Erin Go Bragh! In celebration of St. Pat’s day, I decided the wearing o’ the green meant cabbage leaves in my “bragh.” Not really.

I believe I mentioned that as my daughter turned one last month we had begun weaning. As she’s a bad eater (yes, still looking for any and all ideas on how to get her to eat more solids), I was pretty slow in the weaning process – waiting nearly a week between cutting feedings / replacing with foods. But about two weeks ago I finally finished. Well… she finally finished. My body was not so aware of that and thought it’d just go right on producing.

I talked to some friends about this before I weaned and most said that if I just did it slowly (they suggested about 3 days between cutting feedings), I should have no issue with engorgement. I wish they’d told that to my left boob. Sorry – is this TMI? You might want to stop reading now. Last week I noticed a big solid lump there – not the whole boob of granite as I’d noticed with engorgement before, but just sort of a ball of it in the center – that hurt like anything when the munchkin would bump into it (which she did often – how does she know?!). I decided to call my doctor. After I got past the receptionist’s attempt to web MD my problem (have you tried a warm compress? Um, could I speak to someone with a medical degree of some sort about this? I just want to make sure this is normal.), the doctor told me that this sometimes happens. I can try ibuprofen and a warm compress (ok, receptionist, you win this round!) and I should come in if it doesn’t go away in a month. I’m sorry – let me repeat – A MONTH. Argh!

The warm compress wasn’t doing much, as I soon discovered I didn’t really seem to have a blockage per se (there’s not delicate way to put this so let’s just be blunt – when I tried to massage out the “blockage” in the shower, I sprayed all over.) – just more engorgement. So I decided to go back to the old wives tales my friends had told me to use in case I experienced engorgement when my milk first came in (I didn’t. I felt like I was waiting for enough milk FOREVER). Note – now that I think of it, some of those ideas include icing the swollen area – exactly the opposite of what you do for a blockage, but I digress. Anyway, the main one had been cabbage leaves in the bra. Even her pediatrician had suggested this for weaning. And heck, as it was almost St. Patrick’s Day, what good timing… (I wish there were a sarcasm font.)

The first night, I put them in for a couple of hours. The small amount of remaining milk on the right side seemed to respond (that hadn’t really been a problem anyway), but not so much the other. So now… well, I’d have to say I was uneven. Just call me leftie. Southpaw? On second thought – DON’T! Great. I’m pretty sure this was only obvious to me and not something other people were really noting (as we’ve gone pretty far down the TMI path already, I’ll just go ahead and note that my chest is usually pretty un-noteworthy so no one is staring anyway). Regardless if that is true – I’m going to tell myself that.

So the next night, I tried going to bed with cabbage in the left cup. As a side note, my friends who’d suggested doing this when my milk came in had been very clear that I should NOT leave the cabbage in for very long – I think their suggestions were along the lines of half an hour – as it was very effective and could dry up supply too much. So I’d thought the couple hours the first night should be more than enough. Sleeping with it I thought might dry up supplyso much it'd make breastfeeding impossible if I ever decided to have a second child! But, um, no… At least not right away.

A day later it did seem like maybe things were on the mend. And now that St. Pat’s day is actually here, well it’s possible that I won’t even need to get “festive” and wear any green in my bra all day! Wouldn’t my ancestors be so proud…?

Did anyone else have trouble weaning due to engorgement? What did you do? How long did it take to fix? What’s the weirdest suggestion you heard – actually, let’s not limit to engorgement on that and go with any nursing suggestions?! And, as always, please send along any ideas for getting the baby to eat solids and/or recipes for making baby food. Thanks!

Mold!

So here’s a gross one… awhile ago I noticed a few little black spots on the tubing for my breast pump. I didn’t think much about it – figured they got dirty somewhere and left it at that. My husband happened to notice them last week, though, and said – um, that’s mold. How disgusting! He was insistent that we should cut them at the moldy part and get rid of it (when multiple cleaning attempts failed), but I didn’t want to do that for fear they might not fit right after that and the pump wouldn’t work – because then what would I do!?

So I went to Babies R Us the next day – and nothing. They don’t sell them. You have to go to the Medela website. I went to the website and was about to order the ($20!) new tubing when I noticed a mention of the 1 to 2 year warranty on the parts. Well, I haven’t had this a year… So I decided to send a note asking how to clean them and, if they couldn’t be cleaned, if they were under warranty. They responded right away that they would send new tubes free of charge! Woo hoo! Who’d have thunk it? So glad I asked…

THAT woman

I can’t believe I just became that woman. That woman who says things judgmentally to other moms or questions their decisions. I can’t believe I did. The boob police must be getting to me – their brainwashing is working.

I was having lunch with a friend of mine today whose daughter is 9 ½ months old. She told me she was trying to stop breastfeeding, but ‘couldn’t’ so she guessed she’d continue. And I asked “why?” And not just that inquisitive – oh, why is that? But that truly perplexed look of – why would you do that now? I didn’t mean to! It came out before I even thought about it. Really what I meant was ‘why now particularly?’ Like why at 9 months? I know lots of people go for 6 months (because then they start food) or a year (because then they don’t require the vitamins anymore) or two or three years (because they are crazy. Oh God… I did it again.). I just wondered why at 9 months. I also wondered what she meant that she couldn’t stop…

Her first answer was – well, she’s almost 10 months old! So I knew she’d taken my question as I’d asked it rather than how I’d really meant it. She went on to explain that after pumping for 9 months (her daughter won’t take it “on tap”), she was really tired of it and just wanted to stop. But apparently her body didn’t want to stop, so she had to keep pumping to relieve the pressure.

I’ll work on my table manners for next time.

Do you want fries with that?

My husband has taken to referring to the baby monitor as the drive through window. I’m not sure if this is because of the scratchy quality of sound, the unintelligible noises she makes (sounds about equivalent to when my order is repeated back) or because her take out order is so quickly fulfilled (and at 3am my customer service level about matches your average minimum wage fast food employee). It reminded me of a story my friend told about his Mom watching his cousin. She had their “drive through” on and heard the little boy asking for water after he went to bed – so she brought him some water. Apparently he thought this was just great and started placing his next order! “… ice cream sandwich.” Sadly I guess the level of service dropped there and no ice cream sandwich appeared – though wouldn’t it be great to have that sort of magic monitor in your house?! How nice would that have made pregnancy? I’d like a glass of water, the pickle flavored potato chips and someone to help me out of bed to make it to the bathroom.

Thankfully the drive through is getting less use as she gets older, though we are not QUITE done with it. I mentioned this to a friend of mine with three kids who “yelled” (via IM) back – what are you doing getting up? Ferber method! Oh goodness, parenting methods… If you lined up 5 doctors, you’d get at least 6 different theories on parenting, but it does amaze me how truculently some people abide by them – and expect you to as well. We’ve been pretty lucky that our munchkin generally sleeps pretty well, but as I’ve mentioned here, she does regress on occasion and start waking up again. Because it’s not her norm, I generally do get up to check on her / feed her (until the pattern repeats enough times that it’s becoming her norm and then I try to hold out). As she’s currently teething, I’ve been a bit more of a sucker for the cries (unfortunate that this coincides with about the age that “they” say she can begin to be spoiled – and start playing me!). The problem with going to check on her, though, is that you can’t just “look in” and make sure she’s alright and then leave without feeding her. As soon as she sees you – it’s all over. If I don’t feed her, the cries will become tormented. Between the sobs you can almost hear – “I saw you come in, so I know you can hear me. I need you. And yet you ignored me. I used to think you loved me, but now I don’t and will therefore grow up to be a sociopath.” I mean, it’s definitely quiet – but it’s there. I tried to explain this to my husband, but she’d been making noise and crying for awhile, so he went in. He came back 30 seconds later, the anguished sobs coming over the monitor, and said, “OK, so you were right. Could you go feed her?” Because the thing is – rocking won’t do it. Now I’d like full service, please.

August is National Breastfeeding month

As August is National Breastfeeding month (OK, so I just found this out on another blog site), I thought I’d take a minute to reflect on the experience. Most specifically I thought I’d like to write about the progression of the whole experience because at the beginning, I really thought I’d never “make it” / be able to keep it up for the first year, but now it’s really not a problem. Sure, it’s not always the most convenient thing – although at night or first thing in the morning, it’s certainly easier than having to heat a bottle.

Starting from the very beginning and the hospital… I couldn’t take her right away at delivery because there had been some merconium in the amniotic fluid and they needed to make sure her lungs / airway was clear before I could hold her (what a slow passage of time that seemed!), but when I got her she latched right on – and with quite a grip! The nurse in the delivery room showed me how to break the latch with my finger if I needed to – and I was glad for that information! I nursed her during that first LONG night, but couldn’t quite seem to remember the right way to break the latch – man, did it hurt when I tried! So when the lactation consultant came by the next morning, it was one of my primary questions (after – is she getting anything / is this working?). I should have known that this was not your average person and her take on breastfeeding would be … strong. I mean, this woman had just squeezed my boob to see if anything came out (to confirm that the baby was actually ‘getting something’) – but then again, I wasn’t exactly normal at this moment (I’d just let a complete stranger squeeze my boob!), so who was I to judge? When I asked herm, ‘how do I break the latch?’ She looked at me and said – ‘why would you ever want to break the latch?!’ Hmm… I don’t know, because I seemed to have been nursing her ALL night last night – 45 minutes on one side, 30 on the other a short break and then back again and I felt like I needed to switch off on sides – or that maybe there might be times when I’d need to do something else (I couldn’t necessarily always “hold it” for the time she’d need nursing and less than 24 hours after giving birth, I could just barely get myself to the bathroom (taking about 10 minutes to do so) – there was no way I was bringing the baby in too.). But she’d asked the question in such a horrified way, I couldn’t bring myself to respond.

The second night at the hospital was even harder in terms of feeding ALL NIGHT! I was so exhausted and was just about ready to give up. The nurse came in around 3 when we’d just put the baby back in the bassinet screaming (about ready to send her back to the nursery! I mean, she couldn’t still be hungry, so there was nothing more I could do). She told us the baby was hungry. I nearly cried explaining I’d been feeding her for 3 hours and pointing to the sheet where I was tracking all that. She suggested a bottle / formula. I adamantly said no! She’d wind up with nipple confusion! (Any new Mom knows the horror in which this is discussed – threatened in the breast feeding classes if you let a bottle in the same room as your newborn in the first 3 weeks. You know that if you allow ANY formula your milk will NEVER come in and then your baby won’t be breastfed – and will grow up to be a serial killer…) I was so tired and frustrated (and we were only a day in to parenthood!) and I couldn’t seem to do anything to satisfy my poor tired and frustrated baby. Then the nurse came up with a solution that seemed to save us – I will forever be grateful to her. She suggested that we could supplement the baby with formula while breastfeeding by running a small feeding tube from a formula bottle across the nipple so she’d continue to stimulate milk production (and receive the all important colustrum) but would be satiated with the formula. We did this and she actually mercifully went to sleep for a couple of hours. We wanted to kiss the nurse.

The nursing staff increased our wonder and awe of them when they sent home several spare feeding tubes and bottles of formula with us! We used them often for those nighttime feedings in the first few weeks (it was such an odd sensation – the cold formula running across your otherwise warm body), as we continued to praise that savior nurse! But we weren’t done and we still felt lost in the sea of all nighters as our new little addition demanded to be fed through most of the hours our bodies were SCREAMING at us to sleep. We just couldn’t seem to think straight. I worried that my milk wasn’t coming in. I worried that she wasn’t getting enough. I worried that I’d never sleep again. And I’ll be honest – my worries weren’t necessarily in that order…

When the baby was about 10 days old, I went to the first breastfeeding moms group at the hospital. It was crowded – generally with babies older than my munchkin – old hands at mothering to my sleep crusted eyes. When it got to my turn to introduce myself, I felt like I could barely choke out the words and keep my voice steady – my hormones were wreaking havoc! The other women were so nice though – one told me how impressed she was that I’d even made it out of the house this soon. She said that with her first baby, she came to the group when he was a couple of weeks old and just sat and cried! She watched the moms feeding their babies and couldn’t for the life of her figure out how to work her nursing bra while holding her child! I was not alone. Others felt this way too. I vowed to go back to the group – unfortunately the munchkin must have caught on to my silent vow and did her best to thwart me for about a month following. It seemed that the night before the group met was always her WORST night leaving me far too sleep deprived and unsteady to go anywhere. I couldn’t figure out why the group met at 10:30 – how could ANY new Mom make it out of the house by 10:30?

I thought about giving up a lot in the first few weeks. What kept me going – and I’m a little ashamed of this (but probably not as much as I should be) – was thinking of other moms I knew who did it. Not the Moms who were my good friends, who I admired – no, they were supermoms! They could do anything. I wasn’t surprised by their ease and grace at this task. No, no. I thought of the Moms who seemed far less natural – those who had continued to drink (some!) during their pregnancy and had to test the BAC of their breastmilk on occasion. Those who seemed excited to go back to work for the break from their kids. I thought – if they can do it, so can I! I know, I know – not exactly my greatest moment… But it worked! (So now you can think of me – if someone as base and rude as ME can do it…)

There were nights in week 2 when I wondered how long I could go on with this. The exhaustion felt crippling. The advice was conflicting. My body was weak. The lactation consultations over the phone were far too crunchy granola (relax your body and picture the milk flowing out of you – what?). But then every once in awhile, I’d get a gem. Someone would tell me their story – how they’d gone through the same thing because it takes two weeks for your milk to fully come in and it would get better then. Or the lactation consultant suggested pumping during the day, so that if I must supplement at night (she clearly didn’t really approve of this), I could supplement with my own milk. I’d be telling my body to produce the right amounts that way and still getting her fed. I’d hold on to each useful tip / each story of getting through this like a life raft (ok, some days it felt more like water wings – you know, holds you up a little, but not total rescue protection). But then slowly… I learned to swim.

In those first days, I made myself promise to try to keep this up for two weeks. Just those first two weeks to try it out. Then I pushed it to three, as so many people said that those first 3 weeks were the real time of trial and difficulty. Then I was able to push it out to say through my maternity leave. And then slowly, I was able to stop bargaining with myself and just do it.

Sure it’s not always “fun.” I mean, sitting in my freezing office attaching the breastpump, which I’ve once again forgotten to remove from the freezer packs to warm it up, while trying to multitask gets old fast. But it’s also not that hard anymore. It definitely took some time, but maybe there’s no such thing as a “natural” in this parenting business. We all have our challenges and have to work at it, but the rewards are amazing.

Pump up the boob

My husband has a tendency to make up little songs. I’d love to tell you that this was just something he’s started doing for the baby. It’s not. The latest, as I was throwing all the components of my breast pump together to go to work was to the tune of Pump Up the Jam and went something like this:

Pump up the boob, pump it up and get the milk started.

Oh-ah. Nourishment. Get your booby in the pump today. Make my day.

I know the Catholic Church gets picky on these things, but that HAS GOT to be grounds for annulment?

Forgetting the breast pump

So this weekend, we decided to meet a friend downtown for a late lunch and go to a lecture. I’d made the plans thinking that the hubby had to work, but realized I’d made a mistake on his schedule and he was actually off. But he decided to come along (and told me not to be THAT friend who cancels plans because I got a “better offer” - or was working around a guy’s schedule!) and we decided to get a sitter for the baby (turned out that was a good thing as it was a VERY small lecture). Anyway, we were running late as always and ran out the door – only realizing I’d forgotten the breast pump half way there (with no time to go back). UGH! Worse yet, we were meeting the realtor after the lecture and probably wouldn’t be home till 8:30 or so (it was now 1:30). The hubby asked if I wanted to go back, but I knew there wasn’t really time, so he asked the next question – well, what will you do? I said – I’ll survive. It’s about as long as overnight, so it’s doable. It’ll just hurt. The real problem is that we won’t have that milk (not pumped) for tomorrow when I’m at work. I think that almost had him turning around as the - oh crap, I’m the one watching her tomorrow hit him.

Luckily, the realtor cancelled and we got home, but the baby had been hungry and eaten through more stores than I’d expected. I pumped right away to get some supply for the next day and reminded my husband that if all else failed, we still had a little in the freezer. He looked at me (guilelessly) and said – could you put more in the freezer? We need more backup supplies. Ugh! I’m not sure where I’m supposed to pull these back up supplies from – my toe? I mean, maybe if my feet could lactate too, this would help…. I pointed out that I’d pumped on all my days off when I was with her to build up as much supply as possible, but that I can’t freeze “extra” if we have no extra! I also pointed out that if he fed her cereal on his days maybe she wouldn’t be so hungry and we wouldn’t run out… (Last time I pointed this out on a supply issue day, he responded by asking if I could pump more. His only saving grace on this was later claiming to be kidding. I’m not really sure he was, but as long as he’s smart enough to claim it fast, I’ll give it to him!)

Ah well. I think I could “catch up” (stock up) if we weren’t running out with the realtor several times a week, so that I’m feeding her a bottle in her car seat in the back seat, as we don’t have time to stop. The car seat is, of course, not an ideal feeding area and gives her no room to be burped, so usually a large spit up follows this fun. The last spit up was a good one though… We had to change her entirely at the next house we got to – outfit, diaper, the works. In that house there was a family with 4 year old twin girls. They were home, so they sat on the porch while Daddy changed the diaper. This mesmerized and amazed them – look! The Daddy is changing the diaper! Thank God our baby threw up to teach these children an important life lesson! We might have to change her at every house with kids from now on (and by we, I mean, my husband) so that we’re sure they’ve all seen how good Dads are at this job!

Ways to freak out your boss

If he knocks on the door while you are pumping, don’t bother to put the pump or milk away before answering. He may never ask you for anything again.

Fill ‘er up

I know I mentioned I pumped 11 oz this morning (my new record). Well, records continue. I fed my daughter (on tap) after that and dropped her at Grandma’s while I headed off to work. At about 10:30 I stopped to pump again (so the first pump was about 6:30 and I fed her about 7 or 7:15) and got a good 8 oz! It usually takes 2 times to get that.

I guess I should stop and reference here, as I only recently learned how differently everyone does this (I’m way too type A for so many options). The lactation consultants had told me that I should plan to pump before work and 3 times at work. So I usually pump around 7, 10 or 10:30, 12:30 and 3:30 (all plus or minus – it seems there are a good number of times that I’m pumping as I’m shutting down my PC at the end of the day b/c I didn’t do it when I was supposed to). I usually get a good amount at that 7 am pump – maybe 8 or more ounces and then smaller amounts during the day – 4 or 5 oz, sometimes less – usually trailing off with each time.

I happened to mention to a friend of mine what a pain it was to pump at the office (I mean, I feel like I’m washing the equipment all day long). She agreed that it was a pain, but then happened to note that she’d only done it ONCE a day for her daughters. In fact, she exclusively pumped for her first daughter who wouldn’t latch and she only pumped 4 times a day for the WHOLE day. Admittedly she pumped a lot longer each time (45 minutes to my 10 or so), but she was still able to get all she needed from that. Her theory – you can train your body to do what you need it to as it’s all supply and demand. She said she figured cows only get milked once a day and they get taken care of – it’s essentially the same process, so we can make it work too.

Hmm…

So I throw this out there – how often do you pump to meet your baby’s needs? I’d ask how much you get, but it’s so variable based on the age of the baby and other supplements, I know I couldn’t keep it all straight.

Over the shoulder boulder holder

After speaking to some friends about the lack of sleeping, I decided I needed to try a new strategy before I spoiled the kid rotten. I’d been getting up as soon as I heard her in the night and not really waiting for her to cry (my theory had been if I got to her before she was really upset then she wouldn’t work herself up and wake herself up and she’d therefore go to sleep faster). So Friday night, I decided to wait it out. (I should note that I’d tried this theory on the 2nd feeding of Thursday night, but it turned out that that wound up being around 7 am and I eventually decided that I really wanted to go back to sleep and/or that was a reasonable time for her to wake up for a feeding – you choose. I don’t care which.) She woke up at about 3:30 am and started kicking and chattering to herself. While her chatter was not always happy, she didn’t actually cry. She just made noise. For an hour and a half! Whoa. I can’t talk to myself for an hour and a half and I’m capable of language! Well… maybe I can… but not at 3:30! But then she did go back to sleep! I was off so slept in a little, but then got up around 8:30 or so to relieve the rock hard granite blocks that were my boobs. Whoa! This didn’t happen when she previously was sleeping through the night.

Saturday, we went to visit some friends in PA for a picnic and stayed at their place. I figured I’d get her at her first noises in the night so as not to disturb them. But she actually only made one small noise around 4 am and went right back to sleep without me coming over. She woke up around 8 – and I was very happy to feed her and relieve some pressure!

I figured last night wouldn’t be so bad, as I’d have to be up early to get ready for work anyway. I should have known that if one side felt a little full going to bed, I should just go pump then. But I didn’t. My God I could have taken someone’s head off with those things! My husband’s lucky I didn’t roll over and bump into him in the night – he might have been crushed! Or seriously injured! I had to pump as soon as I woke up – and got 11 oz! I think that’s the most I’ve ever gotten in one pumping – and my breast pad was totally sodden as well, so lord knows how much was in there. I’m beginning to think of the breast pads as boob diapers now.

Still – NOT complaining if it means she sleeps through the night! I’ll deal with a little discomfort if I can sleep through it!

Being a grown up sucks, Ray

There’s that scene in Rain Man where Dustin Hoffman explains that his underwear has to come from Kmart and Tom Cruise succinctly sums up why that’s not necessary by explaining, Kmart sucks, Ray. So adding “Ray” on to our descriptions of what potentially sucks (or more to the point undeniably sucks) has been short hand in our house for the no point in discussing it further, that’s how it is. And today I must say, being a grown up sucks, Ray.

I know I’ve mentioned the lack of sleep. It bears repeating, but I’ll spare you as I could go on about that one for awhile… I think I also mentioned in an earlier post that we’re looking to buy a house. I ran the numbers again for several scenarios and, given what they’re telling us we can get for our condo, the outlook isn’t good. We sat down to discuss options and nothing seems very positive. It’s all a bit disheartening.

Sort of makes it a pain that I can’t drink these days due to nursing!

But then again – her smile does ease a lot of the stress. Probably more than a beer would. Well, probably…

Making it to the breastfeeding group on my own

Now that my Mom has left and my husband is at work, the days do stretch out before me seeming fairly long (well, some days more than others). As exhausting as it is to make it out of the house, it does seem to help to break up the day some. We do long walks with the dog (picture a woman with a baby strapped to her chest fighting a 55 lb dog for the poop he’s just dropped so I can throw it out before he eats it (yes, eats it!) – when did my life become a comic strip?), but I decided it was time to make it out “for real.” Suddenly I realized that this was my first trip in the car with the baby by myself (who needed that reminder? Now I can drive like Grandma and be lucky to make it there by next Tuesday.). That also meant that this was the first trip out of the house with the baby, car seat, diaper bag, and the 10 lb bricks that we feel the need to carry with us – just in case…

I’m not sure how I made it out of the house. But somehow I made it to the hospital and was only a little bit late!

I won’t go through all the particulars except to say that I felt much better and more sane there this time. Sane enough to notice that the lactation consultant AGAIN told a woman there (not me this time) that maybe the baby isn’t using you as a pacifier, but instead using the pacifier as a mommy (and she hadn’t even made the rookie mistake I had of saying, in so many words, “she’s using me as a pacifier at 3am”!). Oh man… I do want to make sure to get out of the house some – I’m just not sure I need to get out of the house SO badly as to want to come here again…

Milking it

The wait for my milk to come in was long and trying. Even knowing it takes time and others had experienced the same thing didn’t seem to make it go faster (though it did help). She just seemed insatiable in those early days and I had a sneaking suspicion that she was just insatiable by me.

This seemed to be confirmed one night at dinner. I’d been trying to feed her while I ate and she just stayed fussy as she did not get enough. My husband had offered to hold her / try to soothe her so I could eat, but nothing was working. He said – that’s it. I’m getting the bottle. I couldn’t argue. I was too tired to argue! But I thought it was worth a try. But as she grabbed on to the bottle, sucking down its contents like it was Oxygen, my heart fell. I could barely chew my food to get it past the lump in my throat. My in-laws were having dinner with us (well, let’s be honest, they’d brought us dinner) and said – oh, how good. She’s eating and happy. While my heart just hurt. I tried to make it through the rest of the meal and then excused myself to go pump again. I went into the bedroom and wanted to pull the covers over my head, but was trying so hard to keep it together lest they hear me crying or see the after effects. I was just barely holding on when my husband came in with the baby and asked – is everything alright? I choked out – later! Thank God he understood. He got his parents to leave quickly and came back and asked if I wanted to talk about it saying that just seconds after she latched to the bottle, he knew what a mistake it was.

I just felt so useless. I couldn’t produce enough milk – heck, she seemed to prefer the bottle. I was starving my child for what? My own sense of self worth or dignity or pride? Or worse, was I starving her because I thought I’d fit back into my jeans faster if I nursed?

I tried to nurse her again as we talked, but did so somewhat despairingly – wondering if there was any point. But she latched on and seemed happy enough to eat what I offered. I nursed her during the night and used the milk I’d pumped as a supplement. I even managed a small amount of sleep that night and started to feel better. (Note - We did still supplement with formula on occasion, but we limited it not to affect supply.) The other hard part about this time is that nursing was also beginning to become quite painful. My nipples started to crack and bleed some and I found that I couldn’t stand the cold. I know that sounds really odd, but it’s a symptom of something called Raynaud’s disease (diagnosed over the phone by the lactation consultant). Basically my nipples would blanch (turn white) and be a bit burny when she came off. It also hurt a lot for the first few seconds when she attached. According to the lactation consultant, I needed to keep my nipples warm (the variety of means she suggested to do this were interesting and amusing). I also used an ointment (lanolin) to help with the dryness / cracking.

The Boob Police – baby, 10 days old

About 10 days in, I decided to go to the breastfeeding moms group at the hospital. Getting there was quite a feat. It started at 10:30 and I somehow couldn’t make it there on time. It’s crazy when you think – it’s not like we were really sleeping at night! There was a large crowd there – mostly with somewhat older babies. Each introduced themselves and explained any issue that they might be having. We got to me. I was in such a hormone state I could barely keep my voice steady while I introduced myself. I explained that the baby tended to want to eat / be attached to me for hours on end in the night. She’d sort of fall asleep at the boob (I would try EVERYTHING to wake her up and make her eat, as she’d wake up and cry the second I unlatched her. I tried tickling her feet or, as one friend suggested, putting a cold washcloth on them!), but wouldn’t come off. So I’d get no sleep at all. This tended to go on for HOURS at night. I’d be struggling to stay awake in the chair (for fear of dropping her if I crashed) while she would eat and nap on me. My husband might manage some sleep curled up on the floor (he was trying so hard to be supportive and get up when I got up.), but not much there either. I finally summarized that she seemed to be using me as a pacifier (yes, I tried a pacifier instead, but it didn’t work as well.). The other moms had some good suggestions – try warming up her bed so that she isn’t going from your warm body to a cold bed – she might not notice so much. But the shirt you are wearing near her (but not close enough to cover her) in the crib, so that she smells that and smells you. The lactation consultant went last – she was overall nice, but, well, they do sort of have their agenda… Her response was that babies for all time have been born with mommies, not pacifiers. So maybe she’s not using you as a pacifier, but using the pacifier as a mommy. I was SO exhausted and beyond reasonable thought then that it didn’t even occur to me to question this logic. It wasn’t until I told my husband and he laughed out loud that I realized the rhetoric. Luckily my Mom had already been semi-converted to the world of pacifiers, so she didn’t comment. I should probably explain…

My grandmother had been adamantly anti-pacifier. “You don’t put a plug in a child, you figure out what the child needs.” None of her children had pacifiers. None of her grandchildren had pacifiers – she would have stolen them out of our mouths. Most of her great grandchildren didn’t have pacifiers (you had to move to another state to get away with that. Seriously – most of them were born after my grandmother had passed away, but my cousins held strict to the tradition!). It was taboo in my family. I’d upheld this taboo myself for a long time (this was easy for me to do because I’m very good at parenting in theory. Parenting in practice is much harder.). Anyway, during my pregnancy I’d read an article that the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommended pacifiers to help prevent SIDS. I saw a showdown coming… To be honest, the anticipated showdown wasn’t as bad as I thought – none of my cousins mentioned that I’d included pacifiers on the registry and my Mom only pushed back a few times in our initial discussions and dropped it by the time the baby arrived.

Breastfeeding class – our first brush with the lactation Nazis… 36 weeks

Most of my friends have decided to breastfeed their babies and been pretty happy with it and it seems to be the latest recommendation, so I decided I’d try. A number of my friends had mentioned issues / difficulties at the beginning, so I decided to take the class. I wasn’t sure if my husband should go too, but my friends assured me that their husbands had gone. Then he wasn’t so sure he should go – what would he do? What if the other husbands didn’t go? “What if it’s just me and a bunch of … big breasted women…? Yeah, OK, I’ll go.”

We got there (late, as was our standard with these classes now) and my husband was not the only guy – everyone had come as a couple (thank goodness). The lactation consultant began by explaining all the benefits of breastfeeding. It was definitely the sales pitch to drink the Kool-Aid on this one – a concept that amused me as, well hadn’t we all already drank the Kool-Aid if we’d decided to be there in the first place? (A watered down Kool Aid without too much sugar and no artificial flavors or colors to be exact!) Then she got into more specifics – the different holds and getting the baby to latch. We had not been told to bring a doll, so she went to us one by one with the demonstration doll to walk through what to do (clothed, thank God!). We were supposed to “tickle” the baby’s mouth with our nipple (while she said – tickle, tickle, tickle to instruct us – a moment at which I knew it was a bad idea to bring My husband despite all the other Dad’s here as I was surely going to be hearing his imitation of that every time I tried to feed our child…). Then she’d push the baby’s head into us to imitate her getting the latch. Great… Sadly I was the first one for the demonstration, so all eyes were on me and the doll as I pretended to tickle the doll’s face with my boob (oh man, I really never thought I’d type that phrase in my life. Seriously. Never.). I should probably take a step back here to describe my boob (and let’s go ahead and put that down as phrase two I hardly saw coming out of my mouth / fingers online. I swear! I don’t frequent those types of sites!). You see I’m generally not a big person – a reasonable height, but small boned and small frame, so I’ve always been fairly small chested. I’m not generally TOO self conscious about this as I’d say I’m pretty proportional overall. I mean, on my frame big boobs would tip me over (I’m shocked I’ve been able to move with this belly!). But at the same time, I was sort of looking forward to my late second puberty and mammaries finally arriving with pregnancy. I thought they’d arrive right at the beginning – as so many women seem to say that’s the first sign. I did notice a little increase there / soreness in my chest, but nothing major. Then I thought they’d have to arrive before the baby, but 36 weeks and nothing. I remember a friend of mine with a similar build had told me at 7 months that she’d gone from a B cup to E! Now I didn’t really want an E – although I think it might be surreal and wouldn’t be so bad as it wouldn’t last (though God knows what that would like when it finally deflated...), but I figured I’d easily move into a solid C or D. But thus far – nothing! OK, not entirely nothing. I’ve move from a B to a “full” B. Anyway, you get the picture – that me trying to grab hold of my snack sized baby lunch tray and wiggle it to tickle her wasn’t doing much. Thank God there’s an audience of other class members for this. I mean, one certainly wouldn’t want to do this sort of thing on one’s own…

Eventually we got to the questions and our fearless leader was on the party line – Me – can you use ziplock freezer bags (I’d gotten a bunch from a friend in her gift of my full service / filled diaper bag)? The lactation consultant – No! You’d think I’d ask if I could use battery acid to preserve it…

They got better after that – I asked about the breastfeeding diet. She said you could eat anything. So I clarified that I wanted to be sure you didn’t need to stick to the pregnancy diet – no sushi, limited fish, no soft cheeses. Well, you should really avoid those things, but there are not diet restrictions and you can eat anything – except all the things they told you not to eat pregnant. But you don’t have to stick to your pregnancy diet. Um… OK…

So someone else asked if it mattered if you ate healthy or if formula would be better. The lactation consultant, of course, said that breastmilk was always better. The woman asked – well, what if you ate only candy bars and nothing with nutritional value? Nope, still breastmilk.

Now I’m not sure if my fellow classmate was just trying to get the instructor to slip up / admit an instance where formula would be OK or that there could EVER be anything wrong with breastmilk. I think she might have just been an odd duck though…