula. At his 6-month checkup, he was above the 50th percentile! I was happy that he was now at a healthy weight. He ate more and more formula. Because he was more satisfied, he was less inclined to breastfeed as much when I got home from work. About a month ago, my milk supply dropped. He eats about 32oz of formula and milk a day plus breastfeeding. Combining the amount I pump after he goes to bed, at 1 am, and while I’m at work, I am getting around 8oz of pumped milk a day. I have been drinking milk tea 3x a day and power pumped every night to get it up to that amount.
I watched “That Sugar Film” on Hulu and decided to cut all added sugars out of my diet. Kyle decided to do it too. It was a struggle, but I am on day 11 and some days it’s still difficult. I was watching another food documentary when they mentioned that sugar is in formula too. I looked at the container of formula and saw that the first ingredient was corn syrup. I looked at some of the other ones and they were almost as bad. I realized that our son, who I thought I was careful to protect from all bad foods. We pureed our own food from either organic produce or ones on the “Clean 15” list. Our meats were all locally grown. And I had stupidly assumed that his formula would be safe and healthy. So here I am, trying to do right by my son, while he gets more sugar than he should while I figure out a way to feed him.
My new job has been a bit of a mixed bag. I like my coworkers and the area I live in. However, I am struggling with teaching some of my students. My principal has decided that I’m an inadequate teacher and has given me a month and a half to improve, otherwise I won’t be returning to this school next year. It’s upsetting to know that I might not be able to provide for Kyle and my son. I have been trying to work hard to improve what I need to improve, but some of the resources out there (all given to me directly from my principal) contain conflicting messages.
Even though we moved to an area where Kyle is from and I have some old friends, nobody has really made much of an effort to see us. It’s pretty lonely, especially for Kyle, who only really just spends his time with our son and me, sometimes.
Right now I’ve been focusing on trying to lose weight. With the extra 60lbs I had on originally, I had put on 70lbs of baby weight. Only 20lbs came off postpartum, so I’m now considered obese. I think I might even be close to the ‘morbidly obese’ category. I used to look at morbidly obese people and wonder how they managed to get that way and why they didn’t do anything about it. Right now, I am starting to understand why.
Reasons why I’m having problems losing weight:
- I’m breastfeeding. I know this sounds ridiculous, but this is a real problem. Every time I try and get weight-loss nutrition advice, nobody will advise a breastfeeding mother. I need my calories for the milk, so nobody will advise cutting them.
- I have hypothyroidism. I know some people roll their eyes at this and claim that hypothyroidism is an excuse for being fat. Unfortunately, it is a reason why people are fat. The problem is, unless you have Hashimoto’s or thyroid cancer (I have neither), they don’t actually know what causes hypothyroidism. All they know is that it is typically more difficult to lose weight when you have it. I have found that once I was medicated for it, it didn’t help me lose weight, it just kept me from gaining further. Anyone advising someone with hypothyroidism to lose weight will advise them to cut more then the average amount of calories from their diet because their metabolism is slower than the average person.
- I have weight-related pain. I was diagnosed a few months ago with plantar fascitis. That’s pain in your feet. It’s caused by being overweight or by pregnancy. It hurts to walk. If I can’t walk, I can’t do much in the way of exercise. I stand on my feet all day at work. When I get home, I just can’t tolerate the pain anymore.
- I have too much to lose. If I manage to lose one lb a week, it will take me almost 2 years to lose all my weight. TWO YEARS. That’s a long time. A very long time. It seems scary. Can I adopt healthy habits for two years? It just seems so daunting.
I have seen people with hypothyroidism do well with a paleo diet, so I will be slowly weaning myself into one. I’m giving up my biggest problem first: added sugars. After that, I will give up grains, dairy, and the other little things like potatoes, legumes, etc. I have tried to work out a few times despite the pain in my feet, but it really didn’t seem to do much for me.
So that’s all I can think of that’s new with me. I will try and blog more often, but it will most likely be about my son and my weight-loss efforts.
Depressimatic Me 