We’ve hardly begun to settle in to a routine again since the birth of Adalyn and now it is about time to start transitioning the homestead in preparation for the colder months. It is not surprising but the last six weeks have basically flown by, fall totally crept up and surprised us.

It was the last weekend for the county’s farmers market here and we snagged a huge pumpkin to keep with our newborn baby in a pumpkin tradition. I am sure Miss Adalyn simply cannot wait, he, he.

Some of our fall vegetables are planted, hopefully we will have a better growing season in fall. Our summer garden really didn’t do great, sadily. We are starting to plan for the outdoor animals shelter this winter too.

Adalyn is six weeks old now and there are brief glimpses of routine starting to fall in to place. She’s an angel when she is content and not in pain from gas/ poop. We are still toughing out some pooping issues that make for unpleasant times but everyone is hanging in there.

Babywearing is simply saving my life & sanity. Right now I have her tied to my chest and I can even eat lunch as I comfort her and write this.

We still haven’t resolved her poop/ gas issues and I am banging my head against the wall over it. There are seriously a number of different things that we’ve explored and a dozen more are unexplored at this point.

Right now we are exploring tongue-tie/ lip tie possibilities, chiropractic issues and latch issues. Nothing is helping my poor girl, nobody has answers and the fussing is really wearing on us.

We have a call in to a local ENT to have Addie’s possible lip-tie evaluated now. As soon as we have some damn answers I’ll be screaming them from the rooftops.

For more info on lip/ tongue-tie (with pictures) and how it could be the root of your baby’s difficulty feeding/ gaining weight read: http://www.plus2point4.co.uk/2011/07/19/breast-mates-guest-post-breastfeeding-with-a-lip-and-tongue-tie/

Ignorance and judgment abound in the world of a breastfeeding mom, I know first hand. These days with the popularity of social media more and more people are sharing their opinions and points of view, in this case a number of people in my network were in an uproar about comments a radio show host, Lisa Rollins of South Carolina, made regarding breastfeeding in public.

If you are curious you can read the transcripts from the show here (I don’t want to link directly to the show because it only drives their traffic and makes them money of this bullshit).

Anyway, about 5 minutes in she starts going off about this poor breastfeeding mom she saw over the weekend. Super offensive stuff. Made my blood just boil and that was last night. Today I am still fuming but calm enough to draft a non-fu-stupid-bitch letter to send her way. Here is what I wrote:

I was listening to your morning show online and was deeply shocked and offended. It wasn’t because you had a differing opinion than me, because that is your right. I was appalled that in trying to express your opinion you were blatantly shaming and embarrassing that breastfeeding mom (and other breastfeeding mom’s) on public radio.

How judgmental and ignorant of you to publicly rant about a woman nursing her baby in public. Don’t you think it is classless and in poor taste to rant about your disgust on the radio where that poor mom probably heard it all? I sure do!

Our perspectives on things are often related to the choices we’ve made. Your point of view on public breastfeeding is definitely because you choose to not breastfeed but how dare you judge others and publicly criticize them on your radio show. In doing this you’ve just shown your ignorance on the topic and your nasty, judgmental, elitist personality.

I was also thinking, if it was such a huge deal to you why didn’t you speak with the woman right then and there or why didn’t you go to restaurant management? Is it because you knew it wouldn’t be acceptable to single her out or is it because you are a coward hiding behind your microphone?

I wonder how you would feel if people publicly criticized you, whispered, stared and made you feel ashamed for bottle feeding your daughter. If you had to hear “what a selfish mom to deny her developing baby the best nourishment available” or “coward” or “how disgusting” each time you were in public tending to the needs of your baby. You might start to understand how it feels if you had.

It is super snobby of you to look down your nose at women who choose to breastfeed in public. It is not realistic to expect a woman to always be nursing in private. Babies eat and are entitled to be able to eat in the same comfort as bottle fed babies, to expect anything different is discrimination and if the tables were turned I am sure you would be just as upset as the pro-breastfeeding moms are right now.

I wonder how many times you bottle fed your daughter in public… Why didn’t you feed her in the hot car or on the toilet like you expect breastfeeding mom’s to do? Don’t you know the use of a bottle or pacifier evokes the same disgusted reaction in pro-breastfeeding folks as does the sight of an nursing baby to those squeamish anti-breastfeeding folks?

How dare you impose your view of “poor taste” on us. I am sure you’ve noticed that many, many other people feel It is in poor taste that you uttered your anti-breastfeeding comments.

The sad thing is you probably never even stopped to think about how your words would impact that nursing mother and other nursing mothers all over the world. Furthermore, how your ignorant comments have impacted the well-being and health of future babies whose mothers won’t even consider breastfeeding because of the public scrutiny and judgments of people like you.

Way to go! Hope you succeeded in achieving your desired reaction with the radio show topic. You’ve made yourself and your company look bad, you’ve made women feel ashamed for doing what their bodies were made for, you’ve pissed off a whole lot of breastfeeding advocates and you’ve taken the best nutrition available from many babies with your ignorant and hurtful comments.

I sent my email off and don’t expect a response of any kind, especially since the radio station isn’t concerned about the overwhelmingly negative response they’ve already received on their facebook page. Wait, I stand corrected. They are removing comments and photos posted by those pro-breastfeeding users… Nice.

Anyway, it just makes me sick how rude, judgmental and self centered some people are. Especially when it comes to the needs of babies and children. I know so much has to do with society’s ignorance about breastfeeding but still, it pisses me off.

In light of the recent anti-breastfeeding tweet drama I’ve been talking with others about and also doing quite a bit of thinking about breastfeeding.

I get it, we are an overly sexual culture that has made boobs more of an sexual prop than a life sustaining mechanism. I know the reality is that many people are uncomfortable at the sight of a uncovered boob in public.

Heck, I’ll even admin I was reluctant to go out in public as a new mother for fear of having to deal with the “offended folks” and their reactions to my feeding my child.

Yep, you read that right. I actually did not leave my house for weeks after Everly was born. I just didn’t want to mess with trying to nurse in public especially when I was just getting the hang of parenthood to begin with.

When I finally did get the courage and resolve to go out and have a life while nursing a child I knew I had to cover up since I was teaching young, hormonally driven teens. I knew society’s views on breastfeeding already and was worried that the school district (that I was working for) would share the same views. Rather than chance it I just got a nifty nursing cover and became very good at teaching and nursing a child.

I was surprised that nobody shared concerns over my breastfeeding while in my teaching role. If anything I got lots of positive conversation and even a few young girls asking me about it. I did have a coworker tell me I was useless to him with my kid along at my job. Not because I wasn’t doing my share of work but because he felt like he couldn’t ask me to do things… He didn’t want to ask me to spread my focus beyond caring for my child. That is another issue for another very long post though.

Actually, come to think of it, nobody has ever given me a hard time over nursing my kid in public. We are going on 10 months of breastfeeding now too. I am not sure if it’s because people are cowardish and just choose to air their issues after the nursing mother is gone like so many situations we hear about.

I know that whether or not you’ve dealt with rude remarks, as a breastfeeding mother, you still know the way some tend to view breastfeeding. This alone is enough to discourage a new mother from breastfeeding and it is exactly what kept me from leaving the house in beginning.

Then there are the views on breastfeeding as the child grows older… Everly is still nursing like a champ and her first birthday is approaching. I’ve already begun to brace myself for those potentially negative encounters. I am aware that some people get weirded out when and older child is still breastfeeding. This is even an issue N and I don’t totally agree on.

I am not the kind of person who will give my child formula or put a stop to breastfeeding once she’s past a certain age. While I respect the views and feelings of others I am not willing to break my back doing stuff to make someone else more comfortable.

What about the comfort, needs and feeling of the child I am bringing up? As far as I am concerned her needs are the priority here but I still know I am gonna have to deal with everyone else’s reactions and opinions about it.

It is a sad, sad reality that mothers are judged and harassed over the choices they make regarding breastfeeding. It probably stems from our societal tendency to meddle. Everyone else thinks they know what is best and everyone is a critic. For the shy, scared or unsure mothers this makes or breaks breastfeeding success. For the rest of us it makes us “Radical Lactivtists”.

I am a breastfeeding mother. Hear me roar and don’t dare cross me about my choices, unless you want some drama. Of course if you are up for some civil conversation about why it is best, I am game. Shoot, I’ll even return the favor and discuss the other side of the coin with you. Just don’t forget that your choices, views and opinions are NOT the only ones that are acceptable.

Whew! After a week on the road we needed a day to decompress after getting back to Evansville. Yesterday we sat around in our PJ’s, did many loads of laundry, scrubbed cat vomit from the carpets, cleaned cat boxes… You know all the chores and stuff that go undone while you are away.

Everly was a doll during the trip. The plane ride wasn’t an issue, she nursed and played and sat in our laps for the 10 hour travel day. She did well on the road also. We drove 6-10 hours a day for three days and and she just slept or played with her toys in her seat. As long as we made frequent stops for diaper changes and feedings she was happy.

We did crazy things to entertain her and ourselves when it was time to stretch the legs. Here is an example:

Speaking of changings… We made it the whole trip on just the twenty or so cloth diapers I have. We only had to wash them once right before we hit the road to head home. 7 days, 20+ diapers = 1 wash. When we got home E had to sleep in a disposable overnight while every single diaper we had was being laundered. I am proud to have cloth diapered the whole trip though. It was a breeze!

As for feedings, I just breastfed her as usual and supplemented with baby foods and snack puffs as usual. Now, she’s really getting in to being involved in meal time though!

When we stopped for a snack at the mall with my mom Everly grabbed my straw right from my mouth and even sucked juice from it (which she’s never been given the opportunity to do). She is hardly doing the sipply cup thing so we were pretty surprised at her instinctual straw drinking.

I was just glad I was pinching the straw and holding on to it tightly or she would have successfully gotten a mouthful of sugary strawberry lemonade up it and in to her mouth. No sugary lemonade for baby! Luckily we have a straw type sipply cup thanks to Maiden53, time to bust it out.

Now she’s getting more adventurous with her foods too. She’s just starting to get the hang of her sippy cup and is having “juice water”. She’s also enjoying sampling new flavors on the go. Like the skinless tomato chunk I stole from my mom’s plate and gave to her…

She would gladly try more things like our coffee and over processed junk food we are enjoying if we let her. We are being super selective about what we let her have, we are overprotective parents

We have moved through all the organic stage one flavors of food and are progressing to more exciting flavors (not more sugary though). I am a sugar natzi, sugar has had a major impact on my brothers as they were growing up. One has a sugar addiction still. So we are trying to get her in to the bland flavors before the sugary ones are introduced, so she’s not always expecting her foods to be sweet and sugary.

Thanks to her meal time interest we were even able to brave a Denny’s one morning for breakfast. She sat in a yucky high chair like a big girl and we ate a meal together.

She of course didn’t order off the restaurant menu, she opted for boobie and a nap while we finished our meal. It was progress though.

As scary and anxiety ridden the idea of taking a trip with baby seems I am glad we did it. Once you are in the thick of it you realize it’s really not all that insane and it provides baby with much needed stimulation and the opportunity to adjust to changing situations.

We’ll probably be taking many more trips as a family now that we know how adaptable and well behaved E can be (if money permits).

I am a huge advocate for breastfeeding because:

• Breast milk protects babies from viruses and keeps them healthy thanks to the lactating woman’s antibodies that are produced when she comes in contact with germs and viruses.
• Breastfeeding lowers risk for heart disease, juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis, asthma and allergies.
• It’s also thought to prevent diseases like ulcerative colitis Crohn’s disease and childhood cancer.
• Stem cells in breast milk may help a child “fulfill its genetic destiny”
• Breast milk changes over time to fulfill your babies specific nutrition needs.
• It is free baby food, why pay good money for something you body is designed to make?
• It is a convenient, on demand, sustainable option that produces no excess waste. No formula canisters to recycle, no hassle mixing and warming it up etc.

I’ve been fortunate enough to successfully continue breastfeeding Everly by following lactation advice and committing to on-demand, round-the-clock feeding.

She’s almost 7 months old and hasn’t been sick once… and I work with middle school/ high school kids (they are full of germs ;-P). Oh, we skipped the H1N1 vaccines too. If that is not some proof of the immune boosting powers of breastmilk I don’t know what is.

Anyway, this post is not to sell you on breastfeeding. It’s more of a pat of the back for those of you who are breastfeeding. further more, if you are still successfully lactating you might want to consider sharing the “liquid gold”.

If you live in Evansville, Indiana, like I do and are breastfeeding you should know a “Milk Depot” is opening up at the Women’s Hospital in Newburgh to make donating more accessible and they are seeking donors.

Here is the info they have on their site about donations. Just wanted to spread the word:

The Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank, Inc. helps premature and sick infants by connecting those in need of human milk with screened donor mothers. The milk bank receives human milk from these donors, then pasteurizes, freezes and distributes it.

The milk bank is a community-based, community-supported entity that benefits Indiana’s babies and decreases health care expenditures. The not-for-profit milk bank is the first of its kind in Indiana and one of only 10 in the United States.

HELP A PREMATURE OR ILL INFANT!

Due to the overwhelming demand for pasteurized donor human milk from hospitals in Indiana and throughout the Midwest, the Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank is always looking for new donors! Please contact a member of the milk bank staff if you are interested in becoming a donor or go to the How to Donate page.

Consider becoming a breast milk donor. I am! Breast milk is best for babies, especially sick or premature ones and it’s something our bodies make on demand. Why not donate your excess?

For those of you outside Indiana or even outside the USA you can donate too! Milk banks are all over. If you know of one that isn’t listed here please list it in a comment if you’d like.

USA Milk Banks I’ve found are:

Bronson Mothers’ Milk Bank
601 John Street
Suite N1300
Kalamazoo, MI 49007
Phone: (269) 341-8849

Mother’s Milk Bank of Iowa
Department of Food and Nutrition Services
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics
University of Iowa at Liberty Square
119 2nd Street, Suite 400
Coralville, IA 52241
Phone: (319)356-2652

Mothers’ Milk Bank of Ohio
Grant Medical Center @ Victorian Village Health Center
1087 Dennison Avenue
Columbus, OH 43201
Phone: (614) 544-0810

Mothers’ Milk Bank
Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center
1719 E 19th Ave
Denver, CO 80218
Phone: (303) 839-7692

WakeMed Mothers’ Milk Bank and Lactation Center
3000 New Bern Ave
Raleigh, NC 27610
Phone: (919) 350-8599

Mothers’ Milk Bank of New England
225 Nevada Street Room 201
Newtonville, MA 02460
Phone: (781) 535-7594

Northwest Women’s Milk Bank
3439 NE Sandy Blvd #130
Portland, OR 97232

Indiana Mothers’ Milk Bank, Inc.
Methodist Medical Plaza II
6820 Parkdale Place, Suite 109
Indianapolis, IN 46254
Phone (317) 329-7146

Mother’s Milk Bank
C & W Lactation Services
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
(604) 875-2282

Mothers’ Milk Bank
751 South Bascom Ave
San Jose, CA 95128
Phone (408) 998-4550

Lactation Center & Mothers’ Milk Bank WakeMed
Raleigh, NC
(919) 350-8599

The Mother’s Milk Bank – Special Care Nursery Christiana Hospital
Newark, DE
(302) 733-2340

Mothers’ Milk Bank at Austin
900 E. 30th Street, Suite 101
Austin, TX
(512) 494-0800

Mothers’ Milk Bank of North Texas
1300 W. Lancaster Suite 108
Ft. Worth, TX 76102
Phone (817) 810-0071

National Milk Bank
866-522-6455 (MILK)

Outside the USA:

Alay Gatas Headquarters – Human Milk Bank
Philippine Childrens Medical Center
Quezon Avenue, Quezon City 1100 Philippines
Telephone: (63-2) 9240838 and 9246601 local 354

Philipine General Hospital Lactation Unit and Milk Bank
Telephone: (63-2) 5362867
Mobile: 63-921-4535310

United Kingdom Association for Milk Banking
Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London
020 8383 355

On twitter mothers share pro-breastfeeding tweets:

• “If the jar of formula says “closest to bm” then why not skip the cost and feed the real thing?? if I saw a candy bar that said “closest to chocolate” I’d say “no thanks” and grab a hershey’s”
• Breastfeeding for over 6 months could aid mental health http://bit.ly/8ihR3O
• A teachable reality TV moment! Kardashians show importance of partner’s #breastfeeding support http://bit.ly/3FKLyx
• The Advantages of #Breastfeeding for Mom, Baby, and Society w/references (from breastfeeding.com): http://seriousshops.com/0uc
• @KomenAdvocacy Did you know that women w/ an immediate family history of #breastcancer can reduce their risk by 59% by #breastfeeding?
• Why does #breastfeeding your baby girl lower her risk for #breastcancer later in life? Human milk cools birth estrogen levels much quicker!

For those of you following on Twitter, Poop Watch 2009 brings good news today!

After a week and a visit to the doctor Everly has finally pooed. Remember last week when N and E hung out at home and scarfed a jar of sweet potato in absence of boob? Well, she hasn’t pooped since then.

I searched the internetz about baby poop habits at 6 months. Apparently breastfed babies can have this lack of poop thing and it’s not a sign of issues.

Today at her well baby checkup we talked about her increasing crankiness and lack of poop. She didn’t even sleep last night which means neither did I. The doc said a little rectal “stimulation” with a thermometer and some Vaseline would get things going.

But before we did anything rectal we both came home and took a nice long morning nap. Functioning on 1 hour of sleep wasn’t working well for either of us.

When we woke I gathered up all the rectal supplies and headed in to change her diaper… Low and behold…

SHE POOPED!

She did it on her own in her sleep. All the grunting, fussing and trying to force it was useless. She just needed to be so tired she would zonk out and not wake to try forcing it some more. A bit of relaxation and rest let it come right out.

It was thick, sticky, semi-solid, smelly and such a relief to see! The consistency resembled those first meconium poos but it was brownish orange and not black. I knew you wanted to know! LOL.

Sorry to over share but this seriously makes my day. Here is the obligatory poop pic:

I am not a huge fan of flying. We don’t travel by plane often, thankfully. We’ve never really had to as most places we visit are within reasonable driving distance. Unfortunately, now that we’ve moved so far away that’s changed.

We are heading back to Arizona very shortly for a visit with friends/ family and to pick up our car that we left behind during the cross country move. We are flying there and the thought of flying with baby is a touch overwhelming.

First there was the question “do we buy her a seat on the plane or just hold her on our lap”? The airline with the cheapest prices also does not allow infants to have a free or discounted seat fare. They’ll let us stow the car seat as carry on luggage and hold her on our lap but we wont be able to buckle her in without paying full ticket price.

Of course she wont be even remotely interested in sitting in her seat during the all day flight. She’ll be nursing, especially if the altitude and air pressure bothers her ears. This puts her smack in my lap anyway… and if the plane does crash, will the car seat do any good? Not to sure about that.

So we’ll be playing musical baby during our flight which is going to be trying I am sure. Car seat or not she’s gonna be fussy since she wont have her bed to nap in that day.

Speaking of beds… We have a pack n’ play and all this baby gear to bring along for the trip. You see, we are flying to Arizona and then driving back to Indiana in our newly repaired car. This means a 2-3 day road trip with hotel stays on the way back.

So we are toying with the idea of just FedExing our baby gear to Arizona to avoid paying hefty baggage fees at the airport. Anything that is not needed on the flight and not free to bring is gonna be shipped their instead, to save money and stress.

Now help me out here, we’ve never traveled long distance with a baby. What else should I be thinking through and planning for with all this?

One of the things I’ve failed to share with you is that we’ve recently introduced Everly to sweet potatoes. Over the weekend while we were shopping at Target we decided to poke around the baby food aisle to see the different kinds of first stage cereals and the organic/ natural options.

She’s not a huge fan of the cereal we have now. At first she liked it but now she just makes faces and drools it down her chin. Several books have said that some babies (especially those breastfeeding ones with mothers that eat flavor rich foods) get bored with flavorless cereal.

We thought a different grain cereal could provide her some variety but we discovered some stage one jarred foods that we decided to try out. It is Earth’s Best stage one food.

We got a few jars of sweet potato and some jars of peas. Sure enough E loved the taste of sweet potato and did well with her new food. She ate way more than we expected the first day. The second day we gave her a bit more… We aren’t in a rush to wean her and she’s still getting all her nutrition from breast milk. The foods are just a bonus and a very gradual introduction.

Anyway, today I had to teach and N had the day off work so E and N stayed home while I went off to work. I was only gone 4 hours. Fed E before I left and she went down for a nap.

Apparently once I left E woke up and just knew I was gone. N said she was looking all around for me and that she basically had a 3 hour meltdown. During the meltdown he felt she was hungry so he offered her some sweet potato.

She’s only ever consumed a few tablespoons at a time, you know just for taste and experience. Today was different though, she wolfed down the whole jar with N. Unfortunately, the ounce of sweet potato didn’t make her any less fussy.

When I walked through the door at 7:30 N was looking all haggard with E sitting on his lap looking forlorn. Poor E thought I had abandoned her or something. She was very pleased to see me and to nurse, of course. Do you think it’s true that babies can smell if their mom is gone or not? After today’s events I am starting to believe it.

Over the weekend we had our first meal out since Everly was born… We went to Steak N Shake where they asked if we needed a high chair and presented us with a kids menu and crayons. Don’t they know 5-month-olds typically don’t order off the kids menu or color? She did bang on the table top though.

Everly had boobies while N and I ordered food from the menu. I was pleased that nobody gave me any grief about breastfeeding my child in the restaurant while I ate.

We were there about 45 min or so and I indulged in a sugary caramel apple shake for dessert. It sent me in to a sugar overload later but was oh-so-good. Thanks Steak N Shake for being boobie/ breastfeeding friendly.

Speaking of breastfeeding in public, back during our Indy trip I breastfed in a few different Starbucks with no issues. Thanks Starbucks!

As a first time mom who is breastfeeding it can be intimidating to just feed where ever you are. For me it was not because of shyness either… I’ve done much more revealing stuff.

The main worry is that the establishment will cause a scene over it or that another patron will… Similar to the Chick-fil-A situation back in August that resulted in nurse-in protests.

There are laws almost everywhere that protect a nursing mother’s rights to nurse in public but that doesn’t protect against the humiliation and inconvenience of being harassed or the fear that someone will come at you for doing it.

If breast is best why does everyone make you feel like an ass for doing it public?

Right after Everly was born our midwife suggested I drink a tea of catnip and lemon balm to help us both relax and sleep.

You see in those first few days I was all keyed up and could only stare at Everly in awe when I should have been sleeping and Everly was pretty fussy in the middle of the night which stressed us out.

Everyone said she might be colicky because of the crying even though the rule of three wasn’t happening in her case. Anyway the cat nip tea/ lemon balm tea did wonders for us in those first few days.

I was just reading about another calming tea for babies and breastfeeding mothers that uses chamomile, fennel and catnip that I wanted to share:

Just before bedtime combine:

• 2 teaspoons of chamomile flowers
• 1 teaspoon of fennel leaves
• 1 teaspoon of catnip leaves

Then using an infuser and add 2 cups of heated water and drink. It tastes good with a bit of honey.

The tea is said to work by calming the mother which in turn calms the baby per Traditional Chinese Medicine techniques.

Some also say that breastfeeding mothers who drink the tea about an hour before baby’s bedtime pass the herbs  through breast milk to the baby thus calming baby two fold.

Did you know Sage, Peppermint Oil, Spearmint, Parsley, Chickweed, Black Walnut, stinging nettles, Yarrow, Herb Robert, Oregano, Periwinkle Herb, Sorrel, and Vitamin B6 are all shown to reduce your milk supply? If you are going for a herbal tea while breastfeeding be sure to avoid those that contain milk supply reducing ingredients.