Ramblings of a pseudo intellectual

Patty is participating in a contest where you share your birth stories, through this blog. Well, I love my birth stories, and I love contests, so why not?!? Here are the birth stories for both Lane and Jake’s births. Enjoy! (Just note, they aren’t terribly graphic, but they are a little graphic… so don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

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I like to visit fark.com - in general I’m a nice person, and Fark isn’t always full of nice people (OK, rarely) - but I find the discussion threads so interesting. What’s awesome about it is that there are people from all walks of life there — in the last couple of weeks I’ve been in discussions with ER doctors, psychologists, toxicologists, other moms, people involved in the writer’s strike, and a guy who’s trying to figure out a subject for his dissertation. (Of course this is what they claim, I have no way to know for sure… but I tend to be a smart cookie and these people certainly talked a good game.)

Some of the threads are just hilarious - like this one about Wikipedia. The rampant and intentional spread of misinformation had me in stitches.

Some spiral downward pretty quickly - like the ones that debate race, gender issues, circumcision, breastfeeding, religion, or politics… I steer clear of those. OK, maybe not the breastfeeding ones. But I tend to focus on the fun threads.

There was one recently that focused on boogers, and I mentioned that I have, in desperation, used my mouth to suck snot out of my son’s nose. He had a bad cold, and the bulb syringes I had simply did not form a good seal on his nose. He needed to nurse, and I was desperate to calm him. So, yeah, it was gross but I did it without hesitation. And after having to do it a couple more times, I went and bought every type of bulb syringe I could find in hopes of finding one that would do the job easily and without making his nose bleed. Luckily, I did find one, and I haven’t had to suck snot since.

Now granted, there are a lot of single, kidless, basement-dwelling people on Fark. People were shocked. Shocked! Swore they could never do something so gross.

But at the same time, probably a half-dozen parents also said, yeah, they’d had to do it too. One guy talked about how he jerry-rigged a turkey baster to do the task.

It may stand as one of my favorite Fark threads. Intellectual discussion actually abounded over boogers. Awesome.

Seriously though, and this is approximately how I tried to explain it to the noobs at Fark. Nobody thinks they would ever have to do something so gross. My son was about five months old when the need arose. He was small and helpless and hungry and upset and he could barely breathe through his sobs and I was desperate to help him. It truly is amazing what you will do for a little person in your lap, who is the embodiment of all your love and life and devotion.

This is really starting to take its toll.

I’ve mentioned previously, my daughter is a night owl.  Often she isn’t asleep until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m.  Rare is the night she’s asleep before midnight.

Bedtime is a struggle and it gets me keyed up.  By the time I’m ready to fall asleep, Jake (the 10 month-old) is up to nurse.  I’m clearly not getting enough solids in him because he’s up way too much to nurse, in my foolhardy opinion.  But these days he’s only mildly interested in baby food, preferring foods he can feed himself.  But those end up more on him than in him.  And the cycle continues.

So, I’m up with him, as I’ve said, somewhere between two and a hundred times a night.   And then they are both ready for the day around 11:00 a.m., which is late enough for me to get a fair night’s sleep usually, but not nearly enough to feel well-rested, especially since Jake’s up so often.

I probably really need to just yank Lane out of bed at 8:00 a.m. a couple mornings in a row and get her shifted to a different schedule.  I just so do not have the willpower to get myself up to do it… and the cycle continues.  I really shouldn’t have the audacity to bitch about it when I could probably fix it with a little effort (and a lot of coffee).

Regardless, I’m tired.

I’m a breastfeeder.  I’ve had two kids, so far, and they have both been happy to partake in the milk a great deal.  For reasons too numerous to count or list out, I like breastfeeding, they like breastfeeding, and it works for us.

I wouldn’t call myself a ‘lactivist’ or that awful term ‘breastfeeding nazi’.  I do like to advocate breastfeeding and encourage those near and dear to try it.  I recommend books.  I’ve let a couple friends watch me breastfeed.  I’m open about my own experiences - the troubles I’ve had, how much I’ve enjoyed it, good comeback lines when faced with stupid people.  I hope I’ve helped where there have been successes, and I’m very happy for the people I know who have successfully breastfed their children.

And unlike the ‘nazis’ out there, I don’t think formula is evil.  I think it’s stupid that it’s called formula — I’d love to see a truth-in-advertising law passed that made the formula companies call their product “artificial human milk” since that’s what it is.  But many women cannot breastfeed, due to medical, physical or emotional issues.  Many women get bad breastfeeding information which creates insurmountable hurdles in the breastfeeding relationship.  Some babies just cannot latch well and get the food they need from a breast.  There are zillions of pumps available, but the best pump in the world simply cannot maintain a milk supply as well as a baby, so for most women it is really impossible to exclusively pump for long.  Plus, pumping sucks.  I’ve had to do it when I worked full-time, and it sucks.  It takes a ton of time, it’s impersonal and weird and awkward and messy and just ugh.  Plus there’s the situations where there simply isn’t a lactating mother around.  A lactating mother dies or is imprisoned.  A baby is adopted.  Mom gets sick with cancer or something else awful and has to take meds that are incompatible with breastfeeding.  So, for these and a bunch other reasons, formula comes in very handy.

And yes, someone more militant than me could come along and refute everything in that last paragraph.  I could refute a lot of it.  But at the same time, I simply can’t pretend to know what it’s like to have a baby that refuses to latch, or to have been sexually assaulted and to hate my own body so much I cannot get comfortable letting a baby nurse from my own breasts.  So to any breastfeeding advocate who would take such an insensitive position, screw off.  You’re not wanted here.

That said…

I know someone who just had a baby.  Actually, she’s a very dear friend.  She tried breastfeeding, ran into some minor issues (most women do) and I guess decided it wasn’t for her, and soon enough the baby was on formula.  It’s not unexpected - she was never very committed to the idea of breastfeeding, and her older sister, who is very much a role model for her, did not breastfeed her daughter for long.  I’ve had to spend some time figuring out how I feel about it.  Am I disappointed in her?  Do I think she didn’t try enough?  Do I think she should have tried harder?

Really, I guess I don’t feel much of anything about it.  The breastfeeding relationship I have with my kids is super special, I love the intimacy and closeness it provides, and I hope for my friend that even absent that aspect of her mother/daughter relationship, she’ll find ways to achieve that closeness and intimacy.  I am a little disappointed, I guess.  Formula is a perfectly adequate food for most babies, but the reality is that breastmilk is superior, I can’t ignore that, which I guess where the disappointment comes from.  But, I hope my friend’s baby will be one of those that her mother can say, “Well, she was formula fed and she doesn’t have a smidge of a health issue.”  I am also just a little worried that the baby will have a health issue, and that my friend will question herself or have guilt because of it, wondering if it would have not happened if she’d breastfed.  I don’t want my friend to feel guilty.  I want her to spend every ounce of her mothering energy loving her gorgeous daughter.