When the f*ck did I become an attachment parent?

So yeah, the reason I haven't posted in a million years is because I went back to work. I thought I had no time before, but holy shit. This is serious business. And it's haaaaaard. I work all day, I pump all day, I come home at night and drop everything and breastfeed, then I soothe him to sleep until it's time for us all to lie down. Somewhere in there, my husband cooks dinner and I scarf it down my pie hole in the few peaceful minutes that I don't have a boob in my son's mouth. Then I wake up at six the next morning, feed my son, get myself ready without any help because my husband leaves for work at 5:00 a.m., scarf down cereal while my son plays, and try to be ready to walk out the door by 8:00.

Work is going good, though. And we finally resolved our childcare sitch, albeit expensively. I sucked it up and got a nanny. We were going to do a share, but we broke it off when the female-to-male transexual father of the child my son was going to share with ended up being too closed-minded about the nanny I wanted to hire (you read all that right. It's a hilarious topic for another posting. Also, my life is a sitcom, as a friend pointed out).

Anyway, I was all scared of hiring a nanny because of the idea of leaving my baby alone with a stranger all day, and one terrible thing that happened in NYC last year that I can't even bring myself to mention fully. But as it happened, some good friends of ours announced they have to leave the city for a work opportunity, and lo and behold, they needed a new home for their beloved nanny. So we met her, loved her and crunched some numbers. And because my husband gets home at 4:00 PM and I don't leave for work until 8:00, we found we could make it work financially, albeit just barely.

She's great, though. And it's such a load off my mind not to have to load him up every morning and take him on the subway, then drop him off, then get back on the subway and go back to work (which had been my only option before, because there aren't really any daycares in my neighborhood who take infants and have open spots).

Meanwhile, I am a gross attachment parent now, apparently. My son sleeps in the bed with us all night now. It was going to be a temporary move to get us through the 19 week sleep regression, but we never stopped. Truth: I kind of love it. I think it's partly because I miss him so much during the day that I love snuggling with him all night. And the nursing is still going strong, though I'm supplementing now. I expect I will keep doing it for at least the next 7 months. It's such a sure-fire way to calm him down that I'm not sure I want to take it out of my arsenal just yet. So yeah, I'm hoping I'm not still doing it when he's 2. Of course I can say now, "I would never do that!" But that's exactly what I said about him sleeping in the bed with us. Sigh.

Also, I bought a recipe book to make his baby food, and I ordered him these special non-toxic diapers, because I care about whether he has chemicals up in his butt. As I said to a friend, "What happened to me? I used to be sort of cool."

Google "four month sleep regression" if you want to understand what fresh hell I am living through right now.

S., a formerly champion sleeper, is now waking up a gajillion times a night to eat. He slept soooooooo gooooooood when we went to Texas (oh, and he did fucking awesome on the flights--thank you, breastfeeding, even though you are a pain in the ass). He slept eight hours a night for like three nights in a row.

And now? He will. not. sleep. Unless we co-sleep.

I know, I know, I knowiknowiknow. It's dangerous, I'm setting a bad precedent, blah blah blah. But I feel like it's more dangerous to breastfeed sitting up, then put him back in his sleeper, because a) I fall asleep while feeding him, and I'm afraid he could roll out of my arms and onto the floor; and b) because he wakes up and cries the instant I set him down in the sleeper and we need to fucking sleep some time.  Also, when we do co-sleep and my boob happens to fall out of his mouth, he wakes up and cries.

So that's what we've been doing the last several nights. I feel awful about it. (But I admit I also really enjoy the snuggling. Especially since I've gone back to work this week. Yeah, I buried the lead. More on that later.)

My boy

Have I mentioned that my baby boy is dreeeeeeeeeamy? He's all downy cheeks and pouty pink lips and huge, saucer-like blue eyes framed by lush, curly eyelashes. When I wake up in the morning, I stand over his sleeper and give him the cheeriest smile I can muster, and the smile he gives back sends a bolt of pure, electric joy rushing through me. It is the best possible way to start my day. As Holly Hunter said in Raising Arizona, "I love him so mu-hu-huch!"

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.