Eyes On the Ball, Please

Hello Dearest Readers,

I hope you are all well. I'm just back from Kindergarten Roundup for my little guy. I only cried a little. Matt laughed at me a disproportionate amount, I think. He probably feels differently about that. I am amazed at how much of public education is NOT free. I mean, we're in a position to shell out the $400/month to get "whole day" kindergarten, so we're quite blessed. But hello? 2.5 hours of school for "free" and if you want it up to 6 hours you have to pay. That changes next year in Oregon, and is not the case at schools where the majority of families qualify for nutritional support. But yikes. People. You want to know why America is losing labor competitiveness? It ain't the unions. It's the fact that WE DO NOT TEACH PEOPLE TO READ OR DO MATH. Sweet cuddly Jesus.

Anyway, enough of THAT rant for five minutes.

So this happened. It boils down to, if someone is the PR face of the company for your social media platform, maybe you should be sure they actually know your company's policies. So I fault Delta, not for their breastfeeding policies, but for their employee training. And no, I'm not going to boycott Delta. They have never asked ME not to nurse or pump on a flight. (And it's a dang good thing as I'm sure you can all guess.)

What I want to comment on is, why should any mom even think she has to ask permission to feed her kid? It's not the clean room at a microchip factory. It's a mode of transit. Kind of like a glorified charter bus. Here is a great story about nursing on a public bus. But back to my point.

You ever hear a parent call an airline and say, "Can I give my kid a granola bar on the flight?" Nope, pretty sure you haven't.  If you are horrified at the sight of granola bars, do you get to tell another passenger to put a blanket over their kid's head while they eat said granola bar? Nope, you don't. Rather, in the country of free speech, you can say it, and everyone else will give you a big "you crazy" face and no one will dignify your complaint with a response.

It's food. Yes, it comes out of breasts. Yes, breasts are beautiful. You know what else is beautiful? Eyes. And smiles. And cheeks.

Let's grow up and move on and work on some ACTUAL problems now, please. Like the "public" education we are NOT providing to our citizens. Democracy is dependent on an educated, informed populous. China has a gazillion engineers to throw at Apple's iPhone factories.

Eyes on the ball people. Get over the boobs. Teach some math.

Much love always,

Suzi

PS - you know what works even better than a nursing cover? Not staring at my boobs while I'm feeding my kid. You gonna stare at my boobs while Robert eats a granola bar? Didn't think so.

News Flash

Parenting is hard.

I'll wait while you recover from the shock of this brand new information.

Robert and I had a really tough morning. We both freaked out and I behaved about as well as he did. So I do not feel awesome about that. I then confessed myself to the preschool teacher, who presumably would call child protective services if I had in fact turned into a monster. She chuckled at that suggestion. I confessed to several coworkers, my husband, a dear friend, and a few Starbucks workers (note to self - go back and put more money in tip jar) just to be sure. None of them appeared shocked, made moves towards a phone, or, in some cases, seemed to understand why I was telling them this. But they were all very gracious and kind.

Sigh.

After numerous kind souls said assorted versions of calm the eff down, I seem to have at least distracted myself enough to act like a vaguely normal person for the rest of the day. I even got a little work done. And we had arranged child care for the evening, so I went to see Frozen. (I liked it. Too scary for our kiddos though.) So I got a time out. Which of course made me miss my kiddos terribly. I wanted to come home and cuddle them. But I was supposed to be having a break. Hence the movie. How else was I going to get through a whole evening of break? Sigh. I refer you to my post on why all the mamas are crazy, here. Tonight was another shining example of this phenomenon. Not that I needed any more of those.

Each time I have a moment like this, I think, this is That Seminal Moment where I will Learn the Valuable Thing and Henceforth Be Transformed. And sometimes it kinda is for a bit. And then something changes, for the harder, and there's another Seminal Moment. And I'm all mad at myself for not Learning My Lesson the previous n times, where n is large. And this leads to Capitalizing All The Things. Which is really not good prose.

I'm trying to learn to be more gentle with myself. I kinda suck at it. But if nothing else, I certainly don't want my kiddos to be as hard on themselves as I am on me. So there's that. Either learn how to treat myself gently, or learn how to fake it really convincingly.

Okay, wine poured, bathtub a-calling. I want a hot tub. A lot. I bet I can get a psychiatrist to write me a prescription for one so I can pay for it with flex spending dollars...

Much love always,
Suzi

Going Back to the (other) Job

Hello beloved readers!

I hope you are all well and enjoying a lovely start to 2014. I'm back to the "grind," which makes me chuckle, because it is so much easier than staying home with two small children. Seriously. None of my coworkers has EVER pooped on the floor in my office. Just for comparison.

But that doesn't mean going back to the breadwinning gig after maternity leave is easy. Not at all. I'm pretty sure we all cry. Possibly more than the first day. Possibly the first month. I believe in trusting your mama instincts, and if you decide to give it up, I ain't gonna judge you. But, I will say this. One, it's worth giving it a real try, like at least six weeks, because this is a BIG readjustment. Remember you can quit in a heartbeat but coming back is harder if you decide it wasn't the right decision. And two, there are a LOT of things you can do to ease the transition. Here are a few ideas.

Weeks before resuming the breadwinning gig:
So, if you're going back tomorrow, do NOT let this section freak you out. In fact, just scroll past it. No sense getting upset over what you can't do.
But if you have a while, read this bit.

• Start pumping as soon as you can stand it. NOT sooner than you can stand it, mind you. If it's only two weeks out when you can finally find all the parts of your pump and hand the baby to someone else long enough to use it, then so be it. But it will be easier to accumulate a stash the sooner you start, and you'll have an easier time finding a few pockets of time to pump if you start earlier in the day. Most mamas make more milk in the morning, too. "But baby is ALWAYS on the boob!" Yeah, they do that. Try pumping one side while nursing the other. Remember you can pump and then nurse almost immediately. Baby might be annoyed if the milk comes out slower where you just pumped, but baby will not starve.
• Accumulate a stash or form a back-up plan. Donor milk? Formula? Whatever it is, know before you have to get on the train to work, if at all possible. Also realize you only need ONE day of milk the first day you're gone. You'll almost certainly get more milk when you're away from baby all day than when you're sneaking in sessions between nursing and trying to pee alone. It's very comforting to have more, but not strictly necessary. Also there are a lot of resources on how much is one day of milk, how much to give at a feeding - this is at LEAST one more blog post, so I shan't cover it now. But there are tips and tricks to be had.
• Go to the office/plant/school and figure out where you're going to pump. Nurse in that spot if you can, to help your lizard brain form an association between that location and making breastmilk. Do you work out of a car? Get a car charger for your pump and window shades or a nursing cover. 
• Talk to your boss about your return. More ideas below, but in particular, make sure they understand that you will need a little while to get back up to your awesome pre-baby level of productivity, but that you are eager to return and appreciate their understanding. Note that this is a good line to take even if Boss is being an asshat, because always taking the high road will serve you well in negotiations, and if, heaven forfend, you find yourself having to file some sort of official complaint later. If you even slightly suspect this might happen (or perhaps even if you don't), it would be good to keep notes about your conversation and/or create a "paper trail" by following up with an email.

First Day Back

• Come back on a Wednesday, or part time for a couple weeks. Going from zero to full time in one step is even more exhausting and confusing than ramping up slowly. If your work will accommodate it, try to come back 3-4 days a week at first, with a break in the middle, not mon-thurs. If that's not an option, set your first day back for the middle of the work week, so you get a short first week.
• Expect to be useless your first day back. Between the emotional adjustment, figuring out your pumping routine, and remembering how to use your frontal lobe for something besides when you can manage to shower, you are unlikely to cross off your typical number of todos on this day. My first day back after kid 2, my computer refused to work all day, which frankly I took as a blessing. I had someone else to blame for my utter lack of productivity!
• Put your pumping sessions in your calendar as busy. If you don't want to announce to the world what you are doing, call them "mama breaks" or mark them private (if this is on a computer). This is not something that others can ask you to defer or skip. This is an appointment, and everyone else can work around it. Period. If ER Docs can pump, your work can let you pump too. (And I know two docs who have pumped on ER shifts.)
• Find your allies. These could be other moms to vent to. These could be non-parents or dads who are sympathetic to your situation. Could be HR. Whatever it takes, it helps to know that you are not alone, and someone is in your corner.

Going Along

• Always ask for what you need, politely, unapologetically, and as far in advance as possible. This works remarkably well. We women tend to apologize for even taking up oxygen. This is not necessary. You might have to explain and/or negotiate, though. For example, a sales person hosting me for a meeting once suggested I pump in the bathroom. Ew. I said, "Well, it's food. You wouldn't make a sandwich in there." He said, "Oh. I hadn't thought of that." Totally innocent, not intending to be gross, just totally unfamiliar with the concept. (I ended up in a perfectly comfortable file room.)
• Do not be shy or ashamed. You have no more reason to feel this way about providing your milk for your baby than you did about having the baby in the first place. Just be matter of fact and most folks will be happy to accommodate.
• Take it one day at a time. I know, I know, I just told you to do all this advanced planning. But I found myself staring at every drop of milk that came out, thinking about business trips that were weeks off. Not good for my psyche. Trust that you and your baby are going to be fine, and figure out what is in front of you first. You don't have to solve tomorrow, it isn't here yet.
• Be proud of every drop of mama milk you give your kiddo. Don't beat yourself up over a bit of formula or the possibility of using donor milk. Every ounce of liquid gold is a win. Just focus on that.
• Be creative. Can your caregiver bring your baby to nurse on lunch breaks? Can you get kiddo to daycare 15 minutes early to nurse one more time? Can you tell the caregiver that you'll text when you're on your way and you'll want to nurse when you arrive, so please don't feed kiddo or if you just fed kiddo let me know and I'll pump first? Communication helps!

Always

Be proud of the awesome job you are doing. Reach out for help when you need it. Know that lots of mamas are there with you and we got your back!

Much love,

Suzi

Body Image

Hello Beloved Readers!

You may have noticed that body image has been on my mind over the past year or so. Not just because I have a daughter, but largely so. As Ms. Jackie the Boobmonster is now nursing really just for comfort (bedtime, owies, colds), and as my sweet tooth is unchanged, I'm now back up to the 140 lbs I weighed before Robert's birth. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly to you moms and other wise folk, it's a rather different 140 lbs. My shoulders are totally ripped. I mean I found a crease in my deltoid to bicep transition that I didn't know existed. ROAR! But, there is some more soft stuff around my middle than there was five pounds ago. And I find the critical voices are back in my head. Not the mean, "OMG you're so fat" voices that were there before Robert. But more, "Yeah, that's a little squishy, time for more exercise and less wine."

Now, more exercise and less wine is quite advisable, for reasons of general health. (And before anyone gets really worried, we're talking 1 to 1.5 glasses, most but not all nights of the week. The intervention may be postponed a bit further.) But the belly? The belly is fine. The belly is soft but not disproportionate. The belly is appealing to the husband and still fits in all the newly-tailored pants except the ones the over-eager temp nanny put in the dryer (she was sweet but yeah that didn't work out). (And we didn't even ask her to do the laundry - she meant well.) And frankly if the pants did not fit, the real problem would be that I hate shopping, not that I'm "too big." I can do Aikido with Robert. I can heft my kiddos. I can kick box and do yoga. The belly GREW TWO PEOPLE. It is a magic belly. It is a wonderful belly, hailed in song and story (mostly by me and hubby Matt). So where are these critical voices coming from?

Away they must go. I am making a particular habit of letting the nice, kind, nurturing voice answer the critical voice. "Oh, sweetie, you look great, you're very healthy, and your tummy doesn't need to be totally flat, that's silly." Sometimes that doesn't work. Sometimes I have to go to, "What if Jackie sees you acting that way? Do you want her to freak out about five pounds or brag about her accomplishments in Parkour class?" This is a good motivator. What if we all talked like that to ourselves? What if I looked in the mirror when changing clothes and said, "Looking good, hot mama! And hey nice bruise there - good job putting Sensei on his fanny in class last week."This is my idea. It's hard to make those critical voices go away. It's much easier to distract the busy brain with a totally different conversation. What if when girls asked how they looked in an outfit we said, "You look like a badass soccer player?" "You look smart?" "You look beautiful all the time because of that amazing smile?"

Try it on yourself. Next time you hear that voice, don't argue with it. Just change the subject. "Oh, these pants don't fit like they used to." "Hey, good job in yoga class last week!"

You're all beautiful and I love you.

Suzi

InfoCrap and Breastfeeding

Hello Dear Readers,

So, a couple of folks recently linked on my facebook page to an article in the New York Times, "Breast Milk Donated or Sold Online Is Often Tainted, Study Says." Reading the article, I discovered that this is classic InfoCrap of the Drawing Spurious Conclusions and Sampling Error Variety. The study only uses PURCHASED breastmilk. I think the women who want to GIVE AWAY their precious liquid gold are a very different population. The article also implies, by poor clarity and placement of lists, that Eats on Feets is a breast milk SELLING site, not donating, which is NOT TRUE.

What is InfoCrap? Well, until this week, it was going to be the name of my next big project/blog/perhaps book. But someone has it at gmail and blogger. So while looking for a new name, I'll just leave that as a "tickler" out there.

But none of you mamas and breastfeeding supporters will be in the LEAST surprised to find yet another article in the mainstream media which is misconstruing scientific studies to draw alarmist conclusion and sell papers/clicks/eyeballs.

Heavy sigh.

Much love,
Suzi

"Justice" and Breastfeeding

Okay so this is fairly absurd, not to mention ironic in "The Show Me State."

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/18/4562040/breastfeeding-mom-faces-penalties.html

I'd like to take a moment to point out that the fine state of Oregon is one of the eleven alluded to in the article which allows exemption from jury duty for breastfeeding mothers. Because WE believe in freedom, and babies. (Sticks out tongue in vaguely Southeast direction.) Even California will let you off the hook for being sole caregiver of a kiddo under five.

So that said, I will say that in my experience it usually helps to start with factual statements of need in a polite tone. "I would like to serve my civic duty, but my son is dependent on me for food and child care, and my first responsibility is to him." Or something. Meanwhile I'm pleased to see that some proposed legislation is on the docket in MO. It's 2013, people. Babies matter. Other self-righteous statements of indignance.

Mama Suzi is on your side, ladies.

Much love,
Suzi

My Milk Sharing Story

Hello Beloved Readers!

I crafted this missive in text edit on a flight home in July because I didn't want to pay for Gogo Inflight. Other topics seemed more pressing until now, so here it finally is.

So, I've been a little in the closet on my milk sharing experience. I think I was waiting until it was all the way done in case a relative reads my blog and freaks out. But since I believe strongly in walking my talk, leading by example, and giving other mamas someone to point to when they are trying to make an argument (point all you want ladies! I'm here for you!) it's time to come out and share this story.

At the recent annual potluck picnic for Alma Midwifery, my assistant midwife (who stitched me up with purple thread) affirmed my milk sharing - "Some mamas make buckets full and some mamas make thimbles full." I was more in the shot glass range. But what a wonderful way to put it. And what a clear sign that the time for this blog post is here.

I couldn't keep up with my kiddos just via pumping. Nursing I did fine, they gained weight and grew tons and pooped and peed and cuddled and had milk dribbling down their absurdly adorable chins. But the pump ain't no baby. Some mamas produce great for the pump. Some mamas can't get squat for the pump. Some mamas are queens of hand expression - my hat is off, ladies, I never figured it out. And is that the cheapest pump or what! And you never forget it, and it never short circuits… sigh. Anyway, point is, I couldn't feed my kiddos exclusively my milk while holding down an office gig. With Robert, I negotiated for working Wednesdays at home, which meant I could feed on demand AND avoid a nearly two hour round trip commute (some of which I gave back to my job, to try to push the point that we were both better off this way). With my current gig, I talked about some alternatives with my boss. He was understanding and respectful and gave it honest consideration but essentially we couldn't come up with a solution with which we were both comfortable. I was a bit disappointed, but because he handled it so gently and politely, totally not mad at him at all. So for Ms. Jackie, I needed a different answer.

Like with Robert, I tried getting up at 5 in the stinking morning to pump. The exhaustion is crazy enough without this kind of behavior and I STILL wasn't getting enough. Matt would bring Jackie to me at lunch to nurse, which is super awesome snuggly fun, and replaces a bottle, but I'm a mama who gets less at the pump after nursing (a lot of us do) so in a way this netted out to zero. Well, not really because of the snuggles, and nursing does better than pumping at keeping up supply. But it didn't solve the problem. And while I am long past judging any other mother who turns to formula in this situation, I just was too scared of getting that ONE canister with the deadly bacteria in it.

So one morning I was up too early, totally exhausted, pumping and not getting enough, and crying. I emailed some girlfriend mamas who I knew would understand in my moment of darkness. And my beloved friend Mama A.D. (those are her initials, not a reference to the birth of Jesus) emailed me back privately. She gave birth to her third baby a few months after I gave birth to Jackie, and was still at home with her. She said she remembered from her previous kiddos that she tended to have more than she needed, so after she filled and froze all her containers for her nursling, she could fill some bags for Jackie.

While I was tremendously grateful and relieved, I was also a bit nervous. What would hubby think? Would he play along? Would the difference in our personal biospheres cause me or Jackie to get yeast again? A non-trivial risk to Suzi the Yeast Factory. I went to Eats on Feets and researched the idea. They had a list of questions to ask potential donors, which I emailed to A.D. and she graciously answered. Of course there was no way to know about our personal differences in microscopic organisms, so I researched pasteurization on the same website, and printed out the procedure for Hubby Matt. He was a bio major, so when the time came to pasteurize the milk for the first time, he said, "It's just like Chem lab!" Bless his geeky little heart. We quickly discovered that straight up pasteurized milk was unpalatable to Jackie, but cut 50/50 with my milk, she would take it.

So when I got my first shipment, and looked at all those bags of Liquid Gold, I realized everything was going to be okay. Okay is defined as not going to make me so anxious and upset as to finally go totally off the deep end. I would be able to make my business trip (about 36 hours long). I would be able to concentrate at work. I would be okay. Jackie would be okay. Of course Jackie would have been okay with a bit of formula. But I wasn't sure I would.

Mama A.D. sent me two shipments. In between, Mama R.C., who has been previously referenced on this blog as one of my inspiring angels during the misery of first learning to breastfeed with a bad latch and thrush, mentioned that she had tons of milk in her freezer which her second baby didn't need (he was past bottles and chowing on lots of solids) and she needed the room in her freezer and she hated to waste food but she was going to have to throw it out. ACK! Don't do that, send it to me! This seems like a good time to mention that both these women are hundreds of miles away from me. I have my own FedEx account, (you can just sign up for one and use a credit card for payment) and would email my milk donor mamas a form to print to send back the milk, after I had sent them my fancy cold shipping box with my fancy cold packs. This thing has made five, maybe six trips, and could go a couple more, so I say it was a great investment. I also sent Mama A.D. some breastmilk bags, so the transaction would be as costless for her as possible.

So I got a bazillion bags of milk from Mama R.C., and that got us almost all the way to one year. We needed a bit more, or it was going to get sticky at the end. My first two milk donor mamas are dear friends whom I would trust with my kids (and literally had already in R.C.'s case, as she graciously held Robert for an hour when Matt was at a rehearsal and I was on my way back from a business meeting). But I needed one more. And the universe lined me up. A fellow volunteer at the Nursing Mother's Counsel of Oregon, who is a lactation consultant, shared that she knew a mama who had stockpiled a bunch of milk for her baby before a week abroad, and the kid had refused to drink it, so she had it to spare. This was a total stranger. I trusted my fellow counselor, and as an IBCLC I knew she would never suggest accepting milk from a heroine addict or something. But it was still a big leap. I asked to meet her. The mama graciously came to my home, bringing a couple bags of the milk to see if Jackie would take it (she wasn't sure if maybe she had the dreaded lipase problem and that was why her son had refused the goods). She was very gracious when I had transposed two numbers in my address and she was wondering up and down the block. She was so gentle and understanding about my concerns, she instantly put me at ease. We pasteurized her milk, gave it to Jackie that week, and my little excellent eater was happy to take it. So Matt went to pick up the rest of the goldmine from her home, and we sent her flowers as a thank you. (My previous two mamas got Moonstruck Chocolates, but I didn't know if this mama was a fan or had sugar restrictions or anything, so flowers seemed safer.) Her stash saw us comfortably through Jackie's first birthday and the subsequent pump-weaning. I was saved. Jackie never had to have formula, about which she probably wouldn't have complained but I was super freaked out. I never had to cancel a business trip or leave work in the middle of the day to feed her. And my husband learned more than he ever wanted to know about the varying fat content of different women's breast milk.

I will be forever grateful to these mamas. I wish I could pay it forward in kind, but instead I will have to seek to inspire other mamas to consider sharing milk if they are at the bucket end of the spectrum. I have heard so many inspiring milk sharing stories since. A mama who was diagnosed with breast cancer in pregnancy. Two dads seeking to provide their adopted baby with breast milk. Mamas on life-saving medications not compatible with breastfeeding. Mamas with IGT (Insufficient Glandular Tissue) or who had been through breast reductions. In the face of stories like these, I felt embarrassed asking for help feeding my healthy, privilege kiddo so I could stay at my middle-upperclass white collar job without distraction, even though I could afford formula. (What, me, load guilt on myself? Why do you ask?) But from friends who had enough to share, I could accept help. And from a mama who was so kind and understanding as our third donor, it was easy.

Let's rewind for a moment to, say, 1800. "Before there was formula, there were sisters and grandmas." When a mama died in childbirth, a wet nurse was found. When a mama couldn't produce enough, a sister helped out. There are even historical references to aunts and grandmas relactating when mama died or couldn't feed her baby. Handing over bags of frozen milk is the modern equivalent. I found nursing so intimate and loving, I would hesitate to hand Jackie to another mama to nurse. At the very least, I couldn't have watched. But accepting frozen Liquid Gold from trusted friends to give my kiddo? Heck yeah.

I should also point out, if you have more than 100 ounces to spare and fit a somewhat stringent list of requirements (like no Advil, yikes), you can donate to milk banks. This gift literally saves lives when fragile newborns need human milk. The stories are heart wrenching. Had I enough to spare I wouldn't have qualified because of the Sertraline (which also saves lives, thank you, but that's another post). Please consider this option if you are in a position to do so. And for Pete's sake, please don't make cheese out of your breastmilk when you could be saving babies. I like cheese and I don't care about your dietary tastes, but I like saving babies more than I like new culinary experiences.

So that's a lot of links. It's a big topic. Sometimes it takes a village just to FEED the baby, let alone raise her up to be a responsible, happy, useful person. The planet has enough resources if we take care of it right. This is also true of lifesaving, amazing, wonderful human milk. Please share if you can and accept help if you need it.

Much love as always,

Suzi