This is Why

This weeks Breastfeeding Blog Hop is about Bonding. I have to say that I haven’t been too keen on this whole concept of the moment your baby nurses you’ve feel this unbelievable connection blah blah blah. Maybe that’s because with Bear the first time he nursed I felt unbelievable pain. It was torturous. I spent that time sobbing and hoping I wouldn’t have to do it again. I hated to be around him because I knew that he would inevitably need to do that to me again. So for me breastfeeding was unbonding with Bear. It took awhile of Exclusively Pumping for Bear and I to warm up to each other. For me to see him as more than just this entity that caused me pain and him to see me more as this person that sobbed whenever he was near.

I’ve been unbelievably lucky that Bella nurses like a champ. I love seeing her face light up when I get the boppy ready. I love how her mouth opens SO WIDE to take it all in. I love how she smacks me with her tiny little hand. How she grabs at my nose. How she looks at me, looks all around, takes a break, flips over, goes upside and then comes back to her snack shop. I love how nursing her now is just a comical exercise in what position is she going to try next. I no longer have my iphone poised to catch up on twitter when I feed her because she eats too quickly and moves too much for such shenanigans. Mostly I love when she sleeps. A sleeping baby while nursing is the best. I just try to take in every aspect of her little face and memorize the feel of her little hands. I just love it.

That said I nurse her not to bond because I know we could have that relationship without it, I nurse her for the sustenance that she needs. Bonding that’s just the icing on the cake.

Rockin’ the Baby – Baby Photos

For Shell’s Things I Can’t Say Rockin’ the Baby:

Bear 0-12 mths

Bella 0-9 months

As if somehow I didn’t already have baby fever from the moment that Bella was born my MN Best Friend is pregnant, one of my co-workers had a baby in May and another one due in November. There are baby’s everywhere, including in my own house as the H likes to remind me.

The Un-Cuddly Baby

I”m a very cuddly person. In fact, we are in general a very cuddly family. Or smuggly as we like to call ourselves finding snuggle to not be a particularly inviting word we much rather smuggle. In fact under cover smuggles are our favorite.

Our dog, Athens, is cuddly. In fact he can’t even bear to lay on a wooden floor like a real dog, but instead prefers ideally laying on pillows also undercovers.

At first Elia wasn’t particularly into this whole human cuddling in a bed thing, but she saw Athens was living the good life and so she jumped aboard as well. For a long time we had two dogs undercover in the bed with us. Then we had to institute the “no dogs allowed” policy because it had gotten a little bit ridiculous.

Bear has always been a cuddly fellow. We would swaddle him when he was a baby because he loved the feeling of being tightly held. His absolute favorite thing was what we called frogging. He probably spent my entire maternity leave laying on top of me frogging while I watched daytime TV.

He still loves to cuddle in fact he sneaks into our bed every single night and sleeps with us. We basically say good night by saying, “we’ll see you when you sneak in.” I heart his cuddles big time which is why I’m in no hurry to ask him to remove himself as my nightly visitor. In fact I used to think Athens was the best cuddler as he can contort himself into seemingly any position, but I think Bears got it covered now as #1 Cuddler.When the H is out of town I don’t even make him fall asleep in his own bed first, but let him stay in mine from the get go.

But Bella, not so much. She has no interest in these kinds of things. She had no time for swaddling as a baby, she preferred to cuddle her face suffocatingly close to her blanket. While we read Bear books every single night before bed (we had the bedtime routine thing down cold), Bella will not sit still long enough to read her the shortest of books. Rocking her to sleep? I don’t think so. The closest I’ve gotten to cuddling is when she was a baby and she’d fall asleep next to me nursing in the wee hours of the morning when the H would bring her before he left for work. Now even nursing is an opportunity for her to practice various circus acts of how to keep moving while still being attached to me.

She was very adamant that she was not interested in napping yesterday afternoon. She did however not want to play. Or eat. Certainly not be rocked, or read to. I tried singing her a lullaby, but she took her nuk out of her mouth and stuck it in mine. I thought that was a little rude as she could have been more tactful in her preferences.

I really hope she outgrows this I don’t like to cuddle thing because she’s not going to fit in very well with the family otherwise.

#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. 

 

 

 

SAHM vs Working Mom – Advice Requested!

I am just so tired with my job. Emotionally exhausted by having to come here on a daily basis and feel like I”m literally wasting my life away. Wasting time I could have watching my children grow up. Time that I can’t ever have back. I never thought I would be a SAHM and when I was pregnant with Bear it wasn’t something I would have ever considered. Though at that point I was newly graduated from college and had only been working at my job for a year. I was so naive.

When I was pregnant with Bella it was definitely something I considered slightly, when I was on maternity leave and actually enjoying it I considered it even more, and once I got back to work it was something that was constantly on my mind. After all in those three months my whole life changed and nothing here has changed. Re-reading old work related posts I am flummoxed by just how little anything has changed. It disgusts me the kind of inter-personal relations that happen here. I hate being around the Prof.

On Sunday I had a really important realization. I took the kids to the park while the H was at band practice and it was a beautiful day.

Bella had her first swing ride and as I was pushing Bear alongside her I realized not only could I be a SAHM its something I actually want to do. I’ve wanted to have a third child since pretty much the moment Bella was born. I was consumed with the feeling of the finality of this. I knew this couldn’t be the last time I was pregnant, the last time I gave birth, the last time I held my newborn. Plus, I want Bella to have the sister I never had.

Then I thought of all of the things that stress me out on a continuous basis: work, my weight, money, cleaning the house, cooking dinner, snapping at the kids. And I’m sure I’m being extremely idealistic after all I recall quite a few days on leave and Mondays were I’ve wanted nothing but a big glass of wine to get me through the day, but I think fundamentally so many of my stresses would be alleviated if I was just at home. If I had the time to plan and make a dinner, to vacuum the house quick, to actually exercise. Things I don’t feel like I can do working till 6 pm.

When I get home from work now I pick up the H, pick up the kids, and then drive home quick to let the dogs out, fix Bear a snack before we drive him over to his summer activity. After class we get home and its 7:30 and Bella goes straight to bed and we have no time to fix Bear (or anyone) a proper dinner before its bedtime. I don’t feel like I get to spend any time with Bella (while she’s awake) and I’m snapping and irritable at Bear because there is NO TIME TO DO ANYTHING.

So much of my day at work is spent with me just putting the hours in. How is this a good use of my time? Of my life? When I could be watching my beautiful children grow up. Listening to Bear tell scary stories, or go on bear hunts or look for mysteries. After all I am Shaggy to his Scooby Doo. And Bella is so little, exploring everything and she’ll be standing unsupported soon and then walking and I will only vaguely recall these moments of her crawling drooly face the 3 out of 4 days a week when I really got to see her.

Regardless of the finanical implications of it, I’m fundamentally curious about people who were working and decided to stay home:

• Do you regret being a SAHM?
• How did you decide to become a SAHM and/or why did you decide to remain a Working Mom?