Loving my breast-only baby

Fresh out of the tub: Ivey nurses for the first time

Even before I became pregnant with my first daughter, Suzi, I knew I would breastfeed. I thought everything would go beautifully. Then she was born. It started in the hospital with a nipple shield given with too little instruction. I had thought bottles and pacifiers were the only things that could cause nipple confusion, but they aren’t. Once we were finally rid of the nipple shield, which took great effort and many tears, the soreness was bad enough that I succumbed to temptation and gave Suzi a pacifier. We were in the middle of moving into our first house and my husband was unable to take time off from work, having just been hired. I had no business doing anything but lying on the couch nursing a baby, but instead I found myself cleaning and organizing the old house we rented at breakneck speed while my baby stayed with her grandparents. We didn’t think it would be safe to take her to the old house while we were cleaning, so during this time, she was bottlefed. It was milk I pumped for her, but I didn’t respond well even to a hospital-grade pump, and eventually I couldn’t keep up. When Suzi was six weeks old and I went back to work part-time, my supply suffered further because I was only able to pump once over a nearly seven hour separation. Suzi got a bottle of formula almost every day, which was exactly what I’d wanted to avoid. Still, our breastfeeding experience was beautiful in parts. She loved to comfort nurse, and I nursed her on cue whenever I was home. We kept going until she was 21 months old, at which time we mutually weaned partly because I was pregnant with her sister, Ivey.

I had learned my lesson and wanted things to be different this time. Instead of going back to the obstetrician who had delivered Suzi, I decided to go with a midwife. The one I chose had a deeper than usual respect for nature and the importance of allowing a woman to birth unobstructed. Ivey’s birth was a testament to the value of simplicity and trust in oneself. She was born in our bathtub on a rainy day in August. We climbed into bed and had our first blessedly uneventful nursing session—one of many. Her birth was the final deciding factor in exactly how I would breastfeed: Ivey has never used a pacifier or a bottle. This is a luxury to me, because I am now a stay-at-home mom. The difference it makes is astounding. My milk supply has been perfect—never too much or too little. I drank one cup of mother’s milk tea before I realized I didn’t need it.

We’ve found many benefits to going without the pacifier and bottle. We don’t have to worry, particularly during cold and flu season, whether or not the paci is clean. It’s less likely that we’ll contract thrush, which can be painful for moms. There are no bottles to sterilize either, and I am hoping to ward off ovulation for a few more months. We’ll never have to buy ten different bottles because she refused the first nine, nor will we have to go through the turmoil of taking the paci away when she is too old for it. I never have to wonder if Ivey is hungry or just wanting to suck; both scenarios end with her happily at my breast.

Of course, snubbing modern conveniences is always going to be met with a little resistance. We’ve heard from several relatives why it would be a good idea to give Ivey a paci. When she had her first portraits made, she cried a little and the photographer asked if she had a paci. “No,” my mother-in-law answered a little sadly. The pictures were adorable anyway; the photographer just had to get a little creative. Right now I am making a teensy sacrifice for her to remain a breast-only baby. My husband and I wanted to go to the midnight showing of New Moon, but we couldn’t. We have plans to take Ivey with us to a weekday matinee sometime soon. This way we can sit in the back and walk her or nurse her while we enjoy the movie.

The only drawback of our situation is that I must take Ivey everywhere I go. However, the greatest benefit is that I get to take Ivey everywhere I go! Everyone knows Ivey is coming too if they invite me somewhere. After my too-early separation from Suzi, every moment I spend with my girls is precious. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from birthing and nursing these two girls, it’s to not mess with perfection.

This post is my entry for Parenting by Nature's exciting Blog to Inspire contest. Have you entered? You have until December first! Please comment and let me know what you think of my entry.

Their lives ARE worth saving: a mammogram rant

Just heard about the new recommendation for mammograms, and in my opinion, it SUCKS.

In case you missed it, the yet-to-be-adopted new recommendation for those at low risk is to get the first mammogram at age 50, and repeat every other year. Previously it had been first mammogram at age 40 (although I know women whose doctors have sent them at 35) and getting one every year. I have two stories to tell.

Story #1: My mom is shocked to find out she has breast cancer
She was in her mid-fifties and healthy, and had just gone for her YEARLY mammogram. Meaning she'd had one the year before that was clear. This time, though, there was something on it. This something led to biopsies, several surgeries and chemotherapy to treat her Stage II breast cancer. If she'd waited another year to have a mammogram, as would be customary under these new recommendations, she may have never gotten to meet her grandchildren. I could've lost my mom. I talked to her about this earlier and she agrees with this conclusion wholeheartedly and also thinks the new recommendations are stupid.

Now, before I go on to story #2, let me add one little thing: According to the expert consulted for this USA Today Q&A article, you wouldn't want to go ahead and get a mammogram anyway just be safe because "many (women) find them stressful, painful, time-consuming and, depending on insurance, expensive." I know, right? Just a hassle. You probably don't have cancer anyway, so why worry?

My mom playing with Suzi in 2007, having been cancer-free for years thanks to early detection

Story #2: My first mammogram
I had my first mammogram at age 19 because of a BB-sized lump my gynecologist found. It wasn't fun, but not getting it done would have been a lot more "stressful" as I would have driven myself crazy worrying. Especially after just having seen my mom go through multiple surgeries and chemo, it sure was nice to have the peace of mind when tests confirmed the lump was nothing to worry about. However, the mammogram did nothing for me. This is another interesting facet of this argument. You see, in some women, especially young ones, the breast tissue is so dense that a mammogram is ineffective at detecting anything. I was told before the procedure that they'd almost definitely end up having to do an ultrasound instead, which they did, and they saw the lump quite clearly. So why didn't they just go ahead and do the ultrasound in the first place, saving me all the "stress, pain, time," and "expense," not to mention radiation of a mammogram? We were told that the only way our insurance would pay for the more expensive ultrasound is if they did the mammogram first to prove the second test was really necessary.

If that is true, it certainly does give this argument a black eye: "For every one woman whose life you save in that 40-year-old age group, you're irradiating 1900 others to find that one." Nancy Snyderman pointed this out this morning on the Today Show, but it's been a popular refrain of this debate. So it's okay for insurance companies to irradiate women unnecessarily to save money, but women shouldn't decide to be irradiated to save lives? Please tell me I'm confused!

If the ramifications of a little superfluous radiation is the issue here, which I seriously doubt, why not allow women under 50 to replace their yearly mammogram with a breast ultrasound, particularly if a lump is found during the manual breast exam performed by the gynecologist?

Also, you will never convince me that breast self-exams are not helpful. When I was in college, my honors thesis focused on courage in breast cancer patients and I got to read the stories of many women. This led me to my first job in a boutique that fitted women with breast prostheses and mastectomy bras. Two of my coworkers were breast cancer survivors, and some of the clients spoke at cancer awareness meetings I attended. I've heard my share of stories. One woman credits her little lapdog for saving her life. Happy to see her, he jumped on her chest and his foot landed on a lump, helping her to find it. Some of these women will tell you they had to beg their doctors for the life-saving tests they needed. Their own hands and their intuition told them something wasn't right, and it wasn't. I believe them.

I am just so unimpressed, to say the least, at some condescending researcher saying the equivalent of "it only saves about one life in one or two thousand and that's not worth it." It is worth it. This under-50 set consists of mothers raising young children, working, and living beautiful lives. I've met some of them. Every one of them matters and it is very much worth it to me to do whatever it takes to save them. Ladies, trust yourselves. Keep an eye out for any changes in your breasts. Do what you have to do to get diagnostic tests done, and hopefully there will be enough of an outcry over this that our insurance companies won't even think of denying coverage for them at any age.

I don't see how a pumpkin patch could be more sincere than this one

Ivey was sincerely angry, and Suzi sincerely thought it was funny that no matter what I did (including making a fool of myself in various ways), I couldn't make Ivey feel any better about the situation. And they both sincerely hated the hat parts of these costumes.

I wasn't going to put these on here, but my brother told me he wanted to see more pictures of the girls. I told him I didn't have that many, except for a couple of really crappy ones in their Halloween costumes.

"You want to see that?"

"Yeah!"

"But Ivey's screaming."

"That's okay, put it on there."

"Okay."


I know it may seem bad that I took these, but I thought, when they are 20 years old they are going to want a picture of themselves dressed up as pumpkins together. So I took the pictures real quick and then we took the costumes right off.

Ivey is not one to put on a big smile for the camera. Not like Suzi, who always has been, even as an infant.


Not a sign of hypocrisy anywhere.

What to put on a Christening cake

Ivey's Christening is Sunday, and I was just nursing her while simultaneously searching online for ideas of scripture to put on the cake. It was a perfect storm for getting all weepy. Here's our short list:

"Let the little children come to me... for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these" (Mark 10:14)

"Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (Mark 10:15)

"...And a little child shall lead them" (Isaiah 11:6)

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jeremiah 1:5)

"Children are a gift of the Lord" (Psalm 127:3)

I also love this:

"Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them" (Psalm 127:4-5)

We just can't figure out a way to make it fit or make sense on a cake. It's my new favorite, though. Thanks to Mama Rissa for introducing to me the whole concept behind it through her blog. I think about it a lot and it makes me happy :-)

We may just go with "Jesus loves the little children" or "Little ones to Him belong." If you have any better ideas, please tell me ASAP!

Three things we cut to save $100 a month

When we decided I would quit working at Jennie G's to stay home full time with the girls, we knew we'd have to cut a thing or two from our budget. Here are three things we cut, and what we've done to replace them.

1) Cable TV. We had Charter. They are famous for saying ONLY $49.99 A MONTH!!! (for six months and then it'll be more but we won't advertise how much and we won't remind you when the six months are up either). We'd always call them at the end of the "promotional" time frame and they'd set us up on another reasonable deal. Well, finally--and we'd been thinking of terminating our service anyway--Jordan called and they refused to cut us a deal, even though we'd been model customers, always paying on time. So he told them fine, we would like to cancel. A few days later we got a call from one of their customer service reps. "Guess what!" she said. "Your old rate has been extended for another six months!" We said thanks but no thanks. It was just so aggravating to deal with renegotiating our plan so often, and we were tired of wasting not only our money but our time. Instead, we got Netflix, which costs less than $10 a month. Because Jordan built us an awesome home theater PC, we have unlimited instant access to thousands of movies on our TV and we also get one DVD at a time through the mail. Not all their movies can be viewed online, but lots of them can. It's a great deal, especially if you have a nice big monitor or can do what we did and watch them on your TV. Also, we still get three or four good channels like NBC and Fox (Glee, Biggest Loser, and the news are the shows we love). With the home theater PC we can record, pause and rewind them. This saves us at least $30 a month.

2) Garbage pickup. We were paying $18.94 a month to have people come and take away our garbage once a week. It sounds convenient but really it was aggravating. First, we had to remember to roll it out to the curb. Second, it is windy in our neighborhood and we don't have a garage to keep our garbage can in. It was always blowing all around the yard and the lid kept breaking off. Sometimes I'd come home from work to find garbage blown across the front lawn. Every time the men emptied it they'd break the lid off and just stick it down in the can, so we'd have to reach down in to get it. To top it all off, they didn't do recycling. Eventually I realized that if we were going to recycle anyway, we might as well take our own garbage while we were at it. If you subtract the paper, glass, plastic and metal that we recycle and the food (mostly fruits and vegetables) we either put down the disposal or throw in the back of our yard, there is very little trash left anyway. We got a smaller, flatter container to keep that in and it doesn't blow away. The recycling center/dump is between our house and where we like to shop, so it doesn't require much extra gas. Canceling our garbage service was both a wise financial choice and an environmentally friendly one.

3) Eating out, both fast food and sit-down restaurants. Eating in a sit-down restaurant with a two-year-old and an infant is about as much fun as going to the dentist. Suzi will only sit still for so long, and Ivey likes to be walked around. It doesn't make for an enjoyable meal, so we don't go. Occasionally we do eat fast food, but not a quarter as much as we used to. We only do it when we're away from home and hungry, and we try to use coupons or order only a sandwich rather than a combo. We've gotten better about taking a snack with us when we go somewhere, but sometimes we slip up and have to eat fast food. During those times we try to use coupons or order just a sandwich without the fries and soda. One effective way we've found to keep from stopping is to take water with us when we go on a long car ride. We used to always pull into the drive-thru "because we were thirsty." Then we smelled the food and said, well, maybe we'll just buy a small fries. Oh, and some chicken strips. And while we're at it, might as well get the combo. It took us from $3 for drinks to $15 for two high-calorie meals we didn't really need. The temptation is ten times easier to resist if you stay far away. It's been nice to look at our bank statement and not see $10 here, $15 there for a bunch of greasy food. We save at least $50 a month, as bad as the habit was for us.

Those are three surprisingly painless cuts we made. I also found that I didn't lose as much money as expected when I quit work, but I think I will save the details of that for my next post.

One car or two?

Jordan and I have recently been weighing the pros and cons of becoming a one-car family. Right now we have the 2000 Corolla I've been driving since high school (my dad bought it for me) and a 2004 (or 2005?) Honda Odyssey which is the first car Jordan and I ever purchased on our own. We are hoping to pay the van off early, possibly by the end of 2010. Both vehicles are in good condition, but the Corolla is a dark color and we don't have a garage so the paint job has suffered over the years in the blazing sun.

When Jordan and I were both working, it would have been impractical to have only one car; we went off in opposite directions each morning. But now I am staying home with the girls and loving it. I wasn't sure what would happen when I started staying home, but I haven't gone nuts from boredom or loneliness. Since I'd never in my life stayed home as a regular thing, I didn't know how much I like being alone. (Except for the two little girls. You know what I mean.) Anyway, being "stuck" at home all day without a car is not a big issue for me. There are certain days when I do need a car, and on those few days I can drive Jordan to work and then pick him up at the end of the day. No big deal.

There are other things weighing into our decision, though. Here are the pros and cons I've come up with so far...

Pros:
could sell car and pay van off faster
no more taxes and insurance for car
one less car to maintain

Cons:
losing out on gas efficiency of smaller car for Jordan's commute
would have to go through the hassle of selling
if something happened to the van we'd have to rent a vehicle

Right now we are leaning toward keeping the car--at least for now. For a while we were doing a one-car experiment in which we tried to see how long we could leave the Corolla in the driveway. We went a week or so and could have gone longer, but we realized that we were burning up more gas with Jordan driving the van to work. It really is nice to have a fuel efficient vehicle. Also, public transportation around here sucks. We can't even walk out of our neighborhood safely because there are no sidewalks, and there are hills and turns so the people zooming by at fifteen over the limit won't have time to see you before they run you over. There is a bus, but we'd have to be pretty desperate to walk to the bus stop and even if we did we'd never risk taking the girls with us.

So how many cars do you have? Are you happy with your situation? How many cars do you think is best for a family in which one parent stays home?

Minus five

Since resolving to take my Biggest Loser inspiration and run with it about two weeks ago, I have lost five pounds without trying hard. I haven't been running because either the weather has been crappy or (since the time change) the girls have had us up around 5:00 anyway, and I am lazy besides. So I haven't gotten much exercise other than cleaning, which I think ought to count, and activities that aren't technically exercise but cause me to walk and stuff anyway. Breastfeeding also uses up calories, and I think Ivey may be in a growth spurt because she's been nursing more often and longer. The only thing I've had to work on is my desire to eat a ton of carbs and sugary junk. I've been trying to eat things like edamame, quinoa, and almonds for snacks and lunches and I know that has helped.

My done-it list for today:

sorted recycling pile to get it out of the house

at least four loads of laundry

dishes

purged the girls' closet of out-of-season and too-small clothes

Hmm. It seems like I must have done more than that. Ivey was pretty unhappy this morning and I spent a while breastfeeding her. But yay! I am almost caught up from the weekend!

And one more thing about Biggest Loser. I was so mad at Rudy for going back on his word to Shay, and I thought it was terrible that she got sent home after losing 17 pounds! If she lost 17 pounds in a week and that wasn't enough to keep her on the show, they are pushing these people way too hard. The people I like keep getting sent home. It must mean that Amanda is next.