sueeeus

Yesterday I dropped by Costco to order a birthday cake for Mr. Gadget, what with his 40th birthday looming.  I was distraught, distraught, I say, to find that no longer is the white whipped frosting an option.  Heretofore, it has been the only reason to buy such a cake.  It requires a major occasion to justify the acquisition of a half-sheet cake.  It’s not the only unfavorable change, either.  For some reason they changed their take-and-bake pizza options from plain cheese (our family favorite), plain pepperoni, and combo to ‘gourmet’ meat lover (disgusting concoction loaded with an abominable amount of salty greasy meat products), ham/pineapple, and mozzarella/basil/tomato.  I would probably like the fresh basil kind, but I don’t think Mr. Gadget would go for it, and we generally end up with the ham/pineapple, which we like, but it just isn’t as good as the previous plain cheese*.  We tried the meat version, but had to scrape off all the meat to make it palatable.  Not to worry.  That meat found a home in a future meal in which it was not so overpowering.  So.  As devoted a Costco customer I am, these changes are not to my liking.

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I cooked four chickens last night.  Costco had a buy one, get one free coupon, and one in this case is a two-pack.  So I had four chickens to deal with.  I’ve been pining for some nice home-made soup so decided to roast them up and then make stock with the remains.  I could only fit three in the oven, so I cooked the fourth in the pressure cooker.  Fully cooked whole chicken in 20 minutes.  Woot.  The other three took two hours.  Every time I do this, I tell myself not to do it again, ever, due to the mess and effort.  I’m not a big fan of skin peeling and decarcassing.  I figured I’d do it in one fell swoop and get it over with, though, rather than on four separate occasions.  So I cooked them all.   I won’t be doing that again soon.

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We had chicken with mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy for dinner last night.  I was going to do the gravy from scratch, using the roast drippings, but that would have meant waiting for the chicken to cook, and I decided we’d dine on the pressure cooked chicken instead.  So I used a poultry gravy mix and added fresh sauteed mushrooms.  Not long after, Harry said, “Mommy, you itch my back?”  I lifted his shirt to comply and was horrified to find a sheet of bright red rash covering his entire back.  I tore off his shirt and inspected the rest of him, and it was spreading to his chest.  Luckily I had bought a pack of Benadryl skin cream and had it on hand.  I doused him with it and gave him a dose of cold/allergy medicine, only to find, upon closer inspection of the lotion label, not to cover large areas of skin, and not to mix with any other antihistamine.   Oops.   I was ready to call the doctor and/or race to the ER, but the lotion started to take effect and he showed no signs of anaphylaxis, so I waited.  And Googled.  It’s obviously an allergic reaction, but I’m not sure if it was the mushrooms or the flavor enhancer additives in the gravy mix.  I think he’s had mushrooms in tiny quantity before, but he tried tasting one raw last night.  I wonder if it was the gravy.  It’s enough to scare me away from prepackaged foods for a while, even though he’s had plenty of convenience crap like mac & cheese, ravioli, and canned soups, all of which probably have those same additives.  I’m going to have to be even more vigilant with my label screening.  Meanwhile, I need to find the culprit.  I might try a scratch test tonight**.  That year of breast milk was supposed to shield him from this sort of thing.

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Did I mention the latest exclamation heard shouted about the house?  This, from a three year old.  “What the HELL?”  You see, we let him watch the Spiderman movies**, all three of them, and in the last movie, Eddie Brock makes that exclamation when the black Spiderman (the dark side of Peter Parker) destroys his camera.  So it stands to follow that that is an appropriate expression for moments of frustration and consternation.  He says “Dammit” alot too.  I tell him these aren’t very nice words, or they’re grown-up words (and still not nice). 

*It sounds as though we eat a lot of pizza.  But we don’t.  Honestly.  It’s all relative, though, right?  Okay.  Truth.  Maybe once or twice a month.

**Please don’t call cee pee ess.

Nine Thousand Two Hundred Eighty point Two ounces. One Thousand One Hundred Ten point Five hours. Seventy Two point Five gallons. Forty Six point Three days. These are the numbers of my commitment to nourish my baby with mother’s milk. Mother’s milk drawn drip by feeble drip from a disappointingly under-productive set of double-dees. Oh, sweet nectar of life. How hard you made me work for you. Two rounds of galactagogues. Four pumps – the first pump didn’t cut the mustard, and we had to bring in the big guns. The second was a hospital rental while I scrambled to find my own on eBay, the third. Then one night, a few months later, during the midnight shift, the belt slipped from the shaft and the workhorse would work no more. Enter the fourth, another rental to see me through while my workhorse companion traveled to the land of Medela for service, because it is nigh unto impossible to acquire a simple little part to fix it oneself. No, one must have factory authorized service, shipping and insurance, for over a hundred dollars. (To their credit, the pump returned fully refurbished, with all new parts, shining as though it were brand new.)

It’s been a long journey. I was heartbroken that my beautiful boy wouldn’t nurse. Heartbroken. It’s not that big of a deal, people would say to me. An entire generation was raised on formula, when breastfeeding was no longer de la mode, my doctor told me. But it was a big deal to me. It mattered to me. I wanted that full natural mother experience. I wanted the labor. I wanted the natural delivery. I wanted to breastfeed. Those first post-partum days were difficult for me. I struggled with such a load of self-inflicted disappointment. Disappointment that I didn’t labor. The baby didn’t even drop, let alone get ready for any journey out. He was quite happy where he was, or perhaps he was too big to drop. He was 10 lbs 7 oz, after all, at 39 weeks. No contractions. No labor. No natural delivery. Scheduled C-section at 39 weeks. And then, where was the milk The lactation consultants assured me that the baby was getting what he needed from the measly drops of colostrom that my defective mammaries produced. They were wrong. How disappointed I was with the supply issues I faced, on top of everything else. I didn’t even produce enough for a normal sized baby, yet here I was trying to feed my supersized child. I couldn’t do it. Even with the help of galactagogues, and pumping for hours upon hours, I still had to supplement with formula. It was exhausting, to have to pump so frequently and for such a long time. Sleep when baby sleeps, everyone told me. But I had to pump. Because I wanted to hold him, and try to breastfeed him, when he was awake. I was so stubborn! I wanted him to have the benefits of breast milk, and by golly, he was going to get it. Again, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have been so neurotic. I should have gotten some more sleep.

He did nurse a few times. I have a wonderful and warm memory of those few precious moments where we bonded, skin to skin, baby to mother, the way it was supposed to be. For that experience, I am forever grateful.

In the early days when life was little more than a blur, I told myself I could do it, I could make it to two months. Poor little big guy was a colicky boy, to top things off. Because I needed to experience a screaming child wailing for hours upon hours, who would only settle down if continually bounced. And I had plenty of time and energy for that, between feeding attempts and pumping. Obviously. Of course.

We got through the colic, and I set my sights on six months. It seemed like forever, but they say that six months is the magic line where health benefits are evident. Six months. I could make it, I told myself. And I did. I found a routine, finally, where I could get some sleep, not nearly as much as I’d like, but enough to keep my sanity. I managed to supply 75-80% of his milk needs, in the first six months.

Having a routine helped, so I made a new goal. One year. Twelve months. You can do it, I told myself. There were many times that I nearly gave up. But I persevered, and I made it. After he started solids, at six months, and after the second round of galacatogues, I was eventually able to supply nearly 100% of his milk needs.

Looking back, I’m not sure why I was so resolute. Perhaps it was because I had been barren for so many years. Perhaps it was because I knew that this might be the only child I could ever have, and this was a one time opportunity. I do have a strapping healthy boy, and I am grateful.

If there is a next time, I don’t know that I’d make this kind of a milk commitment again. If there is a next time, I will maintain the hope that my baby will nurse, I’ll pump to avoid engorgement, and I’ll start the fenugreek early. If there is a next time, I may not keep as copious notes.

I love the sound of this word! It makes me think of giant sea turtles. I know why. Phonetic association. We had a radio in our kitchen when I was growing up and my mom used to listen to NPR and the radio reader, Dick Estelle. I recall fragments like “archipelago” and some “g” word. At first I think it must be The Gulag Archipelago, but no, that’s not about giant sea turtles. Maybe Dick Estelle read the Gulag Archipelago on the Radio Reader. That would have taken quite some time. The “g” word must be “Galapagos”. The Galapagos Archipelago has giant sea turtles. I wonder what book that was. It makes me think of James Michener.

Alas, galactagogues have nothing to do with giant sea turtles. A galactagogue is an agent that promotes the secretion and flow of milk. I’m trying to boost my milk supply. Buggaboo started daycare this week and suddenly his formula consumption is up to 12 oz/day and he has a runny nose. He IS teething, so perhaps his immune system is compromised a bit, and he is now exposed to five other wee ones on a daily basis. I want him to have more mother’s milk and less supplementation.

I’ve sported these double-D’s for nearly three decades, and in my time of need when they were called into duty, who would have thought that they wouldn’t produce My poor hungry Buggaboo. Nursing was a nightmare. He wouldn’t latch properly and got angry that nothing was there anyway. His weight dropped alarmingly and off to the hospital we went. The lactation specialist had me pump and after 30 minutes I had only 28 cc. I opted for a prescription galactagogue –Reglan. It’s not actually a galactagogue by design. That’s just a bonus side effect. I think it’s normally prescribed to reduce nausea in cancer patients. It has other undesirable side effects as well, namely lethargia and depression. Just what a mother needs in those post-partum days. I took it for two weeks. I recall that I couldn’t talk to anybody for two weeks (depression) and I would literally pass out for a little while each night. I know those first few weeks are a blur of crazy mood changes and exhaustion anyway, so don’t know how much of that was exacerbated by the Reglan. It helped with the milk supply though. I still had to supplement, but I was able to produce about 750 cc/day, which is a dramatic improvement from the measly 250 cc I was able to pump prior to that.

I need to make more though! I read up on Fenugreek and started taking it last week. It seems to be the wonder cure for many things. Why didn’t I try this earlier I might have been able to avoid supplementation altogether. I hope it works for me. I’ve been able to pump around 825 cc/day this week. My Buggaboo eats a lot! He started out at 10 lbs 7 oz, and is now around 25 lbs. He is six months old now, healthy and beautiful. I am very blessed.