Ixelle - ten months down

Yesterday I cleared out a lot of milk from my freezer. Lately it has started to sink in that in less than 2 months I will no longer be spending 2 hours a day with my trusty pump. We have a love-hate relationship, but knowing that it's almost over and Thumper is almost 1 has given me a renewed patience with pumping. Part of me can't believe that it went by so fast and another part can't believe the huge chunk of my life dedicated to pumping this past year. If my calculations are correct, by the time I'm done I'll have pumped for an amount of time totaling an entire month. That doesn't matter, my goal is in sight, I've already seen the fruits of my labor. I've given my son a great start and all this is worth it. Looking back I realize that I would have never made it this far if it wasn't for my husband and his support as well as his insistence that Thumper needed milk. No matter what you do in life, I think that a good support system gives you a great boost toward reaching your goals. I've been very blessed. I'm proud of what I'm about to accomplish, even though the daunting task of pumping while visiting my husband's relatives in Taiwan is still to be conquered. Maybe I'll miss pumping, who knows (yeah, right!). So ladies, seriously, if I can do this for ten months I know you can too if you want to.

In other news, I'm down to pumping 3 times a day at 8am, 4pm and 11pm. 40 minutes each time. I've had to use a couple of frozen bags in the past few weeks, but I'm not lacking in frozen milk and one those days I was still almost pumping enough to feed him. I'm guessing this is probably due to him drinking more milk because of teething. No plans to drop down to twice a day yet, so this might be the schedule I stick with until I start weaning off the pump. I'll update again when I get back from Taiwan with my experiences.

Dealing with the tedium - Ixelle

I looked at the calendar recently and realized that next week will mark 7 months of being a mom, and 7 months of pumping. The first few months went by so slowly, and I couldn't imagine having to pump for an entire year of my life. But now the months go by pretty fast and now, before I knew it I was more than halfway through, with much less pressure to produce since Thumper is now taking solids and will likely need less milk as he gets older. Here's just a few tips that I've found handy to keep yourself sane and motivated to 'pick up the horns' every day:

1. Celebrate the little victories! Made it to a month mark? Reached the halfway point to your goal? Go out for dinner with your hubby or treat yourself to a massage. Obviously don't overspend on luxuries but work within your budget, besides that's just money you've saved from not having to buy formula (don't quote me on that, I'm not a professional financial adviser and I'm not trying to get you in trouble with the hubbs!). Just find a way to make room for a little celebration now and then.

2. Pat yourself on the back. Hey, no one else can do for your baby what you've been doing! You're providing years and years worth of benefits for your baby by pumping for him or her. Fewer medical problems, higher IQ, (appreciation of good food?). The few months you spend pumping is nothing compared to that, you can make it. Hang in there.

3. Fish for encouragement. Don't feel bad for reminding the people around you of how long you've spent pumping (I've spent more than 17 days of my life pumping btw) or how hard and draining it is for you to pump. I'm not saying to whine or complain, just use it as a way to let your significant other or others involved in your child's life know that you need an encouragement boost. We're all human, we tend to forget things pretty fast and need a little reminder now and then.

4. Take a long look at your baby, and remember how much you love that little monster. That's your heart right there walking/crawling/squirming around outside your body. That makes it all worth it.

Tips - Always have enough milk

One of the challenges that is unique to EPing is having enough milk on hand to feed your baby, both at home and on the go. If the baby gets hungry and we're out of milk we don't have powdered food with a long shelf life that we can quickly add water to, and we can't feed them straight from the tap either. Sure, we might have our pump handy but that takes time, which a hungry, screaming baby doesn't understand. So here's a few things that I personally do to make sure there is enough milk.

1. I always keep at least one extra full bottle in the fridge in case Thumper is hungrier than normal or somehow I lose the milk he would have had due to spills or spoiling.

2. I make sure there is at least one full bottle out of the fridge, ready for when he is hungry. Thank God breast milk lasts so long out at room temp! Thumper does not like cold milk so this saves me having to warm it first, which takes time. If he drinks this bottle, and I'm not due to pump for a while I take the bottle that was in the fridge out so that it can 'warm up' to room temperature and be ready if he gets hungry again.

3. When travelling, always pack more than enough milk, even if you plan to pump while away. I've had way too many instances where I was certain I had packed enough milk when lo and behold Thumper finishes everything I bring and is still hungry before I get a chance to pump. That is not fun. I usually pack at least one full bottle that he drinks out of and two full bottles that I pump into, one of which is usually my extra fridge bottle, more if we are planning to be gone for longer periods of time. The nice part is the bottle that was in the fridge keeps the other bottles chilled when we're out and about. If you're worried about the milk going bad just bring a cooler and an ice pack.

4. I keep a manual pump in the diaper bag with some 'Pump & Save' freezer bags at all times just in case. I have not had to use it yet, but it seems like it would be more discreet and require less setting up if I'm out of milk and just need a quick few ounces to tide Thumper over.

I'd love to hear what you do to make sure you have enough milk on hand, do comment!

Ixelle and Thumper - Checking in

Time sure does fly, Thumper just turned 6 months old! I did some calculating and assuming every month had 30 days, and I spent 120 minutes a day pumping I've already pumped for the equivalent of 15 days. I'm still planning on continuing until he is a year old and that will mean an entire month of my life will have been spent hooked up to that pump! Wow. Honestly I still haven't decided whether I will pump till he is a year or pump until I have enough of a freezer stash to last him to a year but ideally the former. I now pump 4 times a day for 30 minutes at a time, whenever I wake up 7am-ish, 11am, 4pm and 11pm. Once I dropped my 7pm pump the 3am pump followed really soon after. My supply dipped for one day when I got my period again (didn't miss that at all) but the next day was back up to normal so I guess I can now thumb my nose at the stories I kept hearing about milk drying up at 6 months. Granted, my supply isn't what it once was but I am still often freezing 4-8 oz a day and am back to a full freezer of milk that I need to give away or donate again.

We've also started on solids and while he wasn't a huge fan of baby cereal, Thumper has been taking his veggies like a champ! He's tried carrots, peas, sweet potato and green beans so far and likes all of them. However he is still drinking as much milk as he was before so I'm not relaxing about supply yet.

One of my main frustrations now is having to warm up milk that was in the fridge (Thumper won't take it cold) since the gap between pumpings is so wide. The other is having to wait till 11pm to pump when I'm tired and Thumper goes to sleep at around 8. Considering how things could be much worse, I really don't have anything to complain about.

In non-pumping news, I never knew a baby could keep me so busy day in and day out. I feel like I never get anything done, but the time I get to spend with Thumper is so worth it!

Places We've Pumped - Ixelle

Everytime I think I'm ready to write this post, I get a chance to pump in yet another place. Believe it or not, I'm starting to have fun with seeing how many different places I can pump. I've had to pump at my Grandma's house and my Aunts' houses a lot because of family get-togethers. Those haven't been too bad since there is usually a room I can have to myself. I've pumped in the car backseat many times (but not enough to warrant a car adaptor), either parked or when someone else is driving and in the front seat once. I have yet to try pumping and driving, I don't know how well I would do with that. I do have to say I love that our car has tinted windows.

I've pumped at the State Fair, all I had to do was make my way to first aid and ask and they gave me an airconditioned room with an outlet and a bed. It was so much easier than I was expecting, I always think I have to explain what I mean when I say 'pump' but amazingly enough it seems that people always know what I'm talking about right away and are very accomodating. I've pumped in church several times, there is usually an empty Sunday School room that I can lock myself in, I'm always worried that someone will unlock the door and walk in on me but so far it's only happened once when I was already done and everything was put away (and it was someone I was comfortable with anyways). Other moms use the rooms to nurse sometimes so I think people know not to come in if the light is on but the door is locked.

I've only had to pump in a bathroom once, and it was at a country club for a wedding so it was spotlessly clean anyways. My sister-in-law kept coming into the bathroom to check on me and keep me from being too bored I guess, which must have been weird for the other wedding guests who were in the bathroom. I almost had a 'pumpbuddy' that time but she pumped in her car instead. After 6 months of pumping I feel pretty confident about finding somewhere to pump wherever I go.

Ixelle's Milk donation experience

I recently donated some milk to MothersMilk Bank, mainly because we don't have a chest freezer and our freezer just couldn't store all the milk I was freezing. As I said in an earlier post, I don't rotate my freezer stash because I want Thumper to get the freshest milk I can give him. Here's a few thoughts about the process and my donation timeline for anyone interested in donating milk in the future.

*If you think that you may be interested in donating milk in the future, you can go ahead and do all the paperwork and bloodwork without actually comitting to donating. My process took over a month before I actually sent in the milk, and in the meantime my frozen stash took over the freezer to the point where we didn't have enough room for our frozen food and everyone had to get real creative with storing food that needed freezing. If I had to do it over again I would have definitely started the process much sooner, before I was certain that I had enough to donate.

*When choosing a milk bank, make sure you do the research on where the milk is going. There is a company out there called Prolacta Bioscience that turns human milk into a product and sells it for a profit and several so called 'milk banks' sell the milk they recieve to Prolacta. The milk does not actually go to babies in need. When in doubt, donate to any of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America banks (HMBANA).

*Apparently some milk banks have stricter policies on donor milk, things like washing your breasts before each pump session, how soon you have to refrigerate or freeze your milk, how to clean your pump etc.

* The IRS does not allow a deduction for donating any kind of human tissue. However, you can deduct mileage you incur in your volunteer efforts as well as the cost of your breast pump. (from Milk donor FAQs )

*Alternatly you can donate milk directly to a recipient over websites like Human Milk 4 Human Babies, Eats on Feets, Milkshare.org or even try to sell it on sites like Only the Breast. Most moms will want to know about your health and diet and want to see your test results for certain diseases (and rightly so). I did this while waiting for the official donation process, just answering ads instead of posting. However this will not let you claim any expenses as a tax deduction.

my timeline:

May 31: Contacted milkbank.org and was referred to a closer Mothers Milk Bank and subsequently contacted them. Was asked a series of health-related questions.

June 1: Received the medical history forms and consent forms needed to become a donor (each milk bank is different) over email. I had to sign a consent form, fill out all my information and Thumper's information, and answer a lot of health-related questions. I also had to have my OB and Thumper's pedi sign forms saying that, to their knowledge, my milk was suitable for donation and donating wouldn't negatively effect Thumper.

June 7: Dropped off forms for OB and pedi (my OB was on vacation till that day) Found out that they had to mail the forms back to me and that it took about a week for mail to make it out of the mailroom.

June 18: Got the forms in the mail, mailed them to the milk bank.

June 20: Got confirmation from the milk bank that all forms were recieved, and the next step was the blood test. They mailed out the information and forms for me to go in to a lab to get my blood tested

June 23: Got the forms for the blood test.

June 28: Went in to the lab and got my blood drawn. Got a funny look when I said it was for milk donation.

July 5: Got telephone confirmation that my bloodwork was fine and the go-ahead to donate, and requested a cooler to ship my milk in.

July 7: Cooler arrived with the airbill, didn't have time to pack the milk for pick-up that day (it was a Thursday), and they told me not to send out the milk on a Friday because no one would be there to pick it up over the weekend.

July 11: Called FedEx for an afternoon/evening pick-up, asked them to knock on the door to pick up (instead of leaving the cooler outside all afternoon). Totally failed in giving them a rough estimation of how heavy the cooler would be since I hadn't packed it yet (but that wasn't a
problem, more like a lolme). Packed the milk in the cooler with some crumpled newspaper insulation and waited for pick up. Guy came, picked it up.

July 12: Got telephone confirmation that my milk arrived safely and in excellent condition (all still frozen). Yay! I have freezer space again.

Pumping Challenges: Supply - Ixelle

This seems to be something that weighs heavily on every pumping mom's mind. We all live in constant fear of losing our supply.
Sometime around the 5 week mark I freaked out about not losing weight, and started exercising. This apparently was way too early for my body, and between not wanting to eat, stressing about other issues and my exercise regime, my supply dropped to where I wasn't making enough for Thumper, and we had to start burning through the small freezer stash I had built up. Once that happened I had to really start making sure I got enough calories in a day, I started drinking Mothers' Milk Tea, eating oatmeal religiously every day and power pumping when I felt up to it. I basically pumped every 2 hours instead of every 3 hours for a full day. I didn't see results from this until 3-4 days later.
It took about a week and a half but my supply thankfully built back up without needing to supplement with formula (barely). I'm still in the process of finding that balance between diet, exercise and lactating. It's hard when your body isn't really your own.

Fast forward 3 months, I started having to deal with an oversupply. This involved having to get real creative with freezer space and even talking about buying a chest freezer which we couldn't really afford. I didn't want to rotate my freezer stash because I wanted Thumper to get the freshest milk possible for as long as possible, and so even with providing everything he was eating in a day, I was also freezing an extra 16-20 oz. This was when I decided to donate milk (I'll write later about this!) and once again, it was kind of a leap of faith since there are no guarantees about my supply in the future, it would be terrible to have donated milk that I would later need. And yes, even so much extra I was still in constant fear of my supply dropping, especially with people telling me about the unexplained drop in supply that is supposed to happen at 6 months. This was also when I started looking around for information and resources on EPing online to see if I really needed to be worried about my supply dropping at 6 months (I'm at 4+ months now, so maybe in a few months I'll be writing a post about that). After a little research and some personal stories from some awesome fellow pumping moms, I decided to try dropping from pumping every 3 hours to every 4 hours (which went very well) and then dropping one of my pumps altogether, so I would have one 8-hour stretch between pumps every day and would be pumping 5 times in a day. This is where I'm currently at and my body is still adjusting to this new schedule, I may have to tweak this schedule a little. I'm freezing much less milk daily, and have had a few plugged ducts (ouch) that I'm working with, but that is another struggle for another time!

Pumping Challenges: Living Arrangements - Ixelle

It really takes a special kind of perseverance to pump exclusively, naturally there are many challenges along the way. Here is one of my struggles.

Living arrangements.

Although my husband and I have a place of our own, we rent out a room to a friend of ours and also have been providing a room for my brother to stay. So it's always been a house full of guys and lil ol me. This puts a big restriction on where I can pump in my own house. For the first 3 months I was pumping in Thumpers room, and between pumping, skin to skin time and trying to get nursing going, I was basically a prisoner in the nursery. Once I went hands-free I started trying things like feeding Thumper, or changing him while I pumped, or sorting his laundry. For 2 months I re-read some of my favorite books (and would usually look up at the clock and realize that I pumped for too long). For right now I see my pumping time as 'me' time where I can do things that I want to do whether it's read, do chores, spend time with Thumper or even type up blog posts. Thinking about something other than pumping helps tremendously. In the past week, I moved the pump into the master bedroom (which has been in dire need of a good cleaning) and have been able to fold laundry, use my laptop to access the internet instead of just my phone, clean a little, relax a little. Just having a change of scenery is great for my mental state while pumping. I don't have to look around and be reminded of only baby things. This also means that I can use the master bathroom instead of having to worry about covering up to go use the bathroom or go wash up. I'm still cautiously exploring other places to pump and have successfully pumped in the car once (not while driving), and will need to do that again this weekend. A change in scenery makes quite a difference when you are getting frustrated or burnt out with pumping.

Ixelle and Thumper...an Introduction

I'm the mom (Ixelle) of an almost 4 month old baby boy (Thumper), and after much pain and tears I made the decision to pump exclusively to supply milk for him. I always expected to breastfeed my baby, especially being a stay at home mom I never intended to have to pump except to relieve engorgement. When my baby was born, he wouldn't latch at all and had no interest in the breast. When we would try to encourage him to latch with the help of nurses and LCs, he hated it and would scream and scream. It was urgent that he be able to eat since he was jaundiced enough to keep him in the hospital a few extra days but not quite enough for them to admit him to the nicu. Since he was not nursing, I started pumping the day after he was born. The LC in postpartum worked with us extensively during our hospital stay and finally got baby to take the nipple shield, which he would do only after at least 20 minutes of hysterical screaming. We also had to set up a Supplemental Nursing System (SNS) and mixed what little I could pump out with formula and he would rarely take more than 2 ml at a feeding. The LC arranged for us to rent a hospital-grade pump after we went home.

After we were finally discharged, we had to bring him back to the hospital the next 3 days for appointments (and blood draws) to check on his bilirubin levels. At the first appointment, we met with another LC who was shocked at how he just would not take the breast, even when she was pouring milk into his mouth next to the nipple shield. She advised us to get rid of the SNS since it was causing us so much stress, and to give baby a bottle as long as we weren't opposed to it. I had no problems, I just wanted to be able to feed my baby. He took the bottle like a champ and was finally getting some milk into his system (at this point my milk had already come in and I was making enough for him). We bottle-fed him while trying to offer the breast whenever we could and doing a ton of skin to skin (kangaroo care).

It was 2 weeks of LC visits before baby would take the nipple shield without screaming, and another week before he would do it consistently at home. It was going well, and baby even nursed without the shield three times! Then we got thrush. Between baby squirming and fighting me at the breast and the shooting pain in my nipple when he nursed, breastfeeding was a miserable experience but I couldn't imagine quitting. On top of that, a tenant and my brother are living with us, so between trying to nurse and pumping I felt like a prisoner in the dungeon of my baby's room. As time passed I was less and less motivated to nurse and eventually stopped offering him the breast altogether and was purely bottle-feeding him breast milk.

Right before he was 3 months old I decided to give nursing another try, I had been getting slightly more sleep and was more accustomed to taking care of a baby daily and thought that I would be in a good state of mind to try again. I decided to try nursing him on the nipple shield at least one feeding per day and see where that led me. I did that for 2 days and was immediately frustrated again with nursing a squirming, kicking baby. I thought about it and realized that I wasn't trying to nurse for the benefit of my baby, it was just for my convenience and appearance. Baby was already getting the best nutrition he could have, he was just getting it from a bottle. After another few days of praying and contemplating I officially made the decision to exclusively pump. It was so heart breaking to 'give up' after all the time, effort, tears I put into trying to get my baby to nurse. Once I made the decision, I was able to move on with my life. I bought a hands-free pumping bra and switched baby back to regular bottles (we had been using Breastflow bottles in an effort to get him to nurse without a nipple shield, and they were hard to wash). At this point pumping became downright enjoyable. I played games on my phone or called up friends while I pumped and it gave me time to sit and relax a few times a day. I was able to prop baby up on my Boppy and feed him or change his diaper while pumping.
I wasn't passionate about EPing until I looked online for resources and realized how slim the pickings are yet how many women actually EP. Let's face it, it takes a real woman to pump exclusively to feed her baby! I'm hoping to continue through one year. If my story can in any way help or encourage someone else who wants the best for their baby and is willing to spend weeks of her life tied to a pump to get it then it all becomes worth it. Currently I am applying to donate milk since I have a nice oversupply and I desperately need to reclaim my freezer space.
I have been pumping for almost 4 months, I use the Medela PISA, Simple Wishes hands-free bra and Playtex VentAire Advanced bottles.

I pump for 20 minutes at a time at 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm, 11pm and then around 3am when baby wakes up.

Tips:

Hands-free is the only way to EP
Refrigerate your pump parts instead of washing them every time you pump, and then you can just wash them once a day