Pumping

Then Shael and I came home (this is my sidenote in my rant; now I'm just plain complaining). The girls were amazing. Patient. Helpful. Sweet. Shael slept for about 23 hours a day the first week, which was unnerving. We had stayed longer in the hospital because his bilirubins were too high; he'd had a hard time nursing. Once we got home, he quite nursing altogether. It was a mess. Luckily, the hospital sends out a nurse for one home visit. That was immensely helpful. However, Shael still will not nurse. Breast feeding is extremely important to me, so I have been pumping around the clock during his 9 week life. I remember talking to my friend Kim years ago about breastfeeding- she had said that she would never breastfeed, because it made her think of the pigs on the farm. She said, "I will not suckle my children." Of all the reasons I've heard for women not breastfeeding, this is the one I respect most. Seriously. It's cut and dried, she's not blaming "this" or "that", she is simply stating it as a fact. I couldn't relate, but I respected it. Now, I totally GET IT. I can't go anywhere fun with the kids, like the zoo, because I need to pump at certain times. I can't go more than a few hours. Images of dairy cattle lining up outside the barn during milking time pop into my head. As I pull out the pumping contraption and hook up the equipment, I am transported into the dairy parlor I milked in as a teenager. I hook myself up much like I hooked those pathetic cows up. I feel like I should chew my cud while I wait through another boring 20 minutes of "milking". The only difference between milking myself and milking cows, is that I can rest assured that I will not be slapped across the face by a tail covered in cow poo. While this only happened to me once when I milked as a teen (I'm a fast learner), this is a positive in my comparison.