Pregnant again – Lost the Baby – D&C procedure - Partial Molar

The month of September 2017 was quite a hectic one. I had a trip to Brazil planned for 01/Nov, one of my best friend’s wedding to attend in Wollongong at the end of the month plus all the regular day by day routine with my toddler. At the middle of the month I realized I missed my period and went to the GP thinking I was too stressed and found out I was pregnant.

It was completely unplanned, but we got quite happy and started making all the plans, from my calculations I was going to have another June baby (June/18). And as it was my second baby I already started telling many people without worrying too much. On my first dating scan the doctor said that baby would either be too small or I even had a chance of being pregnant of twins, as my mom is a twins we didn’t think it was strange and the excitement continued to grow.

On a second dating scan, 1 week later I found out things were not as good. From there I was sent to the St. George Early Pregnancy Clinic which I had to come almost every second day, doing tests and ultrasounds, until they decided that I had to do a D&C as there was a very small chance that I had a partial molar pregnancy.

I went to my friend’s wedding on the weekend (had to break the news there as I could not drink as my surgery was booked Monday) and had my D&C on Monday morning at St. George Hospital. The whole system was amazing. I am very afraid of any procedure, but they made me calm and before I knew it was all over and by 5pm I was out of the hospital. My trip to Brazil was booked for Friday so I had 3 days to recover from the general anesthetics and I was completely fine to travel with my toddler 😊.  While in Brazil I received an email from the Hospital that a biopsy was done on the fetus and I did have had a partial molar so I would have to monitor for 6 months to make sure any left over tissue would not keep growing inside me.

So what is a partial molar? From www.babycenter.com.au:

“In most partial molar pregnancies, the fertilised egg has 23 chromosomes from the mother but a duplicated set from the father. This means there are a total of 69 chromosomes instead of the normal 46. This can happen when chromosomes from the sperm are copied or when two sperm fertilise the same egg.

In a partial molar pregnancy, a placenta will start to grow. This means an embryo does begin to develop. There may be a fetus, or some fetal tissue, or an amniotic sac. But even if there is a fetus, it is important to understand that it simply doesn't have the right genetic make-up to survive.

Doctors sometimes describe a molar pregnancy as a hydatidiform mole. Molar pregnancy is one of a group of conditions called gestational trophoblastic tumours. Although they are called tumours, they are usually not cancerous. They may spread beyond the uterus (womb), but can be cured.

Molar pregnancies are rare. About one in every 1,000 pregnancies in Australia is a molar pregnancy”

I am happy that at the end all was good and I had such a great support from my family, friends and the hospital staff. Now all I had to wait was 6 months of good hormone results ( until May/18) to be able to start trying to get pregnant again. So yes we waited and were careful… until I got the call from the hospital in March/18… but that will be for the next post 😉

A MOM learning about loss after 30...

After so many sleeping issues we went to Karitane – Is it worth it?

I would say that Karitane saved my life. Since my daughter was born she was never a good sleeper, she would take her time to sleep and wake up easily after 2/3 hours sleep. I tried a range of techniques that I found in the internet, but nothing would work for her. At 5 months old I realized my life could no longer be like this as in less than 2 months I was going to be back at work full time, so I went to the early childhood center, talked about my issue and they referred me to the Karitane Day saying that they would be able to give me the techniques to make her sleep easier and longer. I went there but by the end of the consultation the nurse said: “I never experienced this kind of behavior, I could not make her sleep”.

So yes, I was not lying she was a hard one so they referred me to Karitane week stay, which I ended up being place at their Carramar hospital and I was so amazed by everything.

To start the facilities were amazing, I had my own private room, bathroom and she had a small room for her cot that would connect with my room but was the perfect environment for her to sleep with little light, background music and a safe cot. The first night was the hardest but the nurses were with me all the way, some tips that I learned there, and I use until today:

-          Babies should have their own bed and own room to be able to sleep longer

-          Babies should fall sleep on the cot, not breastfeeding or on my arms

-          Background music can sooth them and if they wake up they will look around and go back to sleep as the environment they went to sleep is the same

-          I should only give her things she can’t lose at night and request my help with (milk bottles, dummies, little toys can be a distraction as if it falls or you need to help them with it they will find the perfect way to request your help). She went down with only a soft doll she liked, but it was hard to fall from the cot. (I only used this doll to sleep so she would relate to it).

-          When she went to sleep I would feed her, bath her, read her a book and put her on her cot, talk and reassure her and leave the room.

-          If she woke up at night I waited a couple of minutes to see if she would settle by herself if not I would just go back to the room sit on the floor and tap on her bum or on the mattress until she was sleepy again also making the Shussh sound. Sitting on the floor don’t give them the impression that you can pick them up.

-          Babies should never cry for long so if she cried a bit I would always go back to the room and reassure her but if she was stopping and starting again she could have been learning how to calm down and eventually go to sleep by herlself.

-          Routine is very important, and I used all I learned for a good 3 months before starting to sometimes make changes, but all was so good that I was afraid to change anything.

-          Her routine was set with 2 x 1-hour sleeps during the day and a long sleep from 7pm to 7am at night. It was unbelievable at first but until today she is doing the same. (She is now 26 months). At 7pm she is already in bed waiting for her story time

This video resumes it quite a bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsMEOXratlk

So, if you are struggling and need help I would recommend them 100%, sure I had to really focus on the routine after but they gave me the best start I could possibly get and I will thank them immensely. I hope to be able to start doing some of those routines with my newborn in December this year, so I don’t need to endure 6 months of non-sleep again.

Here are some useful parent resources they provide: https://karitane.com.au/dynamicpage/for-parents/resources

A MOM #1fan of Karitane after 30

Long Haul Travel with babies and toddlers

This is a long post, sorry, but I think many details are worth sharing…

I went to Brazil twice since my baby girl was born. First when she was around 6 months and after when she was 18 months. It takes around 25 hours from Australia to Brazil, being 2 flights (one of around 14 hours) and around 5 hours connection and here are the experiences:

6 Months Old - BABY – This was my first airplane experience with my baby. Luckily this time around I had my Mom on the same flight which made it much easier as without her support I think I would have panicked. I bought a Quinny Zapp Pram which was supposed to be great for flights (not really good in my opinion). I ended up leaving it in Brazil as it was a just an extra bulk thing to carry as my daughter didn’t like to seat on it. She preferred to stay on the ergo baby most of the time where she could sleep well.

We brought many things to the plane and didn’t use half, because the noise of the plane made her quite sleepy. (Also I was giving her the Bauer Sleep, just in case). She had her first meal and started to fall sleep. I was lucky enough to have a basinet, which was very handy, so I put her down and she had a good 4 hours sleep, when she woke up I gave her a feed and down she went again for another 3-4hours… I could not believe almost half of the flight was gone. She woke up again and was almost Breakfast time we played a bit until we landed and it was time for the connection in Santiago.

During the quite long connection I had to carry the travel pram as she didn’t want to seat on it . Still it was good to just walk around, play with her and time went fast. On the second flight to Sao Paulo things were a bit different space wise but still she was able to sleep on my lap for a bit. I felt like a winner when I got to the destination and the return flight ended up to be quite similar, but firstly I didn’t carry half of the food, toys and stuff I had on my hand and also I got rid of the pram as she was not going to use it anyway.

Thanks to Qantas I had some awesome space, great care from the cabin crew and good food for me and for her. I am quite sure they made the difference for us to be able to enjoy this flight.

18 Months Old – TODDLER – As our first experience was not as bad we felt confident to go to Brazil again.

Luckily this time I was also able to upgrade the way in to Economy Plus with Qantas, as I had points, which made it even more enjoyable. We had better space and also a basinet, even though she was already 18 months, but as she was still under 10 kilos she was able to use and did sleep half of the flight again there.

This time she was quite mobile, so she did want to walk around corridors and check out the toilet many times, but it was good to see that everyone on the plane understood she was just a toddler and would play and smile at her. I brought her portable DVD which made her watch Moana and Frozen many times and gave me also some quite time. I liked the idea better than the IPAD as without Wi-fi I didn’t want her to be frustrated.

Also, this time I bought a Yoyo Pram (generic) from Ebay as I didn’t want to waste much money in case I had to leave it again back in Brazil. But now this really worked as she enjoyed being pushed around instead of walking (I would not carry her at the ergo anymore). This generic pram saved my life in many occasions and even now she still uses it and became my regular pram.

The only bad experience we had this time was when we landed in Brazil that we had to wait around 40 minutes to leave the plane as we didn’t have a gate ready. It started getting quite hot inside the plane and she started screaming crazily. All passengers felt sorry for her and I felt sorry for them to hear all the screaming. But everyone understood was not her fault as we were stuck there. I know these things can happen, but I was not prepared for the situation and I didn’t know what to do. As soon as we could leave the plane all was good and back to normal.  

In general both experiences were not bad at all and I was quite amazed to see how well she behaved but here are my main tips:

-          Don’t pack more than what you can easily carry as after some hours you can’t handle all that weight

-          If you going to bring a travel pram buy it before and let the baby get used to it, plus bring the pram carry bag otherwise the pram will be dispatched, and you will not be able to use in the connection

-          Bring some entertainment for the baby that doesn’t rely on Wi-Fi (silly, I know but I saw mom’s panicking as they didn’t realize it was not going to work). There are some planes now with wi-fi but it will never work as well as at home.

-          Bring toddler headphones as you can’t have sound on the plane coming from Ipads/dvds. On one of the flights I didn’t know and had to make my daughter watch a MUTE video 😉

-          Bring some baby pegs to peg things around, it was handy when lights from the bathroom would go to directly to her face when she was sleeping

-          Try to be calm as if you are calm the baby seems to sense that this is a safe environment, and all will be ok.

-          Ask for help when needed, cabin crew were great and would always ask me if I needed anything else which made me feel very supported.

 I hope some ideas can help the next MOM about to flight with their babies and toddlers, which is not easy but worth it as there is always a reason for it. Mine was to see my family that is far away and I wanted them to be part of my daughter’s life.

If you have any other hacks and ideas that helped you comment below so we can share and help each other on this beautiful journey.

A traveler MOM after 30

                                                   *** 4 generations - Lots of LOVE ***

New MOM New JOB New LIFE!

My daughter’s first year…

If I think my daughter learned a lot this first year, I actually learned more…

She has always been quite an “advanced” kid which made my life a bit of a challenge.

She started by wanting to feed like a maniac and not wanting to sleep more than 2 hours straight (for her first 6 months). Which made her quite alert and learning to roll and even crawl at 5 months old. At 6 months she was sitting by herself until she got to 8 months and was standing up and started giving her first steps. It all happened so quickly.

At 9 months I had a kid that was confident to walk and go everywhere she wanted. This all made me see that I wanted to spend more time with her as if I didn’t watch her grow up, she would just grow up and disappear from my sight.

As returned to work full time when she was around 7 months old I pretty much lost a quite a bit of those milestones and when she was 10 months I decide to quit and find a part-time job to be able to part of her daily little life.

It was not easy to make this decision as I was in my old company for 11 years and really enjoyed the job and my colleagues, which were more like friends. But that was my main learning curve being a workaholic was not helping this new job I just signed up for of being a MOM.

Now after a while that I moved jobs I can also see that there are other jobs, people and companies out there, so not only she opened my eyes onto the amount of work I was doing but also that you can have a perfect work-life balance. You just need to be real with yourself and find what you really want.

Those 3 days a week that I work I really focus on my work but those 4 days that I spend with her we play more, have more fun and I feel that my daughter is much more connected to me. 

I learn things from her and she learn from me and I would not miss those first years for anything in this world.

Some decisions are hard to make but sometimes we need a little tiny cute hand pushing us to make us see the bigger picture…

A now non-workaholic MOM after 30

Back Again…hopefully for good

So much happened after my last post and here are some of the things I would like to share:

-          A whole year of my daughter growing up and having amazing milestones like walking by 8 months, childcare at 11 months, talking at 1 year. This was for sure a year of so much learning for her and for me too.

-          Travel to Brazil with a 5/6 months old baby, such a long haul but better than I expected in general with some tips worth sharing.

-          Visit to Karitane to make my daughter be a better sleeper and how this worked amazingly, which can’t make me thank enough every single midwife and nurse there.

-          The end of the reflux/milk allergy which not sure if was real and her craziness for all kinds of food, specially very acid and sour ones.

-          Being back to full time job for 6 months (when she was 7 months old) until I decided to quit my 11 years job to take care of my daughter and start a part time job.

-          Finding out I was pregnant again after 6 months of my new job, just after probation passed… just to find out I lost the baby after 2 weeks, doing a D&C  a finding out I had a partial molar which would make me wait for 6 months doing regular check ups to get pregnant again.

-          Another trip to Brazil now with a 1.5 years old baby, a bit more challenging but still good.

-          Get pregnant before the 6 months risk was over, we were quite careful, but still it happened, at the 3^rd month and go over so many tests to make sure I was really pregnant and not in a risk of something much more serious (Choriocarcinoma – Cancer).

-          Being here now pregnant at 21 weeks very healthy and happy ready to welcome my baby at the end of year when I will turn 37 years old ( Due date 14/Dec – My bday – 15/Dec).

I will go trough ever topic in the next months so I can share a bit of what I learn being a Mom after 30 😊

Reflux and Cow’s Milk allergy or Intolerance

It is very hard to see your baby “vomiting” after every feed. It started when she as around 2 months and got much worse at around 3 months. In the beginning, I imagined that this was because she would feed so quickly that she was overfeeding and for that reason, she needed to spit up, but when the projectile vomits started after every feed I decided to check it out with a Lactation consultant.

One thing that she notice was that my baby was slowly putting on less weight than before. Where her average was around 200 to 300 grams a week she had put only 500 grams in 1 month and that was a sign that something was not right. She was eating half breastmilk and half Nan HA formula, as I did not have enough milk.

Some babies are happy spitters meaning that they reflux but they are ok with it. However, my baby would anticipate the reflux coming and getting very upset and scream so the GP tried changing her formula to a more hydrolyzed formula (Aptamil) but still the symptoms were similar so she started on Losec medicine before feeds, which makes the acid reflux less acidic. She would still reflux but with less pain. However, as a Mum I did not want to keep her on a medicine for too long so I started researching and found out that Cow’s milk could cause Reflux and other symptoms that she had from birth but I did not think they were related. She had body rash, loose poos (which are not common when babies are having formula), she was very gassy and had lots of colic, she was always wheezing and making breathing noises, she winged the whole day and would not sleep at all. Those last two continues until today but that can be still reflex of anxiousness from the inflammation and pain she felt in beginning of her life. (There is a symptom checker here: http://www.neocate.com/help-for-parents/tools/symptom-checker/).

I decided to try as much as I could giving her more breastmilk, I started a dairy free diet, and that was it. In 1 week, she wanted more and more my breast (I was now on Boobies Bikkies and Motillium, and this made my supply increase). Still she was hungry so I went to a pediatrician he put her on Neocate formula which is an amino acids only based formula. She really loved and actually started refusing the breast. I guess that it is very hard to be 100% out of lactose and she felt much less pain on Neocate so I transitioned for 1 month and now at 5 months she is on Neocate only. Her skin is clean of the rashes, her poos are great, her gassiness is gone and she is a much happier baby. 

It is very hard to see your baby refusing to breastfeed but I know that it is for her own good in the end. I miss our night feeds and cuddles, but I still try to hug her tight while giving her the bottle now.

Two of the reasons for that milk allergy/intolerance (I state both here, as we are not sure what she has yet and there are big differences between those two) is being a genetic condition or the fact that I ate LOTS of dairy while pregnant. I really craved it and ate a bit too much. Either way now I need to make her feel better and help her not be anxious because of the pain and to sleep more. 

I am here for her and I want her to know that.

A mum that will do anything for her baby after 30

#neocate #mumafter30 #boobiesbikkies #cowsmilkintolerance #cowsmilkallergy #reflux

After 3 months and I am back...

Today it has been 3 months exactly that I do not write on my blog…

I decided that I needed to focus only on my baby and me during this last 3 months as things were going a bit out of whack.

 I learned a lot and had many different issues that I could not expect. I have been riding this roller coast with issues around breastfeeding, allergy to cow’s milk, reflux, sleep deprivation, excessive crying, catnaps, baby hyperactivity and planning to go back to work. Still going through this with a smile on my face, actually not always, but with a strong mantra that this all will pass, new challenges will come, and I need to take one-step at a time.

I am even seeing a physiotherapist to support me on the hardest skill that my baby is teaching in my life that is that even if we PLAN – Nothing is under my control. I am a bit of a control freak, I do my research, I plan, I prepare and usually all goes to plan. However, not in the motherhood life, that is not real but I will share more in the next posts.

I am just glad that I am able to share this all here and if I am able to help 1 mother like me I feel like I will have accomplished something. We do not live in villages like in the past where woman would live together and learn from each other while the men would hunt. Now most of the time we are at home alone while partners are at work, so now internet is our village and I think people need to be more honest and share the realities here so we can really be able to support each other.

From a Mum learning a lot in 3 months

#momafter30

In the picture: Me and my baby losing one sock at night… yes she will be like me never have pairs of socks. The joke is just to make us laugh, but I cannot complain of my husband as he is always here to support me after he is back from work ;)