Sandra's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Sandra's Introduction

Get a drink and come read about this Jewish veg mom of two!

November 30, 1999

Breastfeeding Diaries Entries:

October 23, 2002

It only seems like yesterday when I was reading The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. I lay in bed, book perched on my gigantic belly, reading all about breastfeeding. I really didn't need to, of course. Breastfeeding was sure to be easy. It's a natural thing, really. And my mother breastfed me, her mother breastfed her, in fact, if you follow the female line back, no one in my family has ever been formula fed. And my husband was also breastfed, of course. We were planning a homebirth to avoid hospital interference with the natural breastfeeding process. I was a savvy and modern New Yorker. My friends were La Leche League leaders and extreme lactivists, so really, once I had done the required reading, it was guaranteed to be easy from the get-go. I don't think I ever bothered to say this to anyone, of course, since it was so obvious. Had I done so, I'm sure that my friends and relatives would have been quick to point out that it isn't always so easy. But even if they had, I'm sure I wouldn't have listened. I was Earth Mama and I was Lactating Queen and I wasn't going to have any problems. Well, nature has a way of teaching arrogant people lessons, and I was due to have mine.

Eva's birth, on November 15, 1998, went smoothly and I placed her at the breast right away. Birth, it seemed, had sapped her of any energy, and she decided to go to sleep. That's ok, I thought. She'll wake up later. When she did wake up, she wasn't really willing to open up her mouth very wide, making it extremely difficult to get my nipples (much less areolae!) into her very tiny mouth. The next week was a nightmare of trying to wake her up and shoving my nipple into her mouth. There were many tears on both of our parts, but I was determined to make it work. We hired an IBCLC (Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant, the creme de la creme of lactation consultants) when she was 5 days old and this helped a lot, but we really didn't master breastfeeding as a couple for a full six or eight weeks. It's hard to believe that there was a time when I wasn't sure that she really would successfully nurse, but it really did happen.

After that, things improved. I learned how to easily and discreetly nurse in public (remind me sometime and I'll post the story about how I bfip for the first time!) and resumed "normal" life. Of course, life with a child never goes back to the old normal... but the new normal was so much better that I've never regretted children. OK, I do when they teethe, but I digress :)

Breastfeeding became a part of life, nothing that really needed thought. My due date list and I compared notes regularly and I was aware that Eva nursed more than most of the kids her age did, but I've always cue fed and didn't mind frequent nursings once I mastered nursing in the Mayawrap sling. (As an aside, I'm a sling junkie. I may as well confess right up front. Number fifty one is my favorite color.) As she got older, she continued to nurse frequently, but began to eat more solids. This was fine with me, as I knew it was the normal progression of weaning. Around eighteen months old, we felt that she now ate enough food so that if pregnany were to cause her to wean, she would be ok. We conceived our son when she was twenty one months old, but she didn't slow down her nursing any. In fact, if anything, she increased the amount she nursed. When I was five months pregnant, and then again at six months pregnant, she had a horrible stomach virus that was going around. For days on end, she vomited and had diarrhea. Despite not eating anything and hardly drinking anything, she managed to continue nursing enough (though it was colostrom by this time) to stay well hydrated.

Just before my son's birth, we moved in with my inlaws in upstate NY. It hadn't been planned, but the landlord in our apartment building was refusing to evict the drug dealer on the floor above us, and we didn't feel safe anymore. It was really hard for me, since my dogs and cats couldn't live with us, due to my inlaws' allergies, but we compromised and built an outdoor dog run for the german shepherds and put the cats in a small outdoor building with a cat flap that let them play in the dog run with the dogs if they wanted. The homebirth, on May 21, 2001, in someone else's home was a little bit strange, but like Eva's birth, it went quickly and without complication. Raphael, or Raffi for short, nursed like a champ from the beginning, however. I admit that I had been very nervous about repeating Eva's experiences, so this was a huge relief!

The next year and a half flew!!! Raffi is full of energy, determined to keep up with Eva in every way. He still nurses constantly (he's nursing right now while I type!) and Eva and I are gradually weaning in a consentually acceptable manner and speed. Right now, she's down to once every morning, plus occasionally once or twice more during the day, but she doesn't ask more than once or twice a week, and occasionally skipping a morning nursing. In fact, she even skipped two days in a row recently.

The Jewish calendar is different from the conventionally used one, so the Jewish New Year fell in September this year. I decided that we needed to move out of my inlaws' home before the New Year, as a goal. Eighteen months with the inlaws was enough! I love them dearly, but I'm sure they were as glad to have us go as we were to leave. It's hard to not have privacy.

My husband and I spent the summer planning and deciding, and on September first, a rental home in Baltimore, MD became our home. We chose a house that was in an area that was much more religious than I am used to, but felt that attempting to spend a year at that level of obvservance would be a good learning experience, and that possibly we might even want to continue it after the year was over.

Another change that occurred when we moved involved my husband's career. He was offered the opportunity to continue his previous job, telecommuting about 90 percent of the time and coming back to the office the remaining 10 percent of the time. Our kids love the extra time they spend with him, since he eats lunch with us, doesn't waste time commuting, and best of all, takes midmorning and afternoon breaks with my daughter walking the dogs. They're really using the time to bond more tightly than ever!

Now that the animals (two dogs and a cat, since one of the cats passed away this year from liver failure) live with us again, I'm having to deal with my allergies again. Having a year and a half without them has made the transition particularly difficult and I find myself resorting to more drugs than I'm happy with, but if I don't keep my sinuses from getting overly congested, I end up with sinus infections which trigger my asthma, and then I'm REALLY on heavy medications.

Another major change in our lives that recently occurred was that both children were old enough to go without nursing for long enough so that I could go out for a while. I signed up for a painting class that I will be taking soon and am planning to go back to my scrapbooking business that I had put on a back burner for a few months. I'm contemplating opening a breastpump business as well, for a little extra spare cash, and to help out breastfeeding moms. I'm becoming more active in the La Leche League, and in fact volunteered my home to host the meetings for the next four months. And, of course, I'd like to start taking classes on Judaism and Hebrew. The possibilities for self expression and personal growth are endless (well, if I ever find a babysitter that I like and trust, anyway!)

Additionally, my husband and I are making lots of friends through a medieval recreation group here. One of the women we met has two children the same age as mine plus a newborn baby, and not only do we share that interest, but her husband and my husband both play Warhammer, a game with miniatures, sort of like toy soldiers with a lot of complicated rules!

Well, this is probably too long for an intro, and I need to go feed the kids breakfast, so I'll talk to you guys later!

-Sandra, Eva and Raffi