Thursday, July 09, 2009

Mama Thursday: The wonder coming out of my chest

This probably doesn't come as a surprise to some of you but I'm breastfeeding Lily. All health benefits aside, have you seen the price of formula? I'm lucky that I'm definitely not lacking in the milk production department as so many other mothers I've talked to lately. Since I'm forced to work full time I have to pump several times a day. Thankfully my office has a dedicated room for this and I don't have to slink around in some manky bathroom stall like some of my fellow lactating sisters.

Pumping at work was definitely something I had to get used to. The awkwardness of being in a state of undress at the office made things difficult at first -- at least mentally (is the door locked? Is it really locked?). Physically I've never had a problem with letdown or production. I'm like one of those fountains in Italy, only instead of liquid coming out from below the waist it's all up top.

*Yet Another Thing They Don't Tell You About Pregnancy And Motherhood: You can spray milk. Like a squirt gun. Or a lawn sprinkler. Involuntarily.

I was hauling my heavy-ass Pump In Style pump to and from work until I figured out that my office has a pump that lives in the pumping room that works very well. And it just so happened I had the piston and connector that fits on it. I'm not sure why but the lady that I bought my pump from on Craigslist included it with everything else. Score!

I've learned a lot about breastfeeding.
  • * You don't need the expensive Medela Pump & Save bags that are $20 for 50. After going through a box every week and a half I switched to the much more reasonable $10/50 Lansinoh bags.
  • * When you find a nursing bra that actually fits and doesn't ride up or sag or twist around on you (good luck), buy several of them.
  • * You only need lanolin for about the first month or so. One tube should be MORE than enough.
  • * Reusable breast pads are awesome, but at night it's a better idea to use disposables (or stack up 2 or 3 reusables per side) so you don't wake up in a puddle.
  • * It's really hard to breastfeed without a Boppy. I just ordered an inflatable nursing pillow.
  • * This breastmilk diet is clearly working because Lily is 14 weeks old and about to start crawling and already teething. Also, she's in the 95th percentile in size.

    Right now I have a sty roughly the size of the state of Alabama on my lower eyelid. I can't open my eye all the way and it looks and feels like I've been punched in the face. They say that breastmilk can cure pinkeye and ear infections so I did what any reasonable sleep-deprived and stressed-out mother would do. I put breastmilk on my sty. We'll see what happens. Right now I'd rub poison ivy on my nether regions if it would make this thing go away.
  • Tuesday, July 07, 2009

    Foodie Tuesday: Barrio for lunch

    Husband had the day off yesterday so he met me downtown for lunch. We popped in to Mission to check out the menu and see if it was even remotely in our price range. It wasn't. So off we went to the beautiful and exciting Nicollet Mall. We decided on Barrio because we've been curious about it for a while now but don't have the time or inclination to check it out in the dinner/evening hours. I'm never a fan of places so small and packed that you are forced to eat with someone else's armpit/ass/elbow in your face. It was only moderately busy during the lunch hour so we grabbed some seats by the open window in front.

    Barrio is stuffed into a narrow space next to The Local. It has a bar with a wall of tequila on the left and an upstairs seating area in the back. The décor is dark, red, and going for an urban Latino thing.

    The service was really excellent. The couldn't have been nicer. The staff all seemed happy and that always makes a world of difference in service and atmosphere. Husband and I both had the $10 lunch special, which includes chips, guacamole, salsa, and two tacos. The guacamole is handmade and left chunky. I couldn't place the flavor that it had but it was delicious, whatever it was. It was served in a big molcajete and topped with chopped tomatoes and sliced radish. The chips are thick and crunchy -- almost like pita chips -- and not at all greasy like some thicker chips can be. They give you three salsas -- verde, ancho, and habanero. The ancho chile salsa was sweet and mild. I didn't even attempt the habanero because I'm kind of a weenie about spicy stuff. My favorite by far was the verde because it was full of cilantro. The tacos that day were steak, onion, and chile. The tortillas were the traditional corn type. The steak was tender, juicy, and flavorful. Not at all what I expected on a Monday lunch shift.

    The consensus was that we liked the food but the tacos were small. But that's about what you can expect from a downtown joint. $10 doesn't get you very far unless you're eating fast food.

    Husband got to see Nicollet Mall at its finest: the trumpet guy in the alley, dueling guitar players, geriatric Lion's Club members milling about, and a drunk who had fallen over with his head in the street. Thankfully a nice man helped him at least get out of the path of oncoming buses. Downtown Minneapolis. Gotta love it.

    Ummm....

    shop.sanrio.com - My Melody 3-Piece Gauze Mask Set

    Thursday, July 02, 2009

    Mama Thursday: Three Months?

  • Three months? Seriously? Lily has outgrown both her newborn clothes and the 0-3 size. Unbelievable.

  • People at work keep asking me how I feel about being back, even though I've been back for a month now. I always have the same answer: meh. I don't believe I'm cut out for stay-at-home motherhood. By the end of those 10 weeks of maternity leave I was getting a little batty. I was an emotional mess and was starting to take it out on Husband. A lot of women say it's the lack of adult conversation that makes them crazy. For me it was being unable to do anything around the house and having it stare me in the face all day. Lily's not one for taking regular lengthy naps. I watched piles of pet hair collect in the corners, non-diaper laundry pile up on the bathroom floor, dishes sit in the sink, papers pile up on the table, and I don't even want to mention the bathroom.

  • After a couple of meltdowns and heart-to-hearts with Husband, he has really stepped up his housework game. Now we've almost got this complex dance of baby duty and chores down.

  • I have to build up my work wardrobe again because I found out the hard way that I can no longer wear button-up shirts. As a co-worker said, my rack is huge.

  • Lately Lily has taken to needing some cuddling time first thing in the morning. She is forcing me to slow down and really enjoy her.
  • Wednesday, July 01, 2009

    Trying something new

    I've been feeling guilty about neglecting this blog so I'm going to try something new. I'm giving myself deadlines and weekly topics. I'm going to start out with Foodie Tuesday and Mama Thursday. We'll see how this goes. When you only have three waking hours after work with your baby that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to blog.

    Thursday, June 25, 2009

    Foodblogging: Roasted Red Pepper Bianca Pizza

    I've been too busy parenting to blog properly so I'll do a quick foodblog. I'll also refrain from gushing about the baby. For now.



    This was the result of us not having gone grocery shopping in quite a while. We were hungry. What to eat? Uhhh, here's some frozen pizza dough. And half a pint of cream. And a manky looking red pepper and half a bag of mozzarella and a bit of Parmesan.

    I put the pepper in the broiler to roast while I made a quick alfredo sauce. I was worried about the crust because it had been in the freezer since last fall or so but it turned out fine. Great, actually. About 10 minutes in a 450 degree oven and we were eating like kings.

    In other news, yesterday my egg had two yolks.

    Friday, May 08, 2009

    The Birth Story

    WARNING: This blog entry is a completely uncensored story about birth. If you're grossed out about things like natural labor, placentas, poop, vaginas -- specifically those belonging to me -- please stop reading now.

    YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

    .

    .

    .

    I'm writing this stream-of-consciousness style at midnight after a day of no naps so I'm sure it's ripe with typos and sentences that don't make sense.

    It was Sunday afternoon -- exactly on my due date -- and I had been in and out of the bathroom several times. It had been a very unproductive morning, if you know what I mean. I was considering making myself some "Smooth Move" tea. I also noticed that I was feeling really wet, but when I checked it was just a lot of mucous. I called my midwife and told her about it. She said not to worry about it if there weren't any contractions.

    My mother-in-law was on her way to make us dinner. The pressure I was feeling in my butt was getting more and more intense. Then the pain started in my lower back when each butt wave hit. Holy crap, were these contractions? I told Dan to find his watch and start timing them. Wow, they're three to five minutes apart. My mother-in-law arrived right after I called my midwife again and I told her that we needed to go to the hospital. The contractions really started getting intense enough for me to make faces and gasp a little when they happened. Dan grabbed our hospital bags and off we went after lots of excitement and hugs from his mom.

    Dan was remarkably calm on the way there. After driving around the block after missing the emergency room entrance the first time (there was construction and it was a little hard to see) we were met at the door by the emergency room security guards with a wheelchair. We had the truck parked by the valet and made smalltalk with the security guards while we waited for the nurse to come down and escort us to the maternity unit. "Do you want to walk?" she asked. "No!" I said as I was right in the middle of a contraction. I remember thinking the journey upstairs was going remarkably slow. The nurse was asking me questions about my medical history or something while we were moving.

    When we arrived at the triage room I was handed a gown and instructed to get undressed and stay standing. I was still pretty calm and smiling at this time. My cervix was checked and I was dilated to 6 cm. Things were pretty wet so they took a sample to see if it was amniotic fluid or not. I was told to remain standing and walk around. Here I am:

    Oh you're smiling now...

    It didn't take long after that photo was taken for the contractions to get really intense. At some point we moved into my official room. I started to make noises completely involuntarily. I snapped at Dan about something but I don't remember what it was about. We laughed about it. About 45 minutes had passed since we last saw a nurse or midwife. I was sweating one second and freezing the next. I had to lie down and kept taking off and putting on the blanket. The noises I was making were getting longer and louder. Dan started getting concerned. He rang for a nurse. We found out that the unit's microscope had died and they were waiting for one in the lab. I asked when I could get into the birthing tub. They began filling it right away. At this time I was in quite a lot of pain, kind of felt like I needed to push a little, and was wondering how much worse the pain would get. I wondered how long this was going to go on.

    We walked across the hall to the birthing tub room. All the plans I had to do breathing exercises through the contractions went straight out the window. The contractions were crazy hard now. I was hanging on to the tub while it was filling and in a fit of weakness I asked about maybe getting some Nubain for the pain. They said I was really far along and medication would probably just slow down labor. I had no idea that I was actually in transition. They said that not only was I in transition, but I was on the back end of transition. "Sweet!" I thought for sure the pain would only get worse. I guess it kind of did, but it was never anything I couldn't handle.

    I got into the tub and needed to push. I was kneeling and hanging on to the side of the tub where Dan was telling me softly that I was doing awesome and reminding me to breathe. He had a cool washcloth and some water for me to sip. The washcloth was great through all the contractions except one where I almost screamed at him to get it off the back of my neck RIGHT NOW. The weirdest thing was that the next contraction came along and the washcloth on the back of my neck felt fabulous.

    The pain. The pain was strange and the urge to push was even stranger. Do you want to know what being in labor feels like? It feels like you need to take the biggest dump of your life. I expected there to be pain in the front around my belly but it was all in my butt. Prior to being in labor I was worried about pooping in the tub. During labor I knew I was pooping in the tub but hell if I cared. The nurse was right there with the net to take care of my business and I hardly noticed her. My eyes were closed tight 90% of the time.

    I was pushing and pushing and pushing. Then they had me get out of the tub and try pushing on the toilet (horror!). A tiny part of me was feeling humiliated by this prospect but mostly I was willing to try anything at that point. The toilet pushing actually helped to get the baby to drop further. I moved back into the tub. I had been pushing for about an hour and didn't know how much longer I could keep it up. The midwife checked me and decided that with her help she could get the baby's head past the little lip of my cervix that was keeping her in. So I pushed a few more times and evidently that got the baby into the birth canal. I thought I would be able to tell when the baby was in there, and I sort of could... kind of, but the feeling was much less noticeable that I expected.

    More pushing, more pushing, more pushing, then burning, BURNING. "Do you want to feel the baby's head crowning?" "NO!" I had to push. There was nothing else but pushing. I had to get this baby out. BURNING. RING OF FIRE. I remember saying, "OW!" which was one of the only real words I was able to say in the last two hours or so.

    Finally the head was out! I just wanted to get the rest out and stop the burning so I resented having to stop pushing when the midwife told me to. A couple more little pushes, a great cry of pain and relief, and they put Lily on my chest. She was grayish blue and crying and gasping a little bit. The world was spinning. Oddly, I wasn't crying like I thought I would. I was instantly calm. Dan cut the cord, they whisked Lily off to get cleaned and suctioned and whatnot, and I was moved to a bed. All I could do when they handed the little bundle of Lily back to me was gaze at her. I barely noticed when they gave me a shot of Pitocin in my leg and local anesthetic in my hoo-haw for stitches.

    Lily was still not crying as powerfully as they would have liked her to so they called in a neonatalogist just in case. As soon as the nurse picked her up off of me she really started wailing, which gave me some warm fuzzies. She ended up being fine.

    s5001173

    Fast forward past three weeks of nipple hell, leaks (me), leaks (Lily), being totally alert at the slightest middle-of-the-night cry (that didn't last long), and great joy at poop color changes. Lily will be six weeks old this Sunday and we couldn't be happier.

    I was recently asked what the most surprising thing about motherhood has been. For me it's how natural everything has come. I didn't think I had a single maternal molecule in my body. Turns out I was wrong.

    Tuesday, March 31, 2009

    Now look what we've done

    A baby, we has one.

    New family

    Monday, March 23, 2009

    Checklist

    Things I accomplished this weekend:
    • Watched the entire BSG finale, having never seen an episode of BSG before in my life. SPOILER: that one chick dies. (1 point)
    • Watched Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle. It was funny but I think I really missed out on the cheetah scene by not being stoned at the time. (1 point)
    • Watched Xanadu. I think I really missed out on this whole movie by not being stoned at the time. (-1 point)
    • Watched the Wild finally win in regulation. I bet the shutout was a huge morale boost to the team. Gaborick: meh. (1 point)
    • Got lots of free stuff at The Wedge with the coupons we got when we became official members. What to do with a big bottle of agave syrup? Hmm.... (1 point)
    • Couldn't find a parking spot at The Wedge and ended up parking wonky down the street and shuffling my preggo self an extra block with a heavy bag of groceries. (-1 point)
    Things I did NOT accomplish this weekend:
    • Give birth (-10 points)
    • Go to the MNRG bout (-2 points)
    • Go to Firkin Fest at the Happy Gnome (-1 point)
    Cumulative weekend score: -11. FAIL.

    Thursday, March 19, 2009

    Nine minutes with God

    This morning, in the nine minutes between hitting the snooze button and getting out of bed I had a dream about God.

    Funny, since I'm not the God-believin' type.

    God asked me to help him gather up animals, Noah's Ark style. Only he wanted four of each this time. And he wanted them to go into his truck, which happened to look an awful lot like my dad's truck (a GMC Sierra with a topper). Animals actually started showing up in my backyard. Towards the end of the dream I finally asked how in the hell he expected four each of tens of millions of different species to fit into the back of this truck. And furthermore, if he was supposed to be omnipotent, why did he need my help anyway?

    God simply shrugged, said nothing, and turned away.

    That's when my alarm went off.