Fat Bottom Girl

Hey Wavy,

How gratifying it is to have a chubby baby.

Especially since you are my only exclusively breast-fed baby. In a nonsensical way, I view your girth as a testament to my mothering and milking prowess. And um -- by "exclusively," I actually mean "semi-exclusively," as you get a few ounces of formula here and there when I leave the house without you for any length of time.

After the fiasco of trying to feed Jake when he was a baby, I thought my breasts were defective and that I shouldn't even try to seriously nurse you when you were born.

But, in the hospital, my milk managed to come in a whole five days sooner than it did with Jake. And you latched on like a champ.

Me and Jake's breastfeeding relationship was doomed from the beginning. Since he was "colicky" right from the get-go, the nurses in the maternity ward pleaded with me to let them feed him formula, ostensibly to let me get some sleep, but I'm thinking now that it was more for their benefit.

Once I got home, it was the same with the relatives. Well, mostly the MIL. She was convinced that he was fussing and screaming because there was something wrong with my milk. Or that there was not enough of it. Or something.

So, by the time my milk should've been established, everyone's concerns had become a self-fulfilling prophecy: I was not making enough milk, mainly because everyone was stuffing him with formula when I should've been nursing him.

If I had known better at the time, I would've called a stop to everybody's meddling, but I thought back then that it was entirely possible that I was defective.

This time around, dear heart, things are running much more smoothly. I have milk galore. You're thriving and plump. I usually leave the house in small increments of time, and am back before you need someone to feed you formula.

Why, you ask, don't I pump some milk to have on reserve when I leave the house? Because I'm a lousy pumper.

That's why I'm kind of worried about going back to work next week.

Yeah, work. Already. Shoot me in the f'ing FACE.

I'll be doing two days in the office and the rest from home. Not bad. But -- that's at least 10 hours a day, twice a week, that I won't be nursing. Argh. I'm really hoping this doesn't mess with my supply. Hopefully, if I spread those two days apart as much as I can -- say, Tuesday and Friday -- I can nurse like hell on the days in between and my milk won't suffer too much. We'll see.

Okay, busy day tomorrow -- doctor appt and a hair appt. And here it is, almost 3 a.m. and we haven't even done our night-time ritual yet: laying in bed with an episode of Mad About You on Tivo, whilst nursing you back to sleep.

So scoot over, sweetie, and hand me the remote. Love you, sleep tight.