Note: if you don’t want to hear me talking about breasts and vaginas, you might want to opt out now.

Note the Second: I wrote this a long time ago and am posting it now because: a) I haven’t posted anything in a long time, and b) I feel like it.

It never occurred to me to write this post until after reading this, a husband’s account of his wife’s failed attempts at breastfeeding.  (Even if you don’t much care for things kids-related, it’s a worthwhile read just for the powerful writing.)  I read a lot of parenting stuff, but this was the first time I saw a story about breastfeeding gone wrong, no doubt because for many of us, the guilt and shame that accompanies this failure is a bit too much to blog.  Right now my son is sound asleep, his near-empty MAM bottle of Similac Advance in front of me.  So how did I get here?

I assumed from the start that I would breastfeed.  I took the class, I practiced the “sandwich hold,” I read the book.  Of everything, it was the one thing I could bring myself to do. Crib? No. BF class? Yes.  I’m not sure why this was.  I didn’t even buy bottles ahead of time, partly because I assumed exclusive breastfeeding and partly because it would have been another thing to throw away if he didn’t make it. So perhaps I was able to take on BF prep because it didn’t carry physical signs of impending parenthood the way purchasing feeding supplies would have. (See last year’s posts, November through March, for an explanation of the underlying causes of my neuroses.)

I prepped myself solidly for a natural labor but didn’t think it would actually happen; I breezed through the breastfeeding prep and scoffed when I heard that most women give up after the first month.  I planned to go for at least six months and then figure out what would be best for my child from there.  I don’t know why I thought it would be so easy.  Partly I just trusted my body’s ability to do its job.  But under that–if I’m going to be completely honest here–there lurks a mild though significant dose of classism.  Those puny plastic 2 oz. bottles of formula with the screw-on nipples?  Those are for 16-year-olds and bottle-proppers.  They aren’t meant for me.  I’ve got a doula, a birth plan, an organic diet.  Breastfeeding is my birthright.

Except that it wasn’t.

I know I’ve said it in various comments, but I feel lucky that I was able to give birth the way I wanted to.  I had a fever during labor whose source couldn’t be pinpointed, and IV fluids and tylenol didn’t bring it down.  (We didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until much later, when we realized that, hey, that whole team from pediatrics? They aren’t in the room for everyone’s delivery.  Our OB, smartly or not, did not tell us what the worst case scenario was that made her call them in; we still don’t know.) Due to my own panic about the possibility of infection, labor stalled around the 6-centimeter mark after progressing really well in a matter of hours.  Because of the fever my doctor insisted on augmentation with pitocin to get labor going again, which, if you’re familiar with these things, you know is the first step on a short road away from vaginal delivery.   In a usual-case-scenario, pitocin brings on contractions quickly but intensely painfully, thus increasing the need for an epidural, which can then either slow labor again or impede pushing.  And it only gets worse from there. Because I knew about that possibility (because I read the book, dammit!  because I was prepared!), I refused the epidural and went drug-free, giving birth vaginally after about 12 hours of labor.

(Note: Pitocin isn’t as bad as everyone says it is.  It’s worse.  For me it was particularly bad because I needed to push before I was fully dilated, which resulted in 3rd degree tears.  For those of you who don’t know, that’s one degree before the kind of tear that opens the wall between vagina and rectum.  When it rains, the stitches hurt. I’m like an old guy with a bum knee. Only, you know, in my vaginal wall.)

My ability to give birth vaginally without an epidural gave me incredible confidence. Of course I would breastfeed.  Of course this body, capable of delivering a healthy child, capable of withstanding the pain and effort of labor, would be capable of feeding my child now, for the next month, the next six months, the next two years, if that’s what I wanted.

Except that it wasn’t.

My son weighed 8 pounds, 10.5 ounces at birth.  As soon as he was returned to me, my doula helped him to latch for the first time.  He was never great at latching, and it was never easy–I couldn’t just “pop him on the boob,” as I’ve heard it described–but once we were set up he would do pretty well.  He knew what he was doing, and I was doing my best not to get in his way.  I saw the hospital lactation consultant, but that was just a formality.  We were good.  We were Earth Mama and Earth Baby.  Before we were discharged two days later, the pediatrician asked that we return the next day for a weight check and a jaundice check.  His jaundice levels were hovering at a not-good-not-bad level, but his weight had already passed the 7% loss mark.  I wasn’t terribly concerned about either thing.

I should have been. By the next day he hit 10% and was going lower.  And in the meantime, our breastfeeding bond started to break.  He was weak, and tired, and weak some more.  He’d latch and stop, or latch and pop off, screaming.  He fell asleep feeding a few times, and I just left him there for two hours at a time, but he wasn’t getting what he needed.  In the meantime, my milk wasn’t coming in.  In a month of breastfeeding attempts, minor successes, and glowing failures, my breasts felt full exactly one time.  I never leaked.  I never felt the exploding pain of a breast that needs to be nursed. For whatever reason, my body failed.

We were seeing the doctor daily for weight checks at that time, and we weren’t given any option but to supplement with formula.  The jaundice was still there (remind me to tell you about the time Wizard and a 3-day-old had to wait THREE HOURS in a scummy hospital waiting room for a heel stick), and the weight was still dropping. Those 2 oz. bottles with the screw-on nipples? Here, Perpetua, these are for you.

And then I hit Day Five.  Do y’all know about Day Five?  Statistically speaking, it is the absolute worst postpartum day in terms of roller-coaster emotions, mounting physical pain, and, for me, dead black despair. (I didn’t know this until long after Day Five, or else I would have thought I imagined it).  That day I called my doula and asked for advice about the breastfeeding, which at this point was happening overnight, with bottle feedings during the day.  And she? She recommended cup feeding.

That was her answer.  I’m telling a person who has seen me at my most-intimate-of-intimates that my baby keeps losing weight and my milk isn’t coming in and I want to jump out the window or board a jet to New Zealand or both, and she tells me to go massage my breasts into a paper cup and tip the milk down baby’s throat.  Cup feeding is recommended because if you use a bottle, you’re impeding the baby’s natural ability to latch and giving him an “easy out.”

I want to make this clear: we wanted to breastfeed.  We didn’t even use a fucking pacifier.  I got upset when they gave him one during his hearing test, even though they had to because he was screaming like the little instigator that he is and they couldn’t perform the test. (He also pulled the plugs out of his ears because, as I’ve said before, He. Is. Hilarious.)  But for some reason, the cup feeding thing?  Pushed me over the edge.  That was the moment I refused the cult.

So we rented a hospital-grade breast pump. Screw the mama-baby bond, at this point I just wanted to get as much breast milk into The Baby as possible.  So I sat and milked myself for hours at a time.

And it was a good day if I got four ounces out of both breasts.

You are welcome to tell me that amounts don’t matter and that breastfeeding doesn’t concern itself with amounts and who knows how much comes out of a breast, anyway.

You are also welcome to go fuck yourself.

I don’t even remember where he was when his weight bottomed out.  Somewhere in the seven pound range, I think. It’s written down somewhere, along with a painstaking diary of every drop of food that has ever entered my child’s body (because did I mention that I am totally OCD about his eating and to this day write down everything he eats? I know, I need to clear that up. I know it has the potential to damage him. But I just can’t right now.)  I know my baby better now and know that he is just a beanpole, as my best friend says. He’s really long, and he’s not chubby, and that’s who he is.  But tell that to Perpetua, mother of a 2-week old, and see what she says.  She’ll probably tell you to go fuck yourself.  She’s fond of saying that.

Oh! And! I forgot to tell you! He had a cold (or SOMETHING, we never figured out what it was) during his first two weeks that interfered with his ability to latch because his nose was completely blocked, and who wants a boob in their mouth when they can’t breathe through their nose? (Well, some fetishist, probably, but my baby wasn’t interested.)

So, in sum: baby loses weight, baby gets jaundice, baby gets cold-thing, baby loses more weight, parents forced to supplement, parents told to cup feed, mama cries and cries and cries, mama gets breast pump, pump doesn’t produce much more milk than baby, mama cries and cries and cries.  Repeat last two steps for a month.

A month to the day of my son’s birth, I returned the pump.  I did it.  Me. I took it to the security room at the hospital. (I’m going to go ahead and tell you that I’m crying now, because that? Was one of the more fucked up failures of my life. And I’m no stranger to failure.)

So, here’s where we are now:

Every time he seems like he’s getting a cold, I obsess over whether breastfeeding would have made a difference. I can’t buy formula at the store because I’m too embarrassed, like I’m a pregnant smoker. I’m the Queen of H1N1 Obsession because, hey, you know what will mess you up?  A pandemic that starts three days after your baby who won’t feed is born.

The good part is that these thoughts only encompass about 10% of my day.  They used to take up 50%, and in the first two months or so, it was all I thought about.

I mourn my lost milk.  And I wish I didn’t. But I can’t separate truth from hype. I know “breast is best” even if I don’t believe in it as a cure-all wonder-food.  Failing your child is completely different from failing yourself.  I mean, I’ve screwed up all manner of things over the past 30 years, but that’s my business.  But in this case, I made a person, and then I didn’t give him what he needed. It’s like I invited my friends over for dinner and then asked them to cook. Only it’s not at all like that, because in that scenario I’m just a minor asshole.  In my reality, I’m a person who has not done best by her child.  That’s 4th degree asshole, the kind where your intestines are hanging out your vag and dragging on the floor.

I was supposed to be writing a chapter today, but somehow this seemed more important. Thanks for being a trooper and making it through to the end (even if you skimmed).

Tell me this: when did I turn into one of those people who considers college students to be consumers and sees her job as providing exceptional customer service?

Probably since I moved from the classroom to administration. I used to grandstand about the life of the mind and goods and services and commodity culture and all the rest.  I used to think college was more than just an exchange of cash for degree.  But now? Now I’m working my ass off to make sure that there is a tutor for every tutee, and I’m not doing it because I’m concerned about their education.  No, I’m thinking about how if a student is turned away, that student will complain that s/he didn’t get what s/he wanted, which will in turn piss off the dean-ly people, which will in turn jeopardize our funding.  Our cash.  Our Gs.

I’ll tell you more about it later. Right now I’ve got a customer.

Well, hey everybody!  How are you?

If your answer ISN’T “my mother-in-law has been living with me for the past month,” then you are FINE.

So anyway, you tell me, which of these is more nasty:

“I’ve been through a dissertation with one child. I’m not putting up with it for another one” in response to my slight diss panic this week.  Mind you, there was no gnashing of teeth or rending of dresses.  I was just, you know, complaining.  And expressing my fear that I didn’t have enough material for the chapter section I’m working on.

***OR***

“The Baby is such a good vegetable eater. Maybe you should join him.”  This one references NOT my eating habits themselves (um, who doesn’t eat vegetables? I know I do), but the fact that I am overweight. (And by the way, the woman herself subsists on bacon, cream cheese, SALTSALTSALT, Kit Kats, pizza, Big Macs, and comté.)

So?  What say you, Internet?  Which one of these is more early-flight-home worthy?

ETA (because I’m all about the ETAs today):  Wizard, in a fight with his mother concerning HIS weight (he weighs maybe 160 I think?), mentioned the vegetables thing.  Jesus-effing-Christ. So now I have to avoid the hell out of her for the rest of the night. Not to mention that this adds to the ongoing “you don’t express yourself, why don’t you express yourself?” battle, which in reality means, “why don’t you express yourself so that I can have something to hold against you?”

Fucking hell.

How long has it been since I’ve discussed something of or related to pop culture?  What’s that?  Never, you say?  Unpossible!  My world is a Pop Carnivale if you consider the amount of reality tv I consume daily.  If it’s on Bravo, I watch it.  MTV, usually.  TLC, sometimes, if it’s Toddlers and Tiaras or the occasional Jon & Kate. VH1 not so much, at least not lately, since the Flavor of Love and New York spin-offs are too much even for me to bear.  I am mildly obsessed with the Megan Wants a Millionaire murder-suicide scandal, though.  What kind of one-off vetting company do you have to hire to miss a dude with assault charges? Oy.

Anyway, the point is, I don’t watch much in the way of scripted sitcoms and dramas, which is why I have no idea why I’m suddenly hooked on Degrassi. MTV has been running an hour block of reruns all summer–inexplicably starting with the most recent season and then backtracking to the early seasons.  We’re on season four right now, in the (I’m assuming) short run-up to the school shooting episodes.

Which leads me to ask: WTF, Degrassi?  You’re in Canada, are you not?  Not that I’m saying nothing bad ever happens to our Northly Neighbors, but how the hell bad does your neighborhood have to be for you to face all-tragedy all-the-time?  I haven’t seen all the seasons yet, but thanks to some surfing of the Degrassi Wiki, I’ve learned that, in addition to your run-of-the-mill drug situations, pregnancy scares, and near-molestations, the Next Generation will have visited upon it:  the above-mentioned shooting, a bunch of different cancers, an outbreak of GONORRHEA OF THE MOUTH (involving Emma, no less!), and a cute little dude who worried about his penis size getting stabbed in the aorta.

Now.  At this point, if Degrassi were in the U.S., I’d be asking the local surveyor if it had been built over an ancient burial ground, or perhaps a former slave plantation.  Because that’s some bad mojo right there.  And yes, I get it, it’s a CHILDREN’S SHOW, and it’s performing a public service by teaching kids how to address the myriad of fears, dangers, and stresses that plague their not-so-little-kid lives.  But at what point does it become legitimate to ask exactly how much shit one can expect to go down in a fictional universe?  At one point, Ashley, a character I’ve had a hard time tracking through the season-jumps because of radical hair re-dos, says, “Degrassi’s cursed.  I’m getting out of here.”  And that was somewhere in the third season.  She hadn’t yet seen the relationship violence, bipolar disorder, or erectile dysfunction (yes, that too, because one of the shot teens is paralyzed from the waist down) that would soon befall her crew.

I’ll give this to the Canadians: they don’t screw around.  If they’re going to tackle sexual issues, they hit everything from STDs to ED, with pregnancy, LUGs, and penis envy in the mix.  In that sense, it’s a more adult approach to teen drama that recognizes a panoply of concerns, not just the top-vote-getters.  But on the other hand…poor Emma!  She gives one blow job and ends up with freakin’ gonorrhea?  And Manny gets pregnant the first time she sleeps with Craig?  Which, now that I think about it, seems to be a rather conservative sexual angle.  Not that these things can’t happen, of course they do, but STDs are a numbers game just like everything else. Oh, and not to mention the fact that it’s the show’s lone fat girl character (Terri) who ends up in an abusive relationship.  Because of course the violent dudes prey on the fatties who’d rather die than leave a lover.

Perhaps that’s the reason I’ve found myself sticking to “scripted reality” lately: I’d rather concern myself with the flippant frippery of reality fantasy (e.g. Is Jeff going to fire Jenni this season?  Is that what that promo meant???) than the representative reality that is television drama.  Degrassi is far closer to the truth than is The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and I’m not interested in that much truth right now.

But is it too much to ask that the kids of Lakehurst High shoulder some of the burden?  Because Degrassi’s apparently got enough of it to go around.

1. The first deadlines for Infinite Summer
2. Hair (so goes the thick, lustrous hair of pregnancy…down the drain…)
3. An acceptable level of blood iron
4. Uninterrupted sleep
5. Patience
6. The point of NYC Prep (not in an entertainment way, but an existential way)
7. A sunny disposition
8. Coffee
9. A serious plan for how I’m going to function as a working mother
10. Texas
11. My “blogiversary,” or whatever the hell you call it (June 26th it was, and no, let’s not dwell on who I was last year at this time)
12. The willingness to end a list on a uneven or otherwise disturbing number like 11.

WTF, WordPress?  I just wrote this whole post about my reasons for and against getting a Facebook account, inspired by this Slate article.  But now the post is gone!  Kerpoof!  I’m not rewriting that whole darned thing, so do me a favor, won’t you, and take my little poll?

Her childfree friend, her childfree friend?  Who’s afraid of her childfree friend?

Me. Me. Me.

Lemme explain.  I have a friend who is avowedly Childfree, which is not just an idea but a movement.  I’d say it’s the exact opposite of Quiverfull except that it’s not.  While Quiverfull folks seem to limit their notion of what a family should be to themselves (though I’m sure they’d like their anti-birth-control rules to become law), the Childfree wouldn’t mind if everyone followed their suit.

Apparently this friend of mine isn’t as active in the movement as she once was, before I knew her.  But she still holds to her version of the philosophy, believing:

1. That there are enough children in the world–enough that we should just “stop having them.”
2. IVF, IUI, and other fertility treatments are wrong.
3. If a couple sincerely wants to raise a child, they should “just adopt” (her words–I’m not asshole enough to use the words “just” and “adopt” in close proximity).
4. Having one child isn’t so bad, but you should NEVER have more than two.
5. People who have children are selfish and are wrecking the planet for the childfree.
6. The childfree are screwed over by a society that awards childbearing through tax cuts and other employment benefits, such as parental leave.
7. Children are generally distasteful.
8. Kids shouldn’t be allowed in quiet public places or anywhere, really, that their presence might be distracting or even evident.
9. And finally, one that I actually agree with:  women shouldn’t be made to feel incomplete or inadequate because they do not reproduce.

So…you might imagine my problem.  Ever since I got married, this friend (let’s call her CF) has been more vocal than ever about her childfree beliefs.  Who knows, maybe she was proselytizing.  It didn’t work, obvs. But she knows that I disagree with her, and she knows that she can’t convince me on any of her points except that last one (which, admittedly, I believed long before our talks).

The point that pisses me off the most is the anti-IVF stance.  IVF is advanced enough now that you most likely won’t end up Gosselin-ized, which, along with the physical/psychological toll it can take, are the major drawbacks.  But infertility takes its own toll, and it should be treated as a legitimate health problem (and receive appropriate insurance coverage, but let’s not even start).  As far as I’m concerned, if you’re willing and able to endure IVF in order to have a child, go for it.  Her argument:  if you can’t naturally have children, you aren’t “meant” to have them–a surprising viewpoint for an atheist to hold, no?  Oh, and what about gay couples that want to bear a child together?  They often need IUI.  I thought I’d get her on that one since she is straight but very pro-gay, but this is where the “just adopt” argument takes over.  She believes that society puts too much pressure on women to reproduce, and I agree that it does.  The problem, though, is that she casts adoption as this equal-but-lesser alternative to childbirth as opposed to a legitimate choice in family-building.

Anyway.

Despite all this, we are closer than acquaintances.  We see each other about once a week, often with Wizard in tow.  Yet she does not know I’m pregnant.  I was dreading telling her to begin with, but after the conditional condition made itself known, I started to really worry.  Let’s say that the shit goes down this week and I end up losing this pregnancy.  How am I supposed to tell her, and what level of empathy do I have a right to expect from a person who doesn’t want and doesn’t much like children?  I’m expecting her to see it as no big deal–and part of the reason that I haven’t told her about it yet is that I can’t imagine she’d understand why we’ve been freaking out for the past month.  I can’t imagine she would understand the irony of my situation: that I can be avowedly pro-choice and yet consider the fetus I am carrying to be a child, a child we want, a child we can’t stand the thought of losing.

Once we know which direction our lives will take, I’m going to have to tell her.  If the news is good, I don’t care what happens.  Hell, I won’t care if my hair catches on fire when I dial the phone.  If the news is not good, you’ll have to help me out with this, Internet.

This is a placeholder post, a “don’t want to post two photos in a row” post.

I should post part two of that thing I was posting a while ago, but I don’t feel like it.

I don’t know if this particular brand of malaise I’m experiencing is pro-work or anti-work. Am I shutting down because I have so much to do that I don’t have time for recreational thinking and writing, or am I quiet here because I’m quiet everywhere else (dissertation, etc.)?

Dunno.

End placeholder.