[bellydancemommy]

First of all I am sorry if this is not where to post this.....please move it to wherever is correct if needed. I'll try to keep this as short as possible.
I am a bfing mom to a 1 year old this is my 2nd child and I LOVE bfing. My first daughter weaned herself at a little over a year and I had hopes that my 2nd would go much longer than that. I wanted to go till at least 2 and then who knows.
My problem is this. I have decided to become a surrogate for my sister in law and her husband. I offered this to them before Christmas. I will be only a carrier as we will use her egg and his sperm. She is just unable to carry. We had our first appointment with the counselor this week to begin this process. The counselor mentioned to me that I won't be able to continue bfing my daughter when we start the process because I will be receiving large amounts of estrogen to prepare my uterus. This BROKE my heart.....neither I nor my daughter are ready to give this up. However I feel horrible offering something like this and then saying well, lets wait a year or so. They are so happy that they will have a baby and obviously want to start asap. I did say that I would like to continue to bf until 1 1/2 years before we start...so that will put us at June.
I know you all are the bf guru's.

Is there ANY way around this? Like I said she is a year so this isn't her main source of nutrition....she mostly nurses for comfort now but, we both love it so much. I love the bond it gives us and I love how comforted she is by it. Will the estrogen travel through to her will it be bad for her? The counselor talked to the nurses and they said something about it stimulating my uterus too much while the embryo is trying to attach. I appreciate any response or experience any of you may have. Thank you so much! Robyn

 

[Emmery'sMom]

Typically it isn't just estrogen they give- more than likely you will be given one or more hormones to put you into a medically induced menopause for upwards of a month, then start on large doses of additional hormones to build up your uterine lining to prepare it for implantation. If the embryo transfer is successful then you will be on even larger doses of more hormones to help maintain the pregnancy until the placenta takes over (or typically the end of the first trimester). None of those hormones I would think would be BFing safe- that is if your supply even survived the process without drying up.
The other side of it- about suckling causing uterine contractions- technically can happen, but is usually not going to be the cause of an embryo not implanting. Because so much time, effort, money, and emotions are invested in each "try" though, they are going to err on the extreme side of caution and limit everything they think could jeopardize the outcome.
Good luck in your decision

 

[bellydancemommy]

Thank you so much Emerysmom! Although its not exactly the answer I wanted to hear.

I understand though.
We haven't been to the doctors appt yet so far we have only seen the counselor and our doctors appt will be on the 22nd. So I will be asking them there as well. The counselor explained that I will be put on bc pills and that my sister in law will be the one with the more difficult end of the process with the shots and the medically induced menopause. She's been doing this for 30 years but, I know she might not know all of the medical part of it. IF what she says is true and I'm only going to be on bc pills I wonder if bfing will be safe?
I'm grasping at straws here.....

I did tell my sister in law that I would like to continue nursing till 1 1/2 years before we start this process....so that will give us until June. I guess everything will work out the way it should. Thanks again for the info! Robyn

 

[OTMomma]

Lots of moms do safely nurse on bc pills, that shouldn't be an issue to your dd.

I got pregnant with my 3rd when my ds was 18 months- it was a natural pregnancy, but it was not negatively affected by nursing, despite the fact I had a history of fertitlity issues. However, after a few weeks, nursing while pregnant became more and more uncomfortable and then painful- I cut back ds's nursing time to only a very little, but we did keep going. I'm now tandem nursing.

I think nursing during any kind of fertiltiy treatment reduces the likelyhood of success- probably not by much, but by some. You should ask the dr many many questions on this topic, but prepare yourself for the idea that everyone invovled, including your SIL may prefer that you wean before going forward with surrogacy.

You might be able to choose to not nurse your dd while waiting for implantation and then resume nursing if she still wants to, if that is acceptable to you. I once weaned my oldest for a week, then went back to nursing. However, if you think you would want to do that, you should talk to your SIL about that- that may prompt her to suggest that you nurse a while longer and wean your dd on your time table before being their surrogate. I doubt any doctor will tell you its OK to nurse while pregnant, its just so "not done" in this culture- but after implantation, it really shouldn't pose a risk to the pregnancy.

I hope that helps some.

 

[bellydancemommy]

yes that helps very much. Thank you so much!!! I'm going to ask LOTS of questions at the drs office.

I really appreciate your input! Thanks again! Robyn