So, Sam's had three weeks of school, which is great. He's learning a lot, and really starting make an effort to communicate well with us. Then last week, it was parent-teacher conferences for the whole district, so there was no school. I was adamant about keeping Sam "on a schedule", so we went out of the house at roughly the same time every morning as we would have for school.
On Monday we went to the Minnesota Zoo. It was Sam, Maggie, and me. We visited Discovery Bay, the penguins, the bumble bee room, and then walked the Minnesota Trail. It was still a bit chilly outside so I kept the kids bundled up for the Minnesota Trail, which is covered but mainly outdoors. Sam wasn't a fan of staying with me, so he stayed in the stroller on the trail, but got to run around to look at the penguins and both kids got to get down and play in the bumblebee room.
On Tuesday we went to Toddler Tuesday at the Mall of America, with Sam, Maggie, and me, plus my sister in law, her daughter, and her mother in law. We met up at the Lego Store, where the little kids played with duplos at the tables in the little play area outside the store. When it was time to go buy ride passes, Sam didn't want to leave and ran away from me, throwing himself full force against a bench he thought was padded. Nooooope. It had a cushion on top, but the bench was hard metal. He still has the bruise, and it looks pretty nasty. He cried and cried for at least five minutes or so. At least I know he feels pain, I guess? (Most days he crashes and gets right back up to play.) When everyone was calm again, we started in on rides. Sam is not yet a fan of the Wonderpets Fly Boat. He did pretty well, regardless--just sad face and a lot of whimpering. We visited the main event for the week, which was a sort of lame "World's Largest Show and Tell" thing. The kids colored a little. Then we went on the Big Rigs ride and the train ride. Had lunch at Famous Dave's, where Sam ate all of his chicken strips, and Maggie ate practically all the snacks I'd packed for her. By that time we were all pretty wiped and I could tell we needed to get home for Maggie to nap, so we headed out.
Wednesday I was sort of exhausted from the previous two days' outings, but we did get out of the house for a short Target run in the morning. The kids seemed to like the cart with the double seats so they could sit side-by-side and face forward.
Thursday is my day without Maggie, and Dan had taken Thursday and Friday off from work for a much-needed break. The three of us (Sam, Dan, and I) went back to the MN Zoo. We did most of the same things as Monday, with the addition of chasing Sam around the Minnesota Trail where he was out of his stroller most of the time. We also walked the Northern Trail and let Sam play for awhile at the playground near the road to the farm, which we decided to skip. Sam loves the slide there and the board with numbers, letters, and shapes. It was nice to see Dan get to play with Sam in some of Sam's favorite places. Sam was, as usual, tickled pink by the penguins that were swimming around. He kept trying to hug one of the other moms who was crouched down, trying to get a picture. My little photo-bomber. He's also become fascinated with fish. I'm so tempted to get him a betta or something for his birthday, but I'm not really ready to make the commitment to clean a tank, so that's not happening until further notice.
Friday Maggie was back, and we had an appointment at Gillette to get to. Unfortunately the van's battery was dead, so Dan had to jump it with the car before we could get underway. Luckily we'd left some extra time (because seriously, parents always have to leave extra time) so we were only 15 minutes late. That meant virtually no waiting room time, which was a pleasant bonus. Sam was not at all excited about getting his height and weight taken, his x-rays taken, or really anything, until we got into the exam room. Then he just kept playing with the monitors and keyboards. This was a followup with his surgeon who did his first three surgeries. The news, good or not: Sam's hand seems to be doing well, his elbow contracture is due to a couple of slightly malformed bones, not muscles, and he has a little bit of web creep between his first and middle finger. She measured his elbow and saw that he is missing 10 degrees of flexion and 40 degrees of extension. She'll see him again in a year to follow up and measure things again. She also brought up the possibility of a syndrome being responsible for both the arm/hand and the autism, but for the moment they seem unrelated. We might follow up with the geneticist we saw back when Sam was a baby and see what she says.
So that was our "work week"! Saturday we visited with Sam's Great-Grandpa Des and Great-Grandma Judy at my parents' house, and Sunday we stayed home and did laundry. Glamorous, I know. Now that the weather's good (and Sam will be back in school this week), we'll probably go on our walks to the local parks as often as possible instead of the major destination type playdates on Sam's days off. (Mondays and Fridays, if you want to join us!) I was proud of getting the kids out of the house on the last two Mondays: we went to Burnsville Center two weeks ago and the zoo (we love the zoo!) again three weeks ago, but this past week has really pushed my limits. Looking forward to warm weather and less travel!
Monday, April 29, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
This and That (and why is it still winter?)
I've not been updating the blog the way I intended. At this point, at least until the snow is gone, I'm not going to hold myself to any set schedule because I just can't. I meant to write last week about how Sam is doing at school (good!), but I just couldn't wrap my brain around words. Remember how I said depression is like a fog that won't let me think straight? That's pretty much what's going on with me. I am scattered as all get out right now.
But I've been baking. I borrowed Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from my mom and am slowly working my way through the recipes. I make a lot of boule, but I've also attempted demi-baguettes, ciabatta, light wheat, and oatmeal bread. I also borrowed a bread machine and made two loaves of old-fashioned white bread with that. As summer arrives, I'm going to quit using the oven as much so I'll be back to making bread in the crock pot or the bread machine.
I've also been crocheting. I finished blanket #3 and started on #4. Pictures, you know, eventually. (My house is too messy to take pictures at the moment. Sorry. I'll do my spring cleaning when it is actually spring.)
And aside from all the depression nonsense, I haven't been well, as in, not having a cold or illness of some sort, in at least 6 weeks. I have not had more than a two week break from being sick in roughly a year. (That's being generous...it feels more like a 1 week break, maybe. I honestly don't remember anymore what it was like not to be sick. I am starting to wonder if we have mold in our house or something.) I am tired of winter and I am tired of being sick all the time and dang it I am tired. This is my reality at the moment, and I don't like it, and I figure you all don't need to hear the same complainy thing from me three times a week, so there it is. See you when the snow melts. It's going to melt, right? It has to stop by like June, right? Sigh.
All winter I said to myself, if I can just make it to April, I'll be OK. Well, I did. And I'm not. April didn't hold up her end of the bargain. I know everybody else feels the same way, but that doesn't really make me feel better about it.
Oh, and happy tax day! We owed a ridiculous amount. Another sigh. But hey, free stuff!
But I've been baking. I borrowed Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from my mom and am slowly working my way through the recipes. I make a lot of boule, but I've also attempted demi-baguettes, ciabatta, light wheat, and oatmeal bread. I also borrowed a bread machine and made two loaves of old-fashioned white bread with that. As summer arrives, I'm going to quit using the oven as much so I'll be back to making bread in the crock pot or the bread machine.
I've also been crocheting. I finished blanket #3 and started on #4. Pictures, you know, eventually. (My house is too messy to take pictures at the moment. Sorry. I'll do my spring cleaning when it is actually spring.)
And aside from all the depression nonsense, I haven't been well, as in, not having a cold or illness of some sort, in at least 6 weeks. I have not had more than a two week break from being sick in roughly a year. (That's being generous...it feels more like a 1 week break, maybe. I honestly don't remember anymore what it was like not to be sick. I am starting to wonder if we have mold in our house or something.) I am tired of winter and I am tired of being sick all the time and dang it I am tired. This is my reality at the moment, and I don't like it, and I figure you all don't need to hear the same complainy thing from me three times a week, so there it is. See you when the snow melts. It's going to melt, right? It has to stop by like June, right? Sigh.
All winter I said to myself, if I can just make it to April, I'll be OK. Well, I did. And I'm not. April didn't hold up her end of the bargain. I know everybody else feels the same way, but that doesn't really make me feel better about it.
Oh, and happy tax day! We owed a ridiculous amount. Another sigh. But hey, free stuff!
Friday, April 5, 2013
Video Friday: A Needed Response
Do you have 26 seconds to spare? Really? Great.
This went viral sometime in the last week or so, but it's short and to the point.
This went viral sometime in the last week or so, but it's short and to the point.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
I am not a photographer (and, 100th post!)
...and I don't particularly want to be. There seems to be a trend among bloggers to go one of two ways: either they steal images by googling and then not getting permission or paying for them, and that's how they get images for their blog posts, OR, they become better photographers and take their own damn pictures of whatever it is they are blogging about. (Or in rare instances, they do what Amber Dusick did and get a book deal and it's great. But that's her idea, so I'm not stealing it. Frankly, I don't think I could even make MS Paint pictures as well as she does.)
I have halfheartedly tried to do the second, but I lack equipment, talent, practice, and, frankly, desire. I am a writer. I am a crafter. I am a mother. I am a feminist. I am NOT a photographer. I tend to drop my phone when I'm trying to take a selfie--it's that bad. And I am tired of feeling like that makes me somehow defective as a writer/crafter/mother/feminist/blogger.
So for now, I'm going to keep taking crappy cell phone and webcam pictures and maybe I'll start cruising creative commons sites to find images that I can get permission to use for free with attribution, like the one above, or just post walls of text with no images. (Cool tip: if you want to find out who published an image first, you can google the image's URL in a google image search to find similar images. Great way to track down the authorship of memes.) But I've decided that I've got to stop feeling that pang of jealousy when I look at the other craft and mommy blogs and they have artsy images of their work or their kids. It's just not my thing. I rarely even remember to take snapshots on special occasions.
Hopefully my words here can stand on their own most of the time. This is my 100th post on this blog. I'm feeling pretty proud of that milestone, with or without cool pictures.
Monday, April 1, 2013
A Year of Giving: March
March was kind of a hodge podge. I was struggling with a few things, like I mentioned last Monday, but still managed to give a little bit here and there. In most cases I had deeply personal reasons for giving.
I gave a bit to The Baby Schellman Fund for Mike & Wolfie, in the spirit of "when opportunities to give pop up." Mike lost his wife TJ, Wolfie's mom, to complications after childbirth--complications that easily could have happened to me when Sam was born. TJ was a colleague of my friend Jill, so when she posted about it on Facebook I decided to go ahead and give something.
Last week I read this post by Jessica at The Leaky Boob. Her website and the online community she's cultivated on Facebook have meant a lot to me over the past few years. Her eldest daughter (we Leakies know her as Earth Baby, though she's 14) is a determined and talented dancer, and in a family with six little girls, money for summer dance school is tight. I remember doing fundraisers to go on band trips, attend youth gatherings with church, and my big trip to German-speaking countries with my foreign language class. So I donated a few bucks as my way of paying that forward. Also the video she made with her sisters made me cry.
I also desperately needed a haircut, and it was long enough to donate to Locks of Love, so I did that. Pics or it didn't happen:
Last but not least, I finally finished blanket #1 and started and finished blanket #2. If I finish 3 and 4 next month, I'll be back on schedule. Not sure if that's going to happen or not, but I'm going to try.
I gave a bit to The Baby Schellman Fund for Mike & Wolfie, in the spirit of "when opportunities to give pop up." Mike lost his wife TJ, Wolfie's mom, to complications after childbirth--complications that easily could have happened to me when Sam was born. TJ was a colleague of my friend Jill, so when she posted about it on Facebook I decided to go ahead and give something.
Last week I read this post by Jessica at The Leaky Boob. Her website and the online community she's cultivated on Facebook have meant a lot to me over the past few years. Her eldest daughter (we Leakies know her as Earth Baby, though she's 14) is a determined and talented dancer, and in a family with six little girls, money for summer dance school is tight. I remember doing fundraisers to go on band trips, attend youth gatherings with church, and my big trip to German-speaking countries with my foreign language class. So I donated a few bucks as my way of paying that forward. Also the video she made with her sisters made me cry.
I also desperately needed a haircut, and it was long enough to donate to Locks of Love, so I did that. Pics or it didn't happen:
Before
Bye bye hair!
And after! See you again in a few years!
Last but not least, I finally finished blanket #1 and started and finished blanket #2. If I finish 3 and 4 next month, I'll be back on schedule. Not sure if that's going to happen or not, but I'm going to try.
Folded blankies on a messy couch!
I am a little sad that the blanket that took me 2.5 months to finish looks smaller than the one that took less than a week. Will write up a separate post for that one later. The picture kind of bleaches it out, but it is lavender, yellow and white.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Video Friday: Easter Egg decoration ideas from Baby Rabies
Hopefully this works. I haven't tried to embed a non-youtube video yet. Here is a link to the original post if it didn't work. Hearing this blogger say that glitter is the herpes of craft supplies on live television is kind of hilarious. (Also does the host remind anyone else of Amy Sedaris? A little bit?)
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Why I am Boycotting Nestlé (and: my breastfeeding story)
Preface: This is not a tirade against formula feeding or against formula feeding moms and dads. This is only about predatory marketing. It is just my story.
There are many good reasons to boycott Nestlé, from their predatory marketing in 3rd world countries, to their misleading "breastfeeding support" hotlines and websites, to their 30+ years of violation of the WHO code for marketing breastmilk substitutes. What finally pushed me over the edge, though, was my own experience. Selfish, I know.
Midwinter in early 2010 or late 2009, I needed to buy some maternity clothes. Since there aren't a lot of stores that carry plus sized maternity clothing, I went to one where I knew I could find a few decent, if overpriced, maternity jeans, sweaters, and t-shirts. My mom went with me to Motherhood Maternity in Southdale. She bought a couple things for me as birthday presents and I bought the rest. At the checkout counter I gave my usual "no, I don't give out my personal information" when the clerk asked if I wanted to sign up for their marketing list. But this lady was pushy. They were offering a discount on the clothes (I think? It's hard to remember back that far) and a $50 "gift card" for restaurants.com. Naiive young pregnant woman that I was, I believed that it was worth the $50 to give her my address. Anyone who's used restaurants.com knows that it's not a gift card, it's a coupon. $50 off a purchase of $100 or more, or you could instead buy $25 off a purchase of $35 or more, which is what I did to get a slightly better deal. I was annoyed, but it wasn't like I was out any extra money, yet.
(Side note: the website has a limited selection of restaurants where the coupon can be redeemed, none of which were in our neighborhood aside from the s****y "Mexican" bar across the highway. They specialize in the cuisine of "southern Colorado", and everyone who works there is white and bitchy. They had a sign that said "We Say Merry Christmas" that year, a thinly veiled "Jews and Muslims Not Welcome" sign. We lived in a neighborhood with a lot of Muslim immigrants, who were in general good neighbors, so I was annoyed. Not like they would have eaten there, since, you know, pork, but the sign was visible from the highway and the idea of making my good neighbors feel unwelcome was really upsetting to me. We didn't go back, and lost that extra $25 worth of coupon. Ugh.)
About a month before Sam was born, I received in the mail two small cans of Enfamil. I was livid. At the time I had no idea who had sent them or why. Was it thebump.com? My doctor or the hospital where I'd preregistered? The retailers where I'd registered for baby gifts? I had no idea but I was pissed. I'd always known I'd want to have kids and breastfeed those kids. It is the main reason why I put up with decades of back pain rather than get a breast reduction and risk my chances of being able to breastfeed. The idea that anyone would think I would want this stuff in my house (and I already knew that just having it available was risking my success at breastfeeding) made me angry. Not because I hate formula. Because I hate the pusher aspect of the companies who sell it. Here's a free sample, just enough to get you hooked on a highly processed food that will be your baby's sole nutrition for 6 months. No way. I'd planned to give both cans to a friend who happened to have stopped breastfeeding and was giving her daughter formula at the time, but then I went on bedrest. And didn't see her again until the hospital, and by the time I was able to actually give her the formula it was far too late.
Sam latched pretty well in the hospital. There were a couple hiccups here and there--a psycho nurse who insisted on pumping his stomach and giving him a small amount of formula through a tube, because of "low blood sugar". Yes, he was a little lethargic. He was barely a day old and it was the middle of the night. I probably should have asked to pump, or just put him straight on the boob after the mucous came out of his tummy, but I was tired. I hurt everywhere. Ladies, this is why you need labor and post-partum doulas who know your choices and can stand up for you. Your partner is not going to do it unless you've gotten him to do his own research and get enthusiastically on board (and well versed) with the plan, which didn't happen in my case.
Both of us were reasonably uneducated about breastfeeding a newborn, and honestly I think that first "he's got low blood sugar, it's not working" killed my confidence. In the next few days, rather than nursing on demand 24 hours per day, I let Dan take him for a few hours each night so I could rest. Again, everything hurt--especially my right wrist, where they finally got the IV to go in for my pitocin. The hep lock was poorly managed after Sam was born, and I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it hurt all the time for a couple of months, making it super-difficult for me to hold Sam to my breast. So. We slept in shifts. Bad, bad idea. Sam needed to be on the boob more or less at all times and I was so frustrated with the whole thing because he was always crying. I thought it wasn't working. I couldn't understand why my baby was so angry all the time. (As it turns out, crying is a very, very late hunger cue. Any time a newborn is awake, he or she should be eating.) We were writing down everything, timing everything, and he wasn't having quite enough wet diapers by day 4. I broke down. Dan's (very pregnant at the time) sister took him to the store to buy a double electric pump and her husband watched Sam while I lay down and cried for a bit.
At 5 days old, Sam weighed almost two pounds less than his birth weight. He was dehydrated. I nursed him at the doctors office and he gained an ounce. That day we were sent here, there, and everywhere, to try to get someone to help us get the breastfeeding thing working. It was exhausting and by the end of the day, I had learned some useful things about getting Sam to latch but had not gained any confidence, and was still encouraged to record *&^$ing everything. Because there would be a test. So it seemed. At that point I was more afraid of having my baby taken away from me for not feeding him "right" than anything else. Irrational post-partum-brain nonsense? Sure. Did anyone attempt to replace those assumptions with anything else? Nope. And the $300 bill for the hospital lactation consultant took for freaking ever for the insurance to pay. Obviously I didn't go back, even though I probably needed to and it was technically covered. (LLL was unreachable when we tried that morning. I was sent to a WIC peer counselor and then a LC at United/Children's.)
Sam had his first bottle of formula that night. I strongly suspect that if Dan had needed to go the store and pay $14 for that tiny can of formula, which seemed to last forever when Sam was so small, he would have thought twice about using it when there was pumped milk in the fridge. It kept Sam asleep longer during the night. (Dan disagrees with me on this point. He thinks he would have been fine with the formula either way because Sam needed to eat, period. Which is true. But it put us on a bad course that neither of us really understood.)
By the time Sam was two months old, he was 100% bottle fed with pumped human milk from me during the day and a bottle or two of formula from Dan at night. Pumping all the time was a great way to measure things, but it was killing me. Sam was gaining weight well (funny how drinking something intended to turn a 50-100lb baby animal into an animal that weighs a literal ton as an adult will do that) so...I took a risk and tried to get him back on the breast. It worked, sort of. Sam was always a contentious nurser. I struggled so hard with anxiety over whether he would willingly breastfeed that he was always annoyed with me, unless it was the first feeding of the morning, when we were both sleepy and I had a ton of milk (from not feeding him all night). Most other feedings I had to hold and rock him in a specific chair or lie down in bed, and sing to him to keep his focus. As the months went by, he breastfed less and less and started on formula bottles earlier and earlier during the day, until we only had one feeding at the breast in the morning. About a month after we'd introduced solids, I decided that maybe it was time to give up so I could change my depression meds. Pretty much the next day Sam got a nasty cold and actually wanted and needed to breastfeed. We lingered along doing that one or two feeding a day thing until about 10 months when I called it quits. Funny thing--a day or two after weaning is the only time I ever experienced any engorgement at all. So you can see why I doubted my supply somewhat.
All told, we probably bought well over $1000 worth of formula over time, starting with Enfamil and then moving to the generic brand from Target. We also bought a ton of Gerber baby food (also Nestlé.) That $50 "gift certificate" and $32 of "free" formula was a good investment over time, don't you think? There were also the $5 off "checks" that they'd send in the mail for their $30 cans of formula.
That's right. The salesgirl at Motherhood had been paid some sort of commission to get the names and addresses of pregnant women who planned to breastfeed. Here's the thing. Formula companies don't send free samples to women who plan to formula feed. They don't need to. They're already going to get that person's business. They send free samples to women who plan to breastfeed, knowing that that first week can be hell, and women or their partners will cave. The other thing is that that $30 can of formula costs maybe $5 to produce, package, and deliver. It's not worth $30. It's not even worth the $19.99 that Target charges for the generic. It's purely based on corporate greed and the amount of money those companies spend marketing the stuff, which in the end, hurts the families who need the formula more than anyone. They charge that much because they can. Because once you've decided to stop breastfeeding and switch to formula, it is practically an impossible decision to reverse. They've got you. And they've been controlling the conversation about infant feeding for over a century.
Sam had a sign on his bassinet saying that he was to be exclusively breastfed. He was born early because of my pre-ecclampsia. Newborns have undeveloped digestive tracts without the beneficial flora needed to digest foods other than breastmilk. It is no coincidence that preemies fed formula are at a high risk of necrotizing enterocolitis. Sam wasn't technically premature but I would have appreciated a chance at keeping his "virgin gut" a bit longer. Apparently the nurse wasn't aware of these risks, and neither was I, so I let her give him formula even though I would have preferred donor milk. There is no milk bank in Minnesota which is a tragedy.
While the conversation has been changed from "Formula=Science! Which is better than breastmilk, which eww, that's gross, what are you, a cow? And won't your husband be sad he has to share your boobs? And besides, that's what those dirty immigrants do," to "Formula=almost as good as breastmilk, and really, breastfeeding is for crunchy-granola hippies who have nothing better to do than have a kid on their boob all day," or "Breastfeeding is nice, but formula feeding is normal," that's frankly not much improvement and it's not the truth. But it's still what formula companies are putting out there. You know where they get the DHA and ARA they tout as "important pre-biotics (a made-up word) like those found in breastmilk"? Fish oil and GMO seaweed. And there is no evidence that babies can even absorb them in those forms.
Now, lest this become a diatribe against formula feeding mothers, I assure you it is not. After all, I am/was one. I am also aware that combinations of lack of family support, needing to return to work, needing to take certain medications, having had breast surgery of any kind, etc. can interfere with breastfeeding. And it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It is also not about guilt--all parents do the best we can with the information we have at the time.
I just wish that formula companies would comply with the rules intended to protect babies from unnecessary early weaning. I started out wanting and expecting to breastfeed well over a year, potentially at least two years if I could. The first week Sam was born I figured I'd be lucky to make it to six months. When I was exclusively pumping, it became three months. Fortunately I was able to continue to nurse Sam at least part of the time past those last two goals, but I am still angry that I didn't meet my own personal goal from before Sam was born. Maybe it wasn't meant to be--maybe Sam's sensory issues were the real culprit--but I'll never know for sure. It wasn't just Nestlé, but the whole system of booby-traps that sabotaged our breastfeeding relationship. However I can't keep throwing money at a company who is willing to throw babies under the bus for a profit. I just can't.
And it's hard. Nestlé is into everything. There's the obvious: Crunch bars, Butterfingers, Drumsticks. Wonka and Cadbury. Then there's Lean Cuisine and Stouffer's, Edy's and Häagen-Dazs. A lot of dairy-like products like Coffeemate and Nescafe, and Nesquik. All Gerber food products. Tons of bottled waters, though I try not to buy those as much these days so I can't remember which. Luckily we don't have any pets because they are all over the pet food industry--Purina and several others. And they still own a 30% share in L'Oreal so none of that plus Maybelline, Garnier, and several others. Almost all of these were products I bought regularly. My coupon habit has become more difficult since Nestlé does so much marketing--at least a 3rd of the coupons I get are for Nestlé products. We love Drumsticks, and I miss them. Lean Cuisine makes frozen pizzas and sandwiches that Dan liked to take to work. I'm getting bored of International Delight. But that's part of what makes it important. It's not an easy boycott like the Chik Fil A thing would have been. It's stuff that we used to use, a lot, and now we don't.
So if you ever see me checking labels, or saying that I'm not interested that Lean Cuisines are on sale at Target, that's why. Next baby, whenever that is, I'll be armed with information and support. You may notice that many of the resources and articles I've linked to here were from 2011. Too late to help Sam, but not too late for his potential little brother or sister. And I'll buy my maternity clothes online or use the ones I already have.
There are many good reasons to boycott Nestlé, from their predatory marketing in 3rd world countries, to their misleading "breastfeeding support" hotlines and websites, to their 30+ years of violation of the WHO code for marketing breastmilk substitutes. What finally pushed me over the edge, though, was my own experience. Selfish, I know.
Midwinter in early 2010 or late 2009, I needed to buy some maternity clothes. Since there aren't a lot of stores that carry plus sized maternity clothing, I went to one where I knew I could find a few decent, if overpriced, maternity jeans, sweaters, and t-shirts. My mom went with me to Motherhood Maternity in Southdale. She bought a couple things for me as birthday presents and I bought the rest. At the checkout counter I gave my usual "no, I don't give out my personal information" when the clerk asked if I wanted to sign up for their marketing list. But this lady was pushy. They were offering a discount on the clothes (I think? It's hard to remember back that far) and a $50 "gift card" for restaurants.com. Naiive young pregnant woman that I was, I believed that it was worth the $50 to give her my address. Anyone who's used restaurants.com knows that it's not a gift card, it's a coupon. $50 off a purchase of $100 or more, or you could instead buy $25 off a purchase of $35 or more, which is what I did to get a slightly better deal. I was annoyed, but it wasn't like I was out any extra money, yet.
(Side note: the website has a limited selection of restaurants where the coupon can be redeemed, none of which were in our neighborhood aside from the s****y "Mexican" bar across the highway. They specialize in the cuisine of "southern Colorado", and everyone who works there is white and bitchy. They had a sign that said "We Say Merry Christmas" that year, a thinly veiled "Jews and Muslims Not Welcome" sign. We lived in a neighborhood with a lot of Muslim immigrants, who were in general good neighbors, so I was annoyed. Not like they would have eaten there, since, you know, pork, but the sign was visible from the highway and the idea of making my good neighbors feel unwelcome was really upsetting to me. We didn't go back, and lost that extra $25 worth of coupon. Ugh.)
About a month before Sam was born, I received in the mail two small cans of Enfamil. I was livid. At the time I had no idea who had sent them or why. Was it thebump.com? My doctor or the hospital where I'd preregistered? The retailers where I'd registered for baby gifts? I had no idea but I was pissed. I'd always known I'd want to have kids and breastfeed those kids. It is the main reason why I put up with decades of back pain rather than get a breast reduction and risk my chances of being able to breastfeed. The idea that anyone would think I would want this stuff in my house (and I already knew that just having it available was risking my success at breastfeeding) made me angry. Not because I hate formula. Because I hate the pusher aspect of the companies who sell it. Here's a free sample, just enough to get you hooked on a highly processed food that will be your baby's sole nutrition for 6 months. No way. I'd planned to give both cans to a friend who happened to have stopped breastfeeding and was giving her daughter formula at the time, but then I went on bedrest. And didn't see her again until the hospital, and by the time I was able to actually give her the formula it was far too late.
Sam latched pretty well in the hospital. There were a couple hiccups here and there--a psycho nurse who insisted on pumping his stomach and giving him a small amount of formula through a tube, because of "low blood sugar". Yes, he was a little lethargic. He was barely a day old and it was the middle of the night. I probably should have asked to pump, or just put him straight on the boob after the mucous came out of his tummy, but I was tired. I hurt everywhere. Ladies, this is why you need labor and post-partum doulas who know your choices and can stand up for you. Your partner is not going to do it unless you've gotten him to do his own research and get enthusiastically on board (and well versed) with the plan, which didn't happen in my case.
Both of us were reasonably uneducated about breastfeeding a newborn, and honestly I think that first "he's got low blood sugar, it's not working" killed my confidence. In the next few days, rather than nursing on demand 24 hours per day, I let Dan take him for a few hours each night so I could rest. Again, everything hurt--especially my right wrist, where they finally got the IV to go in for my pitocin. The hep lock was poorly managed after Sam was born, and I'm not exactly sure what happened, but it hurt all the time for a couple of months, making it super-difficult for me to hold Sam to my breast. So. We slept in shifts. Bad, bad idea. Sam needed to be on the boob more or less at all times and I was so frustrated with the whole thing because he was always crying. I thought it wasn't working. I couldn't understand why my baby was so angry all the time. (As it turns out, crying is a very, very late hunger cue. Any time a newborn is awake, he or she should be eating.) We were writing down everything, timing everything, and he wasn't having quite enough wet diapers by day 4. I broke down. Dan's (very pregnant at the time) sister took him to the store to buy a double electric pump and her husband watched Sam while I lay down and cried for a bit.
At 5 days old, Sam weighed almost two pounds less than his birth weight. He was dehydrated. I nursed him at the doctors office and he gained an ounce. That day we were sent here, there, and everywhere, to try to get someone to help us get the breastfeeding thing working. It was exhausting and by the end of the day, I had learned some useful things about getting Sam to latch but had not gained any confidence, and was still encouraged to record *&^$ing everything. Because there would be a test. So it seemed. At that point I was more afraid of having my baby taken away from me for not feeding him "right" than anything else. Irrational post-partum-brain nonsense? Sure. Did anyone attempt to replace those assumptions with anything else? Nope. And the $300 bill for the hospital lactation consultant took for freaking ever for the insurance to pay. Obviously I didn't go back, even though I probably needed to and it was technically covered. (LLL was unreachable when we tried that morning. I was sent to a WIC peer counselor and then a LC at United/Children's.)
Sam had his first bottle of formula that night. I strongly suspect that if Dan had needed to go the store and pay $14 for that tiny can of formula, which seemed to last forever when Sam was so small, he would have thought twice about using it when there was pumped milk in the fridge. It kept Sam asleep longer during the night. (Dan disagrees with me on this point. He thinks he would have been fine with the formula either way because Sam needed to eat, period. Which is true. But it put us on a bad course that neither of us really understood.)
By the time Sam was two months old, he was 100% bottle fed with pumped human milk from me during the day and a bottle or two of formula from Dan at night. Pumping all the time was a great way to measure things, but it was killing me. Sam was gaining weight well (funny how drinking something intended to turn a 50-100lb baby animal into an animal that weighs a literal ton as an adult will do that) so...I took a risk and tried to get him back on the breast. It worked, sort of. Sam was always a contentious nurser. I struggled so hard with anxiety over whether he would willingly breastfeed that he was always annoyed with me, unless it was the first feeding of the morning, when we were both sleepy and I had a ton of milk (from not feeding him all night). Most other feedings I had to hold and rock him in a specific chair or lie down in bed, and sing to him to keep his focus. As the months went by, he breastfed less and less and started on formula bottles earlier and earlier during the day, until we only had one feeding at the breast in the morning. About a month after we'd introduced solids, I decided that maybe it was time to give up so I could change my depression meds. Pretty much the next day Sam got a nasty cold and actually wanted and needed to breastfeed. We lingered along doing that one or two feeding a day thing until about 10 months when I called it quits. Funny thing--a day or two after weaning is the only time I ever experienced any engorgement at all. So you can see why I doubted my supply somewhat.
All told, we probably bought well over $1000 worth of formula over time, starting with Enfamil and then moving to the generic brand from Target. We also bought a ton of Gerber baby food (also Nestlé.) That $50 "gift certificate" and $32 of "free" formula was a good investment over time, don't you think? There were also the $5 off "checks" that they'd send in the mail for their $30 cans of formula.
That's right. The salesgirl at Motherhood had been paid some sort of commission to get the names and addresses of pregnant women who planned to breastfeed. Here's the thing. Formula companies don't send free samples to women who plan to formula feed. They don't need to. They're already going to get that person's business. They send free samples to women who plan to breastfeed, knowing that that first week can be hell, and women or their partners will cave. The other thing is that that $30 can of formula costs maybe $5 to produce, package, and deliver. It's not worth $30. It's not even worth the $19.99 that Target charges for the generic. It's purely based on corporate greed and the amount of money those companies spend marketing the stuff, which in the end, hurts the families who need the formula more than anyone. They charge that much because they can. Because once you've decided to stop breastfeeding and switch to formula, it is practically an impossible decision to reverse. They've got you. And they've been controlling the conversation about infant feeding for over a century.
Sam had a sign on his bassinet saying that he was to be exclusively breastfed. He was born early because of my pre-ecclampsia. Newborns have undeveloped digestive tracts without the beneficial flora needed to digest foods other than breastmilk. It is no coincidence that preemies fed formula are at a high risk of necrotizing enterocolitis. Sam wasn't technically premature but I would have appreciated a chance at keeping his "virgin gut" a bit longer. Apparently the nurse wasn't aware of these risks, and neither was I, so I let her give him formula even though I would have preferred donor milk. There is no milk bank in Minnesota which is a tragedy.
While the conversation has been changed from "Formula=Science! Which is better than breastmilk, which eww, that's gross, what are you, a cow? And won't your husband be sad he has to share your boobs? And besides, that's what those dirty immigrants do," to "Formula=almost as good as breastmilk, and really, breastfeeding is for crunchy-granola hippies who have nothing better to do than have a kid on their boob all day," or "Breastfeeding is nice, but formula feeding is normal," that's frankly not much improvement and it's not the truth. But it's still what formula companies are putting out there. You know where they get the DHA and ARA they tout as "important pre-biotics (a made-up word) like those found in breastmilk"? Fish oil and GMO seaweed. And there is no evidence that babies can even absorb them in those forms.
Now, lest this become a diatribe against formula feeding mothers, I assure you it is not. After all, I am/was one. I am also aware that combinations of lack of family support, needing to return to work, needing to take certain medications, having had breast surgery of any kind, etc. can interfere with breastfeeding. And it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It is also not about guilt--all parents do the best we can with the information we have at the time.
I just wish that formula companies would comply with the rules intended to protect babies from unnecessary early weaning. I started out wanting and expecting to breastfeed well over a year, potentially at least two years if I could. The first week Sam was born I figured I'd be lucky to make it to six months. When I was exclusively pumping, it became three months. Fortunately I was able to continue to nurse Sam at least part of the time past those last two goals, but I am still angry that I didn't meet my own personal goal from before Sam was born. Maybe it wasn't meant to be--maybe Sam's sensory issues were the real culprit--but I'll never know for sure. It wasn't just Nestlé, but the whole system of booby-traps that sabotaged our breastfeeding relationship. However I can't keep throwing money at a company who is willing to throw babies under the bus for a profit. I just can't.
And it's hard. Nestlé is into everything. There's the obvious: Crunch bars, Butterfingers, Drumsticks. Wonka and Cadbury. Then there's Lean Cuisine and Stouffer's, Edy's and Häagen-Dazs. A lot of dairy-like products like Coffeemate and Nescafe, and Nesquik. All Gerber food products. Tons of bottled waters, though I try not to buy those as much these days so I can't remember which. Luckily we don't have any pets because they are all over the pet food industry--Purina and several others. And they still own a 30% share in L'Oreal so none of that plus Maybelline, Garnier, and several others. Almost all of these were products I bought regularly. My coupon habit has become more difficult since Nestlé does so much marketing--at least a 3rd of the coupons I get are for Nestlé products. We love Drumsticks, and I miss them. Lean Cuisine makes frozen pizzas and sandwiches that Dan liked to take to work. I'm getting bored of International Delight. But that's part of what makes it important. It's not an easy boycott like the Chik Fil A thing would have been. It's stuff that we used to use, a lot, and now we don't.
So if you ever see me checking labels, or saying that I'm not interested that Lean Cuisines are on sale at Target, that's why. Next baby, whenever that is, I'll be armed with information and support. You may notice that many of the resources and articles I've linked to here were from 2011. Too late to help Sam, but not too late for his potential little brother or sister. And I'll buy my maternity clothes online or use the ones I already have.
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