Okay. Its been a long time again since I've posted, but I promised a breastfeeding post so here it is! But before I give you the inside scoop, here are the menial details of Oliver's and my life since the last time you heard from me.
1. His stump fell off, so he got his first bath! I'll get those pictures onto the computer to be sent out to y'all... umm... sometime. Did he like it? No. He hated it and he peed. A lot.
2. He now weighs 10 pounds 8 ounces. Thats a lot. He was only supposed to have regained his birthweight by now. What a solid boy.
3. I got his photos taken professionally on Sunday. A few of the pictures have been posted ont he photographer's website, but the rest will be finished in a few days. If you request the password from me, you can look at them all and put in orders if you'd like some prints.
4. I went somewhere without Oliver for the first time since he was born. It was so weird to be away from him, and even though it was just for a couple of hours I missed him.
NOW! Breastfeeding.
Where does one start in on the discussion of breastfeeding? I don't know. I'm pretty lucky because I haven't had any real problems with it. My nipples haven't cracked, bled, blistered... Nothing like that. When I've spoken with the other new mommies about breastfeeding, they give me evil glares. They are jealous of how awesome my nipples are. :)
My challenges with breastfeeding? I leak. A lot. At night, when Oliver wakes up for his feeding, I am lying in a puddle of my own cold breast milk nine times out of ten. My bedroom smells like rancid breast milk, which smells EXACTLY like puppy breath. (Probably because puppies only drink dog breast milk and their teeth never get brushed. So... if you want to imagine my bedroom's smell, think puppy breath.)
I got a waterproof mattress cover to save my mattress, but I can't think of any way to save my sheets. I sleep on towels and I wear breast pads but alas there is no damming my breastmilk river. I've had to put more blankets on the bed because being soaked with cold breastmilk makes me freeze. All of my milky bedsheets add to the mountains of laundry I've got, so I'm trying to figure out some sort of algorithm as to when I should change my sheets. How long should I suffer with the milk stink before I strip off the sheets and wash them again?
Something else that is sort of a problem is that, well, I spray. I don't know how many times I've squirted breastmilk all over Oliver's face. I wasn't really aware that one could spray breast milk, but IT HAPPENS. The first time I sort of freaked out. Now I am kind of amused by it. As embarressing as it is to admit, I have actually sat down and milke myself to see how far I could squirt. (The answer? At least 4 feet. NO LIES.) Nobody told me that you can milk yourself in such a way that it sprays out in all directions. I think that is something I would have liked to know going into this so, hey, now you know.
Other things I'd like to have known about breastfeeding:
A.) Your boobs get hot. Not sexy hot, either. Like.. flaming hot. Mojave desert hot. I don't know why that is but its a bit unnerving if you don't expect it. It does, thankfully, go away.
B.) It is a time sucker. You couldn't even imagine the time you'll spend grabbing your boobs, massaging your boobs, cleaning the various boob pump accessories, trying to snap the various closures on the oh-so-sexy nursing bras. Your life becomes centered around your boobs, because your baby is OBSESSED with them. Seriously.
C.) People will ask you nonstop if you are breastfeeding. I think if I had said no to some people I might have been knifed. People are REALLY all up in your business about how you feed your baby.
I would've liked to write more, but Oliver woke up and its time to open up shop at The Breastraunt again. I'll leave you with this:
I have gotten so used to baby poop that when I got some on my arm last night, I just sort of studied it. It was shaped exactly like the state of Alaska, and that intrigued me.
(I did eventually wash it off. No worries.)
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