Pumping in Style

MDad's mom very nicely gave us the Medela Pump In Style Advanced breast pump, and last night we got to try it out for the first time (after MDad sterilized everything in boiling water). Bearing in mind that the nice lady who taught the breastfeeding class I attended said that we should only expect "a few drops" the first few times we pumped, I got 1.5 oz! Not anywhere close to a whole feeding, but enough for Daddy to give bottle-feeding a try. Andrew took to it well, with only a minimum of fussing and confusion. I must give uber-thanks to my friend K and her husband C for the extremely helpful advice on bottles (yay, Avent!), nipples (yay, Avent Newborn -- although I think the flow is still much faster than the breast), Dad-feeding-baby (yay, skin-to-skin!), etc. -- it worked like a charm. Earlier tonight I managed to pump about 2.5 ounces, and I plan on pumping again after Andrew's next feeding, so I hope to get a good amount stored up for Dad to use. Maybe at 3:30 a.m., heh heh heh.

Any of you out there who plan on having a baby, breastfeeding, and pumping: be prepared for extreme distortion of your nipples in the breast pump! I lectured MDad before starting last night: "Don't laugh." I did this not because I expected his ridicule, but because I fully expected to start giggling myself. Which is exactly what I did. I never knew my body could contort that way, and so rhythmically! Moo! The things we do for our children...and frankly, after giving birth, all modesty is out the window anyway. I never expected to have dinner-table conversations about breast engorgement and vaginal bleeding with MDad's mom, but that's exactly what happened at our last visit. During pregnancy, your body is not your own, but little do you know that it's pretty much going to stay that way permanently.

We've been very busy out and about with Andrew the past few days. I took him to work on Tuesday, where he was fawned upon by dozens of women (and I got to eat a hot, full sit-down meal at the staff holiday luncheon). Yesterday we got out and did some errands and shopping for the greater part of the day, and today we actually went to the mall (keeping Andrew shielded from germs with his stroller visor, of course). It feels really good to get out of the house, especially since it gets dark at 4:00 p.m., it seems, so those daylight hours of activity are precious.

Andrew is loving his Sleep Sheep (and I apologize, because I can't remember if it was a gift from Auntie H or Auntie J, both of whom are high-school friends). Anyway, he's a big fan of ambient noise: the Sleep Sheep has ocean sounds, rain sounds, etc. Harvey Karp is right about loud shushing-type noises: they really do soothe newborns. However, Andrew is no longer interested in being swaddled at night. Last night we dressed him in a sleep sack for the first time, and he didn't seem to miss his arms being swaddled at all (he never did care for swaddled legs). Fine with me -- it was a big pain in the ass, after feeding him in the middle of the night, to get him re-swaddled, with no loose blanket ends, and without waking him up and pissing him off.