Get out the vote

Last week was World Breastfeeding Awareness Week, and in honor of it, I entered a photo contest to promote breastfeeding.

As most of you know, breastfeeding my kid for ~19 months was the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life.  You can read about the highlights of it here. 

I'd really like to win a Major Award for breastfeeding, but I don't need any of these prizes.  If I do win, I'll donate the prize or raffle it off or figure out some way to give it to a mother in need.

You can help out by visiting this site and voting every day for the next 6 days!

The photo I entered was one that Rob took on the day of my PhD graduation ceremony.  You know, the PhD I got for the dissertation I wrote on maternal investment and the weaning process in howler monkeys.  Fitting.

Thanks.

2^5

Well, I am 2^5 old today, or more plainly spoken:  32.  Wait, is that right?  I was born in 1979.  You do the math.

For the last several years, my birthdays have become increasingly chaotic.  It has not always been of my choosing.  Last year, most likely in tears, I recall thinking that if I lived to see 32, all I wanted was for NOTHING happen on my birthday.

Let's see if I can recount some of the craziness of the past several years:

25th birthday, 2004:  On a camping trip in Appalachia with Rob.  We may be smiling in the pictures, but we had just had our 2nd fight ever.

26th birthday, 2005: In Managua waiting to fly home and vowing never to return to Nicaragua again.

27th birthday, 2006: Having returned to Nicaragua, I was in a hospital in Moyogalpa that had no toilet paper.  Someone down the hall was either giving birth or having her leg amputated without anesthesia.  I was extremely ill, but Rob was the one who was being treated.

28th birthday, 2007: Moved into our house in Urbana, having just left Eduardo in Nicaragua.  I was supposed to be all happy to be back in the US, I guess, but instead it kind of felt like I'd been forced to reach into my chest cavity, extract my heart, and throw it to the sharks in Lake Nicaragua.

29th birthday 2008: On a boat in Lake Nicaragua, looking for Eduardo.

30th birthday, 2009:  Had given birth to my one and only child  2 days prior.  Will wouldn't stop crying, ever, not even for a second.  An asshole pediatrician at the hospital told me I was starving Will to death by trying to breastfeed him and that I would have to give him formula because everybody on the planet would die if he lost any more weight.  I have never met anyone more insulting, ignorant, and arrogant than that worthless sack of shit.  He actually referred to the nurses on staff as "the girls" and he told me that giving Will formula wouldhelp my milk come in.  Luckily I was smart enough not to listen to him, but even so, my 30th birthday was the worst day of my entire life.

31st birthday, 2010: Moved to St. Louis with approximately 3 weeks notice.  Started a new job and put my son in daycare for the first time ever (prior to this we'd never been apart for more than a few hours).  We didn't have a place to live yet so we stayed in a hotel for 2 weeks.  Also, my grandmother was dying and passed away just before my first day of my new job.  My family held off the funeral till the weekend (because I could not take any time off of work at that point), so that I could come home and give the eulogy.

Well, I guess my 32nd birthday is about to draw to a close and thankfully there has been no tragic event.  I got to go on a long run this morning, and afterwards, Rob and I biked over to a park with Will to meet some friends.  Will enjoyed the playground, and I had a chance to chat with some of my favorite yoga moms (one who now lives in St. Louis, and another who had come down to visit).  Although I have been feeling ridiculously awful for the past several days (out of control exhaustion), I got a second wind after a 20 minute power nap this afternoon.  Then this evening, we hung out with some neighbors until Will threw a fit and we had to take him home.  He wouldn't eat dinner (as per usual), but I soothed myself by having a piece of leftover birthday cake from his party yesterday.  I got lots of phone calls, emails, cards, texts, tweets, and Facebook messages from everybody wishing me a happy birthday.  It was really nice!

Tomorrow I resume my career-- going back to work full time after about 6 weeks off this summer.  A little stressed out by that.  A lot stressed out by that.  I still have to write the howler paper for Mt's edited volume, and I don't know when I am going to find the time to do that.  Hoping all goes well.

Dear William (20 months)

Dear William,

Today you are 20 months old!  You are so much fun.  You just keep getting funner and funner.

You have been really good this month.  It is hard to believe you used to be a little baby that just cried and cried all the time!!  Now you are a very happy little boy.  You are even getting a tooth right now (your last canine!), and it hasn't bothered you one bit*.  You do get mad sometimes, and if I try to pick you up when you do not want me to or if I take something away from you that you should not be holding, you throw yourself to the ground, kicking and screaming.  It doesn't usually make me mad because it is actually kind of hilarious.  You are happy again two seconds later if I show you a book or toy, and you have forgotten all about why you were mad in the first place.

You say a lot of things that are very cute.  You said blueberry this month.  You say up and down, shoes and socks.  Milk and juice.  Hi and bye.  You can make animal sounds.  You have this farm puzzle (that you can put together all by yourself), and when I ask you, for instance, what sound the cow makes, you say moo.  The other night I was trying to get you to get ready for bed and I told you, "We need to go upstairs and take a bath now," and you said, "We do?"

You love climbing up and down the stairs.  Instead of crawling like you used to, you hold onto the railing and walk.  Your legs are still very little and it is hard for you, so you like to hold onto somebody's hand too.

We have quite a nice bedtime routine these days.  We give you a bath, then dry you off, put you in your jammies, and make an attempt to brush your teeth.  Then we read you your favorite story, I Love You Through and Through, and give you Blue Seahorse and your little bitty blankie to hold.  We have you help us turn out the hall light, and then you help us turn out the light in your room.  We tell you nigh nigh and lay you down in your bed.  Sometimes you sit up and read your book again for a while, and sometimes you fall right to sleep.  But either way, you do not cry and need us to rock you to sleep anymore.  I am so proud of you.

You sometimes will give me great giant wonderful kisses.  You sometimes will stop whatever you are doing and run over to me and give me a hug just because you want to.  Hugs and kisses from you are the best thing ever.

You are definitely done nursing now; it's been more than a month since you last nursed.  You don't seem to miss it at all.

This past weekend your daddy was out of town so it was just you and me having fun.  We went to the art museum to look at the ancient Maya exhibit; we went to a Pow Wow on campus (you loved the dancing and drums!), and we went to watch the St. Louis marathon, which went right by our house.  We read a zillion books.  We watched Sesame Street.  It was the first time that you had ever watched Sesame Street.  You loved it.  You pointed to the screen and laughed.  You looked at me and grabbed my arm, to make sure I had seen the same hilarious thing you just saw.  And when they played music, you smiled and bobbed your head.

We go on real, actual walks sometimes, hand in hand.  I love that.  You like to walk, and you can walk for a long time without getting tired.  You have so much energy.  You have a really good sense of direction, too.  You have father's sense of direction, which makes me glad.  If we have been walking in the neighborhood, for instance, and we are on our way back home, you recognize our house.  I think you are really smart and if you want to, you can go to college someday.

We have had so much fun this month, William.  I am looking forward to each and every day!

* Addendum: About the tooth, I spoke too soon.  Today you got sent home from daycare with a fever.  That tooth is certainly bothering you now! But you are being a real trooper about it.

You have no idea who Spiderman is, but you like to wear the jammies.

 

Strutting up the driveway

 

Having a bit of breakfast

Drinking with just your diaper on.

What happened to this hat? I think you threw it down somewhere because I cannot find it anymore.

Out for a walk

We love you very much.

How I'm dealing with it

Just so you know, it has been about a month since Will nursed, so I guess we are done with that.  We made it almost to 19 months.

He was having a really rough couple of days during that time, when 2 of his canines were coming in.  Normally when he is in that kind of frantic mode, he nurses and then he feels better.  He was kneeling on my lap, screaming and pummeling me with his fists, so I offered to let him nurse.  He looked at me, kind of perplexed, covered me over with my shirt and patted me very nicely.  Then he climbed off my lap and got a book and came tearing back over to me so that I could read it to him.  And that was that.  He hasn't nursed since.

In some ways it's nice, I guess.  I have more time to clean up the kitchen after dinner now that he's not nursing.  And Rob can put him to bed while I'm folding laundry or something.  Now that I think about it, I just want to curl up and bawl my eyes out.

So the way that I am dealing with it is to not think about it most of the time.  I have thrown myself into the writing of The Novel.  It is so intense; i did not really realize how difficult it would be not only to write this thing, but also to write it while working full time, caring for a small child, and still attempting to run.  It is crazy.  I work on it from about 8:30pm until about midnight or 1am.  Then I'm up by 7 and at work by 8:30 so I can squeeze in another half hour (usually editing what I wrote the previous night) before work.  I do my job until "lunch" and then I close my door for an hour and write.  It is weird.  I worked there for like 6 months without so much as ever taking a 5 minute lunch break.  Rationally I know that I am not paid to work over "lunch," but for some reason it still just didn't seem right for me to take a real actual lunch break.  I am making up for that with gusto.  When I finish the work day, I come home and deal with dinner, childcare, etc, and start working on it again, and thus the whole cycle repeats.

The whole household is mobilized regarding The Novel as well.  Rob got me some really amazing software called Scrivener that is quite possibly the best thing ever.  Seriously.  I wish I had used it while writing my dissertation.  Without Rob, I would have been writing this thing in a Word document like some sort of chump.  He said he did it not just to help me, but also for self preservation.  He assumes that "we" will publish it as an e-book, and Scrivener software allows you do to this with a touch of a button (I keep hoping I don't actually touch that button before it is ready, which bear in mind could be years from now), whereas it would apparently be an infinitely more difficult process to format a Word document for the same thing.  The only drawback to Scrivener is that it doesn't autocorrect typos/spelling errors, but oh well.  The rest of it's wonderfulness more than makes up for that.

Rob also has been a superb source of information for me on many and varied topics.  Well, in Part 1 of The Novel, one of the main characters is a high school boy, so Rob has been giving me a lot of insight into what that is like.  At times this has been quite hilarious. Though I must point out that the guy in the book is nothing like Rob ever was (and I assure you, is nothing like any high school boy I ever knew or had a crush on.  This is fiction).

Last weekend, Rob also took me to go meet with Cousin Don (no relation), who happened to be in town.  Cousin Don is another information source for me; wouldn't you like to know what I asked him.  At any rate, this was a completely altruistic act on Rob's part: he knew that if he did not arrange for the meeting between me and Don, then drive me over there (I would never have found it on my own, plus I am still terrified to drive anywhere in Saint Louis besides the grocery store), and entertain Will while Don and I talked, it never would have happened.  I told him thanks for doing that, and he smiled and nodded, but I don't think he is aware of how much I appreciate it and how much it means to me.  He must really believe in me, and in The Novel, to go to so much trouble.

So I am beginning to feel like the stakes are high.  I am putting in an extraordinary amount of effort on this.  I have told people I am writing it, mainly so that I can get information from them.  And the people I have told about it want to read it.  Are you kidding me? No way.  No one who knows me or is related to me is ever allowed to read it.  The subject matter is a little bit... how can I put this?  I don't even know.  I'm not sure if it is even suitable for Rob to read.

Since it is doubtful that I would ever actually publish it or allow anyone to read it, I sometimes wonder why on earth I am doing this.  But ask Amy or Jolyne or anybody I was friends with while growing up and they will tell you, this is how I deal with things.  I write.  I just couldn't do this the whole time that grad school was sucking the life out of me.  But now that I am not clamped by the iron fist of grad school, It is easier in many ways to pour myself into The Novel rather than deal with the reality of the financial crisis we recently suffered, or the fact that I have weaned my only child, or that I still sometimes wonder if I should have fought harder for Eduardo, or that I occasionally question the wisdom of irrevocably taking myself off the tenure track.

I promise to go to bed before 1am tonight.

Thanks for reading.

Who should I send this to?

I saw this report today and became so outraged I think I was actually having heart palpitations.

The report prompted me to write this response, but I don't know who I should send it to.  The superintendent?  The members of the school board?  How do I even find their addresses?

Well, I figured I'd start by posting it here.  Recently, when my friend was told she couldn't nurse her baby in a hospital cafeteria, I wrote about it and people found it.  Quickly.  Maybe the same will happen this time?

Here goes.

 

To whom it may concern:

 

I am deeply disturbed by a recent report in the media (“DCSS looks at breast feeding at schools”), which discusses a proposal to ban both teachers and students from breastfeeding their children while on school property. The superintendent of the Dougherty County School District in Georgia suggests that this policy meets the legal requirements of accommodating the needs of nursing mothers.  However, I fail to see how this policy is anything other than blatantly discriminatory and detrimental to both mothers and their children.  According to state breastfeeding laws, in Georgia, a mother is permitted to breastfeed her child in any location that the mother and child are otherwise authorized to be.  Therefore, as long as women and their children are authorized to be on campus, the school district’s policy appears to violate this law directly.

The recently published article alleges that school officials say that allowing students or teachers to breastfeed their children on campus will disrupt to the educational process.  Further, the article states that school officials believe they are providing adequate support to mothers by allowing them to express breastmilk in the nurses station while on designated breaks.  While I commend the school for providing breast pumps for both teen mothers and teachers in the district, this measure alone is insufficient to support the best interests of either mothers or their babies.  It is unclear to me, based on the superintendent’s quote, whether he is against permitting infants in the school or whether he specifically wishes to prevent them from being breastfed while on the premises.  He voices concern that infants will cry and disrupt classes.  If infants are permitted on campus, certainly nursing them would stop them from crying much more quickly than if a mother were required to go to the nurses station, express breastmilk, and then feed it to her infant in a bottle.

The new policies are discriminatory for nursing mothers who work in the school district, but perhaps even more disturbing is the impact that this proposal would have on the 271 teenage mothers who attend classes in the district.  Breastfeeding rates have been notoriously low for teenage mothers, and numerous studies have cited lack of social support and fear of stigmatization as primary factors that inhibit breastfeeding in teenage mothers.  The policies proposed by the DCSS directly reify the social and physical barriers to breastfeeding that teenage mothers face.  While the school district seems to feel it is covering its bases by permitting the expression of breastmilk via a breastpump, the policy itself sends a clear and unambiguous message that nursing an infant at the breast is an unacceptable cultural practice.  It is important to note that breastfeeding rates in the state of Georgia fall below the national average at every measured stage; moreover, such a restrictive policy directly counter-indicates the Surgeon General’s call to action to increase breastfeeding in the United States.

It is my sincere hope that the members of the Dougherty County School Board vote against these restrictive breastfeeding policies.

 

Respectfully yours,

Cloth mother, PhD.

 

 

Breastfeeding is not a crime, part 2

I want to thank everyone I spoke to at the Children's Hospital today about Friday's incident.  Extremely respectful and kind representatives assured me that the hospital has no policy against breastfeeding on the premises and is in fact a very strong proponent of breastfeeding.  I am truly thankful for the time and attention they have devoted to this matter; moreover, I am thankful for the good work they do saving children's lives everyday.

Still, it is distressing (to put it lightly) that a woman can be asked to leave any location because she is nursing her baby.  The law does provide women with the right to nurse in any public or private location, but that does not stop people from getting offended by it.  I just don't understand how anyone could find fault with a mother nourishing her child.  Apparently the reason why my friend was asked to leave the hospital cafeteria was because people had complained that they did not want their children to see a woman breastfeeding.  My reaction to this is that maybe if more children grew up seeing women nurse, no mother would be told she could not breastfeed her baby in a hospital cafeteria because that's where people eat.  If children grew up viewing breastfeeding as normative, maybe breasts wouldn't be fetishized to the extent they are, and people would actually come to realize what breasts are there for.  In this regard, it seems strange that we even need laws granting mothers the right to breastfeed anywhere they wish.  It should just be a given.

Obviously, this incident happened to my friend, and I wasn't there to witness firsthand the details of what happened.  So I think I will step out of the issue for now.  And again, I want to stress the respectfulness of everyone I have spoken to at the hospital, and I want to make clear that I in no way wish to tarnish the reputation of the hospital or any of its employees.  What I do hope though, is that no woman is ever again asked to leave the premises because she is nursing her baby.

I'll close by including some pictures of me, nursing Will in various public locations.  Soooo offensive, isn't it?

On a cable car in San Francisco

Dr. Mom, PhD in breastfeeding.  And Biological Anthropology.

Breastfeeding is not a crime

A friend of mine was visiting St. Louis for an appointment at the Children's Hospital this week.  While at the hospital, she went to the cafeteria with her 6 week old baby.  The baby got hungry, so she started to nurse him.

Everything was going great until a security guard came up to her and told her discretely that she was going to have to leave.  My friend asked him why.  He said that she couldn't nurse in the cafeteria.  My friend asked him why she could not nurse in the cafeteria.  He told her it was because there were children around and some people had complained.  She asked what she was supposed to do.  He told her to go to a nursing room on the fifth floor.  She told him she could not leave the cafeteria because her husband and older son were planning to meet her there, and she wasn't sure when they would be arriving.

He asked her to leave again, and she told him she was not sure about Missouri law, but in Illinois, (where she is from) a woman is permitted to nurse in any public place.  At that point, the security guard said he would go check with his supervisor regarding Missouri public breastfeeding laws.

He did not return, and my friend continued to breastfeed her baby.

I think my friend handled the entire situation superbly.  I wish I had her composure.  I asked her permission to post about this on my blog, and she said yes, but the whole situation makes me so angry that I can barely form sentences.

A few weeks ago, something similar occurred when a nursing mother was asked to leave the Smithsonian.   After that incident, breastfeeding advocates staged a nurse-in on the premises.  Maybe St. Louisans should do the same.  It feels particularly insidious when a woman is told she cannot nurse in a hospital.

And for the record, Missouri law: "allows a mother, with as much discretion as possible, to breastfeed her child in any public or private location."

That law seems heinously ambiguous (who determines how much "discretion" is sufficient?) and pales in comparison to the extensive protections offered breastfeeding women by many other states, including my former home state of Illinois.

Come on, people.

We're mammals.

Get over it.

 

 

 

Dear William (19 months)

Dear William,

Today you are 19 months old!  The last couple of weeks have been full of a lot of changes.

First off, I think you are done nursing.  You nursed about a week ago... last Sunday morning when you were crying and fussy (cause I think your teeth hurt).  I was trying to put away laundry, so I stopped and nursed you a little bit, and then you felt better.  You haven't seemed to concern yourself with nursing since then, so I was thinking that was it, until today when you just wouldn't stop crying (more teeth coming in), and I let you nurse again for a few minutes.  So we are probably done with it, but maybe not completely done.  We'll see.  In some ways it would be nice to be done with nursing, but in other ways it makes me kind of sad.  The sadness mainly comes from the realization that you are growing up and I am so baffled about how you went from this tiny crying thing to a great big giant boy like you are now(often still crying).

 

The second biggest change is that you go to bed on your own now.  One night, your dad decided to see what happened if he just lay you down in your crib with seahorse and tip toed out of the room.  You screamed and cried.  For maybe 2 minutes.  And then you were completely silent!  We've been doing that ever since.  Last night you didn't even cry when we put you in your crib; you just cuddled seahorse and went nigh nigh.

 

You seem to be off rice and beans, which has been your staple food for something like 6 months now.  All of a sudden you just don't want it anymore.  Your latest thing is cold rotini noodles dipped in hummus.  Yuck.

 

Well William, your little friend Anton is visiting this weekend.  Do you remember him?  His mama was in my yoga group and you first met them when you were only a week or two old.  Anyway, my point is, we've got company, so I have to cut this letter short!

xoxo

Mama

 

Arroz y frijoles

First of all, I want to thank everybody who left a kind comment on my previous entry or sent an encouraging email.  Seriously, you cannot even begin to know how much that helped.  Our families and a few close friends have been instrumental in getting us through this rough patch, but sometimes, a word of encouragement from a complete stranger is what ends up getting me through the day.  I can't say enough how thankful I am for each and every person who is helping us survive.

February continues to suck; there are moments when I find myself feeling like I might just make it after all (like, when I have read kind blog comments or emails), and then there are other moments when I come home from work and lay down on the couch in the dark and cry.  Those latter types of moments have to be few and well contained, given that I have a small child to look after.  But still.

Right after all of this happened and we were faced with the realization that we were going to be sh*t, flat broke, we knew that we were going to have to make some changes in our lives to scrape by.  Part of the problem with that is that we were pretty much living at Maximum Frugality before all of this happened.  I mean, we much don't buy anything but groceries and basic supplies.  We have only 1 car, and we drive it less than 10 miles a week.  I don't buy or use wasteful things like paper towels (messes can easily be cleaned up with an old sock that is then thrown in the wash and reused).  On the rare occasion that I  wrap something up in aluminum foil, I don't throw away the foil when we're done with it; instead I wash it and use it again.  In terms of becoming more frugal, it was difficult to figure out how else we were going to cut back.

One thing I thought of was that I would have to stop buying anything organic, and we would just eat arroz y frijoles (rice and beans) for dinner every night.  Rice and beans are pretty cheap.  A 1-pound package of dried black beans costs $1.67, and even if I spring for the quick cooking brown rice, that is around $2.00 a package (and it lasts for several meals).  The way I make rice and beans is loosely based off a recipe called Aztec Black Beans that I got from Fat Free Vegan.  Not that rice and beans actually requires a recipe.  But when I came across this one, I realized that I could make it in the crock pot and then it would be ready when I got home from work.  Excellent.  I typically soak and boil a batch or two of beans over the weekend, and sometimes I freeze some if I don't think we will be eating them right away.  Then to make my version of the Aztec Black Beans, I put a pound of cooked black beans in the crock pot (I find that cooked beans work better), along with a jar of salsa (Value-Time brand at Schnuck's only costs $1 for a 16 oz jar and it contains no high fructose corn syrup), and I also add some frozen corn to the mix.  I give it a good stir, set it to cook for about 7 hours, and it is delicious when I come home from work.  Usually I make rice the night before, so it is all ready too.  We eat it with tortilla chips, and sometimes Rob puts cheese on his.  I figure at most the whole thing costs about $8 or 9 to make, and it lasts 3 of us 2-3 dinners (sometimes Will eats additional leftovers for a few more meals), so that is cheap.  Cheapity cheap.  And good for you too.  And it just happens to be the only thing that Will will eat, so that is a plus too.

Even before The Incident, we ate arroz y frijoles for dinner a lot (usually I'd make it once a week), but afterwards that was all we ate, probably for about 3 weeks straight.  It was so easy, and so cheap.  I spent vanishingly little at the grocery store and began to feel like I was channeling my inner Ma Ingalls... pioneering through this hardship in the most frugal of fashions.  But then at some point, Rob mentioned as kindly as possible something to the effect of, "Could we eat something other than rice and beans?"  And I had to come up with something else that would be cheap and healthy and that I could also get on the table while working full time.  It has been a struggle.  I hadn't expected either of us to get sick of arroz y frijoles.  After all, that is what we ate every single night for dinner for an entire year when we lived in Nicaragua.   I even trained myself to eat rice and beans after numerous bouts of The Vortex, which had likely been initiated by none other than rice and beans.  Nothing like throwing up rice and beans for days on end and then beginning your foray back into the world of solid food with a nice big bowl of rice and beans.

This whole difficulty we've been going through has put a damper on all of our lives, and I really think it has wreaked havoc on every organ system in my body.  My running has suffered a lot, which is ironic, because usually running is what lifts my spirits when I'm feeling blue.  But this whole thing has made me not even want to run, so you know it is bad.  I had originally been planning on running the St. Louis Marathon this April, but that was the first thing to go out the window.  The marathon entry fee, not to mention the new running shoes I would need to go with it, were out of the question.  I have kept running here and there, but for the first time in about 7 years, with no marathon in sight.  The shoes I'm wearing are by now quite ancient... I've fully run and trained for 2 marathons in them, which makes them have about twice the mileage that I can normally get out of a pair of running shoes.  It had been so far so good though.  I thought maybe I'd become like some of the more hard core runners from our running club back in Urbana.  There was one guy who'd been wearing the same pair of shoes (racing flats, no less) for something like 10 years and had run 100's of marathons and ultra marathons in them.  Well, maybe that is a bit exaggerated, but still.  I had remained confident that my Mizunos would see us through this bad patch.  Then, seemingly out of the blue, I started to have the characteristic pain in my medial lower calf which pretty much always indicates that my shoes have reached the end of their use life and I need a fresh pair.  Damn.  New running shoes are not in the current budget.

Well, I decided that rather than give up running, I'd quit dancing around the issue and become a Barefoot Runner.  I am not kidding.  Rob has been a convert for some time, though he generally wears Vibrams or some other type of minimalist shoe that doesn't mess with your foot's natural heal strike pattern but that does provide protection from the elements.  I have to say, I've been intrigued by this issue for quite a while, and after I read Born To Run (about a year ago), I thought it was something I might actually try out someday.  The premise is that barefoot running is supposed to be the best way to run to stay injury free, because modern running shoes alter your gate and heel strike pattern in a way that actually causes you to have injuries.  I'm not sure I buy into the argument completely whole heartedly, but given my current situation, it is something I have decided to pursue.  So I announced this to Rob and it looked like what he thought was "Oh Lord," but what he said was that I should be sure to ease into it and I should probably start by getting used to barefoot walking before I tried to run.

But I'm Melissa, and I don't think I've ever eased into anything in my entire life.  This week, we had unseasonably warm temperatures which finally melted all the snow.  I put Will in the jogging stroller and we went and found a really great footpath.  I discovered that running barefoot is the funnest thing ever.  Seriously, who wouldn't love squishing around in cold, wet, mud?  It is a fantastic feeling.  The footpath is along a beautiful street, and as all these people drove by in their SUVs on their way to their 4 million dollar mansions, I smiled and waved to them and was like, do you see me??  I am running BAREFOOT.  It was pretty awesome.  I did notice that my heel strike pattern was completely different than when I am wearing shoes.  I was totally landing on the balls of my feet as opposed to the heels.  And my lower medial calf pain became unnoticeable.  So enthused I was with this barefoot running, that I went out a couple days later (this time Will stayed at home), and ran farther.  I think I may have pushed it a little bit too much because now I can barely walk.  My calves are ridiculously sore (though completely different than the initial calf issue that had prompted the shoe shedding in the first place), and I realized that that is why Rob had cautioned me to take it easy.  Running barefoot completely changes the the way you land on your feet, and it takes your muscles a while to get used to it.  Duly noted.

One more thing and then I've got to end this:  As for nursing Will, we haven't completely stopped, which is a miracle.  When he turned 18 months old, I didn't nurse him for 2 days, but then he got send home from daycare with a fever (most likely because he is teething) and he was just walking around here totally miserable, crying and chewing on his fist.  I felt so bad for him that I've let him start nursing again about once a day or so.  And the other day in his misery, he actually asked to nurse, which is the first time he's ever done that.  I was exhausted (from too much Barefoot Running?) and was laying down on the floor watching him play, when all of a sudden, he came up to me, started tugging on my shirt, and said, "Nay nay?"  I couldn't turn him down.  And I feel okay with how things are.  In some ways, I feel like I might have just needed a break from nursing, and two days of not nursing him was weird but somehow refreshing, and now I will be able to hang in there for a little bit longer.

Oh, and the novel.  I've been working on it.  We'll see.

Thanks again, everybody.

Dear William (18 months)

Dear William,

Today you are 18 months old!!

You can do so many things on your own these days.  You feed yourself with a spoon or fork, all on your own.  You still love rice and beans.  That is the only thing you will eat for dinner.  You still love your waffle(s) for breakfast.  When I am getting your waffle ready and it pops up out of the toaster, you get soooooo excited... waving your hands and saying "MMmmmm!"  Sometimes when you finish your waffle, you say "Mo waaaah..." which pretty clearly means "More waffle."  Here is a picture of you smugly eating the second waffle you requested for breakfast yesterday:

 

William, we had a snow day this month.  St. Louis got about 8 inches of snow, and right before that, we got several inches of ice that turned to rain.  It was awful.  That was 12 days ago, and the whole city is still covered with snow and ice; it has been frigid ever since then.  On the day that we got all the snow, Wash U closed down for the first time in like, forever, and your daycare was closed.  You stayed at home with me, and we played all day long.  It was exhausting for us both.  I made you home-made play-dough on our snow day, and you hated it.  You touched it once and shuddered.  I was so hoping that you would like it.  My Grandma Florence used to bring home-made play-dough sometimes when she came to our house early on a Saturday morning for my mother do to her hair.  It would still be warm when she arrived, and I loved playing with it.  Maybe someday you will like home-made play-dough too, but not this time.  You had a lot of fun in the kitchen on our snow day.  You were thrilled to open and close the cabinets, take everything out of the cabinets, bang pots and pans together, etc.  And you and I colored pictures, read books, stacked/knocked over blocks, and ran around in circles giggling.  We had a lot of fun together.  It made me excited for this summer, when I am off of work and you and I will just get to play, play, play every day.

William, you've been sick a time or two this month.  Not really badly sick, just a bit of an upset stomach.  It makes me so sad and scared when you aren't feeling well.  You like to sleep in the big bed with mommy and daddy during times like that.  I love cuddling with you, but sometimes you take up the whole bed.

You got your left upper canine this month too, and that ordeal also required that you scream at night and sleep in the big bed with us.  It must have hurt a lot.  Oh well, only 3 more of those to go.  And then 4 more molars.  We'll get through it.

I tried to teach you a few things this month.  One thing I taught you was where your nose is.  I thought you ought to know.  We're still working on head, shoulders, knees, and toes, but the nose you've got down pat.  If I say, "William, where is your nose?" you grin and point to your nose.  And if I say "Where is Mommy's nose?" or "Where is Daddy's nose?" you can point to those too (although, only if you are in the mood to cooperate).  It is pretty cute.  Even though you haven't said "nose" yet, I know you know what the word means.  One of those rough nights when you were sleeping with us, I woke up and you were sitting on top of me giggling and putting your little pointer finger on my nose.

Another thing I taught you this month was the word "kiss."  Every time I kissed you I would say "kiss, kiss."  Every once and a while, you decide to reciprocate with the kisses, except you do so with your mouth open and your tongue out, so it is really more like I am getting slimed than kissed.  It is a little bit gross, but actually, you are so cute and sweet that I don't care about getting your slobber all over me.  Sometimes you will kiss me if I ask you, "Come here and give mommy a kiss," but usually you are more aloof and kiss only when you choose to do so.  A lot of times when I am trying to put you to bed, you put both of your hands on my face and giggle as you give me giant, wet, slobbery kisses.

I think I am pretty sure that we are going to stop nursing this month.  I am a little bit sad about it, but at this point I think you will be okay without it.  You are so busy playing most of the time that you don't really care to stop and nurse.  If I don't bring it up, you are fine, but if I say, "William, do you want to nurse," you generally stop whatever you are doing and zoom over to me, grinning, and saying , "Nayyy, nayyy," which I have come to understand is your word for nurse.  The other night though, when I asked you if you wanted to nurse, you ran over to me and pulled your own shirt up, as though you thought I had suggested that we reverse our roles.  Hmmm.

Last night after you nursed you did the sweetest thing.  Well, you started giggling while you were nursing, and so I unhooked you and set you down to play, but the instant I did that you began fussing and saying "Maah, Maah, Maah..." which is generally what you say when you want more of something or when you are just generally frustrated (it might be your way of saying "more" or "mama" or both, I'm not really sure).  You were reaching your hands up to me too, so I assumed you had decided that you weren't done nursing and wanted some more.  I picked you up, and instead of going in to nurse some more, you put both of your hands on my face, smiled lovingly at me, and then puckered your lips and gave me a great big kiss right on my mouth.  It was so sweet that I cried.  And also, it was nice that you'd actually figured out how to give kisses without so much slobber.  You are great, William.

You still do cry sometimes, even when you are wearing adorable jammies:

And you are still cute in the bath:

Hopefully you aren't too embarrassed by all the cute little things I wrote about you doing.  You are just growing up so fast that I need to write them down so that I don't forget about them all.

Happy 18-month "birthday" and happy Valentine's!

Love,

Your mom

February sucks too

I haven't been able to write lately, because a little over a month ago we suffered an Unfortunate Incident which all but ruined us.  As far as Unfortunate Incidents go, I suppose it was the best kind to have because in the scheme of things, we still have each other (so far, at least), and we still have our health (again... so far at least), we just have no money.  I am not going to write in detail about this incident because there is a slim chance that there might be some Legal Action taken someday in an attempt to recoup our losses and also because I don't feel like broadcasting the details to the world.

Ever since the Incident occurred, there has been a moratorium on anything remotely fun or joyous in our lives.  Everything is somber.  At first I couldn't eat anything for days (great for saving money) and got very skinny; then at some point I shifted and realized, you know, Schnucks brand tortilla chips are cheap, and eating half a bag of them sure makes me forget my troubles.

In the midst of all of this, winter rages ferociously around us at all times.  We experienced the Great Blizzard of 2011 last week, though honestly, it didn't end up as bad as they were predicting.  Wash U closed down campus during the worst of it (something which apparently happens next to never).  The snow here wasn't so bad, but the 8-some inches of ice we had made (and is still making) everything ridiculously treacherous.  Even now more than a week afterwards, we can barely get the car out of the driveway what with all the ice piled up at the bottom.

Did I ever mention that I hate ice?

Hate it.

Hate it.

Hate it.

I can handle snow and even cold weather, though I dislike it intensely.  But I hate ice.  Back in Urbana, we would always get an ice storm the first week of December, and the ice would persist until April.  I am not kidding.  I hated it, oh my god, did I ever hate it.  I had been under the impression that St. Louis experienced less ice than Urbana (being that St. Louis is always 5-10 degrees warmer), and thus moving here would be an improvement.  But I am feeling very, very gipped at the moment.  I walk to work, and the sidewalks are a solid slick of ice.  It is like walking on a glacier.  I hate it.  On my way in this morning, I actually started crying.  I hate this winter.  It is the third worst winter of my life.  (The worst was 2 years ago when I had hyperemesis and the second worst was last year  when I was home alone and iced in with a baby who cried 12-16 hours a day).

In terms of dealing with the aftermath of The Incident, I am doing so the only way I know how.  And by that, I mean, I am rereading The Mists of Avalon.  The history of this coping strategy is that the second time I was in Nicaragua-- when I was there alone to do my pilot study-- I found a tattered copy of this book in the night stand by my bed.  I had many difficulties and panic attacks throughout the duration of my pilot study, and I took to reading The Mists of Avalon to forget about my troubles.  It was a very effective strategy.  At the time, I found the book to be somewhat poorly written (the dialogue mainly, was tiresome), but the book's epic nature (it is almost 900 pages) kind of made up for that.  I got hooked, and I brought the book home.

After the Unfortunate Incident, I didn't know how to cope with it, so one night I went down to the basement and searched out my copy of The Mists of Avalon, now held together with duct tape.  Superb.  I am finding that the second time around, I am actually more forgiving of the over-the-top dialogue and unbelievable scenarios.  It is a great distraction.

All of this reading reminded me that at my core, I always wanted to be a writer.  Before graduate school sucked all the life and creativity out of me, I had written fiction, or at least attempted to.  The problem was, most of my ideas were too large and grandiose (like... the 900 pages of The Mist of Avalon) for me to actually finish.  And most of what I wrote was so cringe-worthy I couldn't show it to anyone.  But there is one particular story idea that I had about 9 or 10 years ago, when I was working in the Lab after college, that has stayed with me. While I was taking care of the frogs and tadpoles, I would lose myself in my thoughts, sketching out the plot and developing the characters.  I still thought of this story from time to time after I went to graduate school.  And then when i was in Nicaragua for a year doing my dissertation research, I actually started writing it.  No kidding:  I wrote the first chapter on a Palm Pilot while I was out in the forest while the monkeys were sleeping.  It was in the dry season, when they would wake up about 5am and then go back to sleep during the oppressive heat of the day from about 8am to 3pm.  It was kind of awful being out there in the forest all day with them.  So I distracted myself by slowly and laboriously writing Chapter 1.  I remember so well, typing it out word for word while the monkeys slept in the big mango tree that was the site of so many battles between the groups for access to the fruit.  It was exactly 4 years ago, February 2007.

On a whim, I opened up the file on my computer and re-read that chapter.  I realized (okay, this is very snobbish of me) that it was the best thing I had ever read.  The world needed to hear this story.  I was going to finish it, somehow, some way.

But now I'm kind of stuck.  I have next to no time to work on such an endeavor, and seriously, if I am going to do a good job of it, it will require a ton of research.  The kind of research that will make my dissertation look pale by comparison.  The story is all there in my head, but it will require a lot of work to make the details believable.

I am hesitant to pour that kind of work into it.  For starters, it seems like the kind of thing I would write but then never be able to show to anybody.  And that seems like kind of a waste.  Besides, even if I did somehow find the strength to show it to somebody, it is my impression that it is actually very hard to get a book published, especially for a nobody like me.  If I poured years of my life into this and it got rejected, how could I ever come back from something like that?  I don't know.

Something else that this entry was supposed to be about was how I have come to acknowledge (while not completely accept) the fact that my nursing days are over.  The last 2 or 3 months have been like hanging on to a rock wall with just my fingernails, and I cannot put up that fight anymore.  On Saturday, William will be 18 months old, and I'm going to call that the end of this.  In many ways, it makes me immeasurably sad.  I will soon be facing that moment when I am nursing Will for the last time, and I can't even think about that without getting all choked up and hysterical.  Yet on the other hand, I am so frustrated and sick of nursing him that I dread it to the point of loathing.  I dread nursing him to the same extent that I dreaded pumping any time that I ever pumped.  It is cold and insanely unpleasant, and there is no milk coming out whatsoever.  When the Unfortunate Incident occurred and I went days without eating, drinking, or sleeping, that pretty much sealed the deal on the approximately 2 drops of milk a day that I was producing at the time.  If I still was actually lactating, I think I could keep it up.  But I just cannot do this if my only function is to be a human pacifier, with no milk, nutrients, or antibodies coming out.  No amount of heroic effort is going to get me to relactate.  I have done everything and been unsuccessful.  I need to accept this and move on, but it is so hard.  My whole life has been centered around breastfeeding for the last 18 months.  At this point I don't even know who I am without it.

Ugh.

Time to read some more of The Mists of Avalon, I suppose, and try to go to bed.

 

 

Dear William (17 months)

Dear William,

Today you are 17 months old.  You are such a fun age.  And you keep getting funner each day.  You are very sturdy, walking around on your little legs and playing with your toys.  Oh, do you ever love toys.

We had Christmas this past month, and you got many toys and lovely things from your relatives.

 

You play with blocks.  You like to stack your blocks.  Sometimes daddy builds elaborate things with your blocks, and then you come along and demolish them.

 

You have a toy cell phone, and you like to hold it up to your ear and babble.  When you are done with your conversation, you say, "Bye bye" and put the phone away (or drop it).

You love reading.  You love all your little books so much.  You just love turning the pages.  You love to sit in my lap or daddy's lap and read your books.  Sometimes when we are reading the book Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, you get so excited that you stand up and jump too.  Well, you stand up and alternately bend and straighten your legs, without your feet ever leaving the ground.  But it is pretty close to jumping.  I have no idea where you picked that up.  I never jumped or imitated jumping when reading the book to you.  It's like you just suddenly knew what the word "jump" meant.

Along those lines, you understand things very well.  All I have to do is say, "William, do you want to nurse?" and you immediately stop whatever it is you are doing and zoom over to me, with a gigantic grin on your face. Hm, I guess you aren't ready to quit nursing then, are you? We'll see if we can keep it up.

You still love music and singing.  You love singing The Wheels on the Bus. Sometimes when daddy and I are singing to you, you begin to dance.  Your daycare teachers told us that one day they had music on during lunch time, and you got up from the table, went to the middle of the room, and danced.  You are a riot.

You really like to be independent, and you try very hard to feed yourself. You are getting pretty good with handling a spoon-- particularly if I pre-load it with food.  You like to try to dip your spoon in a bowl of food and eat all by yourself, but you haven't quite gotten the hang of it.  It won't be long though.  You tried raisins this month and you loved them.  Your favorite food is still rice and beans.  You are also quite fond of blueberries.

Well, William, I guess I need to sign off for now and get the kitchen cleaned up and fold some laundry.

Much love,

Mom

 

Christmas sinus infection

As it turns out, I've been walking around with a sinus infection for the past week.  I've felt like complete and utter hell, but I couldn't really do anything about it because I had 895,000 final essay exams to grade, and then it was Christmas.  Actually, I tried to go to a "Take Care" clinic on the 22nd, and that was a total fail.  First of all, I had to drive through Mall Traffic 3 days before Christmas, and second of all, when I arrived, I was informed there was a 4 hour wait.  The scare of driving through Mall Traffic and also having found myself in an exit only lane for the interstate by mistake (think: The movie Clueless when the character D accidentally merges onto the freeway in LA) was enough to scare the sinus infection away from me, at least for a moment.  Since I was supposed to be at work and was trying to do this on my "lunch hour," I did not have 4 hours to wait, so I turned around and drove back through Mall Traffic so that I could continue grading the 895,000 essay exams sitting on my desk.

I was determined to power through this.  I mean, come on.  I'm Melissa.  When I was in Nicaragua doing my field research, I put bandaids on things that should have had stitches.  Instead of going to the hospital to get an IV for 2 weeks of Vortex, I drank some coke and just kept going.

Well by today, I am no better, and I am so completely frayed from being unable to sleep for the past 8 nights due to the congestion.  I haven't taken a breath through my nose since December 19.  I'm taking the day off anyway... even though I'm not technically allowed to take sick or vacation days until the end of February, I've worked 20 hours of unpaid overtime in the last couple of weeks, so I just get to use that as "comp time."  What better to do with my comp time than go to a doctor.

There are like 7,000 doctors that my insurance covers, and I have no idea who to go to, so I just picked the closest one.  When I called her office this morning, I found out that in order to be seen by her, I had to have a "new patient evaluation," and the first available opening for said evaluation was January 19.  I think I gave an involuntary sob and said, "But I am sick nowwww," and they told me that they would let me know if there are any cancellations.

I suppose I could have kept calling doctors and seeing if there was another one who would see me, but I decided to try going to an Urgent Care Clinic a few miles from here on easily navigable roads that would not necessitate going through Mall Traffic or the freeway.  The good people at the urgent care place were nice and the whole process did take quite a while, but all things considered, I cannot complain.  They did x-rays and found that I did in fact have a sinus infection, and prescribed an antibiotic (that I hope does not send me into anaphylactic shock) and pseudoephedrine.  I told the doctor that I was nursing and I was concerned about pseudoephedrine drying up my milk supply (I'm glad I knew that because it did not seem like that information would have been volunteered to me).  He said that yes, decongestants can have a drying-up effect for some nursing mothers, but that I could drink lots of water and pump to counter balance that effect.  And I was all GEE.  You have no idea what I have been through to nurse this child.  I am already drinking a lot of water and pumping and making like, I don't know, a half an ounce of milk a day.  After I finished off the domperidone, my temporary burst in supply has precipitously declined.  If I add pseudoephedrine to the mix, I have a feeling that is the end.

So I am completely miserable and even more miserable at the thought that the thing that might bring me relief from these symptoms might also put an end to my fragile milk supply.  There is so much sinus pressure in my face that it feels like I am giving birth through my eyeball.  I know we might be at the end of nursing anyway, but still, I don't to put the nail in the coffin myself.  I keep thinking, if I can just tough this out maybe a few more days, the antibiotics will kill off the infection and then I will feel better.  The pseudoephedrine only treats the symptoms, right?  It would just make me more comfortable in the meantime.  But god, I would really like to be more comfortable.

Thanks for reading.

 

Relactation

I'm pleased to report that I've had a little bit of success in the relactation department, and I am so, so so so so so so glad I didn't throw in the towel and give it up.

A year ago, when after much struggle, Will was 4 months old and my milk supply finally seemed stable, I went off Domperidone.  I had saved a week's worth of pills just in case of some type of emergency, which, as it turns out, was wise.  My milk supply has been dropping ever since Will turned 1 and I started this new job, but after the stomach flu hit me last week, I thought I was done for.  I had a moment when I decided that was alright, that we could just be done with nursing, but then I thought I might as well just try the remaining Domperidone and see what happened.

As it turns out, I started lactating again.  I was also eating oatmeal and taking goat's rue (until I ran out of that), so I guess it may have been one of these other factors, or some combination of thereabove.  But in a matter of a few days, I went from being completely empty and having nothing come out when nursing him or pumping, to actually feeling like I had milk and being able to express some when pumping.  I know it still seems miniscule, but by about Wednesday of this week, I pumped 1.25 oz while at work, and I actually had 2 let downs while pumping.

I was very excited, and Will seems to have taken a renewed interest in nursing, now that milk is actually coming out.  Even when I was bone dry, he would never turn it down or unlatch himself, he just seemed kind of bored while nursing and would often be looking around for dad's iPad.  But now he nurses with fervor, and screams at me when I try to unlatch him after all the milk is gone.  That's not really an improvement in our lives, but it does indicate to me that he was getting luke-warm about nursing only because there wasn't enough milk coming out, not because he didn't want to nurse anymore.

So, I ran out of Domperidone yesterday.  I am taking Motherlove More Milk Special Blend (it arrived on Tuesday) and eating oatmeal, and hoping that all hell doesn't break loose.  I nursed him before his nap today, and it didn't go so well.  Not a whole lot of milk came out, and when I to pry him off (because I didn't want to sit there for an hour and a half letting him sleep nurse), he screamed (shrilly) for about 20 minutes before I could get him settled down.  I just now pumped and only had a tiny bit come out; I don't know if that is because I nursed him not too long ago, or because the Domperidone is coursing out of my system and I am done for again.

Still trying to decide what to do.  I was hoping that a week's worth of Domperidone might jump start me, and I could keep this going for another couple of months if I pump at work and eat wallpaper paste (I mean oatmeal) and take the More Milk tincture.  If I stop lactating now that I'm done with the Domperidone, I have to decide whether to just give it up or order some more from Vanauatu.

Anyway, I've got to take advantage of Will's nap so that I can work and not get paid for it.  Trying not to complain too much, because I do like my job and also because next semester they're giving me a lighter load, that is, if I can hang on until then.  So tired.

Thanks for reading.

Stomach flu

This past week both Rob and I had the stomach flu.  He got it first, and then it hit me with a vengeance about 24 hours later.  Rob still wasn't feeling good when it hit me, but thankfully he had the wherewithal to function and take care of Will.

I'd often wondered what it would be like for me to have intestinal distress for the first time since my hyperemetic pregnancy.  Unsurprisingly, it wasn't pretty.  I started throwing up about 5am on Tuesday and finally quit at around 10pm.  I threw up every 1/2 hour to an hour most of that time, except for about a 3 hour block in the late afternoon when I didn't puke but just felt like it, which was perhaps even more awful.  I was ridiculously dehydrated.

I took a sick day on Tuesday, even though I am technically ineligible to take a sick day until I've worked there for 6 months, but under the circumstances, going to work was not an option when all I could do was lie in bed and puke into a bucket.  On Wednesday I was back in the office though, very spacey and unable to eat or drink anything.  I couldn't really stand up or walk for long periods of time, and even talking to people was difficult.  Unfortunately, this is the busiest time of year for me... giving 4 final exams and grading 2 papers, all for large intro classes with several hundred students.  I am looking at some serious overtime in the next 10 days, it is crazy ridiculous.  I had about 30 people in my office for Intro to Public Health alone, firing questions at me about their upcoming exam, when I was just like, people, I need to lie down now, please.

Somehow, miraculously, Will has not gotten it.  I almost hesitate to write that, incase I jinx it and he gets sick.  But I feel like he would have gotten it by now if he were going to.  Half of his daycare was out with the stomach flu, as was one of his teachers.  How he managed to come through unscathed is a mystery (or is it just the antibodies in breastmilk?)

So much vomiting did bring up a lot of really scary, dark, unhappy memories of my pregnancy, a lot of anger, a lot of everything I have tried unsuccessfully to forget about these last 16 months.  But it also made me realize a few things.  Mainly, the completely messed up way I felt for several days after giving birth had absolutely nothing to do with giving birth, but because of the 8 hours of vomiting I did during labor.  The vomiting that was caused by the GBS antibiotics that they "had" to give me.  That terrible, nauseous, unable to eat, unable to drink, unable to speak, unable to see straight, unable to stand up without passing out... that wasn't because I'd given birth.  It was because I'd vomited for 8 hours straight and didn't eat anything for almost 2 days.  I still find it weird how nobody at the hospital really gave a shit about how completely messed up I was after Will was born, but that is a different post for a different time.

What this entry is supposed to be about is that the stomach flu has had catastrophic consequences on my ability to breastfeed.  As I recently mentioned, I have been struggling a lot lately to make any milk at all, and I feel like the stomach flu has essentially sealed the deal for us in terms of weaning. I didn't nurse Will on Tuesday, the day I was sick.  I was just too, too sick.  I couldn't stop vomiting/dry heaving and shaking/shivering all over, and I really really did not want Will to get sick.  I was so afraid if I touched him or was close to him at all, he'd get it.  In the morning before Rob took him to daycare, Will toddled into our bedroom and was looking at me and I could see his little blonde head bobbing along as he circled the bed, and it made me so sad because I just wanted to hold him but felt too awful.  I was still too sick to nurse him that night.  I was completely freaking out about it though, because I knew that I am not in the position to be skipping feedings, and that if I did this, it would probably mean the end of it.  Rob knew I didn't want it to end this way, so he bundled up and walked over to my office (where I keep my breast pump) and brought it home to me.  Give him a gold star for this.  I pumped, and I pumped (stopping to throw up at least once) for over 20 minutes, and not a drop came out, not a single drop.

On Wednesday, I nursed Will in the morning (feeling nothing come out) and I pumped later at work (okay, maybe a couple of drops, but that was it).  I know I am still ridiculously dehydrated, but it doesn't seem to be getting any better.  I've still kept nursing him, but it seems very futile at this point.  Just for comfort, not milk.

The thing is, on Tuesday when Will didn't nurse, he was totally fine without it, even at night time.  Rob rocked him and put him to bed, and he slept clear through until 6:30 the next morning. For several months, he really hasn't sought it out, but he doesn't turn it down when I offer it to him.  And he still never, ever unlatches on his own.  Even if he is bored and wants to play with his toys or with dad's iPad, he just tries to take me along with him.  Sometimes I think he might be a little frustrated that there is no milk coming out, but most of the time, that doesn't seem to bother him either.

I don't want to give it up this way, but it would be an easy out right now.  It's just that last night he had a really rough night.  I think he's getting his canines in, and he woke up around 3am and screamed for about 3 hours.  He was trying to latch on to my sweatshirt, he wanted to nurse so bad.  So I just nursed him, and even though there was no milk coming out, it comforted him.  I just wasn't happy about it.  It doesn't feel so great to nurse him without any milk coming out, and the whole situation of losing my milk this way made me really sad.

Sooo.  This morning I broke into my emergency stash of leftover Domperidone from when I gave it up about a year ago.  I have enough for 8 days.  I have no idea if it will do anything, but I had to try.  I also ordered some Motherlove Special Blend tincture, which should arrive on Tuesday.  In the meantime, I'm pumping at work and trying to rehydrate the best I can.  We'll see if any of this works.  Maybe it won't, but at least I won't go down without a fight.

Thanks for reading.

Quits?

This is seriously hard for me to write, but I may be about to stop nursing William, and it is not because either of us is ready for it.

Ever since I started this new job (and started nursing him less), I could tell my milk supply was steadily dwindling, but for a long time I thought, after everything I've been through, there is no way I can be going through Low Milk Supply again.  I've fixed that.  We're done with it.  This dwindling is normal.  We've made it past a year, and now there will be no reason for me to stop nursing him until one day he says to me, "Mom, I'm done with that," and I say, "Okay," and we have a piece of (vegan) chocolate cake or something.

But that's just not what's happening.  After my last bout of mastitis, things seemed okay for a while, but then (and brace yourselves for TMI), my long and blissful bout of lactational amenorrhea ended.  Aunt Flo is what seemed to put the nail in the coffin.  Will nurses, but I can't ever feel any milk coming out, and I rarely hear him swallow.  I even took the breast pump to work, to try to increase my milk supply (but recall how pumping between feedings was fantastic failure when I was dealing with Low Milk Supply).  After feeding him in the morning around 7am, I've been trying to pump around 9 or 10am at work.  Maybe it's having some effect, I don't know, but even if it is, the effect is miniscule.  If I pump closer to 9:00, sometimes I get nothing or maybe just a drop or two.  If I hold off till 10:00 or even a little after, I might get enough to thinly cover the bottom of the Medela bottle (so what... 1/8 of an ounce? 1/4?) but never anything more than that.  It is seriously depressing.  Not in the sense that I want to save the milk to give to him (I just rinse it down the sink), but just because it seems to confirm the fact that I've run dry.

Admitting all this is hard because first of all, I am stating that my body is a complete and total failure.  But beyond that, I think the larger issue is that I'm feeling like, oh my god, I've made a huge life mistake.  If I wouldn't have accepted this position, if I would have just stayed home and kept nursing him whenever he wanted to, we wouldn't be in this boat now.  Even though this job (if I keep it until then) will provide him a free college education, and I have tried to convince myself that my working (and this job in particular) has been positive for William, I have clearly not acted in his best interest.

So do I have to go over the reasons why I want to continue nursing him?  Apparently, because the last time I wrote something about my nursing problems, some moron posted a comment insinuating that I was a selfish freak for nursing a baby past 1 year.  (Freak... I can understand why an idiot would think that.  But selfish? WTF.  I didn't delete the comment simply because it was so fucking ridiculous.)

So here are the reasons why I would like to continue nursing William:

1) He still wants to nurse.

2) WHO guidelines indicate nursing to at least 2 years.

3) As a biological anthropologist, arbitrarily stopping nursing at 1 year makes no sense.  Across mammals, weaning generally coincides with the eruption of the permanent molars (which doesn't happen until like, age 6 or 7 in humans).  And cross culturally, many societies nurse for much longer than one year.

4) The immunological properties of breastmilk.  Will has survived outbreaks of stomach flu, hoof and mouth disease, and impetigo at his daycare, all unscathed. He's had a runny nose practically since starting daycare, but in the scheme of things, I feel pretty lucky.  Is breastmilk giving him an edge to stay healthy?  I don't know.  But I don't want to find out by stopping and then having him get sick all the time.

5) I love him so much.  I just want to what's best for him.  And that's not because he is anyone's grandchild, nephew, cousin, whatever.  Please.  As if.  He's mine.

I go back and forth about what I should do.  Sometimes I sit there and think, you know, we've had a good run.  I bet not even a La Leche League leader would fault me for weaning him at 16 months.  Considering how we started out, we've been remarkably lucky.  When everybody and their freaking brother was telling me to give him formula (including my OB and a pediatrician, who both told me that giving him formula would INCREASE MY MILK SUPPLY), I refused.  Thank god I knew my OB and the pediatrician were dead wrong about that, because had I listened to them (and the throngs of other people who told me to give him formula), it would have been a completely different story.  He never had one drop.  I tried everything, literally everything, to increase my milk supply, and I got it to work.  He thrived, and is still nursing at 16 months.  He's made it past the critical 1-year point, so we'd be fine to just stop and move on with our lives.  In some ways, that would probably make my life easier.  I could go running in the mornings before work, without having to worry about leaving enough time to nurse him.  Or I could go running, grocery shopping, etc in the evenings without having to be the one who puts him to bed.  Rob could put him to bed, or we could even go out together and have a sitter put him to bed.  In his whole life, I have always been the one to put him to bed, every single night.  I like putting him to bed, but it would be nice if for some reason I had to go somewhere or do something, someone else could do it and I wouldn't have to worry.  For a while I thought about just cutting his nursing down to once a day, either in the morning or the before bed, or maybe even as soon as I get home from work.  But given the problems I am having maintaining any kind of milk supply on twice a day, I'm afraid my milk would dry up completely if I reduced it to just once.

And the reality of that freaks me out.  I'm Melissa.  I am not going down without a fight.  I've gone to heroic measures before, I'll go to heroic measures again.  I will do whatever it takes.  Breastmilk is this wonderful, magical, substance of perfection, that will keep my kid healthy and have long term positive health benefits throughout his entire life.  Sixteen months is too young to take that away from him.  I will pump, I will power pump, I will quit my job if I have to, but I am not giving up.  I will stop nursing him one day when he tells me he's done with it, or he otherwise indicates that he just doesn't want to nurse anymore.  But not a moment before that.  As long as there is a breath left in my body, I will not give up.

The thing about heroic measures though, is that I'm not sure what measures to actually take.  None of the usual galatagogues (ie, fenugreek, blessed thistle) worked for me during Low Milk Supply, and I swear that pumping/power pumping made it worse.  None of the easy things, like eating oatmeal or drinking lots of water, worked either.  Domperidone was the only thing that worked for sure, so I guess if I was really going to heroic measures, I'd call up Vanautu again and place an order.  One other thing that may have had a slight positive effect was the Motherlove More Milk Special Blend.  I have no idea where to get that in St. Louis, but I am leaning strongly towards ordering some online.

So, that's where I'm at.  Who else out there has been through this?  Anybody?  I feel kind of like, probably not.  But if you have, please drop me a line and tell me what you did to get through.  Idiotic comments, however, will be promptly deleted.

Thanks for reading.

 

Show me the midwives, Missouri

First of all, no, I am not pregnant, and no I do not plan on becoming pregnant anytime before, say, they find a cure for hyperemesis gravidarum.

That being said, before I accepted this position in St. Louis, I did a quick little google search on the status of midwifery in Missouri. Again, this was not because I ever want to have another baby, but rather, because I just don't want to live in one of those states where midwifery is illegal. What I found was that until 2008, all midwives were illegal in Missouri. Even Certified Nurse Midwives. Can that really be true? Well, I read it on the internet, so who knows. But still, what the hell, Missouri.

Apparently in 2008, Missouri got its head out of its ass and Legalized It. CNMs, CPMs, the whole she-bang. Birth centers and even homebirth is now legal in Missouri. I was all, sign me up. Coming from Illinois, (where birth centers and homebirth midwives are illegal), this was quite a concept. If I ever lost my mind and decided to have another baby, it was nice to know I could do it at home.

So here I am, living in Missouri. Where midwifery, homebirth, and birth centers are legal, and my insurance even covers all these things. Great, right? Not so. Midwifery may be legal nowadays, but there are no midwives. Seriously. I've googled, I've read the phone book, I've googled some more, and I've studied the practitioners covered by my insurance plan. Although my plan specifically states that it covers all forms of midwives, birth centers, and home births, when I do a search for a midwife in my area, I get nothing. And birth centers? Ha. According to the internet, there is one birth center in all of Missouri. And it's in Kansas City, not St. Louis.

I keep thinking... I must be doing something wrong. I must not be typing the right search term into google when I am looking for Certified Nurse Midwives in St. Louis. The midwives (or at least Ob/Gyn practices that have a midwife on staff) must be listed somewhere in the 10,000 page St. Louis area phone book that I somehow missed.

The whole thing has become more urgent because I have mastitis, again. I've had at least 15 plugged ducts in the same exact area since Will was born, and I've had mastitis now 3 times. Since I don't have any kind of doctor here yet, I have no idea what to do but it seems obvious that this is not going away on its own. Of course I know that. It's mastitis. The affected area is red and as hard as concrete; yes, I know I'm supposed to keep nursing through it, but it hurts so bad each time that it brings me to tears. (On the plus side, Will is thrilled that I've offered to nurse him multiple times throughout the day; he would never dream of turning down an opportunity to nurse). No amount of Tylenol is making my fever go down. Everything hurts. My eyelashes hurt. My teeth hurt. My knees hurt. The stupid insurance company has never sent me my insurance card, and their website is "down" and not letting me print out a temporary ID. If I live through the night, I may try to go to a "Take Care" clinic a couple miles south of here, but I have no idea if they deal with mastitis or not and what they will do if I show up without an insurance card. Can they look me up? Hopefully. Oh, and get this, Will had diarrhea and projectile vomiting today, for the first time ever in his life. I am hoping it was just a fluke, but if he wakes up in the morning and seems sick, then obviously I will have to take care of him first. At least I have found a pediatrician for him, so hopefully they'll be able to work him in if he really needs to be seen. But the larger problem with all of this is that my employer has this policy wherein new employees cannot take any sick or vacation time for the first 6 months of their employment. So somehow I've got to (maybe) get both Will and me to a doctor and recover from mastitis all without taking any time off work.

I feel like that point during labor, when I asked my doula when my midwife would be arriving. My doula had the unfortunate task of telling me that my midwife was not on call that night and the OB in charge of the practice (who I had met only 1 time) would be "delivering" the baby. I became hysterical, beating my fist on the wall of the shower and crying out, "I WANT CAROL!" until I was too exhausted to continue. In retrospect, that is just the tiniest bit funny, but at the time, it certainly wasn't.

At any rate, if anyone out there finds this and has any insight into the midwife situation in Missouri/St. Louis, please do let me know. And if anyone can recommend someone to go to for non-pregnancy related female reproductive care, I am all ears. Ideally some place where I don't have to take 3 interstates to get there. Thanks.

Is this normal?

I've been at my new job for around a month and a half now, and things are going well. Before all of this started, I had been terrified at the prospect of partially weaning Will. At 12 months old, he still nursed at least 5 times a day, and nursing was by far his favorite pastime. If I went too long without nursing him, he would begin to wail, crawl over to me, and pull down my shirt. I almost did not take this job because I didn't think Will would be able to handle going 8+ hours without the boob. He steadfastly refused to take a bottle, so it wasn't like sending him off to daycare with pumped milk would be an option. Besides, my bottle-feeding mom-friends told me that by this age, you're trying to get them off the bottle, not start them on it.

I just sort of closed my eyes, took a deep breath, trusted that it would somehow all work out, then called the department head and formally accepted the position. As soon as I hung up the phone, I wondered what the hell I was thinking.

But it has worked out. Somehow. Not perfectly. My god this has been stressful. You don't even know how stressful. I couldn't even begin to tell you the half of it. I'm pretty sure Will has developed dental enamel hypoplasias from drinking my stressed out milk and from living and breathing all the stress around him. It continues to be ridiculously stressful, but luckily, I am so busy that most of the time I do not even have the time to notice how stressed out I am. So I just keep going.

At any rate, since the beginning of August, I slowly worked at cutting down the amount of times I nursed Will each day. His nursing took a more dramatic hit when I started work on August 23rd, and an even more dramatic hit when he formally started daycare on September 7. Since then he has nursed only twice per day. I nurse him early in the morning as soon as he wakes, and then I nurse him once again in the evening before he goes to bed. On the weekends I sometimes nurse him more.

The thing is, it has been going pretty well for the most part. At least, I thought it was. He is just shy of 14 months now, and he is perfectly fine going without nursing all day long. That part is wonderful. It is a huge change from an entire year of my life, when I nursed him pretty much every 2 hours, all day long, just to keep him happy. In many ways, I feel like this is the best of the all possible worlds. I'm still nursing him, so he's getting all the health and immune benefits of breastmilk, I'm just only doing it twice a day instead of all day long like we had been doing for his entire life.

Here is the problem though. Now that we've been on this twice a day nursing schedule for a month or so, I am starting to feel like I've got no milk at all. It felt frighteningly like the first several months of his life when we were dealing with the hellishness of Low Milk Supply. I mean, I knew that I should naturally expect my milk supply to decrease as I decreased the amount of times I nursed him. But here is what I am afraid of: I am afraid that my milk will totally dry up and he'll end up weaned before either of us is ready.

Within the past week, I've really noticed how astonishingly little milk I have left. My nursing bras are gigantic on me. There are times when I'm nursing him when I don't feel a let-down and it really doesn't seem like there is any milk coming out at all. That's the thing that worries me the most. I really noticed it over the weekend when we were all sick. Will and I were both feverish and congested; he was fussy and I was too tired to do anything else to entertain him, so I just decided I'd nurse him multiple times throughout the day. And nothing came out. At least, it seemed like nothing came out. I was kind of too sick to notice or care about it a whole lot, but by now I am starting to freak out. Is my milk going to dry up completely? I am so not ready to wean him.

I realize, in the greater scheme of things, having nursed this baby for 14 months (and never given him one drop of formula, not one drop!), is nothing to sneeze at, and even the most dedicated lactivist (is that a pejorative term? I don't mean it to be so) would probably congratulate me on a job well done even if I were to stop nursing him today. Hell, I practically got a standing ovation at a La Leche League meeting when I told my story of everything we had been through to keep nursing and fend off formula when Will was just 4 months old. But I am not ready to quit nursing. I don't really have a target weaning age in mind, other than say, kindergarden. I mean, I personally see no reason not to nurse him until he is at least 3. Or at least 2. Whatever. Just something older than 14 months.

So, I just don't know... is it normal to have vanishingly little milk left at this point in the game, or have I reverted to the terror of Low Milk Supply that I somehow managed to get us through after Will was first born? Am I just extra paranoid about milk supply issues because of everything we went through? Is my milk going to completely dry up? Should I take something to prevent that from happening? Recall that I tried everything and nothing worked. Except for Domperidone, after about 8 weeks of 9 pills per day. I rifled through my stash of nursing supplies and found that I have about a week's supply of Domperidone left. Should I take it?

It's just that this is all kind of emotional for me. Realistically, I will probably never have another baby. I don't think there's anybody out there working on finding a cure for Hyperemesis Gravidarum or Babies That Cry 12 Hours Per Day, and I can't imagine ever living through either of those things again. So once we're done, we're done. Nursing has been hard, unimaginably hard, what with the low milk supply and the constant crying, and did I mention the low milk supply? But I am nowhere near ready to end it, and it makes me very sad to think that one day Will will be done nursing and that part of my life will be over forever.

At any rate, I'm in uncharted territory. I would appreciate feedback from anybody who's been there, done that. Is what's been happening a sign that my milk is on its way out? Or is it normal to have a low milk supply at this stage and maintain it for as long as you and the baby see fit?

Thanks for reading.

Dear William (13 months)

Dear William,

Today you are 13 months old! Lucky 13!

Your whole life changed in just about every possible way this past month. It has been rough on us all, but for the most part you are taking it in stride. Well, almost in stride. You are standing up now, but not quite walking. You do love standing though. When you wake up in the mornings, first thing you do is stand up in your crib and holler for me. You smile when I come into the room.

William, we moved to Missouri this month. That is a brand new state for you. The whole thing was a bit stressful. We lived in an extended stay hotel for 2 weeks before we could get into our new place. (The extended stay hotel was where you first started standing).

I started a new job this month. For the first 2 weeks, your dad took care of you. Then your new daycare opened and you started going there. So far you like it I guess. I had been worried about how you would ever take a nap there (for me you only nap if you are nursing or if we go for a walk in the stroller), but your "teachers" somehow got you to sleep on a cot. They even took a picture to prove it.

You got sent home from daycare on your second day. They said you were acting fussy (you, fussy? Imagine that!) and they took your temperature and it was 99.5 (which is nothing, but they had to send you home). I don't know why you had a fever. You have never before in your entire life had a fever. I think maybe you were stressed from all the major upheavals in your life during this past month, or maybe you were teething. At any rate, you seemed to feel better the next day.

Speaking of teething though, you've gotten another tooth. You're up to 8 teeth now. It's your bottom lateral incisor. It wouldn't surprise me if you're also working on some molars too. Just please, no more fevers or any other type of illness. Not only does it scare the liver out of me if you are ever sick, but also, I cannot technically take time off work to take care of you for the first 6 months of my employment :(

You're nursing less than ever. Usually just twice a day (well, except for today, when I think you've nursed 5 times so far, but it's a weekend and your 13th month birthday besides). You are eating better, at least some of the time. You eat rice and beans sometimes. And sliced grapes. And plenty of sunflower butter and wheat bread.

You love playing with your Fridge Farm, and you've had a renewed interest in Blue Seahorse (see above picture of you napping in your cot). Other favorite activities of yours include crawling over to me, pulling up on my legs, and biting my knees.

You still cry a lot. In fact, you are crying now, maybe because you want me to stop typing and hold you. Guess I'd better go.

Love you,

Mama

Standing

We're back in St. Louis for week 2 of this thing, after a brief hiatus to Peoria/Lacon for my grandma's funeral. My mother and aunt had asked me to read the piece I wrote about Grandma at the funeral, so I did. People said so many nice things to me about it and about my grandma, and I really appreciate it. But still. If I'd been making a list of Things I Thought I Would Never Do, giving the eulogy at my Grandma's funeral would have been right up there at the top. The good thing about reading a eulogy (especially one you've written yourself) is that because it is at a funeral, no one thinks twice about it if you pass out or burst into tears during the reading. Luckily, I managed to do only one of those things.

Last night after we got back to St. Louis, it was quite a struggle to put Will to bed. He was very tired and fussy, but he would not stop crying. Our previous method (the one that had been working for the last several days) of putting him into his pack and play with Blue Seahorse until he fell asleep on his own was just not cutting it. About the umpteenth time I set him in the pack and play, he grabbed onto the sides of it and stood up. Now, I know your kid has been standing since he/she was 7 months old, but this was the very first time Will has ever stood up on his own. Unfortunately, he wasn't very happy about it. Oh with the screaming. My frustration with his screaming/crying was momentarily overshadowed by the fact that because he was standing, there was hope that he might someday walk.

Last night Will was a wild man

He never did sleep in his pack and play last night. He slept in the big bed between Rob and me, which meant that I didn't get much sleep at all (I can never really sleep when Will is in bed with us). Tonight it went a little bit better. There was a fair amount of crying and standing as I put him down, but he eventually started to play with Seahorse, and after a while of that, he did fall asleep. Keeping my fingers crossed that he stays asleep.

He went over 12 hours without nursing today. For the first time ever. I can't believe it. He nursed this morning when he woke up and not again until tonight right before bed. We've come a long way. It was only a month ago that he was still nursing pretty much all day every day. I guess I am supposed to be happy about this weaning thing, but it makes me uneasy. Like, it won't be long before he is grown up and living on his own and married to some girl I probably won't like and doesn't call me often enough. I just want to hold him and love him forever.

He's been eating a little bit better this past week or so, for the most part. He ate rice and beans for dinner at least 2 nights last week, which thrilled me to no end. He ate some organic blueberry waffles at my mom and dad's house over the weekend. I also gave him his first ever non-vegan food: a sugar cookie. I decided to just go for it. After Grandma's funeral, the ladies of the church served cookies and lemonade, and I knew that Grandma would want Will to have a sugar cookie. So I gave it to him, and he loved it. I had a bite of it too, so I guess I'm not 100% vegan either. Once we get into our new house, I'll make vegan sugar cookies for us, and I will add lemon to them.

Thanks for reading.