Henna Experiment

Here is a collection of photos showing how I used a 50/50 mixture of Henna and Indigo to color a sample of my hair.

Original Hair Sample (Before Henna-Indigo)

 Final Hair Sample (After Henna-Indigo)

The Process

Initial Henna Mixture (Before Dye Release)

 Henna Mixture After 12 Hours (After Dye Release)

Indigo Mixture (Mixed When the Henna was Ready)

Henna and Indigo Side-by-Side

Henna-Indigo Mixed Together

Hair Sample Partially in Henna-Indigo Mixture

Hair Sample Ready to Go (Left it About 5 Hours Before Washing It)

I Would Do The Same Thing

I moved back home in 2003, and shortly thereafter I started having dinner with my Grandparents on Monday nights. We continued this tradition for many years, and during these dinners, sometimes I would ask them questions and sometimes they would tell me stories about different things.

Around the time of their 65^th wedding anniversary, I was still a newlywed, so I asked Grandpa and Grandpa for their best advice for a successful marriage.

Grandma said, "Learn to stand up for yourself."

Grandpa said, "Learn when to keep your mouth shut."

I must admit, I was expecting advice that was more along the lines of "be a good listener," but I got a nice chuckle out of this. Their response was so honest and so real. It reminded me that we all need to figure out what works for us in our relationships and they did that so well for 69 years.

During one of our Monday night dinners, my Grandpa showed me an old black and white composition notebook, the kind with a spot to write your name. On the cover, for name, he’d written, “Life of Ken Lehman.”

On these pages, he writes about growing up near Alma and Cochrane, attending a one room schoolhouse he called “Little Blue Bell,” and working on his parent’s farm until he was 21.

He talks mostly about specific events, like his first job hauling livestock to St. Paul and his first 1957 Chevy. He talks about love in only one spot. When he gets to the part about meeting Grandma, he writes,

“In 1943 I met my wife Carolyn Dutter. I guess it was love at first sight! We were married July 28, 1945 at Norden Lutheran Church.”

He goes on to write about their 3 children, and that he drove ready-mix trucks and dump trucks for American Materials for 40 years.

After Grandpa went to live at the nursing home, he made Grandma an anniversary card, and one of the nurses used her phone to record an audio message from Grandpa. The nurse later sent that message to me. In this message he says to Grandma,

“If I was to do it over, I would do the same thing. Love you dear, Happy Anniversary.”

These are the best things I learned from my Grandpa -- that to be loyal, and honorable, and live in such a way that you have no regrets -- these are the things that are most important.

Kenneth R. Lehman from Fuller-Speckien-Hulke Funeral on Vimeo.

My Liquid Gold

Check out the current issue of Breastfeeding Today (link below) for my essay about my son, who was born prematurely at 27 weeks gestation, weighing 1 pound and 15 ounces, and spent the first three months of his life in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). 

When Baby Boy was in the hospital, I pumped milk every two hours around the clock for almost three months. My story shows that it is possible to breastfeed successfully even when you encounter many obstacles. In addition, my story shows that providing breast milk can have tremendous emotional benefits to the mother, and can provide a feeling of connection between a mother and her baby, even when physical contact is limited.

But my story is also about the science and technology behind caring for premature infants, and in general, about dealing with challenges in your life. I wrote about this experience because nourishing my premature baby is the most important thing I've ever done. It is the one thing I will always be the most proud of. Can you remember a time when you did something really important, at a time when you were challenged?

View the article ~ In the Table of Contents, click Mothers' Stories, then advance a few pages.

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/ed9fb378#/ed9fb378/1

You can get printed copies of the magazine here:

http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/638399

Baby Boy, aka Little Man, 2 years old.

The Little Man

My Baby Boy has become a Little Man.

Do you see a common theme in these pictures?

Running

If Not Running, Then Climbing

More Running

Constant Motion. That's right. He Never Stops Moving!

Here are the Big Things (that I can remember) that have happened since I wrote last:

• Little Man started walking (around 18 months old)....and then running and climbing, and he hasn't stopped since.
• We sold our house, bought a new house, and moved (I hope we never do any of this again.)
• My Grandpa now resides (permanently) in a dementia unit of a local nursing home. This is hard to accept but it is the safest place for him.
• My sister and her son came home, after living in another state for 12 years, and not seeing them for over a year.
• Little Man started talking, just after his 2nd birthday.
• I am obsessed with food blogs and have been experimenting with a plant-based diet (ever since watching Forks Over Knives when I was on maternity leave. FYI ~ FOK is available on Netflix streaming). 
• I started a new job a year ago as an Instructional Designer and have done a fair amount of traveling, including a trip to Boston this summer.
• Hubby and I took our first solo trip post-Baby Boy, to Santa Cruz, CA to attend my friend A's wedding.

That is everything I can remember for now.

I feel like I remember specifically when Baby Boy became a toddler, if that is possible. He had been working on crawling/standing/walking for a few months, and then suddenly, one weekend he was all over the place, digging through the kitchen cabinets. After that he was everywhere, and signs of him were everywhere. I would open a kitchen cabinet to get a pan and find several colored stacking cups, or a half full sippy cup.

Best Smile Ever

The other day I once again felt that Baby Boy had made another shift. I was sitting at a stoplight when I looked to my left and saw two girls in a truck next to me, looking my way and laughing and giggling. Do I look funny, I thought? Is there something on my face? Then I looked in the rear view mirror and saw Little Man playing "peek" with these ladies, flashing them his biggest smile, and then turning his head to hide from them, and repeating the process.

Two years have passed and Little Man has become a gentle, loving soul who likes to give hugs, make funny faces, run, and climb. (He can also be a very spirited and stubborn 2-year-old, but I won't tell those stories right now!) Here is a typical conversation with the Little Man, when he wakes up in the morning:

"Winnow." (window), he says pointing at the window.

"Open. Button. Goge." (soft "g," like "mirage") (I want to open the garage door).

"I wanna go home."

"We are home," I tell him. We have lived in our new house for six weeks, and he still asks to go home. "Where is home?" I ask him.

"I wanna go shopping," he replies. "Go Boppy's."

I start to respond but he cuts me off. "Nose," he says, placing his index finger on my nose. "Eyes," he says. I shut my eyes as I see his finger approaching....

It occurs to me that I have always been so focused on getting to the next stage: sitting up, rolling, crawling, standing up, walking, talking...It's mind boggling that all these amazing accomplishments happen within two years. I always want to move ahead, yet I don't ever want to forget any of this.

I have have made a little slideshow to commemorate the Summer of 2013 (also below).

Botched 1st Birthdays, Leslie Knope, & the Speaking Universe

Sometimes staying positive is difficult.

The last six months have brought one heartbreaking situation after another, for friends and family.
I've stopped expecting things to be normal -- what does that word even mean? But will things will ever level off? Could we get over the last catastrophe before the next one emerges? 

Staying positive is important. Sometimes you have to work at it. I find that episodes of Parks & Recreation (more on that later) and Pumpkin Spice Lattes help.

But seriously, sometimes you have to determine what the universe is saying (or SHOUTING).

The Early Bird's first birthday was especially important to me. He started out as a 1 lb 15 oz micro-preemie in the NICU and in one year, became a 15 lb rambunctious, crawling little boy.

I ordered fancy birthday invitations. We planned a party and invited friends and family. I had multiple cakes planned.

And then....life happened.

Well, Croup happened. Just a few days before his birthday.

If you are not familiar with Croup, let's hope it stays that way. It's nasty. Wheezing, choking, gagging, projectile vomiting nastiness. The wheezing portion is particularly disturbing, as it evokes any idea you might have of what complete respiratory distress might sound like. There were multiple trips to the doctor and steroid injections involved, culminating in a trip to the ER on his actual birthday.

So there was no "1st" birthday party. There was no smashing-of-the-cake and frosting-in-the-face and all that standard jazz.

Baby Boy's Simple Cake

But I was determined that Baby Boy would still have his cake. Until I realized that he needed to be held and comforted more than he needed a fancy birthday cake (DUH ~ universe speaking to me).

I then promptly abandoned my fancy cake plans and finished his carrot cake with a simple goldfish border and let him have at it. I did manage to get a picture, before the ER debacle. (And I mean debacle. As in, q-tips-down-the-throat, chest x-rays, breathing treatments, we-think-he-has-whooping-cough, complete drama, oh wait, maybe we should actually consult with a pediatrician debacle ~ separate story).

My Balloons (Not Pictured!) Are More Interesting Than Cake

Ok, Maybe This Cake Is More
Interesting Than Those Balloons....

Party or no party...cake or no cake...Baby Boy got better and didn't look back.

Today he toddles around with the help of furniture or anything else he can get his hands on, mobile or immobile. He brings young light to a world in which I am often consumed with the nitty gritty details of aging. He keeps me positive.

Now back to Parks & Recreation.

I think it's especially hard to be positive right now. The negative campaign ads are everywhere--radio, TV, email, snail mail, phone calls. I don't know if I can handle another three weeks...

Leslie Knope, 2012 Pawnee city council candidate in NBC's Parks & Recreation, has some important lessons to teach us about staying positive. I think all political candidates should follow the Leslie Knope model of taking the high road when it comes to negative campaign ads.

The following clip is a negative ad that Leslie's campaign manager Ben created. Leslie refused to run this negative ad:


Instead, Leslie found a way to make a positive campaign ad, when everyone thought it wasn't possible:



In fact, I think this is what we all need to do. Personally, professionally, politically, whatever. Find a way to find the positive. And when you find yourself in a run of this-isn't-what-I-planned situations, ask yourself what the universe is trying to tell you.

The Quilts of the Ronald McDonald House

A year ago right now I traveled to Rochester, Minnesota to live at the Ronald McDonald House while my baby boy was in the hospital. I took these pictures to show others just how amazing this place is. I focused mainly on the artwork and quilts, but there is so much more to say about such an amazing place. The artwork and quilts are only one small part of what RMH does to make people feel at home, even in the most difficult of circumstances.




I can't express what it means in difficult circumstances to have a place to call home.

12 Months

I finally completed the 12 month slideshow. This is a quick glance at our year in review, from 1 lb 15 oz baby boy to 15 lb 10 oz one-year-old baby boy!

12 Month Slideshow

I have been experimenting with different ways to use digital pictures. I used Animoto for this slideshow and I am stunned how quick and easy it was. In only a few minutes, I created the Animoto account, uploaded my pictures, chose music, and produced the video. The downside is that the free account limits you to 30 second videos.


Make your own slide show at Animoto.

12 Months

In about 3 weeks, my early bird, who weighed 1 pound 15 ounces at birth, will be 1 year old. I am working on the slideshow below to show how much he has changed; the 11 and 12 month photos have not been taken yet. I also want to create a "Year in Review" slideshow with more pictures. I have so many pictures of the neonatal intensive care unit, the special care nursery, the Ronald McDonald house, and coming home.

A year has passed and yet I feel like I am only starting to regain my energy. I don't mean physical energy, as in, I felt up to cleaning the house or exercising (although that has only recently improved as well). I mean vital energy, like the type of energy that drives you to pursue your passions or do something for yourself or even to be in tune to what is going on around you, so you can be an advocate for yourself or someone else.

I remember May 2011 like it was yesterday. I remember Memorial Day weekend, and I had just made the season's first batch of rhubarb jam. We had a particular vision of what the summer would be like...working in our garden, preparing our baby's nursery, attending the birthing classes.

But a few nights later, while sitting on a birthing ball in our first Labor & Delivery class, I felt a warm gush and....suddenly I was on a helicopter to a hospital with a neonatal intensive care unit. Everything gets a bit fragmented after that, but I hope to spend some time these next few weeks looking back at my journal and remembering the events surrounding the arrival of our little early bird.

Nursing Strikes

Did you ever hear of a nursing strike? The La Leche League Womanly Art of Breastfeeding Guide reads. It’s when a baby abruptly refuses to nurse.

First drops of milk I
ever pumped, while still
in the hospital.

My start with breastfeeding was a bit unique – pumping around the clock for almost three months before my premature baby could even attempt to breastfeed – but we did manage to make it work, with the help of lactation consultants, hospital grade breast pumps, nipple shields, galactagogues, and various other techniques, and it worked relatively well…until…

I went back to work.

Then the nursing strikes began.

Given how hard I’d worked to protect baby boy’s milk supply, I was devastated.

I consulted several sources I had been referred to by various lactation consultants. A nursing strike could be teething related or due to a number of issues, these sources suggested. A common suggestion attributed nursing strikes to the baby receiving too many bottles.

I did not find these suggestions particularly helpful for the working mom, much less for the working mom nursing a premature infant. A popular suggestion from these sources is to discontinue all bottle feeding immediately…feed the baby with a spoon or an eye dropper… take your baby to bed with you for a “nurse-in” and breastfeed only for as many days as possible.

Feed him with an eye dropper? Are you kidding me? He sucks down four ounces at a time. Feeding him with an eye dropper would be like dangling a piece of meat in the mouth of a lion. Not to mention that unfortunately I can’t do extended nurse-ins. I went through eight years of sick time to be with my baby while he was in the NICU.

Last year we had $300,000 worth of medical bills. I have to work. I have to provide health insurance. So I cannot have nurse-ins. I cannot feed him with an eye dropper.

Despite my reservations, I tried what suggestions I thought were feasible for us. Like trying different nursing positions. Nurse him standing up. Nurse him while walking around. Nurse while lying down. Nurse when he’s drowsy. Pump first to get the milk to let down, then nurse him. Imagine me running around the house trying all these different things—a process I will refer to as the breastfeeding dance. If a person had any reservations about nursing in public, imagine doing the breastfeeding dance with a nursing striker. If I have to stand on my head, clap six times, and do a special dance to get him to nurse, it’s one thing for me to do it at home, but another thing to do it out in public! Obviously I had to start bringing bottles with me so I had a means of feeding him when he wouldn’t nurse (a big no-no in the sources I've been mentioning). But in my opinion, that baby needs to be fed, one way or another.

Baby boy! 9 months old

One day, after doing the breastfeeding dance, baby boy was lying beside me in our bed and he just sat there and looked at me. He looked so peaceful and trusting. Big eyes. I had been really worried about him, about the nursing strikes and was he getting enough and what should we do. In that moment he looked at me and I just felt like he was saying, mom, I’m ok. It’s fine. And then I realized that perhaps I needed to go with his cues. Perhaps I was having trouble letting go because I had worked so hard to provide his milk. I realized that he primarily preferred bottles during the day and nursing at night. Why wouldn’t he, after all, since that is his routine for most of the week. I decided to just go with it.

All the bottles and pump parts
that need to be washed multiple
times per day.

Baby boy had breast milk exclusively, whether by bottle or breast, until he was seven months old. After that we had to supplement with formula. The first time I mixed up the formula I was astounded. One scoop for every two ounces of water. He gulped it down. The whole process took only a few minutes.



I was astounded. For nine months, I’ve spent around 20 hours per week pumping and washing pump parts, between work and home.

It’s free. Plus it is what’s best for the baby. These were my thoughts (in that order) about providing breast milk when I first found out we were expecting.

Providing breast milk is what's best for the baby. I view it as the most important thing I've ever done, and I would do it all over again. But I wish someone had given me a realistic view of it and prepared me for the fact that pumping and providing milk would be equivalent to a part-time job.

Sign outside the pumping room
at work...let's just say there have
been walk-ins!

My point is this. If you know someone who is breastfeeding or expressing breast milk and bottle feeding, perhaps you will now have some insight into how hard she is working, how many challenges she may be facing just to provide milk for her baby. Give her a pat on the back. Assure her that any amount of time providing breast milk is amazing and she should be commended. Remind her that she is the only one who knows what is best for her and her baby.

Sweethearts

I meant to say it at Christmas. I meant to say it on Valentine's Day. I meant to say it all year. I am filled with gratitude. My heart could just burst.

As I wrote in an earlier post, The Ambivalent Parent, I was never sure I wanted to be a parent.

But now that he's here, and as hard as some things have been (with his premature arrival), taking care of Wesley has been my greatest honor, and my most important achievement.

I have everything I could ever want. Anything more is just a bonus.

And, I resolve to write more. I have a lot more to say. Hopefully I still have some readers out there.

The Early Bird

Born @ 27 weeks 5 days gestation
1 lb 15 oz, 12.9 inches long

Wow. Over 3 months have passed since we brought Wesley home from the hospital, and almost 6 months have passed since he was born. Most importantly, he is healthy and doing very well. Honestly, on most days, I feel like a shell-shocked zombie.

I don't mean to sound negative (and if you read all the way through, you'll see I'm talking about gratitude) but I am not going to sugar-coat parenthood as constant bliss, the way so many people do. I am going to be real and honest and up front. I knew going into this it was going to be hard. Turns out, I was in no way prepared for how hard it has been (premature rupture of the membranes at 27 weeks 5 days, emergency helicopter ride and c-section, baby in the NICU for 10 weeks, and all this even before we brought our baby home and began our sleepless nights...)

I feel like I am catapaulting through my days and nights at record speed, a whirlwind of working, expressing breast milk, caring for Wesley, going to doctor appointments, and stealing 1-2 hours of sleep when I can. As fast as this pace feels, parts of my heart and mind are still caught in the days just after Memorial Day, hanging in slow motion, in small spaces where I'm still trying to figure out exactly what hit us.


Going Home from the Hospital,
38 Weeks,
6 lb 1 oz

 After ten weeks in the hospital, Wesley came home two weeks before his due date. He weighed just over 6 pounds and he was so tiny in his car seat that we rolled up blankets and placed them around his head. I sat in the backseat with him and I have never been so nervous. It seemed like every little bump jarred him. I know he was nervous because he sucked vigorously on his pacifier the whole way home. When we got home he was wide-eyed for several hours. Our little baby had never known any world except the hospital, and all its alarms, and constant poking and prodding.

I recently saw a Facebook conversation in which some friends were discussing their kids, and one person said, “the nights are long but the years go by fast.” I know exactly what he meant. Fatigue and sleep deprivation have been the hallmark of our lives for six months now, with probably another two months to go before Wesley is even capable of sleeping a 4-6 hour stretch.

Every night when we’re up every few hours, I wonder, how long we can do this? People always say, “sleep when baby sleeps.” I just smile, but I want to say, will you come over and load my dishwasher and do my laundry, so I can sleep when baby sleeps?! Our lives seem chaotic. Some of our loved ones simply can't survive the shock. Our plants are dying. We've lost a starfish. Our cat died (she was 16 years old and in declining health for a while). We're constantly losing ground against the dirty dishes and laundry. I can tell that it will be years before my house is dusted or deep-cleaned in any fashion! Anything beyond the basics is simply unattainable right now. (And boy, did I yearn to make and can some apple butter this year...)



5 1/2 Months Actual,
13 Weeks Adjusted,
11 lb 15 oz

 Just when we start to make some progress with sleeping, or just when I start to feel like I am "getting it," everything changes. I felt like we were just out of the colic phase and starting to develop some longer sleep cycles, when suddenly baby Wesley is a drooling, fist-sucking mess. We feel a tooth coming in! I don’t think I’ve slept more than 2 hours in several weeks…and my bizarre dreams have returned. I dreamed that a cat named “The Struggle for Profound Thought” was perching on my neck at night, and that a co-worker was placing life-size, color cardboard figures of us around the building.

But every day Wesley does something new. It has been amazing to watch him transform from a tiny, sleepy, tube-fed noodle in an isolette to an active little baby who wants to interact with his environment. It’s like receiving a gift every day. He smiles responsively, laughs, holds his head up, kicks his legs in the air, grabs objects, and has started trying to roll on his side. He is strong and healthy. His vision exams have been normal (preemies are at risk for an eye condition called retinopathy of prematurity). He is strong-willed. And loud, opinioned, and fiesty at times! I guess this is the strength that got him so far. He weighed 1 pound 15 ounces at birth and almost 6 months later (adjusted age: 13 weeks) he weighs 11 pounds 15 ounces.

I meant to write during the 11 weeks I was home with Wesley, and yet, I didn’t often have a free hand, and when I did, I was too tired.

Born @ 27 weeks 5 days gestation,
7 weeks in the NICU,
3 weeks in a Special Care Nursery

I did manage to write a 1500-word essay called “Liquid Gold,” which I adapted from a previous blog entry called Pumping, Pumping, Pumping) and submitted it to Real Simple magazine’s “when did you first understand the meaning of love” essay contest. This essay is about milk! Breast milk, specifically. About my experience expressing breast milk around-the-clock for almost three months, for my tiny baby who was too weak to eat on his own.

(Protecting my milk supply, by the way, is the most important thing I have ever done. If today was my last day, this is the one thing that I would be the most proud of, the one thing I would never change, and I would do it all over again if I had to.)

I think I wrote most of the milk essay in my head, during many hours in the rocking chair nursing Wesley. Then I managed to type most of it one-handed. When Wesley was that little he needed to either be held or fed (or both) virtually all the time. After the essay deadline, fatigue from sleep deprivation set in, and Wesley's colic intensified and didn’t begin to subside until he was about 7 weeks adjusted age. During that time, everything in my life disappeared except for my daily walks with Wesley, and feeding, holding, soothing, and rocking.

I Just Love His Facial Expressions!


During this week of Thanksgiving, I am filled with gratitude. For me, being a parent is at once the best and the most difficult thing ever. Just when I think I don’t have the strength to continue, Wesley smiles or giggles and everything that I’m worried about just recedes into the background. Perspective. I have gained instant, clear perspective, even during complete chaos.

I always think of the phrase, "this too shall pass." Almost as quickly as a really bad day develops, a new, amazing day takes its place. I try to enjoy the present moment, whatever it may be. Just the other day, we were talking about how quickly 6 months have passed, and Chuck said, "To tell you the truth, I don't even remember how it was before we had Wesley." He couldn't have said it any better.

Pumping, Pumping, Pumping

I have gotten a second job. It doesn’t pay well and requires lots of nights and weekends. In fact, it requires around the clock work.

Medela Symphony


“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.” I hear this sound even in my sleep. It’s the muffled, repetitive suctioning sound of the Medela Symphony, a state of the art hospital grade double electric breast pump. It’s a bright yellow thing, about three feet high, on wheels. Much better looking than the antiquated Medela Lactina I had to rent from Mayo for home use. The Lactina is a bright blue square thing with a yellow pumping widget inserted on the front that just looks like it shouldn’t be there, or like it’s cobbled together from spare parts.

The room is small and dark, complete with a dimmer switch for the lights, as well as a radio, rocking chair, sink and cleaning supplies. I now spend a lot of my time in rooms like these. Pumping rooms, we call them. Each pumping session takes about a half an hour per session, 10-12 pumping sessions every 24 hours. This amounts to pumping every 2-3 hours, except for one four hour stretch during the night so I can sleep a little. I calculate that this amounts to about 33 hours of work per week.

Why? Because my baby cannot nurse yet. Due to hormonal levels, you only have a two week window after birth to establish your milk supply, so you must begin pumping right away if your baby cannot nurse. Thereafter, you must pump to maintain your milk supply (it’s all supply and demand), pumping frequently much the way a newborn would nurse.

No wonder why I’m tired! Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, but rather marveling at this new, alternate universe I now live in. My concept of breast feeding was based on the experiences of friends and co-workers, all who had full-term babies. I saw that working moms generally pumped twice per day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon and I thought, I can do that. Plus it’s the best thing for the baby, and it’s free. Free? Now I have to admit, that dollar amount on formula doesn’t seem so expensive anymore compared to working another full time job!

I am attached to my breast pump. Pumping every 2-3 hours, this guideline is from start to finish, so by the time I’m done with one pumping session I only have 1.5 to 2.5 hours until the next session. It’s challenging to cram everything else into these small sockets of time, such as the two hour drive from the hospital to our home, kangaroo care with Wesley, dealing with the never ending amounts of paperwork and phone calls that need to be made, hosting visitors, etc….I barely do one thing and it’s already time to pump again.

I recently started working 1-2 days a week, to conserve some of my paid time off for when Wesley comes home. But with my pumping situation, working is quite the process! Before I went back to work, I asked one of the nurses in the neonatal ICU if I could use my Medela Pump In Style (the small, discreet kind of breast pump that comes in a black shoulder bag) while working.

“That pump is not for a mom with a baby in the hospital,” she replied sternly. “That pump is for a working mom who only has to pump twice a day.”

Medela Lactina



And so I cart a suitcase to work with me, complete with the Medela Lactina and a plethora of other equipment required.



I also calculate that for now, I am barely keeping up with Wesley’s needs. Right now, he eats 1 ounce every three hours, eight times per 24 hours, for a total of 8 ounces. I recently started tracking it and I was pumping about 12 ounces of milk per 24 hours. I gasped. All that work for 12 ounces! And will I even be able to keep up with him?



I flew into a frenzy, calling lactation consultants and researching ways to increase my milk production. I would be so disappointed if I lost my milk supply before he is even able to start nursing. After adding—yes, more pumping sessions—and making sure I’m hydrated and eating more, this week I am up to almost 16 ounces per 24 hours. Ideally, I should be at 19 or more ounces. I also produce more milk when I have direct contact with Wesley, such as after kangaroo care. (I also wonder if my lower milk production is partially due to the fact that I am separated from my baby.) Take fenugreek, the lactation consultant told me. This is an herb that is known to increase milk supply by increasing prolactin levels. This is my next step. She also encouraged me, saying that milk supply often increases on its own after the baby starts nursing. No electric pump can remove milk from the breast as efficiently as a baby can, isn’t that amazing?! Once again, it’s all supply and demand.



But regardless of the time required or the amount of milk you can produce, the benefits of breast milk in any amount are undeniable. Did you know that a woman’s body produces milk uniquely suited for the age of her baby? In other words, when Wesley was born at 28 weeks, I produced milk specifically formulated for a 28 week old baby, rather than for a full term baby. Isn’t that amazing? Pre-term milk is higher in calories, protein, and fats, as well as an enzyme that helps digest the fats. Pre-term babies have trouble digesting fats, particularly the fats found in formula.



Providing breast milk is the one thing I felt I could do for him. Even when he was in an isolette, and I couldn’t hold him without enlisting the help of at least two nurses, I could always produce his milk and know that I was doing something he really needed. In the beginning, he received only one milliliter of milk every three hours and now he is receiving 33 milliliters (about an ounce) of milk every three hours, still through a tube inserted in his nose and stomach. In six weeks, Wesley has grown from 1 pound 15.3 ounces to just under four pounds. He is making steady gains every day, in addition to now breathing independently and maintaining his body temperature, which means he is now in a bassinette and we can pick him up and hold him whenever we want. I love knowing that I played a role in helping him thrive.



But I am getting anxious. I really want to feed him. The pumping thing is getting old. It’s a machine. Right now the closest I have to feeling like I am feeding him is by holding him while he receives his 33 milliliter “bolus feed” via a pump attached to his feeding tube.

We have tried breastfeeding three times now. Still no luck. Recreational breast feeding, the nurses call it. One night the nurses were laughing hysterically because one of the new resident doctors wrote the order for recreational breast feeding as “the mother may recreate at her breast.” Anyhow, I guess “recreational breast feeding” means that we still haven’t gotten the hang of it. He’s still not quite ready…so far Wesley gets sleepy very quickly and not much happens. It’s more of a “getting to know you experience” the nurses say. We are told to practice “recreational breast feeding” once per day. Thus the pumping sessions continue, to maintain the milk supply until Wesley is ready to eat.

So for now, I keep pumping, pumping, pumping.