Getting Real with Kira Hazledine
It was one of the first questions at my initial OB appointment. “Were you relying on breastfeeding as birth control?” Oh my goodness. Absolutely not. We would not be rolling the dice like that uninformed. Not that we weren’t rolling the dice (that’s how we got our firstborn), but we were at least informed.
I remember how easy our daughter was as an infant. She really didn’t cause us any problems, and we were so in love with our new baby girl. People would ask if we were tired and we would shrug as if to say “not really.” Of course, there were moments of exhaustion, but overall we were happy and delusional. I say delusional, because we actually thought it would be easy to have another. Gosh, aren’t babies great! Babies close in age would be super cute, right? Let’s all laugh together.
Thank goodness the fertility goddess was watching over my silly self and refused to bless me with a period until Hallie was 14 months old. Yes, I know you can cycle without the period, but nothing was moving forward on this baby train. It wasn’t until I had had an irregular period for about 6 months that we conceived. And I am so grateful for the delay.
Why? My cute little bundle of infant joy turned into a walking, talking gremlin toddler. Not that Hallie isn’t a wonderful child, but she is a handful. Thinking about also having an infant on my hip makes me want to cry.
So while we were aware that breastfeeding is not reliable birth control, we tossed caution to the wind anyway, because we were foolish new parents. I don’t plan on proceeding with the same lack of caution after this second one is born, because I would be the mom to conceive 2 months later. Like, just kidding! You thought you weren’t going to cycle, but you were wrong. Good luck with 3 under 3! Yeah, no. Not the life I want to live.
So let this be a warning, about both breastfeeding and happy babies. Breastfeeding is NOT a reliable form of birth control. Especially because I am STILL breastfeeding and managed to get pregnant. There are women who exclusively breastfeed and conceive within weeks of having a child. Don’t roll the dice if you aren’t truly prepared for another little gift. Also. Well-behaved infants are tricks. It’s a ploy to get you to have more. Don’t be deceived, and don’t make eye contact. Unless you really are all about having baby after baby. Then go you. You’re a superhero.
We are so excited to be having our next one, and the timing is pretty perfect in our opinion. Hallie will be about 2.5 when the next is born, and I think that will be nice. So when the doctor asked if we were using breastfeeding as birth control… meh. Were we leaning on it a tad? Sure. But was I foolish enough to think breastfeeding would save me? Nah. I did my research. I was just almost tricked by a happy infant. We got lucky.
