Pregnancy, childbirth and labor are all things I would be willing to go through over and over again. Seriously. Larry says I was made to have babies. While that may be true, breastfeeding is NOT something I was made to do. Read no further if you can't handle a little TMI about my boobs and some profanity. Well probably a lot of profanity...
Breastfeeding is a complete mind fuck. "It's the right thing to do." "Your baby will be healthier." "It's an amazing bonding experience." All fine and dandy until your 5 week old angel has the gnarliest face rash from something you ate, barfs up everything that he just sucked out of you and cries and curls up like his tummy is killing him. It fucking sucks to see your baby in pain and to know it has SOMEthing to do with your diet but you have no fricking idea exactly what it is yet. I told Larry that if Oliver had food issues like Emma did when I was breastfeeding then he was getting a ticket to the formula train. Well I haven't had the heart to do that. And if he has a milk protein intolerance like I suspect then formula will cost more money than I am making right now. That isn't saying much since California sucks for new moms and I'm 1week away from getting paid nothing to stay at home for 8 more weeks to take care of my son. But that could be a whole other blog post. Back to the boobs.
Let's rewind to 5 weeks ago when my sweet little angel was born. Actually, let me rewind to 3 1/2 years ago when I was pretty much in the same mental shit hole that I am in right now. Barfing, green poop, face rash, rashy booty, refusing to nurse like my boob had toxic acid coming out of it....these were all things I experienced with Emma. This was in addition to her shitty latching which led to bleeding, scabs and pain for more weeks/months than I can remember. After a couple months of troubleshooting, I somehow began surviving on the "Air Diet"...you know the amazing ass diet where you can't eat dairy, soy, or wheat. Essentially this means I ate a shit-ton of oatmeal, Amy's Black Bean Tamales and steamed chicken and veggies for NINE months. Quite honestly, I never loved the whole experience, which is why I swore my next kid was NOT going to put me through that shit again. After Emma had a bagillion ear infections, all I could think was, "What the eff is this bullshit about breastfeeding making your baby healthier?" Crock. Of. Shit. I threw in the towel after pumping was no longer outputting enough to really feed her, followed by Emma biting me with one of her new teeth and drawing blood, followed by the extreme selfish need to have a deep dish stuffed Chicago style pizza with a mother load of cheese for my 31st birthday. I wish someone would have told me before that awesome adventure (insert extreme sarcasm) that a) Breastfeeding is WAY harder than anyone will ever tell you buuuuut b) if it is still pretty painful after a few weeks, then something is wrong. Yeah, would have been useful information before I mentally committed to "doing the right thing". They tell you all the ins and outs about how to give birth to a baby but no one really prepares you for this!!
I am the milk truck. I can comfort my son in a heartbeat by plopping a boob into his mouth. I can't really console him if he is just fussy but not hungry because if I hold him anywhere near my rack, he will start rooting and become horizontal, even if he isn't really hungry. He smells me from across the room and will go from calm to ravenously STARVING in a heartbeat. Speaking of rack, I shrank down to a negative A cup after Emma and have returned to a hearty D cup for the sake of my son. The first two weeks of breastfeeding with my barracuda eating pork chop was well, really fucking painful. When the lactation consultants tell you it shouldn't hurt, they are lying. Because no matter how perfect the latch is, it ALWAYS hurts at first until your boobs get used to being tugged on for 10 hours a day. To his credit, Oliver is much better at nursing than his sister. He doesn't dilly-dally, goes to town and is finished in 10-20 minutes. Awesome. I fortunately recognized the symptoms of overactive letdown/oversupply (oh yeah, I had that shit with Emma also!) by the second day after my milk came in so I switched to block feeding (basically only giving him one boob per feeding) and that rectified his fussiness and green poops pretty quickly. I went easy on the dairy at first and never really consumed more than cheese on a sandwich or a few slices of pizza during the first two weeks. Week 2, Oliver started getting a slight rash on his cheeks. "Baby acne" they say....so common in boys. Okay, whatever. After a week of the rash getting worse and seemingly more red in the evenings and after eating, my mommy instinct said it was something more. Lactation nurse confirmed yesterday that his face rash is most definitely an allergic reaction, not baby acne. No shit.
I cut dairy out of my diet about a week and a half ago and decided to be safe and cut out soy as well. Oliver continued to have serious tummy issues in the evening and after further investigation, I discovered that my prenatal vitamins had soy in them so I cut those out a few days ago. Eggs were on my radar as a no-no after a projectile, mucousy vomiting day but I had also eaten a hot dog that day, which had hydrolized soy protein. Took a chance and ate Larry's delicious homemade turkey noodle soup the other night (with homemade EGG noodles) and boy do I regret that! Oliver's poor face is a hot mess. It was starting to look a wee bit better today. I didn't eat anything out of the ordinary today (pinchy nasty ass oatmeal with almond milk for breakfast and grilled chicken and apples for lunch) but boy has his tummy had some ish today.
We both had our breakdown by 7 tonight. He cried and puked while I cried. I want to quit. I want to give up. This is just too hard. Yet I find myself nursing him again, with his hand on my chest and those big brown eyes looking up at me and I find the strength to persevere. No one else gets these moments with him except me. What if he's my last baby and I regret giving up? Yep, it's a constant everyday mind fuck. I keep telling myself just not to give up on the hardest days. The milk truck must stay in business.
