Boobs: Part Deux

If I sound like I'm talking about my boobs a lot, it's because I am. I have a couple of different posts in the draft folder, but boobs it is today.

My breast milk was quite a cluster when Ben was in the NICU. The lactation consultant came to visit me and reviewed all the medication that I was taking that she was "concerned" could be transferred to the baby. When I told her that I was under the care of two psychiatrists and I was on all the medications that she was concerned about during my entire pregnancy, she looked fairly horrified. According to the Maternal Fetal Shrink, babies actually receive less of a medication through breast milk than they did through the placenta. None of that made any difference. The lactation consultant left the breast pump in my room and walked out with false promises of "looking into my situation"

Then the world's greasiest psychiatrist that's on staff at the hospital that I delivered at came into my room to "check into my situation". He asked for the name and number of my Maternal Fetal Psychiatrist to see if she would approve me giving breast milk to Ben. Then it came down to, "Well, B is no longer a patient at my crappy local hospital so I can't give the NICU any medical direction. Perhaps you can write a letter and fax it into the NICU." When I went to see her one week post partum, she said she would write the letter once Ben no longer had jaundice, because his liver wasn't metabolizing fast enough. Finally, we just came to the conclusion that I would nurse when he came home from the NICU.

Fast forward to Monday, when Ben was released from Baby Boot Camp. I started giving him my breast milk and trying to get him to latch on. What felt like an eternity, but was actually only two days, Ben latched on and will do so on a regular basis if I give him pep talks during nursing sessions. He's also quite partial to warm milk and will outwardly reject room temperature breast milk yet seems to gobble up the room temperature formula bottles that the hospital gave us.

Yesterday, Ben didn't poop all day and his stomach was rock hard. He was constipated, in a big way. I didn't really know what to do because I never encountered it with Zac. Like a Mom with a guilt complex and an issue processing shame, I blamed my milk (I almost wrote, "myself" because it's hard to separate myself from my milk, but I'm working on it). I didn't know if it was something I ate on the day the milk was pumped (since I've been pumping and freezing for two weeks) or something directly coming from me. All I knew was that I felt like I deserved the blame for making my child miserable, tired, and cranky.

Of course, that's just not true. Rationally, I know that. Emotionally it's a different story. I have a firm belief that parents should do whatever works for them, regardless of what parenting books, strangers, or "helpful" family members say. The basic tenet of this philosophy is don't do whatever makes you crazy - do whatever keeps you sane. If pumping and bottle feeding works for you, do that. If attachment parenting works for you, by all means, wear your kid proudly and invest in a "Snuggle Nest". You get the picture. This is a long way of saying, I'm just trying to make things work around here. Breast milk, formula, whatever makes the kid poop, I'm happy.

As for Ben, we had one of his self-proclaimed Auntie's come over last night to babysit so KGII and I could attend Zac's musical debut in the 2nd grade musical (Zac was smashing...and very dramatic, which leaves me using adjectives like "smashing"). Ben shat three times in his Aunt's arms and then slept for two hours. We came back to a sleepy, clean baby. I told his Aunt that next time Ben was constipated, that we'd be calling her first. She did this magic belly rub and all his poop came out. I was tempted to ask her to rub my belly, but I wasn't sure she would go for it.

Such a shame, though. My belly doesn't still have the umbilical cord on it.