#bfing and your body

Written for the breastfeeding blog hop:

I’ve been breastfeeding Bella for a little over nine months now and plan to continue until her one year birthday. Though my supply has started to dwindle (as has my desire to pump) so we’ve been cracking into the frozen stash quite a few times and I’m a little worried we won’t make it to the 12 month mark. My pediatrician gave us the okay to supplement with cows milk at 11 months so right now I’m just trying to get to that point.

1. Monthly Visitor: The main changes I’ve noticed is that well I haven’t had a period since December 2009. Yes, I know you’re all extremely jealous. Its really quite amazing. Though I am kind of always wondering when I’m going to get it so it sort of sucks to have that uncertainty.

2. Weight Loss: I haven’t remotely noticed this supposed weight loss that I hear about, apparently that doesn’t work for me. Clearly, I’m consuming enough excess calories to make up the difference for the extra ones I’m burning producing milk.

3. Extra Endowment: I’ve always been proud of what I’ve got up top, but my oh my is that the biggest change. My husband absolutely loves it, too bad he can’t touch them because Bella’s got them on loan! With Ben I went from a B/C to a full D. Now with Bella I was already a C and now I’m just a C/D. Not quite as big as with Bear but I was happy that they didn’t completely go away either. That was always what I was most disappointed about. You get to try out this great rack for awhile and then they take it away!

4. Mental Association: I joke that Bella has them on loan, but mentally that’s where the biggest change is. I associate my breasts in a completely unsexual way. They exists primarily to provide sustenance and nutrition to my daughter. This Babble article pretty much sums up what I think about breastfeeding and a sex life.

Despite all the changes rather physical, mental, imagined or otherwise I will definitely continue to breastfeed when I hopefully have more children. Now I just need to get the H on board with the latter! I’ll lure him in with the promiose of large breasts he can’t touch!

There’s No Daddy Milk #bfing

When Bear was a baby it was super easy to divide up feeding duties with the H because I was exclusively pumping. In fact, I’ll admit I’m lucky enough that I didn’t get up for most of the nighttime feedings. In the beginning I would get up and pump while the H fed Bear just to keep my supply up I would pump whenever he ate. As he grew older I pumped less and less during the night because he slept more and more and then finally I stopped night pumping, but the H would still tend to Bear if he were to wake up and I would blissfully sleep with a pillow over my head.

With Bella its been very different since I’m actually nursing her. In fact its often kind of frustrating because I seem to always be the one to feed her since I’m the one with Mommy’s Milk. Why is there no Daddy’s milk? Whenever she would cry the H would essentially hand over and be like “feed her.” His solution to any problem seemed to be stick a boob in it, but specifically mine. Which was annoying. Especially when we were trying to teach her to sleep through the night and he always wanted me to just feed her because she was crying. Or if he’d want me to feed her and it had been less than 2 hour since she ate — she’s not hungry! Luckily now she’s been sleeping through the night for quite sometime which is wonderful and since she loves to eat her milk consumption has gone way down.

The H has always been extremely supportive of me nursing (or stopping if I had wanted to). In the beginning when I was engorged beyond belief I wanted to quit so many times because of the pain, but I couldn’t because of the guilt and I felt like he really would have supported me and not judged me if I had chosen to stop. I just knew that I would judge myself and I couldn’t give up. So I didn’t, I held on past the two week point when everyone says it will get better and it did. I’m glad that I had him there to support me, though I have to say that I get really irritated nowadays when he makes comments like “this is it?” and “what a poor showing” when I hand him my lately paltry amounts of milk that I pump during the day at work. My pumping has gone way down and I can’t get nearly as much as I used to be able to which is depressing. She seems to be much better at getting it out than my pump and seems satiated whenever I feed her. I’ll be out of town for a weekend without her this weekend so we’ll see how that goes! Hopefully I can get to the pump 3-4 a day so I don’t completely shrivel up while I’m away — I still got three months to go!

This post is a part of the Breastfeeding Blog Hop, hope you take the time to check out the other posts or link yours up!

#Bfing and the Working Mom

As part of the Breastfeeding Blog Hop, here’s been my experience working while pumping otherwise known as Ode to the Pump:

Most importantly see also my pump song.

I exclusively pumped with Bear for the whole first year because of the difficulty we had actually nursing. So me and the pump got to be quite good friends. With Bella I was luckily enough that nursing her was quite easy, but while I was on maternity leave with her I still pumped once every morning to build up a frozen stash for times I knew I would be away. I wish I had known the glory of the pump with Bear. I was so afraid to pump in those first few weeks because I didn’t want to be engorged anymore than I already was so I didn’t want to send a mixed message that there was more demand than actually existed. However, I was in so.much.pain. and the pump was able to give me the much needed relief.

When I got back to work I still had enough supply and Bella was still eating frequently enough that I felt like I was activating on a constant basis. Layering was very important. So were nursing pads. I went with the cotton ones (less expensive, more environmentally friendly) with Bear but I wised up and went with the disposable ones that absorb WAY more and never leak through this time around. Since I work 10 hour shifts and Bella’s been sleeping through the night for months I pump first thing in the morning when I wake up, twice at work and then once before going to bed. Lately, I’ve dropped the last pump before bed depending how late it was when I last pumped. And sometimes I only pump once at work depending on meetings or if I feel like it. And twice at all day conferences I only pumped before and after work and not once the whole day. Those reasons and the fact that at 8.5 months Bella eats a lot more solid foods and sleeps through the night (she takes 25 oz of milk during the daycare day) are why my supply has fallen quite sharply. This morning when I pumped at work I only got an ounce in 15 minutes. ABSURD. I used to pump 4-5 oz in that long of a session. Now to get any reasonable quantity I have to pump for at least 30 minutes, a privilege I don’t have during the work day.

It was easier when she was younger to pump more often. I had more milk. She drank more milk. I was fresh back from leave. Now, at almost nine months I feel strange slipping away from work 2x a day to pump. I feel a slight air of you’re still doing that?  from co-workers. Plus, even in my own head its sort of like do I still have to do this? I have enough supply frozen that I could get by awhile, but not 3 months awhile and I don’t want to give her formula when I can produce milk.

Its hard to schedule pumping around meetings and impromptu pop ins at work. I’m lucky enough that my work has a dedicated mothering room for this purpose. Equipped with a cozy chair, bookcase of magazines and books, extra nursing pads, breastmilk storage bags, a mirror, the whole she-bang.

The hardest for me was those all day offsite training sessions. Plus, I have no adapter for my pump to pump in my car awkwardly in the parking lot. So I uncomfortably went without. In July, I’ll be in Orlando for a week long conference and I know I’ll have to sneak back to my hotel room between sessions or during meal breaks to pump and that sort of sucks. With Bear I pumped once in an airport bathroom, it just had to be done. In fact at the same conference 4 years ago I was pumping. However then Bear was only 5.5 months old so I had much more milk and demand to keep up. It was hard not being able to go to the after conference parties because I need to go pump.

 

In general, its hard to have to excuse yourself from professional situations for very personal reasons. I still haven’t thought of a good way to tell male co-workers that I can’t talk right now because I have to go to THE Room. I feel like if you really want it though you can make it work. Even if means pumping on a toilet stall or in your car, or hand pumping just to relieve the pressure (an awful thing I had to do once, talk about crying over spilled milk!) It’s doable.

If I CAN do it it, You CAN do it and we all CAN do it. 

 

 

 

To pump or not to pump

My in laws have my children and my husband is at his band party celebrating finishing recording their cd. I just returned from my MN best friend’s house where her husband and I finished 2 1/2 bottles of wine between us (she’s pregnant and didn’t partake). The number 1 reason I left, besides being tired, is the fact that I thought my right breast was going to explode from engorgement. In fact, one time in the bathroom, it sort of did. I can’t recall how long its been. I had pumped in the morning before I left and fed her on my left side before she went to my in laws. She had bottles during the day while we were out and about so it had been quite some time.

The pain is overwhelming. The fullness. The hardness. Despite the fact that its midnight and I want nothing more than to fall down upon my bed and sleep, I can’t. I have to pump. I have to get this milk out. And again in the morning and then all day tomorrow and then six more months before I can stop. And I have to say, I hate it.

I hate nursing and pumping. I hate all of it. Yes, there are certainly moments, especially in the middle of the night, oddly enough, when I look at Bella’s sleepy face sucking away and then when she pulls off and falls asleep and I have these few seconds of cuddles with her (which happens so rarely, she’s not a cuddler) that I love it. But the fact that I can’t enjoy an evening with my friends because I need to pump? Or the fact that I can’t go to sleep when I’m exhausted? Or that I need to wake up 20 minutes earlier for work to pump? No, I don’t love any of that.

I didn’t love those two weeks with Bear when I tried to nurse and it was the most excruciating awful experience and I would sob throughout it. I didn’t enjoy the fact that I genuinely hated him in those first weeks because of the pain he caused me, what he did to my body, my youth, the fact that all my friends left (where they really friends if all we had in common was drinking?) No, I didn’t. Yet I did it anyway. I couldn’t nurse him because it was too painful, so I pumped. I pumped twelve whole months for him. I can’t not do the same for my daughter. How could I say, “your brother was good enough for breastmilk, but you. Eh. I gave you formula. “  I could never. I would never.

I have to say, I judge. I 100% judge people who don’t breastfeed. I try not to. I try to understand that some people can’t or don’t want to. The martyr in me thinks, “I didn’t want to do it, I hated it, but I didn’t it anyway, why didn’t you?” I hate being judgmental but its true. There’s no denying that its the best thing for your child, its what nature and God intended. Not some manufactured powder made by companies trying to make a profit, that’s occasionally recalled because of insect infiltration. So why wouldn’t you? I see why people don’t. I don’t want to, but I do. I couldn’t bear the guilt I would feel if I didn’t. I almost envy those who somehow disregard the science, the occasional judgments, the lactivists, their children, and do what’s best for them. Maybe that’s really why I judge them. Jealousy. That they had the courage to do what’s best for them despite what’s best for their children.

Breastfeeding is hardly black and white. It’s all shades of gray. It’s an extremely hot topic issue, because its so deeply personal. But as I sit here pumping, 15 minutes of sleep that I’ve already missed out on I kind of wish we could all be more open about it. That we could talk about how hard it is, how tiring and time consuming pumping is because then maybe it would be slightly easier.

I know I don’t want to, but I’m going to do this for 6 more months. And then when my next child is born. 12 more months. Hopefully the next one will be as easy to nurse as Bella without the pain and agony Bear and I had. Better yet, maybe by then I won’t find it to be such an overwhelming burden I must bear.

 

Disclaimer: I am in no way still intoxicated, after all I did drive home. I do know all of the dangers of feeding a child breastmilk with alcohol and the concept of “pump and dump.” Have no fear, my milk is clear.

Milk and Medicine

My husband’s solution to everything seems to be either to medicate or milk. B has a double ear infection (his first) and is obviously miserable. In addition to taking amoxicillin he’s taking Advil. Anytime B wakes up at night and cries if T can’t get him to sleep within the first 10 minutes he’s reaching for one of the bottles; milk or Advil. To me it seems unnecessary to continue to give him the Advil (even if the 8 hours have passed) if he isn’t feverish. Then again I prefer to steer clear of medicine anyways because my mother has always turned her nose up at taking medicine. And the milk issue. a) He remotely doesn’t understand the pain that it is to continuously pump. b) or understand that we have a milk shortage right now c) or understand that we have to somehow wean him within the next 4 months which won’t happen if we constantly placate him with milk or d) that he’ll never sleep through the night if we don’t break him of the eating habit.

I know that I really can’t complain because I’m blessed that my husband wakes up with B at night so I don’t need to. But at the same time, even if I’m not getting up I still want him to learn how to sleep through the night and its not like my husband doesn’t complain incessantly about it or act the martyr because he gets up twice a night.

Then again I’m not a fan of the “Ferber method” or “crying it out” so if the alternative is to continue to feed him milk than I guess I would rather that. We’ve got a bedtime routine down cold and have for over 6 months. B always falls asleep with ease its more so keeping him asleep. He’s really not attaching to any lovey even though I try to force one upon him. He just wants to cuddle and who can blame him? If only he didn’t have to make so much noise about it…

Moral of the story; I wish my husband would just sit it out longer before he feeds or medicates B. Then again, while this is happening i’m usually asleep and completely unaware of it… until I wake up and see that all the milk that I pumped for daycare has suddenly disappeared…