She said...lifestyles of the sleep deprived and frazzled

After 6 months of mommy-hood I have come to appreciated some new luxuries in my life. Here is a list of items which I have come to appreciate.

In no particular order,

1. Sleeping a 3 hour stretch at night

2. Finding a shirt to wear in the morning that doesn't have a stain on it.

3. Remembering my grocery list, and actually purchasing every item on it.

4. Making it through the day without spit up down my cleavage.

5. Brushing my teeth twice a day.

6. Having a long enough shower to actually accomplish more than the bare minimum.

5. Going to the bathroom when I need to.

6. Eating my meal while it is still hot and sitting down.

7. Arriving on time.

8. Finding all the ingredients I need in the fridge to make dinner. (So that I don't end up trying to shred Cheesestrings and chopping spinach for Fajitas.)

9. Completing a chore from start to finsh with out interruption.

10. Going out past 7:00 p.m. at night.

She said...I am the Dairy Queen

I made the decision to breastfeed before Seth was born. There are pros and cons to breast and bottle and each woman needs to make her own decision. But to me, breastfeeding seemed to be the natural choice. My mom breastfed, as did my girlfriends who already had children. Friends had provided me with some personal experiences they have had with breastfeeding and so I knew the process wasn't as simple as Velcro. I attended the prenatal classes and the instructor, (who never had breastfed herself) pulled out a stuffed boob and demonstrated the process. Looked simple enough. WRONG.
The latching process is the key to breastfeeding success. Be prepared for it too take days and even weeks to master this. As you and your baby have never done it before it will take natural talent, skill and a lot of patience to learn. You will have nurses, friends, your husband, lactation consultants, neighbors, UTUBE... you name it, helping to get you and your baby to latch correctly. A bad latch results in a poor feed for the baby and pain, (crack bleeding nipple kind of pain) for mommy. It can be a very discouraging and frustrating process which by the way you will have to learn on little sleep and attempt multiple times through the day and night.

Also, as a friend of mine reminded me, when your milk comes in don't expect your milk to come out of just one hole in your nipple. Instead it is as if your nipple is a pin cushion with streams of milk coming from all directions. Also, your breast isn't a faucet. If the baby comes off the nipple, don't expect it to turn off. Often Seth would cough, sputter, and choke because of the force and speed of my milk. Think of a open fire hydrant. My milk would spray out all over him, the rocker, and even the wall. At one point my husband suggested target practice.

I was lucky that I didn't end up with crack nipples or pain associated with breastfeeding except for engorgement when my milk came in. Breastfeeding provides you with new sensations in your breasts that you have never felt before, but not in a good way. Engorgement expands the skin of your breasts to your absolute limit and your breasts feel like hot rocks. When your milk lets down it feels like the worst case of pins and needles. Everyday your breasts will change sizes from hard balloons, (my husband called my bras, "parachutes") to floppy utters.

Breastfeeding also comes with its own accessories. One of the key accessories is the breastfeeding pump. There are different styles depending on how often you are going to use it and how much you want to spend. There is nothing quite like being hooked up to a machine which pumps out your milk. If breastfeeding alone hasn't already made you feel like a 24 hour dairy. The action and hum of the pump will quickly turn your breasts into utters and erase any sense of sex appeal you had left associated with your rack. Than there is the cream, (a thick, sticky paste you rub into your nipples which although I am sure to some male minds seems like an erotic concept, it isn't to us moms, as it is sticky, thick, and generally unpleasant). There are pads that help to prevent leaks from appearing on your shirts. But these are scratchy and bunch up in your bra resulting in a undesirable ripple effect across your chest.

Well this post focuses on some of the cons of breastfeeding. There is one positive point I would like to make. To all those boys in seventh grade who made fun of me for being flat chested, you should come and look at my parachutes now!

She said...sleep, the new sex to a mom

There is nothing I desire more than sleep. I never thought I could want something so badly in my life than I do a good nights sleep. In the beginning with Seth he would wake every hour during the night and I struggled, staggered, and stumbled my way into his room to change, feed, and comfort him. Often by 5 a.m. we were both in tears and I thought the sun would never rise.

Than there were those nights were he refused to sleep in his crib and I slept with him on the couch. I was terrified that I had lost my bed forever. I wanted nothing more than to climb in between the sheets of my bed and close my eyes. Why did this seem to be so impossible. To dream had become the impossible dream.

Slowly, Seth did begin to go longer stretches. But even today at nearly 6 months he continues to wake in the night. In 6 months he has only slept through the night 6 times. Of course the irony of those nights is that I wake often, listening, wondering, and checking to see if he is okay, as it is so unlike him.

It is so tough to go with out a good night sleep for such a long time. At times I will be honest it felt like torture to have to be up all night and day and night and day and night and...
I often was told to sleep when Seth slept, but I found it so difficult to fall asleep myself. There were also times when I had to eat, go to the bathroom, return a phone call, and than after that sure enough Seth was up.

I don't mean to whine, but it really is tough to give up sleep. The sleep bank never seems to fill up and I never know what the night will bring. Even tonight as I head to bed after I write this, I can only hope that tonight will be a good night and tomorrow even better. Or, that for Christmas Santa will bring me a night at a hotel.