Here's your medal

Here is something I've noticed: If you are a man walking around alone with your baby, you will be showered with endless kudos and treated as if you deserve a medal for actually spending time with the offspring you voluntarily brought into the world. My husband takes care of S. every afternoon for several hours while I work part-time at home, and he has been stopped in the street numerous times by women (usually older) who say something along the lines of how wonderful it is to see a man taking care of a child.

If you are a woman spending time with your baby out in public, however, you will be treated to a lecture about how you dressed him wrong. I always heard chicks talk about this and wondered if it was really a thing. It most definitely is a thing. (FWIW I don't dress him up in plastic carrier bags; we're talking weather-appropriate togs and hats.) Gah.

Mother's Day

I could get used to this Mother's Day business. It is like having a second birthday. Okay, so I ended up cooking breakfast myself, and we spent the day doing long-ago scheduled plans that had nothing to do with ,other's Day and not going out to brunch, but I got lots of love and cards and calls and texts. It was a really nice day. And while I may not say it often here, being a mother is fantastically, ridiculously wonderful. It really is. Hard, but wonderful. So, happy belated momma's day to all the mommas out there. You are goddesses. Keep up the good work.

The breast whisperer

So, after getting some help from the breastfeeding doctor but still suffering from sore and cracked nipples, I decided to throw still more money at my breastfeeding problem and call in the big guns: This lady, who is something of a Brooklyn legend (I actually called her three days after I got out of the hospital, but she was booked).

She was a riot, a New York City character out of central casting. She advised me to rub olive oil on my sore nipples, "But just a little bit--your breast is not a bagel; you don't need a schmear." And she cracked jokes throughout the whole session. But she was also very warm and funny and loving with my baby. She told me he has the cognitive awareness and interactivity of a five month old. Go S! And she threatened to not let me leave with him. (S. has that effect on people. Bit of a ladies' man already.)

She also said that she thinks his suck problem is down to the fact that he was vacuumed out of me, because in the days after birth, that causes soreness in the muscles he should be using to suck, so instead he uses the muscles around his mouth too much, which is what causes him to clamp down on the nipple, which is what causes the pain. I have no idea if any of this is true, but it makes a certain amount of sense. So we're going to do physical therapy-type exercises three times a day.

So now, my breast feeding regimen consists of feeding him eight times a day, pumping three times a day, doing exercises three times a day, doing tummy time three times a day (to improve other muscles), soaking my nipples in saline four times a day, rubbing olive oil on them after every feeding, and taking something like 10 pills a day. I'm fucking exhausted just typing that.

Hopefully this will get easier soon! Christ on a cracker, I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this.

Breastfeeding. Sigh.

I don't even have time right now to get into what a saga breastfeeding has been for me (note that I said saga and not "journey." Nothing bugs me more than the use of that word to describe anything other than getting from point a to point b. Setting sail from continental Europe to travel to South America in the 15th century? Journey. Cutting refined carbs, working out and losing a few pounds? Not a journey. But I digress).

Someday I will write the whole story, but for now I will give the Cliff's notes. In my quest to make it to six months of feeding my darling baby boy nothing but breastmilk (six months is the minimum lenght of time recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics), I have had three visits with a lactation consultant; one with a doctor who specializes in breastfeeding;  endured scabs, blood blisters, and bleeding from my nipples; started taking a prescription drug to boost my milk supply, and pumped several times a day in addition to nursing eight to ten times a day to make sure baby S. is getting enough to eat. Oh, and I cut out wheat and dairy because they don't agree with him.

To put it bluntly, it's fucking exhausting and I am ready for it to be over. The crux of the problem is that he has a bad latch, and I can't seem to fix it no matter how hard I try or how many experts I see. (And for those who know the lingo, he doesn't have a tongue tie; I checked). The latch problem is what's causing my nipple injuries, and it also means he isn't removing as much milk as he should at each feeding, which is causing my supply to drop. I could supplement with formula, but I have been told that this will cause my supply to dip even more.

In desperation, I attended a breastfeeding support group last week. It wasn't that helpful for my specific issues, but it was nice to hear that other moms are also not loving it and are having their own issues.
Except this one mom. She complained about "oversupply" (which I'm told can suck but I hardly doubt it sucks as much as undersupply) and also worried that her baby only spends 5-7 minutes per breast at each feeding. To put this in context, S. spends 30-45 minutes at EVERY feeding. This means I do nothing all day but nurse and pump, nurse and pump, nurse and pump.

Honestly, this chick seemed nice, but I found her infuriating. It's as if she'd said, "I am worried that I have too much money; I just don't know what to do with it all. And no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to put on weight."

Bitch.