'nuff said

The Lactivist posted about "the dark side of breastfeeding" today.
I really liked her post. So much so that this inveterate lurker actually commented!
If you haven't breastfed before, and are thinking about having kids that you breastfeed, you should read the post. I wish I had had this kind of perspective before I started, because I think the rude awakening would have been a bit less rude.
Don't get me wrong, I think breastfeeding is absolutely the right choice. I'm not at all sorry that I'm doing it, just as I'm not sorry I had a baby. But some days, I think, what the *&@$^! was I thinking? Like last night, when I woke with a splitting no-caffeine headache at 1:30 am when Lucy woke, and as she nursed, I realized the headache had spread to my stomach, so I was wondering if I was going to barf as she wiggled and didn't go back to sleep. Oh, and our night light is a blue LED light which is apparently at the optimum headache-increasing spectrum.
Ohhhhhhhh. It makes me nauseous just remembering.
SO. Go see the Lactivist! Now!

ps. Someone needs to wean herself off of that second tea she's been sneaking in the late morning. Because I don't want to increase my caffeine addiction. And I don't want any more 1 am headaches.

the rules

I realized last night that I navigate a set of rules as complex and exacting as the tax code.
They are the rules to get Lucy to sleep.
I'm not nearly as ritualistic about it as I used to be, but I am, well, just a tad legalistic. For example

1) I must wait approximately 4 hours after her last nap before putting her to sleep.
2) I must wait approximately 12 hours after she woke up in the morning before putting her to sleep.

Rules 1 and 2 mean that bedtime is as precisely timed as, say, the Space Shuttle launch. (5...4...3...2..1... bedtime!) It has been a little tricky lately, because she sometimes doesn't get the memo about when her bedtime is, and takes a third nap at 6:30, when we put her down. Do the math people. This means a late bedtime for Lucy. And no Adult Time for mom and dad. Boooooo.

3) I must nurse until her breathing slows and the gulping stops and the gaps between sucking grow longer and longer.
At some points, I have actually counted the spaces. I had to have longer spaces in between sucking than when she was actually sucking. (one, one-thousand. Two, one-thousand). Or counting breaths in between sucking. Or counting the number of times (generally three) she sucks without swallowing. There are many metrics I can use. Note: I'm not obsessive compulsive. Really, I'm not. Really.

4) I must nurse her on both sides.
This means I sometimes switch mid-bedtime nursing to go to the other side. I'm not one of those handy moms that figured out how to nurse on both sides without turning over (how do they do that? It seems so uncomfortable to me--I can never figure out what to do with my top arm) so I do the Chinese fire drill and run around the bed with pillows.

5) If she's hopelessly overtired, I have to get up and rock her to sleep with a little step, dip, step routine, until she's drowsy enough to get back down on the bed. Don't ask how I manage to lower us down onto the mattress with her still attached to my boob. I don't quite know myself.

6) Once I nurse her to sleep, she will sleep approximately an hour before she wakes up again. Then I nurse her to sleep, and usually (thank God) she's down for a while, sometimes even till morning.
Let's take a moment and savor that last sentence.

And I always find myself planning. If she wakes up, do I try the other side? Rock her? Let her get up? Take her to the bathroom?

Nursing requires such...attention. Especially to sleep. I have to gauge her leg movement and thrashing (just leg movement usually means she's not tired enough; back arching means she has to poop or she's over tired). I have to decipher her breathing (mostly asleep versus comatose). I have to distinguish between swallows (brisk and measured and slowing down). I have to gauge whether she needs to switch sides (unlatch + cry).


Basically, I should get a medal for every successful night-time nurse-down.
That's a lot of medals, people. Let's start 'em comin'.

carnival time!

I'm joining in a fun carnival of breastfeeding "expectation vs. reality" stories. Here's my take. Join in the carnival through the links at the bottom of this post.

In the days where I had a gigantic belly and lots of spare time, I had already become insistent about my right to breastfeed in public. “I don’t want to be isolated,” I said. So along with the Lasinoh and a How-to book, I bought a Hooter Hider in a garish print (so garish my husband called it “clown-like”). I’m not hiding behind basic black, I told myself. No one’s going to keep this nursing momma at home.

What I didn’t realize is that breastfeeding can be isolating, even in the best of circumstances. Perhaps the closeness nursing creates with your baby is the fact that it’s so hard to get close to anyone else.

Even physically. After about the first week of Lucy’s life, I realized no one had touched me. Because no one could get close enough. I was surrounded by pillows. Besides a Boppy, I needed about three other pillows to nurse comfortably sitting up on the couch. That number increased to six in bed, and ten lying down. I’m down to three pillows on the couch, and three in bed, but still. No one’s snuggling while Lucy’s latched on.

And despite my chutzpah, it took me weeks--well, months--to get used to nursing in public. It didn’t help that my husband was just the tiniest bit squeamish. Or that I wasn’t quite dexterous enough to lift up my shirt, help Lucy latch on, and keep the Hooter Hider from billowing like a garish kite. And that was when she wasn’t upset, arching her back, and unlatching unexpectedly.

And until I mastered nursing in a sling, I just couldn’t find comfortable places to sit. On our first outing, (to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf), I brought the Boppy. It seemed perfectly normal after a few weeks of sleeplessness, but I wonder what people were thinking when they saw me march by with baby, diaper bag, and U-shaped pillow. Maybe they thought it was for some serious hemorrhoids.

For at least the first eight weeks, there wasn’t the possibility of going someplace and not nursing. We went out to dinner, and I nursed. I nursed in church. I nursed in the bathroom, on a walk, at my in-laws. In the library. At the park. In the car. Whether or not I had comfortable seating, or my arms were tired, or I had privacy, we nursed. Because that was our life.

And then we started recognizing that our daughter was sensitive to certain foods. Milk was obvious; I don’t usually eat it, but when I did after she was born, we were up all night. That’s easy, I thought. No more milk.

But her digestive system still seemed sensitive: I would describe the poops, but since this is for new moms, I’ll spare you the TMI details. I tried no wheat. This seemed to help. Then it was wine. Then soy.

If you don’t eat milk, wheat or soy, there’s not a lot you can eat. Actually, there’s plenty. There’s just not a lot of processesed food, restaurant food or other people’s food you can eat.

So now that our daughter stays up late enough for us to go out, and is mobile enough that we could eat at other people’s houses, we stay home. Oh, sure, I invite people over. And luckily, I get enough sleep these days that I have the energy to cook. I even like to cook.

But I miss dinners after church, or getting take-out when I’m too tired to cook. I miss not having to give people detailed instructions about what to bring over--scratch that; I miss telling people not to bother bringing anything, because it’s likely either they or I will miss something I can’t eat.

And yet--and yet, it isn’t all so bad as it sounds. My daughter smiles now; she plays games with us. She has started standing with support; we’re hoping she will crawl before she walks. She shakes her head back and forth when she’s delighted; she smiles at strangers, even when she’s tired. She crows when I tickle her ribs.

Social? No--breastfeeding isn’t exactly social. Yet it’s connective, like nothing else in the world.

Check out these other carnival rides:
Motherwear Blog - What I Didn't Expect When I Was Expecting
Breastfeeding Mums - What I Wish I'd Known About Breastfeeding
Mama Knows Breast - Top Ten Things I Didn't Expect About Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding 1-2-3 - What I Didn't Expect When I Was Expecting
The Lactivist - Nursing Isn't Quite What I Expected...
Spit Up On My Shoulder - Education is Key
Adventures of a Breastfeeding Mother - what she didn’t expect about breastfeeding
New Mama's Next - The Surprises of Breastfeeding an "Early Bird"
The True Face of Birth - What I Didn't Expect While Pregnant
Down With the Kids - Goodbye Booby