Kicking a Habit

I never thought of myself as someone that was addicted to a drug, and will admit that I couldn't understand women that would continue to smoke during their pregnancies (and still don't, actually) but when faced with cutting out caffeine I'm having a really hard time.

When I found out that I was pregnant in August I immediately quit drinking coffee cold turkey. The first day was hard, lack of concentration and pounding headache by the end of the work day. The weekend was my second & third days which made them bearable as I rarely drink coffee on those days because I have the opportunity to sleep in and take naps if necessary. I'm also not staring at a computer screen for 8+ hours. When Monday rolled around I was back to the lack of concentration and pounding headaches, and since Advil - my usual headache & pain remedy, was out of the question, I was running around looking for Tylenol.

For some reason the idea of replacing caffeine with Tylenol didn't sit well with me and then I started reading that its actually OK to consume 200mg or less of caffeine a day (which is just under 16oz of coffee) so I justified my morning coffee and went back to drinking it. Technically I also would have chocolate and other products with caffeine some days, on top of the morning coffee, but chose to ignore that.

When I miscarried I couldn't help but think "OMG if I had only stopped drinking coffee...". Now rationally I realize any number of things could have caused me to miscarry and the fact that I was moderating my coffee intake it probably WASN'T the cause but I really don't want to run that risk again.

I had NO PROBLEM stopping my one glass a night of wine, or starting to take a daily prenatal vitamin when I'm TERRIBLE with remembering to take vitamins, all in the name of a healthy pregnancy and baby. So why can't I let this coffee thing go? You would think that I would take this opportunity to stop before I get pregnant again so that I can deal with the withdrawal symptoms before they are compounded with the exhaustion of pregnancy, but I'm sipping on a Venti Pike from Starbucks as I type this.

Hello my name is Carmen and I'm a coffee addict...

Any tips on quiting?!?!

(I realize this is pretty much a private blog with a readership of 4 at the most so I guess this is more of a rhetorical question at this point...)