Our Carrier Is Pregnant- 24 Weeks/6 Months

Viability! Although that's never really mattered much for me in the past, but still happy to have reached it.

Less than 4 months and counting!

Jessica had her 24 week appt. on Wednesday and it went great. His heartbeat was 154 and he was as active as ever while the Dr. was trying to find it.

Next appt. is at 28 weeks, which will also be the 3rd trimester!!!

I have been trying to find a place in ND to go so Jessica can get a 4D keepsake u/s of Max for me, but having little to no luck in that dept. I'd really like to get some extra pictures of my little guy. Not sure what we are going to do, but I guess we still have some time to figure it out.


Since my garden is all planted I had been keeping myself busy with getting cloth diapering essentials. Yes, I am cloth diapering, and I am obsessed with all the cute covers there are. I wanted to do it with Evelynn, but Dereck said that was completely out of the question. Now I have him for the most part convinced, as in I'll be doing all of the laundry and dealing with the extra poopy diapers. Plus, all of the diapers he can change can be the all in ones and I'll deal with the prefolds and covers. Did I mention it is addicting, especially the homemade ones on etsy. So cute!!!

Operation Bring Milk Back for Max:

June 7th- Decided that since I started leaking a tiny bit that maybe I should just give the to pump a shot and see if I get more to come. Plus, I figured if I could get my milk back without meds, that'd be awesome.

Pumped only once a day for about a week and got about the same tiny amount out as I did when I first seen it after the anatomy scan.

June 13th- I had a chat with one of the ladies from the nursing boutique that helped me when I was first donating. She asked me how much milk I was producing while I was donating and couldn't believe how much I was able to put out in a day. She was also really happy to hear that some milk was already coming back with out doing much of anything. She told me that the pumping I did last fall already put me a month or two ahead of most people who want to get there milk to come in because the pumping I did for so long apparently changed my anatomy when it comes to milk production.

She really thinks that I will not need any meds at all, which is awesome, and what I would prefer. For now she thinks I should just start doing about a 10-15 min. boob massage about 3-4 times a day for the next week. Then the following week go up to 5-6 and then 7-8 times a day. She thinks in about a month my milk should be completely back. She said that with most people who have never pumped or breastfed that a month of doing this is the amount of time it would usually take for them to just get a small amount of milk to even appear, where as with me I am passed that so in this time I should be able to be on my pump producing away. Hearing that excites me and I really hope she's right. She recommended that I don't use my pump quite yet, as she is afraid it could wreck my nipples since there is a lot of pull and not much coming with it. My nipples don't seem to be irritated by the pump, so I have been using my pump once a day and then massaging them the other times. So far I am still getting about the same amount of milk to appear as I did when I first noticed it.

Their is herbs that she brought up to me, but honestly I am pretty against most herbs since the majority of them have had little to no testing done on them. Not to mention that the ones people believe could help in milk production, like blessed thistle and fenugreek have absolutely no evidence that they actually work. It was actually something someone made up because some cows were producing a lot of milk and someone thought that since they were grazing in a fenugreek field, it must be because of that. I am also just paranoid of everything that goes into my body these days when it comes to my baby.

Another thing she brought up was taking a concoction of birth control type pills that pretty much trick your body into thinking its pregnant, so milk production supposedly will happen. She said she has never done this with anyone, and again I prefer to not be on anymore meds than necessary.

The last option she brought up to me, which I am going to start in July, is going to see an acupuncturist. I saw one once before, because I had heard it could help with infertility, but hated it. She told me about two people that the boutique always use and that 80+ percent of the women that have gone to them have had great success with their milk coming in. She says they are the best in the state, so I am going to give it another go. When I called one of the acupuncturists and made my appt. the lady seemed to be super confident in my milk coming back almost immediately after the first couple sessions. She actually didn't want to start doing sessions with me until September. It is really important to me to make sure my production is in tip top producing mode and so I told her I want to get it going sooner than later, plus I am leaving the state in September so I need it going before then. Also, I know it is a lot of work to be pumping around the clock everyday and bringing my pump with me places, but this is important to me, and if I have a lot of milk coming then its just more milk I can start saving for my little guy for later.