Boy Boobehs!

So this was written about a year ago, but it’s news to me. Did you know they found a correlation between tea tree and lavender oils (in shampoos in the study) causing breast growth and early puberty in boys? It had the same response on breast cells as estrogen. It also discusses the effects certain plasticizers, placenta & estrogen shampoos, flame retardants and endocrine disrupters in cosmetics and prescription drugs. It’s a really interesting read.

Now I’m going to go throw away that damn boob growing lavender baby lotion.

Yeastie Boy & His Mama

I made the mistake of letting Ben wear Huggies for one full day. We were fluttering between cloth and Pampers most of the time but he was this close to growing out of the Huggies, so I figured we’d use them up. By the end of the day, the poor child had the reddest bottom I’d ever seen. It was my own fault. I saw it after the first couple of changes but just lathered on the diaper rash cream and figured it was, as usual, just a side effect of the disposibles - they tend to turn him a little red whenever I use them.

The next day he was back in cloth and he still continued getting redder. I kept lathering on the cream but it was only getting worse. By the end of that week, it had spread from his bottom to his crotch to his belly to his thighs. He had his 2 month appointment with the pediatrician that Friday so we waited until then, hoping it’d go away on it’s own. We were doing everything right, letting him dry after wiping him, slathering him in diaper cream, making sure he was changed immediately. It should have gone away.

So at his appointment, the doctor took one look and said, “That’s a yeast infection.” There’s no real reason other than that he had a diaper rash and the yeast in his poo decided to take up residence in it. The excess of yeast in his poo could have come from us feeding him the formula he wasn’t tolerating so it threw off his entire gatro-intestinal tract.

We started him in on Nystatin. 5 days later, it had disappeared from his bottom but was slowly moving up his belly, up his back and down his legs, past his knees. By this time I’d started getting a raging case of thrush only on my left side. This single side thing was incredibly strange but even stranger was that I had this raging case of thrush and he didn’t. We took him back to his pediatrician and she said it was probably he and I passing it back and forth. I was to get on diflucan, she refilled his Nystatin because we were almost out from slathering it all over his body. My midwife put me on 2 doses of diflucan (normally a single dose thing, but since we kept transferring it back and forth she decided to double dose me).

It’s been almost another 2 weeks and his is barely disappearing. Mine is a raging mess. The ped told us to try Monistat on him before we try anything oral, and God knows what I’m supposed to do. I still itch like mad, it’s horribly painful to nurse and I’m actually beginnging to get scabs all over. It’s really annoying. I’m hoping that once his is cleared up, mine will be, too.

Just in case, though, I’ll be calling my midwife on Monday to see what she suggests for me and his pediatrician to see what she suggests for him. I love our ped. “I’d rather try topical treatments before we mess with his system.” I love that. I really hope it doesn’t come down to him needing anything oral but a month with yeast? Poor kid. I’m sure he’d be thankful for anything that’d make it go away.

TEDDY

Have you heard of TEDDY? Not the bear, The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young. They came into our hospital room when been was just about a day old and asked us if we’d like to participate in the study. They’d take some of his cord blood and test it for the genetic markers that can possibly lead to type 1 diabetes. I was half dead and was willing to say yes to anyone as long as it would get them out of the room, so off went signed papers to have Ben’s cord blood tested for type 1 diabetes markers.

I really didn’t worry about it. As far as I knew, no one in my family every had type 1 diabetes. Type 2, yes but no type 1. I assumed we’d just hear back that everything was fine, nothing to worry about, go on with our lives, whatever.

So this week, when we received a letter in the mail from TEDDY that said, “Call us soon or we’ll call you”, I got a little worried. I called once and no one was in. I figured, “Eh, they’ll call us” so I didn’t leave a message. It kept bugging me. I called back today.

Apparently, Ben has the genetic markers for type 1 diabetes. While this doesn’t mean he’ll definitely get it, he has a 3x greater risk of developing it than the normal population (1:33 vs 1:300). After a long, horrifying shpeel on what type 1 diabetes is and what it does to the body, she asked us to be a part of the continuing TEDDY study. It would involve taking him in 4x a year to have is blood drawn and height & weight measured. We’d have to keep records of his food, illnesses, pets, stresses, etc. We’d have to send in a poo sample every month. At 9 months, they’d take a sample of our tap water. At 24 months, they’d clip his toenails and test them, they’ll also test for Celiac disease. This would last for 15 years.

It’s a helluva lot to start doing but we’ve decided to do so for two main reasons. The first is very selfish. They’re going to keep close tabs on him. If he should have any problems, we’ll know immediately and they’ll be able to point us towards resources to help. The second reason is mostly because of her. This woman works everyday to keep things okay for her kids, and she works damn hard at it. Her daughter Hayleigh has both type 1 diabetes and Celiac disease. I’m in awe every moment of her attitude towards it. Cupcakes for everyone? No problem. Kris will find a way to make them both okay for Hayleigh AND tasty for everyone else. Someone being an ass at her school? Psh. Kris’ll run out and bring treats to even things out a little. I couldn’t imagine being in her shoes and doing as wonderful of a job as she does. So because of Hayleigh, I’d like to participate in anything that might lead to helping find a reason for this disease and, possibly, eventually finding a cure.

They say his risk would be 2x greater than what it is if he had a parent or sibling with type 1 diabetes. Luckily, he does not, but I was surprised to learn that every single one of my great aunts on my dad’s mom’s side (10 aunts in total) died of type 1 diabetes. I also found out my grandmother has it as well but has luckily never needed insulin. And, apparently, my dad’s son from his first marriage has a son with type 1, too. It was a shocker to go from thinking we had no one in our family with type 1, to having multiple people with it. It’s a little worrisome. However, at the same time, it’s pretty likely I have the same genetic markers and I don’t have it myself. I’m trying to be ridiculously unscientific and say that’s a really good sign. I’m also thinking that it’s not a ridiculous idea that most Native American’s have these genetic markers.

So, they say about 1 in 20 kids in the study develop one autoantibody (a sign that the body’s attacking the cells that make insulin) and 1 in 40 develop 2 or more. I pray Ben is in that 19 that doesn’t.

Bill Maher is a Fucktard

As much as I tend to agree with his point of view, he’s a complete retard when it comes to breastfeeding in public. He talks about how women in other countries don’t feel entitled to do such things as complain about being unable to breastfeed in public…because they CAN breastfeed in public without it being a big deal. Some friends of ours discussed how, when travelling Europe, no one gave them a second look when the mom breastfed. While here, you’re subject to either oogling or foul faces from everyone around you.

I don’t understand how anyone who is not a parent and doesn’t understand that sometimes you can’t “plan ahead” any more than you already do (i.e. Shocker! The kid hits another growth spurt and his normal 20 minute nap after eating turns into a 3 minute nap and a 40 minute screamfest unless you put him on the boob) can blabber on about a subject he knows diddly squat about. So what do you do? Forego going anywhere until Americans decide seeing a woman’s boob isn’t SUCH a big deal (…never…leave…your…house…ever…again…) or let your baby scream and piss the entire restaurant off?

Bill Maher is a fucktard!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa696L6M6Sw Forward to 7:13

Since when was eating intimate, btw???

Just Sad

The drive-in I’ve gone to since I was a child is being closed in order to build condos. CONDOS! We have one of the highest forclosure rates in the country and we’re shutting down an institution for CONDOS! So, Eric, the child and I are going to watch movies we could care less about seeing for a price we really can’t afford because this is the end of an era. How depressing is that?

Breastfeeding Monsters

My darling, wonderful baby boy came out rooting. He wanted to eat and he wanted to eat now. Somewhere between the hypothyroidism and the c-section, my milk was no where near coming in. He latched perfectly right out of the gate but was met with near nothing. I wasn’t worried at first. I was dead set on beastfeeding, period the end…then, he kept getting crankier and crankier

I broke down. I used a pacifier at first but, duh, it didn’t help. He was hungry, not wanting to suck on some plastic nipple. So, as you read, I was guilted into formula. I was convinced that my milk would never come in or, if it ever did, it would come in after he was already dying from starvation. I’m still a little peeved…okay, exceptionally pissed off at the nurse who said I was starving him. His pediatrician said his weight loss was fine, they’re expected to lose up to a pound in the first few days. He’d lost 9oz. It’s true. He cried, a lot. The starvation nurse said, “You’re just being a human pacifier now.” Thanks, lady. Way to make me feel even shittier.

I cried an awful lot that day. I felt like a complete failure. Not only was my body incapable of giving birth on it’s own, but I couldn’t even feed my baby. I felt entirely worthless and Eric was scared to death that this was the onset of PPD.

Then, in flew Paulina. The hospital’s lactation consultant. A 50ish woman with more energy than any human should have. “Okay, sweetie,” she’d say, “no crying. You’re baby will be fine. You’ll be fine. Do you have a pump?” I whined that I had a manual at home, “Oh, no, sweetie. A manual won’t do. You need an electric,” and off she ran. 10 seconds later, she flew back in with an electric pump in hand, “Here. This is yours. Pump every 2 hours. Give what you have to Ben and then follow up with formula. You’ll be fine.” She was amazing.

For the first 6 weeks my daytime routine was to nurse him 20 mins on each side (because he was a sleepy baby, this entailed nursing 5 minutes on the left, burping, nursing 5 on the right, burping, nursing 5 on the left, burping, etc), bottle feed him, burp him, and pump for 20 mins every 2 hours. This usually meant I had 30-45 minutes between each feeding session that didn’t involve feeding. This time, unfortunately, usually ended up being me trying to make Ben stop crying because the formula made his belly hurt, but we’ll get to that in a second. My night-time routine wasn’t much different except that I got to skip every other nursing/bottling session because he refused to wake up. I still had to get up every 2 hours to pump so that I could build my supply for the next day because I hated giving him formula.

At the hospital, he was on the Enfamil Lipil premade bottles. He did fine. But the moment we switched him to the powdered kind, he started getting horrible belly bubbles and gas. He’d scream and cry something awful. At his 2 week visit, I asked his Dr. about it. I thought maybe since I was lactose intolerant, he might be, too. She said it was probably just normal system growing up stuff but did want us to bring in a sample of his poo, just in case. Since it was green, it could mean blood in his stool, and therefore possibly a dairy allergy.We wenot home prepared to collect a poo-ey diaper.

Now, at this point he hadn’t pooed in about a day. This wasn’t abnormal for him. I’d gotten so worried the first time he hadn’t pooed for a day and a half that I called the ped. “Oh no, that’s normal. We don’t worry until they go more than 3 days…” Well, alrighty then. He didn’t poo for 3 days because he knew we were waiting on it. Since I’d built a nice supply of breastmilk in the fridge, his poo was no longer green. No test. No way of knowing what the issue was. It was never dark green again.

He would cry every single night for at least an hour or two. He’d either sleep or cry during the day. He was officially colicky. So, we switched to slightly kinder formula and the gas slowed down a tiny bit, though the colic did not. At the insistance of my parents, we tried soy…and he cried all.night.long. It was horrifying. I switched back to Good Start immediately. Then the doc suggested Mylicon, we tried that after every feeding. It cut down on some of the gas but not all of it. We tried changing to Avent bottles. The fight to get him to take that nipple was ridiculous. It didn’t help that I tried it for the first time at my parents house and they kept chanting, “He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t like it.” He took it 5 minutes later and was fine with it after that. I also tried Gripe Water for the first time there. My mom was convinced he’d have an allergic reaction so she didn’t let me use more than 1/8th of a teaspoon…he was supposed to have a full teaspoon. It didn’t work for obvious reasons. (We now use it regularly when he takes a bottle because it calms down the bubblies in his belly. We use it at full dosage.)

This whole time I’m pumping like a mad woman. My boobs feel like they’re going to fall off. They hurt like hell and I blamed it on Ben’s psycho suction - he could suck the hide off a cow from 40 feet away. As it turns out, it was the pump. It ws making me horribly sore. No matter how low I’d put the suction, I’d end up with slightly swollen, very painful boobs afterwards. I decided to give up pumping.

It was about week 6 when I figured out the pump was killing me. I couldn’t get up every two hours to pump 1/2 oz total. It was depressing. I decided that if my milk dried up, it dried up. I couldn’t do it anymore. I was sick of the pump. I’d nurse him whenever he was hungry and supplement with formula afterwards. Period.

The rest of that week sucked. He would nurse and down 4oz of formula afterwards as if he was starving. I felt like I was less and less full everyday. I wanted to cry but I kept trying. I was going to nurse him until my last drop was out of me. Period the damn end.

Then came week 8…and he decided he didn’t want the bottle anymore. It was a fight to get him to take it. He was nursing so much that week that he’d decided the bottle just wasn’t for him. This would normally not have bothered me but for the fact that I was *not* making enough milk for him. So we spent two or three days with him crying a lot and me sneakily sticking bottles into his mouth when he thought he was on the boob when something amazing happened…he didn’t drink anything from the bottle anymore. It wasn’t that he didn’t want the bottle, it was that he was actually full from nursing. It was the most wonderful thing in the world.

By his 2 month appointment, he was 80% boob, 20% bottle. His ped gave us samples of Nutramigen because she thinks he’s both lactose and soy intolerant. He only takes about 2-4 oz of that a day (without gas!), the rest is all me. It’s flippin’ awesome.

I still worry that he’s not getting enough. I make Eric weigh him every couple of days to be sure he’s still gaining weight. I’m worried when I think he’s hitting a growth spurt because I just don’t think I can keep up. He cries because he’s hungry and my first thought is, “mommy’s starving you, isn’t she?” I’m trying to get over it but it’s really hard. I keep wondering, if that nurse hadn’t have talked me into formula, would my supply be fine now? Would we be happily nursing without any supply issues?

Either way, I’m thankful for where we are. Even if we don’t make it the entire time I’d like to, everyday that we do I’m grateful.

2 Months

Weight: 9lbs 12oz (10th Percentile)
Length: 22.5″ (10th Percentile)
Head: 15.25″ (25th Percentile)

1 Month

Catching Up

I am the worst blogger that ever existed, so here goes a wrap-up.

1st Day at the Hospital:
-Ben sleeps.
-I’m forced to walk around with a cathetar.
-Getting out of bed sucks
-Ben has major trouble breathing thanks to his retarded mother loving the smelliest flowers on earth - after saline drops, propping him up and suctioning his nose over and over again, he finally had to be put in a misting box so he could breathe again.
-Ben sleeps on my chest. I wake up every single time the nurses begin to come in the room and pretend I’m awake so they don’t take him away.
-No milk, not worried

2nd Day:
-Ben sleeps
-Parents and grandparents drop off preemie clothes for the super tiny child.
-Nurse threatens to leave the cathetar in until I drink a large pitcher of water in an hour…Eric refuses to help me cheat.
-Getting out of bed still sucks.
-Shower. Ouch.
-Got the chest sleeping, nurse avoiding thing down.
-Ben’s down to 6lbs.
-Still no milk. Baby won’t stop crying. See lactation consultant. Getting a little worried…

3rd Day:
-Ben cries…all the time.
-Ben down to 5lbs 11oz
-Ped visits, says weight loss is fine.
-Nurse tells me…er…Ben, “Mommy’s starving you, isn’t she?”
-Guilted into formula. Feel like loser. Cry…a lot.
-Amazing lactation consultant makes me stop crying and gives me an electric pump because, “Oh no, a manual will just not do.”
-Creepy night time nurse comes in like a stealth tiger and steals my child off of my chest…bastard.
-Getting out of bed? Sucks.

4th Day:
-Go home.
-Use step stool to get into bed.
-Still no milk. Must break out powdered formula.
-Very, very hot. Ben pees brick dust.
-Take lots of pictures.
-Ben sleeps.
-I can’t sleep in bed. Try the couch. Can’t sleep there either. Cry because I’m a wuss.

The remainder of the first week is pretty much a blur. It involved a lot of crying because I couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t walk, couldn’t do anything without it hurting, couldn’t breastfeed, etc.

Healing
It definitely takes that full 6 weeks to heal. The first week sucks. The second week sucks a tiny bit less. Third week, a tiny bit less than that. Until, suddenly, the 6th week you can sneeze without crying and it’s amazing.

Benjamin
He slept through the night since birth. We had to wake him up to eat otherwise he’d wake up in the foulest mood. He had a permanant furrowed brow. A face like, “Who the hell are you and why are you doing this to me?” He’s had issues with his formula. He’s had a yeast infection on his bottom. He’s had colic. He was born in the 10th percentile and has remained in the 10th percentile. He’s got huge feet and a lollipop head. He’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever had enter my life.