The thing about a second child,
I find anyway, is that I expect myself to be competent. However, when I really think about it, I wasn’t all that competent with the first one. Why would I expect myself to be competent with the second?
Don’t get me wrong; this doesn’t cause me much anxiety – my lack of competence. I am just a little surprised at my naivety this time around.
“What? This worked for Franklin! Why doesn’t it work for Eliza?”
Riiight, a totally different baby.
(hand slaps forehead)
As we round out the fourth trimester I can definitely say things are good. There are things that have gone definitely better this time around (breast-feeding), things that have been the same (haemorrhoids suck) and things that have been worse (the crying, oh the crying).
Ever heard of
hyperlactation syndrome? It’s not something I ever thought I would have to worry about with my wonderful bouts of mastitis with Franklin. I avoided the mastitis problem this time and low and behold, too much milk?!? So much milk that Eliza gets too much for her little body too fast. So much foremilk that she fills up on it and doesn’t get to the hind milk. Too much foremilk means too much low-fat protein and gas build-up. This causes, hands down, the best projectile vomit I’ve ever seen in my life.
The vomiting is hilarious because she’s gassy and bothered and cranky and then she spews watery milk across the room (she seems to always to reach the teak wood on the heirloom rocking chair or my side of the bed) and then she looks at my shocked face and seems to say, “What? Haven’t you seen the Exorcist?”
We are getting there. I can convince my breasts to produce a little less but I can’t do a thing about my let down - my massively powerful swoosh that, I swear to God, feels like I’m about to have an orgasm in my breasts. For Eliza, I think it may be a little like trying that plastic flamingo drinking game where someone pours a beer down the neck of the lawn ornament and you have to try to chug it down without wasting any of the precious Bud Light or whatever horrible beer that die hard asshole from the bush party who should have graduated years ago but still likes to be the cool guy and tries to feel you up as you wait for your boyfriend to get back from peeing in the bushes….
Sorry, where was I?
Anyway. Either Eliza will get the hang of the let-down at some point and by high school be able to master the flamingo chug or we will have a few more weeks/months of the milk version of Linda Blair.
And really, I’ve always loved that movie so whatever.
Posted by Ada
Comments
I'm sure you've thought of this but can you express some first so it's not too much for her? I'm sure there's a breastmilk bank (if not in Victoria then no where in Canada, I'd think :) ) that'd be happy to have it? I envy you, though, me with my Not Enough Milk and giving up to switch to formula lead to constipation issues that I'm still dealing with and trying to figure out.
But, more importantly, I'm happy for you that you didn't get the mastitis again!