Decided to stop inducing

After much thought this weekend, I decided to stop inducing lactation today. It was time for me to buy more domperidone and herbs, and I am having a hard time justifying spending that on just a few ml's of milk/day. I am currently making about 1.5ml's per pumping session, and I know it would slowly increase, but I think that money is better spent on the adoption expenses at this point. I do have 45ml's of milk in my freezer, so at least I was able to get something!

Lots of pumping, not as much milk

Well, it's been almost two weeks of using the pump now and I only get 1/2 ml each time. I keep waiting for it to increase, and I even tried eating oatmeal. Oatmeal is supposed to increase your supply. I maybe get 0.8 ml when I eat it, but that could be wishful thinking. I am going to keep this up until my meds run out in two weeks, then stop if I haven't made any more. It has been hard to pump at work since I get a half-hour for dinner, and 15 min of that time is spent pumping, with 5 min to clean up. Also, since I don't make that much milk, I can't let it go into the collection bottles since most of it is lost in the filter. So, I have to hold one side on with my arm while I take the other side off, leaving the shield against my skin. I then hold a plastic collection bottle under the shield to collect the drops. Then, I draw it up into a syringe. It is exhausting.
In the end, if I don't make more I will be left with a feeding and a half of my own milk for our baby. I guess that is better than nothing, but really wish I knew this wouldn't work so well before I spent all this money. Oh well, I learned my lesson. ;)

Milk Drops

Yay! I am getting milk drops with pumping. They started on Saturday, only one day after I started pumping. That is way sooner than I thought it would happen, and am sooo excited! :) Now, if only I had enough to save, but I know that will happen soon.
As for the comfort of pumping...IT HURTS! Apparently the soft fit shields that came with my pump are not for me. (I actually have bruises and an open wound on one side). Got a smaller hard plastic shield today to try, so we'll see.

NOOO!!!!

So, it is almost time for me to start using the new breast pump, and guess what? The battery it comes with doesn't work!!! I swear, this happens to me with everything. Last time, it was our dogs training collars and it took 9 weeks to get a new one. I seriously need this replaced and am hoping for a quick and smooth swap. Of course, I don't have the receipt since it was a gift, so I emailed them and will see what they say. Thank God I checked it out before switching to the herbs and waiting for the day that I had to start!

Lactation Induction

Ah, the wonderful world of hormones. As some of you know, I have decided to induce lactation so that I can breastfeed our baby when we get picked. It is something I always had in the back of my head, and have seen a few adoptive moms come though at work who have done it. I met with a doctor a month ago (not my doc since apparently only one or two docs in Dane cty have experience with this). This new doc just happens to be in Mt. Horeb, so not very close, but no too far, either. She had me start taking the pill, along with a drug called Domperidone. This drug increases Prolactin levels, while the pill helps build breast tissue. They basically do the same thing that pregnant women's bodies do.
The best results come with taking this combo for 5-6 months, but since we could get a call any day, I elected the accelerated protocol. With this way, I only take the pill for 30-60 days with the Dom, then take just the dom and add herbs Fenugreek and blessed thistle. I also start pumping every three hours at that point. I am going to try to give the pill 60 days, then start pumping. My wonderful mother-in-law bought me a pump for christmas, and I ordered the herbs already, so I am all set. I got the new Medela freestyle handheld pump that is cordless. This will be very helpful as I will be lugging it back and forth to work every night.
Apparently, most women on this protocol produce half, if not more, of the milk supply their baby will need. Then, they supplement with formula during or after breastfeeding. (if during, you use a Lactina, which is a bottle hung around your chest with a tube taped to your nipple. The baby sucks and gets breastmilk and formula at the same time).
I am nervous and excited to see how this works. I will also be freezing any milk I start getting to thaw and use when the baby gets here.

OFFICIALLY WAITING, AGAIN!!!

Yay! Our lifebook is done, the 10 copies of it are sent in, and we are officially waiting again as of today. Whew! Glad that is all over! :) The past few months have really seemed to drag on, but I think with the holidays and everything, we had other things that had to get done and the lifebook had to be put to the side for awhile. We had gotten a test copy done at Office Max a few weeks ago, but all our captions had gotten moved over and were hiding under the pictures. Eric had to re-format, but then we had christmas stuff to do. Last week, he took the new version to Office Depot, where the copies came out dark and red-tinted. We went back the next day and had them re-do, and while they still don't look as good as the Office Max version, we have no desire to pay to have all new copies done at this point. Last night, I put all 10 copies into report binders, and then I mailed them off today.
What's next??? Well, now we wait to be chosen by a birth mom. Unlike Ethiopia, we have no idea when this will happen. It could be two weeks, it could be a year. However, most people end up getting chosen within 4-6 months.
Thanks to Eric's sister, we now have more baby supplies and clothes! She gave us all her daughters old baby clothes she has grown out of, as well as a jumper, a bouncer, a baby glider and a playmat. Now we have boy and girl clothes through almost their first year.
I have decided to paint the nursery light yellow. I really liked the fisher price flutterbye dreams items and ended up finding everything in that line (which was discontinued) except for the highchair (we already have one from Eric's sister). That line is a light yellow with blue birds and primary color butterflies. Our crib bedding (if we use it) is also primary colors.
I am still getting used to my full-time night shifts at work, but keep telling myself it's for a good cause. :) I was going to be scheduled Mon-Fri nights, but my managed decided to change it to Sun-Thurs nights, so now I will have the full weekend off to do things during the day. This week I only work 4 nights so she can switch me to my new schedule next week. I just bought new curtains last night to help block the light out of our room. The sun sets brightly in our window, which is so not cool while sleeping. ;)

Approved and working on lifebook

We got approved by the new adoption agency last week! Yay!
After that letter, we never got anything else explaining the next step. I called and it turns out they had checked off that we had turned in everything, even though we hadn't. It's good that I called, otherwise we would be in limbo for awhile.
The lifebook is basically a scrapbook with a dear birthmom letter, a profile page about us, and various pics of us, our house, vacations, etc...
We have to make 10 copies of it so that it can be passed out to 10 social workers our agency deals with, and then shown to birthmoms.
My original idea was to make an online book from snapfish, but since we need 10, I think we are going to have to do the old fashioned scrapbook with real pictures and no digital stuff. It has been about 8 years, maybe more, since we had pics developed. (actually, we had some for our wedding). We need no more than 10 pages, but they can be front to back. We also have to turn in our comfort level worksheet. This tells them what medical conditions in baby and birthmom we are willing to accept. Also things like drug and alcohol use and mental ilness.
THEN, we will be officially waiting again. I kind of want to develop some pics at walgreens tomorrow and just get this album done already. Otherwise, I know it is going to drag on and on. Eric and I don't have much time free together, so we have to cram a lot of stuff into our weekends off together.
More new news...I changed my shift at work to Mon-Fri night shifts and no weekends. This will start in January and will help us pay off some debt before the baby gets here. My manager said I can drop down to part time if full time gets to be too much once we get a baby, so that's good to know.