BIOBaby: What Did This Titty Ever Do To You?

Yesterday, Jack would not nurse from the left tit. He would either take a few sucks, and spit it out crying or he would just throw a fit when he realized I was positioning him for it. It got to the point where I’d be sitting there with my left tit’s nipple resting on his bottom lip as he howled crying, milk dripping helplessly from the nipple into his mouth where it just pooled there because he refused to stop screaming long enough to swallow it. He would only stop crying and eat when I switched him to the right booby.

In frustration I actually cried out loud, “What did this titty ever do to you!?”

At 10:30pm, after he’d been bathed and lotioned down I prepared to give him his final feeding of the night. I said a silent prayer that he would nurse from the left breast because it was full and ready to explode. When I presented it to him, he eyed it warily, yawned, and began to eat. It seemed this was due to boredom and sleepiness more than anything else.

Other Jack news… his man sized (and I mean old man sized) eyebrows have settled down. They’re still full, but a lot less bushy. And right around the same time he finally grew eyelashes! They are full and long and definitely passed down from his Daddy because whereas mine are long, they are not nearly this full.

He’s talking and laughing all the time. He shows definite recognition when Kali or Donny walks into the room. He doesn’t like blankets on him and will kick them off every time I try to cover him with them. He only remains covered when he’s sleeping and can do nothing about it.

Donny is trying to learn to hold him and do other things. He was holding Jack this morning and tried to call his mother, but gave up.

“I can’t hold you and use the phone at the same time, Jack.”

“Are you kidding me? I can hold him and write a blog, nurse him and IM my friends, I even breastfeed him while playing Halo!”

Amateur.

BIOBaby: Sleep When He Sleeps

Donny is an ass man.

His son is a breast man.

All this kid wants to do is nurse. He wakes up smacking his lips and trying to eat anything near his face. When I pick him up I kiss him and he tries to suck on my lips, chin, and cheeks. He tries to suck on his shirts and fists. When Donny is caring him he turns his face towards Donny’s chest and when he realizes there isn’t anything there to feed him he has a fit.

I have to mentally prep myself before he latches on because that shit hurts! It’s the first ten to twenty suckles and then I don’t even realize he’s there. I can read and watch TV while he eats with no problem. I started taking the advice of one of my baby books and I will occasionally night nurse him. If he wakes up in the middle of the night and wants a feeding I’ll nurse from my right breast first, and then because of my position on the bed I’ll lay down and nurse him from my left. We’ll usually end of falling asleep that way.

He only woke up twice last night so I woke up this morning really engorged. The first thing I did was pump. I got about 2 ounces from each breast. We’re storing it in the fridge, but because he is now not accepting bottle nipples I may just freeze it and use it in his baby food when I start making it at six months old.

Since Donny is getting up at 6:30 to get Kali ready for school I’ve gotten better at not waking him up at night to help with Jack. Because I still have a little pain when I walk we try to have everything I might need within reach before bed so he doesn’t have to get up and get anything for me. I knew these late nights were taking their toll on Donny after what happened the other night….

Sometimes our internet will drop and we’ll have to go reset the router which is in the guest bedroom. We’ll pull a plug from the back of the box, wait a few seconds, and then plug it back in. The other night Jack had just fallen asleep and I jumped in the laptop to find the internet was down. I asked Donny to go reset the router. He was down there for like an hour and a half. Because Jack was sleeping I didn’t want to call for him. Eventually Jack woke up, and I nursed him, and then we both fell asleep. When Donny finally came upstairs I was like, “What the hell happened to you?”

Turns out he fell asleep. He said he unplugged the router and the next thing you know he was waking up on the guest bed and it scared the shit out of him. He said it took him a moment to figure out where the hell he was and what he was doing.  I knew then the poor man needed a break.

The swelling has gone away and so far the only side effect from nursing while taking the medicine (I’m done taking it) is that Jack seemed to have really bad gas and a lot of runny poop. Fucking Lasix!  We were in the doctor’s office exam room waiting for the doctor when he got hungry. So, I’m sitting there nursing him and Donny is sitting next to me. Jack is naked except for his diaper because he was just weighed and the doctor has to check him. While he’s nursing he farts. It was this long rumbling, thundering, no way this came out an ass just a week old, fart.

“Jack!,” I cried out by way of admonishment.

At the same moment Donny goes, “Did someone knock?” He thought someone had knocked on the door.

“No, that was your son farting.”

“Damn, Jack. I thought someone knocked on the door.”

And then we just busted out laughing. We must have laughed for a full two minutes and I tried to stop because I was feeding Jack and he and my booby were just bouncing around. It’s silly moments like that that we’ll always remember.

They say you should sleep when the baby sleeps. Since Jack sleeps more during the day than night I thought that I would try changing his schedule. I’d try making him stay awake during the day so that he’d have no choice but to sleep at night. Uh, no. Do you know how hard it is to keep a newborn awake?  It’s not like he’s a toddler or a kid like Kali where you can put on some cartoons or take them out somewhere to entertain them and keep them awake. Since I can’t beat him, I might as well join him. After I type this and finish my lunch of tuna fish sandwich and cranberry juice, I’ll lay down next to him and try and nap. Of course, the moment my head hits the pillow he’ll wake up. That’s how he rolls.

BIOBaby: Getting More Excited

Now that I’m slowly leaving the “Oh, God! This baby is trying to kill me from the inside out” phase, I’m starting to get very excited.

1) I love my baby bump. I walk around holding it all the time. Donny rubs it at night and when he comes in from work he kisses me, then my belly and asks, “How are my babies?” When Kali leaves for school each morning we always tell each other I love you and I always tell her to have a good day. Now she says, “I love you, Mommy. I love you too, baby.” I can honestly say that I’m the luckiest, most blessed woman in the world. I’ve never felt this much love before. From the inside out.

2) Nursery! Now that I actually have energy again I’m all ready to go in that guest room and rearrange it. I was going to wait until May when the semester ends, but I don’t know if I can.  Gavin and Logan’s Mommy asked about nursery ideas. I wanted to do a gender neutral color like green, but this is when I assumed we wouldn’t be finding out the sex. Now that Donny is downright insisting on it I’m wondering if I might go yellow and white for a girl (but Kali’s room is already painted yellow) or some shade of blue with brown accents for a boy. Arrrgh! For years I thought we’d install a chair rail in the room once we were expecting, but now I’m second guessing. Decisions, decisions, but I love every last minute of it!

I’m not crazy about the dresser, but I love the feel of this room. I’m definitely going to go with desk lamps and not use the overhead lighting. Also, we’re not going to do a “theme.” Kali had Pooh when she was a baby, but I think this time I just want lots of stuffed animals and a full bookcase. No Elmo, Sesame Street, Barney, or any of that other brand crap.

3) Did you know that it’s considered tacky to have more than one baby shower? Meaning, if you have more than one child you’re only supposed to have one for the first baby.  The people who feel this way say that it’s because it’s like the parents-to-be are asking for more free stuff. I think it’s ridiculous. What about people like Donny who never got to experience this? Besides, my father hates when I say stuff like this, but Donny and I have already budgeted to buy all the major stuff ourselves: nursery furniture, car seat, bassinet, stroller, etc.  If someone buys any of that stuff at the shower, great, but if not, we won’t be in dire straits wondering how we’re going to provide for our baby. I think every baby should be celebrated with family and friends.

Speaking of showers… when do you have one?  A month before the baby is due? Two? My mom said anytime once you’re halfway through your second trimester. And speaking of Mommy, I just stopped writing this blog to call her and guilt her into to coming to see me.

“I need my Mommy.”

“You’re a pain in my ass.”

“I know. Just come on! I’m pregnant and I need you. And bring Grandma too.”

“I’m not. I see your Grandmother every day. I need a break from her.”

“She could drop dead any day now. You better bring my Grandmother to see me.”

“I ain’t.”

“If something happens to her you’re going to feel like shit for denying me the opportunity to see her.”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Yes, you will. Because I’ll make you feel like shit.”

“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”

“I know.”

4) Donny and I are obsessed with seeing this baby. We admitted yesterday that after seeing him waving and wiggling on the screen yesterday it’s all we could think about. Last night as we were settling in for bed I noticed the sonogram picture was between us.

“Donny, why’d you leave the baby picture there for it to get all smushed?”

“Because he’s sleeping with us.”

“Nice save, Donny. Nice save.”

And you know what? We did sleep with the picture between us.

And finally, I’m so looking forward to breastfeeding again. I know I’ve heard a lot of women complain about how hard it is, but if you can get past the first week or so, it’s a breeze!  Even though I’ve done it before, I do find myself wondering how I’m going to manage this time. I was taking a bath the other day with the door open and Donny and I were talking while he sat on the bed.
“Did you know that when you breast feed you have to put as much of the aerola into the baby’s mouth as possible? Not just the nipple.  Look at how huge my boobs are already! Look at my aerolas! I’m going to choke the poor baby.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

“Fuck you, Donny.”

I remember the rough patches when nursing Kali; like when she got Thrush or when she would sleep so long my boobs will fill up so much they’d ache. When she would finally wake up trying to squeeze together the areola and nipple was a challenge. It’s like trying to get some slack from the side of a balloon that’s filled with water. But those first few moments when she’d latch on and start to release some of the pressure were heaven!

And nothing beats that tummy to tummy contact. That bonding time. The sound of your child suckling and receiving nourishment for your body. How wonderful it feels when they’re nursing with their little eyes closed and they place their tiny little hand on your breast.  I remember times when Kali would let go without me noticing and I’d look down to find that she had fallen asleep, but my milk was silently spurting out onto her face. I didn’t know whether to laugh or turn myself in to social services. The funniest had to be the times when she’d suddenly let go and the milk would just go shooting across the room.

Donny and I discussed me nursing all day and pumping one bottle per day so that he could feed the baby at night, but we want to make sure the baby prefers the breast as his first choice so that plan may wait until he’s a few months old. I plan on breastfeeding this baby until he’s at least 18 months. Maybe a bit longer. I’m so excited about breastfeeding I even dream about it.

In my dream, the baby was a boy and I had nursed him with my left breast before he took a nap. When he awoke hungry, forgetting which breast I had nursed him from before, I tried feeding him from the empty left breast again. He calmly spit the nipple out and said (at like a month old, mind you), “No. No.” I laughed, apologized, and switched breasts.

Yeah, I’m definitely getting excited.

« Previous Page