New Year

I have been gone. I came to realize I have major milk supply issues and I've needed to work on those. How did I learn this?

• I stopped waking up engorged when my daughter would sleep through the night.
• My appetite declined sharply.
• My daughter fussed a lot.
• My daughter was very, very skinny. She was born at 8 lbs, 6 oz - at three and a half months old, she weighed 9 pounds.

So, I have been using donated breastmilk to supplement in a supplemental nursing system after I nurse her (she takes between 1 and 2 ounces per feeding from that), pumping after nursing, and taking 33 pills a day. (3 brewer's yeast, 4 fenugreek, 3 blessed thistle, and one multivitamin, 3 times a day.) This has helped IMMENSELY. It's tiring, my day is basically nurse, use the SNS, change Aurora, pump, wash SNS and pump parts, play with Aurora for about half an hour, let her nap for a half hour, rinse and repeat. All day. It's exhausting, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I believe it's worth it, though - in one week, she went from 9 pounds to 9 pounds, 10 ounces... She'll have another doctor's appointment soon and we'll see how well she's continued to do.

Mike has two cousins who have children around Aurora's age. Both of them have already stopped breastfeeding, presumably due to supply issues similar to mine. It makes me a little sad that they would give up instead of fighting to continue. Yes, I spend most if not all of my day sitting in the recliner nursing my daughter, but I know she's getting what's best for her. She is completely worth the effort I'm expending to do this, and I can't imagine doing anything less than everything I can for her.

My mother and my step-father drove back up here to Michigan from Illinois to help me out while I got this straightened out, and it has helped me so much. Part of my problem was that I wasn't eating enough food. My body barely had enough to sustain me, much less both of us, so it gave up the milk to keep me going. Now that I'm eating at least two small snacks between each meal (crackers and cream cheese, or yogurt and granola, things like that) and massive breakfasts, lunches, and dinners in comparison to how I used to eat, I'm feeling a difference. It's sad that it took me four months to realize it, but I just had to do it. When they had to leave, Mike stepped in and made sure I kept going.

I'll admit it - I'm scared. Mike is going back to work tomorrow (he was on vacation this last week, before that my mother was here) and I'll be on my own during the day. I'm not sure why it frightens me, I've taken care of her alone before... I think the reason I'm so scared is because all these problems started while I was taking care of her alone. I'm scared that if I'm left alone again, I'll fail again.

By the way, we did start on cloth diapers. I personally find them very, very easy, and Aurora's face brightened the first time I put one on her. I said to her, "yes, sweetheart, I'd rather wear normal undies than newspaper, too."

Cloth Diapering

I've been talking to my husband about using cloth diapers on Aurora almost since before she was born. My "baby steps" into the world of cloth diapering was using gDiapers, a hybrid system of cloth and disposables. The inserts were flushable, and you washed the outside liner and pants to use again. I loved the re-usability of the little g pants, but didn't much care for having to buy the inserts every week or two. My husband didn't much care for having to travel to Whole Foods or Babies R Us to buy the inserts, and we ended up going to normal disposables. We've used three brands:

• Pampers while we were in the hospital. They worked, but not my favorite - we were still having meconium at the time so I have no idea how they'd hold up to breastfed poopies.
• Target Up & Up brand. Easily my favorites out of the three, very little rash and until today (I'll elaborate further) contained the breastfed poop exceptionally well.
• Huggies. These gave Aurora the worst diaper rash I have ever seen, to the point where the doctor was even surprised at what she saw. We also had several blowouts out the leg holes, out the front, out the back... everywhere.
  

I think Aurora's outgrowing the size 1 of the Up & Up diapers (upper limit is 10 lbs, I think that's about where she is) but the size 2 starts at 13 pounds. Um... what about that little three pound discrepancy there? That's about two months of growth at the rate Aurora's going! The reason I think she's outgrowing them is because today I had to put on three (yes, THREE) outfits on her. At the cloth diapering class she had a blowout on a super-adorable outfit. This may be because my husband is still getting the hang of diapers... but then she even had blowouts later on with diapers I'd put on her, and I'd like to think diapering is old hat by now, with having helped with my two youngest siblings and now having a daughter of my own.

After much discussion Mike said we could do cloth diapers but only through a diaper service. I Googled for local services and found the price to be MORE than we were paying for disposables! I was saddened by this - I don't want to keep using disposables with how expensive they are! (not to mention the cost of wipes, the chemicals, and the environmental impact!) I did further Googling and discovered a local shop called No Pins Required, which offered free cloth diapering classes in addition to the diapers they sold. I immediately sent Emily, the owner, an email asking about the class. We went to it today, along with my mother-in-law, and I am so glad we did. We learned more about cloth diapering, and Mike is very much on board with the idea now.

The current plan is prefolds for me to use (so mostly those), about five fitteds for Mike to use when he changes her, and a few bumGenius! diapers for overnights. Mike seemed very enamored with the bumGenius!, but at $18 a pop, those are a "few-at-a-time" purchase. It's looking like we'll use the arrangement I detailed, with purchasing a few different diapers every so often to try them out and build a nice stash. I can't wait!