Hello Dear Boobjuicers and Friends!
I was just looking over some old posts and remembering how hard it was to pump and have a 40+ hour per week office job. I'm grateful now that I stuck it out (having a month between jobs helped. even though I was frantically packing, moving, and unpacking) and in the rear view mirror objects appear easier than they felt.
A friend is struggling with the beginnings of nursing, getting a pain-free latch, fighting what might be yeast (gads I hope not but she probably wasn't the total yeast factory I was before motherhood), and the general anguish and feeling that this period will never end. Or maybe it's not even being able to look up towards the future and conceive of an end. It's hard to think of something helpful to say... while it's true that at some point this will be over, and at some further point she will wonder how that x weeks ever felt like x months, when a mama is in the throes of that difficulty these words are hard to hear at best, and seriously irksome at worst. Mamas, did anyone hit on a magic phrase that helped you during that tricky startup time?
So many people are so quick to offer bad and unwanted advice too. To some degree it's not their fault - our mothers' generation was taught that breastfeeding is antiquated and weird. Which is bullpoo. But then when these people turn around and spew that bad advice at the new moms, in a way we sort of can't blame them. I mean, I believe in free will, but what will have happened in between motherhood and grandmotherhood to inspire them to reprogram these ideas? For most of them, nothing. Disclaimers aside, though, it was so frustrating to be struggling with breastfeeding and despairing of every being comfortable, and getting advice like, "so quit and give him formula." Argh. It felt like, "No, you can't do it, of course, you fool, so give up." I'm sure it wasn't meant this way, but that's how it felt, nonetheless. I didn't have the emotional or physical energy to patiently explain why this suggestion was totally anathema to me. So I just sort of filtered who I would talk to about what. I would whine to my doula, or my other 100% boobjuice mom friends, or other folks I knew would not give me this advice. They didn't necessarily all have something helpful to say, but at least they didn't offer this unhelpful, if well intended, dismissal of my deep feelings about motherhood.
And when you think about it, this was totally ridiculous. Human babies have survived on breastmilk for millennia, and only in the past few decades has formula even been an option. The idea that some how in the past fifty years womankind has lost the ability to do what we were doing for the ten thousand years previously is really silly. Unfortunately we have lost a lot of wisdom in this time, at least in this country, but the basic biology really doesn't change that fast.
So of course we didn't spend 10,000 years pumping breastmilk at the office. We didn't spend that long removing infected appendices or using antibiotics either. We get to use our brains to help us do more to make life better, and pumping counts. I would have been miserable staying home with my kid all day, and I see that now that I'm not frantically pumping, commuting 45 minutes on the LA freeway, and working a job I needed to leave. I would have been miserable staying home with Kiddo a hundred years ago, too, it just would have been harder to do anything about it.
I'm not sure I have any useful takeaways for you here, ladies, but hopefully something was resonant or at least interesting for you.
Happy boobjuicing!
Love,
Suzi
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
You Get What You Ask For!
So, Kiddo has taken to pulling on the front of my shirt or top, peering down inside, and saying, "Boooo!" I think this is adorable, but I realize it could come back to haunt me if he starts wondering if other women also have Boo. I also realize this is my own stinking fault, as I have been running around saying "Boobs" and "Boobjuice" since he was born.
There seems to be a leit motif (or however you spell that) of "my own stinking fault" at the moment, or to frame it a bit more positively, "You get what you ask for." The Whirlwind Midwestern Tour, for example, was a success, I think. All my meetings went by without a hitch but one, and that's because I naively scheduled a downtown Chicago meeting for one hour after my flight was to land. Hee hee! Thank God there were thunderstorms so the flight was delayed, so I couldn't even try to make that happen. Sometimes weather is a mercy. We all picked up a nice, snotty head cold in Minnesota, which manifested in Chicago. Kiddo got it first, and was inconsolable in the middle of the night until I nursed him. We realized later, after we both came down with the same thing, that he probably had a sore throat. Poor little guy! And yay for Boo.
But back to the leit motif: I arranged for Hubby and Kiddo to drive down to the grandparents' place Indy after Kiddo's bedtime on Thursday night, and I would join them Friday after my conference ended at bedtime. I was actually really excited to have a hotel room to myself and a four hour drive (and don't let those whiners tell you different, it's a pretty drive - rolling prairie and old fashioned barns and farmhouses, but a reasonable smattering of roadside Starbucks) on which I got to relax, listen to the radio, and be pensive about corn.
So of course I bawled my eyes out.
I cried before they left. I cried when they left. I pulled it together to walk through the hotel lobby not crying so the affordable housing conference people didn't feel awkward, and then I cried in my room. Then I calmed down, started getting ready to enjoy a bath, went to get something (don't remember what) out of my backpack, found Kiddo's pretty wood rattle in there.... Yup! More crying. I should have called a girlfriend but I was being stubborn and trying to get over it. I know the first night away from my kiddo is a big deal, but I still felt silly. Ah, well. Let this post give some other mama permission not to feel silly! But the trip was my suggestion, and I wanted to do it, and I got what I asked for. Hubby said that Kiddo and Grandpa spent all day Friday just playing while Hubby re-did the Grandparents' sound system (useful as well as ornamental, my fella), and that they both had a great time. This is the best consolation for crying for half an hour as I could possibly think of, and really cheap therapy if you think about it. Plus we earned major karma points for bringing the Kiddo to the Grandpa, as Grandpa has resumed chemo for colon cancer which is now in his liver. Have I mentioned that colon cancer sucks? I believe I have, but it bears repeating. In fact, I'll go ahead and assert that cancer generally is not much fun. Please take care of yourselves and each other and appreciate the time we have while we have it. I know, just a modest request...
Pumping related paragraph: I brought Bessie Jr. so the girls wouldn't miss that morning session on Friday. FAIL. I never had much luck with Bessie Jr., and now that we're down to twice a day, it just wasn't going to happen. Perhaps Bessie would have worked, but anyway my instinct was that one missed morning nursing was not going to be The End of the Boo, and I was right. The girls did just fine that night, and since, and it was good for me to see that.
Mama DBG recently quoted her own dear mama as saying "closed mouth don't get fed." This strikes me as pure genius. I'm working on asking for what I want. Today I asked for time to work out between breadwinning and dinner, and Hubby was very accommodating. It took more convincing to get me to do it, to help me remember that spending 35 minutes on myself while Kiddo was awake does not mean I am a bad, selfish mama. (Sound familiar anyone?) In fact, as Hubby pointed out, I will be a better mama if I take care of myself.
So I'm working on asking for what I want, because I won't get it if I don't ask for it!
I have a zillion more things to talk about but it's late, this post is long and rambling, and I have miles to go before I sleep... or at least I need to brush my teeth for stink's sake.
Happy boobjuicing!
Love,
Suzi
There seems to be a leit motif (or however you spell that) of "my own stinking fault" at the moment, or to frame it a bit more positively, "You get what you ask for." The Whirlwind Midwestern Tour, for example, was a success, I think. All my meetings went by without a hitch but one, and that's because I naively scheduled a downtown Chicago meeting for one hour after my flight was to land. Hee hee! Thank God there were thunderstorms so the flight was delayed, so I couldn't even try to make that happen. Sometimes weather is a mercy. We all picked up a nice, snotty head cold in Minnesota, which manifested in Chicago. Kiddo got it first, and was inconsolable in the middle of the night until I nursed him. We realized later, after we both came down with the same thing, that he probably had a sore throat. Poor little guy! And yay for Boo.
But back to the leit motif: I arranged for Hubby and Kiddo to drive down to the grandparents' place Indy after Kiddo's bedtime on Thursday night, and I would join them Friday after my conference ended at bedtime. I was actually really excited to have a hotel room to myself and a four hour drive (and don't let those whiners tell you different, it's a pretty drive - rolling prairie and old fashioned barns and farmhouses, but a reasonable smattering of roadside Starbucks) on which I got to relax, listen to the radio, and be pensive about corn.
So of course I bawled my eyes out.
I cried before they left. I cried when they left. I pulled it together to walk through the hotel lobby not crying so the affordable housing conference people didn't feel awkward, and then I cried in my room. Then I calmed down, started getting ready to enjoy a bath, went to get something (don't remember what) out of my backpack, found Kiddo's pretty wood rattle in there.... Yup! More crying. I should have called a girlfriend but I was being stubborn and trying to get over it. I know the first night away from my kiddo is a big deal, but I still felt silly. Ah, well. Let this post give some other mama permission not to feel silly! But the trip was my suggestion, and I wanted to do it, and I got what I asked for. Hubby said that Kiddo and Grandpa spent all day Friday just playing while Hubby re-did the Grandparents' sound system (useful as well as ornamental, my fella), and that they both had a great time. This is the best consolation for crying for half an hour as I could possibly think of, and really cheap therapy if you think about it. Plus we earned major karma points for bringing the Kiddo to the Grandpa, as Grandpa has resumed chemo for colon cancer which is now in his liver. Have I mentioned that colon cancer sucks? I believe I have, but it bears repeating. In fact, I'll go ahead and assert that cancer generally is not much fun. Please take care of yourselves and each other and appreciate the time we have while we have it. I know, just a modest request...
Pumping related paragraph: I brought Bessie Jr. so the girls wouldn't miss that morning session on Friday. FAIL. I never had much luck with Bessie Jr., and now that we're down to twice a day, it just wasn't going to happen. Perhaps Bessie would have worked, but anyway my instinct was that one missed morning nursing was not going to be The End of the Boo, and I was right. The girls did just fine that night, and since, and it was good for me to see that.
Mama DBG recently quoted her own dear mama as saying "closed mouth don't get fed." This strikes me as pure genius. I'm working on asking for what I want. Today I asked for time to work out between breadwinning and dinner, and Hubby was very accommodating. It took more convincing to get me to do it, to help me remember that spending 35 minutes on myself while Kiddo was awake does not mean I am a bad, selfish mama. (Sound familiar anyone?) In fact, as Hubby pointed out, I will be a better mama if I take care of myself.
So I'm working on asking for what I want, because I won't get it if I don't ask for it!
I have a zillion more things to talk about but it's late, this post is long and rambling, and I have miles to go before I sleep... or at least I need to brush my teeth for stink's sake.
Happy boobjuicing!
Love,
Suzi
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