Body: I don't think you're ready for this jelly

My body is amazing.  Sometimes I look at Crusher's little hands with his itty bitty fingerprints or his beautiful eyes looking around in wonder at the world and think, "Wow.  God used my body to make this child.  He was an egg and now he's a boy." My organs moved for him.  My uterus grew enormous and then shrank back to the way it was.  My boobs make him food.  It's crazy and miraculous and wonderful.

However...

Right after having Crusher I felt completely disgusting.  I hurt.  My hormones were going nuts.  There were icky fluids coming out of everywhere - blood, milk leaking out all over my clothes, night sweats. My hips and thighs were bigger than before (and they were plenty big to begin with) and I had this jelly belly.  Seriously, it looked as though there were a thick layer of jelly between my skin and my abs.  Complete with a linea negra that doesn't seem to want to fade.  The belly has gone down substantially since, but at seven weeks postpartum I still don't fit into real pants.  I wear yoga pants, leggings, sweats, and maternity jeans if I must.  I don't actually like real pants, but that's beside the point.  I have a closet full of clothes that I can't wear. I avoid looking in the mirror.  I dress as quickly as possible.  I cringe inside if my husband's in the room when the belly is showing.

How do I reconcile my wonder with my miracle-body with my horror at my still-healing-flubby body?

In my rational brain, I know it just takes time (if it took 9 months to gain the weight, it's not just going to disappear) and exercise and healthy eating.  In my panicked emotional brain, I fear and make excuses.  It's hard to make time to exercise when one has a needy baby who doesn't like to nap in his crib.  It's also hard to exercise with gigantic, leaky boobies.  It's hard to find time to prepare healthy food when my window of having two free hands is unpredictable.  I start cooking projects and have to abandon them because Crusher's crying. It's hard to be patient with some of my other postpartum friends and relations already fit in their gosh durned pants.

That's my whining party.  Hopefully, by ranting about it I can put it aside and be done for a while.  I have a gorgeous, healthy baby.  My husband watches him so I can exercise sometimes (like today!  Wahoo!).  I didn't buy the chips I wanted very much all week.  (I did buy the cinnamon rolls, but nobody's perfect.)

As an aside, I had David take before pictures for an exercise regimen I may or may not be able to complete (it requires 45 minutes 6 days a week).  I haven't been brave enough to look at them myself, and rest assured, dear readers, you will probably never have to see them.  Here's hoping there are decent after pictures eventually.  Even if there aren't, he's worth it.

7 Weeks

Things I love:

• Snuggles
• Baths (any bath is great, but full immersion makes me giggle and splash)
• Daddy (he makes me smile more than anyone else)
• Eating
• Tummy rubs
• My Pooh and Eeyore dangling chimes
• Staring at the screen/windows/ceiling fan/walls
• Being held by someone bouncing on the yoga ball

Things I don't like:

• Clothes
• My crib
• The carseat
• Really, anything restrictive

New talents

• Smiling for reals (not for gas)
• Swatting at things
• Saving up all my poop for 2 weeks for when I'm at dinner with friends
• Grabbing handfuls of hair or flesh and squeezing

Looking serious (before pooping)

So happy! (after pooping)

Heart-melting smile (at the ceiling fan... not mom)

It's natural! Like a kidney stone. Or Ebola.

Last night I dreamt I was signed up for a four mile race.  There were three interesting points:  1) I had to carry Crusher while running, 2) The first mile was slogging through waist-deep ocean water, and 3) I was wearing rubber rain boots (a-la Landon).  I ran my heart out and thought I had a good chance of winning, but I came in last.  I lost so miserably that all the other contestants had already finished their post-race barbecue parties in the stadium.

That is how I feel about breastfeeding.

Boobs are magical, in case you hadn't noticed. They regulate the temperature of newborns and provide nutrient- and antibody-rich food for free. And they just kinda look cool.

Breastfeeding, however, is one of those things that seems like it should come totally naturally and be this blissful, easy experience. If its not, something's wrong with me.

Well, by golly, it's just hard. And nothing's wrong with me.

After a mere three days of feeding via magicboob, I was cracked and bleeding. And crying every mealtime. Which was approximately every 2-4 hours. Around the clock. Crusher seemed to only enjoy eating milk flavored with the salt of my tears or the tang of my blood.  There were moments when I was sure that the boob pain was worse than labor. So I called up the lactation consultant.

After sobbing in her office for a while, she told me there was hope and gave me a nipple shield. I had mixed feelings. I had heard horror stories about nipple confusion and throwing the small piece of clear, easily-lost plastic across the room.  It did clear up the bleeding problem, and things evened out for a while.  In a follow-up, they determined his latch is great and my technique is adequate.  Hooray!  I felt like I passed a really important mom-test.  In my rational brain, I knew that breastfeeding is just hard sometimes for a variety of reasons and I can't take complete responsibility when I am only one person in a two-person act (especially considering the other person is pre-verbal and definitely not rational).  In my emotional brain, I felt like I deserved a prize.

Until a few days ago.  I noticed some redness and pain.  Increasing pain.  Lots of pain.  When he ate it felt like knives attacking my nipples and shards of glass being sucked out from my shoulder blades forward.  Then burning, burning, burning all day long with no break.

Awesome, right? So I called the lactation consultant again. And she decided I have thrush (a yeast infection that causes the above symptoms).  I drove all over town trying to find the OTC treatment, crying in Walgreens when they didn't have the right kind, and crying the whole way home at the thought of delaying treatment and thus suffering from aforementioned excruciating pain.  A trillion phone calls, a probably inappropriate frantic text to my doctor, and loads of self-doubt later, and we finally found some meds which David kindly picked up.

If it works, I should feel better tomorrow.  We'll see. In the meantime, I'm still stuck with the feeling that it's my fault somehow.  That I fail because I struggle to feed my son, even though he 's eating, pooping, and gaining weight just as he should.  That my body is betraying me because this is hard for me.

I would never have these thoughts about someone else.  I know I'm a little addled from fatigue and pain, but c'mon!  I wouldn't blame someone else for getting chewed up by another person, or for getting an infection.  This isn't a race and it's not a test.  It's a path, and I just need to keep on the course.  At the end of the day, I win if my child is fed and loved.  Check.