Thank you so much everyone, for your wicked advice on embracing/enhancing my non-boobs with my deep plunging, backless dress. I was tempted to go braless, I really was, but this is going to be a family event where alcohol will be served, and because I have not been able to drink in what feels like a million zillion years, I have absolutely no faith in my ability to pay attention to things like keeping random body parts from flailing around on the dance floors - boobs and lanky legs included.
I ended up buying a self-adhesive bra, which is sheer brilliance by the way, and while I was trying on my new stick-on boobs, Samson asked what he was going to wear the wedding. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that ebay is flat out of doggy tuxedos, so I dug around in my closet and found this little black number for him.
I think the red necklace sets off the dress rather nicely, no?
I bought a dress yesterday to wear to my brother’s wedding. It was my third attempt to find one and I have pretty much resigned to the fact that they just do not design dresses to fit a woman whose body has less curves than a twelve year old boy.
I ended up settling on a flowy black halter style dress because it was on sale and because I was out of cookies to keep Nate occupied in the change rooms.
Now that I am nearing the end of the breastfeeding road, I can say with 100% certainty that my breasts are smaller than ever. And by smaller than ever, I mean practically gone. I have never exactly been a chesty woman, but once upon a time, I used a fill out a B cup rather nicely. What gives?
Anyways, when I got home after buying the dress, I realized that I don't have a bra to wear with it. The dress has a deep plunging neckline that dips down just past where the band on a bra would sit against your chest, and I’m not sure what that leaves in terms of options for, um… er… creating some much needed oomph.
Except for three nursing bras, I haven't bought a new bra in years and years. I know there are many brands out there that make bold cleavage-enhancing promises, but I have no idea what works, and what doesn’t.
So in summary, I no longer have boobs, I bought a dress that requires boobs, and I am now looking for a miracle bra that can be worn with a plunging neckline that will make me look more a woman, and less like a 12 year old boy.
Any suggestions you may have are greatly appreciated.
My brother and his fiancee are getting married in February, and Nate is going to be their ring bearer. If my child is anything like the baby version of me though, chances are, he still won’t be walking by then. I was a gibber jabbering mouth-piece that took her sweet old time learning to walk. Instead, I focused on things like pointing and exercising my vocal cords excessively to ask my mom the same questions, over and over and over.
History, apparently, does repeat itself, because Nate enjoys nothing more than pointing at stuff, and with a brow raising inquisitiveness, exclaiming, “Ah?” Over, and over and over again.
~:~
Nate had his one year well baby check up yesterday. He weighs 17lbs, 12oz. Small, yes, but still plotting along a healthy weight gain curve. He pretty much entirely feeds himself now; sippy cup included, and has developed a deep affection for chicken breast. He can’t shovel the stuff in his mouth fast enough.
Speaking of breasts, I'm still breastfeeding, but just this week we’ve gone from twice to once a day. This has been a bit of an emotional tug-of-war for me. Part of me is sad to see him grow up and move onto other things besides wanting to snuggle in close with me, and part of me wants to hold on to that special time we share just a little while longer, but another part of me is ready to be finished.
I am also extremely proud of what my body has been able to accomplish this past year. Except for a few bottles of expressed breast milk during those early days of sleep deprivation, Nate was exclusively breastfed for his first year of life. Even his cereal was enriched with the goodness of breastmilk.
And now, my little boy has almost fully transitioned to whole milk. This is exactly how I hoped it would be when I started the process of weaning him; a deliberate transition, but slow enough to allow him to easily adjust to the change. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t missed it. For the past couple of months, he's been very clear that there is absolutely no room in his busy daytime play schedule for breastfeeding, and now, at night, we have compensated for not breastfeeding by spending lots of time snuggling in bed under the protective layer of his blankie, and the intrigue of a colourful story.
When we put him to sleep, he is down for the night within minutes. No fuss. No crying. Nothing but sweet dreams and the comfort of a knitted blanket to rub across his nose and a thumb to press against his lips. Honestly, I think it’s been harder on me. It’s hard to let go of something that has been such a huge part of me over this past year. But deep down, I am ready for both personal and health reasons.
And truthfully, a small part of me is looking forward to having my body back.
On Friday night, a dear friend of mine and her husband drove several hours to visit and meet Nate.
Much of this whole mothering thing has not come naturally to me and since they are expecting their first baby, I thought I would pawn off some diaper duty to the new momma because, you know, practice for her, less work for me.
I remember feeling completely embarrassed the first time I changed Nate’s diaper. I had never changed a diaper in my entire life. It was a meconium poop too, which meant that it looked distinctly similar to a chemistry experiment of tar and negatively charged sewage ions gone bad. And by gone bad, I mean exploding chemical warfare.
Since Nate still had wires attached to his body, I had absolutely no idea how I would actually manoeuvre around everything without getting poop everywhere. Because really, the last thing a baby living in a bubble of an incubator on CPAP needs is mother who flings germ infested poop all over.
Somehow I managed though. But barely. Because had someone not pointed out to me that I was putting his diaper on upside down and backwards, that kid may still be wearing a diaper on his head.
My friend though? She’s a natural. She had his diaper changed in about two second flat.
I also remember feeling all thumbs holding my baby, but she held and interacted with Nate like she had already birthed and raised an entire brigade of pint sized humans.
Nate must have felt very at ease with her motherly grace because at one point while he was sitting on her lap, he nonchalantly reached over and cupped his tiny little palm over her breast. Just like that. Like it was the most natural place in the world to rest his busy little baby fingers.
This is the photo she snapped while Nate copped a feel of her boobs.
If that is not a look of pure joy, then I don’t know what is.
Before going to bed last night I went to check on Nate and I found him asleep with a blanket over his face.
I know blankets aren’t exactly known for their ability to create a hermitically airtight seal, but seeing his head covered freaked me out and I rushed over and yanked the blanket off his face.
I must have startled him because his eyes sprung wide open and he started wailing.
Feeling really bad for disturbing his sleep, I picked him up to try and soothe him. But it was too late. The damage was done. He was mad and he was not afraid to let me know just how mad he was.
My first form of defence when he cries is my boobs. It’s like breaking out the big guns, only mine are more like small pistols with a built in baby silencer.
When I tried to offer him my breasts as a truce, he just swatted them out of his face exactly the same way you would swat a fly buzzing around your head. Like, AS IF I would burden him with my boobs right in the middle of his very important baby tantrum.
So I tried rocking and cuddling him instead, but he remained mad.
Next I tried pacing the floor with him, but this caused his anger to elevate to arm flailing rage status.
I finally resorted to swinging and bouncing, but this only caused him to flail his arms more dramatically. Which was directly proportional to the increased volume of his screaming.
Finally, spent and exhausted, I laid him back down in his crib. After a few screams of protest, he noticed his blanket, let out a squeal of content, and pulled it back over his face.
Nate’s personality is really starting to take on a life of its own. Which, you know, makes sense because he is a person. It’s just that I still dress him in footsie pyjamas and sing silly songs to him and the fact that he is starting to show an interest in growing up and doing the stuff that babies do makes me feel all nostalgic for those days where he just sort of sat there. And did nothing. Because my job as a mother was much less complicated when all I had to do was make faces and offer him my boobs every now and then to keep him happy.
His new thing these days is exploring. Apparently, my face is no longer that interesting. I guess the entertainment he found in shoving his fingers up my nose has run its course. I think it’s great that he's starting to show an interest in stuff besides me and my breasts because my little dude needs to branch out eventually and discover stuff like Samson's kibble dish, but for the love of not having to pay attention, this whole exploring and testing his boundaries thing is trying because everything he touches goes into his mouth.
And there are just something things that he should not eat.
Like diapers.
Or my nipples.
And then if I take what he wants away, or yelp in pain, depending on whether or not he has chomped on a sensitive body part, the baby drama ensues and he interjects with exaggerated screeches of baby frustration.
Exhibit A:
Sweet Bethlehem of mercy, I have no idea what to do. It’s not like I can reason with him. But he needs to start learning what he can and cannot shove in his mouth/yoink/pull/chomp on because there might come a day that I will want to wear my hair down again and last time I checked, having my nipples chomped on was not on my list of things to experience before I die.
Also, totally unrelated, but don’t you just love chubby baby legs?
Nate and I have recently overcome something that I find very difficult to put into words.
A few weeks ago, my son suddenly refused to breastfeed.
For days and days, nursing was a constant battle. Whenever I tried to put him in the nursing position, tears would fill his eyes and he would scream out in distress. I didn’t understand what was wrong and all I could do was cry along with him while my confidence tumbled on a downward spiral of frustrated guilt faster than the fall of a skilfully crafted house of cards.
This, I suspect, is the same way that mothers who wanted to breastfeed, but were unable to, feel. Like they are living in a shadow guilt over their perceived failure.
I think that is the operative word though – perceived - because at the end of the day, we parents are all just trying to do what is best for our children and our family in the best way that we know how, and by definition that simply does not translate into failure.
I just need to remember that.
If you would like to read more about my breastfeeding challenges, please come and visit me over at Durham Region Baby today.
I look forward to hearing about the challenges that you have had with breastfeeding, and how they have personally impacted you.
Nate shocked everyone when he was born with a wildly haphazard punk rock faux-hawk and a totally dated baby mullet. I mean, I am a child of the 80’s, but I never expected to birth a kid stuck in that era.
He also was born with red stork bite splotches between his eyes and on his eye lids that have since faded from a deep shade of crimson to a barely noticeable rosy hue that deepens only into a mean shade of red when subjected to the screams of duress from an angry baby.
Around the time Nate was three months old, he started to lose all of his dark tresses and that is when we noticed a big red splotchy mark covering a large portion of the back of his head and neck. And then a few weeks later we noticed even stranger purply-reddish splotches magically appearing all over his back.
It took multiple visits to our family doctor, a visit to paediatric dermatologist and then a visit to a dermatology research institute to figure out that my son has birthmarks. Only these birthmarks are a distant cousin of a cousin of a birthmark who once slept with a birthmark half-cousin. But still, just birthmarks.
So instead of Mark spending his Friday off work lifting my skirt and placing cold beer bottles on my ass (that was on - not up people), we spent hours upon hours in waiting rooms full of hormonally depressed teenagers and Botox ads. And because we didn’t anticipate being out so long, we were not prepared in the least with things to keep Nate entertained and spent a great deal of time reading to him about recurrent genital herpes.
Once it was determined that our child is perfectly normal, we went to pick up the family portraits that we had taken a few weeks ago. While I was in line waiting to get the photos, Nate started up a conversation with a woman standing nearby. And by conversation, I mean he reached out to try and grab her while flashing his expansive toothless grin and batting his big baby blues in a flirtatious way that only an innocent child could get away with because if he was 70, he would have been arrested by now.
This woman was, oh how can I put this, mammiferously gifted beyond belief and apparently I was not the only one who noticed her burgeoning bosom because for the love of parental awkwardness, Nate would not stop staring and reaching at her chest as if to say, "Dude, I have so hit the motherload of boob banquets and you need to loosen my diaper straps Right! This! Second! because I am so going to feast on those milk jugs."
Since Nate has been sleeping through the night, I have been sleeping through the night. Which means that I have been feeling much less tired. Invigorated in fact. So invigorated, that the old familiar itch to get out and run (as in, run more often than when the moon is blue) has been yearning to get scratched.
I’ve been thinking about when I started training for my first 10km run after Ava died. Having never run before in my life, I embarked on a training mission like nothing I had ever done before. Me - Mrs. Wimpy Wimp of all Unathletic and Sedentary Wimps - started running almost every single day. Truthfully, I think that is how I coped. I ran to chase away my anger. I ran so that I could feel life pulsating through my deadened spirit once again. I ran because it felt good to be pounding away at something, even if it was only my feet against the concrete. And I ran to escape the overwhelming feeling that the Universe was collapsing and I was falling into a black hole of claustrophobic grief.
I also ran because I wanted Ava to know that her mom was capable of anything. It was truly a victorious moment for me when I crossed the finish line, alive and in one piece, on the day of the 10km charity run in her honour. I felt vibrantly alive. More complete. Strong. The precious memories of my baby girl had inspired me to push the limits of my strength and test the boundaries of my will and it awoke in me an inner vitality that I never knew I had.
I miss those feelings of abounding exuberance. And although I am slowly starting to feel that familiar zest once again, some days I have to literally carry my own two legs out of the door and spend a good part of the run grudgingly putting one foot in front of the other while I persevere through laboured breathing and will my body to delve deep for the inner tenacity that I once had. But once I get going and my feet find a comfortable rhythm with the pavement and the beat of the music in my ears, I can’t stop thinking about how darn good it feels to be fit and healthy for my family.
Because my health is one of the greatest gifts I can give to Nate.
And for Mark, he gets an ass that is not half bad after two full term pregnancies. No warranty is being made however, expressed or implied, about the state of my breasts once I’m done nursing. Last I heard, even cardio couldn’t save them from the inevitable post-nursing pancake syndrome.
Yesterday was a big day for Nate and me. It was the first time in his entire five months of existence that I ventured out of the house with him in tow for an entire day.
Nate had his first train ride, and I had my first experience breastfeeding in public on a train filled with people. Would it sound weird if I called it liberating? Because it was.
Nate got to stroll along Bay Street and see his first sky scrappers while I reminisced over my former life working in a skyscraper. I do not miss it one bit.
Nate got to people watch and I got to spend an entire day shopping even though I did not spend one penny because so is the life of being a hypocrite cheapskate that can justify $110 for a pair of lululemon pants but not the purchase of a new pair of sandals to replace the only bedraggled pair that I own that are now five years old.
Nate got to meet Heather. Heather and I met a few months back when her business travels brought her to Toronto and I’m so glad she was able to find the time to meet up again so I could introduce her to Nate.
She also came bearing a gift for Nate. Seeing that we plan on putting our house fixer upper skills to work, she brought him a plush toy hammer that makes a big crashing sound when you bang it. Which is exactly what we predict will happen to our wide screen when Nate starts walking.
I would post a photo of her snuggling with Nate, but I forgot to ask permission if I can plaster her picture on my website. So instead I will post the family photo she took for us.
Nate was a perfect angel all day until we got the restaurant and he realized that he forgot his horns and pitchfork at home.
I need to come forward with some candid honesty about my concern for teensy tiny Nate. First and foremost, I know deep down that he is doing just fine, but after going through the horror of taking Ava off of life support and watching her die, the definition of what constitutes fine leaves me with a lot to come to terms with because even after the scare we had with her heart, Ava was supposed to be just fine. So now, fine doesn’t cut it and when things are supposed to be fine, I still question just how fine they are, which leads to a lot of guilt, which eats away at my self confidence.
Nate is exclusively breastfed. Even when he was in the NICU, I did not allow them to supplement him with formula and hooked my nipples up to a pump every three hours and brought whatever I could squeeze out of them to the nurses to feed him via the feeding tube in his stomach. And when he was allowed out of his incubator, I still got up every three hours to try and breastfeed him, and while I was trying to teach Nate how to latch on properly, I continued to hook my nipples up to a pump to keep working on getting my milk to come in. That meant my days were divided into three hour windows, half of that time was spent trying to feed him and get my milk supply established, and the other half was spent trying to sleep and not rip off my head because I had a postdural headache and spinal fluid was leaking into my brain and I could barely focus my eyes and stand on my own two feet without vomiting. And somewhere in there we opened Christmas presents.
If there is one thing about me that I know for certain it is that I am a tenacious motherfucker and when I want something bad enough, you could rip my toenails off with pliers and shoot out both of my knee caps, and I would still find a means to soldier on. And since my mind was set on breastfeeding, I was going to breastfeed dammit! Brain full of spinal fluid and toenails firmly intact or not.
It's not that I have anything against formula, because geez, it’s nourishment for babies and you can’t argue with that, it’s more like I am stubborn as a mule on speed and have had my heart set on breastfeeding since before my first child was conceived. And right now, I am having a lot of self doubt that I am 100% successful with it. Stupid things run through my head like “Oh shit, I didn’t eat my banana today – there goes meeting my fruit quota. Nate will for sure have trouble learning his multiplication tables now.” And, please no bitch slapping, but I am now thinner than before I got pregnant with Ava, Bubs or Nate and part of me wonders whose side my body is on – the making milk for Nate side, or wearing ass-fabulous jeans side. Even upping my food intake and stuffing my face with truck loads of pizza isn’t helping. Maybe I have a tapeworm.
So although Nate is showing all the signs of being a totally normal little boy and all appears to be just fine, I am a narcissistic whore and it’s really all about me. Walking the fine line between what I believe is right for our family and what is actually right is a very gray landscape. I want to feel like I am winning and like I am doing a bang up job at this whole having kids thing because carrying the weight of infant death and miscarriage on my shoulders is a real mind fuck when it comes to having self confidence and believing in my body and nature and the nutritional value of my boobs. And if their nursing days are done, I’m sure Mark would love to be reintroduced to Mrs. Fun Bags.
Last night, for the first time in over a year and a half, I went for a run. I’ve missed running - a lot, but you know how it goes, the weather gets cold, then you have a miscarriage, and then you get pregnant and then you get a fat belly and well, lets just say sitting around watching TV and eating Doritos and gestating a baby while my ass expanded sort of took precedent over exercise.
But yesterday the sun came out and it was warm enough to open the windows in my house and suddenly I had the desire to spend my afternoon on a sunny patio pounding back pints of Stella. But since I have to be a responsible parent now, I opted to instead wait for Mark to get home from work and then strapped on my MP3 player and loaded it with music that had plenty of f-bombs and excessive use of the N word and of course, my favorite song about being high as a motherfucker, you know, all the parentally responsible kind of music, and let the soothing beats take me where they may.
It was fabulous – except for the part about being out of shape and not being able to breathe and then almost throwing up on the sidewalk and constantly checking out my boobs because I forgot to wear breast pads in my sports bra and I was paranoid that all the bouncing up and down would cause a milk explosion and then people would think I had sweaty nipples - but other than that, I think I was reborn as a human - it felt that invigorating and I can’t wait to get back out there and do it all over again.
Thank you for understanding that some breastfeeding mothers need nursing pads. I discovered my need for them the hard way. While standing in a check out line with a shrieking baby I noticed the clerk glancing at my boobs. I was all like, yeah dude, I'm totally rocking this new cleavage thing, glad you like it. But then we exited the store and my husband discreetly pointed out that the front of my shirt was soaked with two breast milk bull’s-eyes.
For the most part, I like your products. The easy grip baby shampoo bottles are a wonderful innovation when it comes to not dropping wet and slippery things on my baby’s head, and the Oatmeal baby lotion smells heavenly and does a great job at masking suspicious dirty diaper smells.
I am miffed however, as to why your nursing pads are made with tree bark and sawdust. They are irritating and abrasive and this is most annoying because - have you ever tried to scratch an itch on your own nipples? Didn’t think so.
I know that centuries ago before the invention of fiberglass insulation, sawdust was used to insulate homes, but my nipples aren’t cold – they are wet. Perhaps I should let the guy up the street know of your product the next time he puts his trash out – sans pants - in the middle of the winter. Maybe his nipples get cold?
I have heard that materials with natural polymers like cotton are quite the innovation when it comes to softness and dryness, but since I am a lowly consumer, you probably don’t care about my ideas. Maybe you could enlist a company spy to scope out the production line over at the JOHNSON'S® Nursing Pads factory for ideas. At least their pads have a silent, rustle free design. Your breast pads crinkle and crackle. This is most embarrassing when I lay my baby’s head against my breast and it sounds like I have stuffed my bra with shopping bags. Additionally, the concept behind your patented LeakSafe Design™ blows. These are quite possibly the most hugeified Mother of all Nursing Pads known to mankind. I have yet to meet a woman who needs protection from leaky nipples from her belly button to her clavicle. Apparently you know of these ladies. Next time the Freak Show Circus comes to town, I will be sure to attend and see this phenomenon for myself. In the meantime, my dog is enjoying his new earmuffs.
My nipples feel much better now thank you. Not perfect, but at least I’m not on the verge of wishing they would fall off of my body and die a quick and painless death by means of atrophying on the floor by my feet.
The strain of sitting in a cushioned rocking chair for hours and hours and endless hours of nursing, cuddling and shooshing has started to eat away at my adult brain - just a little. Don’t get me wrong, watching Nate suck his fingers (the poor kid was born with a blister from sucking his hand so much in-utero) and studying my face with the most studious intent a newborn can muster is unbelievably wondrous and super rad, but I am human and I like to be stimulated, by you know, stuff other than milky spit up and kid farts.
I was just itching to get out of the house yesterday because, good gravy miss daisy, I actually had a shower, and curled my lashes, and put on expensive mascara. It would have been a crying shame to let those precious three minutes of primping go to waste.
And so my big Saturday night out was a trip to the corner store with a husband and a baby in tow. The ride out of the driveway and up the hill and around the corner was glorious and liberating, even if it was only to bat my lashes at some bored high school kid while he rang up a bag of Doritos.
Today, my mom arrived to help change poopy diapers, provide adult conversation during the daylight hours when Dad is at work and cook meals more complex than a bowl of cereal.
A husband contemplating what will be said in the eulogy he is preparing to deliver about the long lost sex appeal of my purple breasts and a kidlet deep in thought about how to squeeze out yet another gas bubble.
My baby has put on another pound and now weighs a whopping 8 lbs.
We celebrated Christmas with my family and they were finally able to meet and hold Nate.
I attended a breastfeeding support group and it was the first time in my life that I have whipped out a nip in front of 15 other woman so a Lactation Consultant could examine them for signs of thrush.
It turns out that Nate does indeed have a loaf of bread baking in his tiny baby mouth. Thrush - a yeast infect for peke’s sake, (most likely from the course of antibiotics he was on for 48 hours after he was born) and he passed it onto my nipples. I’m mortified. I’ve never had a yeast infection in my entire life, you know, down there, and now I have one in my nipples. After I nurse him, it feels like someone is using my nipples for dart shooting practice. The prickling shooting pain makes my eyes roll to the back of my head after each and every feed, all 11 of them. Sometimes it helps to curl my toes and whimper.
We started treatment with Gentian Violet last night and holy blotchiness, that stuff stains something fierce. Essentially, you dip a q-tip in the solution, let baby suck on the q-tip, and then feed him. His nursing then transfers the Gentian Violet to my nipples, which means both of us are being treated for the infection, which is a must because otherwise, we would just keep passing the infection back and forth. Nate now looks like a purple people eating vampire and my nipples are the freakiest shade wine plum you have ever seen. They have ceased to resemble anything any normal earthling's boobs should look like and could quite possibly attain citizenship in another galaxy. Also, because I flunked holding objects in hand 101, I spilled the bottle all over my hands last night, which in conjunction with the circus freakshow nipples, kind of makes it look like I might be turning into a lactating Barney.
Nate, before his mom stained his entire face purple
