Typing with two hands!

I finally have a few minutes while Anna is napping IN HER SWING! No-one is holding her! And she's asleep! (and yes, I'm probably jinxing it by having typed that...)

I was considering titling this entry "I am Jane". For those of you who have known me for a long time, those three words need no explanation. For those of you who might be unsure, let's just say it refers to a kind of Murphy's Law in which things just never go as you think they will/should.

I had a lot of difficulty nursing Rachel. She wouldn't latch on properly until she was almost 3.5 weeks old and we saw a lactation consultant at the hospital when we were in for Rachel's unexplained fever. (Coincidentally, the same night I ended up in another hospital ER with gall stones and several days later Ben got food poisoning. My pelvic and back issues seem like a breeze in comparison...) I also had supply issues, and constant pumping & domperidone (the lactation drug) really didn't do much to help. Since my mother had the same supply issue, I wasn't totally surprised by this.

Fast forward to Anna's birth. I had decided that I wouldn't bother trying to breastfeed. I didn't see the point in being set up for disappointment, and it's not like formula is baby poison or anything, despite what some people seem to think. When she was born, the nurse in the delivery room asked me if I wanted to try nursing her. I said, "Sure, we can try, but I don't really care if it works." (I did also explain my history.) Anna wouldn't really latch on quickly, so I told the nurse to not worry about it.

She was bottlefed for her first four days of life. On Monday Feb.18, I woke up and said to Ben, "Um, do these look larger to you?" Hmm, I thought. Could there be anything in there? "Hey Ben, let's see if the baby will latch on, just for kicks!" She did. "Hey Ben, could you go rent me a breast pump so I can see if there's really anything in there?" Oh look. There was.

The next day we had a lactation consultant come out to the house. I figured that I wanted someone professional to tell me if there was any point to trying this out, given the bottlefeeding start and seemingly random nursing success. She got me set up and showed me a few different ways to nurse Anna.

At Anna's next check-up, she hadn't gained anything in 8 days. Needless to say, this had me freaking out. I had not been exclusively nursing her, but she was only getting about 1-3oz of formula in a bottle every day. (We call it the sanity bottle. As in, "I can't take anymore of this 24/7 latching on to Mommy thing! Someone else can feed you now!") My doctor wasn't alarmed, but agreed to have me come back the following week just to check.

8 days later we had our follow-up appointment. Anna had gained 9.5oz in 8 days. So, um, there is milk in there. Apparently the key to breastfeeding success is to:
a)not care
b)not try
c)wait a few days and then play "latch the baby on" just for kicks
d)laugh hysterically (and a bit sadly) as your plans to play a concert at Easter go up in smoke

This morning I decided to try pumping at around 7:30 since Anna was still asleep. Amazingly, I had 3 ounces within minutes. So I was able to get Rachel ready for preschool very easily and quickly while Ben fed Anna! Yay for an easy morning!

I won't say that I'm in love with this nursing business though. She's finally starting to mellow out a bit and not need to latch on 24/7, but I do feel very tied-down by it. I'm trying to only give her one bottle of formula per day, and I suppose if I'm ever able to pump enough to put aside, then we can switch to no formula. I'm not that motivated though, to be honest. We'll go with whatever happens. And apparently I'll get a little more time off of the orchestra circuit.