It's 4:45 here in Stumptown, and of course pitch black out. I'm up with the other dairy farmers, pumping and hoping that I get to finish before Jackie wakes up hungry. Okay the other dairy farmers probably aren't worried about the baby cows waking up. And they are probably outside in the chilly air, so really I have it good.
Long-time readers may recall that I named my previous breastpump, a Medela Pump in Style, Bessie. Well, for reasons to be explored in another entry, Bessie has been put out to pasture, and I now have Sukie, a Hygeia EnJoye... something. There's a number after that. But it has an internal, rechargable battery, which is good, because I couldn't find an extension cord this morning to be able to plug it in to the fancy child-proof socket covers that Hubby has diligently installed throughout the living/kitchen/dining/playroom. (I did mention our current apartment is rather... efficient, didn't I?) Anyway, I was tearing around like a madwoman looking for where the heck Hubby has stored the extension cords and getting more and more upset when I realized, hey, this thing is supposed to be able to run without being plugged in. Which it is now doing like a little champ next to me as I type. And I'm sure Matt put the extension cords somewhere very sensible, which is why I can't find them in my anxious pre-pre-pre-dawn state. Or better yet I probably put that one somewhere and forgot. Or Kiddo relocated it to under a cat. Who knows. But the whole thing made me super anxious.
Okay, yes, I have post-partum anxiety and everything makes me anxious. But for some reason pumping tends to make me anxious, even when I'm not as anxious about other things. For Robert, I sort of constantly had barely enough milk in the fridge and freezer, and just when I thought I'd caught ahead, he'd have a growth spurt, or Matt would start feeding him another half ounce in a feeding, and the supply would disappear faster than donuts in an office kitchen. Add to that the 45 minute commute on the LA freeway (45 minutes was in good traffic) and the last round of PPA, and the whole experience was less than spa-like. I think mostly I'm just worried about having enough. It's also sort of unrelaxing that things aren't in a routine yet, I just have to hope that I'll wake up before Jackie's hungry in the morning enough times to collect enough before going back to work. I'm not getting the sort of amounts that I used to get at my early morning pumping sessions, or even that I got when I first started pumping this time. Probably just a normal function of supply waxing and waning, and how long ago I nursed, and being tired. As a "trained peer counselor" I have lots of places to look for ideas on that. But it makes me anxious too. (I hope it's not a difference in the pump... seems unlikely as this thing is working fine and I got more at a couple sessions.)
As much as I like to march around advocating for pumping and working outside the home, I gotta say, it's no picnic, and I totally want to acknowledge that for any other mamas feeling the same way.
I hear Jackie again... better proofread and get things wrapped up here with Sukie.
Much love,
Suzi
No comments:
Post a Comment