Posted on | September 25, 2009 | 8 Comments
i must admit – before i had Harper, i had grand ideas of what it would be like to be a mom and along with those ideas came “nevers” – things i would never do or say. when i was pregnant i saw a book called “i was a really good mom before i had kids”. it made me laugh, and think. now, almost a year into it, it could be the title of my book. i’ve compiled a list of things i said i’d NEVER do:
[feed my baby formula] man, i was awful about this one. some of things regarding breastfeeding that came out of my mouth pre-Harper coming out were downright hilarious. i mean slap-your-knee funny. i actually uttered things like “i don’t care how hard it is, i will keep trying until my nipples fall off” and “babies who are formula fed are sick all the time”. yeah. i did that. you know what miss know it all? (yeah, i’m talkng to past self – i’ve told you before i’m bat doodoo crazy) it’s freaking hard. what sucked the most (besides the fact that my nipples did almost fall off, literally, and having the worst supply issues known to man) was that my determination to breast feed ended with guilt because i had really convinced myself that formula was poison. but guess what? it’s NOT! H has never ever been sick ever, and has a sane mother, not the crazy one she had for 6 weeks hunched over a breast pump crying begging the milk gods to give her more than half an ounce in 30 minutes.
[put my baby in her own room before 6 months] this one cracks me up. every time i pictured life with Harper, i pictured her in her bassinet in our room. no. just no. this lasted about 8, maybe 9 weeks and no one was getting any sleep (what was that noise? is she breathing? i better check to make sure. ::baby wakes up crying because her crazy mom has a finger by her tiny nostril checking for air::) putting Harper in her own room was the best thing for everyone. she is a championship sleeper and has been ever since. i always read about people walking the halls with their babies, rocking them to sleep for hours, stressing about crying it out, etc. this is foreign to me. don’t get me wrong, i know how lucky we are, but seriously – we kiss her goodnight, lay her in her crib and she falls asleep. that’s it. crying it out? who’s crying? not my kid.
[own brightly colored plastic baby toys] hilarious. who the hell did i think i was? at one of my showers i recieved a playmat – blues, reds, yellows, oranges, purples – and i politely said thanks while mentally finding a place in the garage for it/scanning my brain on who i could regift it to. i judged the hell out of that playmat. right down to it’s musical little stuffed lion. then when H was 2 or 3 weeks old, i busted it out. she loved it. because she’s a baby. did i really think these toy people didn’t know what they were talking about? good lord. harper could care less for the modern, more hip toys i wanted her to like and you know why? because they’re BORING. these days, it looks like a rainbow barfed in my living room. and i love it.
[let my baby watch tv] noggin rules my life. end of story.
[give my baby jarred baby food] i try to make all of Harpers food, but let’s be real. there are mornings where the coffee can’t brew fast enough and opening a container of gerber organic bananas is easier for my tired butt than mashing one up while H screams bloody murder for FUD. again, NOT poison.
i’m still standing firm on no mini-van ever (although once another kiddo is involved – i must admit i can see the convenience of a sliding door via remote control – but still, no) and no soda or frappachinos (seriously, come on people).
Posted on | May 21, 2009 | No Comments
ahh! wrist rubberbands and knuckle dimples are the BEST! on monday at our weekly coffee date with emily and poppy, a guy asked Harper if she was 9 or 10 months old. when i replied, “6 and half” he exclaimed “oh my gosh, what is your mommy feeding you?!” booyah. i love chubby babies, speshuly mine!
i’m pretty excited for the next couple of weeks. my birthday is coming up and i’m getting a haircut thanks to my hunny, and a YUMMY dinner with close friends at indochine. i’ve been dreaming of the seared ahi i had there when bree and i took emily to dinner and now it will be in my tummy once again. noice.
i am also SUPER excited because we just booked a family photo session with Stacy Jacobsen. i found her blog a few weeks ago and practically begged Scot to let me book with her. i liked Harpers newborn and 3 month pictures, but for her 6 month i wanted something unique and fun. try not to die as you peruse her website. she is flat out awesome and i am SO looking forward to having her take our pictures. tomorrow i’m off to find outfits for the 3 of us. if you could please cross your fingers that my haircut doesn’t get botched so i look decent for these photos. although i’m fairily certain a botched cut would look better than the mess i have on my head right now.
the h monster is awesome as usual. this week she has really taken sleeping in to the next level. read = 9:30pm to 10am one day. at first i was worried, but she seems very content during the day so she must need the z’s. i know i’ve said this before, but i can’t even say how amazing it is that she sleeps through the night. we feel SO lucky that she is such a good sleeper. this week she has been extremely interested in her pointer fingers. she taps them together and now if she reaches for something, she goes finger first, like she is pointing at it. it’s kind of adorable. i’ve also noticed she is finding really tiny things (like a freckle on my hand) and trying to pick it up. so her peepers are working nicely! and what pretty peepers they are.
you may have noticed i added a widget that shows who comes to my blog. i can’t beleive how many people around the country come to visit and don’t even say hi. rude! just kidding. but seriously, say hey once in a while so i know who you are and how you found me. i won’t bite, promise.
i also just noticed that in my labels, i misspelled ‘breastfeeding’ as ‘beastfeeding’. i thought to change it and then thought better of it – crap, it’s funny and TRUE. that kid had a chomper on her.
Posted on | May 9, 2009 | 10 Comments
i’ve been emailed twice now about whether or not i breastfeed and realized it’s not a subject i’ve really touched on here.
the short answer is no. the long answer is, well, long.
breastfeeding wasn’t really a topic that took any consideration for me while i was pregnant. it was easy – i was going to do it. i knew it might be hard but i was fully prepared to do whatever it took to make it happen. thats what you do, you breastfeed your baby. end of story. i was one of those people who disliked the thought of formula and even (gasp) looked down upon others who used it. i know, that is unfair and that you should never judge another person, but hey, i’m being honest here. i immediately thought that women who fed their baby formula chose to do that and didn’t even try hard enough to breastfeed. that’s because i never really realized that sometimes, it isn’t your choice. sometimes, it just doesn’t work.
the day harper was born, my l & d nurse asked me if i planned on breastfeeding. of course. she said she’d try and get harper to latch on within one hour of being born. when she came out and all the technicalities were out of the way, the nurse helped me breastfeed. i will never forget harpers little face coming at my boob. she knew what she was doing. that kid looked like star jones going after a cheeseburger. i cried i was so happy – she was going to be an awesome eater! i was thrilled, beyond thrilled. about an hour later after being taken to our new room, my new nurse checked my bewbs. she looked horrified as she said “see this is why you shouldn’t try to breastfeed until you get to us”. what? but this is a breastfeeding friendly hospital. why shouldn’t i trust any nurse to help me? i looked down and saw a huge bruise-hickey thing on my boob – not even close to my actual nipple. harper had been using my areola as a pacifier. crap. oh well, i thought, it was just the first time.
problem was, she was so strong, that she left these marks whether she was in the right place or not, and after 2 days my nips resembled ground beef, and i was yelling VERY loud obscenities each and everytime she latched on. throw in my spinal headache, hormones and the general discomfort of giving birth and you have one peeved and unhappy mama. on night 2 one of my nurses suggested we supplement harper with a little formula. i said no. i had done my research, babies aren’t even hungry at day 2 and your colostrum is enough (later to find out i didn’t even have colostrum). i finally gave in and bawled as i watched a nurse feed my baby formula with a syringe. it was everything i didn’t want to happen.
my milk came in on day 4, and harper had been having some formula each day, which i hated, but i was stoked that my milk had come in (minus the pornstar bewbs). by this time my nipples were black and blue AND red, bleeding and cracked. i cringe even typing this because i don’t think i’ll ever forget how bad it hurt to have that star jones-esq mouth coming at me. i mean, she was STRONG. i was convinced she was going to pull my nipple clean off. to top it all off, i was using a pump that didn’t fit me. so every 2 hours i’d try to shove my boob into a pump part that was way too small, and then cry because nothing was working. scot called the lactation consultant and said to come in that day. she said it was perfect timing because my milk was coming in. i felt releived for the first time.
jan was the nicest lady ever. she got us a hospital grade pump, correct sized parts, and introduced me to the nipple shield aka the best thing ever invented. she was very reassuring and spent almost 2 hours with us. she was concerned about my milk(lack of), but said i could overcome it. we made an appointment to come back the next week, and left with the new pump, instructions to take fenugreek and mothersmilk tea and to pump every one to two hours. easy enough, right?
pumping for a normal producing mom should probably take about 20 minutes on the low setting. me? i had to crank the pump up to it’s highest setting (talk about feeling like a cow), and wait almost 10 minutes for milk to start flowing. after another 30 minutes, i’d have a pathetic .5 to 1 ounce per boob. get up, clean pump parts for next time and go downstairs. oh lookie there! it’s time to pump again! pure torture. i became neurotic about pumping, because pumping meant getting my supply up. i spent so much time pumping that i missed out on precious time with my family and new baby. i couldn’t pump enough to catch up to harpers eating. i was driving myself crazy. one week after harper was born, i came down with a sweet stomach virus and got dehydrated. this is what you’d call the preverbial “icing on the cake”. my boobs were screwed.
we saw jan two more times. when we left the last time, i could see in her eyes that i was doomed. she was very sweet about it, but i KNEW my fate. looking back, had i accepted it then, i would have saved myself a lot more torture. but i kept trying for 3 more weeks before giving up. i just could not accept the fact that i couldn’t breastfeed. but the day i returned the pump to the hospital, i felt a huge weight off of my shoulders.
i still get weird buying formula. i still get teary eyed thinking about breastfeeding. but all of the things i thought about formula fed babies before are NOT true. harper has never been sick (knock on wood). she is happy and healthy and that is ALL that matters. when people ask if i breastfeed, i say “not anymore”. cause i did. i did my best and no one can say i didn’t try. i do know better for next time what not to do, however i also know better for next time that if i have the same supply issues, it’s ok to let go. sometimes it doesn’t work. but harper doesn’t know the difference and never will.
your ability to breastfeed does not make you a good mother. being a good mother makes you a good mother. no one is wating at the end as you wean your child to give you a medal. formula is not poison and breast milk is not gold. just love your baby.
