The Normals

I haven't been blogging because... well, I've been sitting/laying in my bed for a couple of weeks and there isn't a lot going on in my life, or, sorry to say, my brain. But I got into a bit of a discussion on Facebook today, and it got me thinking about a topic that is obviously on my brain right now - giving birth and feeding a newborn.

I reacted to comments on Facebook by several people who said that feeding baby formula was the "easy way" and that breastfeeding was just so hard and inconvenient. First of all, I found the opposite to be true - formula feeding is a PAIN! When baby is a newborn and waking up in the middle of the night, who wants to get out of bed and go all the way to the kitchen to mix up/warm a bottle while baby wails, instead of just reaching over, getting baby out of the bassinet and nursing them back to sleep before anyone ever fully wakes up?! When Henry was ten months old and I was pregnant with Violet, my supply really tanked, and I was giving him formula about half the time and nursing him the other half. I can't tell you how many times my poor boy was out on some errand with me screaming and hungry, because his bad momma had forgotten to pack a bottle - I was just so used to the ease of always having his food supply with me!

But aside from the fact that I disagree about formula feeding being more convenient, I really have a problem with people going around talking about how hard breastfeeding is. I think we have really turned things upside down in our society by taking perfectly normal as-nature-intended things like breastfeeding and giving birth, and making them into some heroically difficult feats that women must choose to overcome... or choose the alternative, the "easy" way of giving baby a bottle or having a medically-managed delivery.

When we talk about how hard breastfeeding is, and we show images on TV of birth as this horrifically scary, painful, and dramatic event, we scare new mothers! We create doubt. So many women never even try to breastfeed or have a normal delivery, because they have been so programmed to think these things are too difficult. Even those who try, often are set up for failure and give up too soon, because again, they have been told over and over again that they are doing some really hard thing. SURE, there are challenges to breastfeeding and of course giving birth hurts... but we all accept that when we become pregnant we will deal with morning sickness, and backaches, and stretch marks, and heartburn, and swollen feet. There's no alternative - we just know going into it that's what's normal, and we deal with it and move on. Well, if we as a society started saying it's NORMAL for newborns to wake up every couple of hours, it's NORMAL for your nipples to be sore at first, it's NORMAL for your milk not to come in for a day or two and babies are made for that, it's NORMAL for your supply to fluctuate, etc. then moms would go into breastfeeding expecting those obstacles, dealing with them, and continuing on. Similarly, we need to say that it's NORMAL for labor to progress slowly and sometimes stall for a little while, it's NORMAL for contractions to hurt and our bodies are made to withstand that pain, it's NORMAL for baby to crown for a long time, it's NORMAL for baby's heart rate to vary some during birth, etc. then women wouldn't buy into their doctors' arguments that it's time for pitocin and forcepts and c-sections.

I just never really considered NOT breastfeeding an option for me, so when I encountered obstacles (and I did), I just sought out solutions and plowed through it. Not because I felt formula feeding was evil (in fact, I chose to start supplementing with formula once my kids reached 7-10 months, because I wanted to cut out one of my pumping sessions at work), but because I just thought breastfeeding was the way to go - my body was created to feed my baby and my baby was created to drink human milk, so I knew we could do it. I remember after my deliveries, Davis said afterwards that he couldn't believe I never screamed - he had witnessed countless "births" in movies and on TV, and every single one of them portrayed the same thing - a mom screaming at the top of her lungs, in sheer panic, with doctors and nurses running around frantically as if baby and mom would die any minute. It's ridiculous. The VAST majority of births are not medical emergencies, nor are they unbearably painful or traumatic - mothers and babies were made for this and we've been doing it since the beginning of humanity. If we started showing THAT side of birth and talking about birth as NORMAL, the same way we talk about pregnancy as being NORMAL, women would stop doubting themselves and just let their bodies do their thing. Honestly, between pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding - I would say pregnancy is the hardest. All the hardships of giving birth and breastfeeding are very transient, whereas the hardships of pregnancy each last at least several weeks. So why are women making it through 40 weeks of the hard stuff, only to believe they can't make it through a 90 second contraction or a few days of sore nipples? Because we have created alternatives and led women to believe that formula feeding and intervention-heavy births are the norm, and breastfeeding and natural birth is for those crazy women who are more brave or more crunchy or more something than they are.

Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that we have created baby formula and medical delivery interventions - there are babies who are healthier because they had formula available to them when they were orphaned or some medical issue kept them from being able to be breastfed. I'm thankful that I had the option to pump less and give my older infants formula. I'm thankful that when they thought I had vasa previa, I knew we would most likely be okay because I could have a c-section and have access to a fabulous NICU. I don't begrudge moms the choice of giving their baby formula, of getting an epidural or having a c-section. I just wish that moms (especially first time moms) went into the decision with the perspective of knowing that breastfeeding is what's NORMAL and NATURAL and what our bodies and babies were MADE FOR, and that they are perfectly capable of giving birth without drugs and episiotomies. I wish their decisions were made not because of the doubt that we as a culture have created.

I think it's time to start telling our daughters and our new mother friends, and to start showing on TV and in movies, that the NORMAL is breastfeeding and the NORMAL is for mom to deliver baby without interventions. We need to empower women to believe that their bodies were created to do this. If a doctor tells them that their baby is "too big" to be born vaginally, or a friend tells them that they just need to give up breastfeeding because they don't make enough milk, a confident mom should feel empowered to question them. They should know that true cephalopelvic disproportion is very rare and that changes in milk production are normal and low supply can usually be remedied. That is not to say that these are NEVER the case, but that they are so unusual that more than likely they are not the case and should be questioned before alternatives like c-sections and formula are chosen.

Yes, I'm happy that formula exists, I'm happy women can choose epidurals and that c-sections are available and relatively safe now. BUT they are not normal and not natural. That's just a fact.

Wordless Wednesday

(another picture found on my phone)

Poor Man's Granola

That's what I call my new late-night snack.

Henry has been "reverse cycling" - when he's away from me during the day, he doesn't eat much, and then he makes up for it by nursing a bunch at night. It's kind of flattering, because it proves that he loves me more than a plastic bottle. Also, when I make the "milk" sign, right before nursing him, he starts flapping his arms and kicking his legs and grinning really wide. And then he dives for my milk and attacks me like a little baby bear. It's the best thing in the world.

That reminds me of a funny... When Sophia was Henry's age, I did the "milk" sign (opening and closing fist) every time I nursed her. I had read that some babies start signing as early as 6 months. Teaching my kids sign language helped us avoid a lot of pre-talking frustration in the young toddler stage, I'm convinced. Well, when she was not quite five months old, I told Davis "look at that cute hand thing she keeps doing!" She had this new adorable little habit of opening and closing her fists, and it took me two weeks to figure out that she was doing the sign that I had been trying to teach her!! DUH Mom!

But that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about how Henry's waking up at night again to eat, and I'm letting him because it means I only have to pump once at work instead of three times. But that means I'm HUNGRY in the middle of the night after feeding my voracious little baby bear.

And that's when I grab this and that and throw it in a bowl and call it Poor Man's Granola: walnut pieces, raisins, plain old-fashioned rolled oats, honey, milk. Yum.

Nooooo! Not the Miiiiiiiiiilk!

Enough time has passed, that I can actually blog about last week, when Whirlpool broke my heart.

This is not the story of my new Whirlpool Duet washer, which doesn't get my clothes clean and gets unbalanced even with tiny loads and which drives me totally batty with, um, strong dislike.

This is the story of the night I opened the freezer right before going to bed to discover that all the ice in the ice cube trays had melted completely. And all the food was completely thawed. Like completely thawed. Which, of course, immediately made me start screaming "noooooooo! not the miiiiiiiiiiiiiilk!" and sobbing and wailing hysterically. I don't think I've cried that hard since high school.

You see, I had about 150 ounces of breastmilk in that freezer. (This, by the way, was on top of the box of milk that I donated to one of my midwife's clients who wasn't making enough milk and didn't want to supplement with formula) I always use those first few weeks of breastfeeding, when I have too much milk, to stockpile my freezer. When I go back to working in the office this summer, it will relieve some stress if I don't always have to make sure to pump as much as Henry eats. When Amelia was a month old, I needed surgery and my freezer stash saved me when I had to pump and dump for 24 hours after anesthesia.

After I cried to the point of throwing up (seriously, it was insane) I went back to the freezer and discovered that all was not lost. And this is actually why I wanted to blog about this... several weeks ago, I bought these.



I had toyed with buying them before, but they seemed kind of expensive. After I bought them, I was so happy - my freezer was so neat, it was easy to organize the milk from oldest to newest. And it was easy to freeze the milk flat in the little drawer thingy. (They also hold my favorite - Lansinoh - storage bags perfectly) But best of all - those boxes saved some of my milk!! I still had to throw out about 50 ounces, which killed me. The milk at the front and back of each box was thawed, but all the milk in the middle was still frozen solid! You have to understand everything else in my freezer was completely thawed! The boxes must have retained some of the cold (which means they also protect your milk from the temperature fluctuations of opening and closing your freezer door) and then having the frozen milk packed tightly together must also have kept it cold enough.

So, if anyone out there has any breast milk in their freezer - buy one of those storage containers!

It was about midnight by this point, by the way. My mother owns the house next to ours and rents it out, and as it turned out, it was empty that night (the new renters moved in the next day!) so I took the milk over there and stuck it in the freezer until the morning - when thankfully a repairman was able to fix our refrigerator for $181. WAY better than a new fridge! The starter on the something or other burned out. I have no idea, and I really don't care ha!

Oh man, it was scary, though. Someone who has never hooked a mechanical suction device to their breasts will have no idea what I'm talking about. Lucky them.

Totally Random Breastfeeding Post

It's been over a year since I've nursed a baby. There's no particular reason I'm posting this, except I feel like it :) Of my blog readers that I know of, none only a few of you are currently breastfeeding or contemplating breastfeeding in the near future. Sorry.

One of the greatest things about breastfeeding is that you don't have to have any stuff - you know, bottles and formula and formula holders and all that. But there's some stuff that's really great to have anyway. And if you're pumping you will need some things. With Sophia I had the luxury of never having to pump, although I did just to have some milk on hand for the babysitter or whatever. With Amelia, I went back to work full time (+) when she was seven weeks old and pumped until she was ten months old. After that she got formula during the day and I nursed her at night and that worked out just fine too.



Being a working mom and breastfeeding is hard, but it's totally doable, and I wanted to post this for anyone out there who might need advice or encouragement, or who might be thinking I wonder how I can blow a few hundred bucks on breastfeeding supplies.

So first of all, breast pumps. I had the Medela Pump In Style Advanced. When Amelia was in the hospital, I used the hospital-grade Medela, and I can tell you that the PIS Advanced is the exact same thing! The motor works the same way and I got the same results. Awesome pump. I also had this single pump. It was nice sometimes when I would nurse on one side and then pump on the other. I used it when we travelled - on one road trip I sat in the back of the truck with this pump plugged into the cigarettte lighter, pumping, and then giving Sophia the milk in her car seat so we didn't have to stop... at just four months old she totally gave me a what on earth are you doing?! look. I know she thought I was crazy.

This, of course, is the first thing you have to have if you're pumping.

Number two is the Easy Expressions Bustier.

Seriously, I totally refused to pump without it! This allows you to look at magazines, surf the internet, change the channel on the TV, etc. while you're pumping. Aside from just being nice, I noticed that my milk production was way better when I was wearing it, because I was able to relax. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I joke that sitting there holding bottles and staring at them waiting for your milk to let down is like trying really hard to concentrate on having an orgasm - it doesn't work! The pump-holder thingy (that's what I called it) let me shop for baby clothes online or catch up on email, which in turn increased my milk output and made pumping not as boring.

The worst part of pumping for me was washing all of the equipment and bottles! So I had lots of spare breast shields and valves and stuff. I found that they were cheapest at Kidsurplus.com. I had at least enough so that I didn't have to wash supplies at work. So when I was pumping three times a day, I had three sets of everything that I took to work with me. I had these wipes that I would use to wipe down everything during the day after I pumped. Then at home I would wash everything in hot soapy water and then sterilize with these in the microwave.

Also, if pumping is painful, you might need bigger breastshields or the soft kind - Medela makes different ones that all fit their pumps.

This converter was cool - I used it to pump directly into the Avent bottles that we used. That was for the milk that I pumped and just kept in the fridge for shorter periods of time.

Most of the milk I pumped went into the freezer. These are the best freezer bags - I never had a single one leak or spill. I would lay them flat in the freezer until they were frozen solid, then they would take up very little real estate in the freezer. I only froze 2 ounces per bag, so that none went to waste. If you run hot (not super hot, just warm/hot) water over the frozen bag, it only takes a minute or so to thaw the milk.

If you know you're going to be pumping, I would recommend taking advantage of those first few weeks when your body is making too much milk to build up your freezer stash. I had to have surgery when Amelia was four weeks old, and for 24 hours after the anesthesia I had to pump and dump my milk (that sucked - every time I pumped I would make Davis dump it out while I cried ha ha!). We went through a HUGE freezer stash in that 24 hours - it's amazing how fast it can get depleted.

By the way, that reminds me, don't overdo this. Although it was awesome to have a huge freezer stash at four weeks, it was kind of ridiculous. You see, when Amelia spent five days in the hospital, she was also under bili lights and I wasn't allowed to hold her. So there was nothing for me to do in that hospital room except pump and wash bottles. So I pumped. And the nurses would come whisk my milk away and stick it in the freezer. And would pump some more. And I never knew how much I was actually accumulating. Well, when we left the hospital they brought me a GIANT black trash bag FULL of my frozen milk! Ha ha! This was great, but the problem was when we got home... apparently my breasts thought that I had given birth to quadruplets, and they were making waaay too much milk. I didn't want to pump every thirty minutes when I got home, and I was SORE. I used cabbage leaves to decrease my milk supply - I would stick cold, washed cabbage leaves that I kept in the fridge into my bra until they wilted and then replaced them. It worked great, although Davis had a field day with the "salad in my bra" thing.

Oh and speaking of too much milk, these were my favorite nursing pads. I leaked a LOT with Sophia (and hardly at all with Amelia) and these were the only ones that never leaked and were not visible (let's just say I worked at a large almost all-male law firm and it was for the best) For those first few painful days of breastfeeding, and also one time when Sophia bit me, these were heavenly - they're expensive but last several days (long enough for my bite to heal).

Okay this is getting long, and I'm sure I'll blog about this again. I really miss breastfeeding (after three years of non-stop breastfeeding I totally thought I would never say that!!) I'll leave you with some good resources...

Kellymom.com is a good place to get answers to lots of questions.

I loved this book. It was funny and informative, and a good read while I was pregnant.

I would also recommend that you get the phone number of the lactation consultant at your hospital - they are great to call if you have questions or problems after you're discharged. I called mine months later about something, and they were more than happy to help out.

Also, if you have a question about whether you can take a certain drug while breastfeeding, you can call your poison control center, and they will be able to tell you.

Finally, as I've blogged about before, I feel strongly about encouraging breastfeeding moms without making them feel guilty or being pushy... so you can always email me or comment if you have a question or just need someone to talk to!

What I Know

Mostly, becoming a mom has taught me that I don't really know that much and I can't do anything without my God. But I have managed to learn a few things, like...

Yes, pigs do have belly buttons.

If your two year old sticks a bead up her nose, and tweezers, bulb syringes, pepper-induced sneezes and fervent lecturing don't work, you can squeeze the other nostril shut and blow in her mouth quickly and forcefully and the bead will come flying out.

When our parents said "because I said so" it wasn't because they didn't want to give us the real answer, they said it because that was the answer.

Depends (those incontinence panties I'll be wearing soon because I have no respect for my bladder and ignore it all the time) are way, way better than those mattresses the hospital gives you to wear between your legs after you have a baby.

Your second child will have a different experience growing up than your first. That's not a bad thing - sure she won't have a plaster footprint Christmas ornament, but she'll have the friendship and protection of an older sibling. If she's not an over-achiever, she'll be laid back and able to get along with everyone. We're all different, we all have different experiences. It's all good. Guilt is useless.

Breastfeeding hurts at the beginning. A lot. People who tell you you're doing something wrong because it hurts are wrong. It does get better after the first few days, and breastfeeding actually becomes awesome after about three months.

This was a hard lesson for me, but everyone was right: you have to pick your battles.

Everyone was wrong about sleeping when the baby sleeps. When the baby sleeps, you do the laundry and spend alone time with your husband and trim your toenails and run to the store and call your grandmother and...

Things change after you have a baby. Never say "I won't let my toddlers watch TV" or "I'll never use food to bribe my kids" or "I'll never let my kids sleep in my bed" or "I'll never wipe my kid's nose with the underside of my skirt."

You can read every book and blog and get advice from every trusty mother you know, but the best thing you can do for your kids is to learn who they are and follow your instincts. You are their only mother.

Support Your Local Mom

Motherhood...

It's the job we've been practicing for since we were tots. And yet once we get there, there's a freefall into am-I-really-qualified-for-this fear. Sadly, far too many other mothers are willing to feed into our insecurities rather than cheering us on.

Sophia giving her baby doll a bottle

As strongly as I feel about breastfeeding being AWESOME, I would never ever ever ever ever in a million billion years want to make another mom feel bad for the decision to bottle feed her child. Because of her medical condition, Sophia will never be able to breastfeed. It is my goal to change the world, so that by the time she has her own children, she will never be made to feel (at least from another mom!) that she's being a bad mother for not breastfeeding!

When my babies were little, I saw friends all around me quit breastfeeding, often because of a total lack of support (usually from their moms or other friends who told them "oh stop torturing yourself and just give her formula already!") It made me sad, because I was on the other side of those (really hard!) first few weeks and knew how rewarding breastfeeding could ultimately be. So after I had exclusively nursed my second baby for about six months, I called La Leche League and inquired about becoming one of their "Leaders." I remember calling a Leader when I was nursing Sophia and was distraught when she went on a nursing strike (as it turned out because of teething) and how nice it was to talk to another mom with more experience. Well, I was basically told by LLL that they didn't want me, because I was working mom. From the time Amelia was seven weeks old, I had been pumping and my husband was giving her bottles of my expressed milk during the day, and then I nursed her at night. I was told something to the effect that this wasn't really breastfeeding (nevermind the fact that I had breastfed - no pumps - my other daughter for eighteen months) and since they don't encourage moms to work, they didn't want me for a Leader. I was floored. Breastfeeding my first baby was hard, but working and pumping was inifitely harder! I had learned so much about how to make it all work - at this point I was working for the second largest law firm in my state and was putting in a bazillion hours a week, sitting through depositions when I needed to pump, etc. - and I was longing to share my experience with other working moms, who I knew needed that support.

I was sad to see breastfeeding moms being told that it wasn't worth their effort and they should just quit, or that pumping is somehow not real breastfeeding. But I was also really sad to see formula feeding moms meant to feel like they were being bad moms, especially from people who had no idea what was going on. I know some moms who totally quit breastfeeding because as soon as they started supplementing with formula, any support they got from the breastfeeding gurus stopped (I can tell you that I started supplementing with Amelia when she turned six months old and successfully continued to breastfeed her - she just got one bottle of forumla a day so I could cut out one pumping session).

We moms all love our children and are just trying the best we can to do what we feel is best for our children. There is so much pressure on us from the rest of the world, we need to stand together and support one another. It is great to share your experiences, and even your convictions and beliefs, but please stop tearing each other down. There are so many dividing lines - breastfeeding, circumcision, vaccinating, co-sleeping, sleep training, the list could go on forever. It breaks my heart. Mothering is exhausting. We are so hard on ourselves, we feel guilty all the time, we constantly question ourselves (when did women stop believing that the answers were within them, rather than in books and message boards and magazines?!), we are bombarded with "advice" from every direction... let's not add to it.

If you think someone is a good mom, tell them. I promise it will make their day, and in a job that often comes with zero recognition, it's so important! One of the best compliments I have ever gotten, which I will always remember, was when my pediatrician told a friend of mine that I was a good mom (the other was when one year old Sophia pointed to a picture of Grace Kelly and said "mama").

Next time you're talking to a mom who is making a parenting decision different from yours, listen to what she's saying rather than instinctively becoming defensive about your own choices. Find common ground.

Cheer those mom friends on! If a mom's made it two months breastfeeding, tell her great job. If a mom's made it one more sleepless night without running off with the circus, tell her you're right there with her!

If a new mom or pregnant friend asks for advice, give her most important piece of advice of all: listen to your gut. It's your baby, you'll know.

C'mon people now

Smile on your [sister!]

Ev'rybody get together

Try to love one another right now!