Kate is nursing all the time again, which I’m moderately okay with (it’s irritating, but it’s a phase and it helps her calm down), but she’s not really DRINKING much. She’s doing it for comfort because either her teeth bother her or she’s feeling insecure, not sure which.

And I’ve discovered she LOVES the sippy cup. She gets all excited when she sees it – I actually have to hide it from view or she’ll cry when I don’t give it to her, lol. I was giving her water in it with meals, but she’s started really actually drinking from it so I decided to switch to whole milk so she gets the extra calories. She drank 3oz today! After nursing!

On one hand I’m kind of happy about that, she’s making the transition very seamless, she’s happy as a clam about it, and I like milk, lol. But on the other hand I’m very sad too. I’m not ready to wean her, I hadn’t really planned on giving her cow’s milk yet to drink daily. Ideally I’d give her breastmilk in a sippy cup, but the pump is not working well for me anymore – I just am not very full and the pump only works if I’m full. So it now takes me a long time to pump maybe an ounce or two. And then with the sippy cup she has a habit of drinking half and then I have to toss the other half. I am simply not going to work that hard to throw it out!! So cow’s milk it is. But gah. My supply will go down if she continues to drink more cow’s milk. I wish she’d just settle down and actually nurse well! Silly child.

But then it occurs to me…. if she’s transitioning well maybe that means I could wean her earlier and start IVF sooner. I have to admit, that is tempting. Now that she’s a year old I feel more and more desire to get pregnant again. And by “sooner” I mean this fall rather than January. But right now I’m just not ready to wean her… I guess I’ll just take it as it comes. Things have a habit of changing month to month.

::

I don’t think I ever mentioned that I got my period back last month. I felt something was “off” for a few days and couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I felt a familiar achy feeling in my ovaries. After over 2 years since I’ve had a natural cycle I knew that I was ovulating. Sure enough AF was along shortly. This month was the same thing, I could feel ovulation without a doubt. I marked it in my notes where I wouldn’t see it unless I was really looking, but so that I could find it when I needed to. It seems I just can’t let go of some things…. I have to take notes and track dates. It’s just how I function now.

Getting my period back has been excellent for my hair – after 12 months of crappy-ass oily, flat hair finally I feel like it’s getting back to normal. I was breaking out all over the place for a month, though… that part might be settling down. I wonder how it has affected my milk supply, but at this point it doesn’t really matter all too much, I definitely still have milk.

Along with the cycling has come the reminders, though – the reminders that I’m not normal and this is never going to be normal for us. At least when I wasn’t cycling I was in a different mental space. I wasn’t ready for another baby, I wasn’t thinking about it, and it just didn’t bother me much. But now I see people around me getting pregnant, or even trying to get pregnant, and I feel jealous. I hate that jealousy. And even when I try to completely ignore the ovulation it’s like my body won’t let me, I’m too aware of it now. I have nothing written on the calendar, I intentionally avoid counting days or anything. And yet I know. My body puts on flashing lights when I ovulate and I can’t help but think that we should cover our bases… just in case.

I am irritated that I’m back in this mental space before I wanted to be. We’re not going to be doing IVF for a while, not going to be purchasing insurance or going to see a doctor. We’re not going to be “trying” for another 6 months. I was really hoping my period would hold off until then, until Kate weaned and I decided to get back to that. But instead I’ve been dumped here prematurely. For other people having sex and ovulating and not using contraception would equal getting pregnant. For us it’s just another phase of waiting for IVF… just a big mindtrick one.