Graduating Soon?

No, not yet, but I've been seriously thinking about this lately. As more and more Mommies graduated from the nursing room, I find myself contemplating to complete my course earlier than planned. Why? Because the nursing room is no longer as lively as it used to be, well, maybe because the time I go there is normally off-peak time where hardly anyone's around. And as my pumping partner just graduated as well, I find it rather bored to pump in silence.

But that's just one of the excuses. You see, I'm having a weird allergy where those rashes would only appear at night. It used to be every single night, after a certain hour. I felt like Princess Fiona in Shrek (she's a human by day, but ogress at sunset). Yeah, a lucky thing that those rashes only come out at night, so I just pop a Piriton and it'll disappear by daylight. But, that makes it harder for the doctor to diagnose it, because I couldn't show them those rashes - it's not there when I went to see the doctors. I had this even when I was travelling, so it's nothing to do with something at home. And my, it's a real bother. Without a piriton, I wouldn't be able to sleep at all. I'll be scratching whole night. All they said is it's an allergy, and I'm supposed to find out what trigger it. One even recommended me to go full swing on vegetarian food and slowly introduce a new item one by one until I find out what's the trigger for this reaction. So, how could I continue to breastfeed with this diet, and ensure that my supply would not lack of any nutritions? Also, I doubt I could stand the hunger, since I can't really feel full without meat. Hence, that's why I'm considering of an early graduation....

Also, although all the doctors that I went to assured me that these rashes won't pass on to my baby thru breastmilk, I was a bit worried. Coz I saw her started scratching at times too, as if something's bothering her. So, if the rashes won't pass to her, what about the medicine that I'm taking? Well, maybe a little bit, some said. But it's harmless. She would get used to it, maybe immuned and wouldn't get sleepy. Gosh, is that ok? I'm worried.

I also later found out that breastfeeding could cause our body to be weak, hence there's a possibility that our immune system deteriorates. You see, even if we have malnutrition, the best of our nutrients will still go to our milk. So that leaves the mother drained in a way. That's why it's so important to make sure we're taking nutritous food while breastfeeding.

Ah, but although the body is weak, the mind just couldn't let go.... yet! I find it rather hard to give up now, especially when my baby relies on full direct feeding when I'm at home. Furthermore, I haven't found a formula that she'll want to take happily yet, and I enjoy the convenience of breastfeeding at night and also while travelling. I've stopped my early morning pumping now when I discovered that her intake is so little, so I have more time in the morning to do other things (except reading, sigh sigh...). Could you imagine that she's still taking 3.5 to 4oz per feeding at 14months? So, since my body's weak, I wouldn't force it to produce more than the demand. No point stocking up, I ran out of bottles to store too.

Now that I'm taking Zyrtec, I managed to make the rashes come out only once every 2 days. But sometimes the reaction has developed up to the stage where instead of just rashes, I got swell on my lips and eyes too! Maybe I'll go see the specialist recommended by a friend soon, and do a skin test to find out what I'm allergic to. It seems that it's possible that I was not allergic to something, lets say prawn when I'm young, but after a certain age, these things slowly build up until my body just couldn't take it anymore after all these years! Isn't that scary? And I'm also sad to learn that this is genetic, meaning that the allergies could pass to my kids, not thru my milk, or contact, but rather thru my genes. They might have allergies too, but the trigger would be different from mine. You see, my mom's allergic to sun heat! When she's exposed to the sun (only recently, not when she's young), she'll get rashes on her body. Which make it hard for her to go out nowdays, with the heat and all. No cure, just prevention. Sigh...

So tell me, are these good enough reasons for me to plan on my graduation soon?