To date, I have breastfed for 19 months, 3 weeks and 1 day or so my Lilypie counter tells me. I have weathered through some episodes of mastitis, some episodes of Baby J rejecting the breast, the breast pump breaking down, pump parts mysteriously disappearing, travelling-expressing and storing milk in Bali, dumping milk into milk baths in Phuket , expressing on the flights to Melbourne and Las Vegas and many other adventures. I was aiming to hit 2 years but I'm not sure if I'll get there.
The reason is that my milk supply's taken quite a dip, regardless of all the support I have given it with medication and herbal supplements. It might be long term exhaustion, it might be the running around I do everyday despite the fact that I'm not working, it might be the fact that I try not to give in to all my culinary cravings or it might just be that it's time and the hormones have made the decision for me.
It will be a relief in some ways. I will be able to go to bed when I'm sleepy rather than go to bed an hour past sleepy. I will be able to fit into my pre-pregnancy bras, assuming the boobs are obedient and shrink like they are supposed to. I won't have to divide my days into 6 hour blocks and be stuck for half an hour a time to a machine extracting milk out of me. I will be able to travel without nursing equipment and incurring strange looks at customs when my bag goes through the x-ray machine. I will not need to constantly worry that the twins are consuming bad milk, especially at night when their milk is warmed up and left for a while before they drink it. I will also stop destroying the environment by packing my milk into milk bags that cannot be recycled and will stop spending a fortune buying the aforementioned milk bags.
On the flip side, I will be sad. Instead of spending a fortune on milk bags, I will spend an even greater fortune buying formula. I will have to forgo the antibodies that breastmilk affords the twins. I worry about them falling sick more; now when they fall sick, I ramp up the amount of fresh breast milk they get. Even if it doesn't really do much good, it makes me feel better. I will miss the time when Baby J snuggles up to me and feeds. Evan gave that up a long time ago but gets a big kick out of watching me express. I will miss Baby J asking for "meeyurk" and tugging at my top. I will miss knowing that I am burning an extra 500 calories by not doing much else than being a human milk machine. I will miss not having to worry as much about my weight and not being able to find time to exercise. Someone said I should convert the time I express into time exercising, but I don't really know about that one yet. I will get my periods in full force and all and sundry that comes with it. Neither Packrat nor I are looking forward to that.
I'm still trying to prolong it. Part of me wants to just let it be. After all, they will be 20 months in a couple of days. But the other part of me, I think the dogged part of me is loath to give up this part of me.
Technorati Tags: babies, breastfeeding
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The end is near
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
They *will* shrink. Sigh... !!
ReplyDeleteDo you use Medela or Avent milk bags? I only used Avent bags; I recall they cost only around 10ct each but Medela ones cost around $1 ea!! Kind of a no-brainer for me actually... ;-P
ReplyDeleteI did not buy into Medela's claims of better quality etc.. Avent bags served the purpose well enough.
I expressed into the Medela bottles and then poured the milk carefully into the Avent bags. When I put the freshly filled milk bags into the freezer I stood them upright initially in a container and used large paper clips to secure the opening at the top. (I had so many bags in the freezer at any one time that I gave up on buying the 'proper' plastic clips!). Once they were frozen they wouldn't leak & it wouldn't matter if the bags were lying down side-ways. I transported them in a vacuum thermos to my mom's home, where my mom babysat my kid in the mornings during which I worked.
I still keep my Medela double-electric pump as a kind of 'souvenir.' Sigh... memories!!
My breasts actually got bigger after pregnancy & breastfeeding! Pre-pregnancy it was 75A but now--nearly 5 yrs after I finished breastfeeding--it's 80B (or 75C) :-)
YY
Avent no longer sells milk bags. I started out with those. And they don't come with seals. The ones I use have ziploc seals. Not so costly when I buy them online.
ReplyDeleteI hope my boobs shrink!Or I'll have to throw away all my bras!
hey, I was only too happy to have to buy a whole butch of new, BIGGER, bras... :-))
ReplyDeleteThe problem with breasts that shrink after breastfeeding is that instead of shrinking in a 'uniform' way into the nice 'perky' pre-pregnant shape, they kinda just flop down to the chest--i.e. they appear 'deflated', in a 'not-nice' way... :-(
It appears there's nothing much one can do about it--no amount of wearing tight bras will 'tighten' up the floppy breasts--just as people who have lost an enormous amount of weight will still have to lug those floppy bags of skin around.. :-(
But I think after one pregnancy the breast ligaments will still be relatively elastic compared to, say, after 3 or 4 pregnancies, so I think they'll still retain a certain amount of prepregnant 'nubile' cosmetic appeal.. hopefully... ;-)
YY.
I think my ribcage kinda expanded after the first pregnancy, cos previously I wore size 70. After preg, it was a permanent 75 or even 80, depending on brand/cutting.
ReplyDeleteBut I have always been flatchested, so the only time I could actually fill a size A cup decently was when I was engorged with milk. After I weaned off my babes, my boobies just go back to being flat.
Oh well!