So now for a few new-mom tips: a friend told me about the What to Expect app. You put in your child’s birth date and it connects you on message boards with other moms who had their babies within a few days of you. This way you can discuss what is going on with women who are experiencing the same things. I went on this app every day and it made me feel so much less alone. Actually, I still use it to this day. Let me just tell you that this kind of support is everything. It made me feel like I was part of a community of women all striving for the same thing. Then again, here’s another note on social media: although it can be a great source of info and comfort when you’re a new mom, it can also have one awful side effect: comparison. Try not to let any of those images of perfection or ease make you feel alone in your hardship. You are NOT alone. And it IS hard. You don’t have to look like those images. In fact, those people don’t look like those images. They’ve just captured the one minute their breasts aren’t gushing milk or they’ve washed the throw-up out of their hair. It’s such a shame that women, especially moms, are pressured now more than ever to live up to this lifestyle that just does not exist. Think about the COVID-19 quarantine. I thought it was so interesting that people posted much, much less. Why? Their lashes weren’t on and their hair color was growing out. They couldn’t even fake perfection or pretend their lives were oh-so glamorous since we knew everyone was home.
Another tip: get help when registering for baby shower gifts! I registered myself and, looking back, I could have easily gotten away with having way fewer baby products. But I had no clue what I was doing and didn’t know what stuff I didn’t need. For instance, I registered for three different contraptions that you put in a grocery store shopping cart to protect your bundle of joy from germs: one that went across it, one that draped in the seat and one that was like a sling. Guess what? I never ended up using any of them. No cart cover. No sanitation wipe. (Mind you, this was pre–COVID-19.) I also bought a fruit and veggie puree machine. Did I actually think I was going to make my own baby food? Puh-lease. Hell no. I had some lofty ambitions. Bottle coolers, multiple baby carriers, gadgets upon gadgets, aromatherapy for the baby… OMG. What was I thinking?? I also bought way too many button-up onesies. NEVER BUY A BUTTON-UP ONESIE. ZIPPERS ONLY. If you have a button-up onesie on your registry, go delete it now. You will thank me later.
That said, there are a few mama must-haves, because I’m all for products that make your life a little easier. Before Palmer, I had no idea how hard it could be to take a busy baby’s temperature, so one of those scanning ear thermometers is a must. Heck, I’ve used it on my husband, too. Another must is the right swaddler. The point of swaddling is to help your little one feel safe, secure and cozy—sort of mimicking that feeling he or she had in your womb. It’s great when it works, but there are various techniques and it can take some practice to get it right. At least for me. Palmer had broken out of every swaddle I’d tried, so when I finally found the one that worked, it made me cry tears of joy. So ask your friends or Google: “best baby swaddle.” Oh, and then there’s the baby shusher, which helped Palmer get to sleep. Baby gowns were also a fave because I hated undressing her each time I had to change her diaper—especially in the middle of the night when I was trying to be super quiet. Another issue a handy product solved: once I quit breastfeeding and Palmer was drinking formula, it was hard to get her to hold her bottle. This could be annoying if I wanted to feed her but didn’t want to have to hold her bottle for her—that was until I found these miraculous little handle grips that you attach to the bottle. It’s the small stuff that can make all the difference!
One big thing that was a game changer for me was the glider chair. It’s basically the modern version of a rocking chair and I think it is one of the most important purchases you’ll make. After all, you will spend a LOT of time in it—feeding, sleeping, rocking and reading. So I sat in many different chairs looking for the perfect one. I felt like Goldilocks trying to find the one that was “just right.” I wanted a glider that either reclined or had a gliding ottoman so I could put my feet up in case I wanted to sleep, one that had a high enough back so I could rest my head and one that was wide enough for Palmer and me to sit in side-by-side as she got older because I knew reading together would be very important to me. I went to a few different stores, but the one I ended up buying my chair from actually gave me a life-size newborn doll to hold while trying out the various chairs. This was very helpful because I could get a sense of how comfortable different positions would be in each chair. Now that she’s three years old, Palmer and I still sit in the glider to read and talk as part of our nightly routine before bed and, while she’s too big to be in my lap anymore, we still can fit!
The bottom line is that having a newborn is draining, but you wouldn’t necessarily know thanks to social media and the mythology of motherhood. Maybe moms think that if they talk about how hard it is, they’re weak. It’s a bit startling when you’re knee deep in diapers and poop and breast milk and you realize, This is my new life. There’s no going back. It’s no longer about me. But for me at least, it was a lesson that I needed to learn. Yes, the world used to center around me, but now it doesn’t, and I’m shocked to say that a few years into it… I’m okay with that!
Motherhood is such a mix of emotions. Your life revolves around this being and you’re forced to be unselfish. But you also have this little baby who is part of you and part of your partner and you have unconditional love and will do anything for him or her. I can’t think of anything better than that! And as tough as that baby phase is, I’d kind of give anything to go back and relive it, well, just briefly. I think I even knew it at the time. I would love to feel the weight of a sleeping newborn lying on my chest again. I’d love to smell her baby head again (best smell in the world). I would totally go back and get up in the middle of the night again (just once, though) to go rock a baby back to sleep. (This is tough to do with a three-year-old.) It’s funny because when you are in the midst of this hard phase, these are the things you take for granted. I remember my mom saying, “Don’t rush this phase away, one day you might miss it”… and the funny thing is, I do, but I still don’t want to do it again. Does that make sense? It might not. A lot of things about motherhood don’t make sense. And, in my opinion, that’s the beauty of it.
Chapter Eight ON THE BOOB
Between being CEO of a billion-dollar business I started in my living room and being a mom, I can say for SURE being a mom is harder!
—JAMIE KERN LIMA, FOUNDER OF IT COSMETICS AND MOTHER OF TWO
The hardest part of the first year of motherhood was, well, not being prepared for how hard the first year of motherhood was going to be. Now, let me preface this by saying it is absolutely NOT this way for everyone. Some women have no problem losing sleep. Some women don’t have postpartum depression and some women experience very little hormone fluctuation. Some absolutely love having their babies on their boobs. God bless them! For some, it all comes naturally. Or so they say. Well, I ain’t going to lie. For me, y’all, it did not come naturally.
One of most unnatural parts was breastfeeding—something I got asked about all the time. Actually, come to think of it, it was one of the top questions I got from EVERYONE while I was pregnant with my buttercup: do you plan on breastfeeding? What is it with people’s obsession with how I choose to feed my baby? Even total strangers would ask me this question. Did they just want to start a conversation and think it was an easy icebreaker? It seemed really odd to me at the time and very intrusive. So much so that I addressed it on social media. I responded that I would feed my baby however I saw fit. I wanted other new moms to know that if they weren’t able to breastfeed, their babies would be okay!
I had done research on nursing prior to having Palmer and knew two things for sure: for some women it was easy, and for some women it was hard. (I guess like most aspects of motherhood. Actually, most aspects of life.) When I checked into the hospital to have my baby, the nurse asked me, “Bottle or
breast?”—meaning, did I plan to nurse or bottle-feed my baby? Like many women, my mode of thinking was, Breastfeeding is what our bodies were designed to do, so I’m at least going to give it a shot. The nurse wrote “breast” on my chart. Um… Guess that means I’m committed.
Within five minutes of Palmer being born, the nurse propped her up on my left boob. Well, here we go… it’s D-Day. Is she gonna latch or be a problem feeder? I thought. Come on, P, you can do it! I had zero expectations of what my experience would be like. Luckily, she latched right on and began eating like a champ. The nurses even commented about what a good feeder she was. What I did not know at the time is that it wasn’t my milk that she was drinking; it was something called colostrum. This is the first secretion from your boobs after giving birth. It’s rich in all the good-for-you protein and important antibodies, which help build your baby’s immune system. It also helps the baby’s digestive system get off to a good start. Some people call it “liquid gold.” It comes out slowly, which is supposedly by design so your bundle of joy can learn how to nurse. I don’t know about you, but I’m amazed that the female body is SO immensely smart, strong, intricate and powerful.
Now, we all know that your boobs grow when you get pregnant. I welcomed this change because I had stuffed my bra for the majority of my adult life. My boobs went from an A cup to a C cup with pregnancy alone and I was under the impression that they were as big as they were going to get. Hahahahaha. Boy, was I wrong! What I was not prepared for was my milk to come in three days after delivery (the typical time frame) with a fury. My boobs went from being small C cups to double D’s. Yes, D’s! In only twenty-four hours. OH MY GOD. I couldn’t believe what I saw in the mirror. It was fascinating, shocking and PAINFUL.
I knew that breastfeeding could be difficult and had heard that not making enough milk was a top concern among new moms. That wasn’t my problem—at all. My issue was one that most women who struggle to breastfeed would die to have: an abundant supply, actually an oversupply. I’d never heard of that before, but it’s actually a thing—as I was told by a lactation specialist. I was a full-fledged freakin’ milkmaid who could feed a third-world country. Good Lord! One day early on, I was nursing Palmer on my right boob and there was milk just gushing out of the left. Jason couldn’t believe his eyes. It was insane and not at all glamorous. The fact that I was producing that much milk was kind of crazy because, let’s face it, I don’t have a healthy diet. I eat like a truck driver—a truck driver who loves Vienna sausages from the gas station—and yet there I was, this endless food source for my child.
Even more surprising was how time-consuming and all-encompassing breastfeeding could be. It became the main focus of my day and night, ALL day and ALL night. And my boobs hurt so badly. When you are breastfeeding, YOU are the only one who can feed your baby. That is, unless you pump and can give a bottle to someone else. That sounds simple enough, but not for me. Thanks to my oversupply issue, too much stimulation just made my boobs produce more milk, so pumping exacerbated the problem and caused my boobs to literally pour milk. It was awful and left me feeling captive and isolated. When you are the only person who can feed your baby 24/7, it’s impossible to leave the baby and get anything done. I couldn’t run even the simplest errand because if I spent too much time away from Palmer, my breasts would become engorged. This is a fancy way of saying that your boobs become uncomfortably full of milk as well as rock hard and painful. And it happened so quickly that I had to keep Palmer close to me at all times to nurse. No doubt this added to my postpartum depression.
The rare times I did go out without Palmer, I quickly learned that I had this superpower: hearing a baby cry in public made my boobs leak milk. No kidding! And always—always—at highly inopportune times. So much so that I could not leave the house without massive amounts of cotton padding in my bra to absorb the leak. But here’s how I learned this the hard way. During my first Target outing alone after Palmer was born (which I swear felt like a frickin’ vacation), a baby cried a few aisles over. Oh man. It was like someone released two fire hoses and the milk gushed out of me, all over my clothes for everyone to see. With a cart full of stuff, I had two choices: abandon my potential purchases and my little vacay and go home or get in line and pay for my stuff. No surprise, I chose the latter and just went to the checkout, trying to ignore my milk-drenched T-shirt and the awkward looks I received. This was something I got used to, since I began leaking 24/7 and my clothes were constantly stained. To make matters worse, sometimes Palmer choked when I fed her because my milk came out too fast. Imagine being on the receiving end of a fire hose. This is what you call a “forceful let-down,” and it’s a by-product of having an oversupply.
Desperate to figure out what I could do to remedy my situation before I found myself in a padded room somewhere, I had a breastfeeding consultation at the hospital where Palmer was born. The lactation consultant there gave me some tips on positioning her differently while feeding. One was to nurse her while lying on my side. Well, this just turned out to be very awkward and didn’t work. Another tip was to nurse more frequently to reduce the amount of milk that accumulated between feedings. NOPE. I already felt like I was nursing around the clock. I also tried to manually squeeze out milk with my hands. Yes, like milking a cow. (I’m sure this was a sight for Jason.) I had read that the tub was a good place to do it because breast milk is actually good for your skin, so I’d sit in the tub and think I was giving myself a luxurious milk bath. This, too, was short-lived. There were times I would nurse Palmer and just sob and sob and then… sob some more. On top of my oversupply, I got mastitis several times. This is an inflammation of the breast tissue and blocked milk ducts that caused aching welts the size of large grapes under my arms, along with intense breast pain. I’d never heard of this before, so the first time I got it, when I had the accompanying fever and chills and felt like death, I thought it was the flu. Regardless, I pressed on with nursing, trying to make it to the three-month mark, because I’d read that the first three months helped reduce your baby’s risk of various infections, allergies and diseases.
Sometimes I’d call my mom crying and say, “This is so hard. I can’t take it anymore.” One day she said, “Cameran, I feel like you’re looking for permission from someone to stop. You’re miserable. Just quit!” I told you my mama has always had my back! Well, I made it to three months with my baby on the boob, but barely. I realized that I couldn’t be a good mom to Palmer if I was feeling down mentally, so I made the personal decision to stop. For MY sanity. I know it’s controversial, but I’ll say it: breastfeeding was awful. For me. Emphasis on ME. I know, I know. Some women love it. Not me. Some say it’s the best, most bonding part of their day. Not me. Some women want to do it as long as they can. Not me. I felt like a prisoner. Of course, this was when the guilt set in again. I knew Palmer would be fine, but I still felt bad. After all, it is rammed into your head from the moment you become pregnant that breastfeeding is by far the best thing for your child. So there I was, totally able to breastfeed, making plenty of milk, and I was choosing to stop. But you know what? My mother never breastfed me. I was one of the babies who couldn’t do it, so I was bottle-fed from birth and I think I turned out A-okay. (In my not so objective opinion.)
It was an arduous process to wean Palmer and dry up my supply. Stopping breastfeeding cold turkey when you have an oversupply of milk isn’t an option. You have to do it slowly so you don’t get mastitis, or get it again in my case. IT. WAS. PAINFUL. I started the weaning process by giving Palmer a bottle of formula instead of nursing her for one feeding every three days. Even this small amount wasn’t easy. At first, she refused to take the bottle, so I swear I bought about fifteen different types (who knew there were so many?) until I found one she liked. Exhausting! And it’s not just going from a real nipple to a bottle nipple that’s different for your baby. The baby also has to get used to the formula flavor after months of mama’s milk. I tried a few kinds before I found one that Palmer liked
. I even tasted my breast milk to be able to compare it. Eventually, I found bottles and formula she liked and continued to slowly replace breastfeeding sessions with bottle feeding.
I also tried all the old tricks said to help dry up your breast milk. I drank sage tea, put cabbage leaves in my bra (yup, you read that correctly, full-on cabbage leaves) and avoided hot showers. The hardest part of weaning was knowing that it was my decision to do this and it wasn’t because my supply was dwindling or I had an inability. I probably could have gone on to feed Palmer for a full year—and a few other kids—if I wanted to. But I was making a conscious decision to give up something that is supposed to be natural and something that a lot of women pray they are able to do. It weighed heavily on me. I also knew that once I weaned, there was probably no going back.
Getting a baby who has only had a boob used to a bottle is no easy task, but we did it in two months. And I will never forget what I knew would be our last nursing session. Palmer, wearing a zippered onesie with hearts on it, and I were in her room. It was late in the day with the sun setting outside our window. I sat in my glider chair with my feet propped up on the matching ottoman. I started rocking her back and forth and watched her nurse while I sobbed like a baby and took in the moment. I felt so many emotions over the finality of it all, but I still knew deep in my heart that my mental health was dependent on quitting. I also knew Palmer would be fine.
And then… Eureka! Freedom!
I posted on Instagram about my decision to stop even though I knew I was opening up the floodgates by doing so. I wrote: “Today marks the day I am DONE with breastfeeding. Gave it a good almost three months and I am retiring the boobs. Writing this in hopes it will make other mothers feel less alone. You see, I’m not quitting because my milk supply dried up or because I’m sick. I’m quitting because I’m just plain over it. By CHOICE. I know I will get lectured and judged by this, but it doesn’t bother me. I need some freedom back for my sanity and the bottle and formula will allow that. You are NOT a bad mother if you don’t like breastfeeding. A happy Mama is the best gift you can give your baby. At least in my opinion.”
One Day You'll Thank Me Page 8
