Becoming a milk donor

I seem to be fulfilling my destiny as a cow for people by pumping enough for not only my kid but also to donate to a milk bank!  After a screening process, I am now a donor for Mother's Milk Bank Northeast, a HMBANA member milk bank in Massachusetts.  MMBNE is a newer milk bank; I was aware of them when Lily was a baby, but they didn't start screening donors and processing milk until she was a year old and milk banks want milk pumped before a baby's first birthday.  So this time around I decided that if I pumped more milk than Hannah would drink I would look into going through the process to become a donor.  I pump three times a day at work and I average 16-20 oz a day.   Hannah takes 12 oz in bottles at daycare so as you can imagine my freezer stash is already threatening to take over the deep freeze!  I'm not willing to drop to two pumping sessions a day until way closer to her first birthday.  There's a sense of security for me in knowing I pump more milk than she needs.

I am not interested in informal milk sharing - I have reasons for this, which I may explain in a later post.  If one of my friends needed some milk, that would be a totally different story, but to my knowledge none of them do.  I also wanted to avoid "milk banks" which are actually a front for Prolacta Bioscience, a for-profit company that uses donated breast milk to create a human milk fortifier that's sometimes used in NICUs. Nothing against Prolacta, I'm sure their product has a role in helping babies in need, I just don't want to give my milk to a company that will turn a very hefty profit on it.   HMBANA milk banks are non-profit and while they do charge for pasteurized donor milk, it is to cover the costs of processing milk and screening donors to ensure safety.

In late September I contacted MMBNE via email.  One of their donor coordinators called me at work and we did a brief phone screening which mainly consisted of the kinds of questions one would be asked if donating blood to the Red Cross.  There were also questions about any medications or supplements that I might take on a regular basis.  When I passed the initial screening, I was sent a packet of forms that included a more detailed 6 page medical history, forms to sign that released my OB and Hannah's pediatrician to fill out forms of their own, and a consent form for blood testing.   All of the forms were filled out and faxed back.   Within a day or two the milk bank had sent the forms to the two doctors and once they both indicated that there was no reason for me to not donate, and my health history was reviewed, I was sent my blood test kit.   HMBANA milk banks test potential donors for diseases including HIV, Hepatitis B and C, viral syphilis, and one or two other things that would be really bad news to be passed along in donor milk!   While I was tested for all/most of them during my pregnancy, a postpartum test is required.  This kit includes everything needed for the required blood work - tubes for the blood sample, a physician's order, packaging and shipping materials, and instructions for the phlebotomist.   It took me a little effort to find a place to have my blood drawn.  The big labs like Quest and LabCorp won't do it because there's no profit to be made in it, so the drawing station at my OB's office was out.  I called the lab at the hospital where I delivered my babies and they not only knew what I was talking about but they were happy to draw my blood as a courtesy - they even packaged it all up and sent it out with their afternoon FedEx pickup.   I got a phone call 2 days later saying that my blood work was all clear and I was officially accepted as a milk donor.

All told, this is not a time consuming or difficult process and I was happy to go through it.  After all, if my baby was premature or medically fragile and I could not produce enough milk to meet his/her needs I would feel much more secure knowing that milk donors go through all of this screening and testing to help ensure safety.   The packing box for my first donation will be arriving tomorrow - I have around 150 oz to send for the first shipment.  It feels great knowing that my excess milk will go to help babies for whom it may well be lifesaving.

In which I try to dispatch a yeast rash

Hannah had a yeast diaper rash at the end of August.  We're not sure how she got it, but these things happen, so the ped prescribed nystatin. (we were there for a weight check).   Lily literally had one diaper rash the entire time she was in diapers so this is sort of new territory for me.

Disposable diapers are recommended when a baby has a yeast rash because unless cloth diapers are properly disinfected they can hang onto yeast spores and reinfect the baby.   Also, most diaper rash creams contain ingredients which will gunk up one's diapers, either ruining them entirely or requiring extensive effort to remove the residues.   The problem is that Hannah seems to be sensitive to the chemicals in most disposable diapers; her special snowflake skin can tolerate expensive unbleached Seventh Generation disposables but your run of the mill Pampers or Huggies just seems to cause more irritation.    So I was sending her to daycare in her cloth diapers with safe diaper cream, then giving her diaper free time at night and using the fancy disposables with Triple Paste, nystatin, Desitin, etc.   I disinfected her daycare diapers with bleach (since Cotton Babies recommends 1/4 cup of bleach in the wash once a month, it's OK) and then grapefruit seed extract.

We had two solid weeks where I thought we were finally free of the yeast rash.  The damned yeast must have been lurking in her bamboo fitteds (which I now realize I neglected to disinfect since I was putting her in disposables at night).  I used one of them on her on Friday night and when we got up on Saturday her formerly clear skin was back to yeast rash city.  Then I committed the error of thinking Aquaphor might help so I slathered it on before we went to bed last night.  My poor girl woke up this morning and screamed when I changed her diaper.  Clearly the Aquaphor just sealed it in and made the rash worse; mom fail, right there.

I let her be diaper free before church today and then put her in a BG4.0 with a healthy slathering of Motherlove Diaper Rash and Thrush.  The rash has improved but not enough to make me happy, so we're pulling out all of the stops to try to get the rash healing by the time we go to daycare tomorrow.

Since it's diaper laundry day anyways, I have ALL of her daycare diapers and the cloth wipes in a wash.    There are only a few ways to sanitize cloth diapers when baby has a yeast rash, and bleach is one of them but is not something I want to use often to help prolong the life of the diapers.   So we'll be using GSE (grapefruit seed extract) in every load of diaper laundry until the rash is gone, THEN will do the bleaching.

For Hannah we restarted probiotics (dip a wet finger into the probiotic container, then let her suck on it) and her cloth wipe solution has several drops of GSE in it so that she gets a mild disinfecting of her rear every time she's changed.   I was using those expensive disposables but then remembered that we have a boatload of disposable Flip inserts in the closet from when Lily was a baby, and that I should probably use those rather than expensive Seventh Generation disposables.  So I'm alternating two old Flip covers (so if they get demolished by non-cloth safe creams and ointments it's not the end of the world) with the disposable inserts and have brought out the big guns of Nystatin, Lotrimin, and OTC hydrocortisone cream mixed together and applied 3X/day with Motherlove Diaper Rash and Thrush at other changes.   If this doesn't knock it out, I don't know what will.

My complete guide to pumping at work

This is a detailed outline of what works for me to pump breast milk at work.  I'm a fairly experienced pumping WOHM; I pumped for Lily from 10 weeks until a week before her 1st birthday when I pump weaned, and I intend to pump at work for Hannah until at least her first birthday.  I am fortunate to have a solid milk supply and therefore I'm generally able to nurse at home and only pump at work.

I have linked to some products via Amazon Associate links; in every case that I do this, the product is something that I purchased for myself (with the exception of the Ameda pump paid for by my insurance company).  These products have been used by me and I like them, or I wouldn't be recommending them!  If you decide to buy something through these affiliate links, that's cool and I thank you - if not, that's cool too.  My primary goal is to share what has worked for me, not to make money.

1. Plan where and when you will be pumping in the workplace.    I recommend starting this process before your baby is even born, when you are discussing maternity leave plans.  Many states have laws protecting the right of employees to pump or breastfeed in the workplace.  Additionally, federal law established in 2010 by the Affordable Care Act's amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) obligates many employers to provide a private, non-bathroom location and reasonable break time for mothers to express breast milk for the first year of a baby's life.

However, the FLSA amendments from the Affordable Care Act do not apply to every employee in the US, despite what many breastfeeding advocates like to claim on the Internet!  I am a salaried professional employee who is exempt from both the minimum wage and the overtime pay provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and therefore the amendments to the FLSA that provide for reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom location to pump do not apply to me.   However, my employer is subject to Connecticut law on the matter regardless of my FLSA-exempt status, and Connecticut requires employers to make reasonable efforts to provide a private, non-bathroom location to pump and allows employees to use meal and break time to express milk or breastfeed.   (Note that this did not stop my organization from having me pump in a bathroom for 8 months with Lily, but to their credit when HR recognized that they weren't following state law they quickly established a suitable lactation room.)

I could write an entire post about negotiating use of a private space and having time to pump in the workplace, and I may do just that at a later date!

2.  You're probably going to need a pump.   The only exceptions would be if you are able to go to daycare to nurse the baby during your workday, or if the baby's caregiver can bring him or her to you during the workday.  Most full time WOHMs use a double electric pump, either a hospital-grade rental or a personal use pump.  Occasionally a mom will find that a manual pump or hand expression works well enough for her and her baby's needs.  The two pump brands recommended by many lactation consultants and pumping moms are Medela and Ameda, although Hygeia is rapidly gaining ground.

Also thanks to the ACA (aka ObamaCare), many insurance plans are required to cover lactation services and devices, including a breast pump.  Call your insurer for details on exactly what is covered and how to obtain your pump if one is covered by your plan.   Insurers vary widely in what they provide; some only shell out for a manual pump while others will cover a hospital-grade rental or a good quality personal use double electric.   You may be able to pay the difference to upgrade and you may be able to request a specific pump, but don't count on it. There may also be rules requiring you to get your pump from an in-network Durable Medical Equipment (DME) provider, and you may need a doctor's order to get it.  You may not be allowed to request your free pump until after your baby is born, or not until a month before your due date.  A lot of customer service reps at the insurance companies are pretty clueless on pump coverage so be prepared to call a few times before you get good answers.

I had some issues getting my ObamaPump, because I wanted a Hygeia and their DME middleman, Carecentrix, didn't want to accommodate that request even though there was an in-network DME provider who carries Hygeia pumps.  Carecentrix told me that neither my OB or I could specify a particular brand or model of pump, that whatever in-network DME they chose would provide whatever was in stock.  After repeated phone calls I finally gave up and went with the Carecentrix process.  I only learned later that I could have bypassed useless Carecentrix entirely and contacted that in-network DME myself - you live and learn, right?

I have never used a hospital-grade rental so I can't recommend one over another.  I'm on my second round of using my trusty Medela Freestyle, and the pump works for me although I worry if the motor will make it through another 9 months of pumping at work for Hannah.  My insurance company provided me an Ameda Purely Yours, which frankly I'm not thrilled with.  I would love to try a Hygeia Enjoye; Hygeia appeals to me because the pump is a closed system, is recyclable, and the company is WHO Code-compliant.

I also keep a Medela Harmony manual pump in my pump bag just in case of a problem with my double electric.  I use the Harmony on weekends when I only want to pump a bit and don't feel like washing all of the parts for the Freestyle.

3. You need a way to hold, transport, and store your milk before feeding.  To some extent, the method you use will be determined by your supply and your feeding strategy.   I prefer to feed fresh (refrigerated) milk as much as possible but I have excess milk beyond Hannah's needs while she's at daycare, so I am both collecting milk for the next day's daycare bottles and to go into the freezer stash for later use or possible donation.  Many double electric pumps come with four collection bottles and an insulated cooler tote with a reusable blue ice pack, and this works perfectly well for many working moms. You pump into the bottles at work, the tote works to keep the milk cool and make it easy to carry home, and then you can pour into the bottles that you will use for feeding.

Some moms prefer to use hard plastic or glass containers for long term storage.  In my experience, most prefer milk storage bags.  With Lily I exclusively used Lansinoh bags.  With Hannah I have tried milk storage bags from Lansinoh, Medela, NUK, The First Years, and Honeysuckle, and my favorite are the Honeysuckle bags.  The plastic is soft yet durable, the double zipper is easy to use, they have a gusset that allows the bag to stand up on its own, the price is reasonable, and they are oxo-biodegradable (which means the plastic won't be sitting in a landfill for 100+ years).  NONE of the milk storage bags have accurate volume markings; I don't trust them at all so if I want an accurate measurement I pour into a Medela collection bottle and then into a storage bag.   This volume measurement inaccuracy is also why I don't pump directly into storage bags, even when it's an option.

My personal process is to pump directly into a drop in liner in a nurser on the left side (using the Playtex pump adapter) and a Medela collection bottle on the right.  I do this because the right is my higher producing side and I would easily overflow a 4 oz drop in during my first pumping session of the day.  After my pumping session I pour milk from the Medela bottle into the drop in to make up the 3 or 4 ounces that the baby will take in a daycare feeding, and I cap the nurser with its nipple/ring/cap.  Excess milk goes into a milk storage bag.  Multiply by three pumping sessions and I have three bottles already prepared when I get home!  I simply have to label the bottles and pop them into the fridge for the next day.  The filled milk storage bag is labeled with date and volume and goes into the freezer.  This system has the additional bonus of reducing my washing-up every evening.

4.  You need a way to feed the baby your milk.  Barring some sort of special medical need or a persistent bottle refuser, this will probably be bottles.  We've used Playtex Nursers with Drop Ins as our bottle for both of our kids and have had zero issues.  My mom used nursers for my brother (who is in his late 20s - they've been around a long time!) and at the time I was pregnant with Lily, I figured we'd give them a shot.  They are inexpensive and available everywhere, and the collapsing liner reduces baby's air intake/spitting up.  I like that I can pump directly into Drop Ins using the pump adapters in the Playtex Breast Milk Storage Set.  Plus, I am lazy as hell and with nursers, you usually only really need to wash the nipples and rings between feedings - a lot faster than washing full bottles, especially bottles that have a bunch of extra parts (Dr. Browns, Breastflow, Calma, etc.).    We bought two 3-packs of 4 oz nursers (to let me pump directly into three of them at work each day while the other three are at daycare) and that will meet the baby's needs the entire time.

Cups, either sippy, straw, or open, are another option for older babies.  We transitioned to sippy cups when Lily was around 11 months old.  Again, this is a personal thing that depends on your baby; we ended up using a couple of different sippy cup brands.

5. You need a way to wash everything.  At work during the day I use Medela Quick Clean Pump Wipes to wipe out my parts, which I dry with a clean paper towel (I store my parts in the fridge during the work day, so a thorough scrubbing is not needed).   These pump wipes are a bit spendy but are big in size, so I cut them in half and keep them in a small Rubbermaid container.

At home we use Dapple Baby Bottle and Dish Liquid and either the Munchkin Deluxe Bottle Brush or the OXO Tot Bottle Brush to hand wash pump parts and bottle nipples/rings.  I sanitize my pump parts in the microwave using a Medela Quick Clean Micro Steam Bag.  Pump parts and bottle nipples and rings are dried on a Boon Grass drying rack - we have the Twig and Stem accessories and I prefer Twig for bottle nipples and rings, and Stem for pump parts.   When baby transitions from bottle to cup, Munchkin Dishwasher Baskets are great (and reduce hand washing substantially).

6.  You might want some accessories.  Strictly speaking you don't need any of this stuff, but they can make the entire process of pumping and feeding go more smoothly.

Pumping hands-free is the only way to go - I can knit, read, or do actual work while pumping!  I use the Simple Wishes hands-free pumping bra and love it.  If you don't want to spend the money, a lot of moms recommend the rubber band trick or cut slits in appropriate spots of a looser-fitting sports bra.

Daycare requires that bottles be labeled with the baby's name, and that each individual bottle is labeled with the date and quantity of breast milk or formula.   We use Mabel's Labels with the baby's name on each nurser and Label Once erasable food storage labels for date and quantity.  Both labels are super durable and hold up well to repeated cycles through the bottle warmer at daycare and hand washing/the dishwasher at home.   Our daycare encourages sending backup milk to keep in the freezer in case of a leak or an unexpectedly hungry baby.  I use the Playtex Breast Milk Storage Set to freeze 2-3 oz of milk in Drop Ins, which means that if and when backup milk is needed, the caregivers don't have to pour or transfer milk from a milk storage bag, further reducing the chance of spillage or waste.

I am blessed with slight oversupply and thus an ample freezer stash.  The First Years Breastflow Milk Storage Organizer is great to keep milk organized and protected in our chest freezer.  It fits most brands of milk storage bag, although rather than freezing in the organizer I freeze my milk bags flat and then load them into the organizer.

I would like to buy the entire contents of The Container Store

Because I think that's what will be needed in order to fully organize our two closets, our linen closet, and two dressers - not to mention the closet and dresser in the girls' room.  At this rate, my children will be wearing shorts in November due to an inability to get anything sorted and properly packed away/brought out from storage.

Mark is wearing mostly dress slacks and shirt and tie to work, sometimes a suit.  I have to admit that while I think he looks sharp in a nicely tailored outfit, this means that he has a surplus of casual khakis and golf shirts.  I suspect that a large donation to Goodwill is in our future; I finally caved and decided that anything I haven't worn in the last 2 years is also going to Goodwill.

I need a Sherpa

We have a lot of bags that need to leave the house with us every morning.  If I'm doing daycare dropoff, I find myself going out to the car with the luggage and then coming back to retrieve the children and lock up - you'd better believe that an attached 2 car garage is on the "must have" list for our next house!

Me:

• Backpack - which itself contains my knitting bag and Kindle Fire
• Pump bag and cooler bag for milk (thanks, Medela, for making an "attractive" tote that all of my coworkers recognize as a pump bag nonetheless)
• Insulated lunch tote from Thirty One (love it!)
• Purse and keys

Hannah:

• Insulated tote for bottles (probably not necessary for the short trip, but we use it anyways)
• Large hanging wet/dry bag for cloth diapers

Lily:

• Backpack
• Insulated lunch box (trusty LL Bean)

Mark:

• Manly insulated lunch box of undetermined origin (he has the lightest load of any of us)

Homemade cleaning solutions

As part of our overall efforts to live a more green lifestyle, we've started using more and more reusable cleaning products and homemade solutions that are safe around our kids and are easy on the wallet.  You too can do this!  In order to accomplish 90% of household cleaning in a more green way, most families would only need to follow two steps.

First, clean with reusable cloths rather than using paper towels.  This is how our grandmothers and great grandmothers cleaned house and it wasn't the end of our species!  You can always cut up your husband's ratty old undershirts, but that makes for thin cloths that can't hold up to a lot of scrubbing.  A more durable alternative would be that flannel shirt that's still hanging in the back of your closet after that 90s grunge phase - take some pinking shears to that bad boy and cut squares or rectangles in a size of your choosing.

Alternatively you can go fancy and choose microfiber cloths.  Microfiber is great dry for dusting, and you can scrub with it if it's wet.  I found microfiber cleaning cloths in the automotive aisle at BJ's for a very reasonable price and bought two 12-packs so that I can use them daily and only wash once a week, but Target, Walmart, and other retailers all carry microfiber cleaning cloths these days.   You simply wash them according to manufacturer's instructions and they're ready to go again.  We keep a stack of microfiber cloths in the closet with my cleaning products, and use a small wastebasket as a bin for the used cloths (we also use this bin for the IKEA baby washcloths that we use to clean Lily's hands and face after meals).

Second, replace your Windex or other all-purpose cleaner with a homemade solution.  You'll find all sorts of recipes on the Internet, but my tried-and-true option is made up of vinegar, baking soda, and water.   In the unlikely event that our 3 year old decides to drink it, she might have an unsettled tummy but there will be no need to call poison control!   My recipe for all purpose cleaning solution consists of 1/4 cup vinegar + 2 tbsp baking soda + warm water to fill a 32 oz spray bottle.

+= CLEAN!

Now, this cleaner doesn't disinfect, but we only disinfect surfaces 1) when raw meat, poultry, or fish has been in contact with them, or 2) during the weekly deep cleaning of the bathrooms.   For either of those situations we use a dilute bleach solution that we make up in a different spray bottle and keep on a high shef well away from the kids.    We don't surround ourselves with antibacterial products and we and the children have not been struck by any heinous diseases or viruses as of yet.   Plus, vinegar itself is a mild disinfectant.   

I keep some of this vinegar solution in a repurposed Windex Touch Up container in the kitchen and in each bathroom (although I think a pump dispenser like this would work well too, and could be decoupaged or otherwise decorated to blend in with one's decor) and use it for everyday wipe downs of countertops and fixtures.  

Soon to be rockin' it again

I go back to work one week from today.  Yeah, I know it's not the 16 weeks I had hoped for, but 12 is better than the 10 that I had with Lily.   Mark is doing OK at his new job but commissions take 2 months to fully pay out.  Baby's daycare spot open + meager checking account balance + preschooler at daycare all day and mom getting a smidgen bored = time to head back to the office.

Since I'm hanging onto roughly 20 pounds of (insert expletive here) baby weight, I had to go buy new pants so that I have office-appropriate apparel.  That was sort of a depressing shopping trip, but at least I won't look like a sausage stuffed into a casing by trying to fit into my non-fat pants.  I think what upsets me more is the prospect of having to wear actual shoes closed at the toe and heel after not having worn such footwear since mid-June.  I look forward to being able to donate my new fat pants to Goodwill in a few months.

I haven't checked my work email one single time this maternity leave and am proud of myself for holding firm.  They have my phone numbers to contact me if all hell broke loose; since I haven't gotten any frantic voicemails, apparently it has not.  Hannah and I stopped in the office last week to print out a pay stub (long story short, we can't pay the several thousand dollar hospital bill in full at this very minute and to give us more than a 12 month payment plan we have to apply for financial assistance, even though we will probably be denied).  While my coworkers seemed pleased at the prospect of my return - probably so that they can all offload their chunks of my workload back onto me - the sentiment was that not much had changed in the 10 weeks that I had been absent at that point.   A coworker's wife is due with their first baby like any second now and Hannah kept smiling and cooing right at him; it was like she was saying, "You're going to have one of ME soon, buddy!"   (I'll point out that Hannah smiles and coos at anyone; today she did it to my 2003 Rentschler Field Inaugural Season cup on the coffee table.)  

This ain't my first rodeo on going back to work after a maternity leave.   With Lily, the mere thought of going back to work sent me into tears for a solid two weeks beforehand.   Ironing little name tags into her rompers and onesies was Very Serious Business, as was fretting over my freezer stash of milk.  I panicked about Leaving My Baby To Be Raised By Strangers In The Name Of Selfish Careerism And A Luxury Lifestyle (ha!).  We brought her to daycare, Mark gently got me out the door, and I cried.  I got to work and had to pump in a bathroom and cried some more - but I found that it was nice to be back in a lot of ways.  I only cried that first day.

This time I'm so much more relaxed about it all, probably because I know it's not the end of the world.   I did buy some bottles last week and finally got around to ordering a label set for Hannah's daycare gear (if it doesn't arrive this week, I'll jury rig temporary labels with electrical tape and a Sharpie).   The same wonderful nursery caregivers who took care of her big sister will be taking care of Hannah.  Daycare is on-board with using cloth diapers (yay!) so I got to order a small stash of BumGenius 4.0 one size pocket diapers and a large Imagine wet/dry bag.   I have around 80 ounces of milk in the freezer (oversupply for the win) and should be good to go on pumping in comfortable surroundings thanks to our building's lactation room (est. 2011).   I have plenty of knitting queued up for my pump breaks.

Don't get me wrong,  I'll still cry next Tuesday morning when I bring Hannah to daycare and drive away towards the office.  Then I'll get to work, chuck a K-cup in for my coffee fix, start reading through (and deleting) what I'm positive will be several thousand backlogged emails, maybe hit up a teleconference or two.   Between a couple of pumping breaks and throwing myself back into my project headfirst, the day will fly by and I'll be able to pick up my smiley Hannah and my crazy Lily.  

I know that even if we could afford it I'm not cut out to be a SAHM.  I just wish that I could stay home with my baby for six months or a year rather than taking a leave that's measured in weeks.  I'm one of the "lucky" ones, too - I had over half of my leave fully paid and I was able to afford to take 12 weeks off.  So many moms in the US go back to work after 6 weeks or less and many women aren't FMLA-eligible or can't afford to take time off even if they are.   This shit is inhumane; I don't know what the solution is, and doubt there will be change during my childbearing years.  I just hope that change has come by the time our girls become mothers.

Tied up and twisted

We have had a blissful month since I posted last.   Well, sort of.  See, we learned a couple of weeks ago that not only does Hannah have an upper lip tie like her sister, but also a tongue tie.

While the early days breastfeeding Hannah has been easier than for Lily, it's a relative thing.   I counted it as good that I only had abrasions on one side and I had them healed up within a week.  My little porker at birth (>90th percentile in weight) had dropped down to around 58th percentile by her 1 month weight check.   The pediatrician said not to freak out yet because the medical assistant at the 2 week weight check had messed up and weighed the baby while diapered, and if we assumed the diaper weighs a couple of ounces, Hannah would have been right at the bottom of normal weight gain for a breastfed baby.  (Dude, I'm an engineer.  I was sitting there not only mentally plotting her weight, but also figuring out what the rate of gain would look like - and it was trending down.  Yes, I realize that I was basically differentiating my kid's growth curve.  See kids, calculus really does have applications in daily life!)

So the ped said to just keep feeding on demand and maybe think about waking her up during her 5-6 hour overnight stretch, stuff like that.   I went to a Milk Mates meeting a week later because I wanted to weigh her, and the IBCLC who runs the support group brings a scale.   I was excited to see 8 oz in a week and was thinking that maybe we had turned a corner.  After the meeting, the lactation consultant asked me how things were going.  We were talking and I realized as I was telling her these things that the situation was really not optimal:

~ She was popping on and off the breast pretty much nonstop - All.Day.Long
~ She had started "clicking" (making a smacking sound) which actually means she was breaking the latch with every suck
~ Her rate of weight gain was consistently trending down, although thankfully still gaining
~ Nipple soreness and irritation not relieved by various creams intended for that purpose (not to mention the $30 Danish wool nursing pads)
~ The hallmark: flattened/creased "lipstick nipple", which I had the entire time Lily was nursing

Patrice heard this and put the pieces together, and asked if I wanted her to take a quick look at Hannah's mouth because a lip tie often means a tongue tie.  She checked Hannah's mouth and bingo - tongue tie.  She was leaving on vacation two days later but gave me names of some dentists who do laser revisions of these ties.

"Revision" is a nice euphemism for lasering or cutting the tissue away, usually with no local anesthesia in a baby this age.  Part of me felt it was selfish to put Hannah through a painful procedure just for my benefit.  After all, I nursed through nearly the same symptoms for TWO YEARS with Lily.  But a few other lactation consultants who I'm acquainted with pointed out that for a lot of reasons it wasn't just for my benefit, it was in Hannah's best interests too.

I started making phone calls.  Naturally none of the three recommended dentists in Connecticut were in-network for our dental insurance, and two of them wouldn't even submit the claim to our insurance for me.  I'm not ashamed to say that money is a little tight right now and paying up-front for a procedure and maybe not getting much or anything in the way of reimbursement did not appeal.   I called another recommended dentist in Albany, the guy who basically pioneered the use of lasers to treat tongue and upper lip ties in babies.  He's been doing it for like 20 years now.  I checked Cigna's website and magically, he's in-network.  This prompted a call to his office, and it was confirmed that we would have a much lower out-of-pocket expense if we elected to have him do Hannah's revisions.   So for the cost of a tank of gas we'd have less than 1/5th of the out of pocket cost and would be getting it done by the pioneer of this procedure?  Sure, sign us up!   The only kicker was that he was on vacation for a week, so we scheduled a visit for Monday the 5th.

Meanwhile we saw the nurse practitioner/IBCLC at the pediatrician's office, who has a reputation for being pretty conservative, and even she recommended a revision.   She showed me that Hannah was basically gumming/chewing at the nipple rather than nursing correctly.  It's likely that the only thing that kept the baby gaining was my strong milk supply and the fact that I was nursing on-demand, AND she was on the breast for most of my waking hours.

On August 5th, Hannah and I left bright and early to make the trip to Albany, which is around 2 hours.  I learned the night before that Mark had been unable to get the day off to go with us, and I felt like it was too late to call my mother or any friends to come with me.   I was so scared, and felt funny about being alone - there was no way I could have done this trip alone if she'd been my first baby.  We had a pleasant and very scenic drive through the Berkshires and got to the dentist's office.  He checked Hannah's mouth, said her ties were quite restrictive - especially the tongue - and he recommended revising both.  I signed the consent forms and Hannah was whisked off for her date with the laser.

She was gone for less than 10 minutes, and I did cry.  And I prayed that she would be OK and it wouldn't hurt her too much.  Other families had arrived with babies for their revision appointments, and it appeared I was the only mom flying solo that day.  The wait alone in the exam room sucked.  I have no idea how parents of children with serious medical conditions do it - this was a simple procedure with absolutely no anesthesia and I was still a wreck.  I was resolved not to be crying when she came back to me, though.  THe dentist brought her back and had me nurse immediately.  She was not crying when she came back to me, but it was obvious that she had been (whether from being swaddled or having fingers in her mouth or the pain of the procedure, I didn't want to know).   He came back around 10 minutes later to show me how to do the post-surgery stretching exercises, and we were on our way.

We stopped for lunch and we got home around 3 hours after the procedure.  At that point the natural numbing effect of the laser wore off and Happy Smiling Hannah turned into Insanely Screamy Hannah.  I seriously started to wonder if the revision had been a good idea.  I got her stripped down to a diaper for skin-to-skin and nursed her, which was the only thing that gave a temporary reprieve from screaming.  I called the pediatrician to get the correct dosage of Tylenol and the nurse could barely hear me over the din.   Mark got home and he went to get Lily from daycare and to pick up our CSA box, because Hannah and I couldn't leave the couch.  Clearly, our plans to take Lily out to dinner for her birthday had to be changed.

Fortunately that afternoon and evening was the worst of it.  I gave her a couple more doses of Tylenol in the days following and a week later, Hannah seems to be pretty much over it - except for when we do the stretching exercises.   I'm worried that we may have a bit of reattachment of the tongue tie based on how it feels when I do the stretches/massage the surgical sites, but we'll see what happens as it continues to heal.   She's already getting a deeper latch, is able to nurse for a full feeding without popping on and off constantly, and my soreness is diminishing.   We've even had nursing sessions with no lipstick nipple!   And having discrete nursing sessions versus being on and off the breast for a minute or two at a time is allowing me to actually get things done around the house.

I need a few more sets of hands

I thought I had this mom-of-two thing in the bag.  I'm on maternity leave until September and we've made the financial sacrifice to keep Lily in daycare even during the unpaid portion of my leave, because she LOVES "school" and her friends and we don't want her routine being altered any more than it already is.   I had visions of being able to take nice brisk walks with the baby every day (working off that baby weight), really doing some wonderful cooking, and pulling out my knitting and sewing and having a chance to catch up on TV viewing - albeit with a newborn who wants me to stop and nurse every few hours.    And I have to admit, I really do have the time for some of that because Hannah is an easygoing baby much of the time and we're having almost none of the breastfeeding difficulties that I had with Lily.  

Mark is working a lot of afternoon/evening shifts at his new job.  This is good from the standpoint of income and is bad from the standpoint of me having to do the evening parenting solo with a 3 year old and a newborn.   As you might recall, Mark worked noon-8:30 PM or 3-11:30 PM basically for the first 2.5 years of Lily's life, so you'd think I'd be all right handling the evening routine again.  I was able to manage working full time PLUS 95% of the cooking and 5 nights a week of evening parenting, and that includes when I had severe nausea 24/7 in my first trimester.    Unfortunately I neglected to take into account the oft-competing needs of my children.

I'm OK going and picking Lily up.  Hannah stays in her infant carseat bucket and Lily is big enough to carry her own lunch box and backpack, and I've drilled her well on keeping a hand on me or the car for safety in a parking lot.  The drive home is pleasant, with Lily telling Hannah and me all about her exciting day.   Then we get home and all hell breaks loose:

1) Lily wants to watch TV.  Fine, we let her watch one TV show per day (either Signing Time on DVD or Sesame Street or Thomas the Tank Engine via streaming Netflix).  The problems arise if we reach the end of said program and I don't have dinner on the table yet.   And I often don't, because:

2) Hannah starts cluster feeding for the evening at 5:30 or 6 PM.  She usually doesn't want to stop until around 8:30 or 9 PM.  Awesome.  I can set her down for maybe a few minutes at a time which is not at all conducive to food preparation and cooking.

So Lily wants to watch another show, but because we limit TV I tell her no.  Weeping and whining ensue (the Threes have started slightly early with this one).   Then I manage to get dinner on the table for Lily if not both of us, we eat, and it's time for the tub.   Lily needs a bath every evening because she gets sweaty and dirty on the playground at daycare.  It means she's having fun and getting exercise, but at the same time it means we can't really skip a bath if we're running late.  

If Hannah will let me, I swaddle her in a muslin blanket and pop her into the bouncer so that I can give Lily her tub.  Lily is used to being able to spend 15-20 minutes playing with toys before I wash her, and now much to her dismay she's getting hosed down in record time like the prison inmates at the start of The Shawshank Redemption.    Then once my older child is reasonably clean all three of us head upstairs.  On a good night I can tuck Hannah into her bassinet in our room while I race through getting Lily in pajamas, teeth brushed, books read, and tucked in.   On a bad night I get to do all of that one-handed while holding Hannah as she nurses.  I'll let Hannah make a little bit of noise but if she loses it, I can't leave her alone to scream.

Some nights, all of this goes smoothly - others, all three of us end up in tears.  I can hear the voices now: "Just wear the baby!", you say.   Of course I've tried that, but when Hannah wants to nurse, screaming ensues if she's essentially on my chest but not latched on - I'm basically taunting her with the proximity of the fount of all that is good in her life.  It's so close, but yet so far.   She is not yet big enough or strong enough to get latched or stay latched herself if I try to nurse her in the sling or carrier.  Added degree of difficulty: she won't take a pacifier consistently!

I've decided I need a few extra sets of hands and arms or a private chef and a nanny between the hours of 5 and 8 PM every night.   Barring either of those outcomes, I'm going to have to find a way to get the baby to nurse properly while being worn.

Newborn cloth diapering

Mark and I decided around mid-pregnancy that we were going to use cloth diapers full time during my maternity leave.  We started using cloth at home (disposables at daycare) when Lily was 4.5 months old so virtually all of our diapers are of the one size variety.   Most one size diapers say that they fit from around 8 pounds and up but 10+ pounds is more realistic and even then they can be very bulky on a newborn, so we needed to get cloth diapers to fit a newborn.    

We purchased this newborn diaper package from Nicki's Diapers for $141.97 including free shipping.  This package includes 2 dozen prefolds in 2 sizes, four diaper covers, one each of a newborn bamboo fitted and a newborn All-In-One (AIO), and two one-size diapers for when the baby gets a little bigger.  I also purchased a 3-pack of Snappi diaper fasteners and we already had a pail liner and wet bags from when we cloth diapered Lily.   We already had three Thirsties Duo pocket diapers in size 1 that we'd used on Lily, and those will fit a newborn well.   We started using the diapers the day after we got home from the hospital.  Before her umbilical cord stump fell off, we just had to fold down the covers a bit to avoid getting the stump wet.  

I do a load of diaper laundry every day because Hannah's wearing mostly the XS prefolds (the Smalls are a bit too bulky still).   It's not difficult at all - a prewash with no detergent, a hot water wash with Rockin' Green Hard Rock, and a 2nd rinse.  Then everything goes in the dryer on high.   The bamboo prefold and the hemp halves of the Thirsties Duo inserts typically come out a bit damp but dry fully after a few hours of hanging on a rack or outside on the clothesline.   It takes around 2 hours total, with maybe 2-3 minutes of hands-on time on my part.   

We could have gone for a less-expensive "private label" Imagine newborn package at $88.16 which in retrospect would have been a perfectly-suitable choice.  The two packages have the same prefolds and bamboo fitted, but the cheaper package uses all Imagine brand for covers, AIO, etc.  We have been very pleased with the quality of Imagine diapers, so much so that I am now an Imagine Advocate.  

So how do they stack up on cost?   We have a BJ's membership and a 210-count box of size 1 Pampers Swaddlers is $41.99 at BJ's.   That works out to 20 cents per diaper without coupons.  Assuming the baby stays in size 1 for the first three months, and is changed on average 8 times a day, that works out to $144 in diapers for the first 90 days.   However since we'd need to round up to 4 boxes of diapers to get the 20 cents/diaper price, we'd be looking at $168.   The newborn cloth diaper package that we bought is $142, while the less-expensive Imagine package is $88.  For the full newborn package, the cost is reasonably close to disposables (especially if you add in a bag of the Rockin' Green detergent that we use) but the Imagine newborn package is roughly half the cost to diaper a baby.   There is some residual value in the cloth diapers (reselling the package or using the prefolds as inserts in one size pocket diapers), while disposables are literally throwing money away.  

I don't want to make it sound rosy and perfect - there are very valid reasons for families to choose to use disposable diapers.  Heck, we still use disposable diapers and once Hannah is in daycare in a few months she will be in disposables there!   But with cloth, we love the convenience of never running out of diapers and that we're filling the landfill a little less than we would with 100% disposable use.  

The second time around

I admit, when I got a positive pregnancy test this time my first reaction was "Yay!" followed by "Holy crap, what have we done?"  Lily was our only for a long time - and admittedly is a pretty easy kid to parent, all things considered - and so the addition of a second child was a huge change for us.

I've found that the second time around we're much more laid-back about pretty much everything.  With Lily, we spent months getting the nursery just right and picking out clothes and bedding and gear.   For our second, we set up the playard in our bedroom when I was 36 weeks pregnant (we're using the bassinet for the first few months) and at around 37 weeks I went through the baby clothes and pulled out everything gender neutral to wash.    I think we installed the car seat bases around the same time and I packed my hospital bag at 38 weeks - that was the extent of our preparations.

I'm sure part of my relative calm during labor and delivery was the fact that I did NOT have preeclampsia this time.  Being told you have a potentially life-threatening complication and are going to the hospital for an immediate induction is enough to get anyone a bit wound up, and it so was very stressful for all of us when Lily was born.   Because of the medications I was on, Lily had to be whisked across the room to be evaluated within a minute or so of delivery.   Postpartum I was confined to bed for 24 hours on mag sulfate, getting pretty intensive nursing care and monitoring, and about the only thing I could do was nurse the baby.    This time with the scheduled induction it was all pretty different.  We knew our baby was arriving one way or the other on the 13th, we knew my OB would be the one delivering him/her, and from a medical standpoint I had none of the limitations/restrictions that were necessary when Lily was born.   Because the only meds I had during labor were Pitocin and the epidural I have a clear memory of the entire labor and delivery and was able to get up and actively care for my baby right away.   While I'm thankful for modern obstetrics for getting both me and Lily safely through, I had a much better birth experience with Hannah, and I have zero regrets about the induction.

While it was almost three years since we had a newborn, everything feels more relaxed and comfortable.   Breastfeeding is going SO much easier even though Hannah shares Lily's upper lip tie.  I don't know if it's because Hannah's a bigger baby or if I just have a better idea of what to do but once we worked past Hannah being hypoglycemic at birth, we've had things go a lot more smoothly than they did with Lily.   Bathing, diapering, soothing the baby are all easier - it's like riding a bicycle; once you've been through it once it's a lot easier to pick it up again.   Everyone from friends to coworkers said it would be like this and I'm very happy that so far that's been accurate.

I really like the age spacing of our kids.  Lily has been potty trained for long enough that we've had no setbacks or accidents, and she's old enough that she can legitimately help me with simple tasks.   I can hand her a puzzle or some crayons and a coloring book while I nurse Hannah and she entertains herself.  We have had some minor behavioral regression but that's improving pretty rapidly.   If we go for a third baby (which so far is still a distinct possibility) we're going to try for similar spacing - 2.5 to 3 years behind Hannah.  

Hannah's birth story

On June 12th I had around 4-5 hours of contractions before they stopped in the evening. I was a little disappointed to not go into labor fully on my own but was glad that Wiggle was waiting for when my OB was on call the next day. We brought Lily and Bella to my parents' house in the afternoon so we were ready to go for the big day. Mark and I woke up early on the 13th and headed for the hospital. 

I got to my room a few minutes after 7 AM and met my labor nurse Tricia. She was actually the nurse who had cared for me a few months ago when I got sent to L&D for monitoring and Mark and I both really liked her. She had me change into my hospital gown and get all situated in bed. We got the monitors on my belly and she started an IV.  At around 7:30 Dr. M came in to check me; my dilation would determine how the induction would start. He said I was 2 cm and 80% effaced so he didn't want to bother with any cervical ripening and would just go to Pitocin.  His plan for the day was "Pitocin, breaking your water around lunch time, an epidural if you want it, and then having a baby!" It sounded like a good plan to us. 

The Pit actually started running at around 8 AM and Tricia turned it up every half hour. I had a light drip of IV fluids as well as the Pitocin. I didn't feel much of anything for the first half hour or 45 minutes and was doing some reading on my Kindle. Then it started kicking in and the contractions felt like they had the day before. I told Tricia that I wanted to walk and she got the telemetry unit for my monitors (she had started charging it as soon as I told her I wanted to go as long as possible before getting the epidural if I got it at all).   Mark pushed my IV pole and we were up and doing laps of the maternity unit. Tricia had asked if it was OK with me to have nursing students observe my care and I had said yes, so at around that time she introduced me to the two nursing students who would be following me that day.  Both them were in the 1 year master's entry to nursing program at UConn. It was their first week of clinicals and their first day on the maternity unit, and they seemed excited that they would probably get to see a delivery.  

After 11ish the contractions were strong enough that I decided to stay in my room. I put my iPhone in the stereo dock and put a live Rush album on repeat. I was more comfortable standing up and actually I spent a lot of time near the windows looking outside (it was pouring rain) and then leaning on Mark or swaying/rocking from side to side during the contractions themselves. While the contractions were strong and painful I felt fine in between. They were short-ish contractions  but close together.   A little before 1 PM a resident came in to check me. I was at 4 cm and while she was up there she asked if I wanted my water broken then - I told her to do it. It was a very funny feeling with a big pop and a gush and Wiggle's fluid was nice and clear. Things got noticeably stronger on the contraction front and they dialed the Pitocin down a little so that it didn't hit me quite as hard. Dr. M came in to see me at 1:30ish because he was done in the OR and wanted to decide if he could go back to the office or not. I was still feeling good in between contractions, so he went to the office - but knowing how fast I dilated with Lily, he made me promise that if I felt any pressure or felt the need to push I would tell Tricia because it would take him 15+ minutes to get back to the hospital. 

By 2, I was feeling very uncomfortable during contractions (I had started to cry through them and had a hard time staying on my feet) and they were coming a lot closer together. Tricia offered to check me to see if progress was being made but I was still at 4 cm.   I decided it was epidural time, although I felt like I had given in too early.   At that point the pain was so strong during contractions that I couldn't stand at all, which made things worse because I couldn't rock and sway through them.  The two nursing students got sent back in and they helped Mark coach me through the contractions. Wiggle was a trooper and tolerated the hard labor well.  Tricia let me know that the anesthesiologist was in the OR for a C-section but that he could leave mid-procedure to come do my epidural. He finally arrived with a nurse anesthetist resident a little before 2:30.  Tricia parked Mark in a chair in front of me so he could hold my hands and she had me hug a pillow and lean on her. The contractions were BRUTAL during the epidural process because I had to sit so still, but they told me when I could move a bit. The first positioning of the epi catheter wasn't good so they ended up snaking it up further to get it in the right spot. During one contraction as they were finishing up, I was crying out in such a way that Tricia told the anesthesiologist that she needed to lay me down and check me ASAP, and after that contraction I told her I felt pushy, confirming her suspicions that I'd dilated very fast and gone through transition. They got the epi catheter taped down and Tricia got me laid down and checked me - she thought I was almost fully dilated.  I almost waited too long for the epidural AGAIN! 

The chief resident came in and checked me and said I was actually around 9 cm but she would have them call Dr. M to get back to the hospital ASAP. She reassured me that the baby was tolerating everything well and if that changed, she would deliver the baby without waiting for my doctor to get there.  By this point the anesthesiologist had run meds into the epidural catheter and they were taking effect - I could have kissed that man!  I could still feel the contractions and could still feel and move my legs, it's just that the pain was gone. They had me labor down until Dr. M got there a little before 3.  Mark and I were chatting and laughing with the resident, Tricia, and the nursing students, and it was kind of crazy that in a matter of minutes I'd gone from near-screaming to comfortably sitting in bed 

My doctor checked me and decided that since Wiggle was still sunny side up, we needed to rotate the baby so that I could more effectively push. This involved him and the resident basically reaching up alongside the baby's head and physically rotating the kid as I pushed gently. Thank heavens I had the epidural because I genuinely don't think I could have tolerated that un-medicated.   Mark held my left leg and Tricia held the right, and they brought in a second nurse (Mary Ann) for the baby. The nursing students got to watch from by the warmer. Once we got the baby's head and shoulders rotated it was time to push for real! 

I pushed through several contractions when the doctor told me that he thought one more set would do the trick because the head was right there - I was surprised and he said I could reach down and feel it if I wanted to. I did and it was so amazing to feel the top of my baby's head, and with that motivation another two or three more pushes brought our baby into the world.   Dr. M put the baby on my chest and announced, "It's a girl!"   Mark cut the cord and the nurses got the top of my gown unsnapped, scooted her up onto my chest, and got a warm blanket over the two of us. Mark and I looked at each other after a few minutes and both of us said "She's Hannah" - which was funny, because Hannah was not our first choice girl's name, but we saw her and just knew what her name was meant to be.  

During this time the resident and Dr. M were getting the placenta delivered and repairing the two small tears that I had. He said the damage was less than my first delivery but he still wanted the tears sutured. I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of blood on their gloves and they were talking about the level of bleeding but at first I figured that birth is a messy business - besides, I was focusing on Hannah.  Then we heard him say that because of the bleeding he wanted another bag of Pitocin hung and to get misoprostol (Cytotec).  I asked him if there was a problem, and he reassured us that while I was bleeding more than I should, we weren't in crisis mode yet and the medicines should take care of it.  The nurses got the Pit cranked open and he gave me the Cytotec, and they wanted me to get Hannah nursing quickly because my body's own oxytocin would help my uterus clamp down more. 

Hannah was also shaky/jittery and she was bigger than we expected her to be.  The nurses did a heel stick and found that her blood sugar was too low (hypoglycemia), so it was doubly important to get her to the breast.  She nursed while they finished getting me fixed up and my bleeding under control, but when they re-checked her sugar a half hour later they found it hadn't gone up. We were given three options: supplementing with formula via SNS (recommended), supplementing with formula via cup feeding, or sending her to the special care nursery for a glucose IV and monitoring.  I knew immediately that I didn't want her having to go to special care - not only did the IV seem kind of traumatic, but she would be separated from me for hours and that didn't seem like a good way to get started on breastfeeding and bonding.   So we supplemented at the breast with the SNS and a little formula (20 mL).  She stopped shaking immediately and the next check showed her sugar up in the normal range!   She was on the "glucose protocol" for 24 hours after delivery - I had to call for a glucose check each time she wanted to nurse in order to determine if she needed additional supplementation to keep her blood sugar in a good range.  It was a bit annoying and after around 18 hours the postpartum nurses basically adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" strategy.  We only needed the one supplement and she nursed like a champ after that.  

Hannah didn't leave my chest for 45 minutes after birth and as soon as her weighing and wristbanding/baby LoJack was done she came back to me. Mark was right there with us and it was an amazing time to bond as a family.  I loved that we could do skin to skin for so long after delivery this time around.   Once my bleeding situation had been resolved Dr. M said I had done a great job and Hannah was perfect, and that he would check on us later that night and in the morning.  He and the resident left us to the nurses to finish my recovery and move us to postpartum.  Because the maternity unit was so nuts at the time, I OKed the nursing students actually helping the nurses with our care (a little more than just the observation experience they had expected!).  Then Tricia had to leave; she had already stayed well past the end of her shift and Mark and I were so grateful for the wonderful care she gave me that day.  The nursing students needed to leave a little while later - they both thanked us very much for letting them be a part of my labor and delivery.  At that point another nurse came in to finish getting us ready to go and we were ready to move to the postpartum side of the unit. 

Around 2.5 hours after I delivered, we arrived in my postpartum room. I was almost finished with my extra bag of Pitocin for the postpartum hemorrhage and my nurse was able to pull my IV a little while later (I promised that I'd make my uterus behave so that she wouldn't have to start another one). We settled in with our Hannah, I ate dinner, and we finally called our families to let them know about our new arrival.   My parents immediately set off for the hospital with Lily in tow and Mark's dad headed over too.   Lily got to be the first one to meet her baby sister, and then the proud grandparents got their turns.  

I've been away...

Yeah, I know.  I bailed on blogging for the last several months - it just wasn't conducive to my mental state along with working, parenting, and being pregnant along with tons of worry about money and all of that.

The awesome news is that Mark got a good job offer when I was around 37 weeks along, and he will start on Monday.  I cannot express what a relief this was for me, heading into having a baby.  His new employer was totally fine with him waiting to start work until after the baby arrived, which was also a relief.  It's a return to sales, but he will probably end up making more money than he was at his last job which is definitely nice.   I should be able to take a full 3 months off or close to it, now that Mark will be working again - which makes me SO happy.

The remainder of my pregnancy went pretty smoothly, although my OB decided to see me weekly from 32 weeks onward due to my history of preeclampsia.  Because I had some ongoing reduced fetal movement concerns that resulted in an emergency trip to L&D for monitoring at 30 weeks when my OB was out of the office, I had a weekly non-stress test and ultrasound at each of those appointments, too.   Fortunately Wiggle did beautifully on all of the NSTs.   My doctor suspects that my feeling of reduced movement was due to an anterior placenta and a baby who decided to stay sunny-side up most of the time, and thus was kicking the placenta rather than me.

At my 38 week appointment, my OB proposed scheduling an induction.   If I had wanted to keep going, we would have with additional monitoring but due to my history he preferred to get Wiggle safely delivered by my due date.  I trust his judgment and honestly I was starting to feel D-O-N-E by that point as well.   Neither of us wanted to risk my borderline high blood pressure progressing to actual hypertension or preeclampsia, as that would necessitate an immediate, high risk induction and quite likely needing mag sulfate again during active labor and for 24 hours after delivery (mag sulfate is a wonderful, life-saving drug but it SUCKS to be on it).   A scheduled induction could be set up for his on-call day at the hospital and would mean freedom of movement and a more normal delivery for me.   At only 1 cm dilated as of 38w2d, there was a chance I'd go into labor myself but it wasn't likely.   So we scheduled the induction for his on-call day during my 39th week, Thursday June 13th.

I worked through the 11th.  While I did have signs of going into labor on the 12th including some hard contractions, they never got anywhere close enough together to call and ended up stopping on their own during the evening.   We got Lily and the dog to my parents' house that night and headed to the hospital bright and early on the 13th.    I was up to 2 cm and nearly fully effaced, so my OB started me on Pitocin right off the bat and I had a textbook-perfect induction, labor, and delivery.  Things got a little interesting for both me and baby in the hour or two after delivery but both of us were just fine with a bit of help.  I'll do a separate post with the birth story.

Hannah Elizabeth arrived at 3:14 PM on 6/13/13, weighing in at 8 pounds 12 ounces and measuring 20 inches long.   Lily was right all along in insisting that she was getting a sister!   She is beautiful and healthy and we love her so much.

Frugal Friday (Saturday): Dry vs. Canned beans

This week's Frugal Friday is extending into Saturday due to the need to soak dry beans overnight.  Sorry about that - we're still bouncing back from the blizzard last weekend and the very busy week I've had at work.

So I've seen a bunch of suggestions online saying that it's more economical to cook dry beans than to use canned, with the slow cooker being the best choice for cooking in terms of energy efficiency.  We're using a lot of canned beans in recipes as of late so I decided to put that to the test this weekend.

1 pound of dry beans equals roughly 2 cups of volume.   According to the Internet, 1 cup of dry beans will produce 3 cups of cooked beans (assuming most liquid is cooked off or drained).   A 15 ounce can of beans produces 1.5 cups of cooked beans when drained and rinsed.   Therefore, we can expect a 1 pound bag of dry beans to replace four 15 ounce cans of beans (6 cups / 1.5 cups = 4).

I purchased two 1 lb bags of dry black beans from Target for $1.39 each.  I probably could have found them cheaper at Aldi or Stop & Shop on sale, but we were there anyways so I got them there.   One 15.5 ounce can of Stop & Shop brand black beans is $0.67, while the same size can of Goya beans is $1.00.  By cooking dry beans at home, portioning, and freezing, that $1.39 bag of beans will replace four cans of canned beans.   That's a theoretical $0.35 per can equivalent for cooking dry beans and $0.67 per can to buy them - you clearly save money by cooking dry beans rather than using canned!

(How many times do you think can I use the word "beans" in this post?)

The actual results of my home-cooked beans experiment:  Two 1 lb bags of dry black beans produced 7.5 portions of 1.5 cups each (the equivalent of one can of rinsed/drained black beans).  I soaked overnight and then cooked the beans for around 6 hours on "low" in the crock pot, so the cost of electricity for cooking is negligible.  I packaged them in 1 quart freezer bags and once they cooled I put them in the deep freeze.    Rounding down, I got 7 can equivalents from the 2 lbs of beans.   2 lbs of beans cost $2.78, for a can-equivalent cost of $0.40 apiece.   Since the best price I found for canned black beans was $0.67/can, we're still saving money.

As a nice side benefit, my home-cooked beans are completely free of any added salt (as a helpful hint when cooking beans at home, do not add salt during cooking as it can make the beans tough).   Low sodium canned beans are either unavailable or hard to find in store brands, and having the beans be salt-free means we can adjust seasoning to taste.  

Frugal Friday: Hot Cocoa Mix

This is a new thing I'm trying, called Frugal Fridays.   I'm going to attempt to post about something frugal that we've tried each week on Friday (makes sense, no?).

With a blizzard barreling down on us, I've been thinking about what kinds of foods are nice when you're snowed in (and potentially without power for days given CL&P's performance in recent years).  I realized that hot cocoa fit the bill perfectly - it's hot, tasty, and only needs hot water.   Then I went and looked at the ingredient list of commercial hot cocoa powder and was kind of horrified - corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, cellulose gum, soy lecithin, even artificial flavor.   Um, doesn't the cocoa give hot cocoa its flavor?  Why is artificial flavor even needed?   Some name brands contain artificial sweeteners (which we don't eat in our house) or even more chemical soup.

I went online and found a recipe for homemade hot cocoa powder, courtesy of Alton Brown.   Now, Alton's recipes have never steered me wrong and this one was no exception.   The ingredients are super-simple:

2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cocoa (Dutch-process preferred)
2.5 cups powdered milk
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cornstarch
Pinch cayenne pepper.  

Combine in a mixing bowl and mix evenly.  Fill a mug halfway with the mixture and add hot water, stir to combine.   

I already had the salt, cornstarch, and cayenne pepper so I stopped at Aldi to pick up the powdered sugar, cocoa, and dry milk.   I measured and mixed and ended up with 5.5 cups of hot cocoa mix.   I put 1/4 cup into a mug, added hot water, and it was AWESOME!   Just like store bought hot cocoa, but it dissolved easily and tasted more rich.  

(Kindly ignore my cheap pink laminate countertops.  They came with the house and we've been too poor to remodel.)

The question - is it really frugal?  I spent $2.49 on the cocoa powder, $1.39 on powdered sugar, and $6.99 on dry milk.   Based on the quantities in each package I have a per-cup cost for each major ingredient of $0.885/cup, $0.185/cup, and $0.655/cup.   For the quantities used to make 5.5 cups of mix, the ingredients cost me $2.90 (neglecting the extremely small incremental costs of salt, cornstarch and cayenne).

So for those keeping track at home, 22 1/4 cup servings of homemade hot cocoa cost $2.90, for a per-serving cost of $0.13/cup.   The cheapest package of Stop & Shop brand hot cocoa comes with 17 1/4 cup servings and costs $3.29, for a per-serving cost of $0.19/cup.   If you go for name brand hot cocoa you'd spent roughly 40% more per serving.    Plus, the homemade powder has simple ingredients with no wacky food chemistry involved - a win/win!

Cloth diapers for Wiggle

So we did the cloth diapering thing part time with Lily, and we didn't start until she was ~4 months old.  I've never used cloth on a newborn, so our stash is exclusively one-size diapers which typically don't start fitting nicely until a baby is ~2 months old.   This newborn cloth diapering thing is new to us and I've been trying to plan out a diaper stash for baby Wiggle!

With Lily's diaper stash, the biggest mistake I made was investing in a certain brand/style of diaper before we was sure it was the most effective choice for us.   I went nuts and got a half dozen Thirsties Duo pocket diapers - only to decide 6 months later that stuffing pockets is a time-consuming pain in the ass.    Also, at around the 1 year mark of use we started having issues with the Thirsties, where the pocket material began looking a bit threadbare and the Aplix (velcro-like) closures got less secure.   As we tried other brands/systems of diaper (BumGenius 4.0 pockets, GroVia All-in-ones, Flip hybrids) we found that we preferred those other methods.   By then we had a half dozen expensive Thirsties Duos that were way too worn to resell.    I should have bought one of a bunch of different options and then we could have sensibly spent money on the ones that worked best.   It wasted a lot of money when we added it all up.

For Wiggle I plan to keep it simple for the newborn stage: covers and prefolds and maybe one or two AIOs for when we're out and about.  A newborn is changed so frequently that there's really no need to worry about heavy absorbency.   I can buy a newborn prefold package that will let me wash every other day for the princely sum of around $100.   That same amount of money would buy four 88-count boxes of newborn Pampers Swaddlers Sensitive disposables (on Amazon, the best prices I know of without serious couponing).   For a newborn that many disposables would last us roughly 5-6 weeks, so the newborn prefold package will have paid for itself before my maternity leave is half over!    Newborn prefold packages don't get a lot of wear and tear because they're used for a relatively short time, so resale value would be high if we chose to unload them after Wiggle can fit our one-size stash.

We'll still have some disposables in the house for when we come home from the hospital if I'm just not feeling up to starting diaper laundry right away.  Mark knows how to wash diapers already (it's not hard), and I can give instructions to relatives or friends who might be over to help out.   With prefolds and covers, doing diaper laundry is no more difficult or time-consuming than washing clothes.

Of course, once Wiggle starts daycare we'll need to send disposables.  The center we use doesn't handle cloth unless there's a doctor's note and we're OK with using disposables there.   By then we will have transitioned to the one-size stash anyways.   We found that even part time cloth diapering for Lily still saved money in the long run, or at least until she started potty training.   Now she's day trained but still needs a diaper at night, so our disposable diaper expenses are very low - we basically have Pullups in the house for when we're out and about and that's it (this is only because I've been too tired to actually sew cloth trainers for her).  

Based on our experience with Lily, I think the foundation of our one-size stash will continue to be the hybrid/cover and prefold style with a few AIOs.   Covers and prefolds are the most economical choice and we know that we hate stuffing pockets, so it seems like a pretty straightforward decision.   We do like AIOs for when we're out of the house or have a babysitter, though.   The nice thing about part time cloth diapering is that you don't need anywhere near the stash that a full time cloth diapering family would need, so that also costs less (but of course there's the ongoing need to purchase disposables for daycare).

Merrily we Pin along

I, like most people, use Pinterest as a way to collect cool ideas, 95% of which I will never actually execute.   Aside from sewing or knitting, I can think of maybe 4-5 projects that I've actually pinned that I ended up going through with.  The rest are kind of like dream or mood boards - it would be cool, but we/I lack the money/time/energy to do them.

One area where pinning works for me is in sewing or knitting projects.   For sewing, it's because I'm still a beginner and am way cheap about buying paper patterns at the store, so tutorials and how-tos and free patterns online are awesome.  Knitting is a little different because I'm an advanced knitter and only rarely need tutorials, plus I use my Ravelry queue to stay organized, but I like to pin specific projects in specific yarns/colorways to remind myself of what yarn purchases I'd like to make.

I've started pinning for Baby Wiggle.  Since we have most of the big ticket stuff that babies need, the baby will be in our room for a while and then sharing Lily's gender-neutral bedroom, and we aren't finding out the sex until delivery, there's not much to do to get ready aside from small fun projects.   Some of my upcoming baby projects are:

Sewing
Roll-up diaper changer
Burp cloths
Car seat canopy (disclaimer: absolutely not for use while the car is in motion)
Car caddy

Knitting
Gift Wrap Romper - this is going to be Wiggle's coming home outfit!

Surplice Baby Jacket
Newborn Vertebrae
Stay-on Baby Booties

Baby Surprise Jacket (3-6 month size for fall/winter wear)
Small Things Sweater (also knit in 6 month size)


Would anyone like to take bets on how much of this I actually finish in the next ~20 weeks?

Yet another thing I swore I'd never do...

Making a baby registry after a first baby.   Yeah, I did it - turn me in to the Etiquette Hell people right now.

We want to upgrade our infant car seat.   We loved the Chicco Keyfit that we got as part of a travel system before Lily was born.   It's absurdly easy to install correctly (even a seatbelt install) and to use, and we liked the color/fabric choices much better than any of the alternatives at the time.   Unfortunately the stroller that came in the travel system is a behemoth which in the end we only used a handful of times.  In mid-2010 the travel system with the 22 pound Keyfit was still quite popular and we didn't want to spend the extra money on the system with the Keyfit 30, so we didn't.

Lily transitioned to the Boulevard in my car at 9 months and then in Mark's car at 11 months.   She had not outgrown the Keyfit yet; that would have happened by length (really, torso height) somewhere around 13-14 months.   What if Wiggle isn't as skinny as Lily was?  I know people whose kids hit 22 pounds at 6-8 months, which would put a June baby right smack dab in the middle of winter when outgrowing a 22 pound infant seat.   We really want Wiggle to get through his/her first winter in the infant seat.   We don't have a garage, so loading a non-walking kid into the car is substantially easier when you can strap them into the seat in the house, pile blankets on top, and then just snap it into the base.   Add snow, ice, and cold wind and a 3 year old to wrangle and it becomes really important to streamline the process of getting into and out of the car as much as is humanly possible!   Our existing bases are compatible with both the Keyfit and Keyfit 30 so there's no need to make an additional investment there.  With the Babies R Us trade in event, we can trade in the Keyfit for a 25% off coupon that we can use on a spiffy new Keyfit 30.

The other part of this is getting a Chicco Liteway Plus stroller to replace the big Cortina.  We went and checked it out last weekend at BRU and it's really a sweet option.  First you use it as a stroller frame with the Keyfit - the seat just snaps in.   Then, it converts to a normal umbrella stroller which most babies can ride in from around 6 months or so.  Lily took several test rides in toddler mode and liked it so much she cried when we tried to take her out!   Mark and I both liked the way it handled and how lightweight it is, plus the umbrella fold is a dream - even smaller than the City Mini.   I got a little award at work that comes with a monetary bonus that after taxes will cover the cost of the Liteway Plus (especially with the 20% off coupon that we'll get from the purchase of the Keyfit 30).

If you have a Babies R Us/Toys R Us rewards card, you get points for spending money in those stores.  You also get registry rewards points for anything on a registry that's purchased for you.   Besides the car seat and stroller, there are some other things we'll need to buy for Wiggle's arrival - mainly bottles and bags for me to store breast milk, plus my beloved Medela micro steam bags and cleaning wipes. They're not really expensive but they do add up and you need to buy a lot of them; a box of 100 milk storage bags or 100 Drop Ins for bottles only lasts around 5-6 weeks once I'm back at work and sending bottles to daycare.  Plus while I plan to sew and to shop at Once Upon A Child for wardrobe needs, I want one or two cute and wholly unnecessary items bought just for Baby Wiggle - maybe some Aden & Anais swaddle blankets!    Babies R Us mails you a completion coupon a few weeks before your due date - I won't pass up a 10% off coupon for things that we need and would be buying anyways.

So I made up a registry.  I always thought it was kind of tacky to do that for babies after the first, barring a situation like having multiples or a very long age gap where parents would have gotten rid of all of the baby stuff (and if they'd kept it, it was probably expired).   I certainly don't expect (or want!) a baby shower, "sprinkle", or anything of the sort for Wiggle.   But we want the reward points and we want the completion coupon, so we went ahead and did it - my apologies to Emily Post!

Some degree of normalcy

Well, the dust has settled around here.   The layoff was scary and the timing certainly sucks, but there's never a good time to get laid off!   One of the upsides of both of us working is that the other's income is a safety net of sorts.

By a stroke of luck, Mark's unemployment amount was boosted because the state department of labor uses specific quarters of income to calculate the amount - the two quarters used happened to be one in which he got his semi-annual bonus and then the other was one where he worked a lot of overtime.   That was certainly a nice surprise and every little bit helps.   Of course it's not what he was making before but when you subtract his high commuting expenses, premiums for insurance, his substantial 401k contribution, etc. it definitely gives us some extra breathing room in the budget while he hunts for a new job.  

We're going to switch to my company's insurance plan.  It sucks to have to switch mid-pregnancy and the premiums are around twice as much for a plan with higher co-pays and out of pocket max, but we would have had to re-meet a deductible for the new plan year regardless.  We will likely switch to the high deductible with HSA plan for 2014 because my company's made some enhancements (especially for prescription drug coverage on the HD w/HSA) but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.   So Wiggle's birth will cost us more out of pocket than we planned, but there's not a whole lot we can do about that besides expect to get on a payment plan with the hospital.

There were layoffs at my workplace a week after.  That was a scary morning for me until it was clear that "the action" was complete.   Between some retirements and the layoffs we had a 10% headcount reduction.  It may not seem like a lot and I was pretty sure I'd be safe (this time) but it's still unnerving as hell to go through that - especially right after your spouse gets laid off.

So yeah.  The situation sucks, but bitching and dwelling on it gets us nowhere positive.  Mark is pretty confident he'll be able to find a new job in the coming months and I'm going to make a major reversal to my usual way of thinking and be optimistic that he's right.  

A no good, horrible, very bad day

Well, kids - if you're keeping track at home we're now two for two on my husband getting laid off while I'm pregnant.   It's like some sort of sick cosmic joke.

I knew something was wrong when I got home and his car was in the driveway.   I got Lily in the door and asked, "Are you sick?" and when he said no, I knew.   All of the expected platitudes were offered: they're very sorry, they told him to apply for unemployment immediately, his supervisor is offering a great reference.   Still, there's a lot of sadness and anger over the loss of a job he liked and was good at, through no fault of his own, and while I'm almost halfway through a second pregnancy.  What was a very happy and exciting thing that we were looking forward to is now our biggest source of stress.  

Our first concern is health insurance.  Thankfully all of us are usually pretty healthy and if I wasn't pregnant we'd just switch to my employer's coverage, which costs more in premiums but is overall not a bad plan.  With the baby due in 5 months, though, we have significant upcoming medical expenses to worry about that we'd never have otherwise.   Mark's now former employer provided better coverage for half the premium cost and we were already well on our way to meeting the deductible thanks to some lab work I had last week.   My available coverage has an out of pocket max nearly two times higher and with higher copays.   We could COBRA through my pregnancy and the delivery, but it will likely cost a fortune to do so.  We'll get the numbers today to plug into an Excel spreadsheet but it's likely that we'll switch to my employer's coverage and accept that when the baby's born we'll need to get on a payment plan with the hospital.   Still, we will have insurance and my doctor and hospital are in-network with both insurers.  We may just be paying the hospital back for the birth until this kid is two (which we did with Lily and can do again).  

Then there's the issue of child care.  With just Lily to worry about we'd be fine indefinitely with my income and his unemployment covering all of our bills, and with relatively little change to our lifestyle.    But we're in the situation of needing two full time incomes to afford childcare, but not being able to afford to get by long-term on my income alone.  So come August or so if Mark doesn't have a comparable salary coming in, he'll have to stay home with the baby while looking for work.   We can't take Lily out of her daycare - she loves it and thrives there with her friends and caring teachers.   

Thankfully we don't need to buy much for the baby.  We were going to upgrade our infant car seat to the 30 pound model and get a stroller frame to use rather than the behemoth travel system stroller, but we don't need to do that.   We have a crib, bedding, swing, bouncer, toys, etc.   If it's a girl we'll be more than all set for clothes and if it's a boy, Once Upon A Child and hand-me-downs will keep him clothed enough.   Mark got frustrated with me and said we should still get what we think we need to get, but I'd rather save the money in case this is a prolonged state of unemployment.  

What has me most irrationally panicked now is the fear that my pregnancy and maternity leave will make me expendable to my employer.  I'm back in the position of being primary breadwinner at a time when there's threatened downsizing on the horizon and I know I'll be out of the office for at least 2 months this summer.  Emotionally I don't even know how to handle that fear so it's probably best to not let it enter my head right now.   I keep telling myself that even in an absolute worst case scenario we will not wind up hungry and on the streets because we have family who would take us in.  

If Mark's out of work much past April, it will mean we won't be able to save up so I can take unpaid leave when the baby comes.  We were counting on saving more money and getting a fairly large lump sum from his expected bonus in March, but now that won't be happening.  So I'll get my 6 weeks of disability and 2 weeks of dependent care days and maybe use a week of vacation and that will probably be it.   I was so looking forward to my 16 weeks this time but if it's not meant to be, I'll deal with it.   

Mark says that my only responsibilities right now are to go to work and kick ass, and take care of my health and the baby's.   It's on him to keep the house running and to handle a time-critical job hunt in this abysmal job market.  We have to try to keep things as normal and stress-free as possible for Lily's sake.  I'm so grateful for his strength and support in a situation which is so emotionally difficult, especially for him.   I pretty much lost it in a hormonal mess!

This sucks.  Right when we think we can relax a little, that life is finally going our way, we get kicked down again.