Monday, August 1, 2011

Who Am I Kidding?

I love blogging way too much to stay away and I'm proud to report that my progress from my last post has been less facebook stalking and online time wasting, as a result, I am rewarding myself with a blog post.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the lactation consultant Nazis. If you haven't met them before either because you are sans kid or never went down the road of boob feeding, you are in for a treat! They vary in temperament and style but without a doubt, they all share the common mission objective of getting you to successfully boob feed your baby - no matter what the cost! They drill fears into your brain about nipple confusion and tell you it's painless if you're doing it right. They are liars!!!

To give credit where due, my first lactation consultant in the hospital was candid with the truth. She told me I needed to develop calluses for boob feeding, just like one would do on their fingers if they were learning to play the guitar (if you aren't sure what that means, try it - and then say hello to the pretty calluses you get on your fingertips). I guess it's just like lifting weights and wanting to use gloves (I do.. yes, even with my wimpy 10 pound weights) to avoid having nasty calluses. She advised me that once I got pass the rough part of growing calluses, I'd be okay.

Unfortunately, nobody ever told me about the fact that my baby might not take the bottle. I'd only heard the opposite, not to give my baby the bottle too soon in case he got confused and would only take the bottle. So far, I have not heard of any cases where this is a true story. Instead, there is an underground world of mothers who struggle to get their babies to take the bottle instead of the boob. One of the comments I got from my last post about such struggles was that said person fed her baby in the car over the carseat. Now this may sound ridiculous to you, but if you ever find yourself on a road trip, interrupted by frequent pit stops to feed and change your baby who won't take a bottle, you may also try it.

Guilty as charged. TMI maybe?

Sadly, the carseat got in the way and it only worked for about three minutes (apparently Andy timed it, hoping we could buy more time as we coasted on the highway from Arizona to California). It makes me laugh because that is what we have resorted ourselves to (I completely covered the windows on both sides) and although it is way too much information, I share it because I hope every person reading this who may become a mother in the future... who maybe considers boob feeding... who might not want to be chained to their baby because they are the only source of food.... who might want a break every now and then... who might want someone else to feed their baby once a day.... might realize that a bottle of boob milk a day, fed to your baby with a bottle, might not be such a bad idea, even while they are boob feeding! I wish somebody had told us that before. Maybe we'd be in a different predicament now.

Until then, we will keep praying and working on it.

Also happy to report that our physical therapy wannabe exercises which we learned from youtube (the internet is a wonderful thing if used correctly) have shown improvement in Jordan's neck. He seems to be looking left more often though he still prefers the right. We will keep at it! We are also sincerely asking Heavenly Father for his help everytime we pray. Our prayers are being answered as his cries seem to decrease with each subsequent exercise we do on his neck. Yay to diligently presevering and praying!

And... I thoroughly cleaned the bathrooms and did some laundry before we left for Arizona this past weekend to visit our friends (the Bluthes, yes we just saw them last weekend but we're on a Bluth high) and get Jordan's three month photos taken by our talented most likely will be a super expensive professional photographer in the near future Jenn. Of course when we came back last night, our house reeked of rotten garbage because of the food in the sink that didn't get sinkerator-ed and the few (less than 5!) dirty dishes I left. I quickly cometed, lime juiced and baking soda-ed that sucker but it still slightly stinks of leftover garbage that has been rotting for three days. Yeah, I'm not the best housewife... not yet at least, but I'm working on it and one day, I know, we will come back from vacation and our house won't stink. One day....

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I am so happy you're back, but so sorry to hear about the ongoing breastfeeding issue! You must be so exhausted! It sounds terrible! Poor little Jordan doesn't even know how lucky he is to have you as a mother... yet... but we'll let him know ;-)

Hang in there!

bruinjack said...

Burn a candle. It helps to clean the air. By the way, it helps when nursing in a carseat to sit on a couple of pillows to make it easier to reach... if the bottle thing doesn't work out.

Babe said...

I understood why you said you had to stop blogging, but I was sad. I'm happy you're back! I love your blog posts!