Category Archives: breastfeeding

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A baby milky dream

February 3, 2011 – 11:46 am

Well, I stopped importing this blog to facebook last night, and I feel such relief knowing that ONLY people who actually log on here will see what I have to share. It won’t go into that crazy news feed that I don’t know how I feel about most of the time (when I see my stuff on there). I didn’t realize how that import setting was hindering my adding new posts here. So cool that I feel more free with this privacy.

That said, without further ado, I present to you, dear committed reader, a dream I had while pregnant with Indy. Before I knew he was a boy, as his birth was approaching. I journaled it and here is what I wrote:

The other night I had a dream, it was so, so, so great!

I dreamt that I awoke with a beautiful baby boy by my side. I was elated and I picked him up immediately and nuzzled him! He was wearing a blue suit and he had a large head, a bit of eczema on his face and he was PERFECT! As I pondered, I realized I couldn’t remember my labor at all, I had slept through the whole thing! I asked Sid, “What was the labor like? I can’t remember anything.” He told me. “It was great, the midwives decided they aren’t even going to charge you, they had so little work to do, it was their pleasure. They were actually asking you questions about birth.” Ha! Next I remember thinking, “Oh man, the baby and I both just slept for hours, he must be starving!” So I began to nurse him and he was chomping like an animal and my breast just flooded his little mouth with milk and it was dripping all over the couch, I put napkins below to catch the overflow. I was ecstatic to see my body, once again, rise to the occasion of providing more than enough of that most wonderful food for yet another of the most precious people in my life, ever. For some reason there has been a worry in the back of my mind, “Just what if I don’t produce enough milk, or I face some other breastfeeding challenge?” I have such strong and beautiful imagery to ponder from this dream, Thank you Lord!

When I awoke and remembered the dream I laughed a joyful laugh, rejoicing that my brain (or God, maybe) is giving me such positive thoughts about my soon coming birth and breastfeeding. It can be crazy when I really think about going through labor again and starting all over nursing a new baby. Regarding labor, I want it, and I don’t really want to sleep through it. I want to experience the overwhelming intensity because it is completely transforming and grants such abundant gifts. So it’s hard when I realize the way labor is designed to be, and I realize that I actually want it to be exactly that way and that I’ll just have to take it moment by moment in all its overwhelmingness. It almost seems that it would be easier on my mind to wish to avoid it, but I do not wish to because the agony increases the relief and the joy that follows and makes the experience what I think God designed it to be for most mothers and babies. I guess this means that the best thing to do is to resign to it and I think I’m as ready to do that as any woman has been. Maybe? We shall see. How ever it goes, it is so way far beyond worth whatever it may be like, to get to the next step: my baby in my arms, on my chest.

You know what’s crazy? When Indy was, maybe a couple of months old, I was sitting with him on our couch, and I began to nurse him, he was wearing a blue suit and my milk was over-abundant! It began to drip onto the couch and I asked Sid for something to soak it up with. He handed me a napkin and I was just like, “Oh my gosh! This is exactly like that dream I had!!” The only difference had to do with Indy being so much more handsome than he was in my dream, no eczema on his face and a tidy little round head. Wow.

I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he’s five months old today =)

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we visited The Getty, part 2

January 21, 2011 – 11:59 pm
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4th child journal art breastfeeding home education my children Sid travels

we visited The Getty, part 1

January 21, 2011 – 9:39 pm
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4th child journal breastfeeding home life mothering my children

a wardrobe post! and my pregnancy theme song revealed!

March 13, 2010 – 12:32 pm

This is my first ever wardrobe post and looking at my outfit, I don’t really feel it is at all post-worthy except when I consider how extraordinarily difficult it is to dress oneself at 14 weeks pregnant. I have always plumped up right away in my pregnancies! And that makes comfortable dressing difficult, unless I am content to wear lounge pants and my pajama t-shirts everyday. Sometimes I am content with that, just not if I’m going anywhere. So, I picked up a BeBand from the maternity section at Target and it has opened up some new wardrobe possibilities at this too-plump-for-my-prepregnancy-clothes-but-not-yet-big-enough-for-maternity-clothes stage I’m in.

So the BeBand is that thing around my waist and hip area that sort of resembles a layered tank top. It helps hold up my unbuttoned, partially unzipped prepregnancy jeans and cozies up over my belly to help me feel covered. The blue printed top is also a prepregnancy top, which would be too short in length to wear at this time, but for the coverage of the BeBand. Also featured in this photo is my new hair, freshly self-trimmed and home hair-dyed, using hair dye from Mother’s Market. The cleaner ingredients are supposed to be safer for use while pregnant. Again, not really post-worthy, but the freshness at this time just feels good.

Oh and I discovered a theme song for this pregnancy! It keeps coming up (first he was a guest on the only SNL I’ve seen live in years, then I caught his PBS special, then it was on the radio today on a station my sister-in-law had left on in my car from when she drove it yesterday) so as I listened to it today on the radio, I thought of the baby and it moved me. It is Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet.” The only lyric that doesn’t quite fit is “I promise to give more than I get.” I can’t help but feel that I get much more than I give to my children. I don’t search for pregnancy songs, I just find that I’m drawn to certain songs . . . well, really at all times, but since pregnancy is such a special time, the songs I’m drawn to at those times mean more, and they always have a common thread, that’s a feeling and words that express my heart for the baby deeply nestled inside of me.

I read in Painless Childbirth by Giuditta Tornetta that there exists a culture where the woman, when she wants a baby, goes out into the wild alone and if she’s given a song while out, then she comes home and she will have a baby. She is to teach that baby’s song to the father and they are to sing it to the baby while she’s pregnant. Then they are to teach the song to the birth attendants so that they will all be singing that song as the baby is born. Then the people of the village are to learn the song so that if the child gets hurt, whoever is there to assist them can sing their song to them to calm them. When they get married, all of their guests sing their song and when they are on their deathbed, the village gathers to sing them their song as they transition to death. I love that. My children have songs, I think music and singing well up out of the love and anticipation of a mother’s heart, as a substitute to the impossibility of fully embracing and comprehending the wonder of the unfolding of a soul, a beautiful, God-ordained person, developing, becoming, deeply within her womb. It’s mysterious, miraculous, beautiful in every way. It is a privilege, a blessing, the greatest gift. I do not have the skills to create music, but music and words become in my mind when I sit and be quiet and pay attention to the infiltration of love that annihilates my heart, that is my love for my children.

The theme song for my pregnancy with Jonny was “Blown Away By Love” by The Vibrators. This is tragic . . . I can’t remember what Aveline’s was! June’s was that song by The Cure that goes, “Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick . . . I promise you, I promise that I’ll run away with you, I’ll run away with you.” And guess what? The first time I ever got in the car with June, just she and I, I turned on the car and again, someone else had left the radio on a station I never listen to, that very Cure song was on!!!! I gotta remember Aveline’s! I’ve always made up songs for them once they’re born that I sing to them while I nurse them. Sometimes they ask me to sing them to them still . . . I just sang Jonny’s to him today (he didn’t ask me to). Ha!!!! I just remembered Aveline’s! Well, at least it was one I sang to her when she was tiny, to help her calm down. “Don’t Worry, Baby” by The Beach Boys. So sweet was when she suggested I sing it to June when she was tiny and upset one time. Aaaahhhh, mama memories. This is the good life.

Here are links on YouTube to the songs I mentioned in case you feel like taking a tour through the phases of this mother’s heart. I couldn’t find Jonny’s song on there, and I bet you can imagine the dirty stuff that came up when I clicked “search”!!

Haven’t Met You Yet

Don’t Worry Baby

Just like Heaven

I don’t usually do this, but if you can remember a song sung to you as a child, will you share? Or if you have felt moved to sing a certain song to a little one, tell about it. My mother sang praise songs to me, I remember telling her that her voice was so pretty.

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Plath child rearing

November 3, 2009 – 5:02 pm

Do you like Sylvia Plath? I like Sylvia Plath. I enjoyed Gwyneth Paltrow’s portrayal of her a great deal in Sylvia. After I saw that, I checked out some audio tapes of Sylvia Plath reading her own poetry from my library. I enjoyed those a lot, too. Then came The Collected Poems. Initially, I had a harder time trying to read her poetry myself, but I’m getting more into it now, I think. Then came The Bell Jar. I loved The Bell Jar. The edition I have has some biographical information in the back that piqued my interest beyond what the book alone had. So, to get yet more of Sylvia Plath into my brain I ordered Letters Home, which is a collection of Sylvia’s own letters to her family from 1950-1963 (over 600 letters! A true writer), compiled and annotated by her mother. I am reading that now. There was a particular part I just read the other night that was so confirming to my own heart’s conviction, I wanted to post it here.

This is what Aurelia Schober Plath wrote in 1975 in the introduction to Letters Home. Sylvia Plath, Aurelia’s first child, was born in 1932. Otto Plath was her husband and Sylvia’s father.

“Otto and I wanted to start our family as soon as possible, he hoping our first child would be a daughter. “Little girls are usually more affectionate,” he said. As soon as I was certain I was pregnant, I began reading books relating to the rearing of children. I was totally imbued with the desire to be a good wife and mother. At mealtimes we discussed the varying, and often conflicting, theories of child rearing. Had I been inclined to rigidity in the early training of my children, my husband, who believed in the natural unfolding of an infant’s development, would have strongly opposed me. He constantly voiced his recollections of his mother’s type of child care (he was the oldest of six children). I quietly followed the “demand feeding” accepted as modern today and labeled old-fashioned in the 1930′s, though I would never confess to it in front of my contemporaries, who conscientiously followed the typed instructions of their children’s pediatricians. Both my babies were rocked, cuddled, sung to, recited to and picked up when they cried.”

I think that’s lovely. And I have nothing to add. Yes, I do! But I’m not gonna.

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Our trip to CO, day 9

August 7, 2009 – 3:36 pm

July 16th – Thursday

We packed up, saw Ryan off to the oral surgeon and hung about a bit more. Laura and Lincoln returned and we all said our goodbyes. Lincoln was so upset to be saying goodbye to “the kids.” Hopefully it won’t be too long before we’ll all be enjoying each other’s company again.

We opted to take a new route back to the 70, and so we headed out onto the 24. We were so glad to get to see all of that beauty as we cruised. We soon spotted a tourist spot and decided to stop. It was Manitou, Native American Cliff Dwellings. We got there right in time for the Native American dance performance. We watched a war dance, the eagle dance, dance of the 5 hoops and finally the friendship dance which many children joined in with the dancers to perform.

Next we checked out the museum and gift shop. Each of the kids and I picked up a pair of moccasins, we love ‘em! After that we explored the cliff dwellings. So cool! The kids enjoyed running and climbing around, in and out of the small openings. How amazing to see how they built and utilized the cliff spaces. I felt like I could imagine my own free spirited, happy children as the Native children who once lived there, with their mothers cautioning them against running, lest they slip or crash into something or someone. It was especially easy to see Aveline as a Native child in her braids and moccasins!

The next place we stopped along the 24 was Clear Creek Reservoir. We saw it from the highway and its beauty lured us. The water was clear and so very cold. The boys fished and I could not resist the urge to swim in that clear, cold water! As I was inching in, my submerged bones ached bad, but it was good. I was in to my belly and I lingered there, thinking that may be as far as I would get in. The aching subsided long enough for me to get in to my shoulders, then I knew I would go all the way. When my head went in my skull ached so bad, like it was being compacted, I was especially aware of my temples. Yet it was so, so good. I was in some kind of cold-ache induced euphoria. It was truly blissful. The water on my lips tasted so sweet, I wanted to take gulps. Clearly, I have not swum in nature enough in this life of mine. Or maybe I’m just too used to swimming in grimy, salty sea water, which of course is blissful in its own way. I think I loved the stillness of that reservoir, and the fact that I was the only human in the water during all the time we were there. I lingered in the water after swimming, and then it felt right to get out and into the warm embrace of my towel. I longed for a flat rock to lay and bake in the sunshine on, but no unfulfilled longing would dam the flood of gratitude I embodied.

Back in the motorhome, it was clear that my body was thoroughly and effectively refrigerated from that cold, clear swim. I’ve never had that bodily sensation before, my skin was so cold to the touch, I almost didn’t recognize it as mine and inside, my biology was chilled, but alive and warming fast in the vigor of its work. I felt exceedingly clean, my understanding and experience of refreshment deepened significantly based on the way I felt in that time. I was utterly invigorated as if every cell of my body awoke at once and was grateful for its own miniscule life. The effect was that my whole was awash in those floods of gratitude. I fell in love with my body that day and have felt more of my true beauty since the moment I emerged. It was as if God touched me through the chill.

I drove us away from there still rapt in the effects of my worshipful swim. I felt that nothing could pull my brain and spirit from the new heights on which they’d alighted. Soon after that, lengthy winding roads, the sun’s position and blinding brightness, excessive amounts of candy, and 2 year old molars en route converged in Junie’s body and it made up it’s mind that the candy needed to go, along with her lunch, all over Sid with smaller amounts splashed around hither and thither. There it was, my brain and my spirit came down hard and fast from the heights, right into the moment and it’s immediate and urgent demands. 1, breathe through mouth, open windows. 2, pull over. 3, clean up as best we can, what we can now (nice having a shower, even if the water’s cold, in the motorhome for times such as these). 4, barf-clothes into a plastic garbage bag. 5, hold that little Junegirl and gently let her know it’s okay to throw up (since somehow, my brain never learned that) and that she did a good job letting it out . . . Sid drove us on to our camp spot for the night, Junie got her nummy and that surely brought peace to the tense mama. Thank you, oxytocin (one of the major hormones released while breastfeeding, brings calm to the mama and baby and feelings of mutual bonding)! And that mama continues to feel utmost gratitude for that cold, clear swim in Clear Creek Reservoir. And the next time someone tells her to “chill” (admittedly not something she hears often) she’ll have a whole new point of reference, and consider it more of an invitation to the bliss of God’s touch, than a criticism of an overeactive behavior.

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Three articles

May 8, 2009 – 9:47 pm

So, did you know that breastmilk can cure an eye infection? Or act as a gentle eye makeup remover? There are many more amazing uses of this awesome resource that God has designed into a mother’s body, here’s a link to a great article detailing this subject: Your Walking Medicine Chest

The next great article was written by yours truly! Actually it is June’s birth story, featured here on bless my birth, but now available to a wider audience (hopefully) on the OC Register’s website. Here’s a link to that: The Story of June’s Birth

And lastly, an extremely important birth story, written by my friend Sherrie, about the birth of her son Harvey, also on the website of the OC Register: Harvey’s Birth

And be sure to click on the link to Sherrie’s blog, domesticday, on the sidebar!

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