Boobjuice Heroes: Mama Cameron

Hello Dear Readers!

Okay so when I say "boobjuice heroes," I should really say, "Suzi's heroes who breastfed," because so far that's who I've lined up. Y'all can read about Mama Rachael, who is an amazing doctor and friend and mama and cook and seamstress and urban homesteader and I could go on. Well, Cameron is another one of my sheroes. She is brilliant and freaking hilarious and totally fearless and eloquent. She is an accomplished attorney and makes absurdly complicated cakes for her kids. And, she is also a triumphant boobjuicer. Here is her story, as she shared it with me an embarrassingly long time ago.

Cameron is a Medical Malpractice Attorney, and her husband Joe works two hours away by car and train. When they had Robert, she took off three months, went back to work from home part time and in the office part time. Cameron's mom and a lactation consultant who is a part time nanny provided child care when both Cameron and Joe were working, and Joe stayed home one day a week to be with the baby.

She went nominally part time when she started to have children, but last month billed 170 hours... you can never really have an idea of how many hours a case is going to take, and one case took 150 of those 170 hours - sometimes that's just the way it happens. Unfortunately one month sets expectations for the next month. If you don't make things clear all the time you may as well just agree to having your life taken apart bit by bit.

Cameron's second child, Max, adopted clusterfeeding at 3 days old until five months old. So for example, in post partum sculpt class, she would feed before, twice during, and right after class. He was a fast eater – a hungry hungry, fast growing little guy. “One of the things I was so happy I learned when I had Robert and got force-educated on how breastfeeding can be: Every kid is different, all have different schedules and needs, and it's ridiculous to think adults can dictate to the kid. With Robert, everything went wrong with delivery into the breastfeeding relationship. That was really hard, sad, frustrating, and scary. I'm really glad we made it through, because had we given up and gone to bottles would have been hard for me and worse for him.”

Robert was induced 3 weeks early. Cameron had gestational diabetes and hypertension, and an ultrasound found low fluid. Being in the hospital on magnesium sulfate was a nightmare. Her main obstetrician was out of town, the on call OB having a bad weekend and being a big jerk. He was insulting, it was scary and awful, but once she got the epidural all was fine. Except for the magnesium sulfate. Baby came out - he was in pain, something was wrong, his jaw was really pulled back. So she dutifully did the skin to skin, and the IBCLC said looks good. In the pediatrician's office three days later, he had dropped weight, so she forced a bottle of formula into his mouth and there was a lot of crying. The doc sent them to the hospital, where an IBCLC said it was fine, meanwhile Cameron's milk came in "like I had triplets." (She said the oversupply was nice because she was able to donate a lot of milk.) His latch was no good ("chompie the destroyer") because his jaw was pulled so far back. After a couple weeks she tried calling around to private lactation consultants, they would all say it was fine and Cameron was worrying for no reason.

Finally at five weeks she snapped, she and Joe were fighting, she was in pain, Robert was having difficulty. So she went to the last name on her list of LCs. She hadn't called this person because she thought it was a guy, her name was Jay. She was fabulous. She came to the house, sat down with Cameron and the baby for about four hours. She was the first person who actually picked up the baby and looked in his mouth, and said this is not good. She felt in his mouth, found and uneven palate and a bubble. Jay referred Cameron to a neuromuscular therapist, who managed to relax the baby's neck and shoulders to get his jaw to release about an inch forward, and then he could nurse fine. Not even the pediatrician really examined the baby. So it took about six weeks to get things going well. Cameron also has that lipase problem where you have to scald milk if it's not going to be used within 12 hours. When she pumped at work she would take it home and scald it and then refrigerate it.

Job and pumping:

"Ah, I pump everywhere. At least my office has solid doors and no windows interior to the office. A lot of offices are glass. So when out and about, doing depositions and such, it can be a trick to create a safe place to pump. Think I've only pumped in the car once." Cameron has pumped in the shower room of a surgery center at UCSF, various bathrooms at various law practices. What's really tricky is making the time to do it. In her industry, attorneys' days are scheduled so that you get in at 9, depositions start at 10, don't know when your case will be called. "I had to get really good at saying 'I need to take a break,' but people didn't hear that, so I had to overcome squeemishness, mine and others', and say, 'I need to pump breastmilk now.' Fortunately I haven't had to confront many others' squeemishness, but I have heard, 'Well how long are you going to do that for?' Sometimes I need to educate people."

She had a court case where she was second chair, and had to tell the clerk about that and explain what she would need - a clean safe place, sink, door that locks, and she would need to use it at these times. They were really good about that, but Cameron had to be sure she made the effort to explain that and do it "for my kids and to make it available to other women who think it's not possible to do this work and breastfeed at the same time." She lives in Northern California, and found that folks are generally pretty easy about it. There are a lot of older men in this field, and not a lot of women, but they all know Cameron at this point, as she had been at it for about 8 years. "So I'll make a joke about it and everything is okay. I do feel like I spend part of my time making them uncomfortable enough to get them accommodate me and then making enough humor about it to get them to accommodate me."

"It's just sort of part of every minute of every day. I find I get really stressed out and anxious if I'm filling up or I've gotten engorged - like its own egg timer." Day care was 2 blocks away from the office so she could go at lunch time and feed the little guys. She felt that with Robert she was actually better about staying put for about six months - didn't go out and do a lot of depositions and assignments until she had been dealing with office scene for six months. With Max she dove back in faster, and it was more challenging. With her husband working so far away, she had to be within 20 minutes of the daycare at all time. She was still striving to make partner at her firm, and wanted to take on more responsibility. It's a small firm, so no formal partner track per se. She started talking about it at three years, but didn't feel financially responsible to do so at that time, knowing she wanted to start a family. Salary is also more secure than profit sharing.

"I think I did much better this time in that six month maternity leave, just being able to sit and hold the baby, and being better about that, not worrying about vacuuming and errands." Being able to get the breastfeeding thing down right away was such a relief. She had a lot of anxiety about whether it would be hard again. Robert nursed until 18 months, he quit at Christmas time, when Cameron was newly pregnant with Max. He was only really nursing in the mornings and at night, and then just in the morning, and then one day he just didn't do it. And about three days later he seemed kind of interested in starting it up again, but Cameron was really busy and not feeling great and said no, and he was cool with it. She felt a little sad about it, but they were so close otherwise, that she didn't feel like she was missing something. Then she was pretty happy to not be nursing later in the pregnancy, because she got "pretty big and uncomfortable."

"I first thought, I'll do this for six months and then switch over to formula, but as it became such a struggle and I learned more about it, I got more invested, not only for me and my son but also to help other people make a difficult situation work. It was so much harder than I though it was going to be - less instinctive than one would imagine. Then once things were working, it was so much easier than bottles and the alternatives. A very strange trip, that early situation. Man it makes airplane flying easier. We nursed in airplanes, rental cars, beaches, hotel lobbies, conferences…"

So that is my interview with Cameron. I find her story so inspiring. She overcame a difficult birth experience and a lot of totally failed support at the beginning to establish a wonderful nursing experience with her first babe. She was great about sticking up for her need to pump milk while holding down a demanding job in a male-dominated profession. (Although I think she might agree with me that sometimes, when you say you need to pump, a lot of men are so scared you'll tell them more details about breastfeeding, they'll give you anything you want just to shut you up.) And she helped forge the trail for the next mama - something all of my boobjuice heroes have done. I am delighted and proud to call her my friend, and I hope her story inspired you the way it has for me.

Much love,
Suzi