My Breastfeeding Story aka My Battle With My Boobs

Off the top (ha!), I will say, that I’m not here to judge.  Every mama does what is best for her and her baby when it comes to filling that baby’s belly so he or she can grow strong and healthy.  And I empathize with that paralyzing feeling of guilt that you are possibly making the wrong decision, regardless of what that is.  And it’s a pretty awful way to start out mamahood, second guessing your choice of milk and worrying about it.  But I’m not writing about that (today).  Instead, I’m going to tell you about my battle with my boobs.

Stories about breastfeeding are much like birth stories.  You generally only hear the horrible ones along the lines of “my baby wouldn’t latch properly and screamed at me and I nursed until my nipples were cracked and bleeding”.  And when I was pregnant for the first time, I heard a lot of those stories, often accompanied by some small piece of ridiculous advice or presumption such as: you should vigorously rub your nipples with a washcloth to get them ready; you have darker pigmentation so it won’t bother you.  Well, the first is a bad idea simply because vigorous nipple stimulation releases oxytocin which can start labour.  And the second bit, is based on science but I am here to tell you did not ring true.

Throughout my pregnancy with R, I kept waiting for the giant pregnancy boobs.  I bought a soft bra in a bigger size to grow into; I wore tight t-shirts and asked my partner if my boobs looked bigger.  I did not.  They did not.  This was a true physiological sign that something was going to go amiss with breastfeeding.  No one caught it.

The fact that I was ripped off the gigantic pregnancy boobs was actually not the first sign that breastfeeding, or rather milk supply, was going to be a problem.  The first sign would have been that I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome).  But neither my GP, who is awesome, nor my midwife, who is awesome, nor my naturopath recognized this potential barrier.  None of them caught the lack of big boobs as a sign, and certainly none of them mentioned that my bottoming out iron was going to be a problem for milk supply.  (Low iron had other concerns that were addressed).

Shortly after her birth, R latched with no problems.  She pretty much stayed there for the better part of six months.  I kid you not.  The first 48 hours, she nursed in my arms contentedly sucking up all the immune system building colostrum I could give her.  We nursed sitting up and lying down.  But her third night, she got hungry.  And then she got angry.  And Mark and I felt hopeless.  R latched and wouldn’t let go, she sucked away for about twelve hours straight until our midwife came for a home visit and squeezed my breast and re-positioned her and counted wet diapers.  I was reassured that my milk would come in soon and that my baby was getting what she needed.  I found that very hard to believe given the yells that would come forth when the milk did not.  I cried.  Mark held me.  He couldn’t hold R because she would just get angrier and then be harder to settle down.  My parents wanted to visit again and when they did my mother got angry with me for something and my father made me feel guilty about it.  So, yeah, not helpful.  Mark’s older kids were with us that night and feeling displaced so he had to spend time with them and all I could do was lie on our bed, tears streaming down my face as I desperately massaged my breasts and murmured to my baby girl. This would become an all too familiar routine.  That night, the fourth night, my milk came in.  I knew it came in, because I woke up to R gulping away.  I was flooded with relief and spent the night staring at my beautiful baby girl who drank with wide eyes looking up at me. 

But R and I would have a tougher than expected breastfeeding road.  She was a lazy nurser.  I say that with love, affection, and humour (now.  Not so funny then).  She would nurse for less than ten minutes and fall asleep. When she woke up, she’d do the same thing on the other side.  I tried rubbing her head and her feet.  At some point, more desperate measures were recommended in order to ensure she was taking in enough milk, and I had to rub her with a cool, wet washcloth.  She didn’t like that.  My nipples cracked.  My nipples bled.  My nipples healed.  I called La Leche League for advice, grateful that I had had the foresight to attend a meeting while pregnant so I at least knew the lovely woman I was speaking to.  I called my midwife who came to visit.  R was gaining weight slowly but steadily and she was a long baby so she looked like a scrawny monkey.  Gradually her cheeks got fuller and her body a little plumper. 

But at just over three months old, she hit the expected growth spurt and became angry baby again.  She was attached to my nipple all the time.  All.The.Time.  Mark and I were already used to the fact that she was in my arms all the time and that wasn’t really a problem for me.  I was on maternity leave and she was my only baby.  But at three months it was different, and when I went to pump milk to give Mark a chance to feed our baby, I ended up with plugged ducts and full blown mastitis. 

Mastitis is a breast infection.  It is horrifyingly painful to nurse through it and worse to not nurse through it.  Your skin burns and swells on your breasts.  Touch is excruciating.  Cold shivers and hot flashes set in as does a fever, the shakes, and fatigue.  This is not the medical textbook definition I’m providing you with, it is what I experienced.  All while my baby would struggle against my breasts, flailing in my arms, and not settle no matter what I did, forcing me to change position, walk around, and cry – a lot.  I spent several days completely topless with her in the baby wrap trying to nurse upright from a rocking chair.  I sought the attention of a very sensitive massage therapist  who managed to  help ease some of the pressure and start the fluids moving and draining. 

When I recovered from that I realized that I had very little milk coming in at one time.  After months of only nursing for five to ten minutes at a time, my body was only producing enough milk for five to ten minute spurts.  Except now R was starving and wanted to nurse much longer.  This was compounded by the low iron, the hormone imbalances from my PCOS;and the three month postpartum hormone (mal)adjustments and so I ended up on a prescription for Domperidone that I took for over a year because every time I tried to wean myself off of it, my milk supply would go down.  Now, I have no scientific proof, but I am pretty sure that my horrifying weight gain once I went on the ‘scrip can be mostly attributed to it.

Before I started the prescription, which was offered various suggestions on how to increase my supply.  Primarily, to lie down skin-to-skin with my little girl, increase my fluid intake, and decrease my non-mama duties.  I took this advice happily.  I tried breast massage before every nursing session and hand pumping as my daughter nursed. I was advised to drink fenugreek tea.  It started leaking out of my pores and I reeked.  I mean, I sincerely stunk.  I couldn’t cope with it.  It was bad enough to be going through massive hormone upheaval, to feel desperate to feed my child, but to smell awful too – and my partner could not disagree – was horrifying to me.  At the time, midwives in Ontario could not write a prescription for Domperidone, and the Jack Newman clinic was too far away for me to reasonably get there, so I consulted my GP who provided me with a prescription but not a ton of advice on consequences and how to build up and wean off the pills.

The time that passed between getting the Domperidone and my milk supply increasing seemed like months.  I couldn’t go anywhere or be near anyone. I felt like I was failing my child.  I felt that somehow because I wasn’t producing enough milk for her; I wasn’t being a good enough mama.  I missed my cousin’s wedding because I just couldn’t bear to be around people while my child cried and wanted to nurse.  People like my parents who would have wanted to hold her and “comfort” her resulting in a more irate and now frightened baby as evidenced by every single visit when they would take her out of my arms and walk away and she would scream.

R and I went on to have a very successful breastfeeding relationship.  One might venture to say, an overly successful one as when I wanted to wean her, I couldn’t.  And when we did, at 2.5years old it was because I was crying with pain from sensitive nipples as I was pregnant with L.  R wasn’t getting any milk anymore at that point, it was just comfort.  And I wanted to at least preserve some of the good memories of breastfeeding.  We did.  I have a lot of good memories and I have a strong, beautiful, smart six year old girl who still sleeps with the soft pillow I used to tuck under my head when lying down to nurse her.  It was a long trip, both ways, but well worth it.

The Rise and Fall of the School Routine. Is it summer yet?

R is an awesome kid.  She loves her sisters (and us!).  She loves to read.  She loves school.  But she is not a morning person (like both her parents), and has a hard time falling asleep at night (despite a screen-free, sugar –free, relaxed bedtime routine).  R has always needed a plan.  From as young as two, we would lie in bed and determine what our plan for the day was going to be.  So it’s somewhat surprising to me that she has become such a layabout in the mornings and completely scatterbrained after school.

Two weeks before school started in August, we started waking up, getting dressed, having breakfast and walking to/from school.  One week before school we started doing the same thing, but at a school-appropriate time.  It was a slow build to get into a good routine where no one was crying from hunger, frustration or fatigue at the end of the day but we did it.  Christmas break was a small blip.  Baby C’s birth another one, and March break a bigger blip.  But we always managed to rebound.  Until now.

Disaster struck once it started to stay full light well past 8pm.  We hung black curtains in their room.  We closed the door to prevent the light from the hallway coming in.   L still had boundless energy and was keeping her big sister awake so we tried separate  bedtimes, but that lead to tears.  So we started taking walks after dinner; that backfired as it lead to a second wind for both of them and a longer more drawn out getting for bed routine with mandatory showers as opposed to baths after school.  We are sticking strong to an 8pm bedtime but often R is awake until almost 9pm.  (Later if we allow some extra reading time for her because our sympathy as night owls kicks in.)  With the later and later falling asleep time, comes the harder to wake up R.  And when I do get her awake, she is grumpy. 

Lately, the routine has started to crumble:  Alarm goes off, I call into R’s room.  I gently pull sheet off her, I cajole and then firmly peel her out of bed.  She wanders around like she is suffering from a slight hangover and comes to me with a barrette but no comb, with hairspray but no pony-o.  This goes one for a while.   While I ensure the two other girls are ready to go downstairs, she is supposed to finish her upstairs routine.  But when I check in on her silently, she is usually sitting half dressed on her bedroom floor reading a book.  Am I the only parent on the planet that has to tell her kid to stop reading?  Probably.  I proceed with my morning and eventually R makes an appearance in the kitchen, sometimes with a prompt.  She then notices that she hasn’t packed her snacks and is very sweet, sincere, and apologetic about it and gets started on that, taking up to ten minutes to actually get a yogurt from the fridge into her lunch bag.  I just don’t have it in me to send her to school without a snack because she forgot or to let her go with messy hair.  But, at this point we’ve moved to “Fine, be late, lollygag if you must but you are still walking to school not driving.” 

I'm not going to stress out about it, or stress her out about it.  I grew up in a household where more often than not you went to school having cried.  I'm talking daily.  And while we all know that my mother thinks I'm the child from hell, I have very distinct memories of her yelling at my youngest sister every morning before school too. So it wasn't just me.  And while I've been know to raise my voice on more than one occasion, I generally keep things quiet and efficient in the morning with room or flexibility because I don't ever want to send my daughter to school all wound up from a stressful morning. 

Some of the ways we do this is that after many chats, Mark and I have a very distinct set of chores we need to get done by 6am.  Some of it may seem like catering to our girls i.e., setting the table for breakfast, but they are only just 3 and 6.  Also, if we don't get around to it, they will do it and will just as easily empty the dishwasher.  Having it done already, just makes things go smoother. I'm not making excuses for their age - they both have a lot of responsibility every morning and evening.  Things they need to do to get themselves ready and to help me out not the least of which is getting themselves ready, and getting their own cereal.  I also wake up much earlier than I would like in order to be dressed, and have caffeine in my system before the two older girls wake up.  But these are the things that need to happen to keep things as low stress for my girls as I can.  I really, really, really, don't want any of us to get upset in the morning and while I can't control every variable, and there are mornings when I lose my temper, or one of them loses theirs, or things just fall apart, the good mornings, the mornings where we listen to music, do "knee ups" while the eggs are cooking, R makes me breakfast, L runs around dancing, and baby C sits in her chair laughing far outweigh the hard ones.  

Three more weeks of school until we can take a break from the routine.  But come mid-August, I need a new plan on how to convince my child that she needs to get all her stuff done before she picks up a book to read or stops to play with her sisters from September all the way to the end of June.  I’ll ask for advice in the summer but for now, I want to know:  Do your kids fall off the school routine bandwagon?  Were they never on it?  Do they stick to for the duration?

The Butter Account

I have a butter account.  It’s an odd little thing really.  In fact, I didn’t even realize it existed until a couple of weeks ago.  It works much like a regular account complete with service charges and interest.  I am the one who usually makes the deposits of 1-2lbs a week.  But not only is it a joint account between Mark and myself, but we share it with R and L.  It’s incredibly easy to make a withdrawal, simply opening the fridge accomplishes this task.  I’ve always taken this account for granted it seems.  I need butter, I go to make a withdrawal and it’s there.  If it isn’t there, then I find the resources necessary to replenish the account.  However, it seems I am not the only one to take this account for granted.  Mark does as well; he thinks it’s self-replenishing.  This would be a common fallacy associated with butter accounts.  (Much like chocolate accounts.)

A few weeks ago Mark complained about the high cost of the service fees on the butter account.  In fact, he expressed disbelief at the fact it was in overdraft.  I pointed out that he has happily reaped the interest on the account, but that it does in fact require a deposit or two to be made.  Mark went out to access the necessary replenishment.  He returned with four times the resources I usually make.  All things being fair, I didn’t particularly care whether it was a move of a passive-aggressive nature or genuine replenishment, my account was once again topped up and the hold on it removed. I was free to spend from the butter account again. 

And here, for the official record is the statement of accounts:

- dozens of eggs, fried or scrambled for various breakfasts, lunches, and dinners

-several loaves of bread toasted and buttered

-one fillet of trout, pan fried

-one saucepan lemon-butter-anchovy sauce for asparagus

-several buttered baked potatoes

-one giant pot Bolognese sauce, monter au beurre

-one saucepan alfredo sauce

-one dozen welsh cheddar biscuits

-one dozen chocolate chip scones

-several cups of popcorn drizzled

-lemon buttercream frosting for one lemon chiffon cake

Who wants to tell Mark that there is only one pound of butter left in the account?  Perhaps I’ll wait until after he’s had some of the buttercream frosted cake.

Three Girls and a Budget

Last week Mark had a co-worker do a complete double-take when he found out that we have three kids and Mark has two older kids as well.  “Wow!  And your partner doesn’t work?  My wife and I can barely afford our one child.  She’s an investment banker and I pull in three figures.  But you, wow, five kids!?!?! ”  I’m paraphrasing here as I obviously wasn’t at the conversation; his wife could very well be a teacher not an investment banker and he might barely make over 100K.  Either way, they make more money than we do.  Which is important for my point here:  it’s all about the lifestyle decisions.

But before we get started, let's quickly cover two glaring issues. One, I do work, as a mama at home full time, as a student midwife, and as a consultant whenever I can.  Two, obviously, if all five of the kids lived in the same house it would be cheaper, and I'd have a much happier Mark.  And I could - and probably will - write about both things at some point.  But back to our budget choices:


We moved out of the sketchy part of a cool neighbourhood in downtown Toronto to buy a house in the suburbs.  Not a big house.  Not even a real house according to Annette Benning’s character in American Beauty, as well as my mother-in-law and Mark’s aunt.  But the price tag on the house was about half of a place in our old ‘hood.  Do we miss being able to walk to St.Lawrence Market, a movie theatres, brunch spots, work, university…you know, everywhere?  Sure.  Do we lament that our mortgage is the same as most people’s rent?  Not so much.  Or, at all.

We buy our furniture from Ikea.  Sure, unique pieces, or you know, furniture we don’t have to assemble and then tighten bi-annually with an allen key, would be fabulous.

We have a Wii Fit (courtesy of Optimum points), a front yard, a pool (came with the house), two parks in the ‘hood, bikes, jump ropes, hula hoops, and second hand skates.  And we walk to and from school.  By this I mean, our girls aren’t registered for multiple teams and lessons to get their 60 minutes of activity a day.  Yes, I’d love for R to play soccer and L to take gymnastics but it really wasn’t in the budget this year.  And at three, L has no idea what she’s missing out on.  R feels it a little bit, for about five minutes whenever a classmate mentions their soccer team.  But that’s five minutes a week so she’ll live.

I believe the saying is “Go big or go home.”  So we do just that for birthdays.  R just had a birthday and we spent about $50 on food (homemade sliders, homemade chocolate cupcakes, watermelon and lemonade), decorations, and craft supplies.  Her friends ran around the yard playing tag, drew on the sidewalk, painted pots, and planted seeds.  Mark’s aforementioned coworker spend 10x that much on his child’s party.

We don’t take vacations.  At least not very often. Mark had stipulated that I had to pay for any vacations we took.  So I basically drank and cooked my way Montreal as the tickets were purchased using Air Miles earned primarily at the LCBO and less so at Metro.  Our hotel was on the last of our Aeroplan and was not a boutique hotel.  We didn’t pay the upgrade to first class.  We didn’t go for three-course fondue which our girls would have loved.  We didn’t take the carriage ride through Vieux Montreal.  We didn’t eat at Garde Manger which broke all of our hearts.  We didn’t get room service, or movies (that’s what the laptop was for). We didn’t even get the cute Canadiens jersey in pink (And by we, I mean, “me” on this one.).

We don’t buy organic and I can’t support the little guy.  This is probably the most contentious thing I’m saying.  And I’m not suggesting that the health of my girls is worth less than anything else.  Their physical and emotional well-being is our number one priority.  But organic milk is more than twice the price of regular milk.  Organic beef, lamb, or chicken is triple the cost.  And the research, the actual academic research, does not support the need for me to spend exorbitant amounts of money on small amounts of food that isn’t regulated to the high standards it needs to be.  So we buy our groceries from No Frills and Costco. 

We are not solid examples of how to budget well, we try, but we have some weak spots :

I turn the air conditioning on as soon as the thermostat hits 30 outside.  It’s an indulgence but it keeps me from acting crazy so win-win.

My girls and I spend a portion of our grocery budget at the farmers’ market twice a month from May to October.  Doesn’t seem harmful except we normally eat everything we bought by Monday morning.  Hence, we only go every other week, or our food bill would double.

We buy R brand name, sturdy kids shoes because they have to get through two other sets of feet.  But all three girls generally sport the latest in Joe Fresh, Old Navy, and whatever brand Costco is carrying because we don’t buy very many pieces and after weekly washing, and given different body types(not style/fashion) not all of the clothes are going to survive the duration.

We have cable and Netflix.  I am the first to agree that cable is extremely hard to justify EXCEPT that I negotiated with the provider and our cable bill is – wait for it - $10/month.  When that deal expires so does our cable.  And in the interim, our girls still don’t know we have cable and therefore watch very little actual TV.  Food shows, Justice League, and Avengers excepted of course.  Netflix, personally I think is a bit of a waste of coin in my opinion but as Mark points out we don’t go to the cinema, or concerts, or shows, or the bar so…yeah.

You get the point.  Money is tight.  But you make your choices.  We like food so we spend a bit more money on groceries.  We like to spend time with our friends so we invite them over for food, we cook and they bring the wine.  Also, we accept gifts of wine or any hard spirit for random occasions such as Simcoe Day, Labour Day, the day after any family get together…

What do you “give up” to save money and where do you “spurlge”?

That Kid at the Party

If this feels a bit rant-y, it’s purely unintentional.  Just another random observation in the life of a suburban mama.

We recently went to a toddler’s birthday party.  We had fun.  Our girls had fun. Our hosts were the epitome of gracious, funny, laid back, and patient.  Wow, were they ever patient especially in the presence of "that kid".  

Let's first quickly review who "that kid" could be:

-sulky kid who makes everyone miserable

-boisterous/distruptive school ager who jumps on and off your furniture rampaging through your house

-snobby kid who doesn't want to play or interact with the host's kids

-center of the universe kid who is generally appalled when the host doesn't think so too

-hippie young kid with no sense of rules or boundaries

-needy kid who has to constantly interact with adult host or generally needs to get their own way

The last example was at the party we went to.  And I mean, seriously, had it been me, I would have at minimum rolled my eyes, or pretended not to hear.  Well, let’s be honest, had it been me, I wouldn’t have allowed an eight (ten?) year old neighbour to attend without her parents.  Because as I said, it was a toddler’s birthday party which translates to lots of doting relatives, and friends of the parents and their kids.  None of our host’s kids are the age of the needy kid in question.  Obviously the party's hosts are much, much nicer than me  - and no, I'm not being sarcastic, they really are.  But, I’ll describe the sitch that would have had me white knuckling the chair while tersely smiling and you think about what you would do:

Girl:  Someone stole my shoe can you help me find it?

Host: Wow!  That’s crazy.  It’s gotta be out there honey.  (While feeding birthday girl, making introductions, and assessing the rain versus bouncy castle situation).

Girl:  But I need my shoe.  Someone stole it.  Can you get it? Maybe everyone should come in because it’s raining.  I’ll go get them.

Host:  No, the castle is covered, they’ll be fine. (Still feeding birthday girl, offering drinks to adult guests, and engaging in other conversations).

Girl:  Well can you help me climb back into the castle then?

(Me, silently:  Seriously?!!!?  Seriously?! Where are your parents?!)

Later on:

Girl:  I think the baby is ready for cake.  Can you cut the cake?

Host:  It’s still frozen honey; we need to wait ten minutes.

Girl:  Well, what time is it?  I have to go home at 6:30pm.

Host:  We could try to cut the cake but it probably won’t work.  Why don’t you go play and I’ll call everyone when it’s ready?

Girl:  Awwwwwww.  Pleeeeeaseee?  You should cut the cake now.

(At which point, I interject mentioning how the it will just be frustrating for everyone if we try to cut a frozen solid ice cream cake before it’s ready.  I am totally ignored by girl.  No offense taken as she really wasn’t talking to me. )

Host:  I’m happy to send a piece home for you and your sister if you miss the cake cutting.

Someone else:  Where is your sister?

Girl:  She’s at home with the babysitter.

(Me, silently:  And there you have it!)

When finally cake cutting time arrives, Girl plants herself directly beside the birthday girl and despite repeated very pleasant requests with explanation, continues to interfere with the highly anticipated, photographed, recorded, cupcake smashing and exploration.  I’m willing to bet money there are several photos that are going to have to be cropped to keep this non-relative out of the family pics. 

If that had been me, two things would  have happened.  One, I would have staged an earlier in the day cupcake smashing to capture on film.  And two, I would have physically removed that kid from the general vicinity.  I’d like to think I would have assigned her some knd of responsibility like handing out napkins or something bt I doubt it.  I would have just seen red at someone interfering in my kid’s birthday cake and...oh  wait, had it been me, that kid probably would have been sulking in a corner from my letting her know she was being a pain in the butt from earlier in the evening.  And that folks is why I’m never going to be the favourite mama amongst my girls’ friends.  I’ll be their favourite mama – most of the time – and that’s totally fine with me. 

Ok, but here’s the thing.  How do I keep my girls from becoming THAT girl?  R is super helpful and used to adults treating her as the more responsible kid of the group.  But as most 4-6 year olds (and older?) she becomes fixated on things and pouty when she doesn’t get her way.  Neither of which is tolerated here so hopefully that helps.  Let’s be totally clear.  R is a gracious guest, plays well with others, mostly uses her manners, and cleans up after herself.  I just honestly don’t think the girl at the party had any idea she was being a pain in the butt and that her opinion on when the cake should be cut wasn’t wanted or more accurately, wasn’t needed.  

Ultimately, I just felt badly for her.  The girl has a younger sister, a nice mom whom I've met, dad is around, grandmother who is lovely.  But clearly, she was either feeling needy or used to getting her own way or both; and her time limit was stressing her out. Also, being eight or so, she had no idea her ants and needs were imposing on the host.  But isn't that why your parent should be there?  This wasn't the party of a peer, she was out of place at the party through no fault of her own. And I've seen this happen to R when she was four and more introverted.  We were at a big gathering of families that were all new to her so I stuck close and we kept our attendance short.

Mark and I have been to other parties with lots of kids ranging in age in attendance and there you will find either the sulky teenagers or the dramatic ones who feel like they are your peer and dominate all of the conversations.  I’m talking about the older tween/barely teen contingent.  We’ve also encountered kids in that group who play with our girls and we wish lived closer to babysit, or who smilel politely whenever they look up from the book they are reading or show they are watching not on full blast.  Fingers crossed – my girls end up in the latter groupings.  I’m just wondering if there is any way to ensure that?  Other than of course, to be present at family oriented parties with them and not bring them to the parties of our peers unless they are specifically invited.

Other thoughts or suggestions?  Have you ever encountered "that kid" at one of your own parties?  Which type?  (We've encountered a few!) Whaddya do?