Having two midwife-attended home waterbirths I was looking to this 20/20 feature on “extreme” moms with a great deal of trepidation. They advertised a program with segments about orgasmic birth, “reborn” babies, extended breastfeeding, “serial” surrogacy and homebirth.

Which of these things is not like the other? I’m on board for reborns and a dozen surrogacies as extreme behavior (though not impressed with portrayal of these women as freak shows). Orgasmic birth is not necessarily a choice, let alone an extreme behavior - it is what it is; too bad more of us don’t get to experience that way of birthing.

Extended breastfeeding until the age of eight? Yeah, extreme.

But midwife-attended homebirth IS NOT an example of “extreme” mothering.

Just the fact of its inclusion in this program did not bode well for how they’d handle the topic. So, anxious and frustrated before the show even began, we tuned in.

Orgasmic birth
The orgasmic birth segment was the best of the show (and that’s damning with faint praise). The other segments were incredibly biased, sensationalistic, judgmental. The whole premise of this show was misogynistic (let’s paint women, especially mothers, as weirdos so you lot can point and laugh).

Extended breastfeeding
The extended breastfeeding segment wasn’t *really* about extended breastfeeding. It was about statistical outliers - people so far off the curve that they would be considered… extreme. No false advertising here lol. My gripe with this, aside from the aforementioned problem I have with the entire premise of this show, is that mainstream society already thinks breastfeeding past a few months old is extreme and wacky. Which puts pressures on mamas to make decisions for their children that are not necessarily in the best interest for their health and well-being just to conform.

If ALL babies weaned on their own biologically-appropriate timeline, you’d have an extreme few weaning between 6-12 months and another extreme few weaning upwards of 8 yo. Outliers. The average age of weaning when it is child-led is between ages 2-4. (That’s me nursing my two year old toddler circa 2002, she weaned completely not too many months after the shot was taken.) Not extreme.  But now we’ve got this show painting all moms who nurse past the first year painted with the same outlier brush.

Worse than all that, the developmental “expert” they featured was an IDIOT trotting out the children “need to be taught independence” myth. Raise your children secure in their attachment for you and you will not need to teach them independence. They are more likely to take risks when they don’t feel insecure about their parents’ love. And, incidentally, the healthiest adult mother/child relationships I know of are those where the adult child can STILL count on their mamas for comfort and support. ♥ Seeking support and comfort from your mother does not necessarily equal dependence on her. Mr. So-Called-Expert is neither informed nor analytical enough for me to have any respect for his opinions.

The mom nursing her six year old son, on the other hand, came off as sensible, reasonable and intelligent - an excellent counterpoint to the so-called expert of developmental psychology whose outdated views on “detachment parenting” contribute to much of the dysfunction we have in society today.

Check out Custom Made Milk for an even more detailed analysis of this segment.

Reborn dolls
Who cares? Not my thing and yeah, those women seem pretty weird, but it’s a harmless eccentricity. Those dolls are works of art - wow!

“Serial” surrogacy
Who cares? As Scott pointed out, most professional athletes use their bodies to make a living and take far greater risks with their health (boxing??) with exactly zero philanthropic motivation. And they are revered.

Ah, on to the homebirth segment…
First, they totally edited the footage from Ricki Lake’s movie so it looked like Abby Epstein was a failed homebirth emergency, when, in fact, she went into preterm labor with a breech presentation. Unless she was parking at the hospital for weeks, this “transport” to the hospital would have happened regardless of where the birth was planned. At least she had the advantage of having a professional healthcare provider attending her before she went to the hospital.

They don’t make a clear delineation between unassisted birth and midwife-attended homebirth. Unassisted birth is an extreme choice, but that choice does not represent the way most families choose homebirth. Again, outlier.

I was glad Ricki Lake was interviewed, but ultimately they focused on Abby Epstein’s experience and how it represents “everything people think is wrong with homebirth.” (ARGH) I bet the Business of Being Born camp was mighty disappointed at how the homebirth segment was produced. I know I was.

Other annoyances
In general, I assume most of these families were given some indication that a segment on 20/20 would give them the chance to participate in a balanced view of their cause. (Were they even told this was for an “extreme moms” segment and what that meant?) I doubt they tell these moms, hey we want to make you out like a freak show, can we interview you?

I was frustrated with the parents who let their children be interviewed for the breastfeeding piece. I don’t think they’re damaging their children by breastfeeding them - I do think putting them on TV to talk about it when our culture is so poisonous on the topic is a particularly unfortunate lapse in judgment.

All the fathers/husbands on the show were painted as long-suffering spouses putting up with their wives’ wacky behavior. Never once were we shown a spouse who demonstrated that he was a participant in the parenting/decision-making.

As I expected, the show was tabloid journalism at its worst - a segment produced for no other purpose than to exploit base human behavior (let’s make fun of weird people). And it was a segment that did no favors for couples who make well-researched, well-considered decisions about birthing and nourishing their babies, making informed choices that just happen to be outside of mainstream behavior.

Oh a couple other tidbits about BFing (thank you for putting up with me - I’m working through the experience mentally and putting it all down in writing is soooooo therapeutic for me).

When I took him to the doctor on Tuesday, one of the assistants was watching me nurse him and you could see the gears grinding as she put two and two together… here’s a little 12 month old baby nursing right in front of her eyes! She just had to ask: “Has he ever had any solid foods??”

Then the GI doctor, the second day we saw him: “You understand that breastmilk alone is not enough nutrition for a baby over 9 months old, right?”

This AFTER I told him and his assistant AND the nutritionist AND the two different pediatricians in detail what his normal daily intake of solids/breastmilk was. I saw them all taking notes - does no one ever READ this stuff? No, they just look at me nursing him through a freaking illness and extrapolate that to well child care.

My god, the frustration. If I’d had another day there, I would have been saying, if you’re just going to breeze in here on your rounds, say stupid shit and leave, then don’t waste your time and MY MONEY. If you want to have a productive conversation with problem resolution and total health and wellness in mind, then grant me the courtesy of LISTENING to me when I talk, otherwise how in the hell can I take you seriously??

I despair of our health care system. Would socializing it make us even MORE powerless than we already are? That might be one for the debate thread LOL.

And on that note, I don’t even want to think about the bill we’ve incurred. <groan> So much for being out of debt….

Jake will be four months old in three days! Time being the rubber band that it is, it seems like yesterday I found out I was pregnant with him and, simultaneously, it feels like he’s been with us forever!

Some notes on life with Jake:

• Jake is a wee bit ticklish. He’ll laugh if we tickle his belly or underarms during diaper changing time. It’s so cute, that we LOVE to change his diaper LOL. In fact, he generally adores diaper changing time, so it’s a fun little event at our house - everyone available tends to gather round because he’s so smiley and happy and interesting during that time.
  
• Jake loves the exersaucer. Truly, he LOVES that thing. Except when he wearies of it and has a tantrum and starts banging his head on the toys in frustration. Ouchie. I’m really impressed with the age-appropriate feedback they’ve built into this toy, though - just simple cause/effect that holds attention for 10-15 minutes at a time. Thank you to cousin McK and her mommy and daddy for passing it down.
• Grabby: Jake is reaching for EVERYTHING these days - just last week he discovered that he can ALSO make those delightful clicking noises right there in front of the computer, so now we compete for the keyboard! Very tricky sometimes…He grabs for our plates and the bites traveling to our mouths sometimes, too, if we’re holding him when we’re eating (which we usually are), but I don’t know if he’s interested in the food yet, per se. I don’t think he’s totally figured it out yet - that we eat food and it may be yummy.
  

• Bedtime routine. Usually we start winding down around 8 pm. Although often I’ll nurse him right after dinner and he’ll take a catnap on the breast for a half hour or so. This catnap seems to have no effect on his bedtime.He falls asleep for the night anytime between 8:30 and 10:30 - usually sometime between 9:30 and 10 on average. Last night he was really fussy after draining both breasts and having a long nursing session but not falling asleep. I calmed him down by having some gentle playtime on our bed until he started fussing again. I offered the breast and he refused (which he does by latch/unlatch/latch/unlatch, kick fuss wave arms) and finally I just laid him in the sidecar. He fussed for a minute, popped his thumb in his mouth and drifted off to sleep. We had the lullabye CD going too - he really responds to that “cue” that it’s bedtime.

  Sometimes he sleeps through the night (until 4:30 or 5); usually he wakes up around 3 am to nurse. Sometimes, if we’re very unlucky, he wakes up earlier, but that is increasingly rare.

• Naptime breakthrough:
  

  Jake has always been a sling or swing boy for naptimes. But every single week I persist in trying out the crib for naptimes, and every single time - until this past weekend - I failed.

  Suddenly one  weekend last month, I put him in his crib after nursing him to sleep and he slept there for over 2 hours! And he’s successfully taken his naps there ever since.

  But, wait! There’s more!

  A couple days later, I put him down there awake, sleepy and slightly fussy. He promptly konked!

  He’s also figured out how to suck his thumb. I believe this is key to his daytime sleep success. The dark cloud to my silver lining.
  

• Baby weight woes. I’ve been a breastfeeding mother for over five years of my life. Who would have thought I would have any breastfeeding insecurities this time around?? But as it turns out I have a skinny babe. He is almost four months old and weighs 11lbs 14 oz which puts him under the fifth percentile. He is strong, alert, energetic and hitting all his milestones - some early. He is 25th-50th for length and 5-10th for head circumference.He was 8 lbs at birth (42.1 weeks gestation) and regained that after one week, but he has always ridden the back of the weight curve. I haven’t been concerned because my mother-in-law has a similar tale to tell about Scott when he was a child - always skinny. He caught up as a teen and is average now.

  The pediatrician gave me a hard time about this last week, however. She says he may be okay now, but what about when he is rolling/crawling - he’ll need more calories (um, supply and demand - he’ll make more milk to compensate…). She said I have two choices: a bottle of formula per day or rice cereal.  (CEREAL?!?! Ugh)

  Seeing as how this milk grew 90th percentile babies, I feel pretty confident that it is not deficient. Though I suppose my diet could be better.

  In fact, I have five choices - in addition to her suggestions, which are very mediocre choices nutritionally, I also have the option to 1) Wait and see and 2) consult a lactation constultant and 3) supplement with breast milk, which is by far the superior choice considering that he is an exclusively breastfed baby.

• Erring on the side of caution, I spoke with a local lactation consultant and she’s not concerned at all. Jake is gaining about 4 oz per week, which is the least they like to see a BF baby gain, but it is in the range of normal (4-8 ounces is expected; 6 oz is average). If he drops off from there, she would have more concerns about failure to thrive. But as long as he’s gaining around one pound a month, staying on curve, hitting his milestones and peeing and pooping normally, there’s no cause for concern. And he’s on the mark in every regard. Until the doc freaked about this last week, it hadn’t even crossed my mind that there was a problem. He’s generally a happy, contented baby, a little ahead on most milestones. VERY strong and high energy. A great sleeper and a steady nurser.So I think I have some peace of mind. The LC has a little mama/baby shop not too far from me with baby scales, so I’m going to take him in there a couple times between now and his next appointment so I’m not blindsided by the number on the scale again. His next appointment is 2 months from now! An indication the doctor herself wasn’t THAT worried about him which makes the offhand crappy advice about formula/cereal even that much more frustrating - and formula would be a not so great choice if he was FTT and it was all because of a dairy allergy.

  I am making some changes, since there’s no harm with caution in this situation. I’m offering the breast more frequently, even when he hasn’t necessarily expressed a desire to nurse. And I’m not popping him off when he falls asleep at the breast like I sometimes do, especially in the evening when he is wont to nurse and take a catnap at the same time. Last night he napped with the boob in his mouth for 1.5 hours after dinner while Scott did the kitchen cleanup and all the usual after dinner chores.

• Guilty confession: Jake loves Baby Einstein. We’re not a big TV family - we don’t even have cable and only one TV is hooked up to the antennae and that’s the adult’s TV. The kids only watch videos and DVDs occasionally. But a friend gave me a set of Baby Einstein DVDs, so I propped Jake in front of Baby Mozart this week and he loves it! It’s so cute how he squeals and smiles and wiggles. I sit there next to him and watch him sometimes because his reactions are so fun.

  He only lasts about 15 -20 minutes though, then he’s ready to move onto something else. 20 minutes represents a pretty amazing attention span in this energetic little guy, though - usually he’s wanting to hop around from activity to activity every 5 minutes.

  The useful thing about this is that it keeps him entertained when he gets bored while we’re trying to eat dinner, so we’ve actually had a couple of peaceful dinners this week! For that reason, I’ve been saving his viewing for dinnertime or later, though maybe I could use that to get a shower sometime, hmmm.

  ETA: All the big kids like watching it, too LOL. It is very mesmerizing and the music is quite relaxing.

• Biting baby! Jake’s been doing this for a couple weeks (intermittently). Usually for us it happens when he’s done nursing and rather than politely break suction, sometimes he’ll release just enough to get my nipple between his gums and then cllllennnnnnnch. Freaking OW. Now if I see it coming, I insert a finger and break suction before he has a chance to bite down. Any hint whatsoever that he’s going to bite and off the boob he goes. And before you ask: Nope, no signs of teething yet, but he sure is a drooly baby!
  
• Loving cloth diapers: This is the first time I’ve used cloth on my kids and I have to say that - so far <knock wood> - I’m loving it. I’m very happy that the BG2.0 and blueberries have worked out so well for Jake, because I would be very frustrated if I had to cycle through various options until I found the right one. That is a LOT of money.Anyway, so far, so good. We have some occasional leaks, including poopie blowouts, but they’re pretty rare. No more or less than I’ve experienced using disposable dipes. Right now things are going well enough for us on the CD front that there would be no advantage to disposable - except of course the laundry factor.

  I do fatigue of doing diaper laundry every 2-3 days, but for the most part, I think it’s worth it and it’s not like it’s hard. It’s just One More Thing to Deal With.

Jake is starting to establish a pretty reliable pattern to our days, although the following times are VERY approximate…

- Up at roughly 6 am - he’s SO smiley and cute when he wakes up, waving his arms around so happy and engaging. He gets a diaper change, nurses and plays until…

- Naptime (in the sling) at roughly 8 am. On a good day he naps uninterrupted until around 11 am. This isn’t one of those days. On a day like this he catnaps for a bit, snack-nurses, then playtime, then catnap, etc.

- [If asleep, wakes up] wailing for lunch around 11ish. He nurses and has some playtime for an hour or two, then another nap for 2-3 hours.

- Wakes up wailing for a snack around 3ish. He nurses and has some catnap/playtime for 2-3 hours, then it’s time for the fussy spell. The fussy spell seems to be diminishing slightly, though. On a good day, he takes another nap from about 6-8 pm. Alternatively, it’s a grumpy time of restless nursing and catnapping, a little play and lots of jiggling, pacing, slinging, soft music, rocking chair, etc. until he goes down for the night.

- He goes down in the sidecar crib pretty reliably every night usually sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 pm.

- On a good night, he sleeps until 6 am! He did that once, the night of Saturday, September 29, 2007. BLISS.

- On the typical night, he sleeps until around 3 am. I nurse him sitting up in bed and put him back in the sidecar where he sleeps until 6 am. Or if he won’t settle, I nurse him lying down in bed and he spends the rest of the night (what little there is left :-P) in bed with us.

Now that I’ve written this down, I expect it will all change soon.

8 weeks

Sept 18

On breastfeeding: Jake likes to grab my shirt or my skin and knead at it. Also he is developing this very frustrating habit of popping off and on, off and on the boob- particularly when I’m not letting down fast enough to please him and also when letdown is fast and furious. Augh. He’s doing it right now, in fact. It seems also to be something he does when he’s overtired and wants sleep more than he wants boobie (but is in denial as to this fact).

ALSO, Jake just qualified as an Expert Level Nurser… for the first time (last night) he demonstrated the ability to latch on in complete darkness (without causing nipple injury from bad latch). This is significant. The less I have to be involved in helping him properly latch at 3 am, the better quality sleep I’ll manage to get. Light at the end of the tunnel!

Jake’s [Great] Auntie Janice is here today. Which is why you suddenly see a post from me today actually containing some number of words.

And check out Jake babey in his bumbo seat. He’s not really ready for it yet, this was just a photo op. (And a demonstration for his Grandma Karen who will be amazed to see how strong he’s gotten - and look at the control of his head he has now! - since she last saw him!)

Bumbo baby! (6 weeks old)

2 comments

Sept 17

We’ve got a giggling babe! Not a full-on laugh, but an occasional darling chuckle. I just love it.

Also, I ask you: Does anyone ever “sleep when the baby sleeps”?? I can’t do it. I need time to get stuff done and/or just have some non-baby DOWN time way more than I need sleep. Plus I hate napping. Despise it. Always feel hungover afterward.

With that said, I got to bed way too late last night and had to be up way too early. On top of THAT Jake had an unusual 4 am fussy period. Result: I got 3.5 hours of sleep last night in total. I’m a dead woman walking.

Sept 16

On entertaining himself: Not much yet; it’s the sling for this boy - it’s the only way I get anything done most days. I’ve tried Jake in the babyhawk a few times. I wish he liked it, because it’s very comfy for me! So far though he FAR prefers to be cradled in the pouch sling. I think we’ll get more out of the mei tei when I can carry him on my back… hope so anyway!

I have a rocker seat by my desk and can get anywhere from 5-15 minutes out of that here and there throughout the day. It has toys hanging above it. He has zero interest in falling asleep there, though, even when it’s vibrating.

He likes tummy time for 5-10 minutes at a time also, but he’s likely to spit up and face plant into the spit up, so I don’t ever turn my back on him like that.

In other news, while enjoying tummy time this weekend, he rolled over to his back! He’s amazingly strong already…

Sept 12

Jake seems like he’s trying SO hard to laugh. I’ve heard him do it in his sleep (so cute!). And he squealed for the first time the other day.

Sept 10

Scott gave me some kudos yesterday as he marveled at just how much sacrifice mamas make these first weeks (especially when nursing on demand). “You,” he said, “have no life!” God, I know. I KNOW. I survive knowing this too shall pass, and just how fast it all really does go. You blink and next thing you know they’re ELEVEN.

6 weeks

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Lots to write about, but not much computering time these days. Here’s a summary of some of the things I’ve done In the past week:

1. Nursed and nursed and nursed baby boy through his fussy two week growth spurt
2. Took Jake to local mama/baby shop for weight check - he’s regained his birth weight, plus half a pound (as of today he’s 8.5 lbs)
3. Bought Lily Padz nursing pads. Tried them out this afternoon. So far I’m liking! They seem to be pretty effective.
4. Bought new nursing bras one size bigger than I had on hand. I’m pretty sure the other ones were just enough too tight to create a problem (see #7 below).
5. Brushed teeth daily (sometimes two times per day!)
6. Two baths!
7. Suffered from cold one of daughters brought home from school.
8. Smacked down an encroaching bout of mastitis. Here’s how:

After two days of a low-grade fever that made me feel generally miserable, I woke up today feeling MUCH better! I guess it was plugged ducts making me feel so crappy. I had plugged ducts in both breasts and treated them aggressively yesterday. By late yesterday evening I could tell they were starting to clear and they were completely soft and not as tender by the time I woke up this morning - and fever is gone. So glad, because if I was feverish again for 3rd day I was thinking doc appt would be in order. Yay, I think I fought off full blown mastitis!

I thought I’d post my treatment routine in case it might help anyone else:

• Braless
• Moist heat - I filled disposable diapers with hot water and used it as a compress against each breast for about 5 min before nursing. I also soaked in a warm bath last night before bed with Jake, nursing him in the tub.
• Massaging the plugged ducts while nursing.
• Usually I nurse exclusively using cradle hold, but I mixed it up with some football hold yesterday (and will continue today, too) so that his nursing would more efficiently access the ducts that were plugged (on outside of breasts).

Right now Jake is snoozing on his daddy’s chest while I steal this moment. God, I could sit here and unwind for hours. How I miss my computer time! But the babe wakes like clockwork at 1:30 am, so I should go now and grab as many consecutive hours of sleep as possible.