we are kind of on the hippie-ish side of things in our baby raising ways. we had a natural childbirth (and seriously considered a home/waterbirth), we aren't vaccinating judah until at least 1 year, we do babywearing, make our own baby food, thought about cloth diapers (points for trying...they're not allowed at preschool) and we are all about the breastfeeding.
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i always just knew i would breastfeed. i guess because my mom nursed both me and my brother so that's all i ever knew or heard about really. then when we took our granola childbirth classes for the bradley method, and they were allllllllll about breastfeeding exclusively, often, and for a long time. i was on board and said, hell yeah, the benefits are huge so i will do it until he's a year old.
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i did have some fear that it would be really hard. a lot of moms would ask me when i was pregnant if i planned to breastfeed and when i said yes i got a lot of, "well, don't be disappointed if you cant," and, "well, its really hard and not everyone can do it," and, "don't just expect it to happen on its own, you have to really work to get make it happen." so i got nervous that i wouldn't be lucky enough to have it come easy. i also worried that because i am so type A that i would be too stressed to ever feed him or that my milk would just not come in. i was just worried that even though it was by choice and we had alternatives, this little guy's entire nutritional foundation was on me.
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2 hours old after his second successful meal
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luckily, judah was a little champ and latched on perfectly from his 2nd minute of life and never looked back. the lactation consultant in the hospital had me whip them out and show her how things were going and she left after like 30 seconds because she said we were all stars. as soon as we were rolling those first few days, i had visions of pumping and milky abundance to store away in my freezer so i could go as long as i wanted. well, the first week brought that dream to an end. i would pump and get minuscule amounts. looking back, duh, i was pumping AFTER giving him an entire feeding and his little tummy was only the size of a marble to start with so there wasn't a huge need to keep up with anyhow. but building up a frozen surplus was important to me. i wanted to be able to go out without him for longer than 3 hours and leave the grandparents with real mommy food. i always took my pump with me like some dorky powerpack and would stay on schedule so my supply didn't go down while i was away from him. i have pumped on the expressway at 80 mph. i cant imagine the milky blur we left on some folks' retinas who made the mistake of looking through our window. by the end of my maternity leave i had about 70-80 ounces stored up. while this is nothing compared to the 8 oz. bottles some moms could pump after EVERY feeding, i was proud of my little stash that i worked so very hard for and of the fact that i was ALL he needed as a 4 month old boy to keep him nourished and growing.
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i mean using only my boobs, i took him from this:
to this:
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sometimes in the early day of breastfeeding i felt so confined by it all being dependent on me that i started freaking out and we eventually bought a container of formula when judah was 3 weeks old just to put on the counter. we didn't touch it for months, but i felt like it took the pressure off of me. but every time i got overwhelmed about feeding judah and jesse would offer to give him formula, i recoiled. NO! this is MY job. you and judah can count on me.
well, then i started work again. i knew intellectually that pumping does not equal a baby feeding directly from you, but kind of ignored that that was going on. my body wasn't giving up as much milk as judah was drinking in his bottles at preschool. the teachers would tell me that he still seemed really hungry after slamming a bottle because i was only packing him the same amount as what i would pumped. i was way tight-fisted with my frozen stash and didn't want to dip into it and really resisted needing to do this which is hilarious because i was begrudging judah milk now so i would have more milk for later...for judah! i would get so stingy and belligerent about thawing any extra milk to add to what i had pumped that day that i was actually viewing judah as greedy for "stealing" MY frozen stash. jesse was like, um, honey, this milk is his anyway, why don't we let him have it? ha. right, i forgot.
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so my frozen stash started going down an ounce or two a day, but by 3.5-4 months we were still 100% breastmilk. he was only ever away from me for 2 consecutive feedings and then the rest of the time was direct nursing. well then we started letting him sleep all the way through the night at 4 months. it was a miracle and it feels amazing to really rest again. the first morning after when i pumped it was a personal record so i thought that my body was responding to the extra sleep i was getting and that it was be great for us and i could stay AHEAD of him and build up the stash even more.
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this high didn't last long. naturally, since my body is realizing that he doesn't wake up twice in the night, it makes milk more slowly now. like really slowly. like too slowly to fill back up for him to eat. nothing is sadder than having him nurse and end with sad little hungry tears rather than a happy drooly milk-coma snuggle. i died a painful death the first time we added formula to a bottle of milk for preschool...this was the first time in 13 months that he ever got sustained by something other than my body (not counting that cream cheese icing jesse fed him at 4 weeks at lena's bridal shower). when we first started adding a whole ounce of formula to every 4 ounce bottle we made him i felt so inadequate. i thought that was bad until it became 50/50 and now we are lucky if he even gets an ounce of the real deal in every bottle.
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it's so cute, but so hard
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this must be what it feels like for a guy with erectile dysfunction. i feel like less of a woman because i cant make enough milk. i have horrible disappointment and shame for having to give him formula at all before his 6 month mark. of course, i don't ever think other moms who have to, or choose to, give formula are bad or less in any way, but since i had decided to breastfeed and couldn't seal the deal, i feel like a big failure to my son.
.the pump i own is a pimp one. its the top of the line brand and is awesome. but i wanted to really give it a fair shot so i am now renting a mac daddy $1500 hospital grade pump. still barely getting it done. farg! i know a big part of it is just the fact that i am not AROUND him for several hours a day. my body knows that the pump is not my son. there are crazy cool mommy hormones that shoot through me when the little guy is actually near me and i just don't get those when i have to be apart from him 6 hours a day plus 11 at night. that just cant change. i have to work full time to get the health insurance that our family is on and to get enough extra income for our family to live on. on weekends i spend TONS of time in close skin to skin contact with judah to try to beef up the milky h-mones, but its like i just cant "get it up."
.i know that doctors recommend going until age 1 with breastfeeding and i think at that point there are only 3 or 4 nursing sessions a day, but how do you keep that supply up around the clock? at that point almost all babies are sleeping through the night, so how do you recover from 12 hours "off" and get enough milk in there for 3 full liquid meals a day (plus solids too)? this is the big mystery to me. i thought it would just happen since a lot of moms do the 3 daytime meals and sleep all night with their older infants. anyone? ANSWERS PLEASE!
.we also have started solids, partly because i was worried about him not getting enough to eat even with the formula supplementation. so he is drinking less overall anyway because he is getting fruits and veggies and cereals now. so i know that's a factor as well as the separation. another huge downside of this is that his poo REEKS now. i knew formula/solid food diapers supposedly smelled bad compared to breastfed diapers, but lord. the first few months of diapers smelled like honey nut cheerios. now they literally smell worse than an old man dump.
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me and the bug posing with one of my usurping replacements. i'm surprised my boobs didn't reach out and bitch-slap that bowl of formula and cereal off the counter.
.i AM very excited about eventually being off breastfeeding 100% because i know my body is holding onto some pure fat stores specifically for feeding judah, but as much as i want to drop lbs, i would rather be chunk8 and still be able to feed the bug myself.
.i know that with every milestone judah hits, he needs me physically less and less, but this one snuck up on me a little bit. as happy as i was to not be pregnant or in labor anymore, having the cord cut was a little sad, because it marked the death of a unique period for judah and me. but it was great too because it meant i could actually hold him and look at him and share him with his daddy. this is the same way. its happy i guess because there is new freedom in it, but its just sooner than i had anticipated and hoped for, so rather than just growing into a new phase, i feel like i have dropped the ball and forced us prematurely forward.
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i am really thankful that i have a baby who was able to breastfeed immediately and get all of the antibodies he needed to survive the early weeks from me. i feel so lucky that i fed him pure breastmilk for the first 3 months which is when there is the biggest discrepancy between milk and formula and when they get the most benefits from breastmilk. i am super grateful that i have a baby who doesn't mind switching between breast and bottle and is thriving on both. i am blessed to have a baby who loves every solid food we've tried with him. i don't have any legitimate gripes since i have a chunky little nugget of health. i know it shouldnt, but why does this one little thing get me so down?
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