• Starting weight: 14 st 6.5 lb
• End weight: 14 st 3 lb
• Week 19 loss: 3.5 lb
• Total loss to date: 12.5 lb
• Weight left to lose till target of 9 st 7lb: 4st 10 lb

This last week I have changed up my diet again. I have gone back to basics and am making sure that I way and measure everything. I am also increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables that I am eating, and using them to try and fill myself up rather than other higher calorie foods. I aim to lose the remaining 3.5lb of the 7lb that I gained over the next 2 weeks. In the slightly longer term I am hoping to have lost another stone (14lbs) by the time I return to work in 6 weeks time (taking me down to 13st 3lb or as near to that as I can). Time to get working!

Over the past few weeks Izzy has had a verbal explosion. She frequently babbles ra-ra-ra and ba-ba-ba and on Christmas Day began saying Ma-ma (this is normally kept for when she is upset and is wailed at me, which really tugs at the heart strings!).

She still dislikes being on her tummy, but has begun launching herself forward from a sitting position to grab for toys or items that have taken get fancy. After reaching them she invariably flips straight back over on to her back. I know that big things are about to happen though as on the day Izzy turned 8 months she rolled back to front for the first time, and in the few days since has started pulling up and walking when you hold on to her hands!

This month has been one filled with illness, suffering with 2 colds and a nasty chest infection which required antibiotics to treat. Unfortunately this has meant that sleep and Izzy have not been the best of friends and Izzy has spent a lot of time in Mummy’s bed, something which really does need to be knocked on the head ASAP.

Izzy is still not a big eater. She will try most foods and rarely spits anything back our, however the quantity of food that she has is still very small. Breakfast is the hardest meal and often she will not have anything at all. Lunch is hit and miss, sometimes she will have some, other times nothing at all. Dinner is always her best meal. We try to do a mix of purées and finger foods and this seems to work pretty well. I am not really too concerned about her eating at the moment as she is still breastfeeding fairly often and will receive a lot of calories and nutrients from this, once she starts nursery (in 8 weeks, eeeek!) I am sure that we will see an improvement as she will hardly have any breastmilk at all.

It’s hard to believe that on 4 short months she will turn a whole year old, it seems like yesterday that she was a tiny helpless newborn…

It’s been 8 months now and I am still really struggling with coming to terms with Izzy’s birth. Prior to getting pregnant I had always had this vision in my head of having as natural a birthing experience as possible. Minimal intervention, preferably in water. Through pregnancy I tried to be more realistic. I told myself that I would not have any expectations of birth and therefore I could not be disappointed by my experience. Of course though I thought this was how I was approaching things, I apparently didn’t.

Being induced for me was not a big deal. I was warned that induction fails in some cases but I think I was so focused on not being pregnant anymore (by this point I’d just had enough) that I did not really heed the warnings.

I have so many what ifs going through my head… What if I had chosen to have the elective Caesarian at 39 weeks as I was offered, would I be feeling the way I do? What if I had allowed nature to take its course – would I have gone into labour naturally? Would I have been induced at 40+12 weeks? Would induction have been successful at that point? Or would it still have failed? And then there is all the questions about labour itself. Would I have managed a minimal intervention labour? Would I have struggled to cope with the pain of labour? Would I have ended up with a Caesarian section anyway? Would I still feel this way if there was an actual medical need for the section e.g. placenta praevia?

And so on it goes… What if? Questions that I will never ever know the answer to. So what happens next time? There are 2 choices. I can opt to have an elective section at 39 weeks, or I can try and have a VBAC (Vaginal birth after Caesarian). The first option seems the most straightforward. At around 39 weeks pregnant on a pre-arranged date, I could go to the hospital and have my baby. If I have SPD again this means that I get to have my baby earlier than I might otherwise, which would mean less pain and discomfort. The next baby could be bigger than Izzy was (if I had gone 2 weeks over as it seems likely that I would have, then Izzy would have been over 10lbs), as second babies often are, in which case a Caesarian might be the better option. And given that I went overdue with Izzy, the likelihood is that I would go over again and induction is not commonly advised for VBAC patients, therefore again a Caesarian would probably be the end result. So even knowing all this, why am I still yearning to try for a VBAC next time?

I know that I am very lucky. That Izzy arrived with no complications, that I recovered easily and quickly from my Caesarian and that it really was the best option for me at the time, however I still feel cheated, like I have missed out on one of life’s truly powerful experiences and I just cannot seem to make my peace with that…

2012… Wow, I cannot believe how fast the past year has gone.  2011 was probably the best year that I have ever had.  Of course the main highlight of the year was meeting my beautiful daughter.  She really is amazing.  I love her more than I could possibly have imagined and watching her grow and develop makes me so proud.

As well as having Izzy I have made a number of wonderful friends who have helped to make my life feel a lot more complete.  We are happy and healthy and I cant wait to see what the next year holds for us.

At the beginning of the year I made some resolutions (see post here), and I have been quite pleased with how I have got on:

To be a better housewife – I hate cooking and cleaning and all that stuff,  but I endeavour to try and improve my cooking and to stay on top of the cleaning  – Well I haven’t done at all badly with this.  We have cooked meals almost every night and the cooking is now split a lot more evenly between me and J, I do still need to eat a more varied healthy diet though and that will be one of my resolutions for 2012 (see below).  As for the cleaning, well I am pretty happy with how I have got on with this.  The house is pretty much always tidy and clean, although this is a lot easier to do now that I am home full-time.  In 2012 I need to maintain this whilst also working part-time which will be a lot trickier.  Izzy is starting nursery the week before I go back to work in order that she can get fully settled in, and I can start work without worrying about how she is getting on.  During that week I hope to do a deep clean of the house, to get it into really good shape so that it is easier to keep on top of things in the limited time that I will have after work.

To lose weight – I want to lose any weight that I have gained whilst I am pregnant, along with some of the extra weight which I was carrying pre-pregnancy - Another success!  I lost all my pregnancy weight, plus a further 8.5 lbs, taking me down to 195.5 lbs, my lightest weight in around 10 years.  Over the Christmas period I have put some weight back on but am determined to get back on track and this year I WILL get to goal.

To become more environmentally friendly – I plan to breastfeed, use cloth nappies, and I also need to recycle more - A partial success.  I am still breastfeeding and I use cloth nappies some of the time (usually when I am home all day) however I don’t recycle at all and this is another goal for 2012.

To blog more.  I have been doing pretty well with blogging weekly.  I want to try and keep this up.  I love looking back and seeing where I was a few months ago, and can’t wait till it becomes a year ago or even a few years ago… I  want to remember as much of my pregnancy and then Little Bean’s childhood as possible! - Well for the most part I have done this.  I blog at least every 2 weeks, sometimes more often and I am already enjoying looking back over my previous posts.  I hope to keep this up for the foreseeable future!

So what do I hope to achieve this year?

• Start recycling wherever possible
• Get to goal weight (140 lbs)
• Find a new job (hopefully as soon as possible after I return)
• Make Izzy a patchwork quilt
• To become more health conscious, to eat more healthily and to make sure that Izzy has a varied healthy diet

So thats it!  I think that is plenty to be going on with

I have had an exhausting and emotional couple of days (in short, a friend lost her 38 year old husband to a heart attack on Wednesday (they have 2 kids, a 9 year old son and a daughter who was born end of June) and J was rushed to hospital yesterday) but I am so thankful for everything I have – a loving husband, a wonderful, beautiful daughter, supportive friends and family. It is easy to overlook these things but I am actually very very blessed.

So on that note, I’d like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic 2012!

Last week Izzy turned 7 months. She is now officially closer to being 1 than she is to the date she was born. She is a petite little girl, weighing in at 16lb 3 oz and still wearing (for the most part) size 3 nappies and 3-6 month clothes. A couple of weeks back I bought her a Christmas outfit in 6-9 months anticipating that she would easily be wearing that by Christmas… it’s still pretty big on her!

Developmentally Izzy sits fantastically and rolls front to back with no problem. She also loves to stand holding on to things, however other than that she is pretty static. She absolutely hates being on her front (hence the rolling), and is showing no signs whatsoever of wanting to crawl. I can leave her sat on the floor and 9 times out of 10 she will be in the exact same position (the other 1 time, she will be lying on her back having leaned forward too far, fallen on to her front and then flipped over!). At least I am not having to babyproof yet! Izzy is a very social baby. She is always happiest when out or about or with an audience. Last week as I was so unwell my friend had her for a few hours (the first time she had been away from me for more than an hour!) and she was apparently a little angel. She played happily with her friend, ate well, napped well, the only thing she didn’t do was take a bottle of expressed milk although she did have a little water in a sippy cup. This not taking a bottle was more of a problem though on the Friday night that I went out with some friends. Izzy woke as soon as I was gone and for the next 2.5 hours was inconsolable. Nothing would settle her until eventually she took 1oz from the bottle and fell asleep. That 1oz was apparently enough to take the edge off… I am not really sure what to do about this. At the end of February I will be returning to work. I am going back on a part-time basis, 2.5 days a week, Monday to Wednesday morning. Izzy will be attending a day nursery for these 3 days, from 7.45 am through till 6 pm. I am not sure how much milk 9 month old babies still take during the day, but I am sure she will be requiring at least 1 feed during that time and if she is still refusing a bottle this could be a problem. It is frustrating for me as I would much rather not have to give her a bottle at all but I don’t have any choice but to return to work.

Food wise, Izzy eats 3 meals a day but they are all pretty small still. She eats finger foods with no problem, but her main meals are purees (her favourite at the moment is Butternut Squash and Apple) – she will normally eat 4 cubes followed by one sometimes 2 baby yoghurts. Breakfast is normally baby cereal. She breast feeds about 4-5 times a day and then the same again (if not more at night), however despite the large amount of feeding and the relative inactivity, she still only put on 3 oz in 3 weeks!

Finally sleep. Once again we are in the middle of one of Izzy’s sleep regression periods. She is waking anywhere between every 30-45 minutes to every 2-3 hours. Of course this has not helped by either of us being ill, and due to lack of sleep the only way I have been able to cope is to co-sleep with her (yes I know this is far from ideal!). I really am tearing my hair out with her and have no idea what to do next. I have tried the controlled crying, it worked for a week or so. A glorious week where she was sleeping 8 or 9 hour stretches, and then it suddenly stopped again

• Sleep – This is still not nearly as sorted as I thought.  We had 4 fantastic nights where she only woke for 1 feed, sometimes going 8 or 9 hours at a time.  Unfortunately it didn’t last and we were straight back to multiple wake-ups along with an hour long screaming session between 3 and 4 am every night.  So where do we go from here?  Some say I need to sort her day sleep and then her night sleep will fall in line, others say I just need to let her cry it out.  I am really not sure.  I feel like to go down the cry it out route I need to be emotionally strong and I am really not feeling like it at the moment, exhaustion seems to have zapped the bit of strength that I had.   And with day sleep?  Well that means staying home in order to sort out her routine and at the moment going out is one of the main things keeping me sane.  So I guess I am stuck…
• Weaning – Again this is a bit all over the place.  Izzy will not consistently take any food.  She would not eat homemade purees, but wolfed down Ella’s Kitchen pouches.  I then tried to replace the Ella’s Kitchen pouches with similar tastes in homemade purees.  This is hit and miss, sometimes she’ll eat loads, other times very little or none.  She is happiest eating finger foods or food from my plate, however this is a time consuming and messy process and there is no guarantee on how much she is actually eating.  Also slightly worryingly, tonight she has had some sort of reaction to something she has eaten, not sure what it was as she only had bread and butter with a little sliced chicken and some cheese all of which she has had before with no problems, but she came out in a rash all round her mouth.
• Motor Skills – Izzy rolls front to back with ease now, however there is no sign of her rolling back to front.  I am pretty certain that this is because she has absolutely no interest in being on her front at all.  She sits very well unaided and rarely topples over now.  In some respects she is the easiest baby ever in that if I put her down I know that she will be exactly where I left her when I return.  I do not have to worry about her rolling off things (not that I put this to the test!) or about baby proofing anything yet.  However she is still pretty dependant, and is definitely developing seperation anxiety, screaming if she is left alone at any time.

Anyway Izzy is awake yet again (she went to bed at 7.15 pm, woke at 8.30 pm, was back down by 9 pm and has just woken again 30 mins later)…

And yet another gain… I was really expecting to have lost this week.  I walked tons and I was within my points (although not too far under) so I was really disappointed that I had once again put on.

New tactic, cut points further.  My WW leader mentioned that I can flex my daily points down by 3, so I have cut them to 34.  Will see if this works.  I am also going to go ‘Back to Basics’ and be extra careful with measuring everything I eat.  If this doesn’t work then I will cut my breastfeeding points altogether and try that…

This is getting frustrating. I put on 1lb again and I am not really sure why. Yes I ate out a couple of times but I tracked what I ate and pointed accordingly, and I walked more than I usually do. I am getting annoyed that this is such a struggle. Im averaging just over 1lb a week loss which I know is steady and healthy, but it’s hard going. Everyone else I know who’s been on WW has lost 20+ lbs in the same amount of time. I guess this a direct result of my PCOS and maybe it’s time to go back to the doctors and get Metformin again (as long as its safe to take whilst breastfeeding). Meanwhile I am stripping my diet right back, eating breakfast again, and cutting back on the carbs. If I don’t step things up its gonna take till 2013 to lose all this weight…

Green Sprout did.  A fellow blogger, I have been following GS since way back in the early days of both our pregnancies.  Her son Z was born just over 2 weeks before Izzy.  GS had a really tough first 6 months since Z suffered with uncontrolled severe reflux which impacted upon every part of their lives.  Eventually a suitable medication was found and immediately things started to improve.  About 6 weeks ago GS and Z attended a week long residential sleep school, implementing the skills they learnt there, Z’s sleep has improved until he is sleeping almost 10-12 hours per night.

A few nights ago I was complaining to GS about how tired I was.  She sent me some information on the methods that they had been taught.  The most important of which is to make sure that you put your baby down to sleep awake and alone.  Basically Izzy was in the habit of falling asleep on me after feeds, I would then transfer her into the cot at which point (or shortly after) she would wake and start to scream.  I would then give in and pick her up again.  GS told me that by doing this, Izzy was waking disorientated and confused.  She was falling asleep warm and snuggly in my arms, and waking up in a cold dark cot on her own.  Using GS’s method I feed her and then if she falls asleep whilst feeding I wake her up, then put her in her cot awake and alone, this way she learns to self soothe.  If she knows how to self soothe then when she wakes in the night (and isn’t hungry), instead of immediately crying to be fed (for comfort) she can settle herself back to sleep.

The first night I tried implementing this I put Izzy in her cot awake after a feed at 7.30 pm.  She then screamed until 8.30 pm.  This was really hard.  I went in and resettled her a couple of times (picked her up, cuddled her and reassured her I was there, then when she was calm, I put her back in her cot and left the room – sometimes she would be crying before I was even out of the door).  At 8.30 pm after an hour of crying I picked her up, fed her again, checked her nappy and then started again.  She cried for a further 5 minutes and then fell asleep.

Just before 11 pm she woke crying.  I went in and fed her, put her back in her cot awake and left her to it.  This time she only cried for 20 minutes before falling asleep.  She then slept until 5 am, had a short feed, whimpered in her cot for 5 minutes and that was it.  She got up at 7.30 am and instead of waking tired and whingy was happy and smiley.

Last night I repeated the process.  She went to bed at 7 pm.  She was awake for about 10 minutes, but quiet, then whinged and cried for a further 10 minutes before falling asleep.  She went right through till 3 am, had a quick feed and went back to sleep with no complaints at all, finally waking at 7 am.  So almost 12 hours with 1 feed!

Tonight she has again gone down at 7 pm, and was asleep, after a little crying, by 7.10 pm.  Fingers crossed for as good a night as last night!

So thats it, hopefully that is the worst part of Izzy’s sleep problems out of the way and she continues to improve from here.  I feel better for having 2 nights of relatively unbroken sleep and Izzy has been happier.  I know what I need to do if she does wake and Izzy seems to be responding to my new no-nonsense attitude.

All I can say is Thank You, Thank You, Thank You to GS.  You have saved my life!  (Well maybe a slight exaggeration, but you have definitely made a huge difference to it! )