This post can be classified in the "Too Much Information" category. I realize I am about to cross the line into things you really should just not talk about, never mind blog about. Dad, if you're reading this, you should probably stop. Actually, if you're a man, you should stop reading. And women too, you may not want to continue.
So what is my taboo topics? Breastfeeding. Well, more precisely, pumping breast milk. (Cue scary music now.)
So sometime before Lukas was born, the question of whether or not I was going to breastfeed came up. My answer was no. I had no desire to nurse my future children. I wasn't nursed as a baby and so it wasn't something that I had ever really considered. My mom didn't do it, so why should I? It just did not sound appealing at all. I mean who wants someone sucking on their nipples? (Ok, ok, I realize that many people enjoy having their nipples sucked, err licked, eh, I should shut up. You get my point...but breast feeding sucking is different from that sort of, uh, sucking...I told you to stop reading.) And I've heard horror stories of breastfeeding gone wrong. Babies can bite. Nipples can get so painful they bleed. Engorgement. Blocked milk ducts. Etc. Etc. The list of bad breastfeeding stories goes on and on.
So no. I was not going to breastfeed.
Then Mr. Cob got wind of this and was a little upset. He had been nursed and he assumed his wife would nurse his son. All the research says "Breast is Best", so in his mind, why wouldn't I want to give my child the best start by breastfeeding? At first I was firm in my stance. I didn't want to nurse so I wasn't going to. And then I did some research. And as it turns out, breast really is best. The benefits to your child are huge. And supposedly breastfeeding helps you lose the baby weight faster and considering how much I had to lose, I figured whatever I could do to help in that area was worth a shot. (And no, the health benefits to my baby alone were not enough to convince me. But my own vanity pushed me over the edge into giving it a whirl. Feel free to judge me now.)
So I bought the boppy. (You can't breastfeed without the boppy. *Sidenote: it turns out the "Brest Friend" is a better breastfeeding support pillow in the beginning weeks of nursing. But then the boppy rocks). I bought the nursing tanks and the nursing bras. I bought the lanolin for my soon to be sore and cracked nipples. I bought the breast pads for leaking boobs. I even bought the La Leche League book The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. And to top it off, I dragged Mr. Cob along to a four hour breastfeeding class for couples. (I'd committed to trying breastfeeding, so I wasn't going to be half ass about it. And it was his idea, so of course he had to come to the class.).
And finally Lukas arrived and it was game time. Within the first hour of his birth, he nursed. This was not an easy task. He latched on rather well, but it was odd and somewhat painful at times and there was no way to know whether or not he was getting any food. But I kept at it. I had to use about 40 pillows stacked on all sides around me and more than a few nurses touched my boobs trying to help us figure it out. But we were doing it. I was nursing my kid.
And then day 2 rolled around and Lukas screamed the entire day in the hospital. We could not figure out what was wrong. Turns out, he wasn't getting enough to eat. I was failing in the breastfeeding department. Most babies lose weight after birth, but Lukas lost more than 10% of his body weight, which is when the doctors worry. So the pediatrician told me I needed to supplement with formula for a day and then bring him back in 24 hours to see how his weight was doing. Feeling defeated, we went home and Mr. Cob gave him 3 ounces of formula. But my milk came in the same day (hello big boobies!!!) and so I also kept nursing him. And that evening Mr. Cob's mom gave Lukas another 2 ounces of formula after I nursed him. (In the industry, they call it "topping off"...) The next day at the doctor Luke had gained about 7 ounces! So they told me we could stop the formula and just breastfeed. And breast milk is all he's had ever since. (Some breastfeeding nazi's would say I am a horrible mother for giving my child any formula at all. But they can go to Hell. The one thing I have learned since having a child is that you do whatever you have to do for your kid. And don't judge anyone else for what they're doing for their child. Because we're all just trying our best. And you may end up eating your own words at some point, as I have already done.)
I've been luckily since this early road bump. No cracked or bleeding nipples. No engorgement. No blocked ducts. Only a few embarrassing boob leakages. And very few tears. Lukas didn't have any trouble figuring the whole latching thing out and we eventually settled into this great routine. I kept an insanely detailed journal of his feedings for the first few weeks - I was spending anywhere from 6 to 8 hours of my day sitting down with the baby on my boob eating. This is a lot of time! Its a serious commitment to nurse your child. But I have found that it has been worth every second.
For one thing, it's a real bonding experience for momma and baby. I'd had a friend try to explain this to me pre-Lukas, and I simply didn't get it. I couldn't understand how a baby sucking on your boob was meaningful moment. But it is one of the most special things to be able to feed your child. I am literally keeping him alive by producing milk from my own body to feed him. It's amazing if you think about it. And it's so special. I honestly don't mind getting up at 2am (and sometimes again at 4am) to nurse him. We sit in the dark room and I just look down and stare at him. He's so small and precious. And he sometimes stops mid-feed to look up, gaze into my eyes and smile. It's something only I can do for him. And that is incredible. I'm now committed to nursing him for at least a year, assuming my milk doesn't dry up before then, which I hear can happen. And I will nurse any other child God blesses me with. I'll now even go so far as to try to talk anyone who's considering breastfeeding into doing it. I've done a complete 180.
Ok, back to the TMI part of this post. (Wait, did I ever leave?) Since returning to work four weeks ago, I'm away from Lukas for about an 8 to 9 hour stretch ever day. He eats about every 3 hours. So in order to continue breastfeeding him, I had to begin pumping. As in, I'm hooked up to a machine 3 times a day that is artificially simulating a baby sucking on my nipples to express milk into bottles. Imagine a cow. Yup, I went there. It's not a pretty picture and it's an even more uncomfortable feeling. But I'm doing it. (No one said this mom thing was glamorous...)
But there is one thing about pumping that I LOVE: getting to see how much milk I produce at each pumping. Let me explain. When you're actually nursing your baby, you have NO IDEA how much milk they're getting at each feeding. It could be a drop for all I know, or ten ounces. No clue. The only way I could figure it out is to weigh the babe pre-feeding and then again post-feeding and see how many ounces he's gained. But alas, I have no baby scale and that's just crazy anyway. So you just have to assume that if they're gaining enough weight at the doctor's appointments and he seems content after nursing, then he's probably getting enough milk. But there's no easy way to quantify the amount of each nursing.
But this is not the case when you pump. You know EXACTLY how much milk you're producing. And that's why I love pumping. Especially because there is no rhythm or reason to the differing output of milk. Some days I get 3 ounces on the right boob and 2 ounces on the left boob. But then two hours later I'll get 4 ounces on the right and 1.5 ounces on the left. And the next day I might get 3 and 3. It's so strange. And the most f*cked up part about it is that I get really excited when I have a large output pumping session. It's like I accomplished this great feat. And I envy my friends who produce more milk than me. (Yes, I have boob envy, in more ways than one...) It's also so odd that I now talk to my friends about how much milk we get when we pump. Apparently there are downsides to overproducing, such as milk squirting your child in the face or gagging them because its coming out too fast. (TMI? Sorry...)
So if you want to talk about breastfeeding, feel free to give me a call. I'm clearly happy to talk about the ins and outs and ups and downs. I'm a loud supporter of "Breast is Best." But if you're curious about adult nursing, I'm so NOT your gal!
