The Post-Partum Body

So since my post on weird pregnancy symptoms is by far and away the most popular post ever, on my wee blog (50% of all traffic, thanks to accidentally hitting on a popular search term), I've been meaning to write a bit about what's happened since.

• Regarding what I wrote about hair loss: during pregnancy I may or may not have stopped losing hair. About four months after I gave birth, WHOMP out went half my hair. Seriously, there was so much hair falling out of my head that DH and I were worried I was going bald. The hairstyle wasn't noticeably affected, to me at any rate. Ask my hair stylist if you want to know for sure.
• All that stuff I mentioned about darker body hair and moles: no change. Ahem.
• Belly: still no stretch marks, but poochy and jiggly. I haven't done a lot to try to change it. I've been exercising intermittently and eating like I'm still pregnant but with the addition of a moderate amount of wine... so... no change expected.
• Breasts: fourteen months of breastfeeding and every once in awhile, I look in the mirror and say 'hey I've finally got the cleavage I've always wanted. Meh.' 
• Lady bits: the small tear took longer than I expected to fully heal. And by fully heal, well, I'm not going to explain that. But it was six months or so before... I was going to say back in the saddle but that's not quite right. Sad face.
• Behind the lady bits: also, the side effects of my intestinal slow down took a long time to heal. I wouldn't say things are totally back to my pre-pregnancy state even now but thankfully a lot better. 
• Birth control: around one year post-partum, menstruation returned for me (thank you lactational amenorrhea!) so we gave up the condoms (yay!) and I went back on the pill. Or rather, I thought my period had returned. So far she's made only one appearance. At any rate, being back on the pill has changed my...
• Skin! Nasty old adult acne that I used to get while on the pill, if not using retinol, is back with a vengeance. Ah well.

A couple notes on the post-partum mind:

• I was never much for horror and suspense genre entertainment. I find it totally unwatchable now. I am writing this with an episode of Bones running in the background. The storyline involves a kidnapped 8 year old boy. I can barely tolerate it and it helps to be distracted by writing this and watching the twitterstream flow by. I'm just watching for the shots of DC. I should watch Legally Blonde or something instead. Blog posts about miscarriage and sick children are pretty much guaranteed to get me bawling.
• Don't get me started on long distance commercials. I will cry at the drop of a hanky, or the sound of a kid saying 'Mom?'
• Pre-birth, I gave myself a manicure every Sunday night, and a pedicure every two weeks. I think I've half heartedly painted my nails three or four times in the past year. I miss it but I often can't be bothered. 

Poor kidnapped kid in Bones had a finger cut off. I want to throw up.

Speaking of nauseated, after almost a year of unplanned bedsharing with the baby, I love it. It made life easier and mornings are so snuggly and delicious with the baby right there. She wakes up in such a happy mood. Oh right, on nauseated: I just feel sad for the babies being left alone to cry themselves to sleep every night. I wish I could snuggle them all. 

Some of these things have been a surprise, some not so much. All of them, I hardly notice, especially when I'm schmooshing my baby girl!

What has your post-partum or post-adoption body, mind and life been like?

Magical Anti-Fungal Breastmilk

No really.

I too have been told the wonders of the human breastmilk. That it'll cure eye infections, skin rashes, stomach upset, maybe even cancer... You name it, some has said breastmilk will cure it.

I listen, and think about it, and I got to the point where I think perhaps a bit too much is being made over the wonders of human breastmilk. It can probably do some of those things, some of the time, depending on the type of infection or cancer it's being asked to fight. I'd love to be proven wrong.

As I've mentioned, I believe in science, and figure I'd wait until I saw some a few peer reviewed papers showing support for these things before I started going off on the other powers of human breastmilk. I haven't gone looking for them, I'm busy. I'm sure some of them are there.

Of course human breastmilk is good for babies and mamas, and useful too. But so much magic and other benefits? I was a little skeptical.

The bottle, insert & sippy top

Well, we feed the little one pumped human breastmilk in a Born Free (tm) nipple topped bottle when she's in daycare, and we feed her filtered tap water in a Born Free (tm) sippy cup topped bottle at daycare and at home. The nipple bottle has been our preferred for probably ten months. The sippy cup bottle is new to the home, probably as of about four months ago.

Both bottle configurations require an insert. It's part of their probably patented bottle design that is supposed to reduce colic or something. All I know is the bottle leaks if you don't put it in there. The insert looks at first glance like it's all one solid state unit. We never bothered to try to clean inside it (though I'm now sure the directions we never read probably say to do so. Sleep deprivation. It does wonders for your literacy).

Didn't occur to us that this is a two piece unit

Until this evening, when I was giving the water sippy bottle a swipe before leaving it out to dry for tomorrow. I noticed some black ooky looking stuff inside the insert. I showed my husband. We decide it's mold. YUCK! Mold in my baby's water bottle. We clean it out.

We remember the milk bottle, which we've also never cleaned and been using much longer. It's clean and shiny like new. No mold.

The cleaned insert in two pieces

It's NEVER BEEN CLEANED. It's just had pumped human breastmilk. Which, to add to all the other magical properties of human breastmilk, is now anti-fungal. Wow. So, I'm sold. Human breastmilk might just cure cancer too for all I know.

PS: The insert that we'd never cleaned doesn't pass liquid through it, it just lets air vent out the side or something.

Nursing Baby to Sleep

Every evening, and afternoons when I'm not working, I breastfeed the baby to sleep for her nap or for the night. I've noticed that lately, she'll be fussy and acting tired, so we'll go lie down in her bed and she'll nurse, and look like she's about to fall asleep. Suddenly, she perks up and she's ready to play for a few hours! Now that she's just past one year, I guess she's reducing how much sleep she needs each day. Not long ago, she needed two to three naps every day, and now it looks like one.

An acquaintance who is also a breastfeeding mom referred to the time spent nursing her baby to sleep as baby jail - that is, she said "Last night, in baby jail..." I had to ask what she meant.

I was a bit taken aback. There are lots of times that I'd rather be doing something else, and sometimes I kick myself for not bringing my beloved iPhone to bed with us, so I can read/tweet while she dozes. But to call it jail?

Someone needs to parent her to sleep, I'm firmly committed to not leaving her to cry her way to sleep. (Here are some good reasons, other than one's gut instinct, on why not to let babies cry every night to go to sleep.)

It's usually easier for me to breastfeed her to sleep that it would be for my husband or I to rock/walk/stroller/pat her to sleep. She loves to nurse.

We fought hard to be able to breastfeed and overcame a big obstacle (that shouldn't have been so big). I feel like I won that battle and I don't want to stop doing it just because it's inconvenient or I might be better off blogging/talking on the phone/... um what else might I be doing this evening?

I'm glad I can help her sleep this way and will continue to do so as long as she wants. Unless she wants me to come to college with her!

Any odd things you've heard lately from committed breastfeeders?

Nursing with Pierced Nips

I've had this in my drafts folder for too long... and my friend, Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite, just posted this nice bit on breastfeeding with pierced nipples. She's spurred me on to flesh this out a bit more and finally post it!

I had my nipples pierced over ten years ago at a professional piercing and tattoo shop in Victoria. I remember even back then, when I was pretty sure I wasn't ever going to have babies, that I asked the piercer if it could harm my chances of breastfeeding, if I changed my mind about babies. He said it was very unlikely to cause a problem - like Melodie writes above, the nipple has lots of holes for the milk to come out of.

I wore rings in my piercings much as Oscar (or Oscar's model) does in the photo on Melodie's page. I chose a hematite or Alaskan Black Diamond as the stone to close the rings.

They healed over well - my perception was it was much less than a year before they were healed, but I don't know if it just seemed like they were healed or if they really were.

I took them out about five years later. It's hard to pin down why, but they were to mark a particular time in my life and I was no longer enjoying having the rings in my body. I still wasn't seriously considering having a baby - I was just done with the piercings. I kept the rings and the hematites in a little box with other jewelry I don't wear anymore.

When I got pregnant, I worried a bit about the piercings, as they were still quite visible on the sides of my nipples. I asked my doula who'd just done a breastfeeding seminar, if she'd heard anything about breastfeeding post-piercing. She thought about it, I believe she said she hadn't heard anything along those lines, and that she'd look into it but wasn't really worried about it.

We did have a big fat tongue tie problem with breastfeeding, but that had pretty much absolutely nothing to do with the piercings. I have noticed that milk does come out the holes in the sides of my nipples, but it's not a problem at all. It's mostly funny.

I don't think I leak any more than normal - after the first couple of weeks post-partum, I stopped needing to wear breastpads. I always keep some at work, in case I am stuck and unable to express milk, but I've never needed to use them.

Thanks for prompting me to finally post this Melodie!

World Breastfeeding Week

Last year during World Breastfeeding Week, my baby and I started breastfeeding and I noted it here.

For World Breastfeeding Week this year, my baby and I have finished our first year of breastfeeding. She's still going strong and while giving me a little bite every once in awhile with her new teeth, I doubt she'll wean any time soon. It works for the both of us so I expect next year I'll be saying that we've completed our second year!

A whole lot is being written about World Breastfeeding Week. Here are a quick few of my favourite breastfeeding related posts (though they may not be strictly WBW posts) (of the few I've had time to read!):

• Annie at PhD in Parenting outlined the original and some new reasons to boycott Nestle
• Honest to Betsy wrote a lighthearted bit on four and a half years of breastfeeding and worked in the polar bears.
• Elita at Blacktating asks where are the images of black women breastfeeding?
• Melodie of Breastfeeding Moms Unite! has done a nice round of some other posts.

Any standout favourite posts on breastfeeding that you've read recently?

I Believe in Science

So, back in the old days, infant mortality was a lot higher than it is today. Here is data covering Canada from 1921 to 1974. Science advances, generally causing more babies to survive.

(Don't get me started on our growing cesarean rates. That's not supported by science.)

Here's my brief overview on my position, informed by what I understand is the science on...

Breastfeeding:

I am a committed breastfeeding mama. I have just passed my first year of breastfeeding, and hope we continue on for a long time.

Like Arwyn in her post on things we don't speak about, I feel like I need to state that. I'm a huge believer in the benefits of breastfeeding. It's a good thing for the baby, and it's a good thing for mama. Not only that, it's good for the planet, and once you get the early bumps out of the way, it's easy and convenient when it's working. So, I breastfeed because I've read about it and it sounds like today's science supports it as the best choice.

(See The Fearless Formula Feeder for thought provoking and often heart-wrenching stories one when breastfeeding doesn't work.)

Vaccinations:

I have also adhered to the CDC and Health Canada's schedule for infant vaccinations. I believe the studies I have read about that say that the risk of not vaccinating is much greater than the risk of the vaccines themselves (link below). I've read about vaccinations, and it sounds to me like today's science supports them as the best choice.

Vitamin D Supplementation?

What I've just started hearing about is vitamin D supplements for breastfed babies. Science is saying that most North Americans are vitamin D deficient and should take supplements, including breastfed babies. When I first heard someone say this, I scoffed, thinking to myself the long repeated "breastmilk is the perfect food for babies." But... what if I'm deficient in vitamin D? What if my baby is dark skinned or growing up in a region with little sunlight? Vitamin D deficiency can be very serious.

Breastmilk probably was perfect, before we started messing with ourselves - spending loads of time indoors, not making enough vitamin D, eating weird processed foods. Maybe with a supplement (not a replacement), we could make it better.

So, having read a bit more about it, maybe I would give my baby vitamin D supplements, if I were having a do-over. And of course, maybe someday I will. Because it seems that today's science supports it.

Tongue Tie:

As I've written a lot about, my baby and I had latching problems due to tongue tie. If we were left alone to manage, maybe she would have survived, maybe not. But I have read that in the recent old days, midwives would clip tongue tie at birth. That tongue tie clipping is arguably an intervention in what would have naturally occurred.

Co-Sleeping:

Much as today's science supports co-sleeping, an old tradition which I was initially against, but started doing when our baby slept very fitfully after her two month vaccinations. After we started co-sleeping, we all slept much better!

This is an interesting article that covers what they call the war on science in more depth if you're interested. Some people might see being a vaccine supporter and a breastfeeding supporter as contradictory. To me it makes sense, based on what I've read.

Vaccines, breastfeeding, clipping tongue ties, maybe vitamin D supplementation. Some old fashion, some new fangled. All largely supported by today's science showing this is good for babies.

The fact is, naturally, babies don't always survive. Sadly, even with the best that science and mama's milk have to offer, they still don't all survive today. We all do our best to make the right choices for our babies and families.

What scientific findings have intrigued or surprised you lately?

PS: incidentally, since I'm writing about infant mortality, here are two inspiring mamas working to make meaning from the loss of their babies: Kayce and Kristine.

Parenting in Public, the Cover Up

Reading about some "reality" TV show about people's reaction to nursing in public raised in my mind my experience with being asked to cover up while nursing the Baby Piranha.

I was in Texas due to a death in the family, at a restaurant eating lunch alone with the BP.

Lunch had just been served to me, and the BP also wanted to eat. She was only four months old at the time and not wiggling around a whole lot, so there was probably almost no skin showing.

A server (not the one assigned to my table) asked if I would like to cover up, not specifying what needed covering but gestured towards the BP with her hand.

I was stunned and the only thing I could manage as a response was something along the lines of "my right to nurse in public is protected by Texas state law."

The server looked taken aback, and muttered something along the lines of "protecting children who don't know about breastfeeding" and left.

I was alone, feeling nauseated and shaking with anger. I couldn't believe anything as simple as breastfeeding my precious baby could be reason to ask me to cover up. I doubt she felt she was doing anything wrong; on the other hand, I felt attacked and singled out.

I wanted to leave, to go somewhere and hide under a rock, but I figured that would be letting them win. So I stayed, and picked at my lunch half heartedly.

Later, a manager came by to check on my meal. I was sure to let him know how unhappy I was to have been treated this way. He quickly agreed I was in the right and said he'd speak to the server, though in retrospect, I'm not sure how he'd know who it was.

This critique of my parenting in public bugs me. I had someone come up to me out of the blue the other day and tell me the BP's arm was squished in the Ergo. (It wasn't, I'm squishier than I look).

Later the same day, a woman helped me get a bag of frozen blueberries out of a freezer at Costco - out of the blue, as it was - when I was holding the BP's sleeping head with one hand and trying to hold the door open and remove the bag with the other. I'm glad I had the grace to thank her profusely.

I'm reminded of Gina's call to help each other out at The Feminist Breeder. I think she has a really good point.

Have you been hassled for your parenting in public?

Go Read This Instead...

Because I'm too busy to write up my own thoughts, go check out these posts that are resonating with me these days:

• Annie of PhD in Parenting is in Berlin and finding processed food in Europe are less problematic...
• and links to the interesting, typically off the handle Fox News coverage of bed-sharing with your baby.
• Harriet of See Theo Run shares her thoughts on the Angel's Cradle at St Paul's Hospital. I'm glad she brought this up - it's so sad that it's needed but important that it exists, because it is needed.
• Gina of The Feminist Breeder writes about and gets great comments back on leaving kids in cars.
• Arwyn of Raising Boychick writes, as always thoughtfully and provocatively, on teaching patience to children...
• and in an older post, writes about hating pink and rejecting the feminine.
• The Fearless Formula Feeder shares a provocative story about why one mom did not try to breastfeed her child.

Do you have any favourite all time or favourite right now posts you want to share?

Happy to be Female

Being pregnant and having a baby made me happy to have a female body.

This sounds like a truism, or something any mother would say. For me, it’s a bit more complicated. I don't take being female for granted anymore.

When I was born, I was labeled female and given a female name and raised as a girl. I don’t remember ever feeling strongly about my sex or gender identity until recently. My sense of self and my perception of how my physical body and how society expected me to be meshed well enough for me to get by.

I think I went through my tomboy and princess phases. I might have even insisted that I was a boy once or twice, but never had a long lasting discomfort with my cisgenderness.

During my undergraduate days, I took some courses with a great professor which provoked me to more closely explore my sex and gender identity: am I really who I’ve been labeled?

I decided I was cool where I was. I could see advantages on either side of the artificially binary gender fence, but I could accept being a ciswoman. I didn’t care enough to go through a transition; I mostly just accepted it and moved on.

Fast forward another decade and my male partner wants to have a baby. I’d long discarded childbearing as something I didn't want or need to do, but he provoked my interest. My biggest fear, I realized, was of replicating my mother's abuse and neglect. Once I decided I would overcome that, I jumped in.

I was fortunate to fairly quickly be able to conceive and carry a baby. While I was pregnant, I became very aware of this femaleness and womaness that I had taken for granted. It was all I could do not to be overwhelmed by the sensation of being happy to be able to become pregnant.

In my head I was all "look at my belly/breasts, isn't this awesome?" I revelled in a bikini on a beach vacation while pregnant. (That's me, above, 34 weeks pregnant in Barbados having a grand time)

There was a moment late in pregnancy when I looked at myself undressed in the mirror, and thought “oh, I look like a mom.” It was a very certain thought. Not parent, not caregiver, not beached whale, but mom, a role I’d never considered trying out for until recently.

After giving birth and getting to know my little one, this new sensation continues to develop. I don’t think I’ll ever feel ambivalent about being female again. I’m so glad to be female. I guess I didn’t really care much before, but I’m here now, and reveling in it.

My breasts are lopsided now, larger and floppier than they used to be, and they are a source of both comfort and nutrition to my baby. I love them. My belly was never a loved part of my body. It is more or less the same size that it used to be before pregnancy, but with a lot of extra skin. It was my baby's home before she was born and I try to love it now. I treasure my body and what I have been able to accomplish with it, and I treat it much better now than I used to.

I want to add a disclaimer that of course women who can’t or won't reproduce for any reason, whether choosing not to, not having the right equipment or the right equipment not working for any reason, or not being allowed to become a parent, are equally women or possibly more so than I, in that they consciously chose to be women, or chose not to birth their own child, or may continue to have to fight to be recognized as complete, as whole women.

Have you struggled with your sex or gender identity? Was there a moment where it just fell into place?

This post is participating in the Body Image Carnival being hosted by Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! and MamanADroit who will be posting articles on themes pertaining to body image all week! Make sure you check out their blogs everyday between April 12-18 for links to other participants' posts as well as product reviews, a giveaway, and some links to research, information and resources pertaining to body image.

Breastfeeding Wasn't Painful

Over and over again when I was reading about breastfeeding when I was pregnant, one message was repeated: it shouldn't hurt. If you have sore nipples, you're doing something wrong.

So when breastfeeding didn't hurt, I figured all was well. Baby seemed as happy as any newborn could be expected to be. DH once worried aloud, ironically about half an hour before my mature milk came in and I started leaking all over the place, that she wasn't eating enough. I confidently said she's fine.

I'm still not sure about that now, in retrospect.

The next day, at four days old, we had to take her in to see our pediatrician, because the hospital ped had been worried about her potential exposure to GBS during labour. He wouldn't release her from the hospital unless I promised to bring her to see our ped when she was four days old. Her birth weight was 9 lb 4 oz and at four days, she'd dropped to 7 lb 13 oz.

As Whozat sagely points out, having IV fluids during labour can artificially inflate your baby's birth weight. So I'm not sure if Em really wasn't eating enough and I should be glad that we had to see the doctor so early, or...

If she was fine, just lost a bit more quickly that extra fluid weight, and the subsequent cascade of pumping and feeding her other ways might have caused her to forget how to latch on properly and exacerbate her posterior tongue tie. I'll probably never know.

We fed Em with a bottle, with a spoon, with a cup, with a tube beside our gloved finger. I feed her with a tube beside my nipple, with a tube under the nipple shield. For seven weeks, we kept this up and I kept thinking maybe we were making progress. But feeding her in ways involving my breasts was so cumbersome and time consuming that I was about ready to give up and just pump full time, when we finally went to an ENT and got her tongue tie clipped.

Then, for a couple of days, as she learned to latch onto my breast as a seven week old, I had sore nipples for a few days. Stinging, ouch, this is what they're talking about, dreading nursing a little bit. And then it got better. And now I worry that she'll be one of these babies who wean really early.

Note: Not until months after my baby was born did Annie at PhD in Parenting publish this great post on pain in breastfeeding. Go read it! In case you don't have time, the short story is that some discomfort is normal.

Another note: I was in some pain during the first few days of pumping because I had a really crappy, cheap breast pump. Chapped, cracked, milk blisters, the works. As soon as I rented a good hospital grade pump, all was well.

On The Sexualization of Breasts

Have you read any anthropological work looking at cultures where long term breastfeeding is more common than it is in North America and whether people there who are sexually attracted to women are any less obsessed with breasts as a sexual organ?

I have a hunch.

I suspect that where long term breastfeeding is more or less the norm, breasts are more like elbows or noses - generally unremarkable body parts, ones with a very important function for mothers who are able to breastfeed, but just body parts.

I think what tipped me off to this was the ever provocative Wonderkarin who awhile back tweeted a question, something to the effect of do your partners suck on your breasts during sexual play? It hadn't occurred to me that this might not be normal, but trust me, after using my breasts to feed my baby, I've definitely felt squeamish about them still being sexual. Wonderkarin lives in Sweden where long term breastfeeding rates are much higher than in North America.

So, anyone have any data on breast obsession versus long term breastfeeding rates, or am I on my own here? Maybe this is the real reason I did an undergrad degree in Sociology: to get me started on this. Because I have so much time on my hands!

Please tell me this work has already been done?

Some Partially Formed Thoughts On the Word Breast

This is not a manifesto. This is the post I've been chewing on and talking about for awhile. I think what it comes down to is discomfort with the word breast.

Breast. Breasts. I have a couple and they work well.

I used to think of them as sexual and to the disappointment of someone to whom I'm married, I don't really feel that way any more. They're just bits of me I use to feed the baby. Maybe someday they'll be sexy in my mind again.

And all milk is breastmilk. Just some come from human breasts and some come from other animals' breasts. Human milk is best for human babies. I think that's all given.

I want to say that we need to stop calling it breastmilk and breastfeeding, because that helps to linguistically maintain the sense that feeding our babies naturally is unnatural, and that it needs qualification; that we need to distinguish it from bottle and/or formula feeding. However, with corporate advertising normalizing bottle feeding of babies, if we lactivists just start talking about feeding our babies, we might disappear linguistically.

So what to do?

I propose we continue what we are already doing: campaigning for supporting parents through all feeding decisions like Best For Babes, help to educate the public on the reasons why breastfeeding is a Good Thing (as so many are working to do, see La Leche League, Kelly Mom, so many awesome bloggers), but also:

We need to destigmatize the word BREAST. Desexualize them and the word, normalize natural feeding along with bottle and / or formula feeding. Make breasts obviously dual purposed - sure they can be sexy, but for a special period of a mother's life, they are baby food making equipment.

Still chewing this one over. Your thoughts on where to go from here very welcome.

A Quickie: Some of My Favourite Parenting Posts

After a week of snowbound staying home with the baby joy, you might think I'd have some original thought to share. I do. I'm just having difficulty deciding how I want to frame it.

In the meantime, here's a new favourite and some old favourites that I'd like to share with you. The first I just got fwd'd today. The others are ones I literally return to re-read periodically. I hope you find them as interesting and wonderful as I have:

• The Inconvenient Truth About Parenting. Monica on dealing with your stuff and letting your kid be themself.
• Mindfully Loving My Children. On the languages of love and how Melodie's kids know she loves them.
• CIO: 10 Reasons It's Not For Us. On crying it out as a baby sleep strategy and the science behind why Annie won't use it.
• On Breastfeeding and Things We Don't Talk About. Arwyn on what makes her uncomfortable about nursing. This post scared me while I was pregnant as I worried I'd experience the same thing. I've not, but I still think it's important to talk about.

I'll leave you with these to chew on and I hope to be back with you soon on some other stuff I'm chewing on.

Would you like to leave me with some of your favourite (re)reading material?

UPDATE: Almost - well, briefly actually did - forgot:

• Venusimo. Honest to Betsy on the female equivalent of machismo. It speaks to a lot my ongoing - not dissatisfaction but - lack of satisfaction with my birth experience.

Breastfeeding and Tongue Tie

In all my recent breastfeeding blogging and tweeting, I realized I never finished documenting our current state of affairs with breastfeeding the Baby Piranha.

At 4 days, my pediatrician was concerned about her weight loss (birth weight was 9 lb 4 oz, 4 days was 7 lb 14 oz) and suggested it was due to her not latching well. She suggested I start pumping and syringe feeding, and that I try using a nipple shield. Done.

In retrospect, I realize that part of the reason for the dramatic weight loss was that I was given IV fluids during labour, and that inflated my weight - I only weighed 3 pounds less the day after I came home from the hospital, than I weighed going it! It can also inflate babies' weight - so her birth weight was probably higher than it would have been naturally, making her normal post-natal weight loss look more dramatic. I've since mentioned this to my ped and she agrees this could have been a factor.

At 11 days, the BP was gaining weight but not latching, so I went to see an IBCLC, who wrote in her notes that the BP has a posterior tongue tie. She encouraged me to continue pumping, offering the breast with and without the shield, trying out finger feeding, and sold us a larger syringe. Done. Nothing was said about tongue tie, it was just written down.

At 3 or 4 weeks, after only getting the BP to eat directly from my breast by manually expressing into her mouth, we returned to the IBCLC to be told to keep up the good work and get some coaching on side lying nursing. Done.

All of this time, my friend whose baby not only was tongue tied but after having the tie clipped, had to have it re-clipped at 4 months because it regrew, was encouraging me to visit her ENT to have the BP's mouth evaluated for tongue tie. I resisted because the IBCLC surely would have told me if that were the cause of our woe.

By 7 weeks, however, I was ready to throw in the towel on breastfeeding directly, and just buy two pumps: one for work, where I would be soon returning, and one for home. My friend made another appeal to call her ENT.

I thought it couldn't hurt and even if he clipped her tongue and it didn't help, the clipping was not supposed to be that traumatic.

I phoned the ENT, said the BP was losing weight (not precisely true, but I didn't have the patience to wait three weeks for an appointment) and was able to come in for an appointment two days later - on my second day back at work.

We drove waaay out into the suburbs where the ENT's office is - he is reputed to be the best ENT for tongue tie in the DC area. He's a nice, short, older man clearly fond of babies. He looked in the BP's mouth and said he thought her tongue tie was the cause of our latch problems and recommended clipping it.

I immediately agreed - it was really what we were there for.

Minutes later, I'm in an examining chair, holding the BP in my lap. A nurse is holding her head and the ENT is opening her mouth. An observer, possibly a student, is watching behind the ENT, and he is explaining to her what he's diagnosed and is about to do.

The BP starts to cry when her mouth is opened up. The ENT makes a quick clip - I can see the motion of his hands when the clip is made. The BP doesn't cry any harder, which makes me think the clipping really didn't hurt much. The ENT pops a bit of gauze in her mouth to absorb the few drops of blood that is coming from under her tongue.

The BP continues to cry for a few minutes. We're shown to a nice waiting area, not the main reception room, where we're encouraged to sit and try to nurse.

I'm told that after the clipping, it's important to try to nurse as much as possible - I'm not sure, but I assume it's either to help heal the wound in a way the tongue can keep moving well, or for the baby to have a good first day on the breast, to really learn to latch well.

She calms down fairly quickly - though I'm sure any caregiver will agree than even a few minutes of crying caused by something YOU CHOSE TO DO TO THEM! is hard to listen to. Those few minutes, I was busy doubting myself and my decision. I was thinking "oh I should have just given in and pumped for her, this wasn't necessary, I'm a horrible person, succumbing to the medical-industrial complex."

While I was busy berating myself, I was dutifully offering my breast to her. Suddenly, I noticed the BP had stopped crying and had latched on. Really latched on, and was sucking and gulping milk.

I'd never heard her gulp before. It was amazing. I got a little verklempt.

Since then, I've really only had to pump while at work and once or twice for car rides. Any time we're together, I can feed her directly from the breast. It is soooo much easier than all the pumping and bottles!

I also realized a day or two later, while watching her stick out her tongue in preparation to latch on, that I'd previously never seen her stick her tongue out of her mouth before. I'd seen her tongue, but it'd never before extended beyond her lips. Now it does!

I also spoke with the supervisor of the IBCLC I had seen twice, and let them know that I felt I should have been referred to an ENT much earlier. Their response was that they hesitate to make that referral other than in the most severe cases, because they don't want new moms to think their baby is deformed. I think that's the most absurd thing I've ever heard, but maybe I'm too much of a pragmatist.

The BP is a few days over 5 months old now, and still latching and eating like there's no tomorrow. She's rather big for her age, but tall as well as chubby. DH and I were big babies too, so it's probably genetic. We were at a party recently where she was about the same size as a 9 month old baby!

She's also tolerating me reintroducing a bit of dairy into my diet. I'm not eating dairy like the old days yet, but a bit of cheesecake here, a bit of pizza there, and we're both happy campers. (When I say tolerating, I mean she is showing no signs of having trouble with the dairy - no screaming when pooping, no green poo, etc...)

So, that's really the full breastfeeding saga thus far. I'm reading Baby Lead Weaning now, and I'm so excited to have found out about it. It seems like a very natural and sensible approach.

Anyone else have thoughts on tongue tie and clipping of tongues?

Photo courtesy of Qole Pejorian on Flickr.

It Gets Easier

In my goofy prenatal class, when we got to the breastfeeding section of the class, a chart was passed around. It looked something like the chart above.

The vertical axis is effort level and the horizontal axis is time. Blue for formula, red for breast. The idea is that formula is always the same level of effort with sterilizing, mixing, carrying junk around. It doesn't vary.

Breastfeeding often starts off bloody tricky, but over time it gets easier. I am here to tell you, this is true. Surely, an oversimplification, but true. (Note: I haven't actually formula fed a baby, but I've read up on it a bit, like the things you need to do to keep everything clean, and the gear you've got to carry around.. it sounds like a lot of work. Though I'm sure you get used to it too.)

With the baby almost five months old now, I feel like we're really getting the hang of it. She's turning into a little person more and more every day. She's easy for me to feed. She's easy for the DH to feed when I'm at work. She sometimes eats so much that she spits up a bit. That never used to happen, so I feel a bit more confident that she's eating plenty. Well, that plus her weight being in the 95th percentile!

Apparently I'm even discrete about nursing in public, which is not entirely intentional.

We're going to keep it up until she's done. I expect it to not always be as easy and sweet as it is right now, but I know it will always be rewarding and good for her.

How has feeding been challenging for you? Did it get easier?

Want to Breastfeed? Don't have Formula in the Home!

As my many posts which include the label breastfeeding attest, I've found breastfeeding to be important, interesting and challenging. I pause from my work three times a day to pump. I wear funny clothes to make breastfeeding and pumping easier. And I think in the end, one thing has been critical to our success:

Not allowing a single packet of formula in our apartment.

There were many dark nights - and days for that matter - when I was so frustrated with trying to pump and feed the baby at the same time, I would have taken any opportunity, any escape, to feed her without all the complication.

I remember she'd wake me, crying in hunger. I'd be so tired from not sleeping enough and the stress of adjusting to having a new baby, I'd feel compelled to try to maximize the accomplishments of my awake time. So in this sleepy haze, over and over again, I made her wait, crying, while I strapped on the pump, before I'd start feeding her. Sometimes I'd feed her a bit before starting to organize the pump stuff, but even then, she'd not be sated and would always be crying again before I finished getting the pump organized.

I was not at my decision making best. For some reason, I often wouldn't even accept the offers of help from DH.

Because I didn't have any viable alternative, we made it work. I pumped, we fed her, we cried. Repeat as needed. Had there been formula in the house, she would have been fed it. I imagine how it would sit in the kitchen, calling to my addled brain, like crack to an addict, offering to solve my problems.

If I had had formula in my house, I would have fed it to my baby, potentially starting a downward spiral of supply problems. I was offered it as I was leaving the hospital. I said no. I'm so glad I did. I'm glad formula exists for those who choose to or must use it. But I'm glad it's not here too.

How did you or do you plan to feed your baby? Got any just in case packets of formula around if you're breastfeeding?

(PS: of course, I don't think formula is like crack. They're both just something that's potentially tempting, one to a stressed out mama, another to an addict.)

Did you bring any food for the baby?

DH, the BP and I went for dim sum a few weeks ago, with a really great coworker, his spouse and a friend of theirs. Much oogling of the cuteness of the BP was done and then the feasting commenced.

After some time and playing with chopsticks, the BP started making her fussy, let's have a snack sounds. I turned her from facing outward to facing inward, dropped the strap on the nursing tank top (which is pretty much all I wear these days) and she latched on.

I guess I said something like "ooh you're hungry!" as she was getting settled, as the coworker asked me if I'd brought any food for her. As his spouse started to giggle, I just looked down at the BP, and grinned and said "yep, two containers!" He didn't quite get it, until looking back as his laughing spouse and back at me... Then I had to start laughing too. We had a nice giggle over that one. He knew I was pumping at work and he said something referencing that he's thought maybe I was pumping all the time.

I guess I'm more discreet than I realized... or even intended! Discretion in nursing isn't really my goal. I try to balance the BP's need for food with the DH's extreme discomfort with me doing any nursing in public (NIP) at all.

What's your funniest NIP story?

What I Hate About Pumping

People keep saying pumping is hard work. I've heard some women decide to wean, partly or completely, their babies from breastfeeding when they go back to work, because they don't know they could pump, or because their bodies don't respond to a pump with a let down / milk ejection, or because their workplace isn't, for any number of reasons, a conducive environment for pumping.

I definitely acknowledge I am coming to this from a place of privilege. Other than my usual white, North American, educated, able bodied, heterosexual, cisgendered, anglo privilege, I should also acknowledge that:

1. I had loads of support in getting started breastfeeding. Sometimes maybe even a touch of peer pressure, but I could have resisted had I needed to, I think.
2. I have an awesome job with a great employer and the most understanding supervisor you could ask for.
3. I have an office with a door. I had to cover over a little clerestory window for privacy (irony of this you'll see later).
4. I live in Washington DC where, if I didn't have my own office, my employer would need to provide me a clean private space in which to pump.

There are probably a half dozen other privileges I forgot about, but that's a good start.

So, as I think I've already covered, getting started breastfeeding was a bit bumpy. I had to pump from day four because the Baby Piranha had a tongue tie, which wasn't correctly identified as the cause of her latch problem until she was seven weeks old, despite several visits to an (expensive) IBCLC.

That, Dear Reader, was seven weeks of almost full time pumping. Almost no nursing in public for me, other than some comfort nursing, which was pretty much non-nutritive.

Then, in the same week, I went back to work and got BP's tongue clipped. And started just pumping while at work.

Up until then, I was using a fancy hospital grade pump which was almost silent and very effective. I hated pumping because I had to do it. I wanted to be breastfeeding without all this plastic in the way. While pumping at home, I pretty much always did the deed on the sofa in our apartment. Usually only the DH and BP were around, other than visiting grandpas. Of course I managed to figure the not latching was my fault, and when we got past that, I was delighted.

For work, I got myself a middle of the road good pump. It talks. It's hilarious. And it speaks both English and Spanish. That is, it makes sounds that almost sound like words. Quite often it sounds like it's saying por ahi, which more or less means over here.

I also bought a little electric single pump, the cheapest, and loudest of the lot. In breastpump noise, you get less if you pay more, it appears. I bought it for home use after returning the really nice hospital grade one. As the BP and I get the supply and demand in better sync, I'm using it less and less.

So three times a day, five-ish days a week, I close my door to my office, pull my gear out of the little fridge I bought to store my stuff in, and strap on the gear, and pump. I can't talk on the phone because it's such a chatty pump. I've read some pumping mamas will stick the noisy end of the pump in a drawer to muffle the noise and talk on the phone while pumping. Unfortunately my office furniture arrangement doesn't allow for that. While pumping, I'm entirely available by instant message, which my coworkers and I use heavily anyway.

A couple of times, people have knocked on the door. I feel like saying "unless the building's burning down, please go away!" but what I've said is "please come back later!"

So, aside from the whole I have to pump because I can't be with my baby full time like I'd like to be, I hate pumping because... I have to close the door to do it! It's such a weird feeling. The only time I ever close my door with my inside my office is to pump, feed the baby if she's visiting, or change my clothes. Oh, of course, also for private meetings that I don't want overheard. But that's pretty infrequent, to be honest.

When I'm closing the door, I feel like I'm doing something naughty or shameful. I wish I didn't feel that way. I'm not sure I want to be pumping in public - it's a visually weird thing and guaranteed to make folks uncomfortable (especially since breastfeeding itself seems to make people so uncomfortable). But it'd be nice if I could maybe get over the naughty feeling myself. I think part of my mind is wondering what my coworkers are thinking about all this closing of my door (we tend to be a very open door office... people keep saying they thought I wasn't in the office when I had my door closed).

I have a cutesy doorknob sign that says something like "Do Not Disturb, Mom Working" and a cartoon picture of a pumping mama talking on the phone. Maybe I should start using it to lighten the goofy feeling I have about it?

I really don't hate pumping. I'm glad I can do it. I'm lucky I can do it. How about you?

What I Love About Pumping

So I've been chewing on a post for far too long (and yes, it is far too long - not as long as the birth story, but long...) about what I hate about pumping. And then it occurred to me that I don't want to come across as complaining about pumping or breastfeeding, because I'm delighted I can do it and that we overcame our hurdles to breastfeed. So, first, what I love about pumping.

1. First and most importantly to me, I'm able to give the Baby Piranha the best food for her, even when I can't be with her, or when she's strapped into a car seat and I can't easily get nipple to mouth. This is such a great privilege of having the money and time and privacy to pump so that I didn't have to wean her from breastmilk when I went back to work after my paid leave from work ended.
2. Because I've been pumping for awhile, a common side effect is that I have a bit of an oversupply. With that oversupply, I'm going to be donating some of my frozen milk to a friend who is trying to keep their multiple set of babies around the same age in milk. That is awesome.
3. I love my cute PumpEase pumping support! I won mine in a contest on The Feminist Breeder's blog when I was pregnant. I had no idea at the time I'd need to be pumping as early as I was (four days post partum!), so had planned to buy mine after the baby was born. I'm so glad I got it early as it's critical to be hands free while pumping, as far as I'm concerned, to make it a little bit less tedious and more productive. *

Some folks I follow on Twitter say things about pumping being hard work, and I'm lucky in that it hasn't been hard for me. My MER just goes hey, pump, baby, whatever, here's some milk. It's not something enjoyable or particularly fun, but I believe it's important for the baby's health, and I'm mostly glad to do it.

What do you love or hate about pumping? Any surprises?

Come back next time when I talk about why I hate pumping!

Oh, and let's not count how many times I used the word awesome in this post. I know, too many. I will find a thesaurus, promise.

* Right so I got the PumpEase pumping supports for free in a contest. There were no strings attached to my winning the contest, I'm just saying they're awesome all on my own. Oh and they're made in Canada which makes them extra awesome as far as I'm concerned.

On Sleeping

As I've mentioned, I take parenting advice with some grains, or bags, of salt. People I talk to seem to be obsessed with sleep.

The first few weeks after Em was born, sleep was precious and infrequent. If she was sleeping, I'd wake up all the time to check that she was ok. And then she woke up needing attention/love/food often. Babies are like that! I don't know how parents who put their babies in another room to sleep manage the anxieties of those first weeks.

But then she adapted to our patterns and started mostly sleeping at night and mostly being awake during the day. I started trusting that she'd live through the night. There was that rough day at seven weeks when my Dads were here, when I'd kept her in the Infantino baby carrier all day, so she'd been asleep all day, and then only slept, and thus I only slept, four hours that night.

We're now in a nice routine where she naps once or twice a day for a few hours at a time and then sleeps from nine or ten in the evening to three or four in the morning for a brief snack, and then back to sleep again for a few more hours, often until seven in the morning. I've actually realized that it's often me (and my milk supply!) waking her up at four - she's no longer that hungry, so I usually pump a little extra for while I'm at work. And then we go back to sleep.

Before baby, I expected my sleep would be interrupted regularly with baby. First with feedings and diaper changes, then nightmares and nighttime illnesses, fevers, vomiting, then as she gets older, just worrying while she's out for an overnight with friends, and then parties and more! Parenting, as far as I'm concerned, is not about getting a good night's sleep.

I thought this was commonly known. I'm surprised by everyone's interest in how the baby is sleeping, if I'm sleeping, and the suggestions and tricks for getting her to sleep more. She's a baby with a teeny tiny tummy! I just don't expect her to sleep through the night for awhile, and even when she starts, I hear it's common to stop and start again.

I suspect that some people's inquiry as to whether or not I'm getting any sleep (and oh! I am, thank you) is more about making conversation, like commenting on the weather or making jokes about working hard vs hardly working. I know before I had a baby, I didn't know what to ask about them.

However, the parents who seem to be sleep obsessed make me wonder if I've just got a weirdly easy baby, which is entirely possible, or if my expectations are just a lot lower. I know the nights to come where she's awake once an hour again will be challenging. But knowing that they are coming makes them easier to deal with.

Do you talk a lot about sleep? What are/were your expectations about parenting and sleep?