lactation consultant – Mother, Inc

I (heart) my boobs

September 2, 2009

I just gotta state for the record that I’ve got TERRIFIC boobs. I didn’t say terrific-looking boobs so you can stop staring, thank you very much. They’re terrifically productive, and they’ve come a long way from the days of being nice-but-completely-useless. Not only have they matched the demand of my milk drinking machine, they have stepped up and far exceeded expectations by producing way more than needed. I’m up to 8 bottles of extras so I can go out galavanting for a whole day without worrying that she will starve to death.

I have waited for this day for so long that all I could do this morning was to open my fridge door and admire the milk bottles all lined up neatly in a row.

milk-bottles

Now that I’ve officially joined the league of milkmaids all around the world and I can heave a sigh of relief because it means I’m not a bad mother, I’ve gotta say that society these days are not kind to breasts. I mean, you don’t see any other body parts coming under such intense scrutiny, like “Oh, your little pinky can’t fit into your ear canal? That’s terrible and you’re now less of a human being.” Or “OMG your nose isn’t producing enough mucus? Maybe you should get a nose job.”

The moment i got preggers, it seemed the whole world was interested in my boobs. I had lactation consultants manhandling them and complete strangers asking if you was successful at breastfeeding. Even the old lady who lives next door had a detailed and mildly inappropriate conversation about them when she walked past and saw me expressing milk. Ok see, where I grew up, my breasts are no one else’s business but mine and NOBODY talks about them, much less touch them.

While I was stuck at the hospital for 27 hours, I was bombarded with tacky posters of how BREASTFEEDING IS THE ONLY WAY and the evil formula was going to make my baby self-destruct. Except that I already have a baby who survived on formula milk and he seems to be doing fine (fine being relative because he likes to eat dirt a lot, which might not be the case had I given him breast milk). But even then, I felt terribly guilty all the time for not being able to breastfeed him, like I was shortchanging him or something.

And the husband will tell you that I went through a completely irrational phase of blaming *everything* on formula. He catches a cold, it’s because of formula. Can’t sleep, formula. Can’t eat, also formula. For a while, I was beating myself up everyday for not feeding him the all-powerful breast milk.

It used to really get to me, especially when folks who found out I didn’t breastfeed him gave this sympathetic-but-it’s-all-your-fault look and proceeded to berate me on the benefits of breast milk. It took every ounce of my self control and then some to not stab them and feed them their own guts. I KNOW BREAST IS BEST (the person who came up with that cheesy line should be beheaded by the Dear Leader himself), but there was a time when they were broken and refused to work.

So you can understand why I’m so proud of the fact that they’re fixed and no longer spoilt. And why I’ve got to shout it from the rooftops, so everyone will stop asking me if I’m breastfeeding, and going on and on about why it’s the elixir of life.

PS. I know I said breast/boobs 12 times in this post and if you’re conservative about that sort of thing, BREAST BREAST BREAST BREAST BREAST. For good measure.

by Daphne

pregnancy

Help, my boobs are broken

July 3, 2009

breastfeeding

Believe it or not, I’m actually envious of women with squirty breasts. Some women seem to be able to produce enough milk to feed a small province in China and still have enough to spare. I once went to a friend’s place and her freezer was overflowing with bottles of breast milk. I, on the other hand, have barely enough to feed a tiny kitten.

Partly thanks to the c-section the first time around, I literally had no milk for the first 5-6 days. Not even a drop. I was hell bent on breastfeeding Tru in the hospital, so I voluntarily endured some brutal breast-manhandling by the lactation consultant (who didn’t seem to notice that my breasts were actually attached to nerves and kneaded and pinched my areola like she was rolling dough). And even then, still nothing. Zilch. Every time I latched Tru on to feed, he’d suckle for a few minutes, then stop abruptly and scream for dear life.

The nurse was trying to console me by saying that newborns don’t really need much milk for the first few days, but looking at my helpless little bundle screaming for food, it was too much for me to bear. By the second day, I caved and fed him formula milk as a supplement. From then on, he figured out it was much easier drinking from a bottle and refused to latch directly to drink. The only option was for me to express the milk and feed from the bottle.

So for the first month, my daily schedule consisted of feeding (30 minutes), burping (15 minutes), rocking him to sleep (45 minutes) expressing milk (60 minutes). I’d emerge an hour later with a measly 20 ml of milk (that’s from both breasts, mind you). By the time I was done expressing, it was time to start the whole cycle all over again.

I was so immensely jealous of moms that could fill up a 200 ml bottle in 30 minutes. I even heard that some women have so much milk that when the baby stops drinking, milk would be squirting out in all directions (WAY COOL!)

In fact, I was convinced that my boobs were broken and it’s a miracle I even lasted a whole month. I was too bummed by the fact that my game plan for losing weight had vanished into thin air (the hopes, not the fats).

Very soon, I’ll have another shot at breastfeeding and I AM GOING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. To aid the process, I’ve gotten all the breastfeeding devices I could think of, like a co-sleeper that attaches to my bed so I’ve got easy access to her during all hours of the night, a breastfeeding pillow for proper positioning and support, a state of the art breast pump to provide the necessary stimulation and a ton of herbs that’s supposed to increase the milk supply.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that somehow, my breasts will miraculously start squirting milk in the next 2 weeks. I’d take leaky breasts over spoilt ones any day.

by Daphne