... And just like that, we're at four months old!

My beautiful baby is changing every day - it's so lovely to watch. Watching her smile is just the best; it lights up her whole face, right up to her eyes. She's delightful.

I mean, LOOK AT THAT FACE. I am totally smitten.

This month has been full of smiles, screeches, and long car rides. She still hates the car, but tolerates it better in the convertible rear facing seat as opposed to the infant capsule. We also had to swap her pram from the flat-bassinet to the regular seat, so she's enjoying that a little more now too.

The most challenging thing about Claire is her sleep - it's not great. She's happy as can be, but she's up a lot. The longest stretch we've had is about 4 hours. I'm getting used to operating in zombie mode, but man, I miss my sleep like nothing else. It makes it a lot harder to parent Georgia calmly, that's for sure.

That said, she's still little. The late night snuggles and feeds won't last forever, so we're just going with the flow.

These last four months have gone so fast, I feel like I'm going to blink and I'll miss it. Love this little squish. :)

Annnnnnnnd, in my sleep deprived haze, I have only just noticed that I forgot to update Claire's three month stats - and I'm almost ready to take her FOUR month stats this week. Whoops! #zombiemum

I still vividly remember our last transfer day. It was hot, and I was nervous. Nervous that the embryo might not have thawed well, nervous about another miscarriage, nervous about starting yet another year off with the potential for disappointment.

I remember how many times the doctor had to attempt the speculum placement. I remember them commenting that the embryo looked lovely. I remember keeping my legs tightly closed the whole drive home; something I've done after every transfer, even though I know it makes not a shred of difference to the outcome.

For anyone who's ever done IVF or who has never fallen pregnant of their own accord, that window after a transfer is magical. It's full of possibility - for a while, even just for a few short days, you're closer to being pregnant than you've ever been before. That shot that most couples get once a month, it's finally yours, after what feels like constant waiting. Those days have a lot riding on them, since it may be several more months before you get that chance again, if you're lucky.

You wait, you pray, you scream at the universe, and you pee on a million sticks. Most times it doesn't work.

But sometimes.. just sometimes, it does.

One year ago today, we 'met' our Claire for the first time. And now, she's here. I can't think of anything more amazing.

Claire is 3.5 months old now, and has left newborn-hood behind while growing bigger every single day.

I sense she's going to be an emotional little poppet as she grows up - because she's either delightfully happy, or she's frightfully sad/angry. Life in the extremes; it's a real thing. When she was younger, I felt she would have quite a zen personality, she seemed so happy to go with the flow of things. Now that she's showing more of her personality, I am eating my words. She knows what she likes.. and what she doesn't like.

Unfortunately for me, those things involve sleeping, cars, being out of your arms... meaning I've not been getting much done around these parts, and that leaving the house is quite the challenge. That said - baby cuddles. Is there anything sweeter?

Now that we're a few months in, there are a few things I wish I'd purchased earlier to help with baby #2. It's probably too late to get them now, as they'd only be helpful for a short time anyway, but if we were ever to get to go through this again {wishful thinking?} OR if they should happen to fall from the sky into our laps, I think they'd come in very handy.

#1: A new breast pump

I kept my Medela Swing Maxi (double electric pump) from when Georgia was born - hoping I wouldn't have to use it with this baby. But, surprise! When Claire was having all of the issues early on, and when my boobs were so shredded from 8 weeks of tongue tie feeding, the pump soon became my best friend. Unfortunately for me, at almost four years old, it's pretty lack luster now. The suction is really poor, I've done all the troubleshooting to help it, and it's just not working. There are so many new, hospital grade pumps on the market now, I wish I'd just turfed the old one & purchased a new one.

#2: A padded swing

We borrowed a swing from my brother, but Claire is NOT a fan. Thing is, it's not the proper, cushioned, newborn-type swing, it's more of just a standard recliner seat that rocks. She was never comfortable in there & slid around a lot, so there was none of that blissful newborn swing napping that I've heard about from nearly every other baby in existence. I think if it had better padding & neck support, or potentially even the option to rock from side-to-side, she would have liked it better.

#3: A White Noise Machine

We currently use an old iPod docking station that has white noise options available as backgrounds, but we really need something that's portable and can go from room to room. We've only recently moved it out of Georgia's room and into ours - not that it's helped much with Claire's terrible sleep so far. There may still be time to invest in a good one... if I can convince hubby that it's worth trying.

Hindsight, eh? In the meantime... here is the reason I've been so busy and left my blog a little abandoned lately. This ray of sunshine // ball of emotions, she makes me smile every day. And throw in her bossy and fiesty and gorgeous big sister, and I am so happy... and so tired... and so lucky.

Happy New Year! I'm only a week late. :)

Reading last year's review post makes me sad - the place I was in was such a sad and frustrated one, and it was so, so lonely. If you'd told me that in a year's time, things would have been so much better, I wouldn't have believed you - how could it? But I was proved wrong. 2016 brought us hope.

I'm following the same format as years gone by - (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015)

1. What did you do in 2016 that you’d never done before? Became a mama of two.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Surprisingly, yes! I vowed to get pregnant - and we did! :) 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? I did! And it was wonderful. 

4. Did anyone close to you die? Not this year.

It's almost Christmas time! As I sit here and look at my slightly neglected blog - sorry, blame the baby! - the tree is flickering in the background and the decorations are up.. I keep thinking about what a year it's been.

This time last year, I was in a bad place. I was excited for the season, because I adore experiencing it through Georgia's eyes, but I was completely ready for the year to be over. I had just had my third miscarriage, and we were no closer to expanding our family. I spent December exploring other options for us, and my hopes were very low.

Little did I know that just the following month, we would see another positive pregnancy test, one that would stay, and grow, and develop into the tiny human who is snoring in her bouncer at my feet.

This Christmas, our family grew by two feet. This beautiful girl, she's the miracle I dreamed for last year - a sidekick for Georgia, a partner in crime. Claire is a gift, that's for sure. I'm so excited to be here.

Some days I think I'm doing okay with the whole 'keeping two small children alive' thing - and some days, I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water.

The big kid is a 50/50 mixture of sweetness and attitude, serious attitude. When she's good, she's very very good, but when she's bad... oy. Brace yourself. She can be hard work - and requires a lot of patience.

What a doozy of a month this was!

Claire didn't put on a great deal of weight in the first half of this month, likely due to her tongue tie issues. It's been just over a week and she's feeding a lot better - so hopefully she'll just keep on gaining at a  healthy pace from here on in.

My little baby is not a newborn anymore - she's smiling, responding to you when you talk, watching Georgia like a hawk. It's lovely seeing her interact with her environment, her bouncer toys, and even the cats!

That said, those glorious sleepy newborn days are also gone, meaning she's awake a lot more and wants to be snuggled ALL THE TIME. Which is totally fine by me (babyyyyyyyyyyhugs) but means that poor hubby comes home to an empty dinner table more than I'd like to admit. Cereal for tea, anyone?

Claire has glorious munchable thighs, just like her sister had. In some respects, she's so much like her - in others, she's completely different. If I had a dollar for every time someone compared the two girls and exclaim that 'they look nothing alike!' I think I'd be a millionaire... and she's only 8 weeks old.

Yep, she's certainly different - she's her own little person, after all. And I LOVE it!

Turns out, I was right. In short: Claire had a pretty obvious tongue tie, which was 70% restricted & affecting her feeding.

I'm going to talk about boobs for a bit, so if that's not your thing, feel free to skedaddle for a bit. :)

So - breastfeeding.

A bit of backstory: When Georgia was born, she ended up in special care from that first day. We never had skin to skin time at the beginning, and when we were finally allowed to attempt breastfeeding, she never mastered how to latch on to the nipple. It took her a long time to develop her suck reflex, and we were never able to feed without a nipple shield. Due to this combination, our journey was always going to be a rocky one. We battled on though; expressing for top ups after each feed, 3-hourly feeds for what felt like months, using messy shields - and we happily made it to that magical 12 month mark.

Needless to say, I was wary of how feeding would go with Claire. It was different this time; we had a good hour of cuddles post-birth, she latched straight on to my boob immediately, and even though there were a few days in special care with formula bottles, she still managed to breastfeed too - and my milk came in just before we were both discharged from hospital.

It's been anything but easy, though. So far, we've gone through extended engorgement, crappy latching (adjusted thanks to lots of help), on/off feeds, forceful letdowns, oral thrush, and breast pain in the form of nipple vasospasms - agony!

It's been a bit of a vicious cycle:

Wear breast pads all the time, so you don't leak all over the place with every letdown.
Don't wear breast pads, or change them frequently, because they can hold in moisture & exacerbate thrush.
Let your nipples dry naturally after breastfeeding to help the thrush disappear.
But then don't do that, because dry cool air will cause you to have painful vasospasms.
Use lanolin cream as soon as you're done feeding, to keep nipples from drying out.
But then we're back to wearing breast pads, in fear of ruining all of your clothing.

Good lord, this is ridiculous! Boobs, man. What's a girl to do?

Anyway - we've done our thrush treatment and both of us seem fine now. We're back into the 'keep boosies warm at all times' stage, meaning as soon as I'm done with a feed, I whack on the lanolin ointment, and make sure I have breast warming pads in my bra to keep things at a warm temperature. I've also been prescribed nifedipine to see if that helps combat the circulation issues that are causing the vasospasms

Her feeding has definitely improved since those early weeks. When Claire was two weeks old, it was bad - really bad. There were multiple nights where I was up in the wee hours, sitting in the rocking chair and sobbing my heart out, because she was hurting me, my breasts were throbbing, and couldn't we just do formula? My poor husband felt so helpless. Lack of sleep makes everything seem so, so hard. I got a lot of help after that point, and we kept moving forward - making sure she is only feeding with a deeper latch, taking her off if it's even slightly uncomfortable, and feeding off the least sensitive breast first.

It's a lot better now.

The only lingering issue I have is the vasospasms - but I'm trying to combat that with everything I've got. It is uncomfortable, but it's manageable.

I'm meeting with Claire's pediatrician next week & we're going to re-examine her for tongue tie, to see if that's been the cause of some of the issues - but we got the all clear at birth and at our 2-week check, so I don't expect much to come of it. The research seems to be varied; some practitioners don't believe it to be an issue, others don't bother with them unless they're very severe. We'll see what he says.

Whatever happens, I'm grateful to so far have a decent supply that is feeding Claire nicely, and I'm happy she's not stuck using a shield constantly. I've also been expressing (just once a day, after her morning feed) so I have a little bit frozen in case I need a break. We're six weeks in & still going, and that's something. Now to see how the journey goes from here on in!

Did you struggle with breastfeeding? Any hints, or tips, or suggestions for this mama? :)