Something I meant to blog about in depth, but didn’t…

Nursing


Savannah was exclusively on breastmilk for over a year (nursing and pumping) and I’m pretty dang proud of myself. In the process I turned into something I never thought I’d be – a lactivist (aka a breastfeeding advocate), pretty surprising to me since for MANY years I never even considering breastfeeding to be something I would ever do. Now I was never on the verge of staging a nurse-in and I never felt the need to stand up for nursing mothers rights but then again I only had one instance of NIP (nursing in public) where someone gave me a dirty look…


Cracker Barrel in the middle of Georgia. I was sitting in a corner thoroughly covered, as always, and for the first time in my life I accurately read someone’s lips to make out, “She’s feeding that baby, she needs to do that in the bathroom.” I know for sure that’s what she said because she had to repeat herself (her dining partner was probably as dumbstruck as I was) and I was able to read her lips again. Lucky for her they were done eating or I might have sat down at her table to finish up nursing or suggested she take her breakfast to the bathroom.


And I nursed EVERYWHERE – church, restaurants, the homes of family and friends, Starbucks, parking lots/garages, even while on the interstate once (Don’t call DCF, James was driving, Savannah was strapped in her car seat and I was bent over her, I’m sure it was quite a sight.) and the list goes on and on, it would be easier to name a place where I didn’t feed my baby.  I'm sure this surprised quite a few people and it certainly surprised me, I'm quite modest but when it came to feeding her I wasn't the least bit shy. I don't know if my fellow churchgoers, coffee drinkers, etc. were comfortable with my doing so but no one ever mentioned it or even gave it a second glance.



I fear I am somewhat crazy as I have found myself cornering the mother-to-be at baby showers inquiring about her plans for feeding her baby and offering to answer a 3 a.m. phone call with nary a mean thought to answer a breastfeeding question (I am so thrilled when I actually get taken up on my offer). I know from experience with friends and family that despite your best efforts, sometimes breastfeeding just doesn’t work so I’m not some crazy lady screaming “breast is best” at the top of my lungs at every chance I get.  But today, I found myself aghast when a childhood friend posted on Facebook that she was going to switch to formula this week because nursing hurt too much. You mean its working and you’re going to stop because of a little pain? WHAT?! I have a ridiculously low pain threshhold so I'm not trying to make myself out to be a hero here, but I had excruciating pain while nursing for 6 weeks while all the books say it shouldn’t last more than 2-4 weeks. But you know what, I kept on keepin’ on and by golly, it got better. Besides, labor was the worst pain I’ve ever felt, pre-epidural that is, and this was nothing compared to that.

My timeline is a little fuzzy but I think I've got all the dates right and this is really more for me and my own reference than anything else.  Thankfully I had a nice stash of frozen milk so I started pumping only once per day at work at the beginning of June and stopped pumping completely 2 weeks before Savannah's first birthday. Very shortly after her birthday we introduced cows milk in a sippy cup, never putting it in a bottle (ok ok, maybe we did once or twice in a desperate moment).  We continued nursing in the morning and at night for another week, I dropped the morning session while we were visiting family over the 4th of July weekend and we dropped the evening session on July 9, I had planned to go one more day but she was fussy and I could tell she just wasn't getting enough.  We started just giving her a sippy cup from the freezer stash after that night and ran out on July 14.  We had intended for the next day to be the last day of frozen milk but while thawing it we realized that bag had about 6 holes in it so it had to be thrown out...you can bet a complaint was promptly submitted on the manufacturers website and someone, that would be me, had some high value coupons in her hot little hands not soon after and we love our free sippy cups!

I found nursing to be quite natural and not at all difficult (once we got the hang of things) and SO convenient, I did have to give up milk and sour cream for a while but we never had to make sure that we had bottles with us or make a late night trip to the store for more formula. Not to mention the money we saved, especially since we would have needed soy formula, and the benefits to me - a quick return to my pre-pregnancy clothes and a decreased risk of getting several types of cancers.