Barr family in the news and updates

Rob has been published!! :) He got a snippit published in the Library Journal this week and you lucky ducks can read it here: Believe What You See. So proud of him! It's only the beginning!

And two articles that aren't necessarily about us in particular, but affect us, were published recently in a local paper. They are both about Hillcrest - the organization we work for and live at - and the new housing Hillcrest is opening in Lee's Summit, MO. We are hoping for a position at the new location when it is up and running. It has TWO BEDROOMS and it's a tad closer to Rob's workplace. Read them here and here.

And now to tie up a few loose ends. I read back through some posts and realized that I mentioned some things and never followed up on them.

First, Aidan weighed in at 20lbs 15.6oz today!! So basically 21lbs already! whew!

Second, I mentioned auditioning for the Kansas City Symphony Chorus a while ago and never did let you know that I bombed it. haha. I didn't get in - I sank during the sight-reading portion, oh well. I *did* get 2 free symphony tickets out of the deal though - at least they are nice about telling you you suck. :)

And now for TMI (too much information) - skip over if you'd like. :)

In this post I briefly mentioned my tipped uterus. A few days later while checking my cervix (yes, weird, I know) I was shocked to find that it had fallen into my vaginal canal and was flush with the opening. I knew the word prolapse, but not much else, and the only person I know personally who has had it and told me about it ended up having a hysterectomy and now (at age 50) has ongoing problems with her bowels and bladder. I had a mini heart attack and I was scared enough that I almost called my doctor even *before* checking the internet. That's very uncharacteristic. When I started breathing again, I *did* get online and thankfully the first thing I found about prolapse was a support group for women who have decided to deal with the condition without surgery. After being reassured that I might get to keep my uterus (and have more babies), I was able to start actually researching the matter and found that my (self-diagnosed of course) condition was not in the least severe and I probably would never have known I had it if not for my routine checks. A lot of women (poor ladies) who have prolapse have a lot of pain associated with it. I read that it would most likely even correct itself.

I'm writing all of this out now even though I didn't write it as it was happening because there are a handful of you that I did share my concern with and I wanted to let you know that it has indeed corrected itself. It took almost 5 months, but I am just about back to normal. It makes me wonder if my cycle will return soon since an increase in hormone seems to affect prolapse positively.

And that's the next bit of TMI - no cycle yet! I mentioned ecological breastfeeding (also referred to as, but slightly different than Exclusive Breastfeeding, or the Lactational Amenorrhea Method) in the post linked above and talked about the tie to delayed ovulation briefly here, but I honestly hesitated to say too much before I got to this point so that I didn't have to eat my words later if I ended up pregnant with an Irish twin or something. :) Granted, we would have been thrilled to welcome a new baby even if we did happen to get pregnant soon after having Aidan, but we are happy to wait a bit, too. So anyway, as I mentioned, EBF is 98% effective in preventing pregnancy given that:

1. Baby is less than 6 months old
2. Menstrual periods have not yet returned
3. Baby is breastfeeding on cue (both day & night), and gets nothing but breastmilk or only token amounts of other foods.

There are other things than can increase effectiveness, too, like keeping baby close, using breastfeeding to comfort your baby, breastfeeding in a lying-down position for naps and at night, and using no bottles or pacifiers. (Info taken from Kelly Mom)

We are happy to report that EBF worked for us! We are also happy to report that we aren't doing anything at this stage to prevent pregnancy when my cycle does return, so there's a head's up (Tristin). ;)

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