Ten Things I Hate About Being A Parent

[Contents: parent-shaming]

I was talking on the Twitter-machine a few weeks ago with some friends about Wide World of Mommy Blogs, and the pressure there is to ONLY share the GOOD parts of parenting, and how you love EVERY MINUTE and are SO FULFILLED and blah blah blah. Look, I love being a parent to The Kid, and I adore The Kid, but parenting is filled with bullshit. So to counteract the firehouse of BUT DON'T YOU LOVE BEING A PARENT (especially MOM) shit we all get exposed to, and to give a giant FUCK YOU to that entire portion of the world, here are ten things I fucking hate about being a parent. Please feel free to share some more in the comments; this is a shame-free zone.

1. I have to get up early every damn morning, except some Sunday mornings, when The Man gets up early. And even then, I wake up the second The Kid does.
2. Thanks to constant societal pressure to be the BEST MOM and what my baby SHOULD BE DOING, if I can't get hir to nap, it's really easy to feel like a complete failure. I'm not, because I know that I cannot force my child to sleep, but it's still reallllly easy to feel like it. Conversely, if I do get The Kid asleep easily and on time, I feel like a fucking MOM NINJA. Neither is true.
3. Somewhere, someone is completely judging me and saying I'm doing shit wrong. It's one thing if you're abusing your kid, or doing something demonstrably dangerous. But I'm not, and people still think I'm doing shit wrong.
4. I hate the smell of spit-up. Especially when it's all over me. I hate spit-up all over me.
5. Doing anything, including peeing, takes planning.
6. Pretty sure I've seriously and permanently fucked up my right wrist, somewhere in the nursing/holding iPod/fastening diapers blur.
7. My social schedule is the most ridiculous it has ever, EVER been. I love my family and friends, but just the idea that I could have some social event going on every single day of the week, for the foreseeable future, is a kind of hell for me.
8. Sometimes I would just like to be in a room with NO OTHER PEOPLE, THANK YOU.
9. It's really hard to make sure I eat something.
10. Each and every day, I am on duty, 24 hours. Yes, The Kid is only awake for like 12 of them, but 3 am crying? WELP I'm up. Yes, The Man helps, yes, I do get out of the house, etc. and so on, but when the shit really hits the fan? I am the caregiver of last resort. I don't get breaks so much.

Breastfeeding, Now That I've Done It

[Contents: TMI; parent-shaming; disordered eating]

I feel a little strange writing this up, since I'm no longer breastfeeding, but part of this blog is to share my experiences, especially as a fat lady with some chronic health issues, so that people who are similar boats have some reference material and don't feel as isolated and alone.

So. Breastfeeding.

Honestly going in to it, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about breastfeeding. I was anticipating it was going to be super-weird. And, except for about thirty seconds when I thwapped out one of my boobs and started nursing in front of my father, it wasn't weird. It was just, "oh, I'm feeding my baby, okay."

I will also say that now that I've stopped, I don't miss nursing. And you know, nursing was pretty easy for me. I had to get a little creative with positioning sometimes - which I'll go in to more detail about later - but I never had sore or cracked nipples, I never had mastitis, a blocked duct, or thrush, The Kid never had latch problems, I never had painful engorgement, nothing. It worked pretty damn well all around.

The only issues were my supply - it's unclear whether I would have had enough to nurse exclusively. I go back and forth on that. Since I have thyroid issues, it is more likely that I did have some under-supply issues. Those issues, if they existed, were probably not helped by the fact that I really, really struggle to eat enough. It's easy to blame having a baby for the not eating, but that's a lie. I've struggled for years with making sure to feed myself adequately. I will say that having a baby exacerbated that. I could have really used someone who just constantly brought me food I could eat one-handed, especially in the first month or so where basically if the baby was awake, zie was nursing. And without eating enough, it's difficult to make enough breast milk.

But yeah, I don't miss it. I do miss being able to read or internets while nursing - I almost always had one hand free, and I have an iPod Touch with wifi, which is perfect for one-handed use. I do miss the early morning, 5 am wake-ups, and taking the baby in to bed with me and nursing while dozing. I miss nursing the baby to sleep. I miss nursing the baby to sleep on the couch and then shifting hir up to my shoulder so that we could both take a three-hour nap on the couch. I miss the baby unlatching hirself and giving me a milk-drunk, half-asleep grin with milk dribbling out of hir mouth.

I don't miss the last few months of nursing, whereupon The Kid was constantly clawing me and pinching my breasts, so that nursing turned in to a constant battle to prevent my personal pain. I don't miss The Kid's distracted nursing as they got older. I don't miss being stuck in a stationary position for however long nursing lasted. I don't miss the fact that I never found a nursing bra that fit, so nursing anywhere but at home was a royal pain in the ass. I don't miss the pain in my wrists from having to support whichever breast I was nursing from for however long nursing lasted, and it was regularly over an hour. I don't miss the discomfort from being stuck in whatever position I was in while nursing. I don't miss my tailbone constantly aching from sitting and nursing all the time.

One of the big things they tell you about breastfeeding is that it's SO CONVENIENT and IT'S FREE. Well, no. It's not free. It's certainly less expensive than formula feeding, but it's not free. It's a hell of a lot more time - and my time is not of zero value - and it's an increased cost in food and water for whoever is nursing. For lo, do you need to drink the hell of a lot of water when nursing.

And as for convenience, I'd say that breastfeeding and formula feeding are both convenient, just in different ways.

Ways breastfeeding is convenient:

• You really do never leave the house without the baby's food.
• You always have more food - you never run out.
• You can snooze while doing it.
• You don't have to do a load of dishes before you can feed the baby.
• You often have a free hand, so you can catch up on your reading or Twitter feed.
• No food goes to waste.

Ways formula feeding is convenient:

• You don't have to half-undress in order to feed the baby.
• It doesn't take an hour or more per feeding session.
• You don't have to try to eat or drink anything extra.
• Someone else can feed the baby while you eat some damn dinner finally.
• I can actually put the baby in the carrier and feed hir while we're moving.

They're also both inconvenient in some ways.

Ways breastfeeding is inconvenient:

• It's way harder, for me anyway, to find a comfortable position. The combination of large breasts (that I half-lovingly refer to as "cantaloupes in socks"... really soft cantaloupes) mean that unless I'm at home, where I can put my feet up and have a pillow in my lap, breastfeeding involves hunching over and lots of stress on my arms. Some people can nurse while their baby is in a carrier and they're moving! I am not one of them.
• It takes a long, long time to completely feed the baby, especially at first. Then once it shortens up, GROWTH SPURT, and we're back to constant nursing.
• Nursing strikes. You haven't lived until your baby has screamed at you every time you offer hir your breast.
• You're the only one who can feed your baby, unless you choose to pump, which is a whole other level of pain-in-the-ass-ness. (I did not pump.) Even if you do pump, any regular feeding time you aren't nursing, you have to pump, so you're still getting up in the middle of the night usually.
• You constantly need food, and especially water.
• The baby will always want to nurse when it's dinner time.
• You have to watch what you eat and drink. For example, if you drink something caffeinated, caffeine will be in your breast milk, and you might have a baby who is wired. Some babies with allergies and food intolerances are also sensitive to what their nursing parent eats - e.g., dairy.
• I didn't have them, but cracked nipples, clogged ducts, and thrush are real, painful things.
• Most doctors in the US will recommend that breastfed babies receive a Vitamin D supplement. So you have to buy that and remember to give it to the baby.
• Clapperclawing. Your baby will do it.

Ways formula feeding is inconvenient:

• Formula is expensive. And you will always have to toss some out, because once you mix up a bottle, the clock starts ticking.
• Bottles are expensive. The bottles that work best for us? Are $19.99 for three. We use at least six bottles a day right now. So a dozen bottles (so you've always got at least one clean... honestly, we have 17 now and I'm finally comfortable) is $80. Sure, there's coupons and sales, but jeebus. Let's not even talk about replacement nipples.
• You don't have a hand free.
• You can leave the house without the baby's food (and I've done it WHOOPS).
• You can't snooze while doing it - you have to stay awake.
• You have to make sure you buy enough formula you don't run out. The grocery store sells it, but it's often the most expensive option. So you have to either order it online, or make a special trip to Babies R Us or Target or wherever. It's also heavy as fuck.
• Unless you're using ready-to-feed (the most expensive form of formula out there), you have to make sure you have enough safe water to mix up the formula. I think about this, because it's hurricane season, and it's about to be winter storm season. We've never had a problem with our water here, but if we did, I need to make sure the baby doesn't starve.

I'm sure there are more things to add to all four of these lists (please feel free to share in comments!). But basically, it's a trade-off. As for other things that get used to shame people in to breastfeeding - and yeah, a lot of times it is trying to shame people in to breastfeeding - I have bonded with my baby just fine, thank you; my baby is healthy as fuck and has consistently been months ahead on hir milestones; my baby is at the 50% percentile for weight-for-age and even if they weren't, I don't consider obesity a health problem to prevent; breast cancer doesn't run in my family so I'm at low risk anyways; did I miss any?

As for positions, let me tell you, the ones you get the diagrams for, aren't made with fat ladies with large breasts in mind. Nor are nursing pillows. I used either a standard US bed pillow, or a Snoogle mini. I really loved nursing in the hospital, because I could angle the bed how I wanted it, then prop the baby up on a pillow next to me and use a modified football hold. The hospital is also the only place I successfully nursed in the side-lying position, because I could wedge a pillow between the baby and the bed rail. Otherwise, I would sit down, with my feet out in front of me, put a pillow on my lap, and prop the baby on the pillow. I'd support whatever breast I was nursing from with the hand on the same side, and latch the baby on. Nursing in any chair with arms was no good - there wasn't enough room for me, my breasts, and the baby.

I'm still pissed I can't find a nursing bra. Motherfuckers.

So no, I don't miss nursing. I'll most likely nurse my next baby or babies, assuming I have any, although I doubt it will be for any longer than this round, and I doubt it will be exclusively. And you know what? THAT'S ALL FINE.

DO NOT LET ME READ SLEEP SITES

[Contents: mommy/parent-shaming]

SERIOUSLY.

So the other day I tweeted this:

Note to self: no seriously you are banned from reading any baby sleep sites or books. BANNED. #zomgbaby
— Wench (@kingdomofwench) July 17, 2014

[Text: Note to self: no seriously you are banned from reading any baby sleep sites or books. BANNED. #zomgbaby]

BECAUSE I NEED TO NOT READ THEM ANY MORE. ALL THEY LEAD TO IS TEARS AND FRUSTRATION.

We got here because I am a reader. And a researcher. I cannot even tell you how many hours I spent reading baby books and websites while pregnant, and that hasn't really stopped now that The Velociraptor has made an appearance (and been around for TWO AND A HALF MONTHS WHAT). So I was reading baby sleep sites!

And they pretty much all say things like DON'T DO THIS YOU WILL RUIN YOUR CHILD FOREVERRRRRRR (not always in those exact words, but it surprises me how close many of them are) and YOUR BABY SHOULD BE DOING THIS and HERE ARE THE WORST MISTAKES YOU CAN MAKE.

Oh my fucking god! So stressful!

Also, none of them agree with each other. They do not even agree on the basics of how many hours per day babies should sleep at various ages, much less on how many naps babies should take, the best way to get babies to nap, etc. and so on.

But I kept reading them, because y'all, The Kid's naps are a MESS.

Here's the thing. I am not complaining. I'm frustrated, but I'm not complaining, because The Velociraptor has slept through the night since they were about two weeks old. And not that crappy "oh five hours is TOTALLY sleeping through the night" that sleep sites and books try to sell you. Nah dude. At least seven hours. Right now, we're averaging nine hours straight a night.

But daytime sleep, since about a month ago, has been a mess. Developmentally, this makes a lot of sense, because right about that time zie discovered that they could talk to us! And hit things! And move their legs! And there was a baby in the mirror! And they could grab things! And they could maybe roll over! So there were ALL SORTS OF SUPER NEAT THINGS TO SEE AND DO AND TRY at once so FUCK SLEEPING AMIRITE CHECK THIS OUUUUUTTTTTT

So then we'd get to the point where The Kid would be up for five hours at a time (note: ALL sites agree that is WAY too long awake for a baby The Kid's age), and then suddenly crash and be screaming. And then only sleep 26 minutes (I am not kidding, you can set a fucking watch by this child). And wake up cranky, RINSE AND REPEAT.

But even in the midst of that, The Kid would sleep through the night. GETTING them to sleep was a challenge, but once they were out, they were out.

So I would read sites about how to get your baby to nap regularly and not be up for five hours. And then when things wouldn't work and we'd have one of Those Days again I would be in TEARS because WHAT AM I DOING WRONG WHYYYYYYYY and feel horrible about nursing The Kid to sleep or sometimes just giving up when they were tired and not going to sleep and just letting them quietly play in their crib and did I mention TEARS.

This is no good.

Because here's the thing. I even asked The Kid's pediatrician about it. She said "Do the best you can. It's great zie's sleeping through the night, and I often find that great night sleepers are crappy day sleepers and vice versa. It'll probably settle down after three months, so in the mean time, do what you can."

And that's just it. The Kid sleeps through the night. They are ahead of the curve developmentally. Even when super fucking tired, they are not super fussy and impossible to calm down. Does it suck when they are up three, four, five hours and I'm like GO TO SLEEP JUST GO TO SLEEP? YES. YES IT DOES. Because it feels like I am beating my head against a brick wall and I can't stop. But, zie does eventually go to sleep (and increasingly, they seem to want LESS intervention to go to sleep). And while most people would tell you that the unpredictability of the nap schedule right now means going out is hellacious, honestly, it isn't for us. We took a road trip to Chicago last week, then road-tripped to Michigan from Chicago, and zie did AMAZINGLY FINE. So it's not like this is keeping me tied home or anything.

But oh, the SHOULD and MUST and BLAH BLAH BLAH of sites. Oh my gods.

I have decided that pretty universally, people are just making most of that shit up (not the part about babies needing a lot of sleep; that is pretty easy to tell just by observation. The rest of it, though, is highly suspect). So FUCK THEM. They don't know MY kid. (They really don't; none of them I've found even remotely address a 2-month-old who sleeps through the night but is a terrible napper; at this age they're all like HERE IS HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD TO SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT... thanks player, lucked out on that one already). The Man and I know our kid. And so some days we have horrible no good nap days, and some are rock star days, and in the meantime, we make sure zie is clean and fed and we try to get them to sleep as regularly as possible.

AND THAT IS OKAY. 

Birth Plans

[Contents: medical, tmi, needles, pain]

OH BUT DO YOU HAVE A BIRTH PLAN

yes i have a birth plan okay

Birth plans come off to me as this odd mix of super-trendy "empowering" crap, and a good exercise for thinking through and stating your care preferences. My care provider's office and hospital use them, and have a form (although it's a terrible form and I hate it... which has been such a theme for every piece of paperwork I've gotten from them), which I have duly filled out and have in my purse so that it is handy for when I go to the hospital and am actually in labor.

The thing about birth plans is, you can state your preferences all you fucking want, and then they are going to run smack in to what ACTUALLY happens while you're giving birth, which may not even remotely resemble what you were hoping for, and in fact has decent odds of giving you a situation you did not even consider.

When I filled mine out... mmm, probably about six to eight weeks ago, one of the things on there was "if baby and I are fine, I want to let the pregnancy go to 42 weeks before being induced", which, now that I'm past 40 weeks and kind of thought it would never be relevant, I am a little boggling at my dipshit self. It's not that I disagree with it - I tend to be of the "don't fucking intervene unnecessarily" camp, just that wow, this is not a thing I was told I even had to worry about.

Probably the biggest thing on my birth plan that People Have Opinions About is about pain management. Yes, People Have Opinions about lots of stuff during pregnancy, birth, and child rearing (and boy, do they loooooove to share them unsolicited, holy shit), but oh my fucking god, do People Have Opinions about epidurals.

There is the camp that believes epidurals are the universe's gift to pregnant-person kind, and who remembers or will gladly tell you about what a fight it was to get any sort of pain relief offered regularly to people in labor. And, there is a point - there was a lot of rank misogyny and sexism to overcome on the part of getting a population mostly of women effective, safe pain relief during something that a great number of people think SHOULD goddamn hurt.

Then there's the camp that promotes "natural" birth, and "natural" pain relief methods, who write things like "90% of US babies are born with drugs in their system" completely uncritically (I saw this on an article on Pinterest, and I should have repinned it, because JESUS GOD), who will tell you all about how "your body knows what it is doing" and "it's empowering" and etc. and so on. Which, I'm not knocking (much) of that either (I'm definitely knocking the bullshit OMG DRUGS shit), because yeah I do think birth is something that generally, yeah, bodies are at least kind of made to do that shit.

What I do hate is the implicit or explicit "virtue" that gets ascribed to having a "natural" birth, like you're somehow a better person if you don't use painkillers. That is some shaming bullshit, and it needs to stop.

Personally, I don't want an epidural. Not because I think I'll be a better person, not because I think I'll be more empowered or whatever, but because I have had needles in my spine and I don't really fucking like them, so if I can opt out, I will.

Seriously.

I am fully aware of how effective drugs are, especially when injected in to or near your spine - I had a spinal with my cerclage in December, and prior to that, I've had cortisone injections in my spine because of my disc problems. Shit works! I will be the FIRST to tell you. I really just fucking hate needles in my fucking spine.

That, and honestly, I'm not really concerned about pain levels during labor.

This has been kind of a struggle during any sort of care I get, because my personal pain scale is not the same as everyone else's. Okay, let's be real - no one has EXACTLY the same pain scale as anyone else. But mine is... particularly skewed, it seems. I come to this conclusion after years of dealing with pain and describing it, and having many if not most people be like "and that's only a WHAT for you?"

Like with the cerclage removal. If you read stories about it, most people are like "yeah that was super fucking painful I wish I could have had drugs". Mine went on for over half an hour, it was complicated, we're lucky it could be done in the doctor's office, and I described it afterwards as "unpleasant". Like, if we use that ubiquitous 1-10 pain scale with the stupid faces on it, the removal hit maybe a 1 for me. In other words, I noticed it, but it didn't get anything out of me besides a brief wince. When I told this to the nurse, her jaw dropped.

Likewise, I have a history of herniated disks in my lower back. This can cause excruciating pain, including sciatica, muscle pain, and joint pain. A symphony of pain, if you will. The first time it happened to me, basically all I could do was lie on the floor, crying and occasionally screaming, praying for death. I fucked up my disks again the last semester of graduate school. I couldn't sit or stand up straight, I was in pain for a good six months. It sucked and I hated it, and I still went to class and wrote papers and did dishes and basically was extremely angry but got on with my life. It's exhausting, but I had trouble getting a diagnosis and referral for physical therapy this last round, because the doctor I saw didn't believe I was in that much pain or in that bad of shape, because I walked in to their office under my own power and was able to calmly hold a fucking conversation.

So labor pain? Doesn't fucking scare me. I have lived through way fucking worse, that has lasted way fucking longer.

This is also why all of the advice in childbirth classes for how to tell you're in labor, like "oh, yes, it'll be really painful, you won't mistake it", I am somewhat skeptical about. I've already had a few contractions that sure, have made me go "fuck, ow".... and I've talked to my mother, who seems to have a similar pain scale to mine, and from her experience, active labor and pushing and all that isn't much worse. Like, it's painful, and it sucks... but it's not OMFG THE WORST PAIN EVER GOING TO DIE. Also, it only lasts a few hours, which, in comparison to literally months, hahahah yeah fuck it that ain't shit.

I am not opposed to painkillers, and (at least partly to reassure The Man, who does not like seeing me in pain) I am open to having a dose of some IV narcotics if things get horrible. And obviously if I wind up with a c-section, yes please, anesthesia all the fucking way. But... yeah, nope, no epidural please, and thanks.

Other than that, my birth plan is basically summed up as "OMFG LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE". Don't give me eight thousand vaginal exams, don't touch me unless I ask you to, don't do shit to me without my express consent and without explaining it, don't induce me, don't let students peer up my vag, let me move around during labor, don't force me to lay on my back, leave me alone. I will let you know if I need anything, I promise, I've gotten REAL good at communicating my needs.

Do I know how things are going to go? No. Sure, I can make some guesses, but they really are guesses, even if they are based on my mom's experiences. She and I are a lot alike - including down to hey, prodromal labor, FUN TIMES - but that's no guarantee either. So we'll see what happens. That shit may all very well get thrown out the fucking window (except the no needles in my fucking spine part, seriously, I hate needles in my spine), but so long as The Kid and I come out the other side okay, sounds good.

I Will Formula Feed Out Of Spite, I Swear To Maude

[Contents: parent-shaming, gender essentialism]

So here is what is setting me off:



I saw a few people tweeting about this; I first saw it from @DrJaneChi. The image is of a brochure holder in a doctor's office. The headline is "Save a Life. Donate Milk...". The brochure has what appears to be a white premature baby on the cover, with the same "Save a Life, Donate Milk..." text. The text on the brochure holder is as follows; emphasis original:

"Make a difference in the life of a child by becoming a milk donor.

Babies in hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Units depend on this life saving nourishment to thrive when their own mother's milk is not available.

To learn about our non-profit organization or how to donate, visit: MilkBankColorado.org"

Then there's the logo for the milk bank and some pretty colored banding at the bottom.

Let me make one thing abundantly clear before we go on: I do not have a problem with breast milk banks or donation in and of themselves.

What I have a problem with here is the strong implication that breast milk and ONLY breast milk is what infants in the NICU can be fed, and ONLY breast milk can make sure that they don't die. Which is not only factually incorrect, but incredibly shaming and stigmatizing to people who choose formula, for whatever reason they choose it.

That is incredibly harmful.

It is incredibly harmful because there are a number of people who cannot breastfeed, and what you've just told them is that if, gods forbid, their kid winds up in the NICU, ONLY breast milk will allow them to survive and thrive, so they better hope and pray someone donates, because it's their only hope.

It is incredibly harmful because it's yet more parent-shaming heaped on women, almost exclusively women, about how their choices are actively harming their baby, when those choices are doing nothing of the sort. It's the same "YOU ARE A BAD MOTHER FOR NOT BREASTFEEDING" shit that is all over the fuck place. It's using the specter of dead babies to guilt trip people in to breastfeeding.

It's incredibly harmful because it implies that people who are breastfeeding but do not make enough breast milk to donate for whatever reason are less good people than those that DO donate, because only those that donate can save NICU baby lives.

It's incredibly harmful because as I have written about before, not every pregnant person is a woman, not every pregnant person is or becomes a mother or even wants to be.

It is incredibly harmful because it is just. plain. wrong.

And for those who are like WELL IT SAYS NOTHING OF THE SORT, well, no, sit down. Because the exact message I got out of this was "only breast milk will save NICU babies" and "ps breast is best you're bad if you don't do it and ps MAKE MORE SO YOU CAN DONATE AND BE AN EVEN BETTER PERSON." And it's not like I had to sit and think and read between the lines. I'm not sitting here looking for shit to get mad about, which is another popular accusation. The message is pretty damn clear.

This is the sort of shit I'm talking about when I say I am planning to breastfeed in spite of pro-breastfeeding rhetoric, not because of it. I mean, I'll admit, spite is a powerful motivator in my life, and I also plan on enjoying the spitefulness of breastfeeding in public and making all the assholes who are against it squirm. But the more pro-breastfeeding stuff I read, the less I want to breastfeed. And if there's more of this stuff, I swear to Maude, I will formula feed just to spite the people who think like this. (If you think I won't, you obviously have never met me.)

Formula does not kill babies, not even NICU babies. And if you can't make an argument for breastfeeding without either implying or directly stating that, your argument is shit. If you can't even make a pitch for breastmilk donation without relying on the specter of dead babies, your argument is really shit, and you should be ashamed of yourself for the harm you are perpetuating. Because make no mistake, you ARE causing harm. So long as their child is receiving sufficient, safe food, no parent should ever be shamed for how they choose to feed their child. EVER.