Feeding Baby

Warning: this blog is very personal. The main topic will be my breasts. If you would rather pass on the drama that I have come to know as breastfeeding, and my random thoughts on boobs, please feel free to skip this post.

 

To start things off, I thought I would share a thought that consoled me as a well-endowed teen/early 20 something (to the flat-chested who wished for more, just know that those with more often begrudged your tiny chest). To set the stage, I have always considered myself an athletic person. In fact, physical activity - especially if it involves competition - has defined much of my life, shaping major choices. I love feeling strong and fast. Unfortunately, pretty much every sport involves running, which in turn involves a lot of jiggling. I'm not talking about love handles, my friends; I am talking about tatas. If you have to wear two or more sports bras to keep yours in place when you run, then you know what I am talking about. Many times, especially when running sprints and doing circuits with my college tennis team, I internally cursed my large and flopping tatas. But then, on occasion, this thought would come to mind and soothe my boob anger: "Someday when I am a mom, I will be grateful that I have such large ladies because it will make breastfeeding so much easier."

 

Yeah, so that's not true. Big tatas do not equal easy breastfeeding. In addition, my former cup size seems dainty now that I am in a range not carried by stores. In fact, when I went to Motherhood Maternity to buy a nursing bra yesterday, the nice lady who measured me gave me the card of a custom bra specialist because "our company doesn't even make your size, sweetheart." If I had known the capabilities of my chest, I would have embraced my former self. Discontentment, it turns out, is just a matter of perspective.

 

I have learned, from moms before me, that my breastfeeding drama is not uncommon. I've also learned it's not nearly as bad as what others have endured. Again, perspective. But for a hormonally charged new mom, it seems like enough to push one over the sleep-deprived edge. I didn't stay at the hospital long after Caleb was born, but before I left I had met with three different lactation consultants. The last one, with the help of another lactation consultant, was able to get Caleb to latch on (Paul actually took a picture of this craziness, which I will not post, but I'm basically sitting there while four hands grab me and my baby, working to make the nursing thing happen. Did I mention that I have a goofy grin on my face because I am so relieved to see my child eating?). The thing is, they could only get him to latch on my right side. I went home, hoping that the good feeding session had helped him figure out how to nurse, because I still only had a vague understanding about how to best position him.

 

The thing is, Caleb and I both still needed practice.

 

The first night back home I was able to get him to latch on, but only on the right side, and only every other feeding. He was hungry and screaming - all night. I was exhausted by the morning and in tears. I couldn't even think straight enough to pray. But you know who saved the day? My best friend, Paul Haske. He spoke to me gently and prayed over me and Caleb, and then he got to work. I sat on the bed, with my back facing the edge, and Paul put his arms around me and played the role of the lactation consultant. He positioned the little guy and - as an answer to prayer - got him to latch on to the left side (for the first time!) as well.

 

During the next week and half, latching was improving, but pain was increasing, especially on the left side. Despite using the lanolin and religiously taking motrin, the pain reached an unbearable point. My nipple had split and was bleeding! Horrifying. My mom, in her wisdom, said "Don't worry about nipple confusion. Pump on the left and give him a bottle so it has time to heal." It turns out Caleb loves the bottle, and I love being able to give my sore boobs a break. It is already starting to heal, and my little guy is growing. Now we alternate between breastfeeding on both sides, breast feeding on the right and pumping the left, or pumping both sides for a total break.

 

I feel like we've made a turn for the better. Today is the three week mark and some feedings are even enjoyable. They're not consistently pleasant, but often enough to keep me encouraged. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." I've learned, during this whole process, that his mercies are new every 2.5-3 hours.

The Adventure Begins . . .

What could be more domestic than motherhood? I picture a serene and showered mother rocking her baby in her arms and singing lullabies as she glances at her perfectly kept home. A smile crosses her lips as she smells her homemade bread baking in the oven.

I’m only in the second week of motherhood and here is my reality. I roll out of bed, hair coming undone from my nightly ponytail. I pick up my screaming infant and hope my morning dragon breath won’t permanently scar his olfactory system. I stumble over to the rocker, “I thought I cleared a path during the last feeding,” and position my child. Then I pray this prayer: “Dear Father, please help this child latch on, and please help me resist the urge to smack his face when he chomps on my bruised and battered breasts. Amen.”

How I came to associate “serene” with motherhood shows just how naïve I was about the whole process. Labor itself is anything but serene, although mine was a close to that as I could hope. For those of you who are interested, here is Caleb’s birth story:

I had a dream pregnancy. No morning sickness; I kept active and feeling good, even through the heat of the summer. Because things had been rolling along so smoothly, I knew something was up in early August when I started to feel crampy – like my period was on its way. At my 36 week check up, the doctor informed me that I was 2 cm dialated and 25% effaced. My initial thought was “Wow, I could go into labor any minute!” After talking with other mothers, I learned that this was not uncommon and many people stayed 2 cm until their due date or were even late. With this in mind, I convinced myself that I would have to be patient until the end of August and maybe even after his official due date of August 31st.

My dad’s birthday was August 13th – a Saturday. We went to the evening service at our church that day, and I left the service because I felt awful. Now that I know what contractions feel like, I can say with confidence that I had my first contraction right then, during the 5:00 pm church service. But it came and went and I started to feel better. We celebrated my dad’s birthday on Sunday night at the Elgin Pub House and came home for ice cream cake. That was, I realized when the nurse asked me, the last thing I ate before I arrived at the hospital.

I started feeling sporadic contractions around 10:00 pm on Sunday evening. I went to bed thinking I was finally getting some Braxton Hicks contractions, which I hadn’t felt at all during my pregnancy. By 2:30 am, I was wide awake and starting to think it might be the real deal. Everyone was asleep, and the house was quiet and dark. I marked a pacing path in the basement and walked back and forth for the next two hours, breathing my way through the contractions and trying to time them. I was feeling good. These were manageable contractions, and I realized I really liked working through them by myself. In the dark. In the quiet.

Paul woke up at 4:00 am and found me pacing. When he asked if I was ok, I told him I was in labor. After a few shocked moments of back and forth: “Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m sure.” “You think this is the real thing?” “Yes, . . . [inhale, exhale] this is the real thing!” Paul realized I was in labor. We had talked about me wanting to do some laboring at home before going into the hospital, so at my request, Paul drew me a bath. The warm water was relaxing, but when I got out, the intensity of the contractions had doubled. I told Paul I wanted to go to the hospital. By that point, my mom was awake (we’re currently living in my parent’s basement) and the three of us grabbed our things (I had only packed my hospital bag the previous night!) and got into the car.

 

When we arrived at the hospital, my contractions were coming quickly – every two minutes. I measured 6 cm at arrival. Once I was on the hospital bed and strapped to the monitors, it took all of my focus to make it through each contraction. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me or touch me. I just wanted to close my eyes and focus on breathing. When the nurse asked if I wanted the epidural, I looked at Paul. (I didn’t have a birth plan, except that I wanted to make it through as much of the laboring at home as I could and then I would play it by ear on pain management). The nurse told me it would take 45 minutes before the anesthesiologist would be in because they had to run labs, yadda, yadda, yadda . . . Yes! Please stop talking, lady, and hustle. By the time the anesthesiologist arrived, I had moved into the groaning stage of labor. They were involuntary, and I tried to focus on my breathing, but I could hear it. I could hear myself groaning when I exhaled.

Of all the impossible things one might instruct, this seems most absurd in the moment: “You need to stay still during your contractions so we can get the epidural in.” No matter how difficult it was to stay still, it was worth the result. Pain free! Unbelievable. Seriously, unbelievable. I could relax. I could hold a conversation. I could enjoy the view of the lake out the window. All while the monitor next to my bed recorded each contraction, contractions that just moments before had racked my entire body. It was the perfect epidural. The pain was gone, but I could still feel pressure, so I knew when I was contracting – this helped immensely at the pushing stage of the game. 

Once I got the ok to push, I refocused my energy, feeling rejuvenated from the rest that came with the epidural. I had Paul on one side and my mom on the other. I pushed for approximately one hour. The pressure increased until Caleb came out. Relief washed over me, and I sobbed when they placed him on my chest. There were too many tears to even see him clearly. It was over. I had a son. My life would never be the same, and the beginning of motherhood would definitely not be easy.

Ode to Elgin

Proverbs 16:9 - "In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." With this in mind, I wrote a poem for Elgin.

Return

Cradle to grave in a single space, a river town           

spent and refilling. Soft imprints in graveyard grass,

my child-sized feet walking history, bluff city

cemetery. A whole life, but not many years,

belong to you. Not a passing through visit, a sudden

stop of breath along the bike path, a quick grave.

No. You are home.

I left for bigger things, cities and careers I thought

you could not hold. My heart’s longing for beauty

a decisive blow to you, mountain-less, sea-less, cement

town. I carried only the memory of a dirty river.

For seasons in different places, no thought of returning

to the tower’s shadow on an empty drive.

Yes. You came back.

Lesson learned: we all change in both directions and hope

more good than bad. Familiar sights: a pavilion surrounded

by willows and water, a muddy creek and wooden bridge, a store

where we stopped for Little Debbies on our way to school. Delightful

news: a taller library with fireplace and views. Trains sound

my nighttime song of youth and I pat my son’s head and think.

      Now. You are home. 

Where Dreams Begin

Remember what it felt like to have endless possibilities? Yeah, you were probably twelve and dreaming about all the adventures your adult life would hold. If you were anything like me, you were trying on careers in your mind: saving lives as an emergency room doctor, working as an interpreter at the UN, making movies, playing your favorite sport professionally, teaching to eager students, photographing wild animals for National Geographic, designing wedding gowns, traveling to war-torn countries as a journalist, pounding the gavel as a judge, writing novels in the mountains, drawing up building plans. You name it, I probably imagined doing it.

The adventures of real life have taken a different form than my childhood imaginings. The cold hard fact is that getting good at anything requires an incredible amount of dedication, hours of work – doing the not-that-exciting-part of the career you’re working in. (I know, sad isn’t it?) It’s not as easy to try on careers as I’d hoped.

But what I want to know is, how can you choose just one thing when there are so many exciting possibilities?

You might wonder how a nice lady like me ended up – for now – in the law (which is not my passion, by the way, but enjoyable at times and always challenging)? Well, it was passion of another sort. You see, the man of my dreams happens to have a single-minded passion for the law. If he was going to be in my life (and I couldn’t imagine life any other way!), so was the law.

Ok, here’s my domestic connection. Dreaming up the many possible adventures for my life, and feeling like I could do any of those things if I put my mind to it, all stemmed from my domestic life: loving parents, a warm home, family meals every night, plenty of clothes to wear, weekly trips to the library, homework time, discussions around the dinner table, reading countless books under the covers, bedtime prayers.

So maybe through all this rambling what I really want to say is this: what I really love is home because home is where dreaming begins.

Home with Animals

Love of animals has been a defining characteristic of mine since childhood. Thanks to my kind and patient parents, animals have always been part of my domestic life. I’ve lived with cats, fish, rabbits, various reptiles (not my choice), and finally dogs.

The first Christmas gift of my married life was a blonde cairn terrier named Toby. Toby was my first friend in Minnesota (not including my hubby, who used his persuasive skills to convince the landlord to let us get Toby in the first place). To set up this gift, I should tell you that I was pretty much an emotional wreck when we moved to Minnesota. No friends. No family. And lots of cold. When Paul told me I was getting a puppy for Christmas. I cried. Not a few sweet tears, people. I mean, bawling, blubbering mess. Ridiculous.

Thinking back, Toby was the end of a pet drought (darn those college dorm rules). In a way, adding him to the mix was like getting a piece of myself back.

Toby’s six years old now and never lonely since we added Reese to the family just a year later. I’ve learned endless lessons from these two characters. I thought I’d share just a few:

1.      It’s completely appropriate to become wildly excited about the smallest pleasures – like taking a walk, seeing someone you love even though they’ve only been away a few hours.

2.      Forgive like it’s the easiest thing in the world. My pups are incapable of hating, holding a grudge, or feeling sorry for themselves.

3.      Curiosity is the ultimate cure to boredom. Imagine exploring the possibilities of everyday household items – like toilet paper or sharpie markers – using only your mouth! Oh, the mess you could make.

4.      Don’t be afraid to ask for attention. Whether you’re looking for a pat on the head or a snuggle, you should let your requests be known.

5.      All we need is love. Treasure the moments you get love, and make your life’s mission to love everyone you meet (if you’re Reese) or at least those who feed you (Toby)

P.S. Dear Bryn, I hope this qualifies as answering the question. Here's my shout-out to your excellent design blog: http://brynalexandra.blogspot.com/2011/01/january-giveaway.html#disqus_thread