The Winter of Our Discontent

Wow, what a difference a month can make. Shortly after the last entry (which mistakenly led readers to believe that things with Liana were actually going pretty well), we once again delved further into The Really Frustrating Time. Only now, a month later, do we dare say that we are emerging from its depths - and even that is done with reservations.

Without going into all the uninteresting and blog-unworthy details, the bottom line was that Liana had not been getting enough to eat. It seems that much of the reason for The Winter of Our Discontent stemmed from the fact that Liana was hungry for a good majority of her 12-week life! "You mean, you didn't know that your daughter was hungry?" you might ask. Well, uh, no, we've never done this before and just thought that all babies cry a lot and wake up every hour and need LOTS of vigorous bouncing and shushing to go to sleep and wake up crying after 10 minutes and cause their parents to feel utterly frustrated and incompetent because they can't figure out whey their baby is crying so much! Sure, some might argue that all of these things are par for the course of having a new baby, but in our case we might have been able to ease at least some of the frustration, had we done some things differently from the start. So here are the main things that happened in the last month to get Liana back on the fast track to Happyville:

1. Clip Liana's frenulum. We learned that Lia was "tongue tied" (i.e., she had a very short/tight little stretch of skin underneath her tongue), which meant that she had not been effectively nursing, and since breastfeeding is based on a supply/demand system, I was not producing enough milk to satisfy her growing need. It's amazing how our family's world changed after her frenectomy.

2. Pump. Pump again. Repeat. I really resented this period of having to be hooked up to a milking machine 4-5 times a day, essentially confined to the chair in our living room for much of 2+ weeks. However, it was all in the name of increasing my body's milk supply, so let's just say I've made my peace with it (mostly).

3. Supplement with a bottle. Although I was admittedly a bit disappointed at having to resort to this (and still continue to find it more cumbersome than nursing), I can't complain too much because Liana has been WAY easier to handle now that she is fat and happy (as evidenced in the photo here)

All the above improvements would not have happened without the guidance of our amazing lactation consultant. She alone proved to us that there REALLY ARE health professionals who genuinely care about helping their patients. (Big thanks to friends Linden and Nicole who enthusiastically recommended Nurse D., a.k.a The Boob Whisperer, after enduring their own breastfeeding sagas) We feel lucky that Nurse D. came into our world when she did.

We're happy to say that life is good these days. All of us survived the first 100 days (which is supposed to be a big feat) and can honestly say that things just seem easier overall. We recently had a great time when all of Nat's family came to visit Portland en masse from the east coast. Let's just say that six adults plus six kids all under the age of 8 proved to be a logistical challenge at times (between nap schedules, jet-lag and sicknesses), but everyone had tons of fun and we really did get to do a lot together. Here is the only shot of all twelve of us from a picnic (in February!) at the Rose Garden Amphitheater. Many more new photos are posted in the galleries on the Photos page.