The Great Milks Experiment

Jen and I conducted an experiment today. (What would I do without her?) We gave E formula for a few feedings and then expressed breast milk. The formula (4 oz) held him for 2-3 hours and he was a happy baby other than being sleepy. With the breast milk was (4.5 oz) he was still very hungry after drinking the bottle and had to be given something like another 1.5 oz of formula. Then, 20 or so minutes into the drive home he had an "I'M HUNGRY!" meltdown, and I had to give him another 1.5 oz of formula. When he nurses, I get 45 mins to an hour in between the start of each feeding. He nursed great this morning and was happy, but he nursed for 15-20 mins and was hungry 45 mins later. I think we can safely say, something about my breastmilk is not filling him up. Not enough calories? Not enough fat? I have no idea. I just know with each week, the time between feedings and his discontent after feedings was getting worse and worse.

We will work with a way of combining formula and expressed breast milk and then just doing nursing when it works for both of us for bonding mainly. (And I'll be ready with formula as a back up!)

Note that he let me type this WHOLE THING while he was in my arms!! Satisfied babies are happy, wonderful babies!

He also christened his first cloth diaper today... with a leaky poop of course. What else? I will put up photos later.

Love yous all.

p.s. He just nursed GREAT after having a bottle all day. So I don't think he'll lose the ability.
p.p.s. Forgot to give a shout-out to Kaybee for having a similar idea and helping me earlier.

Withering

I don't know what to do with this baby. No matter how much food he gets it's never enough. He's eaten almost every hour today, doesn't sleep well b/c of waking up for food, and the one time he was truly content was with his 3 oz of formula supplement because he bit Mommy so hard she couldn't do it (and he'd drained the other boob.) Worried about overfeeding, worried about him being hungry - this sucks. About to give in to bottles.

Updates and Additions

For my learning/remembering:

1. How not waking them up is the MOST important thing. Have a cramp? Massage it later. Gotta pee? Learn to deal. You will regret it when they start screaming. hehe (E is not so much like this anymore, but I remember it well.)

2. The insanity of the "love and protect" hormone surge after birth. Every cell in my body wanted to help him if he cried. When we went to the Mall, I wanted to wrap my whole self around his stroller.

It wasn't a fluke! (see below) And I think he's about ready to sleep in his own bed for the night!

Operation Happy Mom and Baby

It went very very well today. Baby had a mix (just a small amount) of formula and breast milk. Mom pumped and got more sleep, and both were far less stressed and grumpy. We had no less than 4 separate blocks of time where baby was smiley and fun! AND, he even woke up from a nap today without crying! That is unheard of!

We'll see if it's just a fluke. Hopefully not! And all your comments were awesome. I agree 100% You know you aren't the people I was talking about. It's the info websites and some of the message board answers on breast feeding. I saw a girl recently who was worried about it at E's soon to be daycare. I was trying to tell her the good and bad when her boss rushed in to say how magical and amazing it is and how it all just comes so naturally and is so instinctive. I wanted to smack her. Don't let the girl go into it blind! That sets her up to fail right away! Geez.

Tired

Today and last night have been miserable. E has been restless and cranky since last night's bedtime. Neither of us has gotten much sleep. He's constantly hungry. I gave him formula out of sheer exhaustion and nipple pain this morning, and he was a happy baby for about 40 minutes. I don't know if he is in a constant growth spurt (thought we were coming out of it) or if I've never caught up from nursing delays at the hospital or from the time I spent in the ER when he got formula all night. And you know what? I'm too frustrated to care anymore. I'm tired of reading how evil formula is. I'm tired of feeling guilty. I don't have a month or so to get adjusted. I go back to work in 2 weeks and don't even have enough pumped milk frozen for a whole day. I am alone every day and don't have people usually to do my laundry or help me eat. I'm done. My baby is miserable and crying most of the day. I'm exhausted and grumpy. We're going to supplement with formula sometimes to see him relaxed and to give me time to pump more for daycare.

I'm sorry. There are some wonderful things about breastfeeding, and I'm glad to help my baby be healthy, but there are lots of sides to every situation, and I'd like to read less of people invalidating and railroading those who are struggling. I wish I had heard more about the difficulties in class or from other sources so I wouldn't feel so disillusioned. That's why I want to be very honest here. I'm tired of hearing wildly differing advice from my Doctors, books and consultants. From here on out, I do what feels right for us and E. That will probably be a combo of formula, pumping and bfing. And I don't think my baby will suffer horribly from it. In fact, when we have done this, I've seen more smiles from E, watched him explore the world more, and we've both been less stressed. I have no idea why stress is never mentioned as a factor in the no formula argument. It's not cyanide. Why do we have to swing so wildly to each end? Tired.

Elmo is the Devil

I have a funny/sad story to share. I was nursing E and flipping through the channels. E's back was to the screen. I landed on Sesame Street and paused; fondly thinking E would someday be watching. Elmo came on. E's eyes flew open and he froze mid-suck. After listening for a few seconds, he let out an ear piercing shriek and literally ripped his mouth from my breast frantically. I changed the channel and had to soothe his panic before he would go back to eating.

All I can think is that Elmo's voice sounds enough like a baby cry that it freaked E out (as all baby cries he hears on TV do.) But this was a particularly harsh reaction. So it's official. E hates Elmo. Good boy.

What I Learned/Want to Remember

• When E squeals and dives for my nipple
• Him waking up and looking at me so seriously with those big beautiful eyes in the dark
• That odd pigment you get around your araeola? I thought it would fade. No. It sloughed off - like dry skin. Freaky.
• I learned that I apparently also tore up a little into my urethra. Nice. Everything I proclaimed I hoped wouldn't happen to me did - other than the c-section thank God. But it was a close thing.
• How E says "NA!" for hungry and how Na has also come to mean "want Mommy."
• after I wore E's Pooh toy in my shirt for days and he ignored it, one day he zeroed in on it like a bloodhound and tried to nurse from its nose.
• Washing my hair with conditioner for three days (and then conditioning after) without realizing I had bought the wrong one due to sleepy brain.
  
• In the same vein, trying to put E's bottle lid on the grape juice - repeatedly.
• crying with despair that E was still awake and so was I
• feeling my uterus contract so strongly while breast feeding and seeing it shrink
• my baby's sweet husky voice
• feeling E's knees move against me while nursing and finding that it felt the same from the outside as in!
• how very hard that first week was
  

V Day - Eternal Gold Star for Hub

Belated, but we had a very special Valentines at our house. I don't care if it's a commercial way to make money. It serves for us as a reminder to do something extra special for each other. Because let's face it, I know everyone says, "But you shouldn't need a special day for that!" but how many of us honestly do it consistently without an anniversary or some other reminder - some not even then! So it's our excuse to pamper us.

Anyway, Hub gave me a gorgeous card thanking me for giving birth to our son. I cried. I soooo needed that, "You done good." He also gave me a beautiful V Day card, AND this...

It's a beautiful purple-red garnet in honor of E. I cried. I will wear it every day I have to be apart from my baby - my outer heart.

We gave him this and a love letter because Mommy was still too overwhelmed for much shopping. We also had YUMMY take out. And E actually napped in his pack n play and let us eat it!!

Scary...advice?

Twice, E has appeared to have a trickle of milk come out his nose. He does not act bothered at all by this, but it scares the crap out of me. Should I be concerned? Has anyone else seen this? I will call the doc tomorrow if need be.

E is Born Part 2

So by the time I was called back to be monitored in triage, it was approximately midnight on January 4th. Contractions were manageable but definitely limiting. I was waiting in line for the bathroom to leave my urine sample when I felt a suspicious gush of fluid. (Kudos to Hub for urging me to wear a big pad! Sometimes boys are very smart.) I told the nurse (who didn't seem to care), "Uh oh! I think my water broke!" And here's where I start to tell you that it is true about the late shift people being shittier than the day time people. They told me they picked their shifts based on seniority. You could tell for the most part.

Anyway, when I got in to the bathroom and sat down there was a giant splash instead of a little tinkle if you know what I mean. I looked down and saw my mucous plug, a little blood and a lot of fluid. I even muttered to myself, "How cool! It's textbook water breaking!"

I told the nurse when I left, and she assured me they'd check to be sure my water had indeed broken. (yeah, because it's so hard to mistake) I could tell she was not so experienced (no she is not ShitNurse), and was praying she wouldn't be checking my cervix... but she did. She never even found it. It felt like someone was digging into my vaginal canal with a very blunt pick axe randomly and blindly. These checks were easily some of the most painful parts of my birth experience. She did take a sample for those stupid paper tests to see if I had any amniotic fluid. (Again because I am dumb), and declared that it was negative. I had been told many times that those tests are very unreliable, but they assured me they'd have the doctor look at it on a slide. Sometimes science is a little too much fact, not enough, "DUH it's right in front of your face!" ya know?

But the doctor never got around to it, and they continued to assure me my water had not broken even as I soaked towels that Hub had to help me change since I was hooked up to monitors and even though E's heart rate started to stutter with each contraction. That's when the battle axe walked in. Ta Da! ShitNurse #1! She had very little interest in our well being and would leave us alone for an hour at a time. I kept telling her my water broke, and she kept ignoring me. I also felt E move frantically and paged them to tell them as I had read this was not a good sign. She came in, looked annoyed and said, "He's fine. Just moving." Yeah.. moving FRANTICALLY. It was very different and happened right after I lost more fluid.

In the meantime I got someone who really knew what she was doing to check me (Thank GOD), since everyone else had so much trouble with my cervix, and it was getting very painful. I should have appealed to her for help but didn't. Afterwards, ShitNurse#1 came in, and I told her one more time that it had to be fluid. She told me we were waiting on a u/s tech who was in another area to come back to check the baby. I told her I was sure. She got directly in my face and said, "And how do you KNOW it's not urine?" in a really rude tone. Exasperated, frustrated, tired and upset, I practically wailed, "Because they are TWO DIFFERENT HOLES! And it feels completely different!" Besides, if there is blood and mucous in anyone's urine, there's something to be REALLY worried about. She huffed out, still not believing me. She also suggested that it was probably just discharge. Yeah... and we all walk around with diapers on because of our discharge.

When the time finally came to go to the u/s (after about 5 hours), another nice lady came in and started bagging up my stuff to be admitted. ShitNurse#1 said, "What are you doing?? She's not being admitted yet! We don't know yet!" You could tell the nice nurse did not think much of this or her and left the things she'd already bagged where they were.

Sure enough, when we got to the u/s, the tech could only find one 1cm pocket of fluid around poor E. I had said to her, "If it's not fluid, what in the world could it BE?" She seemed very apologetic as she told me that it was indeed fluid and that the other nurse should have believed me. I felt very vindicated.

FINALLY, I was off to have a baby! Too bad it wasn't to go any more quickly up at Labor and Delivery...

Dear Internet

Growth spurts suck. And someone has decided he is a big boy who does not need nipple shields anymore thank you. (unless we're too sleepy)

Also been meaning to tell you to read Spindle's End by Robin Mckinley. One of my favorite books of all time. Jen can attest. I didn't put it in my book list because I wanted to surprise her with it. I wanted to write more about it, but ah the Hell with it.

Shout Out

Thanks to guardian angel friends. I love you.

Wonderfully said

http://mrsspit.ca/?p=988

And we wonder why people have problems...

The bills are still rolling in but...

What it costs to have a baby with our situations at our hospital: ~$20000.00
What our HMO paid: Little more than half
What we have to pay: ~$1000.00

Thank God my yearly out of pocket is $1200.00 - but this does not include co-pays.

Birthday and Question

Happy One Month Birthday E my sweet baby boy! He now weighs 8lbs, 11 oz and is 22" long. BIG boy for me!

In a somewhat related note... I am going back to work the second week of March. I need to start pumping now. How much will he need per feeding by then do you think?? How do I even begin to figure that out? He will be in daycare. :(

Oh, and after a lot of supporting evidence, self doubt and some seeming opinion to the contrary, I officially* know my baby better than my MIL! Yay! And no I will NOT give me baby bottles of lime water.(sorry if you're reading this honey. It had to be let out.)

*The officiant being me.

Elizabeth - A Little Story

Yes, the Elizabeth of Here We Go Again fame. I've been meaning to share this cute story for a while. Jen and Elizabeth were here when we still had the Christmas tree up. Elizabeth was entranced by the tree and couldn't get enough of it. She also can't get enough of Jen's car keys, which she was carrying around while she pointed at the tree repeatedly. Soon enough she noticed an ornament I have that features two little mice cuddling inside a mushroom house.

You know what's coming next right? Yes, Elizabeth tried to use Jen's keys to unlock the mouse house. How darn cute is that? Her breathless squeals every time she sees E are also cute - as is the fact that she sits down in expectation of us handing him to her every time. No one told her how to do this, she just does. I can't wait until E does all these fun things.

Non-Baby Related Post!

People rag on Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas for her singing skills (non-skills?) live. However, you gotta give it to her that the girl actually SINGS on stage while dancing and putting on a show. There's no lip synching there. I enjoy the Black Eyed Peas. I find them fun junk food for the ear. The Grammys brought this thought about.

Thank you for your time.

Better Breastfeeding

I have had moments of breastfeeding that felt triumphant, or peaceful, or interesting. But before today, I had not had the joy - at all. Today I finally got a little taste of the joy that breastfeeding can bring. What a relief. We seem to be limping through it and finding what works for us.