commenting on blog posts

I rarely comment on the blog posts of others because without fail I don't say what I mean to say. I either sound whiny, ignorant, or so random that it looks as though I didn't even read the post.

When I do comment, as I did yesterday on Loralee's post about being uncomfortable around women nursing in public, it's often because I want to admit a shortcoming of my own (in this case, wishing I wasn't uncomfortable with nursing in public). It's a self-absorbed tendency. Such are the readers of these blogs that they often reply to my comments with advice in an effort to help me, a stranger.

Although I want to say, "Don't bother," that isn't very nice, is it? The people in this "mommy" blogger community are better than I. While I'm adding to the problem, they're trying to add to the solution. I want to say, "Don't bother," because I've already explored my possibilities. I didn't wake up one day and say, "Oh, I have this new problem. Instead of trying to fix it, I'm going to comment on a blog post and hope someone does the work for me."

Of course, the lovely Loralee cut to the heart of what I was saying by pointing out that no one should feel pressure either way in the public breastfeeding debate, but that she supports me for wishing I had "more freedom and less judgment" to do so.

The honest reason I bother airing out my problem(s) on someone else's post is loneliness. I just want someone to say, "Me too, absolutely." And that's it. To not be the only one entering the room through this particular door.

Just a "Yes, I also wish I wasn't so worried about what other people think that I completely inconvenience myself by not nursing in public."

Instead I got a sweet reply that said, "I spend time with a lot of other moms and when you’re just getting the hang of nursing, it helps to have the support of another Mom nursing beside you!" And where do you find these other moms? And when do you have time to sit beside them?

*sigh*

*shut up now, Lindsay*

In which I fit three weeks into one post

It turns out that there's a certain combination of busy and tired that makes it difficult to sit down and write what you want to write into your blog.

Our week of vacation for Fletcher's birthday (and a visit from Uncle Jeremy) went quickly. We didn't take any big trips or "do" anything memorable. Still, it was a turning point for the little person and much has happened for him. Since his birthday...

FIRST:

• Birthday party
• Trip to the zoo
• Seriously walking, even if he looks like a smiling zombie 
• Whole milk and several new foods
• Climbed onto a coffee table
• Played in the McDonald's play area
• Pushed open the screen door and climbed down the concrete steps to get outside
• Went to the pool with Daddy
• Waited until we weren't looking to climb over the barrier to the stairs, which he then climbed and ran around the upstairs hallway by himself with the cats' water dish

 
I'm sure I'm forgetting things; it has all been a blur. I also had a first -- first time I spent all morning making (pureeing) fresh food for Fletcher, which he then refused to eat, and I could swear my mother was out there somewhere smiling as this justice was delivered.

At his doctor appointment he was still underweight at less than 20 pounds, and average for height. In the past week, however, he has shot up like a beanpole.

Since his birthday, he has only nursed once a day. Yesterday, June 10, was my last time breastfeeding. This ending is like cutting off a limb. Also? HORMONES SUCK.

Here comes a crap ton of photos.

BIRTHDAY PARTY:

Checking out Uncle Jeremy

ZOO:

Family photo with elephant ass

RANDOM:

Scrambled eggs make excellent confetti

Wiped out

Climbing onto the diaper box

Climbing the table, finally capturing the iPod

Tuning up the lawn mower

First trip to the pool

we're going to be okay

I hated pumping. Why is packing up the breast pump the final time making me cry? The nondescript black bag harbors 11 months of memories I wouldn't have called significant. Once again, symbolism packs an emotional punch for me.

At first there was fear and unsureness.

Then I got the hang of it. Pride.

Then things got difficult and the fear returned.

But with the fear was also confidence that I could count on myself to do the right thing for the person who's counting on me.

So I'm okay. We're okay. We're going to be okay.

weaning

On May 23, 2010, around 6:00 p.m. I nursed my newborn for the first time. Soon, I think, I will nurse him for the last time.

It feels like the scene from the movies, when there's an earthquake or some other tumultuous event that forms a fissure across the ground, often separating two people. What had been one land mass becomes two islands, apart. Your hands stretch out, seeking, but you can't cross the void.

I'm not ready, emotionally. I can't determine if Fletcher is ready. My body has taken the choice away.

Google-provided definitions for "wean" only make it worse.

To gradually deprive infants of mother's milk.

Withdrawing the supply of mother's milk.

To cease to depend on the mother for nourishment.

There are many instances in the life of a mother where it is necessary to metaphorically cut the cord. For me, the first instance was at 5:05 p.m. on May 23, 2010 when it wasn't a metaphor. The second instance will be the moment when Fletcher turns away from my empty breast, much as he did tonight, and then never seeks it again.

When that happens, how long will my futile hands reach across the void? How long will I ache? I think, perhaps, for the rest of my life.

update

Writing blog posts is getting frackin' hard. Not the "writing" part, but the "using a computer without the baby wanting to grab at the keys and eat the screen and chew the cord" part.

So what's happened lately?

• Time inexplicably passed again. He's almost 10 months old.
• He got his seventh tooth.
• He's doing quite well eating small bits of "real" food. 
• I went to take a quick potty break, and when I got back he had climbed eight stairs and scared me to death. More than once, he's climbed the entire flight while supervised. A cardboard obstacle was built to stop or slow him.  Or trip me.
• He made friends with an almost-one-year-old at a baby shower on Saturday. There was a bit of cute monkey-see-monkey-do. 
• On Sunday, I threw a dirty diaper in frustration. I may or may not have been aiming at my husband's head. He may or may not have forgiven me. There wasn't that much poop in it. 
• Husband complained about baby food stuck in the carpet again, as if it is preventable. Wet Cheerios stick to everything and dry like glue. Just look at my shirt.

Mostly, I've been worrying a lot. When I first became a parent, the things to worry about were all obvious and expected, and I'd mentally prepared myself to handle them. But now, the things I worry about don't have solutions.

I don't know what I'm going to do when he outgrows his car seat. Sure, we have a different car seat ready for him, but it's not like his original. It doesn't slide into multiple bases in multiple cars. It's a big item that's meant to stay strapped into one car. Are we supposed to buy another one for our other car? And what about the grandparents' cars? And what about the fact that my car is the size of a toy and the idea of fitting a larger car seat in it (let alone taking it in and out repeatedly) is like a bad joke? We can't afford to trade my car in. My husband's car is older and will be the one that gets traded when the time comes.

Then there's nursing. I've obsessed over breastfeeding woes before, and it's getting worse. I used to provide at least eight ounces while at work. About four months in, that started getting difficult. Suddenly I was only able to provide six ounces while away from home. Now I'm LUCKY if I get a total of four ounces, because there is just no let down reflex. Even with this problem, though, I never had to worry about feeding him when I was home -- it was only the pump that my body stopped understanding.

But last night I couldn't get a let down with Fletcher, so now my worries are compounded. Eventually his tiredness won out over his hunger and he fell asleep. Then I went to bed with my failure, wondering what was happening to me, what I was supposed to do. I know he isn't starving, but... my baby went to bed hungry? What kind of mother am I? I'm so angry with my body, as it fails me time and again.

I'm not supposed to have a bad back at my age, yet it feels like someone has grabbed hold of each muscle and twisted. I've lost mobility in my neck, shoulders, arms. I've forced myself to learn how to accept the constant pain, even as new joint pain joins the party.

Is being able to feed my baby when he's hungry really too much to ask? I've done everything right. Why can't it do what it's supposed to do? For the first time, I really feel trapped by my body, because now it isn't just about me.

You know it's a sad state of affairs when you dream of winning the lottery so you can do things like see a health care professional and get a car with four doors.

more breastfeeding woes

There are many things I would tell doctors if I could afford to tell doctors anything.

That sounds a little like a tongue-twister. ("Quit chuckin' my wood!")

Like so many others, I am currently a patient of Dr. Google. She is a doctor whose knowledge is half informed and half misinformed, and her accepted form of payment is time.

She is similar to those doctors who have gone to medical school in that I sometimes receive helpful tips, but usually I walk away unfulfilled, head full of random words, puzzle pieces not quite fitting together.

My most recent visit to Dr. Google involved a spider's web of symptoms that may or may not be related. No diagnosis fits. The topic was breastfeeding.

List of symptoms! It's like being pregnant again! Only not. Don't get excited.

1. No more let-down reflex with the breast pump. This started in October.
2. Burning sensation in breasts. Is it a symptom? Or a result of the torture I put them through every day (see symptom No. 1)?
3. Less milk. Is this due wholly because of symptom No. 1, or only partly?
4. Crabby baby. Is it a personality change? Is it a problem that Dr. Google has not diagnosed, such as ear infection or constipation? Or is it related to the breastfeeding situation?

Dr. Google went on and on about thrush, mastitis, plugged ducts, and more. None of it fits. I simply may be broken. Don't tell my doctor, but I may seek out the help of a real lactation consultant if my chest bursts into flames.

Ten things that didn't suck but now they suck just a little bit

10) Office Lunches. Free food isn't worth going ten hours without the baby and having to add another session with the breast pump to my work day.

9) Pumping. It used to be easy. But the twins have caught on that this isn't natural and this contraption isn't really a baby. Now they must be beaten into submission. Twice a day. And sometimes on weekends. Especially on holidays.

8) Holidays. I'm new at this. Eventually I'll figure out how to haul a baby, diaper bag, breast pump with car adapter, boppy pillow, teething gel, toys, blankets, and spoon feeding supplies to six different places in three days plus a trip to Wal-Mart during the busiest shopping weekend without forgetting the baby's jacket or, you know, having a meltdown.

7) Shopping. It used to be great to browse around, especially at Christmas. Now there aren't words dark enough for how much other shoppers at our Wal-Mart suck. The gift I have for repressing my feelings among these rude, inconsiderate, clueless strangers will fail one day soon, resulting in a volcano of cart-crashing rage.

6) Teeth. They are so not worth what it takes to grow them.

5) Toys With Catchy Music. Get it out of my head. Get it out of my head!

4) Cats. If the baby's blanket is on the floor, a cat will be on it. If the baby's toy is on the floor, a cat will be playing with it. If neither of these is the case, the cats will be on the kitchen table, on the kitchen counters, or in the kitchen sink, doing their damnedest to get cat hair on every single surface.

3) Driving. We don't really fit in our cars anymore. Even without my family and the required bags, my back pain has gotten to the point where I despise sitting anywhere, especially my car.

2) Showering. It was one of the best parts of the day. It would relieve some of my back pain, it was relaxing, it was great to be clean. Now it takes twice as long as I dash in and out of the bathtub to rescue the baby who has found some new crevice to roll into and smack his head.

1) Independence. Andy and I always were independent of each other, with nearly opposite schedules, and it worked fine. Now, sometimes it's like being a single parent.

advice to new moms

At a recent baby shower, we were asked to write down a piece of advice for the expectant mom. I casually filled up the card with lightweight things like "enjoy every minute of your maternity leave" and "sing to the baby."

I regret it now. I've had a chance to think through the question and determine one important bit of advice to new mothers. Then it was made all the more important to me after reading this perspective.

Ready?

Childbirth and all its powerful hormones will do crazy shit to you.

Okay, that's a fact, not advice. The advice part is to accept that this is happening to you and forgive yourself for it, and to seek help when you need it.

I'm not just talking about being emotional ala crying during TV commercials. The confusing hormones that course through you during pregnancy are heightened – taking even more control over you – after.

I remember a part of me acknowledging that the way I felt was not right or natural or logical, but there was nothing I could do but sink into this emotional pool. It may have had a role in making me feel so desperately attached to my baby that I could barely breathe any time I left home without him.

Does anyone really understand how the mind works? Add in body chemistry, and things get crazy. We don't give chemicals, natural or introduced, enough credit for what they do.

I started birth control pills at a young age to control primary dysmenorrhea, and for years I wondered if that was the cause of certain changes in my personality, libido, and the way I felt in general – like a complete leveling out of extremes. Just feeling less.

I didn't notice a change when I finally went off the pill ten years later, but once I was pregnant I was back on that roller coaster of emotional extremes. I had never felt so fierce as I did during the first weeks or months with my baby, and I am so thankful to have had that experience. Even the unexplainable tears. While breastfeeding continued (and still continues) to propagate certain confusing hormones, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I know how lucky I am to have this.

But if I, who did not have postpartum depression, still felt and continue to feel the odd control of such body chemistry, what must it be like for the half of new mothers who do get postpartum depression? How must it affect the quarter of the population suffering through any other mental disorder?

I'm not an expert of anything. I just know that I'm lucky. And I know what to write down at the next baby shower. Take care of yourselves, new moms.

Oh, and if you're buying a nursing bra while pregnant, opt for stretchy elastic. There are changes ahead.

Also? Ignore all advice. Including mine. Every mom and every baby and every experience is different. Own your own way.

4 months old modesty

BOOBS.

There, I had to get that off my chest.

HEH. Heh heh.

Last night I dreamed that I was in a bad car accident. It was a very bad dream, and not because I was disabled (my legs were chopped off at the knees. ugh.). The worst part, what I couldn't stop thinking about in that hospital bed, was that I couldn't take care of the baby. Namely, that I couldn't breastfeed him. I think I even asked the doctor if I could continue to use the breast pump, even though I was on unsafe pain medication, just so I would still be able to breastfeed once I was out of the hospital and off the meds. I remember hoping that I'd be released before all the frozen breast milk was used up. It was a rather involved dream, you see.

I feel very strongly about breastfeeding. I didn't anticipate that. In fact, for a long time before having Fletcher, I was sure that I would not breastfeed, and the main reason for that was modesty. And it just seemed "weird."

I was never around babies growing up, let alone "breastfeeding," so the concept never meant much to me. As kids, we laughed at the word "boobs" and then grew up viewing them in a sexual light. Feeding a baby with them? Weird, gross, not me. After all, there are plenty of TV commercials out there for baby formula. Breastfeeding commercials? Zero. It's like something out of the stone ages.

Then I became pregnant, and suddenly I was hearing it, reading it, seeing it. I was asked by medical personnel who wanted me to answer, "Yes." So I said, "Maybe." This wasn't just my decision, it was Andy's too -- and we decided we'd "try." I don't think we saw a very high probability for success, though. Something about it sounded hard. Again, modesty came into play. Am I really going to be that lady that whips it out at the Wal-Mart?

As I got closer to meeting my baby-to-be, something changed in me. Hormones maybe? I wanted to breastfeed. Suddenly, being a good parent and successfully breastfeeding were the same. I know the inaccuracy of that, so why do I still feel that way? There is absolutely nothing wrong with formula feeding, my brain knows this. Fletcher would be fine -- better than fine. I'm sure he'd continue growing as healthy and strong as he has been. So why do my bad dreams revolve around not being able to breastfeed?

The positives do outweigh the negatives. It's free. It's always ready with no prep time (when I'm the caregiver, anyway). It's always the right temperature. It's better for the baby's immune system. It bonds us. It reduces my risk of breast cancer. It suppresses menstruation (no period since August 2009! Amen!).

The negatives, it turns out, just aren't all that negative for me. Physically, I'm no Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model with these saggy things, but I never was. The nursing bras are the opposite of sexy, and that's okay. For someone who rarely wears makeup or jewelry, who does not collect shoes or handbags, whose clothing can all be described as "comfortable," this isn't such a big deal.

The definition for "homebody" is a person who prefers to remain at home, rather than participate in social events elsewhere. Yeah, that's definitely me. So the modesty situation is kind of moot. I know some people nurse in front of others while using a "wrap" or cloth to cover up, but I'm not there yet. When we visit other people, I pick a bedroom and that's where baby and I will hide every few hours for feeding. Everyone has been very understanding about this routine, and it's nice for me to count on having this time with the baby.

When we're shopping, out to eat, at a nursing home, etc. it gets more complicated, but the breast pump (with a car adapter!) has been a lifesaver. No whipping it out at the Wal-Mart.

I titled this blog the way I did because I am obsessive in nature. I was obsessed with becoming pregnant, obsessed with the pregnancy, and now I'm obsessed with this poor over-loved baby. I have to believe it's better than neglect.

I cling to the time I have left for breastfeeding him, and dread when I'll have to wean. Why the obsession here? Is it purely selfish -- a tangible/quantifiable way to feel like I'm a good parent when that stupid tiny invisible voice suggests I'm a fraud? A way to keep baby close to me, a part of me, though time unavoidably marches on?

Congratulations, baby. You've stolen many hearts in your four months with us. Do you think you could slow down a little bit? You're growing so fast.

official four months photo

From "Heavy In Your Arms," a song that puts me in the mind of obsession. Or maybe it's just that it won't leave my head, no matter what tricks I use. It's permanently embedded. It has taken over my brain like a virus. I give up. By Florence + The Machine.

My love has concrete feet
My love's an iron ball
Wrapped around your ankles
Over the waterfall

I'm so heavy, heavy
Heavy in your arms
I'm so heavy, heavy
So heavy in your arms

I was a heavy heart to carry
My beloved was weighed down
My arms around his neck
My fingers laced to crown

I was a heavy heart to carry
But he never let me down
When he had me in his arms
My feet never touched the ground

I'm so heavy
Heavy in your arms

17 days milk

Fletcher is starting to make a lot more noises. He's holding his head up more than ever. He's awake and antsy more than he used to be. And his cheeks are filling out...


Breast milk has taken over my life. I'm feeding the little man 12 hours out of the day, and spending the other 12 hours pumping with mediocre results.

The baptism is four days away and I'm indebted to all the folks who are taking the party work out of my hands. Thank God for family!

As of Monday's doctor appointment, Fletcher is a healthy little guy. He's now 8 pounds 13 ounces (average weight for his age), and 21 3/4 inches (80th percentile for his age). His next appointment isn't until he's 2 months old.

I've been letting stress get the better of me. What I should be doing is enjoying Fletcher as much as possible while I can and putting off all the things that need to be done and decisions that need to be made. I'm just not good at taking the it'll-all-work-out-in-the-end road, and I feel guilty when I'm not carrying my weight around the house.

an Andy-supervised nap