theology&geometry

This post is going to be about breastfeeding and I am probably going to use crude slang. Scratch that. I am definitely going to use some crude slang. Avert your eyes if you’re too delicate to get real about what boobs are made for. I’m looking at you, nearly every man ever. (Just kidding, y’all are all right.)

One of the biggest obstacles I have ever overcome is breastfeeding. Yes, I gave birth in my dining room and that was tough but it was over relatively quickly. Breastfeeding has been an ongoing, sometimes very difficult, work in progress that began within the first thirty minutes of my child’s entrance into this world. I am happy to say that I have FINALLY gotten into a good nursing routine, and I no longer hate breastfeeding. In fact, I have come to enjoy it — something I never thought I would be able to say back when it felt like fire was licking its way out of my breasts twelve times a day. Back when feeling fabric run across my bare nipple made me want to snap someone’s neck. Those were tough times, and I wanted to give up a lot. And even though I still think about breastfeeding/nursing/pumping/taking supplements for my supply/etc. roughly 50 times a day, I am so happy to report that it’s no longer something I am stressed out by in general.

I had no idea it would be as difficult as it was for the first two months. I was told it would be challenging, but I did not expect to hate it for so long. Maybe some women-slash-crunchy-earth-goddesses have little to no trouble or just brief discomfort (I remember reading, so many times, “If it hurts, you’re doing it wrong!”). We struggled to get it right and to get comfortable for many weeks. Well, I struggled. Holden always had a pretty good (if somewhat shallow) latch. I suspect his mouth, sweet little newborn size that it was for the first couple of months, might have been on the small side, which led to my ongoing soreness. For a full two months I hated how nursing felt. It was uncomfortable to the point where by the evening, I would be so sick of the pain that I was in tears. I considered, many times, pumping exclusively, thinking that would be easier on me, but pumping is a lot of work. A lot more work than nursing. So I stuck with nursing, never quite getting comfortable with the idea of giving up entirely.

And I never thought I was going to get to this point but now I can say it and really mean it: I am so glad I stuck it out.

We turned a corner around month three. Suddenly one day it just didn’t quite hurt like it used to. I could take a shower without wincing as the water hit my chest. I could dry off with a towel and run it across my torso without having to delicately avoid very sensitive areas. I no longer lived in complete terror of the moment when Holden’s sharp little fingernails would scrape my nipple (that never happened, thanks to my NINJA-LIKE BOOB REFLEXES). Suddenly I was able to nurse that baby boy anywhere — and I mean anywhere — with a minimum of discomfort. I can’t really convey what a relief it is that it worked out for us.

Now that I’m back in the office, I’m really having to bust ass to keep my supply in line with Holden’s demand. I’m not quite there and I’m not sure I ever will be, although I’m trying not to get discouraged just three weeks in. I think I am at a slight disadvantage because I’m pumping in the evening as opposed to the morning, and in general you get more when you pump in the morning hours. I nurse pretty much on demand all morning and all weekend while I’m home, and Holden takes between 16-18 ounces while I am at work. That sounds like a lot to me but if that baby is hungry, he is going to get fed — end of story. I’m pumping four times at work (on most days; some days I only have time for three sessions thanks to the deadline nature of my job) and I usually bring home 9 or 10 ounces. I usually try to pump once more before bed after I get home (and get maybe an ounce and a half), unless I am just too exhausted (which happens sometimes when I get home after midnight). Most mornings if Holden sleeps through the night and I don’t have to get up and do a 4 a.m. feeding, I can wake up at 6 or 7 (before he gets up, preferably) and pump and get 5 ounces. I feel like a badass when I get that much but you should see my boobs as soon as I wake up. IT IS HILARIOUS. “Porn star tits” is how my midwife refers to the phenomenon. I can’t say that phrase aloud without tittering like a moron. Heh. Tittering.

Anyway. Even a journalist can do that math and see that we’re coming up a little short every day. So we’re having to supplement with some formula. As much as I would have loved to keep Holden exclusively breastfed, it’s just not worked out that way for us. I caved and gave him a bottle of formula before the first month was up, I think. It was after our two-week checkup where we saw that he hadn’t gained back his birth weight. We were told to feed him every two hours around the clock and my body and mind had both pretty much had it. I was delirious and exhausted and in a postpartum haze of hormones. He was hungry and I was in so much pain one night that I just sobbed at the thought of him latching on one more time. So I cried as I did it but I gave him a few ounces of formula. (This is in no way an indictment of parents who choose to use formula or who use it for whatever reason; this is a me-grappling-with-what-my-mind-perceived-as-failure-to-follow-through thing.) He ate it right up and seemed satisfied and my nipples got a couple of hours of rest. I really shouldn’t have given myself such a hard time about it, honestly. Like a friend of mine says, “Feed your baby.” Period.

It has taken me a lot of internal wrangling to be okay with that. I mean, I had a goal of breastfeeding exclusively for at least six months, shooting for a year and possibly beyond. I didn’t quite make it but I have to manage my expectations. I had to do what was right for my baby and for me. One thing all new parents need to remember is that SANITY IS IMPORTANT. And sometimes you have to do things you didn’t plan on doing to save your sanity. Of course there are sterile-gut evangelists out there who will make you feel like even a sip of formula completely negates every benefit of breastfeeding you’d hoped to achieve. Maybe they’re right; maybe they’re not. But you can’t let them occupy too much space in your head. Feed your baby.

I’m doing what I can to get my pumping output up. I’m on the Fenugreek (woo, maple syrup!) and I’m trying to eat oats when I can (I don’t like oatmeal). It’s sort of funny because I was really happy about all the money we save because breastfeeding is free. Except now I am buying these Fenugreek capsules that are not cheap and that you take eight of every day. El oh el.

Holden will be trying out solids in the next couple of months and relying less and less on breastmilk as his primary form of nutrition as he gets older. That’s so bizarre to think about. That first month, it felt like I was going to be struggling with this issue FOREVER. And it seemed so endlessly daunting. Now the bulk of that hard work is behind me and I know I am going to miss our nursing sessions. Those are the times when it’s just him and me, and the rest of the world can fade into the background. It’s a powerful feeling, knowing that you have exactly what your child needs to be soothed. Having a baby there in your arms being nourished by your body is an incredible privilege. Milk-drunk grins are sweet souvenirs and I am going to miss them (which is why I photograph damn near everyone one with my phone).

I’m writing this post in part so I can have a record of this experience but also in case anyone who reads this ever goes through something similar and can take comfort from what they read here. In addition to the two things I mentioned above — manage your expectations and save your sanity — I want to also add this: Your experience will be entirely your own, and people are going to tell you things that turn out to not be true for you. I am going to tell you things that turn out not to be true for you. For example, I was told that if you breastfeed, your period’s return will be delayed and you’ll lose a bunch of weight. Both of those things turned out to not be true for me. Aunt Flo made her bitch-ass return at five weeks — such cruelty! (was it that one early serving of formula we gave him? this question haunts me, but I know women who formula fed exclusively and still had a longer delay than I did) — and I am still as large and in charge as I was the day I gave birth. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up 30 pounds lighter but it’s looking more and more like I am one of those naturally Rubenesque ladies whose bodies plump up and then decide to stay that way for a while because it feels so nice to just spread out in every direction, I guess. Thrilling, says the two closets full of clothes I can’t even get up over my gut. But hey, this soft body makes a great cushion for that baby.

I caught wind on Twitter that Chipper Jones is retiring. I haven’t kept up very much with Chipper or baseball in general for many years, but back in seventh or eighth grade, I fell hard for Chipper. I just happened to see his face flit across the TV during the game and I was instantly in love. He had that easy boyish grin that always hooks me. I watched the game to find out his name and from then on did everything I could to find out every morsel about his life. This was pre-internet so it wasn’t easy, but I was very devoted. I watched every game that I could catch on television and recorded them, even if I had watched them live. I clipped stories from the newspaper that mentioned him, and clipped his box score if he’d had a good game. I watched SportsCenter for highlights of the games to catch a glimpse of him. I amassed lots of Chipper and Braves memorabilia — glossy photos, pennants, keychains, hats, shirts, magazines. I drew rudimentary portraits of Chipper and hung them on my wall. I was his biggest fan.

Our eighth grade class took a trip to Atlanta to a Braves game (I don’t remember why now; I will have to consult my diary) and I was sort of convinced in that eighth-grade way of thinking that I was going to be able to meet Chipper Jones and he was going to fall for me despite my braces and my being 14 freaking years old. Turns out our seats were on the third-base line (yay!) but we were way out in the outfield. Not even within yelling distance of Chipper. (Now I don’t remember anything about the game except the extremely drunk GROWN-ASS dude who put his arm around me and had people take our picture. My teacher, Mrs. Yeiser, tried to confiscate the roll of film, heh. She did not get it. Now where is that dang picture?!)

So, I didn’t meet and snag Chipper. But I kept hope alive.

I remember being so upset that Hideo Nomo won rookie of the year that year instead of Chipper. And now where is Hideo Nomo? HE DON’T PLAY BALL NOMO. I’m sorry. But the snub stung and may have fucked up my head a little bit.

I really got a reality smack across the face during a game one day many months into my crush, when the camera panned over some big-haired lady in the audience. She was wearing a cowboy hat and she was very blonde. The announcer mentioned that this was Mrs. Chipper Jones and my heart fell out of my chest with a wet thud. Wait, he was MARRIED?! To a lady wearing a COWBOY HAT?! And so that day I began mopping up my messy affections for the third baseman from Marietta, Ga., realizing they were a pipe dream. Also I probably had some other dude I was crushing on at the time so I had to reserve my energy and pour it directly into that ridiculousness.

So, fare well in your retirement, Chipper. I’ll always have fond memories of your prickly little goatee and your chewing-tobacco habit. You know, I always thought that was super gross but I was going to make an exception just for you.

I look at Holden and I still cannot believe he is here. That he is so beautiful and so sweet and so smiley and so ours. It is amazing and heartbreaking all at once to know how differently things could have gone, how he could have not ever come into my life.

I read a blog by a local woman who has been trying for years to have a baby — I’m talking multiple rounds of very expensive fertility treatments and plenty of loss and heartache — and not too long ago announced that she’s finally for-real pregnant, going on twenty weeks. I lurk so I’m not going to link, but suffice it to say that when she finally got her Big Fat Positive, I was pumping my virtual fist for her. She writes with excitement but just under the surface is, I think, great trepidation and the fear that at any moment, everything could go horribly wrong. She shared a link to a blog post where a couple is mourning the loss of their twins, who were born at 19 weeks, 5 days. They were too small to survive, born just shy of the mark where modern medicine — marvel that it can be — can give a severely premature baby a significant fighting chance. I read this and got choked up and had to click off.

There’s also a woman here in town who lost her baby boy at 35 weeks. There was an accident with the cord in utero and he suffocated. He had a name and a room and he just did not make it here, into this world. That is so difficult to imagine. The randomness of it seems cruel.

We were spooked when we found out Holden had a single umbilical artery. I had this vision of him being trapped in there like a scuba diver with a single constricted air tube being the only thing keeping him alive. When he came out, I could only hold him at mid-chest level because the cord was too short for me to hold him up to get a good look at him. I spent my first few minutes with him gazing at the top of his head, so full of hair, just listening to his little whimpers. I was overwhelmed with relief that he had made it out okay. Our midwife inspected the placenta and said she’d never seen anything quite like it. She showed me how the cord was inserted on the side instead of smack in the middle like most placentas and cords were attached. We found out later that this particular condition has a name: velamentous cord insertion. A single umbilical artery can lead to uterine growth restriction, and a velamentous cord insertion can rupture and lead to stillbirth or, according to that Wikipedia page (I know, I know), fetal death during labor. Together, the baby’s full-term existence just seemed … precarious.

And yet there was my baby boy. So strong. He was and is small, possibly from the SUA giving him a bit of a slow start, but he is perfect. He came a few days early, and sometimes I wonder if it’s because the placenta and cord were beginning to not be able to provide for him anymore and he just decided to come on out so he could get fed for real. I say “he” but I don’t even know what I’m referring to here. Obviously he wasn’t in there pulling a ripcord. If I were religious, I’d say God went ahead and shoved him out of the plane with his chute ready to go, so to speak. I guess I really just mean “nature,” “hormones,” “instinct.” Whatever set the whole ball rolling. I don’t know. That mercurial, churning force that propels life forward but also destroys it. That thing.

That day, that force worked the way one always hope it will. It could have just as easily gone the other way because life is not fair and life often introduces such throbbing heartache when you’re expecting radiant joy. I am so grateful that my boy got here safely in spite of a couple of what could have been major biological setbacks. I aim that gratitude at whatever creative entity is out there and willing to take it. I realize that sounds hokey in an “I’m not religious; I’m spiritual” way, but that’s not how I mean it. I mean it in a “I want to beam this gratitude into the universe as hard as I possibly can so there is no mistaking how thankful I am for my baby’s healthy existence” way. It is the most pure form of gratitude I have ever known.

Moldy Old Holdie:

Two things.

One. Sorry about the new nickname. I don’t know how it happened or where exactly it came from, but I use it sparingly so as to not dent your delicate sense of self-esteem, which I imagine is forming as we speak. You are not moldy or old; you smell wonderful (usually — we’ll get to that in a minute) and you are still very young and sparkly and new. It’s just that it rolls off the tongue so nicely.

Two. Sorry this post is late. Like, a whole freaking week late. I wanted to start it two weeks ago so as to finish and post it on your birthday, but didn’t, and then I went back to the office full time on Monday, and that experience is currently ROCKING MY WORLD and not exactly in the good way. Just in the Oh my gahhh how do people do this?! THERE ARE NO MORE HOURS LEFT way that every working parent must adjust to. Ahem.

So here we are at the end of your fourth month with us and you are still THE BEST BABY IN THE WORLD, except for those several nights lately when you have decided you wanted to wake up at 2 or 4 a.m. and be all adorable and shit and make it really hard for your mama and your daddy to not engage so you wouldn’t think it was wake-up time. On those nights, you became simply The Best Baby in the World, No Shouting. Because no one wins any awards at 4 a.m. You were just trying to get a little extra milk those early mornings, I think, so you could go ahead and round out that growth spurt you were going through. That growth spurt now has you clocking in at 11 pounds, 14 ounces, and 24.25 inches long. Your head is 40 centimeters around. Is that good? I don’t know. But it’s a nice round number for a nice round head. A head that has a ridiculous, patchy hairdo and a sort of rattail mullet, now that so much of the side and the top has rubbed away. It’s really pretty cute but I’m excited for your hair to grow in for real some day. Will it be the same color?

You are growing long and lean like your daddy, kiddo. This amazes me every day, since I have never been either lean or long and no one else in my family has either. You’re in the 7th percentile for your weight and the 47th for your height, according to your four-month checkup. You’re still a little squirt (which total strangers love to remark on) but Dr. Hanson says you’re doing great. You spent several minutes the other day laughing at him, even though he wasn’t even trying to be funny. But that is just how you are, baby boy. Bright eyed and happy. You laid there on the paper-covered exam table and kicked and kicked, just happy as could be. And then we let them stick you with needles and you got super pissed. Can’t say I blame you. Pretty cruel bait and switch, if you ask me. But you recovered nicely and now you won’t get the polio, yay!

This month you continued your quest to gain control of your hands and make them do your bidding. You often sit with your hands clasped politely together (see above), perched just inside your mouth, as you watch whatever’s going on in front of you. We can now hold something fun out in front of you and you will reach out and grab it, if it interests you, bringing it straight to your mouth to take the place of your hand. Sometimes you reach out but you miss your target and bring back empty hands to your mouth. Hey, it’s cool. You’re new at this depth perception thing. You have this cool ball Aunt Megan got for you that you have a love-hate relationship with. You love to grab on to it but you get SO PISSED that you can’t get it into your mouth. I often have to take it away from you before you get too mad at it.

You’ve become a real talker — you just coo and blabber and shriek to us and, much of the time, to yourself, when you’re sitting idle. You’re still kinda snorty and snotty (that has never gone away, ever) so you often make this yodeling gurgle noise from deep in your throat. Recently you discovered your tongue and I see you rolling it around in your mouth, feeling the contours of your gums. Just the other day you noticed your feet and stared at them intently when they moved slightly, as if to say, “Wait, those belong to ME?!” Soon enough you are going to figure out how to get those things into your mouth. Big fun ahead for you.

Getting you to laugh is like my daily holy grail. The first time I heard you really laugh, full-throated and with total delight, was when your Aunt Kristin came to visit and she was talking about sounds monkeys make. And you just went bananas for that. Your daddy and I have gotten you to laugh while pretending to barf, which is pretty hilarious considering how much you love barfing. You laugh a lot when I whip my head back and forth and make crazy noises with my eyes bugged out, but doing that too much gives me a headache. Actually, maybe that’s what you think is so funny.

Too bad that when I get my phone out to capture your shenanigans, the party usually stops and you become very stonefaced. So I don’t have a good video of a really good laugh session. This is about as close as I have gotten:

I’ll get a really good one, though. Oh, I’ll get one.

We did a fair amount of socializing this month. We went to Daphne’s birthday party one Saturday, and then you stayed with Amanda and Brandon and Eliza for a few hours another Saturday so your daddy and I could go see his alma mater beat his other alma mater. He’s so excited for you to get to come to a game with us but you’re still a little too small for that.

Also, your Aunt Krissie and Aunt Vicki threw us a shindig this month and we got to see so many of our family and friends and had such a big time. It was really sweet of them to do that, and I’m so happy and grateful that you are so loved that so many would come out to see you and say hello. You were so good about being passed around until you got tired out and had to go conk out for a long nap. Truth be told, I would have conked out for a nap too but that would have been rude.

Everywhere we go, people talk about your big bright eyes and how observant you are for your age. You love to sit up and look around, just drinking the whole world in. You’ve got the neck control down so well that we’ve started sitting you in your Bumbo chair to hang out with us. I even bought a tray for it so that you can have your toys in front of you and pick which one you want to gnaw on.

Early this month I started back to work, but from home. It was pretty weird being in the same house as you but not being able to hang out with you all the time like usual. Your daddy took you on adventures to the library and to the park and to lunch with a friend while I helped make the newspaper from a laptop on the dining room table. I had to hand over bedtime routine duties, which was hard at first (for me) but you took to it like a champ. Daddy is better at bedtime storytelling anyway. I found out the other day that I had been calling your bath duck by the wrong name — he’s not Officer Duck. He’s Detective Duck and your octopus is Officer Octopus. Duh. Sometimes at night I would take a break from work and lean on the wall next to the hallway and listen to daddy read you your bedtime stories. He does the best voices, huh? And he’s not a bad singer, either.

Now, I have to talk about things that are somewhat unpleasant, but pretty funny. This may embarrass you but always remember that you can blog about my hilarious descent into old age some day. I am giving you permission now. In fact, I will go ahead and reserve the ShitDementiaPatientsSay Tumblr for you and leave the password in a lockbox.

[POOP DISCLAIMER FOR PEOPLE WITHOUT CHILDREN OR ANYONE WHO JUST DOESN'T WANT TO READ ABOUT MY CHILD'S BOWEL MOVEMENTS, WHICH I IMAGINE IS A LOT OF YOU]

Remember how I said you have a lovely smell? That is usually true, except this month your farts starting smelling TERRIBLE. I first noticed — and get ready for some trashy information to follow — while we were at THE LIQUOR STORE. That’s right, mama was buying booze with you in her arms. The scandal! We were there with Kristin getting a bottle of wine for ourselves and I smelled something rank and thought to myself, Man, someone totally cut one. Then it happened again while we were getting into the car and I thought, Man, Kristin must be having some stomach troubles. It wasn’t until that night when I was nursing you before bed, back in the nursery, that I smelled that smell again and I realized that it was YOU. Before, your poop and your farts had smelled faintly like buttermilk, just wonderfully inoffensive. But you hadn’t pooped in, like, a week or so by then. Which is totally normal, by the way. But it was new for you. I guess it never occurred to me that your not pooping for several days at a time would amount to stinkier emissions. And then, when your body decided to give the ol’ waste a good heave-ho, one massive, smelly mount of poop in your diaper. That special delivery came while I was in the shower and you were hanging out in your bouncy seat nearby. I got out and picked you up and smelled something not quite right. A smell I had never smelled before. And sure enough when I opened up your diaper, there was poop from your navel to the top of your buttcrack. You seemed pretty relieved and I took a picture and sent it to your dad. Because that is who we have become, Holden. Poop-photographing maniacs.

So that seems to be how you do this pooping thing now. No pooping for several days, farts get super smelly, HUGE POOP, and scene. It’s sort of like a game of Old Maid, seeing who ends up with the poop diaper, me or your dad. I’d really prefer it if you could poop several small, smell-free times a day again. Can you work on that? No? Okay. But I had to ask.

[POOP TALK IS OVER ... FOR NOW]

You’re slowly but surely growing out of your 3-month clothes. They fit widthwise but are getting a little snug in length. So a wardrobe change is in order. Guess it’s time to pull out the clothes we already have and start picking out the next sizes. That’s way more fun than I thought it would be, honestly. Know what else is kinda fun? Shopping with a baby. Without a baby, people just think your crazy mother is talking to herself. With you around, I can jabber all I want and everyone assumes I’m talking to the baby. Score one for mama.

The weather is warming up and, even though we didn’t really have much of a true winter, I am excited for you to experience your first spring. The warm breeze, the colorful flowers, dirt in your hands, the sounds of the outdoors, the green leaves all around, the screaming and running your mother will do the first time a bumblebee darts toward her as she is holding you — the whole bit. It’s going to be fun, baby buds. I’m so happy to get to show the world to you. And you to the world.

Me: Call me “LT.”
Siri: Okay. I’ll call you “lieutenant.” Okay?
Me: Haha, no!
Siri, bitchily: Fine.

We’ve savored every moment, can you tell?

… and I laid on the pavement and took pictures of a bouquet of flowers I got for Valentine’s Day. As you do.

I look at these pictures and they pluck a string of intense familiarity in me. It makes me sad, in some ways, that I won’t be raising my family on a farm. I got just a taste of it as a kid and turned out to be more of a city gal, so I guess if I had stuck around (and my own family hadn’t majorly downsized our farming efforts due to a variety of reasons, many of them economic) I would have been the one to insist that Triple T Farms have a website and get on Facebook. Maybe I would have had to slop hogs too. But there is something so honest about farming. Something so real about it. It’s not all flash and pretense, branding and focus groups. It’s just dirt under your fingernails and long, hot days, and the smell of diesel following you everywhere you go. A challenge to make the land do your bidding but to be its steward and protector too. It’s intense. It’s humble.

I miss it.

His daddy got him to laugh before I did, and so did Aunt Kristin when she visited over the weekend. But I finally got him to laugh at me on purpose and on camera today, after many, many attempts involving ridiculous noises and faces. Filmed surreptitiously because as soon as the phone gets in his line of sight, he freezes.