For those not in the know about such matters, nursing moms tend to leak milk. Yes, it’s about as convenient as it sounds, especially when you forget to wear breast pads or you soak through then and end up with huge wet spots on your shirt. At least the leakage isn’t constant; for me, I usually drip from the breast that Jamie’s not nursing on at the time. And it’s worse overnight.

For the past month, I’ve been switching between disposable breast pads and washable cotton ones, but I’ve still been having leaks due to the pads getting out of position (happens frequently at night when I’m lying on my side) or actually soaking through. One of my co-workers had recommended I try Lily Padz, but I was reluctant since they cost more than $20 per pair, and a pair only lasts 6-8 weeks. The huge plus about them is that they stick to YOU and not to your bra, so they can’t ever get out of position. They smush your nipple flat (which stops you from leaking), and are washable and reusable.

This morning I got fed up after it seemed like I soaked most of my side of the bed while trying to get a sleepy Jamie to latch on properly, so I went out and bought a pair. They make me look kinda funny since they work on the principle of compression, but so far they seem to work great.

So I’ll keep it brief; Jamieson is asleep in his sling now, and much as I love having his warm little body pressed up against mine, I know I’m on borrowed time here.

JANUARY

January began with a wonderful little secret. I was pregnant! Our families and close friends knew, but I hadn’t told anyone at my office yet, which was good because near the end of the month, I miscarried. I was 12 weeks along, which made it rather physically traumatic, requiring a night spent in the emergency room and then surgery a few days later. Emotionally, it was very difficult for us.

FEBRUARY

We early-voted in the Democratic primaries…. Um…. not much else…

MARCH

I don’t think we did anything in March.

APRIL

Screw this. My life is boring and no one wants to read about it a second time. Anyway, it’s almost time for me to feed Jamie. He’s rustling about in the sling.

The weather today is very un-January-like. Right now it’s about 70 degrees. Jamie and I are out on the patio. He’s eating his dinner and we are both enjoying being outdoors.

Yum. Frozen mom!

Odd and kinda squicky: As breastfed babies get older, as a treat or for sore baby throats or as a primer for solid food, try making Momsicles! Yes, they are exactly what you think they are. I’m not sure how you get the milk to stay mixed as it freezes, though… because when breastmilk settles, it separates into layers.

We think Jamie’s growth spurt might be coming to a close. He has eaten less frequently over the past 24 hours, which as been great as far as giving my poor boobs a little bit of extra recuperation time inbetween feedings.

I’m pumping milk more and more these past few days, in an effort to build up a supply. Our lactation consultant recommended we have 2 weeks’ worth of daytime milk frozen and ready to go by the time I return to work in mid-March. That seems like a daunting amount right now, but I guess we have some time to work on it.

Happily, Jamie’s intestinal discomfort and rumblings don’t seem to frighten him as much anymore. When he was brand new, any little thing going on on his tummy or intestines would wake him up and he’d start fussing. Now he deals with it a lot easier on his own, and even though he may rustle around and squeak in his sleep, it usually doesn’t wake him up. Sometimes his sleep noises mean he’s about to wake up and cry; sometimes they don’t. We’re getting better at telling the difference.

It’s kind of strange to think how this little person’s life is measured in days, hours. Me, on the other hand… sometimes I can’t remember how many YEARS old I am. For him, every day is a year, every hour is a week. All his experiences are new, scary, exciting, and he’s learning and growing so quickly. His eyes scan you or the room or focus on an object, and you can almost hear the synapses connecting in his little brain.

I’m tired. So tired. Doc is, too. This is to be expected, I guess. I estimate that I’m sleeping maybe four to five hours a day, total, but in bursts that are usually two hours or less. Feed Jamie, soothe him to sleep, wait to make sure he’s asleep, fall asleep myself, wake up to feed him a short time later. I know it’s going to get better, but it’s a really tough road to travel. I don’t have a choice at this point, though, so I shall endeavor to suck it up, sleep when I can, and not complain. Doc is trying his hardest to make it easier for me to sleep by just bringing Jamie to me to eat for the first part of the night, so I’m not kept awake by his fussing inbetween feedings. I know this is not the best way to develop a sleeping routine for any of us, but right now we’re just hanging on any way we can.

I am also having a really hard time napping during the day. I know I need to, I REALLY need to, but the logistics and timing are often tough to manage.

Tired as I am, I’m adapting to this crazy sleep schedule better than I thought I would. I just look forward to the day when I can get 4 hours in a row, or 5, or 6. I was hoping desperately that we’d end up with a kid who was a really good sleeper, and that may yet prove to be true, but it’s not at the moment. He’ll fall asleep sprawled across your chest like a spider monkey, but the minute you try to move him into his bassinet, he wakes up and starts fussing and then full-on crying. We can’t hold him the entire time he’s sleeping… so this is kind of a dilemma for us. Holding him when WE are so tired could prove to be dangerous… he could easily slide off a sleeping parent onto the floor, or onto the bed and be face-down and unable to breathe.

So yeah, we have a lot of questions and worries. I have to admit that I feel sort of alone in this because we don’t have any friends here who have kids. There’s no one we can get together with to talk about stuff, to reassure us, to give advice, to share a babysitter with for a night out. Nate and Yvonne, the one couple that we do know with a baby, moved to Austin earlier this year. There’s always the telephone but somehow it’s not the same.

He’s going through a growth spurt right now, too. He’s fussier and is eating more frequently (every hour and a half or so instead of his previous 2-1/2 to 3 hours) and that gets really tiring for me, since I am breastfeeding exclusively. I’m also beginning to pump milk inbetween feedings, so I feel like I’m either feeding or pumping more than 50% of the time. That’s probably an exaggeration, but that’s what it feels like.

Doc described it as having a lamprey attached to my chest. I think it’s a good metaphor. He just sucks and sucks and doesn’t give much in return. (Yet.)

My little eel.

It’s not all griping and complaining, though. There’s a lot of good things about having a new little person in the house. He’s begun to be able to track objects with his eyes. Last week we were showing him one of his four (!) stuffed lion toys, and he followed it across his field of vision when we moved it. He’s showing some interest in this little play mat thing (a colorful mat with toys dangling from crossbars above). His wakey wakey periods are getting longer. His eyes are opening wider. He’s started making vocalization noises — not cries or burps, but bordering on gurgles and coos. He’s got a bad case of baby acne… all across his cheeks, forehead, chin, and even his poor little ears. It ought to go away in a few weeks, I suspect. He likes getting his hair washed. Sometimes in the morning, after he’s eaten, we let him lie on his side in bed with us and he’s sound asleep and unbearably cute in the morning light and we just stare at him and stare at him and stroke his little head and whisper to him in his sleep.

Have I mentioned that he’s damn cute?

And speaking of damn cute, I feel I must state, for the record, that just because I’ve birthed my own child, I don’t suddenly think that all babies and kids are adorable now. I’m not comfortable around young kids. I have no idea how to talk to them. I don’t know how to talk “baby talk,” nor do I particularly want to. I’m sure I’ll figure out how to communicate with my own son, but I don’t inherently have these relating-to-babies skills that a lot of people seem to possess. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I’m not pinging the “femininity” end of the sexuality scale very hard. Who knows. All I know is that my feelings on total strangers’ kids haven’t changed much. They’re lovely, I’m sure, but I’m likely not interested in interacting with them.

If I know you and your child, that’s a different story (Hi, Zoe! You’re still adorable and awesome!). I guess this is not that much different from how I relate to adults. If I know you, great! If I don’t, I’m probably not going to initiate a conversation with you. Nothing personal, I’m just introverted.

The hand finally turns pink and moves

And here are some awesome active-alert photos of Jamieson with his eyes wide open, just a day or two ago. His expressions amaze me!

Where's my mom?

It is sometimes tiring being the only one who’s able to provide our son with nourishment, but we both feel it’s very important to breastfeed for as long as possible before introducing a bottle. Just to make sure it’s well established… and it’s definitely getting there. It won’t be long before I start pumping and storing breastmilk so that Doc can do a feeding now and again, and then during the days when I go back to work next spring.

The past several days have all kind of started to run together in my head. I can no longer remember how many times I got up in the night to feed Jamie, what times those were, how long it took him to get back to sleep, etc. What time did I wake up in the morning? Did I nap during the day? What did I do all day? No idea sometimes.

We’re beginning to develop patterns. Doc is often awake before me in the mornings, and makes me breakfast when I get up. Tea, bacon or sausage, fruit, and a bagel. I nurse Jamie (nom nom!), hope he goes to sleep, then eat. 

I’m still not quite sure what to do with him when he’s not nursing or sleeping. When he’s crying, it’s time to troubleshoot and figure out what he might need (hungry? diaper change? burp? cold?). When he’s awake and not crying, I guess this is the time when I’m supposed to play with him. But he doesn’t really play yet. He’s not at an age yet where he can be very interactive. So sometimes we just look at each other for a while. I’m sure I’ll start to feel more comfortable with him as he gets older. I already am, in fact.

Last night Doc brought Jamie to me at 1:30 for a feeding, and after he was done, Mom took him for most of the rest of the night. I was able to get a decent amount of sleep inbetween feedings. And this morning, he (and I) slept from about 5 a.m. to 8:30. Three and a half hours in a row! I don’t think he was asleep that entire time, but I was. Mom’s still up now. I’m sure she’s exhausted but we can’t get her to go back to bed.

Doc’s getting maybe 4 hours of sleep every night, which is apparently all he needs. This is really truly actually about the amount he requires; it’s just the way he’s built. But still, I can’t help feeling like the lazy ass in this family. I know, rationally, that we’re both working equally hard now, with breastfeeding (me) and diapering (mostly Doc) and soothing (both of us, I guess, but more Doc from my perspective), but I feel guilty being away from Jamie when he’s awake and I’m off sleeping. Like I should be sharing in the hard work of soothing his crying, instead of abandoning my responsibility to my husband and son.

I guess I still have some inner drive to be Supermom. I know that I can’t though, and it’s not fair to me or Jamie or Doc to try. So the guilt is there, but I go upstairs and take a nap anyway. I know I’ll eventually achieve some sort of balance; it will just take time and practice to get there.

When we took Jamie to the ear nose and throat doctor a week and a half ago (wow, has it really only been that long?), we had to fill out a bunch of paperwork. At the bottom of the page was a line for “signature of parent.” I thought, why does my mom have to sign this form?… Ohhhhhhh…. Wait, that means ME. I am a parent now. It was an interesting feeling.

Thursday we went to the mall for a little while to do some quick Christmas shopping. It was a nice day outside and Doc and Jamieson stayed in a little outdoor courtyard area while I did a bit of shopping. We experienced our first “blowout” dirty diaper. All over me, all over Doc, all over Jamie’s legs and then of course he got his hands in it before I could stop him… all over his outfit, and all over the baby carrier. And in a public place, too. What fun! I think we were a bit overambitious and stayed out too long. Jamie’s normally very calm in the car but he cried the whole way home. I think he just got too tired. So did Doc and I, for that matter.

We watched a video last night about “The 5 S’s”… swaddling, side/stomach position, shushing, swinging, and sucking. This method of soothing actually does seem to have some merit; Jamie does calm down most of the time when we use the 5 S’s. We’ll see if it pans out in the long run.

I gained 37 pounds during the pregnancy, and have lost about 25 since Jamie was born. That really surprised me. I know the not-eating problem has contributed to it, but I think a lot of it’s just good genes. Speaking of genes, I can’t quite fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans (see what I did there with the homonyms?) - I can zip them up but I have a little pooch hanging over and it’s tight in the butt. The average woman takes 6 to 9 months to lose the baby weight. I think it might go a little faster for me, especially if I start back up with my yoga classes and take regular walks.

Actually, though, I don’t really care if or when the rest of it comes off. I love not caring about my weight!! I think I look damn good for someone who just gave birth a week and a half ago.

Jamieson in his father's hands

Doc took some great photos of Jamie. He’ll be adding more as he gets them edited. Check them out!