Need Comments/Help - Pumping

I'm trying to build a milk supply for BBJ2 for when I need to go out and for my upcoming trip to London.  The supply in the freezer is growing, but not at the rate I think is necessary.  I am hoping that there is someone reading this who can offer some help/feedback.

Timing of pumping:
I really only try to pump when he is a asleep.  I wait about an hour after he has gone down before I pump.  There are some problems with this method.  He rarely naps during the day, if he is in the stroller and we go out, he will nap, but with the weather we've had this is not happening very often.  Without the stroller he will sleep in my arms, and sometimes I can get him down but it only lasts 45 minutes tops.  In the evening, we are in this continuous cycle of nurse, fall asleep, put in crib, wake up (tonight I have been him down 6 different times already).  It often gets to the point that I am just so tired I can't stay up any longer.

So, anyone out there pumping during the day while their baby is awake?  How does that work for you and your baby?  What happens if your baby wants/needs to nurse and you are empty because you just pumped?

Pumping
Pumping is easier since I picked up an electric pump, but I still find it to be a pain.  Constantly washing & sterilizing the equipment just adds to the already too big task list.  But the big thing is that no matter how long I leave the pump on, it stops getting milk but there is still milk in my breast.  I end up hand squeezing for a minute or so to get all the milk.

Does anyone else have this issue about the pump not getting all the milk?  Any tips?

How much do I need?
BBJ2 nurses, I am not away from him very much and never for more than a few hours.  I have no idea how much milk he takes in when he nurses.

How much milk do they need?  How do you figure it out?

OK, OK, Going to be OK

The last 2 days have been ok.  Not too bad, not too good.

Yesterday ex came over with the 2 steps to visit.  I didn't cry, I wasn't even sad.  Actually happy at numerous times watching the 4 kids together, they really love and like each other.  BBJ1 was happy to see his big brother and sister, he misses them, he missed them before, as they didn't come over as regularly as he would have liked, but it has been over a month since he has seen them which is a long time.

Today my step-mom and step-brother came over to watch the boys while I went to my therapy session.  BBJ1 was of course happy, he loves playing with guys, he was pushing me out the door "mommy go now!", with literally a shove.  BBJ2 had a bit of a harder time.  He was o.k. as long as he was being held, but any attempt to put him down resulted in crying.

I'm finding the therapy a bit weird, but feels good and helpful.  I talk and then there is a long pause, and sometimes he says stuff, or asks a question, but he really doesn't say much at all.  There are times when he closes his eyes during a pause (mine or sometimes his) and I think "is he falling asleep or is he thinking", one time I almost did an AHEM, but he is just thinking and putting his words together.  It reminds me of this boss I once had who literally would fall asleep in meetings, he did once in my annual review session, I did get an unbelievably good review that year.  He didn't last very long, and I have no idea if there was stuff going on with him.  Weird.

The not so great part of the last 2 days is that BBJ2's sleeping is worse, probably my fault.  I have been trying to put him down earlier, since supposedly they will sleep longer and better the earlier you put them down.  Instead he is waking up in the middle of the night and being totally awake, trying to crawl around and explore.

Feel like ex and I are working towards being friends.  Feels like I am getting better, but not sure if it is real, or my facade.

Knackered Out

So tired, I have been tired for for over 3 months or for a few years, depends on how I look at it.

When I was pregnant with BBJ1, I was exhausted, I couldn't get enough sleep.  Spent a year at home with BBJ1 who slept through the night maybe 4 times.  Spent a year back at work, taking care of BBJ1 and  pregnant with BBJ2 for 9 months.  The second pregnancy was not as exhausting as the first, but still tiring. For the last 8 months taking care of 2 little guys full time.

For the last 3.5 months BBJ2 has not slept through the night.  For the last 2 or 3 months BBJ1 hasn't napped (he naps if Daddy is home and puts him down, but that is it), which means that I cannot take a nap during the day to catch up.  BBJ2 often sleeps for 45 min - 1hour at a time from about 8pm until 2pm, at that point I give up trying to put him back in his crib and take him to bed with me.  I have nothing against sleeping with your baby, it can be quite beneficial for everyone if everyone is happy with it, but I'm not.  I find that when the baby is in bed with me I don't sleep as well, I wake up frequently to check on him, make sure I have rolled on him or covered his face with the blankets, etc.

On top of BBJ2's sleeping pattern, I am trying to express milk to prepare for my upcoming trip to London.  I find that I need to wait about an hour after nursing to get a good amount of milk.  So every time I do get him down, I wait to try to pump instead of going to bed.  Very often he wakes up just before I start or while I am pumping.  BBJ2 does not have a schedule for nursing or sleeping during the day.  I'm nervous to pump during the day unless he is napping in the stroller (almost guaranteed that he will sleep for about 3 hours if he is in the stroller and we go), I never know when he is going to need to nurse and don't want to be empty.

So not near enough sleep + nursing + pumping + no chance to nap + playing with the boys + pushing a stroller with 2 kids in it (or wearing one in a carrier) + + + + = one very knackered mama.

I Can Do This

Today was a much better day. I know that I can do this, I can be a good mom to my boys, I can be friends with exHusband, I can be myself and I can love and like myself.

I have been very worried about handling mornings by myself after I am back at work. I am not even close to being a morning person. When I was working after BBJ1's mat leave, exHusband did the morning, I got out of bed, had a shower, dressed, grabbed the coffee that exHusband made for me, said good-bye and left. He fed and dressed BBJ1 (while taking his shower and getting ready for work) and took him to daycare. This morning we needed to go to the passport office and I wanted to go as early as possible to avoid huge line-ups. It took one and a half hours from the time we got out of bed to out the door, we all had breakfast, I had a shower, and put on makeup. Not bad, it is workable.

The trip to the passport office was good. BBJ2 slept in the carrier most of the time, but when he was awake he wasn't fussy. BBJ1 was amazing, held my hand all the time, no tantrums (okay, there was about 20 seconds of bad behavior on the platform at St. George subway), he stayed close to me at the passport office (pulled out Buzz Lightyear and a chocolate chip cereal bar when we arrived), and displayed good behavior all the way home.

In the afternoon, BBJ1 helped me polyfil some holes in my bedroom wall (nail holes, not fist holes), and we danced to Motown Classics. It was great fun, even BBJ2 was bopping a bit. It did make BBJ1 go a bit insane, really hyper but the moment was awesome.

At some point today I put on my Grandma's ring. I have my grandmother's engagement ring, and it is very special to me. I loved my grandmother so much and she passed when I was quite young. I used to wear the ring all the time, it makes me feel good to have a piece of grandma with me. I stopped wearing the ring when exHusband put my engagement ring on my hand. It was totally me that stopped myself from wearing the ring. I think that I felt like if I was wearing Grandma's big diamond that I was competing or belittling my engagement ring, like the engagement ring was so important that it needed to stand alone. I love the ring and I love how I feel when I wear it, so I am wearing it again.

Since we broke up, I have been focusing on all the 'problems', I have been spending my time and energy worrying about how I was going to do this, it felt like too much. I have been in a very negative space and blaming exHusband for doing this to me. But the thing is that he didn't do it to me, we did it together, I just didn't see it. We fell in love together, we built our relationship together, we built our home and our family together, we also took our marriage apart together. I did lots of things that contributed to our relationship breaking. I took his love for granted. I focused on what I didn't have or what I wasn't getting and ignored what I did have and what I was getting. I became terrified of losing him and acted on that fear, I was suspicious and jealous. I was angry a lot. I don't think that I would have liked being around me.

I'm going to try to focus on what I do have and what I can do instead of what I don't have or can't do. I'm going to work with exHusband to raise our children in a happy, loving, nurturing family that just happens to have two separate homes.

What a Day!

Today was not a fun day.

In a couple of weeks I am going to England for a business meeting. I need to get my passport renewed since my existing one expires next month. I have just enough time to get a new one if I can get the application in by tomorrow. I arranged for my mom to come and watch BBJ1 so that I could wait in the line ups toddler free. I was expecting her to come in the morning and therefore did not take the boys to the park even though it was a beautiful day. Mom showed up around noon.

So the morning consisted mostly of BBJ1 going through all of my stuff and standing on furniture. At one point he came to me "here mom, for you" with my grandmother's perfume atomizer. It is blown glass and is one of the few things I have of her, I cherish it, and every once in a while I open it and smell Grandma.

After Grandma arrived, I headed out with BBJ2 to go to the passport office. I was wearing BBJ2 in a carrier under my mamajacket. As we neared the subway station, a man walking towards me hit me in the face with a bag of McDonalds and said something like "stop crying about that baby...". I was stunned and confused - I wasn't crying, I was actually in a pretty good mood. I turned around and said "what the fuck?". There was another man behind me who had seen what happened and started to tell the crazy guy off, and received a bag of McDonalds in his face. The two men then fought until the witness guy was holding crazy down on the street in the snow. I was on the phone with 911. There was a third man who had just come off the subway who also was on the phone with 911, he said that crazy had tried to pick fights with numerous people on the subway just prior. It felt like forever before the police showed up. The poor guy holding down crazy was really great, he did keep asking if anyone was coming, but he showed huge restraint, crazy called him the 'N'word and he did not retaliate or beat the dust out of him, but just continued to hold him in place. The police arrived, put crazy in a car, took statements, etc. I was not hurt and BBJ2 was absolutely fine, he slept through almost all of this.

So the hardest part of this was that the only person I wanted to call was ExHusband, but I couldn't call him. I felt like, ok, we are broken up I need to buck up and take care of myself again. I did it for years before I met him and I was o.k., I need to do it again. Later ExHusband texted me about something and I ended up telling him what happened. So I tried to not go to him for support but ended up there anyway.

So once the police said I could go, I headed to the passport office. Once there, waited in line only to find out that the particular office I went to can not turn around a passport as quickly as I need. We headed home, I just didn't have it in me to head downtown to the other office.

Later in the afternoon, at home, BBJ1 was in his chair having a snack and I was trying to get my work laptop connected to the office network, when BBJ1 said "mom, go to the big door, check the door". When he said that I noticed a funny burning smell. I went out into the hallway and the smell was quite strong and there were other neighbors checking it out. We determined that it was coming from the apartment in between us and that neighbor is away. I called building management to have someone check it out. I kept the door open so that I would know when the super came so that I could know if everything was ok. This meant that we had to be in the hallway while BBJ1 ran up and down. At one point some neighbors on the other end of our floor were in the hallway talking, BBJ1 was off, by the time I got there he was inside someone else's apartment sitting on an elderly ladies lap in her dining room. It was a pain to get him out and the man of the apartment kept saying "it's ok, he can stay" and I'm looking at the crystal bowl on the coffee table, so I got him out as quick as possible. BBJ1 decided that we should go into the stairwell. I told him that you have to have shoes on to go into the stairwell, so he went and got his shoes. We ended up going up and down 7 flights of stairs. (I have been thinking that I need to start working out - tighten the glutes - if I'm going to start dating again, so not a bad thing to do stairs). I don't know if the super ever showed up, I managed to get BBJ1 back inside after the stairs, but the smell did go away.

This evening I tried to get back to work work, but needed to call the HelpDesk, they were unable to help me, said to call back later when their tool would be fixed. But after fiddling around with stuff, had trouble getting my personal computer on the internet. While doing all this was nursing and putting down BBJ2 numerous times.

On the plus of today, BBJ2 started to clap his hands again. When he first started clapping, he used to do it a lot. At some point he stopped clapping, but I didn't even notice. This morning BBJ1 was making the music on a toy play and BBJ2 started to clap. I realized then that I haven't seen him clap in ages. I hope that the clapping hiatus was just because he was busy learning other new skills and not because he didn't have anything to clap about.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better, although I will be heading downtown with both the boys to try the passport again.

The Balance Sheet of Marriage and Parenthood

I think I now understand why some divorces are so ugly. During our marriage I didn't do things for my husband thinking about what I would get in return, however, now that our marriage is over I keep thinking that he owes me, and since I won't get the emotional support now, and since he isn't going to show up and clean my home, I have been focusing on money. The focus is there because I am broke right now, if he had left when I was back at work instead of on mat leave, it wouldn't bother me so much.

When things were good, I didn't think about who was doing more or less, contributing more or less. When things were stressful for me, (stress caused by external or internal forces) I found myself weighing our contributions against each other. When things were good, it didn't matter if I was doing more of one thing because I was getting more of other stuff. When things were good, I was getting tons of emotional support and love, so nothing else mattered.

Now that our marriage is over I am looking at back at everything and reassessing. I look back and think "Oh my god, why did I do that, of course he would have hated me for that", but at the time I was just reacting to a situation. I look back and wonder if I made the right decisions for me. If I had known that he was going to leave me, would I have done what I did? I look back and wonder how I ended up here. At some point in our marriage I lost myself, it wasn't my husband's fault. For a long time I didn't need or want anyone else, he was enough. Then I became very isolated during my mat leaves and ended up relying on him more.

So the one thing that I feel like he really owes me is time. Time to get back out there, time to reconnect with my friends, time to find and be me. A big part of me are my boys, but I need to have an adult me too.

Karma is a Task Master

Recently I told someone that Karma is a bitch. This was interpreted as they will get what is coming to them for what they have done. I was trying to say that if they changed how they treated people, they would then be treated better.

I just realized that I must have done some terrible things that I don't remember, or that I did things that I didn't thing were terrible but had a disastrous impact to others, because I feel like I am in the middle of a shit storm.

It isn't just that my husband left me, it is everything that happens as a result of that. I'm in emotional turmoil. Most of today I was really good, but just started crying as I edited the photos in the screen-saver on the computer. It is one of the things that really suck about being left. The person who leaves gets to pick what they want to take, they leave behind all the memories, all the pictures, all the things you bought together. The person who is left has all this stuff around to remind them. My husband picked out the paint colour in our living room/dining room. We picked out the couch together, and I'm pretty sure the choice was more him than me. I made the curtain in our bedroom when he was working nights so that it would block out the sun so he could sleep during the day. It goes on and on. While I have already started to make changes (re-arranged the bedroom furniture), I can't just change everything else instantly. I do plan on making more changes over time, but money is tight and the boys will wreck everything anyway so it makes more sense to wait until they are older and are no longer colouring the chairs.

It's knowing that I'm not going to get my turn career wise. A few years ago we decided that my husband would pursue a new career. It meant that I was the income for the family for at least a year. However there was the possibility that once he was established he would become the income for the family and I could pursue a different career. I'm good at what I do, I'm successful in my company, and there are parts of my job that I really enjoy, but it is not a passion. Now that we are broken up and I am supporting myself and 2 children who will need daycare, I won't be able to start from scratch, I'm now a lifer.

It's being alone in the responsibility with the boys. I know that my husband is there for the boys, but it feels really different. I feel so much more responsibility than I did before, which is hard because it was already a lot. Part of the extra responsibility is now I have to help them deal with their father not being here. Part of it is just being alone 24 hours a day with them.

I was pretty bitchy when I was a teen-ager, maybe it is finally coming back to haunt me.