Got Ants?

Ants love breast milk.

This is something they don't tell you in the books. Lactation consultants will not prepare you for the moment you pick up a discarded spit-up rag to find the underside teaming with the little buggers. You will freak out. If you have not slept for 6 months, you might just have a complete mental breakdown. On the floor. With tears and snot and trembling and Lo! the unholy usage of the Lord's name.

I'm just saying.

Anyway - I've had two years to recover from THAT scenario. However, just when you thought it was safe to go into the water . . . Ants II - The Second Coming.

I was zoning out while pumping at work when I looked down and saw something bobbing in the breast milk. Not a good sign. So, I kept pumping and watched in horror as this black thing rose higher and higher in the bottle. Finally, I sort of tilted the bottle mid-pump and got a good, full, side-view on the thing. A creepy crawly carpenter ant. FREAKY.

The best part is that I got back to my office and had to tell someone. I mean, wouldn't you? Who could keep that bottled up inside them? So, I told this woman at work who is probably 10 years younger than I am and sort of innocent and naive but in a fun way. Like Betty White in the Golden Girls. And I'm totally grossing her out and she's making these completely horrified faces. Then, before I can start questioning how the ant got in there . . . was it in my bag all along? Was it hiding out in the bottle waiting? Or was it lurking in the Mothers' Room, waiting for some unsuspecting sleep-deprived victim? Before I can get to any of that, she blurts out, "How did the ant come out of your boob? And how could you not have FELT it when it did?!?"

Pumping Iron

There is a man at work who sees me at least once a day (sometimes twice) making the long trek from my office to the Mothers' Room to pump. He is a friendly, lazy-eyed mailroom employee who is in the habit of making small-talk with everyone he passes in the hall. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain who he is addressing since his two eyes are never focusing in the same direction. I never know which one to look at when I respond to him and so I usually stare at the middle of his forehead while commenting on something banal like the weather, the impending long weekend, or the fact that it is buffalo chicken day in the cafeteria. This is a strategy that has served me well - I have even shared it with my co-workers and, though skeptical at first, they too have adopted my method with great success.

One day, however, one of his eyes caught sight of my gigantic black breast pump backpack. It's large, unwieldy, microfiber monstrosity and can hold my double flanged pump, its various accessories, and a small cooler full of 4 oz. glass baby bottles. It's pretty much the equivalent of having a flashing neon billboard with the word "LACTATING," strapped to my back. Only, this guy clearly did not see it that way at all. "Going to the gym?" he asked, one eye looking right at me and the other veering off towards the sari-enrobed Indian woman walking a few feet in front of him. I was caught off guard and by the time I realized he actually was talking to me all I could blurt out was a hesitant, " . . . yeah . . . "

Honestly, what could I say? Even if I had time to explain, and passing someone in the hall is no place for lengthy conversations, I wouldn't want to delve into the topic of breastfeeding with this man I hardly knew. I'd prefer him not to ever think of my breasts. As far as I was concerned it would be best if he didn't even know I had them. Don't ask, don't tell. Nothing to see here. Carry on. So, I let him think he was correct - I was sneaking off to the gym to jazzercise my postpartum baby weight away. Whatever. A little white lie never hurt anyone.

It's been about 6 months now, though. And after seeing me every day (sometimes twice a day) "going to the gym" I often wonder what he's thinking. I have surmised that he must think I'm a little OCD about getting in shape. And also, he must feel quite sorry for me because clearly I am doing something horribly wrong if I am working out twice a day everyday and I still have a stomach that looks like this:

Bringing Home Baby . . . and Formula (Apparently)

Anyone who knows me well knows that I can be a little obsessive with my research. And by "research" I mean I'll spend twenty hours looking up which carseat is ranked the safest or which method of burping a baby is most productive or which model Dyson is the biggest bang for your buck. We're not talking rocket science here, but I prefer to be well informed before making decisions.

It should come as no surprise then that I become a walking encyclopedia of pregnancy and all things baby-related when I am pregnant. I scour the internet, I read the books, and I watch the Discovery Channel as if it's my job. The more I learn the less anxious I feel and I become increasingly more confident. It's a good thing.

Now that I'm done with the whole gestating thing and the whole get-these-babies-out-of-me part, I find myself particularly enamored with a certain show on TLC (an offshoot of the Discovery Channel) called "Bringing Home Baby." It shows you how new parents deal with taking care of their newborns during the first 36 hours of their birth and then shows you how they're doing a few months down the line. I love this show. I can relate to so much of what the parents go through. I've been there . . . hell, I'm there now! And a small part of me is amused by the mistakes newbie parents make or their realization that caring for a newborn is freaking tough. Another smaller (but more evil) part of me enjoys feeling like an old pro who is somehow superior to the mother who whines into the camera that she can't handle feeding her baby every two hours or the father who recoils at a meconium filled diaper.

Lately, though, I've made a disappointing discovery. It seems as if almost every episode treats breastfeeding as if it's this Herculean effort that detracts from the new parent experience and makes everyone lives miserable until the mother finally admits defeat and breaks open the formula. Every episode. How can this be? I know a lot of mothers who breastfeed - how is it that TLC ends up with all the mothers in North America who cannot/will not breastfeed? It's odd. It makes me wonder. The skeptic in me is suggesting all sorts of scenarios - most of which involve the formula companies donating large sums of money to the station and the station then forcing the mothers to tell a little lie on camera about how hard breastfeeding is and how they had to switch to formula. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to me. I know that some women do not breastfeed (and I am not about to criticize anyone for it), but surely not the vast majority of women, right? Not 90% of women. And these aren't women whose babies were born teeny tiny and had to spend weeks in the NICU or women whose milk never came in. These women have no extenuating circumstances working against them. Their reasons for quitting are pretty lame - not getting enough sleep, babies are allergic to breastmilk (is that even possible?), babies have jaundice, babies seem hungry all the time, mother thinks breastfeeding twins is impossible, sore nipples, etc. Does Enfamil own the Discovery Channel? Something is a little fishy.

Why do I care? Because I'm sure other expectant or newly initiated moms gather their information from the same places that I do. And it seems to me that this show is doing a disservice to all mothers by constantly delivering the message that breastfeeding is hard/uncomfortable/not worth pursuing. Breastfeeding is not always easy and it requires dedication - TLC should be ashamed of itself for promoting one-sided, negative views on such a natural and beneficial method of providing sustenance.

Things I've Thought of Today That Have Made My Milk Let Down

1. the twins (duh)
   
2. Logan
3. coffee
   
4. Stewie from Family Guy
5. Christmas
6. sleeping
7. paprika