Reflections on Breastfeeding

A wonderful fan posted this video on our facebook page today. I love it.

Sick

I secretly pride myself in my strong immune system. I exercise, eat well, sleep 7-8 hours every night, get my flu shot, wash my hands, but I am not a germ-a-phobe. I feel like all of these things help me to stay very healthy. When all of my family gets sick I am the one who stays strong.

Unfortunately my luck ran out. This week I have been fighting off the nasty cough. I have been prescribing z-packs (antibiotics) and phenergan with codeine cough syrup to patients left and right. Even though I know that the nasty cough is usually just a virus.

Instead of jumping right to the antibiotics that most people ask for and want, I started with my muccinex, echinacea, airborne, cough drops, hot teas, ibuprofen, sudafed, and allergy meds *just in case*. I thought treating my symptoms would help me function. And function I did.

Until last night when this cough kicked my butt. After 4 days of the nasty cough I called my FNP (family nurse practitioner) and had her listen to my lungs to make sure they weren't full of junk- because I sure was coughing up a bunch of it. She gave me a z-pack and cough syrup which I eagerly dropped off in hopeful anticipation of the cessation of my nasty cough.

I was afraid the cough syrup would put me right to bed, so I spent a little while with my family and then I figured 9 was a good bedtime so I guzzled my cough syrup and laid down in bed. I woke up from a deep sleep at 10. I started coughing. Coughing so hard that my husband grabbed the humidifier and turned that on. Right after that I quickly remembered the fastest way to get my husband to run from a room is to start hacking up phlegm. I sat on the side of my bed, dry heaving, coughing up crud, trying to breathe and after an hour it finally subsided.

I do feel much better today after lying around all day long, but seriously. Why isn't there a vaccine against the cough? I mean seriously, I know there are a ton of strains, but we make a flu vaccine and there are a ton of strains of the flu.

I guess I will chalk this up and "I paid my dues" and hopefully avoid another year of sickness. I will say that I am thankful I am not pregnant because I would try to not be taking any of these meds if I was.

So how many of you are or have been sick so far this year? How do you survive? What do you do to help get better? What do you do with your kids?

Spacing Babies

I read once that having your children 3 years apart was the healthiest for the mother's body. I had no idea what this meant when I read it, but it stuck with me. I just knew that all of my babies would be between 2 and 3 years apart, because if I wanted to have 4 kids I had to have them close so I wouldn't be an old lady when I had my babies and because 3 years was the "healthiest."

So my baby is turning 3 in April. THREE. tres. 3.

Where is my next baby?

Did my next baby get lost in between new jobs, changing hospitals, growing a business, short selling a house, a giant lawsuit, depression and counseling, guilt of being a working mom, rising cost of daycare, marital stress, my mirena IUD, convenience, blogging, pinterest?

I am finally to the point in my life where the thought of baby number three is entering my life. It is that strange feeling how sometimes life doesn't go as planned. I haven't wanted a baby yet because for some reason I knew it wasn't the right time. The some reason could have been a number of the reasons above- but I promise it wasn't because of blogging or pinterest :)

Or it could have been just because having another baby at this point in my life wasn't what was best for my family. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. But for now my IUD is happily in place until I decide it wise part ways.

What about you? How did or are you spacing your children? Advice?

Technical Difficulties

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Breastfeeding at a Friend's House

Another one of my favorite breast feeding stories is when my daughter was about 8 weeks old. It was right before I started back at work. I wanted to get out of the house so I went over to a girlfriend's house. She had 2 wild boys running around while she was getting their lunch ready and I was just holding my baby and chatting with her while she did her thing.

Once she really started prepping lunch for her boys I knew it was time to nurse. I was standing in the kitchen and I discretely lifted my shirt and started nursing my daughter. I kept chatting and she got lunch on the table and drinks and got them all situated. We finished our conversation as her boys headed up to the table and started eating. As they were mid meal I finished up nursing and then went over to the table and started talking with her boys.

She jumped up and said, "Oh, you probably need to nurse your baby. Do you want to use the back room?"

I started to laugh as I told her that I had just finished.

When was the last time you nursed and no one had any idea that you had just fed your baby/toddler?

Nursing in Ikea

Neither Ashley or I are nursing right now. We have both spent our fair share of time nursing though. I am not sure how good Ashley's stories are of nursing in public, but one of my favorites was nursing my daughter in Ikea.

I praise Ikea (at least the one near my house) for having family bathrooms, having family area where nursing is encouraged- they have chairs and diaper changing stations and even small little sinks for the little ones. It is nice and refreshing. Maybe because they are a European company??

Anyway, here I am, trying to pick out some new Ikea furniture. I believe it was a new TV stand? But I had my 6 month old daughter in tow with my husband and my mother in law. We were on the bottom floor and searching through rows and rows of boxes trying to find the right item. Cue tired, hungry baby. So I sit down on top of one of those flat boxes with a bed or a night stand or a desk in it and I start nursing my baby. I don't have a cover nor do I feel like I need one. My mother in law is slightly embarrassed once she notices what I am doing... well, she doesn't notice... she just realizes that I am not following her anymore so she starts looking for me and my husband tells her I stopped to nurse.

(By this point in our relationship my mother in law already knows I am a crazy hippie midwife so she quickly realizes not to say anything because it would be wasted words. )

About 5 minutes later an employee sort of strolls over to me, probably an 18 year old male, very nice and very polite, and he casually mentions that they have an excellent nursing area if I would prefer to do "that" somewhere more private. (he said that only because I am sure breastfeeding or nursing were scary words to him that hadn't been used much in his life.)

**poor kid** I wasn't embarrassed in the slightest but he was so nervous trying to talk to me and let me know that I had another option. The whole time he was talking he was trying not to look at me and I am sure it was because he didn't want to upset me.

So I could have taken this two ways. I could have been annoyed, furious, or outraged that this young man dared to tell me to nurse somewhere different. Assuming he was treating me like a second class citizen and making me feel like I wasn't allowed to feed my baby how and where I wanted to.

OR

I could have taken it as a nice young employee who probably listened to his new employee orientation when someone told him that nursing was allowed in the store, but to offer mothers a more private place if they felt more comfortable somewhere else.

What happened after that is I thanked him so much for the offer, I was aware of the nursing area, but I was almost finished and I was very comfortable where I was at- sitting on some random box in the middle of the store. Truly I wasn't comfortable, but I was almost done and I really didn't want to get up. So the young man walked away, I finished up, and then I met my husband and mother in law at the check out and went home. End of story.

Fashion Friday: Gap

I am really liking the jean look again. It come in and out of style, but I guess if Gap is doing it again it would be safe for me to pull my non-pant jean items back out of storage? Maybe? Maybe not?

Either way, this is super cute:
Image from Gap.com http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=6035&vid=1&pid=102304&scid=102304002