The chic from Chez Miscarriage, who never ceased to crack me up but is unfortunately taking a long deserved break, talked about a "mother drive-by" which is when you are blogging or just walking down the isle of a grocery store and some other stranger mom who doesn't even know you says something disapproving about how you raise your kid. I never knew of this concept until I had kids. There are the attachment parenters and the Dobson/Focus on the Family parenters. There are the pacifier mongers and the no pacifier extremists. There are the circumcisors, and the intactivists. And then there are the breastfeeders.
Nothing compares to the Breastfeeding Nazis.
None of the other stuff bothers me. I don't care if you think I should have circumcised my kid. I don't care that you think I should kill myself with two baby bjorns and wear my children all day long until they are 18. I don't care if you think I'm the meanest mom in history because after getting up every 3 seconds to replace my babies' pacifiers I got rid of them all, cold turkey. But the breastfeeding thing, I feel guilty about. And I have my own little breastfeeding Nazi in my head, and she needs to go away already because that ship has sailed.
Lately, I'm all feeling guilty because of her. She reads my site and I read hers and she has never said a mean thing to me in her life and I certainly wouldn't consider her a Breastfeeding Nazi...but SHE has twins and SHE has a job and SHE breastfeeds. God! I hate her!*
There are 295 logical reasons why I couldn't breastfeed. Literally, I don't know if Naim would have survived without formula. I don't know if I would have. I had planned on breastfeeding because, you know, "breastfeeding is best!" and more importantly, it's practically free. Formula is like worth it's weight in Gold. When I figured out a budget for myself with two babies, the $280/month worth of formula was not factored in. The time it takes to make 16 little bottles in the beginning; and now 8 big bottles a day was not factored in. The babies pop out and you breastfeed 'em. No brainer. How hard could it be?
I'll pause for a moment so you can finish laughing at me.
I didn't factor in pre-eclampsia. I didn't factor in retinal detachments. I didn't factor in prematurity. I didn't factor in how severely lack of sleep can make you completely lose your mind and how much help I really didn't have to depend on the first few weeks.
Aside from the day my kids were born, the period from November 22 to about January 15 of this year will go down in history as the absolute worst, hardest, most ridiulously awful time in my entire life. Trying to get through pre-eclampsia and eye surgery with as little medication as possible while the contractions are starting, their heads are grinding into my pelvic bones, and losing all my vision was just the start. Then, after I had them, I had two preemies, one who couldn't figure out how to eat anything and had chronically low blood sugar, the other had jaundice, I have an 8" Cesarean scar with 28 staples in my gut and very little milk coming in, and my BP didn't go down after birth as predicted, and I went home like this, with no help set up except for a quadriplegic. (One of my bigger mistakes in life. But I didn't believe people when they said I needed help. People tell me that all the time and I always can do it myself. Not this time.)
I can laugh now at this sign the the La Leche League gave me. (La Leche League is kind of the gestapo of breastfeeding.) It was a sign I was supposed to give the hospital staff that said, "No Nipples! I want my mommy to breastfeed me!" It was supposed to be taped to their hospital nursery crib. Ha! My kids had bottles before I even held them. They were constantly threatening to put Naim in the NICU because his blood glucose was so low. Then, when I said I wanted to breastfeed, they gave me like 30 seconds of opportunity for each kid where mostly it was a bunch of them wrangling my breasts and the kid together like they were tying calf's feet at a rodeo. I never heard of lactation specialists until I got to the hospital. What a job! I don't know that she really helped. Mostly she said, "Do you really want to continue this?" Basically, she did her rodeoing for a few minutes and then told me to pump. Pumping. Who invented that device? One of the most ludicrous machines on the planet. Pumping takes forever. Seems like I could have spent less time pumping and more time just relaxing with my babies instead of trying to wrangle them up to me like a rodeo event. I thought I could have maybe taught them how to do it if there was just more time.
But there wasn't. Naim was losing weight fast. He was got down to 4 lbs. 2 oz. Aaron's jaundice was worsening. I needed to get on BP medication and quickly, I also eventually got on Paxil, both medications are not safe for breastfeeding. Aaron's pediatrician said that formula would actually be better than my colostrum to clear up the jaundice. With Naim, at least with a bottle you could squeeze a bit of milk in his mouth and he would swallow. This is how we fed Naim for the first month, By holding the nipple like a pencil and dropping a few drops at a time in his mouth, all the while trying to keep him awake so it didn't just trickle out of his mouth.
When I got home and had to do everything myself, I tried to breastfeed them both at once with a double nursing pillow, but with no one to help me set it up, I couldn't safely get them both in position by myself. Doing one at a time every two and 1/2 hours was near impossible. The blood pressure med I finally went on, Diamox, made me so tired that I simply stopped being able to function. I couldn't make a phone call, I couldn't remember which baby was which, which one I had fed, I couldn't listen to other people's information without falling asleep mid sentence. This period is like a hellish blur to me. Thank God the kids slept through it all and won't remember it.
D finally hired the Wonderful Ms. Wendy the Wonder Nanny to help me at night. Wendy did everything on weekday nights, and I slept 12-14 hours at a time. By that time, my breastfeeding window was over, not that it mattered because I was still on the meds, and Wonderful Wendy the Wonder Nanny could bottle feed them at night for me. Also, D could feed them, too, that way, which was nice, because it was one of the few ways he could help out then.
I also broke down and got on WIC, which pays for most of my formula. I remember going through the grocery line with my two kids and my WIC vouchers and my 62 allotted cans of formula the first time. It was kind of defeating and depressing for me. Then the clerk didn't know how to do the WIC vouchers and had to wait to get someone to help. The lady behind me was tired of waiting and she said, "Gee, lady, did you ever think of BREASTFEEDING?!"
My first Mother Drive-By.
So people have situations. Onlookers need to recognize that you never know what the other person's situation is. And this was mine. Will my kids be forever damaged for lack of breastfeeding? I think my litmus test is: Can I walk up to a stranger and talk to them for a little bit and get to know them and be able to tell if they were breastfed? No? Well, then it can't make that much difference, right?
So now I've written down every last reason that breastfeeding didn't work out for me. I've washed it out of my system. I'm done. For those about to breastfeed (e.g. all this), I salute you! But my inner mother who wants to do a mental drive-by is going to shut up about it, now.
*Just kidding, Ms. All This..., you seem like a very nice person with a great family. I enjoy reading your site!
Hi Lisa,
I responded on my site. Kiss those cute kiddos for me.
Emmie
Posted by: Emmie | October 14, 2005 at 10:04 AM
hi. i came from Emmie's site. you are amazing. so many moms with multiples (including myself) would be THANKFUL for their busy life after hearing your busy, busy, busy story. i am excited to read more.
Posted by: instamom | October 14, 2005 at 04:53 PM
ooo drive by parenting. I get that with my dog nonstop for ten years now. I am cringing thinking of how it will be with a child. eek! And it is esp hard when it is something we WANTED to do and PLANNED to do, like breastfeeding. I won't even give birth, so any kid I get I won't have been in charge of prenatal care, breastfeeding, prob not circumcism, etc etc. Dang. I am sorry that you get shit about it, and i understand the inner-nazi too. I have them running around inside of me all the time. I think your kids are, and will be, just fine. Better than fine. They won't be smartasses who have never considered disability, and also they won't be prejudiced, thinking that disabilities actually DISABLE someone, but rather mean that they have to do things in a bit different way. Great entry.
Posted by: cluttergirl | October 18, 2005 at 10:58 PM
Hey there! I have experienced both worlds, all in one motherhood experience. My daughter breastfed (I will not say without a problem, but she did it and we do it) and my son was SO hard to breastfeed with oral/motor delays and terrible reflux and an oversupply of milk, that he went on a nursing strike at 8-10 weeks and breastfeeding him was unsuccessful. So, I was "the best" mom in the world to Mini (girl twin) and "the worst" mom to Jr. (boy twin). I had the glory and the guilt (and boy, was there EVER guilt). All this to say is that, OMG, breastfeeding twins is hard, and to take care of yourself AND twins AND breastfeed without partner support is pretty impossible. You are doing and have done a wonderful job! I love your site, your kids are gorgeous and happy!
Posted by: KatS | October 20, 2005 at 07:26 PM