Breast Fest

I breastfed my child for two years and 364 days, and we haven't got a single picture of her nursing. It's not that we kept it a secret, it's more that we're inclined to forget to photograph much of anything.

However, the League of Maternal Justice put together a montage of many many mama-baby pairs, to remind the world that breastfeeding is normal and right, not dirty, and that nursing mothers should be proud, not shamed into hiding in closets. Because Bill Maher is an ass, and Facebook sucks, and Applebees ought to be hauled into court.

Random Extras on Extended Breastfeeding

My mother couldn't get over the fact that my kid was nursing and could talk - and could, therefore, ask for it. She wasn't horrified, she was amused. Although, come to think of it, she was mildly horrified when I nursed Miss M. on an airplane when the three of us were on the way home from California, about a month before the final final. I was just trying (unsuccessfully) to encourage a nap. But my mother had nursed her kids for 10 months/8 months/6 months - back in the day when not a lot of people nursed at all - and none of those little people were talking when my mom was nursing.

Doctor Mama had a great post a while ago about nursing her the two and two-thirds year old (he's since weaned himself). She mentioned that eventually people stop asking if you're doing that. I think I only lied about doing that once. The Berkeley Parents network has a nice joke about extended nursing in Berkeley:

When my son turned two, I told a friend, "Well, I guess I'm going to have to start lying now when people ask me if he's weaned." "Oh," she said, "in Berkeley, you don't have to start doing that until they're four." "You don't have to start weaning until they're four?" "No, you don't have to start LYING about it."

And if you need reasons for breastfeeding at all, Electric Boogaloo had some good ones, like #8: "Researchers have not been able to show that breastfeeding doesn't give you magical powers".

Extended Breastfeeding

Yesterday, Miss M. said to me: "I drank from your deese* when I was two". Yeah, two and 364 days. She last nursed the night before she turned three.

I never expected to have an extended nurser. I thought, maybe six months, maybe a year. Never thought it would be three years. Especially with the way things started. But I wanted to feed breastmilk to my child, and I got into the habit of pumping, and so I was able to give her predominantly breast milk for her whole first year. And somewhere in there, she figured out how to nurse, and that it was nice. And she'd nurse before bed, and in the middle of the night, and first thing in the morning, and when she fell down and needed comfort. And so, when I stopped pumping, and she stopped getting milk in bottles, she kept nursing. And I thought, we'll stop after her surgery**. And then I thought, we'll stop after she starts daycare***. Then there was some other reason. And another. And gradually she was down to just the nursing at bedtime.

We started talking about her impending third birthday, and I gradually introduced the idea that three year olds don't nurse. And she said, "yes, when I'm three, no more deese." And we talked about it every night. And the night before her third birthday was the last time. She did keep asking for awhile. And did say "I don't want to be three". But it's now six months later, and it's now something she did when she was two. Yes, I'm a little wistful sometimes. But I'm also happy that we did nurse for so long.






* I can't explain "deese". I think that's how it's spelled. It's what Miss M. called it - both the act of nursing, and the breasts themselves. Go figure.

**She had two hemangiomas removed when she was 17 months old.

*** She started in daycare when she was 22 months old.

Nursing, at the beginning

I had a terrible time getting started breastfeeding my daughter. It may well have had something to do with the terrible delivery that I had. In addition to not being able to hold Miss M. for so long immediately after her birth, she was jaundiced and had to spend about 30 hours under the lights in the nursery. And the nurses kept wanting to give her formula. And I wasn’t allowed out of bed until Wednesday (two days after the birth). And the hospital lactation consultant took forever to show up. Though when the LC did show up, she immediately sent for a hospital pump and got me set up pumping, one side only because sitting up was still too hard. And baby M. had a hard time transferring milk – she seemed to be latched on, but nothing was getting in. And my milk was late – so late that I left the hospital on Saturday (yup, five nights in the hospital) with a precious bottle containing two ounces of colostrum pumped that very morning.

The day we left the hospital, the pediatrician was wary – the baby had lost a lot of weight, down 13 ounces from her birth weight of 8#4oz. The pediatrician said that we had to supplement – to make sure that she got two ounces in a bottle, 8 times a day, using breastmilk as available and formula for the rest. And she only agreed to discharge us when we promised we'd take the baby into the pediatrician's office for a weight check the following day.

I know I didn’t pump enough in the hospital – I was trying to get my strength back and the incision hurt and I just didn’t get it. Once home, with a rented hospital grade Medela pump, I started pumping like a mad woman – both breasts, seven or eight times a day - and I continued to try and nurse Miss M.

When she was a week and a day, I had a lactation consultant come in. Yes, a house call! She spent a couple of hours with us, weighing the baby before and after feeding to see what she would take in, and watching the nursing session to check latch and position. She confirmed that the baby just wasn't getting any significant amounts of milk out. The LC set us up with a Haberman Feeder - to use to help the baby work harder at sucking to train her to nurse better, and with a homemade supplemental nursing system - a tiny tube and a big syringe.

Despite all of this effort, at a check-up when she was 10 days old, the pediatrician had us increase the supplementation to 3 ounces, 8 times a day - because she hadn't gained any weight in four days.

When Miss M. was two weeks old, we had another house call - this time from the breastfeeding angel: A Doctor. Who Makes House Calls. And Specializes in Breastfeeding. Only in New York. She was awesome. She checked me out, weighed the baby before and after nursing, watched the nursing, and put me on Domperidone.

I was dogged about the whole thing. I kept pumping, kept trying to nurse. And finally one day, when Miss M. was about two months old, I had tender painful engorged breasts. And Miss M. nursed and got the milk out and relieved the engorgement. It was the first time I really knew that she was getting it.

Needless Nursing Nonsense

Thanks to the Gurgling Cod, I learned about a sublimely ridiculous new "necessity" for a nursing mother: Milk Bands. Words fail me. I suppose I was in an exhausted haze during those early days with Miss M., but it wasn't tricky to remember things like when the baby last nursed and which side. But having to deal with another little thing, like flipping over a bracelet and moving pegs around like a game of cribbage? Nope. Maybe it would be a good thing for some Type A Sanctimommy, but not me.

Breast Milk to Africa

Thanks to Megnut, I read today about an organization helping African babies by shipping expressed breast milk to them. I never had enough breast milk for my own baby, and had to supplement, but the idea of pumping and donating is a selfless one with tremendous payback. Good karma.

Pump Moms, part 2

The close reader of the post below about pumping will note that I said I pumped at my desk. It's actually a cubicle.

I started out trying to be private about the whole thing. I carted self and pump down the hall to my boss's dressing room - which had a lock and a phone and a private bathroom. All well and good until I got tired (very quickly) of the trek down the very long hall. So I started using his office - with non-locking glass doors - but there was a phone and I could tuck myself in the corner and be pretty much out of sight. Fine for a while, until people realized I was in there and some just wandered in to talk. I think the final straw was when said boss sent someone in to talk to me. So then I gave up hiding and just started pumping in my cubicle. I was discreet: I could talk on the phone, work on the computer, and talk to people who happened by. Really, no one could see anything scandalous...though they did know what was going on.

When it was all over, I made a speech at a staff meeting and said that I appreciated the consideration and accomodation that everyone had offered me, and that I hoped that they would all be as supportive of other nursing mothers in any future situations they might encounter.

Pump Moms

The other day, I spotted a woman on my train carrying a Medela Pump-In-Style-Advanced backpack. The PISAs don't have any label or logo on them, but they do have distinctive zipper pulls, so the bag was identifiable to me, a former pumper. Everytime I see one of them, I feel like a member of a secret sorority. I thought of tapping her on the back and asking "how old is your baby?" but I restrained myself.

I pumped for a year. At the beginning, it was because Miss M. was a lousy nurser - so at the start I was pumping seven times a day. And I still had to supplement with formula. Eventually, I cut back to pumping four times a day - which was actually fairly sane. I'd pump before leaving the house, and before bed, and twice during the work day. I was lucky enough to have two pumps, so I didn't have to haul one back and forth to the office. I had an ancient PIS borrowed from a friend that lived under my desk for a year, and a new PISA that stayed home and went away for weekends. So just the milk and bottles travelled to and from work. And I got the whole thing down to a bare minimum. I'd pump at my desk, put the milk in the fridge and leave the horns unwashed until the second pump of the day. At the end of the day, I washed the horns for the next day and left them to air dry at my desk. I never sterilized anything.

Eventually Miss M. figured out the nursing thing, but I kept pumping because I was away from her for most of the day. And all through that first year of hers, we supplemented with formula - not much, 2 to 10 ounces per day, maybe 25% of her intake overall.

[The title of this post comes from the name of a Yahoo group - it was a useful resource for tips and support and sources during those pumping days.]