I'm Baaaaaaack!

Well, I'm in Phoenix, Arizona for the next couple of days.  My boss sent me and two coworkers to the 30th Annual Barrow Neuroscience Symposium.  Today was the first day, and it promises to be really good!  So far the speakers have been engaging and the topics have been excellent.  I've also gotten to know the newest member of our team better.  She came from Michigan a couple of months ago to fill the Manager position for the unit.  She's literally old enough to be my mother, but we have SO much in common!  It's been really awesome to find out that she loves so many of the same things that I do, and we actually think a lot alike.  She is a very strong personality which I know some people might misconstrue, but I really think she has the well-being of the unit in mind.

So, I started running again today.  Week 2 Day 3 of C25K after a 2-week hiatus due to runner's knee.  I'll tell you what, that was no stinkin' fun.  Since I'm in Phoenix and don't know my way around or the degree of safety around here, I just ran on the treadmill in the fitness room at the hotel.  I wore my new shoes and compressive braces on both knees.  It went very well!  I still have a tiny hint of residual soreness from time to time on my right knee, but otherwise I feel 100%.  My right ankle has been on the weak side ever since my accident and I feel like I land a little harder on that foot than I do my left.  I don't know how to fix that, but I am trying to be aware of it and step lighter.

I'm going back to hard-core Whole30 eating when I get back home.  The bloating and gut issues have been really uncomfortable and it's just not worth it to eat those foods.  Well, the blueberry bread pudding at Switch last night was worth it.  Very worth it.  I DO make good choices though...for dinner I had lettuce wraps with fresh veggies and lamb, and they were super tasty!  I've been eating good food as a whole, with a little wheat here or a little dairy there, etc.  Ick.  Just not good for my body.  So this time the family is going to gradually join me, whether they like it or not.  Ha.  I'll splurge a little at Thanksgiving and Christmas and during our week with the in-laws, but that's all.  Need to eat clean.  Wheat and dairy hate me.

My milk supply has been good so far.  I don't think I brought enough bottles for my expressed milk.  Oops.  I'm going to have to buy some bags.

Well, it's time to study.  Got stuff due this week and I need to make good use of all of this quiet, uninterrupted time.  I miss my crazy family, though.  Really.  A lot.

An addendum...

I was poking around and noticed that someone hit my blog by searching for "whole30 bad experience nursing". So I figured that I'd answer their search question, assuming that they're meaning "nursing" in the sense of "breastfeeding".

My milk supply has been just fine. My routine is that I pump at work, twice per day during chill days and once per day during crazy days (I work an average of 8 hours per day). I drink water to thirst and do not take any herbs to increase my supply. I have used More Milk Plus in the past, but since it's tinctured in alcohol I haven't used it during my Whole30. I've always had an abundant supply though, so it shouldn't shock me that I still make enough to feed my babe and have enough leftover to milkshare with a friend who is having lactation difficulty.

Anyhoo, I nurse as soon as I get home, then for nourishment and comfort throughout the evening and night. We bedshare and I love it. True, my babe isn't sleeping through the night, but it doesn't really bother me, keeps my milk supply up, and helps us stay close even though I'm gone every day. I roll over with him to switch sides and judging from an approximate number of roll-overs (approximate because I never fully wake up...so I'm a little hazy) he nurses an average of 3-4 times per night.

My nursling doesn't seem to mind my diet...no particular issues with gas or upset tummy. He's as chubby and happy as he could be, so I'm assuming he's properly nourished.

That's about it. Hope that helps if you're wondering if doing Whole30 affects milk supply/nursing relationship.

Another giveaway!

This giveaway is for a Simple Wishes bra/bustier, specially designed for hands-free pumping! My pumping days have gone for Deklan and Gavin, but boy, do I wish I had one of these when I was doing it at least three times daily at work! I pumped at work for both of my boys, as I worked the night shift and went back to work after six weeks. Pumping for me was always on my breaks...my two 15 minute breaks and my lunch for 30 minutes...which generally meant that I either didn't eat at all for lack of time (when all I had was a manual pump), or scarfed my meal as fast as I could after pumping for my babe (after I got my Medela...woohoo for mechanical pumps!). Pumping was what allowed our breastfeeding relationships to thrive even though I was at work, and I ended up breastfeeding Deklan for over a year and Gavin for almost two years. Anyway, I believe that this would allow for easier and more discrete pumping at work and at home, as well as enabling you to multi-task. I remember the days of driving and hour or two home from a night shift in traffic and attempting to pump one side at a time in the rush-hour crawl. With this, I could have just hooked up before driving away, pushed the button, and pumped away! I am really glad to have found out about this. I had looked into pumping bras when I was pumping for Gavin, but just never found one that looked sturdy or comfortable enough. I even looked into DIY conversion patterns, and never did it. I know that, should God bless us with another little one (and I hope He does!!), I'll be getting one of these for my back-to-work and back-to-school days! Thank you, Talk Birth, for getting this giveaway out there!

My peaches! Someone stole my peaches!

Not really. While we were gone, the squirrels lit into my peaches on the tree and almost all of them are destroyed or stolen! There are peach pits lining my fence. That wouldn't have happened with Ziggy patrolling the yard, for sure! The weather is starting to feel a little more fall-ish here, with overcast skies today. I have to spend a day in the yard sometime next week to do some weeding. Trav and the boys are going to help with some of the garden preparations, and this fall he is going to build me my compost bin. Yay! I'm already planning what's going to go into the garden for the spring.

Ziggy is on a chewing spree, the little beast. He is now eating clothes! I don't know what to do...we're going to have to keep him put up at night and completely supervised during the day. Right now he's chewing contentedly on a Kong filled with peanut butter...we give him good things to chew, so why does he still eat our stuff?

While roaming Nana's gardens, I had a great idea. She has her gardens separated off with bricks. She also has stepping stones made of cement with each of the family's names drawn into the cement while it was still wet, decorative stones and pieces of glass pressed into the cement, etc. Now, to combine the two ideas. When I have my birthing home/home birth practice, I want to have each family decorate a brick however they like...with the baby's date of birth, family members names, painting, etc., to border my garden/the garden at the birthing home. It would be a really cool memory, I think. Thoughts? Ideas?

You know, when I was on my trip, I got some disapproving looks and comments when some of my family members found out that I'm still breastfeeding Gavin. I'm actually getting ready to wean him, I think, but that's beside the point. I just don't know why people get so uptight about nursing a toddler. I don't know why they think it is excessive or unnatural or obscene. And I don't know why they think it's their business to disapprove in the first place! Why don't people research things out a little bit when they have a problem with something? Taken directly from the World Health Organization's website, this the summary of their stance on length of time to breastfeed: "exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life is the recommended way of feeding infants, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to two years or beyond." So then why do people have such a problem? For starters, it is recommended that an infant be EXCLUSIVELY breastfed for the first six months. No water, no juice, no watered-down cereal, no baby food, no Cheerios, JUST BREASTMILK. Most mothers are told (by their OB, pediatrician, mother, sister, who knows?) that they should try to nurse for six months, a year at most, then wean. Pediatricians sometimes recommend supplementation with sugar water, etc. Why? And then, the mother who nurses her toddler gets looks and words of disapproval for trying to give their child the best start, the start that has benefits that have been shown to be evident even through adulthood! And why do women not get told about the WHO recommendation to nurse for up to two years or beyond? Because the pediatricians get visitors from formula vendors? Because they get all kinds of benefits and goodies if they recommend them to their patients? In a healthcare provider's vow to "do no harm", I, as a nurse, take that a step further...to strive to not only do no harm, but to also try to achieve the best possible result for my patient. I won't go so far as to say that formula harms...after all, it is the only choice for some! But if a doc were trying to achieve the best possible result for their patient, why would they advise a new mother to only nurse for six months or a year, then abruptly wean? Support that nursing momma! Cheer her on! Tell her to nurse for as long as she's able! Try to give that baby the best possible start in life in order to see the best possible result in adulthood! Now, all of this being said, I know that some mothers cannot nurse, cannot exclusively nurse, or cannot nurse for that long. Sometimes their milk dries up in spite of every effort to keep their supply. Sometimes their baby just isn't gaining weight properly and they have to supplement. Sometimes they just make a choice not to...and that's their business and not mine. My biggest issue is being an informed consumer. I have mentioned before how I encourage this to my patients and to family members who ask me medical questions. Their job is to learn and know, and make educated decisions. If they are educated and still make a different decision than I would, so be it. But to be misinformed and make a decision based on misinformation, or to just "go with" something because that's what other people around them have done, well, I feel that's just not right. It's not right in the hospital setting, in the physician-patient relationship, or in a mother's choice of what to put into their child. In Christian circles, we talk about how, yes, it's great to have a pastor to listen to and to hear preach, but you simply can't take his word for everything! You need to read, to study, to search "to see whether these things were so", right? So why should it be any different in life? Even people with the best intentions can be wrong. We're all human. We make mistakes. We misconstrue things. So when it comes to important decisions, be it nursing or surgery or what kind of food you put on your plate, be an educated consumer.

Well, I was going to do some heavy-duty cleaning around here today, but the kids are napping and a blog-vent spontaneously popped up, so I guess a basic clean and a few loads of laundry will have to do!