The Stash.

I am now taking back my last blog entry.  I no longer love the Tommee Tippee breast pump.  I still love the system, the pods are great the pump was comfortable, but the motor began to die.  As my breast milk stash dwindled down, I felt less like a good mommy because I couldn’t make it even two months before I dried up.  Then I realized, it wasn’t me, it was the pump.  

Online reviews showed a lot of women had the same problem.  It was around ten o’clock when I realized this.   I still had the manual pump that the hospital gave me so I started to pump in bed next to Lloyd.  It flowed like crazy.  Lloyd, still on his iPad, found reviews for another one that were sold at Wal-Mart for a good price.  He then put on his pants, and went to Wal-Mart to buy it, even though I told him he didn’t have to.  He got the last one they had.  It’s the First Years MiPump, this time it’s a double pump.  It’s no where near as comfortable, I lose a lot more milk in transfer and droplets that get stuck, but it takes me half the time to pump and my stash built back up in no time.  

Because Angela rarely nurses directly, I pump all the time, and the stash has become an obsession of mine.  I have six four ounce pods that I keep in rotation in the fridge.  It took me a while to fill all six of those, but I finally did, I then froze two pods worth in a breast milk storage bag and tried to keep filling.  This was right when the pump went out, so I wound out thawing out the the bag and putting the milk back in the rotation. It took almost a week to build my stash to what it was before the pump gave out, in fact I just put some back in the freezer this morning.  I drink as much water as I possibly can, I also drink Mother’s Milk tea, and I take an herb that helps with lactation.  I’m not sure if it helps at all, but something does.  

The stash is up, but I want it higher!  A friend told me that she had a deep freezer full of breast milk, and fed her twins for six months after she stopped pumping!  I would love that.  I am trying to avoid spending money on formula if I can possibly help it.  Plus every time we give her formula, she seems to get some tummy trouble.  I don’t want to have to do it much.  

I suggest all pregnant women get on the mailing lists for all of the formula companies.  I have formula stashed in the cabinet that the companies sent me for free, and I still haven’t made it through the first cans of it!  I’m hoping that I can donate what is left to the food bank, but we’ll see what happens when she can switch to whole milk.  

Ode to my Breast Pump

A few months before I gave birth, a friend told me something that stuck with me.  She said, “You have to remember that the point is to get breast milk into her body, not that formula is poison.  And it doesn’t matter if it comes from your breast or a bottle.”

I had read a few points of view that said that formula was poison.  Much like the epidural, my objection to formula was never because I was a purist.  It’s simple, formula is expensive, breast milk is free.  

After I had Angela, I could not get her to nurse.  She was three weeks early and I hadn’t had time to get a breast pump yet, but the hospital had one that I could use while I was there.  They also gave me a bag of accessories to go with it.  I knew I didn’t plan on buying the compatible breast pump, so most of them were useless to me, but it did come with a hand pump, which would help to keep me stimulated over the next couple of days until I could get the electric one.  I sent Lloyd out with a list of things to get from Target, including Tommee Tippee Single Electric Breast Pump.  

Tommee TIppee is a brand that, if the box is to be believed, has been popular in the UK for years.  I had heard of the bottles before.  They’re slightly smaller, and have a wider mouth.  I worked with a little boy who would not take a bottle because he was so used to his mom’s breast.  Even he took this bottle because it was shaped more like a breast.  I put these bottles and the breast pump on my registry.  I got the bottles, not the breast pump, that we bought with a bunch of gift cards.  

The entire system is wonderful.  Let me start by saying that the breast pump I used at the hospital had a hard plastic cone to attach to my nipple and it hurt!  The one I bought had a soft silicone cup that squeezed the nipple.  I found this much more comfortable.  It took weeks before I felt the need for nipple cream.

With the Tommee Tippee system, the pump attaches directly into the bottle.  There are also inserts that fit inside the bottle before you attach to the pump that can be pumped into directly and then refrigerate.  When you are ready to use the milk inside the insert, you simply fill the bottle with tap water as hot as you can get it, put the insert back in, and then attach a nipple.  The inserts that come with the pump are 2 oz inserts, 4oz are also available, which I have also purchased.  I also have a bottle warmer for occasions where I don’t use the inserts at all.  I didn’t think that I would use it, but as it turns out, I do.  

The only thing I regret about the breast pump is that I didn’t get the double.  I go back and forth on this.  I think it would be awkward to hold both cups at once, but it would take me half the time to pump.  Either way, I already purchased the single.  Maybe with my next child I will get the double.  I can tell you that if I do have another baby, I’m taking this pump with me to the hospital.  

There are purest, and quite a few of them, who say that I shouldn’t give up on nursing her directly and I haven’t completely given up, but pumping seems to work for me, especially with this particular system.  I am not being paid any money from this company, (I wish I was that big), but I will say I absolutely love it!  And if anyone from the Tommee Tippee company is reading this, please, send me free stuff!

Childbirth

I am scared to death of needles.  I always have been.  I don’t know where it comes from, but I can remember kicking and screaming while nurses at the pediatricians office tried giving me a shot in the rump.  I once took my dad with me to get dental work done, and I was twenty three!  I had a root canal and had to be put on anti anxiety medication.  When I had surgery last year, I had to be held down by three different nurses to get an IV started.  I stuck with my OBGYN not because of him, but because of of the lady who drew my blood, she was awesome.  

So the prospect of a giant needle going into my spine was not exactly appealing.  This was the main reason I wanted to avoid it.  I did not think that an epidural would be bad for my my daughter, but I just didn’t want one.

All through my pregnancy, people gave me advice.  When I said that I wanted a natural, drug free birth, several people told me I was crazy.  I had someone telling me, “Tell the doctor you want a scheduled c-section, it’s worth it.”  I had someone else telling me “Have them shoot you up as soon as possible.”  But everyone who had a natural childbirth said. “It’s so worth it.”  It always looked like people had more trouble recovering from the epidural than from the birth itself.  It seemed like an added bonus.   

So we signed up for a class.  We thought of the Bradley Method, but by the time we signed up, it was too late.  We found an online Lamaze class that had supplemental classes we could take in person locally.  I thought the class was perfect for us because of all of the traveling we would be doing around the holidays.  I learned quite a bit.  We didn’t take the local classes.  I thought I was prepared; I had a birth plan.  

The Plan

I knew that I wanted a drug free labor, but that was not always possible.  My mother and my sister both went so long that they had to be induced, so I knew that this was a possibility for me as well.  I knew from the classes that the drug used to induce or speed up labor makes your contractions harder.   I knew I would have to suck it up for an epidural at that point.  

If I was at home, I would take a bath and try to relax from the contractions, If I was at work, I would walk around to try and speed up labor.  Either way I would call my husband for him to take me into the hospital when the contractions reached ten minutes apart.  With all the walking I did on a daily basis as a preschool teacher, I expected a fast and easy labor.  

What Actually Happened

I went to my regular appointment with my doctor.  My  blood pressure had spiked pretty high.  I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension and told to get to the hospital.  I not only had to be induced, I needed to put on a magnesium drip.  I had to have two IV’s, one in each arm, plus a blood pressure cuff, and a catheter to catch my urine.  That’s right, I couldn’t get up and go to the bathroom for over two days.  Now in order to have a drug free birth it is necessary to move around.  You should be walking, squatting, or at the very least moving up and down in the bed.  It was impossible for me to get into any kind of position while hooked up to all of that extra stuff!  because of all this, I gave in and had the epidural.  

It came time to push after a full twenty four hours of being in labor.  At that point, the baby still hadn’t moved down, neither had my cervix,  when the doctor checked to see if I was dilated, it hurt quite a bit.  All of the things I knew from the classes to do that would get the baby in a better position, I couldn’t do!  I silently hoped for them to just slice me open and get the kid out of me!

At around 5:00 I got my wish.  They upped the drugs going through the epidural tube, and I was feeling good.  I took off my contacts, put on my glasses and prepared to be cut open like a watermelon.  They wheeled me into the operating room and at 5:20 PM, Angela Luisa Pilkey was pulled out of my body.  They wrapped her up and put her in front of my face.  She was adorable, and very tiny.  I gave her a little kiss on the nose.  It was all I could do.  I couldn’t hold her, either because of the c-section, or the magnesium.  

I was taken off the magnesium and wheeled back to labor and delivery, not to a regular room.  My baby was also taken from me and not brought back.  I didn’t see her until after 9:00.  All of the websites say this is a bad thing; mommies need to bond with their babies and not be separated from them for very long at all.  I didn’t spend that night with my baby.  

The next morning we both went to our own room.  From then on, I had a pretty good experience.  All of the magnesium was out of my system and my baby and I were doing great, with one exception,  I couldn’t nurse!  There were lactation consultants who were somewhat helpful, but they were only available during the day.  Anyone who has had a baby knows that it is a 24 hour per day process at first.  Babies need to be fed around the clock.  

I could barely feed her, and because she was so tiny, I was talked into supplementing her with formula, which I also didn’t want to do.  She got so used to eating from the bottle, she didn’t want to nurse directly, and it kind of hurt me.  I wanted what was best for her, and that included breast feeding.  Nothing was going according to plan.

Forty eight hours after my c-section, Angela and I were released from the hospital.  Her going home outfit didn’t fit, but luckily I had something else that worked.  

The next couple of days were kind of a blur.  I know I was on pain killers, my parents were around, and I couldn’t stand up straight.  The point is, even though nothing went according to plan, I have a wonderful, beautiful, healthy baby girl.  

I started this blog with the plan to write down all of my experiences to share them with everyone else.  I want people, including me to understand that not being a perfect parent doesn’t make you a bad parent.  I’m not an expert, I’m just a mom, and I want to share what works for me.  I would love others to leave comments and hear what works for them.