Dropped Shoes

Ladies and gentlemen, I do apologize for the long hiatus. Pumping and commuting and working and family things have kept me insanely busy since February, then not too long after I stopped pumping I picked up a second job which takes up plenty of time four days a week on top of my usual five day work week.

Anyway, Husbeast and I started “trying” back in April. Thinking things picked right up, I got my hopes right up around the stratosphere, figuring I was definitely pregnant when I still hadn’t had a cycle by the end of May. All the tests I was taking came up negative though. I called my OB and was told to give it a couple more weeks and if I still hadn’t had a menses, to make an appointment to be seen. Well wouldn’t you know it: Within two days I had physical proof that I was not indeed pregnant. Talk about a letdown.

Not to be deterred for long though, we continued our efforts to conceive through June and into July. Once again, I found myself “late” on my cycle – at least according to the tracker application on my phone. Six days and numerous negative pregnancy tests later, my body once again proved that no, here was evidence of absolutely no pregnancy.

Husbeast assured me that we just needed to keep trying (I think cause he enjoys the process), and it’ll happen. So here I am thirteen days late, two negative tests sitting in the bathroom trash at home, wondering what on earth is going on. I read last night that it can sometimes take until the day after a missed cycle for the embryo to implant, which means that beta hCG levels won’t be easily detectable as early, but I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

This Cow's Getting Excited!

It’s official: I’m starting to get really excited about carrying Husbeast’s baby. Not that I wasn’t before – it was more of an abstract concept, is all. Now that the time to start “trying” approaches, it’s becoming more real. I’m starting to think about things we’ll need to reacquire, since Pooka has been our one and only and she hasn’t been a baby for so long, we have absolutely nothing for an infant. Well, except for a pack of Batman pajamas and onesies given to me when I was pregnant with Wiggle Worm, by the magnificent Xaotl.

My mother suggested that Auntie Badass might have our old family crib, but we’re still in an apartment and it’ll be a couple more years before we can even think about buying a house. So I’m thinking I may take the door off my little closet office and make that into a miniature nursery. The walls are close enough together that I could easily build a “floating” crib with storage underneath it, and still fit a rocking chair in there for feeding and soothing.

Of course, Nugget’s mum has already said she can’t wait to start buying me things, and I really don’t doubt it. She loves to spoil me. I don’t know if I want an awful lot of new things though, since babies tend to outgrow things pretty quickly, and many of my friends are procreating these days and can provide hand-me-downs which I can in turn pass on to people who need them. I’m also big into simplicity and saving space, so rather than a free-standing high chair, for example, I’d prefer to have one of the kind that straps into a regular dining chair. (Pooka’s high chair was ALWAYS in the way. Drove me NUTS.)

I’m toying with the idea of buying a pack of diapers or wipes here and there, so that when the time comes, I have a ton of them. I have a cousin who did the cloth diaper thing and while I admire that and suspect it was probably better for her babies’ bums, we just don’t have that kind of time.

Back on the topic of surrogacy: I did the math, and I’m averaging around 2.5 gallons of milk being shipped to Mum, Dad and Nugget every week.

(25 bags @ 13 oz per bag = 325 oz  / 128 oz per gallon = 2.54 gallons per week)

Sometimes it’s more than 25 bags, but it’s never less these days. Last week was 2.84 gallons (28 bags). So yeah. Still a cow.

MOOOOOOOOOOO.

I'm A Cow.

Tomorrow will be fifteen weeks since I gave birth to Nugget. How is he almost four months old already? Man, I guess time does fly. I suppose part of it could be the fact that I’ve turned myself into a Holstein. I don’t go more than a couple miles away from home without my trusty Medela Symphony breast pump.

That’s right, Dear Reader: If you don’t wanna read embarrassing and amusing anecdotes involving “the girls,” (even if I only use vague references and insinuations) stop reading now. If you find my self-abasing humor appealing, however: Do continue.

Back when we were first putting together the contract to start the process of bringing Nugget into being, we discussed the possibility of me expressing milk for the baby. I had no issues with doing so, but I was not about to agree to the task without it being written into the contract. Wiggle Worm and Tempest’s dad wanted me to pump for Wiggle Worm for a few days while he waited for her to be released from the hospital, and I did so. Except that he was in a hurry to get her home, and never came to collect what I had expressed. And because I was using a boiled (and therefore sterile) but not hospital-grade container in which to store it, no one else would take it. This led to engorgement, which HURTS. Oh my god, does it hurt. And you can’t express more, or your body will MAKE more, and that just perpetuates the whole mess.

Anyway, it got written into the contract, and Dad made all the necessary arrangements for me to get ahold of the aforementioned pump so I wouldn’t have to do it by hand. I’ve since come to refer to him as my “Lactation Supply Genie.” I type what I need into my phone and a day or so later it shows up at my house! Ta-da!

So originally I started pumping every four hours, on the nose. And by “every four hours,” I mean four hours from start to start – kinda like contractions. 6:00 am, 10:00 am, 2:00 pm, 6:00 pm, 10:00 pm and 2:00 am. It was not conducive to sleep.

Once I got back to work full-time (my boss let me do some work from home so I wouldn’t get bored), I shifted my schedule a little: 1:00, 9:00 and 5:00. Except then I started having to take the bus to work, which is three hours combined every day. And trying to get up in the middle of the night was not working for me. So now I pump at 4:00 am, 9:00 am, 1:30ish pm, 6:30ish pm and 10:00 pm. This allows me about four and a half hours of sleep (three complete REM cycles) per night. I know it’s not much sleep, but by sleeping in 90-minute increments (one REM cycle per 90 minutes), I don’t wake up exhausted. So there’s that.

It takes me 30-40 minutes to finish pumping at any given sitting, and I usually get at least eight ounces each time. That’s eight ounces total; four ounces per side (except at 4:00 – then I usually get at least twelve total, and it takes closer to an hour). Unlike the other two ambidextrous lactating ladies I know, I cannot double-pump. I’ve even tried a double-pumping bustier, ordered for me by the Lactation Genie. I swear that thing HAD to have been invented by a man. The holes for the pump’s horns are at most, eight inches away from each other, right on the front of the bustier. I’m sorry Medela, but NO ONE naturally falls to the front. Not a single woman on the planet. And even if by some strange chance, one of us did, she’d have to be no older than seven for the spacing to work.

Anyway, one of the difficulties of strictly pumping over nursing directly is that with pumping, there’s no saliva there to keep the ducts moist and therefore clear. So I often have to stop and use a rough cloth to clear the ends of the ducts. In order to do this, I need to see what I’m doing. You’d think that after almost four months, I’d have figured out a way to NOT spray myself in the face at least once a day, but NOPE. Not me. I surprise myself every single time. It’s okay. You can laugh. I would. In fact, I do. It’s funny.

Oh! And in spraying myself in the face, I accidentally learned something new about me: I am a true Vermonter - my roots grow deep in the soil of the Green Mountain State. I am also apparently a maple tree. Now, I am not the kind of person who's comfortable with the idea of trying my own consumable bodily fluids, but one day I "got" myself in the face while my mouth was open. Apparently my milk tastes like maple sap. No joke.  

The lovely thing about pumping at work is that my boss gives me absolutely no guff about it. I take my work laptop down to the Lactation Room (renamed “The Milking Parlor” by one of my wittier coworkers. Those of us using the room have begun referring to it as simply “The Parlor” for the sake of office etiquette) and work while I pump. When I asked if I could work during these breaks, my boss actually laughed at me – not because she wasn’t going to allow it, but because I was worried about taking too much time off during the day to do it. Granted, I’m not one to dawdle when there’s work to be done, so it’s not like I’m falling behind for it, but still.

This will all continue through the end of March – with the daily facials and visits to The Milking Parlor – after which, Husbeast and I will start trying for a second kiddo. Stay tuned – soon you may see a post something to the effect of, “I’m pregnant, and it’s actually mine this time!”