New pics and boob musings

This is my new favorite baby picture:

I know that babies this little aren't really smiling because they're happy. A lot of people will tell you it's just gas. I don't really care what anyone thinks. That little mouth is curved upwards in a SMILE people, scrunched up little nose and all. He looks like his daddy here. My mother in law took this photo one day while I was napping. Since her camera uses an SD card just like mine, I was able to snag copies of her photos right onto my laptop.

Technology kicks butt.


Here is another new favorite, again, off of my mother in law's camera. My husband was holding Sawyer, probably after a feeding (again, I was probably asleep, the Percocets are kicking my butt lately). I love the expression on the baby's face. He's so stinking cute I can barely stand it sometimes! He's just so tiny and sweet.


Here's Bubba snuggling with grandma on the couch. She flew in last Thursday from Seattle and stayed here with us until today. That child did not smile for us at all until Grandma came to town, and then he was just grinning left and right! What is it about grandmas that gives them the magic touch like that?

Now, I'm gonna talk about boobs. My boobs in particular.

I have an appointment with a lactation consultant tomorrow afternoon. I'm kind of not looking forward to it, to tell you the truth. Breastfeeding is STRESSFUL, at least for me. My child howls, turns an alarming shade of red that slowly begins to resemble purple eventually, and just raises that OMG WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING MAKE IT STOP frantic feeling in me. I don't handle that feeling well AT ALL and I end up wanting to cry too, which is totally counterproductive. Then whoever is there trying to help me (nurse, lactation consultant, pediatrician) will grab my boob (my boobs are no longer my own, I've come to realize) with one hand, the baby's head with the other hand, and eventually, we get him to eat. This is great, don't get me wrong, but there's just one problem with this situation:

I don't have four hands when I'm home alone with the baby. Just two. I asked my husband for an extra set of hands for Christmas, and was told to not hold my breath. *sigh* Oh, and did I mention that actually having a little person chewing on your nipple HURTS? Seriously, teeth or no teeth, correct latch or no correct latch, by the time you are done it's like someone has shoved hot nails into your nipples. And that's WITH the nipple shield that's supposed to "protect" them.

But you know what's NOT stressful? Pumping. I pump, I measure, I bag, I date, and I store in the fridge. Then, come feeding time, we pull out a bag, warm it in a cup of hot water, dump it into a BPA free vented glass bottle, and feed the wee punk (name given to baby by Kim Kwan, which amuses me to no end!) with little fuss. No crying, no howling, no babies of alarming colors, no wondering how much he actually ate... it's nice.

I know in the long run pumping is going to be more trouble than if I could just get him to latch on properly to my breast, but right now, it's kinda saving my sanity. Also, as Susanne pointed out in the comments a couple of posts ago, it is pretty ridiculous to sit there with these funnel/bottle contraptions clutched to your chest for fifteen minutes. You can't do anything else, because you have only two hands - one for each boob. That's kinda lame too. I mean, you could just do one side at a time, and use the free hand to look at a magazine or something I guess, but I'd rather do them both at once and get it over with.

I need to start looking into freezing this stuff - and what do you do with the extra? I'm up to 8 oz total at a session, and I have quite the surplus built up in the fridge at the moment. Also, how do you know how much to feed the baby? I can find formula feeding guidelines for how many ounces to give your baby, and the breast feeding guidelines just say 15 minutes per side, but how many ounces should he get of breastmilk? Obviously, people are pumping and feeding their babies, so this info should be somewhere!

We've been giving him three ounces at each feeding, but there was one point today where he kept trying to suck his fist after we were done, so we gave him another ounce which he happily guzzled down before drifting off to sleep. Yikes!

I want to thank everyone for the well wishes for our anniversary. We had Chipotle and gelato from Angel Sweet (if you're local and you haven't tried this place, GO!!!) for dinner and watched Baby Mama on DVD. I have a better appreciation for some of the jokes in this movie AFTER having gone through it myself!

I'm off to sneak a nap now.