How to Look for Stars

In a few moments, I may or may not be asleep. I hope that I will be, but I've been having so much trouble sleeping lately, and now the problem seems to be catching. My little girl usually has several naps during the day including at least one or two 90 to 120 minute naps (or longer), but lately she hasn't been napping as well during the day, or sleeping as well during the night. I am not sure what the root cause of this sudden insomnia may be, but I am trying what the experts say to fix it. One goal I have for this blog (someday, when I'm more organized) is to collect all of the information that I have gathered from all of the blogs and books that I have read. I'd like to collect the advice from medical journals, peer review articles, and my own doctors, nurses, and medical friends' advice, as well as anecdotes of successful and unsuccessful stories from fellow mothering partners.

My most recent struggle has been a questionable milk supply and and a failure to pump as successfully as my goals are. Early on, around 6-7 weeks, I could pump 6 to 8 ounces at a time. My little girl at that age could easily guzzle a 4 or 5 ounce bottle at times, and the spit up and fun was plenty. Many times she didn't spit up, though,  and now that we are here at almost 17 weeks (in about 35 minutes) and she is more and more restless after some feeding (not all, usually just at night) and I am only pumping at the most two ounces at a time (although for the last day or so I am struggling to get one ounce out of these girls) I am concerned that she may not be getting all the milk she wants. Is this the end of the world? I should say not, considering that apparently some babies will go on strike for a few days and still be ok. I can't imagine, but I am sure it's possible.

At any rate, My advice to myself:

• SLEEP: As much as you can. A nap or 5 during the day, as well as you can at night. If you have to take a nursing vacation for two days to get the sleep you need, do it. Rest and relaxation is key to proper milk production.
• NURSE: This seems obvious, but apparently, using a pacifier can decrease your milk supply if you are trying to pump extra for a back up supply or general milk supply maintenance. Sometimes baby really only wants her binky, but I always at least try now to offer a boob first.
• GALACTAGOGUE: These are foods and herbs that help to increase milk supply. As far as foods go, you can munch on almonds, dark leafy greens, oatmeal, and anything with lots of brewer's yeast. For herbs, try raspberry leaf, stinging nettle, anise seed, spirulina, fennel seed, fenugreek, small amounts of turmeric and ginger to get the girls more eager. I like teas to utilize the herbs best, but essential oils (in tea or on the chest away from the nipple) work too.
• PUMP: to keep your supply up, you must pump every time after you nurse. it sounds troublesome, and it is. I won't lie to you. I can tell you from experience though, the first several weeks I pumped like a madwoman and my supply was great. My pump broke and I was doing a manual pump and nursing only for about a month, and I haven't had the same kind of success since. Pump early, pump often

So that's my advice! I am trying it now and I will continue to keep you posted on my success. She is up to about 15 pounds which is sterling compared to her birthweight of 6 pounds and 13 ounces. I think everything is going just fine, I would just be more at ease if I could get some more of a back up supply built up in case of emergencies.

Tonight's entry is short because as I mentioned earlier, I am extremely fatigued. But I will mention quickly before I go that I left out the bit about making sure you eat a lot. I don't find eating a lot to be iportant to milk production - maybe even counter productive - and let me tell you  why. When I first gave birth, for several weeks I walked (granted slowly) for a long time every day, most days of the week. I walked short periods if I couldn't do a long walk. I drank like a fish - fruit juice, probiotic juice, acai juice, and mostly a lot of water. So much water was consumed. I really didn't eat much though. I might have had some oatmeal, maybe a salad. But I wasn't eating to gorge myself or even "ravenously" as I'd heard many breastfeeding moms may do. As I mentioned earlier, my supply was fantastic. After about 2 months, my pump broke, yes, but I also started eating more and walking less. I took about a month or so off of walking because I was bleeding profusely and I didn't want to injure myself. I began eating ravenously to take up the time from boredom - and sleep deprived as I was getting, eating helped me stay awake (so I thought). Since my supply didn't increase when I ate so much, I can only conclude that it has little effect on your supply.

Please don't go out and starve yourself after giving birth, that is not my intention. I simply don't want you to feel that you have to eat twice your normal amount or an extra meal - if you desire it, please, go ahead. But don't go out of your way to stuff your face just because it may or may not help your supply. Drinking plenty of water and getting plenty of electrolytes is far more important, trust me!

So that's it. A few grains of inspiration in the dark, stormy, desert skies. Good luck out there, mums.

Every day I'm Motherin'

It's unusual for me to write every day, anywhere, except my physical journals, but I'm going to give this a shot. You see, motherhood is overwhelming to me. In good ways usually, but here and there, I have a moment (or an afternoon)  where I just feel like I cannot possibly carry the weight of another beautiful capable human being and all of their glorious struggles. Being married has taught me a lot about patience, kindness, forgiveness, and ego. Being a mother has taught me all of those things times infinity.

Today, I had a nap with my sweet little girl. She is turning 17 weeks old the day after tomorrow and it simply makes me want to explode with joy, pride, happiness, and gratitude. She is doing so well She has made it so very far! She is such a big beautiful little blessing for me and I can't help but think of that every time I look at her. It helps me to repeat those things when she is screaming because of an owwy, or being over tired, or being shocked or alarmed out of happiness, playing, or sleeping. She is my little precious darling, no matter how sad or mad she may be, and I will remember that well into her adulthood.

After our sleep we tried to accomplish many things. We went to the store and acquired witch hazel, rubbing alcohol, triple antibiotic, and fenugreek supplements. We also got a lot of wonderful organic herbs and some fresh veggies!

While we were walking up to the store at one point she looked up at me after gazing with awe at everything else - and she had that same awe when she looked at me. I could actually see the love pouring through her beautiful eyes and her smile just lit me up inside.

Those moments... those are what I want to record and remember, forever. That is what I am here for.

Welcome to Motherhood

Hello! If you are reading this, you have probably just joined legions of woman across the world dating thousands of years back on the glorious road to motherhood. I think if you want to be a mother, you have already joined, since being a mother doesn't necessarily require you to give birth (although it certainly does help! Adoption is a beautiful choice, too). Regardless of how you ended up here, welcome!

In my experience, motherhood is a terrifying, overwhelming, incredibly mindful and ultimately calming decision and experience. Sometimes we aren't sure what we are doing when take those first steps from getting a positive test to setting up that first check up with your doctor (or midwife, or doula, or chiropractor - whatever path we choose). It's very important to nurture yourself while experiencing this new chapter in your life. I'd like to take time to define each of these ideas with much more detail in individual posts, but I mostly wanted to introduce myself here first.

My name is Micah Schlosser, and I'm a 28 year old pseudo-retired Hair Artist with a strong passion for music and the outdoors. My interests spread from the realm of astrophysics, to chemistry, to food and cooking, to mindfulness, to yoga, and beyond. I'm currently involved in a few different and wonderful mommy groups here in Fairfield, Iowa, and I am so lucky to live in such a tight-knit community where so many wonderful and caring individuals just reach out to everyone here in the community that may need some guidance and nurturing along the way of motherhood. For example, I just moved here from Atlanta, Georgia (and Traverse City, Michigan before that, and Phenix City, Alabama, before that, and Atlanta, Georgia before that, and well, you get the idea).

I've always thought of myself as "not the mothering type." Thanks to some very overzealous teenage and young adult years, I felt I was very selfish and had too many problems to be a mother. I had struggled with serious depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and a host of other "conditions." I use quotes because after many years of soul searching and meditating, and one very harrowing nervous breakdown (another post, another day) I found myself. I lost myself in a sea of insomnia and fear (of everything but mostly people) and then I found myself drowning in depression. After I came out of that experience (with the gentle nurturing of my family, friends, and now husband) I discovered I was so much more than I'd thought I could be.

When we are young we tend to define ourselves quickly and succinctly, never looking back to question why we so quickly slapped the labels on ourselves that we did. For me, this was something I'd messed around with in a meta-paradigm (or collection of ideas) called "Chaos Magick Theory." That's another post for another time (actually, 2 whole other blogs, but we'll discuss it later). Thanks to this idea, I'd already had experience of questioning my dogmas and "hardset" ideas about life, the universe, and everything else. What I did not expect was that it had not prepared me as well as I had hoped for the bonecrushing pressure of reality. What I learned from that nervous breakdown and recovery was that no matter how hard you prepare yourself for what you think life is about, there will always be a beautiful or distressing surprise waiting for you depending on your outlook at the time.

That could be the theme of my entire blog here, of my entire life. Whatever you do to prepare for anything it will never replace the experience itself. The only way to gain experience is to actually go through with the act. So as a human being, I am here to tell you I've prepared extensively for motherhood (besides being overweight  much to my chagrin - I tried to be healthy while pregnant but I still gained 40 pounds, and I've only lost 10 - well, I initially lost 40 pounds and then I regained 30 in 4 short months so we'll talk about that more later too) and regardless of my knowledge I was overwhelmed at the hospital with decisions I thought I understood but could not follow through with, and I didn't exactly have the birth of my dreams. I was overwhelmed with very quick, very sudden pain, and I was also very much on my back and had some trouble getting her up and out of me - a lot of trouble. I had some serious tearing and I was pretty sore for about 8 weeks. Even after that, I was not 100 percent. To be honest, I still get the random sharp stabbing pain here and there ( at 16 weeks) so we are definitely still learning about our body!

It's not that being prepared does you no good. I've seen some other people go through what I went through with relatively little preparation (compared to the 20 or so books and countless blogs and journals I scoured trying to learn it all) and they had some very tough decisions to make, thanks to our patriarchal over medicated health care system. But they all have beautiful babies and now we get enjoy motherhood together, so I'm thankful to have the curiosity about all of these things and the motivation to share my knowledge and experience with other.

So there we have it - a short little description of myself and my experiences, and here in a little while, I will share more about myself, my pregnancy, my birthing story, and my amazing experience with my beautiful daughter thus far.