And so, after all that hoopla about my boobs and my insane desire to breastfeed Parker until he was at least a year old, he's decided to self wean. I've stopped taking the meds the doc prescribed and even though I offer Parker the breast, he refuses it. I'll continue to offer it to him for at least a little while longer, but this looks like the end folks. However, because I'm such a convert, I thought I'd share with you some of the wonderful benefits of breastfeeding:
1. Bonding: When you bottle feed a baby, you undoubtedly bond with them. You can hold them and look down into their eyes and smell their sweet smell, and there's absolutely nothing less about feeding your baby with a bottle. But there's just something about sitting in a quiet room, in the darkness of night, skin to skin, and knowing you're the one providing a natural nourishment for your child.
2. Lactose Liposuction: You can eat, and eat, and eat and eat and the weight just melts off. You may hold onto a few pounds but that's only because you need to have fat on your body to produce milk. I think I may miss this one the most!
3. Affordability: It's FREE. I calculated that I've saved approximately $1000 dollars this year alone not buying formula, not to mention you don't need many bottles either and since they rarely use them they don't need to be replaced when they wear out!
4. Convenience: There's no bottles to sterilize, no bottles to pack, no water to boil, no formula to pre-measure and you don't have to worry about how long you'll be gone for because you always have food on hand for the little one!
5. Immunity: Breastfed babies still get sick, they just get LESS sick when they do. That might not mean much to you now, but when my entire family came down with Gastro for 48 hours I was thankful that my tiny infant got it the least severe. Also, babies who are sick who can't keep anything down will rarely refuse the breast, so no need to feed them that awful pedialite to rehydrate them.
6. Amount: Ever wonder if you're baby is feeding enough or if you're feeding them too much? This doesn't happen when you're breastfeeding. Babies inherently know how much they need and will stop eating when they are done, or keep asking to eat when they aren't. Not only that, but babies are also experts at getting more milk out of your breast than a breast pump ever could.
7. Hormonal Bliss: When your baby feeds your brain releases a hormone called Oxytocin that relaxes you and make you feel at ease. This hormone is ADDICTIVE. I lied, I may miss this the most.
8. SIDS: Breastfeeding cuts your baby's risk of SIDS in half. 'Nuff said.
When I found out that Parker was self-weaning I was, dare I say, devastated. After all that work, after all that pain, he's decided that he's had enough. Naturally, I did some research to see if I could interest him in taking the breast again and I came across an interesting article that noted that babies who are breastfed on demand until they decide to self wean, who are not forced to wean, are more independent and secure. It seems that if a baby has decided he no longer needs the breast feels that you've successfully given him the security, love and comfort that he needs to feel confident. He knows you're there for him, unconditionally.
So, here's to the next chapter in our lives as Mother and Son. I have a feeling Parker will be alright, I on the other hand think my babies are growing up too fast. Guess it's time to start thinking about another one!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The Verdict
I wont take too much of your time tonight, but I figured I'd let those of you interested in on what went down at the Herzl Breastfeeding clinic this morning.
First, naked boobs everywhere. I mean, all out, all over the place. I think Pete was jealous he couldn't come.
Second, the diagnosis: Nipple Vasospasm (whada name eh?!)
Definition in a nutshell: when our blood vessels contract or become smaller in diameter due to exposure to emotional stress. Can be quite painful and severe in some people, ie ME.
Risk Factors for developing it:
1. Exposure to cold temperatures (read, Nipple-itis!)
2. Periods of severe emotional stress. (from pain and the stress of not being able to feed your baby)
3. Smoking and second-hand smoke. (not my issue)
4. Poor latch or biting.
5. Nipple cracks or trauma.
6. Migraines.
7. Certain medical conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and hypothyroidism.
8. Certain treatments for Thrush and the birth control pill.
Things to try at home:
Good latch, Heat is very important, make sure to stay warm at all times, stay active, don't smoke and decrease caffeine.
Treatment:
Advil, etc.
High doses of Calcium, magnesium and vitamin B6. ( I got a prescription for this)
Omega fatty acids.
Nifedipine (high blood pressure meds).
So, that's the verdict. We'll see how the prescription makes me feel, and I'll get back to you. People still think I'm crazy considering I'm only doing this for two more months, but I'm determined!
First, naked boobs everywhere. I mean, all out, all over the place. I think Pete was jealous he couldn't come.
Second, the diagnosis: Nipple Vasospasm (whada name eh?!)
Definition in a nutshell: when our blood vessels contract or become smaller in diameter due to exposure to emotional stress. Can be quite painful and severe in some people, ie ME.
Risk Factors for developing it:
1. Exposure to cold temperatures (read, Nipple-itis!)
2. Periods of severe emotional stress. (from pain and the stress of not being able to feed your baby)
3. Smoking and second-hand smoke. (not my issue)
4. Poor latch or biting.
5. Nipple cracks or trauma.
6. Migraines.
7. Certain medical conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and hypothyroidism.
8. Certain treatments for Thrush and the birth control pill.
Things to try at home:
Good latch, Heat is very important, make sure to stay warm at all times, stay active, don't smoke and decrease caffeine.
Treatment:
Advil, etc.
High doses of Calcium, magnesium and vitamin B6. ( I got a prescription for this)
Omega fatty acids.
Nifedipine (high blood pressure meds).
So, that's the verdict. We'll see how the prescription makes me feel, and I'll get back to you. People still think I'm crazy considering I'm only doing this for two more months, but I'm determined!
Monday, May 16, 2011
Rockstar Mom
A little while ago my husband convinced me to go to the Face to Face concert with him, and Saturday was the night. I'm not a huge fan of punk music, but I decided that it would be great to get out and rekindle the old bad ass flame in my heart. So we left the kids with Pete's mum and made our way out for the night.
The night started great, dinner at the Keg, drinks and good conversation when we got there. The show started off fantastic, and then I hit my plateau, the dreaded 11 O'clock mark. I tried people, I tried hard, but every song just seemed to blend into the next, and I couldn't understand a single word. I had to stop drinking since I was the designated driver (which by the way, a husband shouldn't do to his wife who doesn't like the music he's dragged her to anyways...) and sweaty neanderthals kept banging into me and making my arms slick with their gross, stinky sweat.
It wasn't long before I started to feel faint and tired and decided that I needed to sit down and get some air. I found a comfy chair in the lounge area of the theater and once I got to sitting, I didn't want to get up and lose my spot, so I stayed. I didn't think there was anything wrong with this, and I didn't complain to leave. I just patiently waited for the show to end and enjoyed the fresh(er) air near the doors. Little did I know, this was too much for Pete and he felt that he needed to come join me instead of answering the barrage of questions he was getting from people about where I had disappeared to. (Something tells me that people didn't really mind as much as he was putting on!)
Needless to say, I was done for the night, but still had to drive people home. On the way, a friend of Pete's shot me the remark that I used to be fun and that I had lost that "party girl" mentality. I'm pretty sure he wont read this, so I'll just say it...he really hurt my feelings.
My children don't define me, but they do define how I live my life at the present moment. I can't be the mom I want to be if I'm hungover, drunk driving, partying like a rockstar, or overtired and quick tempered. I want to patient, and kind, I want to be present and involved. Sure, I want to have time for myself, and I want to go out, but how can you possibly give equal weight to both? You can't. Well, I can't.
So, no, I'm not the person I used to be. I'm better.
The night started great, dinner at the Keg, drinks and good conversation when we got there. The show started off fantastic, and then I hit my plateau, the dreaded 11 O'clock mark. I tried people, I tried hard, but every song just seemed to blend into the next, and I couldn't understand a single word. I had to stop drinking since I was the designated driver (which by the way, a husband shouldn't do to his wife who doesn't like the music he's dragged her to anyways...) and sweaty neanderthals kept banging into me and making my arms slick with their gross, stinky sweat.
It wasn't long before I started to feel faint and tired and decided that I needed to sit down and get some air. I found a comfy chair in the lounge area of the theater and once I got to sitting, I didn't want to get up and lose my spot, so I stayed. I didn't think there was anything wrong with this, and I didn't complain to leave. I just patiently waited for the show to end and enjoyed the fresh(er) air near the doors. Little did I know, this was too much for Pete and he felt that he needed to come join me instead of answering the barrage of questions he was getting from people about where I had disappeared to. (Something tells me that people didn't really mind as much as he was putting on!)
Needless to say, I was done for the night, but still had to drive people home. On the way, a friend of Pete's shot me the remark that I used to be fun and that I had lost that "party girl" mentality. I'm pretty sure he wont read this, so I'll just say it...he really hurt my feelings.
My children don't define me, but they do define how I live my life at the present moment. I can't be the mom I want to be if I'm hungover, drunk driving, partying like a rockstar, or overtired and quick tempered. I want to patient, and kind, I want to be present and involved. Sure, I want to have time for myself, and I want to go out, but how can you possibly give equal weight to both? You can't. Well, I can't.
So, no, I'm not the person I used to be. I'm better.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Not for the faint of Heart (or breast)
I struggled with the idea of writing this blog entry. After all, it's going to be unpleasant for many of you to read. It is, in all honesty, much more unpleasant for me to live through, and yet has almost become like a war wound for me. A mark of my unwavering determination in the harsh world of breastfeeding.
I did not breastfeed Hunter for very long, three months or so. Just when all the engorgement, mastitis and sore nipples started to seem better, I jumped off the breastfeeding boat and grabbed hold of the life preserver formula. I loved that my body went back to normal, and that I didn't have to suffer through a sinus cold without medication anymore. My body was my own again. But it cost me.
By the time I was pregnant with Parker I had grown as a mother. I had become less selfish. Less inclined to moan about how my body was changing (though, admittedly not much less!) and much less inclined to make decisions based on how I was going to be affected versus how they were going to be affected. I made a vow to myself, and spent months talking myself up, that this time I'd breastfeed. I didn't give myself a time, but I made a promise that I'd at least try.
Since I'd psyched myself up for so long, the first few months were painful, but bearable. I was in Ecstasy with my new little family, so a little pain felt like nothing compared the happiness of daily life. When that two month mark came and went, and I was no longer in pain, I was a convert. I went to Disney, I nursed in public, in restos and, gasp!, across from my DAD. The bliss, didn't last.
A few months later, Parker got thrush, and an incompetent clinic doctor, even after I'd asked the question specifically, told me that the thrush couldn't be passed between mother and baby. He gave me meds to treat ONLY Parker and never told me how to prevent myself from getting it, and then subsequently giving it back to him. Well, I got it, and here's where the two month long cycle of thrush begins. I wont go into details about this dark time in my life, but what I can say, is that it was much more bearable that what is happening to me now.
Parker is an inquisitive little guy. Always exploring, always looking around, always wanting to be part of the action. He's been this way since birth, and I've encouraged it. So when he eats he pulls and tugs and looks around, and unlatches and it's awful. At the beginning, it wasn't so bad, but as he grew older, he seemed to want to eat as fast as possible so as not to miss anything that was going on, and so he began to suck super hard, pulling at my breasts, biting down on my nipples to get more milk out. This of course, is completely counter productive, and I'd take him off and let him know forcefully that it was not OK to bite mommy, but by then, since this was happening every time, the damage was done. He's also using me as a teething ring. Thanks Parker...lol!
And so, this is where I am now, broken, bleeding, raw and dealing with mastitis AGAIN. I spent all of Monday in tears, feeling guilty that I couldn't fathom feeding my child for fear of the pain it would cause me. He's started to notice too and is sensitive to my tears and inability to even breathe while nursing him. I called La Leche League and finally spoke to a lovely woman named Jennifer who told me it's not normal for a woman with a nine month old to have such problems while nursing, and that she'd write me a referral for a clinical trial at the Jewish to take part in a study about healing my wounds. She gave me hope, and after about an hours' conversation she'd convinced me to keep trying.
So, here's the gross part girls (or boys if you didn't follow the rules not to read this!), I take some Tylenol, numb my nipples with an ice pack, and feed my baby, reluctantly, when I have to. When he eats he breaks the scabs and my nipples bleed more blood than milk and he spits up blood.
My goal was a year. Now, I've changed that goal to 11 months, depending on whether or not I can heal.
The point of telling you this story is on the one hand to let you know the dark side of something so beautiful and on the other hand to let you in on a secret.
Motherhood does not make you weak, it makes you invincible.
I did not breastfeed Hunter for very long, three months or so. Just when all the engorgement, mastitis and sore nipples started to seem better, I jumped off the breastfeeding boat and grabbed hold of the life preserver formula. I loved that my body went back to normal, and that I didn't have to suffer through a sinus cold without medication anymore. My body was my own again. But it cost me.
By the time I was pregnant with Parker I had grown as a mother. I had become less selfish. Less inclined to moan about how my body was changing (though, admittedly not much less!) and much less inclined to make decisions based on how I was going to be affected versus how they were going to be affected. I made a vow to myself, and spent months talking myself up, that this time I'd breastfeed. I didn't give myself a time, but I made a promise that I'd at least try.
Since I'd psyched myself up for so long, the first few months were painful, but bearable. I was in Ecstasy with my new little family, so a little pain felt like nothing compared the happiness of daily life. When that two month mark came and went, and I was no longer in pain, I was a convert. I went to Disney, I nursed in public, in restos and, gasp!, across from my DAD. The bliss, didn't last.
A few months later, Parker got thrush, and an incompetent clinic doctor, even after I'd asked the question specifically, told me that the thrush couldn't be passed between mother and baby. He gave me meds to treat ONLY Parker and never told me how to prevent myself from getting it, and then subsequently giving it back to him. Well, I got it, and here's where the two month long cycle of thrush begins. I wont go into details about this dark time in my life, but what I can say, is that it was much more bearable that what is happening to me now.
Parker is an inquisitive little guy. Always exploring, always looking around, always wanting to be part of the action. He's been this way since birth, and I've encouraged it. So when he eats he pulls and tugs and looks around, and unlatches and it's awful. At the beginning, it wasn't so bad, but as he grew older, he seemed to want to eat as fast as possible so as not to miss anything that was going on, and so he began to suck super hard, pulling at my breasts, biting down on my nipples to get more milk out. This of course, is completely counter productive, and I'd take him off and let him know forcefully that it was not OK to bite mommy, but by then, since this was happening every time, the damage was done. He's also using me as a teething ring. Thanks Parker...lol!
And so, this is where I am now, broken, bleeding, raw and dealing with mastitis AGAIN. I spent all of Monday in tears, feeling guilty that I couldn't fathom feeding my child for fear of the pain it would cause me. He's started to notice too and is sensitive to my tears and inability to even breathe while nursing him. I called La Leche League and finally spoke to a lovely woman named Jennifer who told me it's not normal for a woman with a nine month old to have such problems while nursing, and that she'd write me a referral for a clinical trial at the Jewish to take part in a study about healing my wounds. She gave me hope, and after about an hours' conversation she'd convinced me to keep trying.
So, here's the gross part girls (or boys if you didn't follow the rules not to read this!), I take some Tylenol, numb my nipples with an ice pack, and feed my baby, reluctantly, when I have to. When he eats he breaks the scabs and my nipples bleed more blood than milk and he spits up blood.
My goal was a year. Now, I've changed that goal to 11 months, depending on whether or not I can heal.
The point of telling you this story is on the one hand to let you know the dark side of something so beautiful and on the other hand to let you in on a secret.
Motherhood does not make you weak, it makes you invincible.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Last resort
I'm tired of reading about this stuff. On the homepage of the Montreal Gazette the heading reads, "Two Children Burned to Death in Car Near Drummondville." There aren't many details except for the fact that the two children were very young and that the father was in the middle of a divorce. This article comes right on the heels of the news we've all been hearing about that doctor who stabbed his two children to death in their own beds for the same reason.
Children are not property that can be used as a means of leverage in the disintegration of a marriage/relationship. They cannot be used, abused and thrown away in order to hurt the other spouse. I'm both livid and heartbroken as I write this. It is completely unfair that children should suffer like that....that anyone should suffer like that.
I am just putting this out there right now. If anyone ever feels all crazy like and can't handle their kids for some reason or another. Please, drop them off at my door and I'll gladly take them for you. I don't want to argue about the mental illnesses that these people may suffer from, and I don't want to think about how much I want to strap the person who did this to these kids in a van and set him/her on fire. What I want, is for the world to change.
Children are not property that can be used as a means of leverage in the disintegration of a marriage/relationship. They cannot be used, abused and thrown away in order to hurt the other spouse. I'm both livid and heartbroken as I write this. It is completely unfair that children should suffer like that....that anyone should suffer like that.
I am just putting this out there right now. If anyone ever feels all crazy like and can't handle their kids for some reason or another. Please, drop them off at my door and I'll gladly take them for you. I don't want to argue about the mental illnesses that these people may suffer from, and I don't want to think about how much I want to strap the person who did this to these kids in a van and set him/her on fire. What I want, is for the world to change.
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