Migraines, Insomnia & Anxiety

                 

              Today, I decided to blog about my journey with essential oils as a mom and how they helped my chronic migraines, insomnia and anxiety. Essential oils are growing in popularity, and with several diluted and chemical additives being included in so many of them, it’s important to know the difference.  Let me take you back to where it all began for me. I have been a migraine sufferer for the majority of my life. It started when I was 12 years old. Beyond the migraines, I have also struggled with insomnia and anxiety, both of which also began at a young age. Some doctors attributed this to a hormone imbalance, and others to stress. All I can tell you is that any and/or all of these issues are awful, and terrible to live with.

                A lot of people describe me as an outgoing, sarcastic, and maybe even a little funny, gal. While I can see this being true, wink, wink, I also think those are all ways I have managed to mask my anxiety. I am definitely an extrovert. I feed off of other people’s energy. I love to be in social situations. Perhaps this is because it gets me out of my own head, it’s a distraction from stress. Before I was a mom, I was always out. Whether it was going to work, yoga, happy hour, friend’s houses, to dinner, to lunch, to breakfast, to brunch (maybe I have a food addiction too), to clubs, to theme parks, on trips, family gatherings, whatever it was, the last place I wanted to be was home, alone.

                Fast forward to pregnancy…I am somehow working from home. As an extrovert, this is terrible for me, but it pays the student loan and health insurance bills so I stuck with it. I figured it would be beneficial once the baby was born…Wrong. Throughout my pregnancy I struggled with sleep issues, and early in my pregnancy, migraines. Being pregnant means being EXTRA careful about what you put into your body, and so, I couldn’t take my prescription migraine medications, which left me with Tylenol. Tylenol? Really? My migraines laugh hysterically at Tylenol. It does nothing for them. So I tried Tylenol with a cup of coffee to get the Excedrin effect without the Aspirin…also, didn’t work. The only thing that managed to give me some slight relief was rubbing IceyHot along my eyelid and forehead accompanied by an ice pack. Hello, IcyHot, ON MY EYELID. I would rather feel the burn of the product than the pain of the migraine. Other than that, I suffered through the intense pain, auras, sensitivity to light and sound, nausea and vomiting. Vomiting on top of my already horrible morning/all day sickness. Sometimes for days. I’m not saying this to make you feel bad for me, lots of women struggle with this, it just sucks when you’re trying to work and you feel debilitated and there’s nothing you can do about it.

                Moving along again, my second trimester of pregnancy, around weeks 16-17, the nausea stopped, and so did the migraines. THANK YOU JESUS! No more migraines for the remainder of my pregnancy. The insomnia on the other hand, continued throughout the pregnancy. I remember lying in bed with big time restless leg syndrome and stressing about the sleep I would undoubtedly lose once the baby arrived. I would get so upset at the reality that I wasn’t sleeping, and I was scared I would lose my mind.

                Finally, baby is born, I won’t rehash that story…see previous blogs for that party. The first night in the hospital I didn’t sleep a wink, even after an exhausting day. Baby slept, not me. The next day the nurses said I had to sleep and offered me a Unisom type medication. I took it out of desperation to sleep, even if only for a few hours. Got home, continued to go hours, sometimes days, with zero sleep. Again, baby was sleeping, mommy, not sleeping. I started to feel the crazy creeping in. I was losing it. There are no words to describe the exhaustion of zero hours of sleep for days in a row. I felt like I was hearing things, forgetting things, I was afraid I might accidentally fall asleep holding the baby. This accompanied by the raging hormones and crying uncontrollably post-delivery left me feeling emotionally crippled. There were times I told my husband to supplement with formula so I could take a Unisom and sleep for 5 hours straight. Thank God for those times and for him being willing to get up and do the nighttime feeds even when he had work the next day.

                Then, wouldn’t you know it, my migraines returned. A mere two weeks post-delivery I got my first migraine. Awesome. Again, I reached for the IcyHot, Tylenol and coffee just to try to dull the pain so I could still breastfeed and not take my prescription meds. Well, this lasted only so long, and so I decided I needed to take the medication so I could be able to care for my baby. Taking the meds meant 12 hours of no breastfeeding which translates to pumping and dumping. This happened often enough to make a cow cry over my spilled breastmilk.

                In a last ditch effort to help my migraines and insomnia, I decided to try acupuncture. I went to an outstanding practitioner, but unfortunately it did nothing for my migraines. It did seem to help with sleep, but the day after a treatment I would always get a migraine, so after several months of treatment, and hundreds of dollars, I stopped. Well, this is when I found the oils…Thank you Rachel, for introducing me to these oils! I received a sample of M-grain. A Young Living essential oil blend made specifically for migraine sufferers not accident related. I started getting a migraine one day and tried the oil. I was skeptical, but guess what? It worked. I started getting another a few days later. Used the oils again, and it worked again. This happened several more times and that was it. I was sold. I contacted her and she told me about the Premium Starter Kit with diffuser. She mentioned I may find it helps with my insomnia and anxiety as well. Knowing how the M-grain worked for me, I was all over this. I made the investment, I bought the kit, and I bought a bottle of M-grain.

                Here I am, a mere seven months later, I am an avid oil user and a true believer in the power of essential oils. I went from taking my prescription medication 5-10 times a month, to needing it only 1-3 times a month. I’m sleeping better at night thanks to a diffuser blend of Lavender, Patchouli, Cedarwood, and Frankincense, along with the occasional Sleep Essence supplement containing a blend of essential oils said to improve sleep along with melatonin. Not only are these oils blowing my mind and helping me with my issues, but they are a lifesaver for my husband, dog and my one year old son. Got the sniffles? There’s an oil for that. Diaper rash? There’s an oil for that. Colds, viruses, bug bites, sun burn, restless baby, stinky diaper pail, stinky dog? Whatever it is, THERE IS AN OIL FOR THAT.

                For months now, I have been ecstatically spreading the word about these oils since I started discovering their many benefits, and I plan to continue. I have replaced just about every OTC medication and toxic cleaning product in my house with essential oils and essential oil products. I even use it as part of my daily skin care routine! My son, who goes to daycare three days a week, has benefited tremendously from the diffusing of essential oils. There has not ever been a time where I have needed to go into his room in the middle of the night to comfort or calm him when he has been sick so long as I put him to bed with the diffuser running. That in and of itself is amazing, and it is no exaggeration for me. Am I saying I will never need to comfort him? No, I am just saying what has happened thus far, and regardless, I believe whole heartedly that the use of essential oils has helped speed his recovery from illnesses much faster than if I had done nothing at all, or just used infant Tylenol.

                If you’re interested in learning more, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I would love to talk to you about Young Living’s essential oils and how they might be able to help you and your family. Keep in mind, not all oils are created equally. There is truly a difference between what you can buy in the store, and what Young Living offers. Young Living offers a full seed to seal guarantee on all of their products. They are 100% pure, therapeutic grade, harvested at the peak of their growth. "Only 2% of essential oils sold in North America are suitable for medicinal purposes, and Young Living makes 98% of them!" www.Distillery9.com

Please send any and all questions to: Lola2680@gmail.com

Baby Number Two ???

             

              To have another baby, or not to have another baby??? Is it just me, or has the first child not even left the womb and everyone already wants to know, “Are you having another one?”. I swear this all starts when we are in high school. You’re a freshman and everyone is like, “Are you going to college?”. You’re like, hello, I’m 14, I can’t decide if I’m too old for fruit loops or too young for a protein shake. Then it’s “when are you going to settle down”, followed by “when are you going to get married”, followed by “when are you going to have a baby”, followed by “when are you going to have more babies”, followed by “what is your blood type, social security number, and yearly salary”…. I admit I am probably guilty of asking one, or all of these questions to someone at some point, and I hate it because it sometimes seems to make people feel bad for the kind of life they might be living in that moment.

                For me, the question of are you having another baby was a question I dreaded because I know deeeeep down that I want another baby, but mentally wrapping my head around it is a whole other story. So….when people ask me it brings on this flood of feelings and thoughts that would likely crush them if I could somehow manifest the thoughts into an object and answer them honestly. I realize it isn’t so much the question, but the intention behind the question that really gets to me. For instance, some people ask if you’re going to college like it’s a bad thing if you say no. The same applies to the “are you having a second baby question”, as if deciding to have only one child is the be all end all most terrible thing you could do.

                Here is the out loud answer for me: Do I want to have a second baby? Yes. Can I have a second baby? I hope so. Are you going to have a second baby? I would like to.

                Aaaannnd here is the reality: Do you want to have a second baby? Yes, BUT…..Can you have a second baby? I hope so, BUT…..Are you going to have a second baby? I would like to, BUT…..and the Buts are the uncomfortable part of the conversation because in the but (if you will) is the lengthy list of concerns, worries, and anxiety that the thought of having a second child brings about in my crazy mind. Would it be great to have a second baby? Of course it would, but this Moming thing ain’t easy and it’s terrifying and gratifying all at the same time to even think about it. Can we afford another baby, will I ever sleep again, can I handle it, can my husband handle it, can the dam dog handle it, is our house big enough, is our car safe enough, what the hell is going to happen to my body this time, is my pregnancy going to suck again, is my delivery going to be a nightmare again, who is going to be the next president, did I eat breakfast today, when did I wash my hair last….and the list goes on, and On and ONNNNNNN…but at the end of the day….drum roll please, Ryan and I have decided to try for another baby….yikes.

                With all my worries, doubts, anxiety, demanding job, bits of insomnia, migraines (shout out to Young Living Essential Oils for saving my life and helping me sleep better and reduce my migraines), blab la blablaaaa, we are going to try to have another baby…I realize that if I can’t make up my mind, then I know for sure I must want another baby because if I was dead against it then it wouldn’t be a topic of conversation, and I would be on birth control STAT. I also realize I get upset with people for asking because of my own internal struggle with it. I am a worry wart and I can’t stand the enormous amount of worry that comes with my answers. Truth be told, I’m probably never going to “be ready” to have another baby, but I know this much, for me and Ryan we want our children to be close in age. There is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with spacing out your children, but I am talking about me right now and what I feel will work best for me and my family, and with that being said, I’m already probably a few months behind…but hey, it’s our schedule after all.

                Again, I will never be ready, I will never have enough money (what’s enough money anyway?), my house will never be big enough, and my car will probably not be safe enough, but here’s what I do know…I will continue to be a kick ass mom. I will make mistakes along the way and I will learn from them. I will love my babies with every bit of myself. I will go through periods of embarrassment when my future children throw horrible tantrums in public. I will sacrifice and do what ever I have to do to make it because that’s just what you do, and that is what finally gave me the courage (yes, courage) to decide to go for baby number two. It’s going to be really hard, I will probably cry on a daily basis, I will probably beg for 5 minutes alone, or 30 more minutes of sleep, but I will get by because I will have even more reasons to continue to do so.

                Flash back to when I was single, making great money, partying, traveling, living above the Hudson River in Weehawken, NJ (gotta plug Jersey), eating out all the time, shopping relentlessly (who needs a retirement fund when there’s shoes to be bought), going to yoga, chatting on the phone, hitting up happy hours, doing what ever the hell I wanted, I didn’t see babies and marriage in my future, marriage, maybe, but babies, no. I was having a great time and loving life, but who am I kidding, just over two years ago I was still dancing on speakers…yikes, it’s true. That life seems soooo far away right now as I’m picking up oversized blocks, washing bottle parts, singing Sophia the First, and Mickey Mouse Club House, and covering up the dark circles under my eyes, and it really is all good. I don’t regret a single thing because it’s all part of what makes me who I am, and I still surprise myself sometimes. I remember telling my grandmother I was getting married, I thought she was going to have a heart attack. My little old Italian Nonna, even with her dementia she remembered believing I would never get married. Forget it when I told her I was pregnant, that announcement landed her in a nursing home, probably a coincidence, but I like to believe it was the shock of me having a child that put her over the edge and some days I want to admit myself as her roommate (her cooking is killer).

Wrapping it up…One day when my kid(s) are grown, I am going to tell them all (or just some) of my crazy stories… like that time I drank champagne with P Diddy, and I’ll feel super cool and they’ll look at me like who’s P Diddy? Then I’ll tell them that for me, the greatest, craziest, most emotional, most rewarding journey of all is parenthood. The memories will be endless, the laughs will be plenty, the tears, trials, tribulations, bumps, bruises, weight gain, weight loss, weight gain again, yelling, timeouts, tantrums, diapers, hugs, kisses, holidays, all of it, will be great, and I’m only in the beginning stages…the best is yet to come…it’s baby making time!

Boob and Bottle on....

    
    

     Breastfeeding. Sigh....Will I? Won't I? Is it going to be great, or is it going to be torture? How do I really feel about it? What's going to happen to my boobs when I'm finished? Am I a hippy mom? Can't I just do formula? These are all questions I asked myself prior to my first son being born. My mother had breastfed all 4 of her kids, and she swore by it's many benefits, including the weight loss and it's potential to lower the risk of breast cancer (which runs heavily on her side of the family). So I decided I would try it and if I hated it I would stop, and if not, I would do my best to make it a full year.
     I remember how the thought of breastfeeding honestly creeped me out. I couldn't really explain why, but there was something about it that was completely unappealing. Truthfully, I was uneducated on the subject. I didn't care either way if a woman breastfed or formula fed, it makes no difference to me, and since I never planned on having babies I just didn't put the effort into thinking about whether or not I would breastfeed. I also didn't mind at all to see other women doing it, I just didn't think I would want to.
     After telling people we were having a baby it was a question that was frequently asked, "well, are you going to breastfeed?" I felt like I was under a microscope and I thought, gosh, I've really got to think about this and make a decision because it seems so important, one way or the other, to so many people. Women who formula fed were big proponents of doing that, women who breastfed were also big proponents of their decision, and the two rarely supported one another.
     I knew regardless of what I decided, I didn't want to be like that. I didn't want to judge another woman for her decision because these days I desperately try to live and let live. While I might have my feelings and opinions, I realize now that things are sooooooo much easier said than done and what works for some doesn't always work for others. I made the decision that I was going to breastfeed and if I hated it, or didn't have success with it, then I would simply switch to formula and call it a day.
     So the time came, I mentioned it in my last blog, and baby Maverick was born and he was ready to chow down. They brought him to me and like a moth to a flame, the kid honed in on the nipple (how could he miss it, the thing appeared to be the size of a helicopter landing pad-another benefit to pregnancy, your areolas get huge and dark-yay), latched no problem, and the process started. I was terrified about the chapped nipple stories I had heard so from the start I was diligent about applying the nipple cream, ALL THE NIPPLE CREAM. After coming home from the hospital and realizing how often babies actually eat, all the nipple cream in the world didn't prevent the soreness, but luckily my sister in law had trusted me with the great responsibility of watching her baby and I had learned all about nipple shields so I was armed and ready. The nipple shields helped A LOT! They soothed the cracks and discomfort, and Maverick seemed to have an easier time eating as well, win, win. I also believe it made his transition to the bottle that much easier too.
     Things were going well, baby was eating, I was producing, and after about a week I decided I should start pumping to build a supply and prepare myself for when it was time to go back to work. I invited another one of my sister in law's over and she literally taught me how to pump. She had just had her second baby 3 months earlier so she pretty much knew what she was doing. She also produced more breast milk than I have ever freaking seen so I thought if anyone could show me how to use this crazy looking breast pump machine, she could, and she did. I used the lowest possible setting, while she jacked hers up to full bore (I thought good God, how can she handle that), but now I know you just build a tolerance and get used to it. I remember feeling stoked that I had pumped just below two ounces, while she was over there pumping 8...from each boob...hello lady! And P.S. there is nothing cute about a breastpump, it makes your boobs look crazy, the entire process is comical.
     I kept up with it and started building my mini moo fridge of frozen breast milk. I thought, I got this, I'll have plenty of milk stored up, hell I could even go out on the town, have a few cocktails, and be fine to pump and dump...well....not so much. You see, I struggle with chronic migraines, an issue I have had since I was twelve, and bonus, they are hormone related, awesome, so you can imagine post baby, and insanely hormonal, my body was like wwhhhaattt....migraine time! I was lucky enough not to have a migraine the last two trimesters of my pregnancy, and a neurologist had once told me that many women who experience migraines pre baby often no longer get them post baby...he was wrong, and I despise him for putting that thought into my head. My migraines came back with a vengeance. I started getting them several times a week, smells triggered them, the lack of sleep triggered them, my crazy hormones were triggering them...I'm surprised breathing didn't trigger them. At first I did my best to avoid my medication since taking the medication meant 12 hours of no breastfeeding and 12 hours of pumping and dumping. When my mother came to visit it worked out for me not to take my medication because she took care of Maverick while I would lie down for as long as it took the migraine to go away (this sometimes wouldn't be until the next day). As a new mom, this was an absolute nightmare. The supply I had so proudly began building was gone in an instant.
     After my mom left, and with daddy back to work, it was just me and baby so when a migraine would come I had no choice but to take my medication so that I could take care of the baby, the house, myself....It broke my heart to take that medication, to pump and dump countless ounces of breast milk down the drain...anyone who has accidentally spilled their breast milk can almost understand what this is like. With my freezer supply just about gone, all the pumping and dumping, I had to start supplementing with formula. For this reason I am so thankful for formula because hello, the baby needs to eat, and if mommy can't give him the milk for 12 hours, and there's no more in the freezer, then this was how it had to be. Thank God my son to this day will pretty much eat anything, so whether it was breast milk or formula he could care less.
     I continued this crazy process for almost the entire first year of my son's life. In an effort to lessen the frequency of my migraines, I began acupuncture treatments. Unfortunately it did nothing for me, and the day after a treatment I would always get a migraine. It wasn't until a friend of mine introduced me to essential oils that I finally found some relief. I ordered Young Living Deep Relief and M-Grain essential oil, along with their premium starter kit complete with diffuser, and it changed my life. I still get migraines, but I started using the oils in place of the medication and my migraines were going away! No more pumping and dumping for 12 hours! All I had to do was use a combination of essential oils at the start of my migraine and I could safely breastfeed no problem! It was THRILLING! I was able to build up my freezer supply again and all was right with my world!
     So now here I am, at the end of my breastfeeding road. I stuck it out for the full year, through the trials and tribulations, I supplemented when necessary, I breastfed on an airplane (a highlight of travel), and I met my goal. I am so fortunate to have a healthy one year old, and good health doesn't have to come from breast milk, it comes from good mothering and LOVE. The girl who was kind of skeeved by breastfeeding, the girl who didn't think she would be into it, or do it, fell in love with it.
     I breastfed my baby for the last time on the morning of March 14, 2016, and in usual mommy Lauren fashion, I cried. I cried because I was going to miss it, tremendously miss it. I miss it now as I am sitting here with cabbage leaves and peppermint oil on my totally engorged boobies that will lose this amazing perkiness by the end of the weekend. I recalled that morning, about how tiny he was when he was born, and I laughed to think of how my boob was bigger than his newborn head, and then I looked down at his toddler body, long and stretched across my lap, and I cried some more, littered him with kisses, and got him dressed and ready for daycare.
     I was lucky to be able to breastfeed my son, and I realize that. Many women have a truly difficult time with breastfeeding because let's face it, we are not all created the same and breastfeeding can bring about several issues, or even be impossible for some women, and IT IS HARD ladies, it is a full time job to the full time job's full time job. You are no better or worse of a mom no matter what you chose to do, or what your body, lifestyle, and time will allow, and this is simply my story, and what worked for me. Now go and boob and bottle on....

https://similac.com/end-mommy-wars#video