Comments Lounge
Flea, your post made my shitty morning. Thank you! I am definitely not looking forward to the idea of using a breast pump once Peanut's born. Unfortunately, we can't afford to live on hubby's income alone, so once I max out the sick and vacation time, I'll be back to work. The birthing classes we're taking highly recommend getting in touch with LLL/going to meetings and I've been putting it off. I KNOW I'll get all sorts of shit about pumping or having to supplement while working.
OK, I worded that badly. Your post didn't make my morning shitty. Hurricane Jeanne did. Your post made me laugh.
Oh I am so glad I didn't read this one at work as I was just screaming laughing so loud the dog and the SO just came in to investigate. It would have been so much harded to explain to co-workers about nipple torture.
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selzach, f'k 'em. Seriously. I'm all for breast feeding and the like, but there is also survival. You can only do your best. If this means pumping, then pump. If this means supplement, then supplement. We all want to breast feed exclusively for as long as possible. We also want equal pay for equal work. (I also want a full time cook). They are dreams, and we live in reality.
Do the best you can with what you have where you are.
Do as much breast feeding as you can without driving yourself up the wall. Don't make it so complicated that you start to resent your baby and your job. {{hugs}} Good luck!
Okay, now while this post didn't entirely solve the "I have goldfish that communicate better than my client" problem, it did make me laugh until milk came out my nose.
And wish I could hook the client up to the pump 
but wait...why would anyone look down on a woman who pumped? The kid gets the breast milk, yes? I thought that was supposed to be the right thing to do. Is there a difference than getting it straight from the boob?
Also, why is it bad to share pumps? Presumably you can clean them, yes? Somebody enlighten me here.
"but wait...why would anyone look down on a woman who pumped?"
I don't know - did anybody say anything about people looking down on women who pump? I didn't. I think Selzach and I were in agreement that we did not enjoy the thought/experience of being hooked up to a machine, and Morrigan was telling Selzach to do whatever made her happiest.
As far as not sharing, the LLL rep told me that since the machine involves bodily fluids, it is considered an HIV risk to share them. IMO, if you replace the tubing and plastic pump part that you put over your hooter, what's the worry? No sense in buying a whole new motor part. But no, they say purchase a whole new damn machine. To hell with that, I say.
As far as the rest of your questions, the breast pump provides extra breast milk that can then be frozen and stored, and also put in a bottle so Daddy or the non-bio mom can take a turn feeding the baby if Mom isn't home or needs a nap.
In my opinion, what is best for the baby is whatever works best for the mother and baby together. If it's breastfeeding, fine. If it's formula feeding, fine. In my direct experience, with my first I felt so much pressure to "do what was right for the baby" by breastfeeding that my milk supply dried up. With my second, I had a much more relaxed attitude and had no trouble breastfeeding.
Poor Flossie. Poor, poor Flossie.
I just sold my pump to a friend. The LLL would be horrified.
Yeah, that little floral design on the pump bottle is such the dominating pattern.
There are other reasons you're not supposed to share breast pumps. For example, yeast infections (aka candida, or thrush). Yeast 'spores' can be sucked into the machine/working parts of the pump, not just the tubing and breast trumpets, etc. And thrush is a nasty, nasty thing to get on your nipples. It's one of those 'gifts that keep on giving' kind of nasties...you have it on your nipples, pass it to baby, get baby's infection cleared up, get your infection cleared up, get another vaginal infection and use the same towel to dry your upper body and voila! Your nipples are carriers again.
I got the cheapie breast pump as I was not planning to use it often - are you saying the $$$ ones actually work better? God I hope so, because I have had to reture my right boob due to a limp that can't be properly diagnosed through all the milk. Now I have to ramp up production on my remaing boob.
Sel, I broke down and offered a botte of formula today. All I can say is, taste the stuff, and suddenly pumping will have tremendous appeal. I spent an hour with my crappy cheap pump after the baby went to bed, so desperate am I to avoid supplementing. Starting solids early has got to be better than having the baby suck down a gray liquid that smells like rotten eggs.
Wow, check out the typos. It's a LUMP I have in my right breast, not a limp. And it does not appear to be anything dangerous, but they have to make sure and also cure the fistula they created when they biopsied the lump.
Good grief, Smithie. I'm sorry. Please take care of yourself. And yeah, I hate to say it, but the more expensive breast pumps do work MUCH better. Let me find a link to the one I had and I'll post it here for you.
Here you go, Smithie:
http://www.medela.com/NewFiles/
p...ml##pnsoriginal
This is the one I borrowed from my neighbor, and it worked very well.
Smithie, you can also rent the hospital grade ones. That's what Kahlan did. Also hit up the mothering boards and see if any one is selling a good pump. That's how Ruby got a nice one for cheap when she had to go back to work suddenly. (the hospital one was too big to go back and forth to work with)
That was beautiful! I had to wipe a little tear from my eye.
"men who enjoy humiliation"
A concept that I will never grasp. Slap a breast pump on my nipple and I will fell incredibly stupid, but not humiliated.
And this turns some men on? To each their own ...
I actually look forward to pumping when I'm at work. It is because I can shut my door and read this blog without any fear that someone will catch me goofing off! With everyone thinking that I'm pumping, it does get hard to explain why I'm laughing...
I had always thought thrush was a surface-spread thing...
Smithie, I had to pump exclusively for weeks due to latch issues. Get a PIS. Even better, contact an LC and rent a hospital pump since you have to boost your supply so much. Fenugreek and brewers yeast will also help boost supply. Feel free to email me if you'd like. I've been there. Dev is allergic to all formula and HAD to have bm. Supplementing was not an option (morri can tellyou about the 3 hellish weeks we lived with her so she could help us out with it).
Smithie - I'm sorry to hear about the lump and fistula. Yowza.
Flea and Morrigan - thanks for the good pump info. I really don't want to go the formula route, but I'm not going to drive myself batshit crazy if pumping while working doesn't work.
Oh, my! Does that mean that there is a market for second hand breast pumps? Anyone want to buy mine? Guaranteed to rip your nipples right off.
as a former employee of a local dungeon, you would not believe the lengths to which some men will go to each ever-variegated heights of humiliation. Its quite a booming business. Personally, I never used a breast pump but I might just add that one to the repertoire!
Thistles, meet Anne. Anne has a vicious second-hand breast pump she wants to unload. Anne, meet Thistles. She is in the market for a product guaranteed to play hell on the nipples.
Finally, after a year and a half, I feel like I've finally accomplished something with this blog.
OK, I left a message at the pump rental station at the hospital where I'm getting a breast ultrasound tomorrow. Hopefully they will be able to give me one. Thanks for pushing me in the right direction
And just in case anybody's worried, this lump business is more in the nature of a hassle than a serious illness. If it were cancer, the biopsy would have shown that.
Smithie, forgive me but I was cracking up trying to picture a breast with a limp..."Mister DILlon, Mister DILlon!"
I had to pump as my son spent his first five weeks in the NICU, and ended up drying up anyway and having to give formula (for which I still harbor more than a modicum of guilt). The first time I saw my nipple stretched out to about 5" in length by that damn pump, I just about freaked.
Thistles, I have the Avent Isis, which is a hand pump, so, you do have to do some work. But get a smaller flange and it will hurt even more.
But the new Medela Harmony, OUCH! That really hurt. I gave that to my sister in law when she had a baby.
Yay Smithie! I hope this one works better for you. And less painful.
Tit Nazis ... LMAO.
Pumping is not that much of a pain in the ass. It gets better with each kid. I pumped at work for 2 kids. According to IL law, the company is required to provide a pumping place that is not a bathroom. LLL has all the state laws on breastfeeding on their website.
They say Medella pumps should not be shared because the breast milk goes through tubes/machine that cannot be cleaned. I used Hollister Pump In Style which does not have that problem. The tubes are used only for air suction and the milk never gets into the motor.
I also enjoyed my pumping breaks. I brought a CD player and listened to relaxation tapes. It was a great break in the workday.
I got a lot of support at LLL with pumping suggestions.
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