Matt went to work today for the first time in over two weeks. Let me be more specific: he left for work at 6:00 am, got to the District line, then turned around and came home. He hung with us for another half an hour before going to the DMV to renew his expired license, which he accomplished quickly and before the irritated hoards, apparently unaware that the DMV is the quintessence of inconvenience, descended. Honestly, who doesn't know that you have to arrive before they open if you want to get out of there by noon? Have these people never heard stand-up comedy? Matt reported that, on his way out, there was, predictably, a line around the building, and some bloke, unsurprisingly, tried to go right in the front door, cutting the line, and was, naturally, scolded by a line-stander. What did he think those people were waiting for? While individuals may evolve, groups will never learn.
I don't know why I'm vicariously fired up about that, I wasn't even there. Matt went to work after acquiring the license that allowed him to travel there legally. I was home with baby Temple.
This was the first day in our breast feeding journey that Matt has not been there to top her off after her time on the teet. In the first few days after a baby is born, she loses some of her birth weight. Much of this is fluid that gets pressed out during birth, and she also sloughs off the juices that were in her intestines in utero. This is her first tarry BM. Also, she doesn't need to eat much during her first day or two, because she is still digesting the nutrients that passed to her through the placenta. Pediatricians get alarmed, however, when a baby loses more than 10% of her weight, which Temple did, and so our pediatrician advised us to pump breast milk, feed her every two hours, and supplement the milk with formula to get baby T to start gaining weight, then ween Temple back to the breast. He assured us this is possible, citing preemies. Premature infants start feeding through a tube, then take formula in a bottle, then breast milk in a bottle, and finally breast milk from the breast. If a tiny tiny born at 30 weeks can do it, so can nearly 42 week Temple V. The lactation specialists, however, do not believe in pumping or formula, and they advised me to continue to try to breast feed because the baby knows what she needs and when, and the weight loss is not cause for concern. Also, the lactation specialists think our pediatrician is a dick. Because of my Earth Mother, Fertility Goddess complex (see Vice post below), I was confused, and exhausted, but after much soul searching and crying, Matt and I decided to go with the pediatrician's advice, since he's been practicing for thirty years, and he will be Temple's doctor for the next decade and a half, and he has this professorial demeanor that makes me want his approval. I'll be exploring that in therapy.
I'm not supposed to give Temple the bottle. She must learn that momma is for boobs and poppa is for bottles. So, I pumped every 2 hours or so, and Matt fed her. After a few days, she gained weight, and we tried to put her on the breast again, and she wasn't having it. Pediatrician said put her back on the bottle, and I cried some more. She continued to gain weight, and got better at breast feeding. So, since Tuesday, she has been breast feeding for 10 minutes on each side, followed by 10 minutes on the bottle of breast milk, or formula if the pumped supply was depleted. She continued to gain weight like gangbusters. Today, however, because the bottle man was at the DMV then at work, she was all breast, 15 minutes on each side. She's not wild about the change. She should simmer down to sleep soon after eating. Between 5:00 am and when Matt got home at 2:00 pm, she ate for 30 minutes out of every 90, and was awake and cranky for all but about 20 of the minutes she wasn't eating. It was rough. But, change is hard. She'll learn. She'll learn, right?
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