u/samsamcats

Would love to hear your experiences of breastfeeding while taking antidepressants, especially whether it impacted milk supply in any way.

Long story short, I’m having a lot of anxiety about my milk supply and my baby’s weight that I think is verging into pathological territory. I have a history of mental health difficulties so it’s not totally surprising … I was doing quite well until recently, when we found out she’s fallen onto the 9th centile curve and the GP I saw that day implied I should switch to from combo to purely formula feeding at our eight week appointment. I was always hoping to wean off formula supplements but now feel that I can’t, and it’s set off a whole spiral of anxiety and depression that hasn’t let up at 11 weeks.

I really didn’t want to take medication out of concern that it might impact my baby while breastfeeding but I’m so tired of feeling awful. I’m tired of snapping at my husband when he’s trying to help. I just want to enjoy my baby and surely breastfeeding her on antidepressants is still better than not breastfeeding her at all, right?

I don’t know. I’m not sold. I’m still worried about long term negative effects on her, and I dont know if I’ll take them if there’s a risk of my supply dropping since I’m already so worried about that. Might be counter productive.

Just got back from our 8 week check up, where the doctor my baby is gaining weight on the slow side. She was 3.86kg on August 14 and is 4.36 today, which puts her around the 15th centile. We’ve been combo feeding from the start, due to some issues with a shallow latch, but over the weeks I’ve reduced her daily formula intake from 300ml a day to 120-150ml via pumping. My goal was to replace the formula with pumped milk entirely, but that’s not looking likely.

The doctor told us to add more formula… But I’ve done so much work to try to get my supply up after supplementing and I am loathe to mess with that. No one told me that supplementing would impact my supply long term and I was struggling with the pumping so much at the start that I already feel like I’ve shot myself in the foot. I’m worried about diminishing my supply even further and having to stop breastfeeding altogether, as he was gently suggesting I do via anecdotes about his own wife.

The thing is, I weighed her a week and a half ago and her weight gain since then has averaged out to 22g per day, and she produces plenty of wet diapers. She’s a happy baby who rarely fusses or cries, so it’s not like she seems like she’s hungry.

Of course I’ll add the formula since that‘s what best for her, but I don’t want to end up on a slippery slope that ends with stopping our breastfeeding journey early. I don’t think I can fit any more pumping in to make up for another bottle as I barely manage to make up the 120 ml of formula she takes already and I’m sacrificing sleep to do it.

Can I just add more formula without risking the rest? I’m so sad this isn’t working out for us.

This is genuinely such a dumb question but… what kind of bag does one bring to the hospital? Would a carry on size rolling suitcase be weird / inappropriate? I’ll be on a shared ward, I have no idea how much space there will be. The only other option I have without buying something new is a backpack, but I use that on a regular basis so can’t really pack it in advance.

I’m probably massively overthinking this but feeling generally quite overwhelmed by the idea of packing the hospital bag!

I take prenatal yoga with a moderately granola instructor who isn’t exactly against interventions, but she does always emphasise that anything that interrupts oxytocin and introduces adrenaline (like a potentially painful cervical check) can slow down labour, which makes sense to me. She always reminds us (as did the midwife who led my antenatal class) that everything in labour is a choice and you can decline checks if you want to.

I’ve been lucky enough to have an uncomplicated pregnancy and my preference is to go for as few interventions as possible (within reason and priortising my baby‘s safety of course) on the midwife led unit, so I’m thinking about how to give myself the best chance at that. I’m not necessarily planning to decline the checks, but I’m just wondering what this would look like in practice. Do they actually allow you to decline?

Looking for stories from mums who have gone this route, rather than advice on whether or not to decline them!

Just sitting here with my two sweet 13yo kitties who have been my life up until now, crying because I know there’s a good chance I will not like them for a while once the baby comes.

One of my cats has cancer, and though she’s doing well at the moment, it’s been touch and go. I hate the thought that I might have an aversion to her during her last weeks on earth, since it looks like she’s going to be sticking around a while longer. My other cat chose me and has been my lap cat his whole life. I’m the only one he lets carry him around. He’s the one I’m most worried about having an aversion to as he can be quite vocal and needy and he’s prone to acting out when he’s stressed (like walking around looking for things to chew up and ways to make trouble) and he’s going to have so much to adjust to between the baby coming and likely losing his sister soon after.

I’m giving them as much love as I can now, and I know my husband will give them as much love as he can when the baby comes too, but it breaks my heart to think of them being lonely without me. is there any hope that I might not hate them when the baby comes?

Edited to add -- Thank you everyone for this outpouring of reassurance that I am not doomed to hate my cats! This post has so many more comments saying "no I didn't hate my pets" than any of the posts I've seen about pet aversion so far, which gives me a lot of hope! Thank you moms of reddit!

I’m 34+5 weeks and my husband and I just had the absolute worst sex ever. We ended up laughing and calling it quits after I farted on him after a real comedy of errors trying to get things working. We’ve been quite stressed and my indigestion has been terrible so it’s been a while… I have not been one or the lucky ones with a high pregnancy sex drive, alas, and life stuff has meant my husband hasn’t been that into it either. I was really hoping we could rekindle the spark and get some quality time in before the baby comes but NOPE.

We took it extremely slow and I felt like I was ready, but I seem to be quite tender and tense, which makes me worried for birth. I think there might be some swelling going on, which I guess is common? But (perhaps TMI) he could barely get a finger in without it hurting me.

Is this normal? Have I been overdoing it on the kegels? I intend to start perineal massage tomorrow once my massage oil arrives. Any advice, or am I kind of just doomed to bad sex from now until after I’m healed postpartum?

I’m currently 34 weeks pregnant. I was talking to a friend who has a 5yo and a 2yo about how I feel cognitively slower lately — like I’m struggling a bit more with word recall and my thoughts just feel generally more scattered. She insisted that this never goes away, which upset me to hear, as I’m a writer and editor and I kind of need to be able to recall words.

I know my brain is undergoing massive changes to prepare for motherhood, but this feels a lot like other times in my life when I’ve been stressed or tired, so I’ve been assuming that one day when my child is older and I am sleeping better again, this will improve. Now I’m worried it won’t. Is my friend right? Am I genuinely doomed to be coming up short for words and just generally slow forever now? I guess it’s too late to do anything about it, but it’s quite demoralising.

I just saw a post on another sub asking if a hyphenated last name caused problems and the answers were largely yes, don’t do it. But it was a general sub and therefore, I assume, likely to largely skew American.

My husband and I are planning on using both our last names for the baby, probably with a hyphen, but not necessarily—could just use a space. We figured this would prevent issues around me not having the same name as the baby, since I didn’t change mine… and also I made the baby so I feel like she should get my name too! But if it’s going to make her life a nightmare then maybe we should rethink it.

Anyone here with a hyphenated name, or a baby with a hyphenated name?

My sweet 13 yo girl Arya was diagnosed with an aggressive bladder cancer in February. She also ended up having two episodes of acute kidney failure, maybe related to the cancer, likely related to the sedation for the diagnostic procedure. She miraculously survived both episodes and has stayed mostly stable since then. 

On the quality of life scale we’ve been using, she scores between a 24-29 out of 40, depending on the day. Because of the cancer, she urinates a lot more frequently, and sometimes it looks uncomfortable for her. She has intermittent episodes where she has a lot of blood in her urine, which is when it seems uncomfortable, but she hasn’t been passing any blood for a week. Until this week, her appetite has remained totally normal, and she’s enjoyed going outside to explore the garden. She loves being with us and comes to find us to hang out whenever she’s awake. We give her subcutaneous fluids daily which seems to help a lot. 

About a week ago she started throwing up, and threw up once a day for a couple of days in a row. We know this is a sign her kidneys are probably going again, so we were going to schedule a home visit for euthanasia for Friday. I was worried she wouldn’t make it that long because she stopped eating entirely on Monday and half of Tuesday. Then last night her appetite seemed to come back a bit and she’s eaten better today, though not her usual amount. But we’ve been giving her extra fluids and transdermal mirtazapine for nausea and it seems to have helped considerably.

The thing is, she’s so sweet and wants to be around us all the time, so it’s hard to say goodbye when it doesn’t feel like she’s ready to leave us. My husband is especially reluctant, because there may still be some options to treat her current issue (like vitamin b drops for her nausea.) She’s still been up and about and going in the garden and was a bit playful last night. But I’m living in terror of another episode of acute kidney failure or a urinary blockage. It feels like we’re gambling every day but every day the odds grow slimmer. 

To complicate matters further, I’m 31 weeks pregnant, expecting our first baby in mid July, and there is so much to do around the house to get ready, but it’s been hard for both of us to find the energy to do those projects when we’re worrying about our poor sweet baby so much every day. 

Do we keep the appointment for Friday, knowing she might have a few more good weeks left? I’m worried we’ll regret it and feel terribly selfish for doing it sooner than we had to. But I also feel like we need time to grieve her before the baby comes… and so does her poor cat brother, who will be facing so many changes losing his sister and getting a new baby. 

Any words of support or advice are appreciated.  

My sweet 13 yo girl Arya was diagnosed with an aggressive bladder cancer in February. She also ended up having two episodes of acute kidney failure, maybe related to the cancer, likely related to the sedation for the diagnostic procedure. She miraculously survived both episodes and has stayed mostly stable since then. 

On the quality of life scale we’ve been using, she scores between a 24-29 out of 40, depending on the day. Because of the cancer, she urinates a lot more frequently, and sometimes it looks uncomfortable for her. She has intermittent episodes where she has a lot of blood in her urine, which is when it seems uncomfortable, but she hasn’t been passing any blood for a week. Until this week, her appetite has remained totally normal, and she’s enjoyed going outside to explore the garden. She loves being with us and comes to find us to hang out whenever she’s awake. We give her subcutaneous fluids daily which seems to help a lot. 

About a week ago she started throwing up, and threw up once a day for a couple of days in a row. We know this is a sign her kidneys are probably going again, so we were going to schedule a home visit for euthanasia for Friday. I was worried she wouldn’t make it that long because she stopped eating entirely on Monday and half of Tuesday. Then last night her appetite seemed to come back a bit and she’s eaten better today, though not her usual amount. But we’ve been giving her extra fluids and transdermal mirtazapine for nausea and it seems to have helped considerably.

The thing is, she’s so sweet and wants to be around us all the time, so it’s hard to say goodbye when it doesn’t feel like she’s ready to leave us. My husband is especially reluctant, because there may still be some options to treat her current issue (like vitamin b drops for her nausea.) She’s still been up and about and going in the garden and was a bit playful last night. But I’m living in terror of another episode of acute kidney failure or a urinary blockage. It feels like we’re gambling every day but every day the odds grow slimmer. 

To complicate matters further, I’m 31 weeks pregnant, expecting our first baby in mid July, and there is so much to do around the house to get ready, but it’s been hard for both of us to find the energy to do those projects when we’re worrying about our poor sweet baby so much every day. 

Do we keep the appointment for Friday, knowing she might have a few more good weeks left? I’m worried we’ll regret it and feel terribly selfish for doing it sooner than we had to. But I also feel like we need time to grieve her before the baby comes… and so does her poor cat brother, who will be facing so many changes losing his sister and getting a new baby. 

Any words of support or advice are appreciated.