Not Me! Monday

Last week was so much fun and so... therapeutic, that I decided to participate in MckMama's Not Me! Monday again this week. My goal: to one day be sitting down and thinking, "You know, I don't have a single thing to write about this week..." because that will mean that I didn't lock my kid in any cars or let my heart get broken by some medical drama or something equally shameful. It will mean that one week I will have done everything right. Done everything the way it's supposed to be done. You know, the normal way. (Don't worry; I'm not holding my breath. You don't need to call 9-1-1.)

So, without further adieu...

You may as well stop reading this. I'm not going to cop to washing a disposable diaper... or worse, washing it and then putting it in the dryer because I didn't want to deal with it. A totally organized, always responsible, never lazy woman wouldn't ever make a mistake like that. Ever.


And because I'm a super mom who is super lactatey and never supplements with formula, I wouldn't give my kids a bottle of formula every day to give my boobs a break (boobs, that, I promise that my son does not call "penises"). Therefore, I would never have the problem of storing my formula next to my canister of Coffee-Mate like this:

And furthermore, being as that is most certainly not a problem for me, I absolutely did not try to mix two scoops of Coffee-Mate into 4 ounces of water, wondering why it wouldn't dissolve. I mean, what would a formula scooper be doing in a canister of Coffee-Mate? It's not like the scooper is the PERFECT size for one cup of coffee... Or if it is, I wouldn't know since I don't use formula.

*ahem*

Moving right along...

I didn't spend an entire day being angry at my very sweet husband because he mercilessly teased me for watching Grey's and Private Practice in his presence. Something like that wouldn't actually hurt my feelings, EVER. I can't imagine a universe in which I would have started sobbing in the kitchen, accusing him of taking "the one girly thing I allow myself to have in my life" away from me. There is no way I would over-react like that because, well, that's just silly.

...silly like having an itty bitty little crush on Mover Rich from The Imagination Movers. So I'm glad that I'm not at all in the slightest bit silly.

And as we covered last week, thankfully, I'm not the kind of person who would live in a roach-infested house. So I wouldn't have to spend several hours apologizing to my son and trying to explain to him why the "F" word shouldn't be repeated because it's not like I'd ever have to deal with a roach popping out of a box of sandwich bags and crawling over my hand, causing a string of F-themed curse words to spew out of my mouth.

Do you know what it's like to get so wrapped up in a college football game that the outcome literally dictates your mood for the rest of the weekend and you can be reduced to tears by a pathetic showing on the field? Gosh, neither do I! That's why I wasn't secretly relieved that Notre Dame didn't have a game on Saturday and I didn't have to be grateful that I could spend Saturday passively watching games and not grinding my teeth or pleading with higher powers to grant us an interception or complete a pass. I feel sorry for people like that... them and their crazy football allegiances. Pah!

Finally, I'm proud to say that I would never allow my nearly-potty-trained child to remain in his diaper after his nap because I forgot that he is nearly-potty-trained because that would just confuse him and make me look like I wasn't paying attention. In fact, if I were the kind of mom to make a mistake like that, I'd probably also be the kind of mom to run said diaper through the wash. Now that would be one total disaster of a person, wouldn't it?

Nothing like a few domestic faux-pas to make us all smugly glad to not be someone, right?

Breastfeeding Twins... How-To (for those who even care?)

This is one of those posts that I may be writing mostly for me. And for that one other mom out there who wants to nurse her twins. Otherwise, probably pretty boring especially since there are no nudie pictures here to entertain my possibly one guy reader, if there are that many.

True, some of this probably applies to singletons. Actually, I should probably retitle the post, "How I breastfeed MY twins" to be totally accurate. And if you don't want to take any of my advice, no hard feelings! Admittedly, 90% of what I've figured out about what works for us has come from me not taking the advice of many, many other people. Okay, so probably not "many, many" as I have found a relative dearth of (useful) information out there about nursing multiples.

Like my earlier post about grocery shopping, I am no super mom. I'm not preachy; it might not be your thing to nurse some babies, or even A baby, and that's totally fine It is mine, though. There wasn't any doubt in my mind that I was going to nurse the girls. And therein probably lies most of our success (I say "our" for a reason; we'll get there) as I am the most stubborn person I've ever met. (And have I mentioned "cheap"? I balk at the idea of buying formula for my two piggie-pies!) I guess a certain amount of laziness comes into it as well. I hate feeding bottles for SO many reasons, not the least of which is preparation, clean-up and so on. I'd rather suffer through mastitis or leakiness to avoid spending extra time in the kitchen. I'd SO much prefer to sit on the couch and zone out while I feed the kids or have both my hands free to eat my sandwich at the same time and so on and so forth.

But never mind all of that, I'm not trying to justify my... ahem, our decision. Just offer some insight into how it's done.

It's not going to be a huge, comprehensive guide though, because any mom - nursing or not - knows that feeding goes hand-in-hand with SO much else... sleeping, temperament, age, size, etc. So I'll present it in question-answer format, mmmkay? Here we go:

Do you feed them both at the same time?

No. I did a few times when they were very wee and it was a bigger hassle than it was worth. It involved me sitting in the middle of the couch with the Boppy around my waist and a throw pillow on each side of the Boppy for extra support with my shirt and bra totally off. I had to position the twins head-to-head across the pillow fort so their legs were pointed out and their noggins met at the midline of my body. I'd help one latch, then the other. They'd nurse for about the same amount of time and each girl would need to be burped. That's where it got tricky: I had to choose one to burp first, leaving her sister to wiggle around with a gas bubble stuck until I could take care of her. Ugh. PLUS they'd be continually hungry at the same times and if I wasn't at home to do the couch thing or if it was the middle of the night, I'd have to bring them both all the way down stairs to the couch or else leave one baby screaming in the crib while I nursed her sister.

So if not at the same time, what do you do?

Well, really the biggest thing about nursing the two of them is that I nurse TWO individual babies. I've made the decision to treat them not as a unit - as twins - but as two babies who are both breastfed. So I let them dictate the schedule. I feed them when they're hungry which, now, is rarely at the same time. Mostly, because they ARE the same age (obviously) they eat about the same amount and the same number of times, and my boobs are deliciously NOT lop-sided because they consume about the same each time.

The name of the game here is "neglect". Totally kidding. But not really. See, usually I get lucky and one baby wakes up just a little bit before the other or actually wants to spend time in a swing or exersaucer (as opposed to being placed there against her will, which never sometimes happens) so I can feed her sister. It usually works out that I finish feeding one right about the same time the other one wakes up, gets bored, or decides she's hungry.

If they're both hungry at the same time, well, I have to choose the one whose cries annoy me more and pacify her first.

Do you basically spend your life nursing?!?

*sigh* Yes.

How do you do a schedule!?

HAH! I don't. Not that I would, really. I'm an on-demand kinda gal. I follow a routine more than a schedule. I make sure that our day consists of chunks of time divided thusly (I love the word "thusly"... so snobby, not even sure if it IS a word...): eat, then play/stuff/activity, sleep. I refuse to nurse them to sleep. I did it with Jack and hated myself for it. So I feed them and then we do whatever it is we do and I put them down to sleep without nursing them again. It has done a couple of things for us: allowed me to be able to put them to bed at the same time without having to nurse them at the same time, and allow me to avoid missing that "critical point" (where a baby is tired enough to fall asleep on her own before getting over tired) because I was busy feeding her sister.

Are you like, super skinny? All those calories!

Well, no. See, I eat probably the equivalent of a small ranch worth of food a day. And drink several (yes, several) gallons of water every day. I'm getting there with the baby weight, but I'm actively trying to NOT lose it too quickly. I also end up using Fenugreek here and there to help me out with supply.

I can't really pump - there's not a good time for me to pump since if I'm in between feedings with the girls, I'm most assuredly doing some kind of chore or playing with Jack...

La Leche League said...

I'm saying they can kiss my behind. Well, I wouldn't say that. But I've found that loads of their advice doesn't work in practice. Most notably their pearl of wisdom that states that twins should alternate breasts at each feeding. PAH! I tried that and all I ended up with was a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance that caused major gas issues and wonky supply fluctuations. I picked a boob for each girl and kept it that way. It goes along with me treating them as individuals - they have differing nutritional needs for different metabolisms so why mix that up? LLL cites a need for varying visual stimulation or some such... but really, just hold your kid on the other side and coo at them now and again instead of nursing if it's that big a problem. I was finding that if I nursed Addie on one side, with the intention of nursing her on the opposite side the next time, I would then end up feeding Jordan on the side that Addie was going to eat from next and next thing I know one baby's getting more foremilk and the other one gets more hind milk. That, and it got really hard to keep track of. LLL has lots of good stuff, really, but for me, it was better to do my own thing. (I also use pacifiers and bottles - gasp!)

They must be really good nursers then, right?

Well, they are to an extent. Addie has never had any feeding issues at all. Jordan sometimes has latch problems and she's got terrible reflux so feedings are always an issue involving screaming and crying and arching of the back. But I've got enough tricks up my sleeve that I can usually calm her down. Her meal battles don't really affect Addie though, thankfully, because of the aforementioned "Assigned Boob" technique. If I know I'm in for it with Jo, I just feed Addie first and let her play while I deal with Madame Fussypants. Just requires patience. She's not any better with a bottle of formula, so I may as well nurse through the episodes and at least not have to worry about wasting money. I can't so much pump out money to keep up a supply (wouldn't THAT be swell?!) if I make a formula bottle and chuck it the way I can if I delay a nursing session to let her cool down.

... So, you see, it's not too bad for me. Once I let go of nursing twins and started looking at it as nursing two babies, I really just let each one dictate how our relationship works and now try to keep it separate from how her sister's and my relationship goes. It's simplest that way. It's like going to the grocery store... one step at a time, one battle at a time, we get through it.

Not to Bitch, But...

... There are times when I just can't help myself. I'm so angry and I want EVERYONE to know how mad I am and why. There's no reason; it won't change anything and it probably won't even make me feel better. But I need to vent. There are just those times when you can't help it.

So last Friday I woke up at one point during the night with the girls and realized my eye was disgusting and messed up. As soon as I could that day, I went to the eye doctor and got drops for bacterial conjunctivitis. Gross - I despise eye infections. But whatever, I got my drops before the weekend and it wasn't a big deal, really.

Well, that cleared up pretty quickly, thankfully, but sometime during the night between Sunday and Monday I noticed that one of my breasts was absurdly sore. Great. Mastitis. A nursing mom's favorite malady. But this was a little different from other bouts of mastitis I've had (and in 16+ months of nursing, I've had a good -very good - number of cases of mastitis) in that there wasn't the open sore that transmitted bacteria from the baby's mouth to my body, and there wasn't the tell-tale lump to indicate a blocked duct. I figured that the bacteria that had infected my eye probably moved deeper into my body and hit the next best target. I kept nursing and pumping through the morning until I could get in to the OB/GYN clinic to get antibiotics (not my favorite option... hello, thrush!) knowing I needed to keep the milk ducts clear.

Well, at 2:30, after calling Justin home from work to sit with Jack during his nap, I packed the girls in the van for a 3:30 appointment (yes, it takes that long to get someplace that's 10 minutes away after I get the girls loaded, drive there, unload and assemble the stroller, unload the girls and navigate my way to the clinic.) I get there and see (of course) a doctor I'd never seen before (which, after the amount of time I spent there, is slightly surprising) so I had to explain my entire medical history before she even looked at my chest. At this point, I felt like death, by the way. Well, once she examined me and determined that she couldn't feel a lump or notice any redness, she said she needed to consult with her supervisor, the one, the only, Dr. Ayers (crotchety old bastard that told me I would deliver the girls in one contraction in the van and they'd perish if I didn't stay in the hospital... you remember that story...) Doc comes back in and says, "Well, since you don't have a fever or a lump, we're not totally convinced it's mastitis."

Me: "Um, then why does it feel like the other 50 cases of mastitis I've had?"

Doc: "Well, we aren't sure... maybe it's a yeast infection."

Me: "Uh, how did the yeast get in there if there are no lesions?"

Doc: "Well, sometimes.... well, sometimes... Yeah, we just don't want to give you antibiotics if it's not mastitis and it doesn't really seem like you have a lump."

Me: "I was actually trying to prevent it from getting to that point. For once in my life I'm not being stubborn and waiting until a condition is unbearable to seek treatment... I figured preventing a fever and blocked milk duct and absolute misery would be the prudent choice since I am raising 3 children essentially alone because of my husband's work schedule... but if you say so..."

Doc: "Well, if it gets worse, we'd like to see you in 48 hours to change treatment."

Me: "Oh, goody. So I have to suffer for the next 48 hours before someone will actually treat me."

Doc: "No, we're prescribing an oral antifungal medication for your yeast infection."

Me: "WHAT yeast infection?"

Doc: "Yeast infections sometimes mimic mastitis in the early stages."

Me: "*sigh* fine. Losing battle."

............fast forward to me at the pharmacy window...

Me: "By the way, I'm nursing."

Pharmacist: "Oh, okay hold on." (Pulls out several books and flips through them.) "Ma'am, I have to tell you that this medication has never been studied as to its effects on lactation or it's effects on babies of lactating mothers. If you notice these side effects, call your pediatrician immediately... (long list of awful-sounding shit)"

Me: "Oh, okay that's fine, thanks." (Saying to self: "Fuck this shit, I'm not taking a single one of these pills.")

Who in their right mind prescribes a medication that may or may not be safe for lactating mothers and breastfed babies to a lactating mother who is having a lactation-induced problem? For a yeast infection that doesn't exist? It makes my head hurt.

...........Fast forward to me getting home after a stop at WalMart (sorry, Justin!) to buy golf-balls and tees for my husband...

I was home for about an hour before I noticed that the pain had increased significantly in my breast AND I was developing the lump AND a red spot over the lump AND I had a fever. And the way I was feeling was getting (if possible) worse and worse.

AWESOME.

That was the exact scenario I was trying to avoid. I'm not fool enough to think that it wouldn't have progressed to that point if they had given me antibiotics in the first place, but at least it wouldn't have progressed to that point and continued to worsen because I'd be able to knock it out immediately.

So now I'm left in pain, exhausted, sick as a dog, with only my bullshit antifungal medicine (it's in the garbage) and homeopathic mastitis remedies to prop me up until I can, on Wednesday, during Jack's nap, haul all 3 kids to the doctor with me to finally say, "Once again, assholes, I know my body better than you do; can you please treat me accordingly now?" get my medicine and hopefully be back to my status-quo of sleep-deprived, stressed-out normalcy by this weekend when the Gallagher family comes down for the girls' baptism festivities.

Yeast infection? Maybe next time I go in they'll diagnose me with an enlarged prostate.

Yeah, they're that ridiculous.