Category — Breastfeeding

It has been two weeks since Amaia last nursed.

My boobies are mine once again. Only now, they’re lonely. Spent. Saggy. Like an aged, emphysemic circus performer. Or Madonna.

(Oh, come on. Did you not see what I saw during the Super Bowl halftime show?)

Amaia nursed for the last time on her 14-month “birthday.” I tried nursing her again the next two days, but she would just roll away like a mischievous little mole and try standing on her head. I didn’t bother after that.

There have been a couple of times where I could tell she wanted to, but I’m done. D-U-N, done. I’m all for extended breastfeeding, but it has been such a rough road for us, and I am so ready to be back on my bipolar medication, that I’m at peace with calling it the end of our breastfeeding relationship.

Over the past two weeks, my boobs have deflated, their journey southward probably just beginning. Over the past four years, I have traversed every size between a 32-not-even-A cup before getting pregnant, all the way up to a 36D during the peak of my milk production. As you might imagine, the current density of my breasts is reminiscent of a three-week-old party balloon that has fallen to the floor in a squishy bulb of helium-less despair.

There is no push-up bra that can save me.

I’m okay with it, really. I have done amazing things with these suckers (oh god, the pun!). And the thousands of dollars I have saved us in formula for three kids should be enough to cover the gigantor plastic boobies I plan to finance and proudly display some day.

Hey, what can I say? I grew up in Southern California. That shit will sear your soul.

Long, long post ahead. You’ve been warned.

I have a confession to make:

I don’t want to breastfeed anymore.

Okay, okay. Settle down. Put down the gun. Stop crying. Let me explain.

I had a truly magical and amazing breastfeeding experience with the twins. We weaned at 16.5 months because, for my own mental health, I needed to, not because I wanted to or was ready to. I loved nursing them. They were enthusiastic eaters (most of the time) and were easy and enjoyable to feed (most of the time).

But Amaia has been a problem feeder since day one. For the first few months, she had a constant and inexplicable loss of suction while nursing. It drove me batshit. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, since my lactation counselor ruled out tongue-tie. She always choked on my milk, screamed and arched her back after eating, popped on and off the breast constantly, and cried all the time. We both seemed miserable.

The look on Amaia

After that rough patch was over, we had a few truly beautiful, blissful months where nursing was all I remembered it being with the twins. She nursed frequently and fairly well. I was more confident and we happily nursed anywhere and everywhere. And while it was pretty awesome, I suspected she wasn’t quite emptying my breasts. I had to move her back and forth after she would pull away to make sure she got all the hindmilk.

And then . . . Well, things started sucking again (so to speak, har har). She began with the screaming, arching, and crying after feeding again. She would start and stop feeding, or reject feeding altogether. She seemed to hate nursing. I was a total wreck.

It got worse. She would pop and and off so much during the let-down phase that it would take forever for my milk to start flowing. She started getting impatient and pushing away from my breast when the milk didn’t come, which would stress me out, which would make my let-down take even longer, which would make her cry and completely reject the feeding, which would make me cry.

And I started to completely dread nursing her.

Still, I persevered. I was NOT going to give up before a year was up. Babies are meant to breastfeed and my simple task was to provide her milk. I was thankful, though, that by this point, she was finally taking solids — a milestone which took her a good six weeks to master after the introduction of solid foods (so do the math — that means she was exclusively breastfed for 7.5 mostly miserable months. Good god.).

Although she was a difficult case, she didn’t have problems with weight gain. Until we saw the pediatrician at 10 months.

Amaia had fallen completely off her growth curve. I can’t remember what the difference was now, but it was drastic. She had gained a mere four ounces in as many months. The doctor slapped her with the label that no breastfeeding mother wants to hear:

Failure to Thrive.

Failure. To. Thrive. Me? Amaia? Us? Are you kidding?!? Failure to Thrive was for schedule feeders, Baby-Wisers, mothers who refused to breastfeed their babies because it wasn’t convenient. I had shoved a boob in this baby’s mouth at the slightest peep since she was born. If anything, my twins were scheduled! How the hell do you explain this???

I was devastated. Mortified. Shocked. Depressed. Furious. Defensive. And ultimately, I felt utterly defeated. After all I’d gone through to that point, after the intense focus on nursing her despite the ongoing issues . . . The feeling of failure was overwhelming. A mother can provide her baby with the most basic of needs: comfort, clothing, shelter, and food. And I had failed at the most essential of those.

My baby was FAILING TO THRIVE in my care.

I left the visit in tears that day and immediately called my lactation counselor. After a 10-minute interrogation, she strongly suspected that Amaia had reflux the whole time.

Reflux. Never in a million years would I have thought it because Amaia’s wasn’t a spitter-upper. She didn’t vomit and she slept well. But apparently, it was still possible to have reflux without vomiting.

I called the pediatrician and hashed it out with him. I had never discussed with him all of the problems we’d had with nursing and solid foods. I always just assumed that it was an individual quirk, an “infant thing” that Amaia would outgrow. As miserable as it was, I assumed it was all no big deal. I was an experienced mother and was taking the laid-back approach this time around.  I had nursed twins. I knew everything, dammit!

From then on, I had to completely change my approach to nursing and feeding Amaia. I nursed her sitting almost upright. Immediately, she stopped crying after feeding. She was noticeably more content with nursing  (as was I) and would even comfort nurse — something she had never done. I added back nursing sessions and made sure she emptied my breasts.

I had to start examining every last morsel of food she ate. No more Mum-Mums, Puffs, Cheerios, or plain baby foods. It was all about real coconut milk, avocados, egg yolks, full-fat cheese, cream cheese, butter, olive oil, whole-milk yogurt, protein. I had to start reading the labels on baby foods and would only buy things that were at least 80 calories per serving.

I became obsessed.

And it worked. Since mid-October, Amaia has gained a little over three pounds. Every last ounce was earned with my blood, sweat, and (many) tears. She’s back on a normal growth curve (20th percentile on the WHO charts).

Additionally, I took her to a GI specialist and had FOUR VIALS of bloodwork taken out of my tiny little baby. (The phlebotomist took one look at her and asked how much she weighed — she wasn’t sure she’d be able to even take that much blood from such a small baby. Sigh.) Her bloodwork came back totally normal, with great iron levels and nothing out of sorts. But the GI doctor has ordered a feeding evaluation, citing that she’s a poor feeder and might be having something more going on with swallowing or texture issues.

So this brings us to today. Amaia now drinks whole milk, and I estimate she gets about as much whole milk as she does breast milk — probably 8 total ounces of breast, 8 of cow’s milk. She only nurses three to four times a day now. But aside from the first nursing session of the day, it’s pretty miserable and pointless. She gets a good bit of milk in the morning, but every other time she nurses for anywhere from 10 seconds to MAYBE two minutes per breast. She can’t be getting more than an ounce total from both breasts on a longer session.

Plus, she has started this weird habit over the past few days of stretching her arms straight against my chest so that she’s pushing me away — which, in turn, pulls my boob out and strrrrrrrrretches my nipple taut.

It feels really, really awesome. Especially when her teeth scrape against my nipple. You’ll just have to trust me on that one.

All I can conclude is that she’s just not interested in nursing anymore — and frankly, neither am I.

On the one hand, I feel like a complete failure. I really, really wanted to nurse for a long time this time, at least as long as with the twins, but preferably longer. I know that I have breastfed longer than 80% of mothers in the U.S. That’s awesome, right? I have given Amaia a lifelong gift that most children don’t get.  Yadda yadda.

But that’s not the point. I don’t breastfeed to get an award or for bragging rights. There’s obviously a major emotional component to breastfeeding, but I do it because human babies are supposed to drink human breast milk. That’s not meant to offend anyone — it’s just a fact. Even the cow’s milk she drinks is not designed for her gut. And to not be successful at it, to not even want to do it anymore because of such a poor experience over the course of over a year, feels really shitty.

But some days I end up so miserable, I’m convinced that I won’t even nurse her the next morning.

At this point, I’m just going to continue to do what we’re doing while focusing on ways to keep her calorie count up while relying less and less on my milk.

And I’ll be thankful that we made it this far, even though I mourn the nursing relationship and experience that I so deeply wanted.

Throughout the years, I’ve documented my ups and downs with bipolar/depression here. (I always feel the need to temper the word “bipolar” with the word “depression” because the former generally invokes visions of a manic person staying awake for a week while they paint the corners of their closets and then cry for three days. [Or maybe that's crystal meth?] I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar II, a milder form of bipolar disorder that consists of euphoric highs cycled with very deep, dark lows.) Unfortunately, it’s a constant part of my life. I don’t deal with it well. It’s uncomfortable. And perhaps the worst part is that I can feel it coming on.

When I’m in my euphoria, life is AWESOME. I’m happy, bubbly, expressive, fun, maybe a little wild (okay, maybe pretty wild. I try to blur out most of my teens years and 20′s because some of the stuff I did makes me cringe.). I convince myself that everything is okay and that my depressive bouts must be a distant memory — that this time, things will be different.

It never is. It never, ever is.

Since having Amaia, I’ve been mostly stable. Even as recent as a few weeks ago, I felt pretty great. Life was fulfilling and I had a positive and generally even-tempered outlook on things. The regular exercise must be helping, I told myself. Having a break while the girls are in school is really doing wonders, I thought.

But I kept looking over my shoulder, feeling that the next depressive low was just around the corner. Like I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Of course, the shoe dropped. It’s dropping now. I’m not doing well. Again. It’s not as bad as it was when it hit after the twins, but it’s not good. Every day, every hour, feels harder than the last. I’m holding onto my sanity by ever-thinning threads. I feel like some days are getting too much for me to handle. I need more help than I can possibly bring myself to ask for — because of course, asking for help makes me a fucking HORRIBLE mother, which intensifies the feelings of worthlessness, failure, guilt, and anxiety.

Interestingly, I noticed that the downward turn coincides with the return of my period — just as it did last time when my period came back after the twins. The hormones probably have a big impact and it makes me wonder how things will look after I finish nursing.

And speaking of nursing, the onset of a depressive episode reminds me of how long this rollercoaster has been going on — the pregnant-nursing-weaning-woops-pregnant-again-nursing-again-need-to-wean-soon rollercoaster, that is. I had only weaned the twins because I needed to get back on my medication (Lamictal), only to immediately get pregnant with Amaia as soon as I weaned.

I do NOT want to stop breastfeeding because of this FUCKING disorder. BUT. I can’t go on like this. I’m not a good mom like this. I am NOT a good mom like this.

I know there’s more to me than what I feel now. I know that I can love and feel good again. I know because I’ve felt it.

So I will eventually wean Amaia because I love her that much. I love all my kids that much.

The baby is now 9.5 months old and I’m getting close to being able to do that. I just need to hang in there for a few more months.

Well, hell! Amaia went and turned nine months old and I’m just now getting a chance to catch up. How is she doing?

Eating

As solids become more and more a part of Amaia’s everyday diet, she nurses less and my milk supply is taking a major hit.

Currently, she nurses 4-5 times a day and has 2-3 meals of baby food and other miscellaneous finger food, including puffs, Mum Mums, pieces of bread and fruit. She still chokes on some chunkier stuff, so we have to be careful. Meanwhile, as my milk supply drops, my letdown reflex takes longer and longer . . . which means the baby becomes impatient and upset, latching and unlatching over and over again . . . which in turns stresses me out . . . which consequently prohibits an ejection reflex at all. Sometimes, I get so stressed out by how long it takes for my milk to let down that I don’t have a let down at all, and we have to stop altogether. It’s all very upsetting.

Looking back at where the twins were at nine months, though, Amaia has the same eating habits. I’ve been taking Fenugreek just to be on the safe side. I’m also finding it helpful to have a little toy or other object handy to distract the baby while she nurses so that my milk has time to come in. She refuses to drink milk out of anything but the breast (or mixed with cereal), so I can’t even try pumping and feeding her from a cup or straw until we hit the one-year mark. I’m just trying to keep my patience and take it one nursing at a time.

Sleeping

Hallelujah, people! After eight months of interrupted sleep, I’m finally sleeping through the night! And so is the baby! I can’t tell you what a difference a full-night’s sleep makes on my perspective. The baby sleeps from 8pm to about 7:30am. She’s just as awesome as the girls were when they were babies — she just wakes up and mumbles and sings to herself until someone comes to get her.

As far as napping goes, she will no longer doze off in a bouncy seat, so she only takes a morning nap if we’re in the car for longer than 10 minutes in the morning. She always takes a really super awesome three-hour nap in the afternoon from about 1pm – 4pm. It’s heavenly.

Sizes

Though she fits into 9-12 month, Amaia’s on the long side so I have her in 12 month onesies. Her waist and hips are small, though, so she can fit into smaller pants (though I personally believe they use freakishly gigantic babies for pants models — those things are HUGE, right???). She’s in a size 3 diaper. I’m guessing she’s around 17 pounds, but we haven’t had her nine-month appointment yet so I’m not sure. I’m pretty certain she’s lighter than the twins were at this age, though.

Personality

I think this photo says it all about Amaia’s personality:

I’m telling you, this baby is so freaking happy. She smiles and smiles, laughs, talks to herself, sings, dances to music, gleefully kicks her feet and waves her hands. Overall, she’s just a really pleasant, observant, enjoyable baby. She LOVES little kids, especially little girls and, more than anything, her big sisters. She gets pretty freaked out with aggressive little boys, though.

Something noticeable with Amaia is that she’s incredibly attached to me. She often gets really upset if she sees me leave a room. Come dinner time, no one will do but Ama. As soon as I get home from the gym in the evenings, I pretty much have to tote her around until she goes to bed, or else she’ll just whine and cry.

Milestones

Amaia is still just scooting, not crawling. I can’t help but compare to the twins, who were pulling to a stand and trying to stand independently already by now, but I know that Amaia is just doing things her way. She’s a far more sociable baby than the twins were, so it’s just a matter of her individual demeanor.

She has four teeth so far — the bottom two center ones and, oddly, the top center and left incisor. The second top center tooth and right incisor are at the point of breaking through, too. Thankfully, she hasn’t used her teeth while nursing.

Still no hair to speak of. Poor kid.

This month, she also went in a swing for the first time. She LOVED it!

Holy crap, Amaia is six months old??!? How did this happen?

As with the twins, I’ll document basic baby facts here about Amaia’s growth and development. Sorry, not the most thrilling post!

Eating

After a rocky start that included mastitis, thrush, and an inexplicable constant loss of suction during nursing, Amaia is now breastfeeding like a natural. She nurses five to seven times a day, still waking once in the night to feed.

A few days ago, I stocked up on organic baby foods and gave her a first taste of pureed apples. She was six months old and showing all the signs of being ready: sits assisted, no tongue-thrust reflex, very interested in what we’re eating and drinking. The result? Zero interest.

After three failed attempts at apples, I reverted to the basics: cereal thinned with breastmilk, figuring that the familiar taste of milk might make her more amenable to the solid food experience.

Aaaaand that would be a no. Mostly, she just purses her lips shut so tightly, I can’t even get the spoon in.

Schedule

Amaia has a lovely routine:

7/7:30am: Wake, eat

Sometime between 10-11am: Cat nap wherever she is, eat

1pm: Eat, sleep

4:30/5pm: Wake, eat

8:30pm: Eat, sleep

3am: Eat, sleep

Yes, you read that right: She naps for 3-4 hours straight in the afternoon. The twins still nap for about three hours in the afternoon as well. This gives me an extremely welcomed break most days, which allows me to exercise or watch TV.

Milestones

This is where I can’t help but compare Amaia to the twins. She is not nearly as advanced as the twins were. Elise and Althea were rolling all over the place by five months old. Elise started scooting at six months and both twins were practicing sitting up by now. In contrast, Amaia just started rolling from back to belly at five months and is just now rolling more regularly and in her sleep. Though she sits assisted, Amaia is nowhere near sitting on her own.

One thing she does seem to be interested in, though, is pulling her knees under her body and rotating around a lot. Girlfriend’s got some scheming ideas going on.

Now that she is rolling onto her belly during sleep, she has outgrown the bassinet in our room. It’s really time to get her in the crib at night, but the thought of having to leave the bed and trudge to her room to nurse at 3am makes me want to weep. How did I do this with the twins???

Sizes

At her six-month well check today, Amaia was just shy of 15 pounds and was 26.5 inches long. She’s in the 75th percentile for height and below the 50th for weight. She’s moving on to size 3 diapers and is in 6-9 month clothes.

Though our current pediatrician and I discussed sizes and growth charts with the twins early on, I think we’ve really come to understand each other and he gets my confidence in my ability to nourish my kids. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have a supportive doctor who takes the time to look at the baby’s overall growth pattern, as well as the size of the parents, rather than just the percentage on a chart.

Personality

Okay, there’s going to be some comparison here too.

Elise and Althea are serious kids. In unfamiliar situations and with new people, they are reluctant, quiet and sometimes lack self-confidence. They are extremely attuned to people’s energy and will react accordingly. They are happy kids but, in general, they’ve never been particularly quick to smile.

Amaia, on the other hand, is what my mother-in-law calls a Personality Plus. This baby is HAPPY. She smiles and squeals and laughs at strangers. When her sisters pay her even the slightest attention, she lights up like a thousand candles. Indeed, she LOVES LOVES LOVES her sisters and all little kids. She’s very friendly and outgoing — much different from the twins.

I mean, seriously. Look at this baby. That is sheer JOY.

Thrush? Seriously?

Between the mastitis and the baby constantly losing suction, this breastfeeding experience has already been, in just eight short weeks, more eventful than breastfeeding twins ever was.

Amaia’s left eye has been inflammed and tearing up off and on since yesterday. She’s also broken out in a pretty gnarly rash on her left cheek, so I went ahead and got in with her pediatrician this afternoon.

I expected him to diagnose the rash as eczema and give me some drops for her eye. Instead, he noticed the white patch on her tongue and announced, “Oh, you have a bit of thrush.”

Thrush? What the fuck?

The name alone — thrushhhhh — sounds like something slimy and wet oozing from some dank, pulsating bodily orifice. Then, when you find out it’s a yeast infection in the mouth, you really get the willies. Gross.

I guess it only makes sense. I had a yeast infection toward the end of the pregnancy, then was on a week-long round of antibiotics shortly after delivery when I got mastitis. I’d seen the white patch on Amaia’s tongue, but I figured it was milk residue since it’s nowhere else in her mouth and I have no symptoms of thrush on my nipples. Explain that one.

Now I feel like the whole house is infested with VD or something. Am I covered in the infection? Does Chris have it all over his peen? Do I throw out all the pacifiers, wash rags, clothes, baby bath tub, and my underwear? Will I ever get to wear a bra again? How freaking long is this going to last?

Of all the breastfeeding complications to have, I had to get the one that’s the biggest pain in the ass to treat. Rad.

And here I was, trying to watch my carb intake….

Amaia turned six weeks old on Wednesday. I think it’s generally accepted that the first six weeks of a newborn’s life are the roughest (followed by the subsequent, oh, 27 years or so) and it’s certainly been true for us.

I don’t want to say Amaia’s an unhappy baby, but it certainly feels that as long as she’s awake, she’s crying. She cries after she eats, she cries in her car seat, she cries during car rides, she cries in the stroller. She cries if you hold her to the left. She cries if you hold her to the right. She cries in the bouncy seat, the swing, the Boppy. You get the idea. She’s hard to please and it’s been rough. I find myself really agitated sometimes when she’s especially fussy. My patience gets short.

I remember feeling this way with Althea and Elise too, but that may have been because there were two of them so chances were that someone would be crying at any given time. And as the weeks went by, things got better and better. I’m hoping that’s happening with Amaia, too. We’ve had a few decent nights of sleep the past few nights. She’s sometimes awake without crying.

She still screams in the car seat, though, and that’s incredibly aggravating, not to mention stressful and almost dangerous. There’s really nothing I can do except drive and hope I don’t hit something. I tried dangling some toys from the carry handle, but she’s not especially impressed so far. I got some of those pads for the shoulder strap in case the belts are hurting her neck, but they interfere with the correct positioning of the harness so I can’t use them. I’m out of ideas. Help?

I think I’m noticing a still-unreliable but vague pattern to her feeding and sleeping. My closest estimation:

8:30am – Wake and eat

10:30am – Eat, fall asleep shortly after

12:30pm – Wake and eat

1pm – Sleep

3pm – Wake and eat

4pm – Sleep

6pm – Wake and eat

7:30pm – Eat

9pm – Eat and sleep

1am – Eat, sleep

5am – Eat, sleep

I also had my six-week post-partum checkup this week. Everything is where it’s supposed to be, with the exception of, um, my butt. I don’t want to talk about it.

Okay, I’ll talk about it. (TMI Alert! TMI Alert!) Things are kind of falling out. It’s not pleasant. Turns out that the ligaments and stuff that hold a woman’s junk all together are estrogen sensitive. The doctor said that for some women who have had multiple deliveries and who are nursing, the suppression of estrogen due to breastfeeding inhibits the repair of the ligaments and muscles of the, um, nether region. So stuff can kind of . . . prolapse. As you wean or your period resumes (and thus the production of estrogen resumes), those things will naturally repair. So in the meantime, I guess I’ll just keep peeing when I run and crapping myself, thanks.

On to other subjects.

Speaking of breastfeeding, it’s going mostly better. Amaia still loses suction at times, but it’s less frequent and I definitely don’t think it’s a tongue tie anymore. Thanks to everyone’s suggestions, I did some reading and I think it’s partly an intense amount of milk for her, and partly just her. She’s gaining weight, she has plenty of wet and dirty diapers, she eats well and has become quite an efficient and thorough nurser.  So I’m just chalking it up to being her nursing idiosyncrasy unless something else becomes cause for concern.

Today, we gave Amaia her first bottle. Next week is my birthday and I wanted to go out for booze with some girlfriends. I’m happy to report that she took the bottle with no problem.

Bacardi, I am looking forward to being reacquainted in the near future.

And how am I doing? Well, I have good days and bad days. Good days tend to follow good sleep. I’m hoping for fewer bad days ahead. I have discovered the frozen foods aisle and can report that Bertolli makes some mean frozen meals. The bathrooms have been cleaned exactly once in the past six weeks and I’m not sure I give a shit. I cannot see the kitchen counters, but I can see most of the floor and that’s good enough for me.

I started working out again this week and I’m aiming to exercise every other day, even if it’s just 20 minutes and even if I can’t get around to showering for many hours afterwards. Considering Amaia tends to nap at the same time that Elise and Althea do in the afternoon, I think I might be able to pull it off sometimes.

Meanwhile, Althea and Elise are very much two year olds and provide plenty of challenges throughout the day. They are defiant and opinionated. They throw tantrums. They kick and protest. They run away when you come after them.

They are also awesome, amazing, intelligent, entertaining, creative, hilarious and beautiful.

Overall, I’m still happy to be a mom, and that’s what matters.

Breastfeeding is supposed to be a beautiful bonding experience mother and baby, right?

Yeah, well.

This is what happens when you have two-year-old twins and you’re caught, vulnerable, breastfeeding your newborn.

There is no time for creative post titles when your definition of “evening wear” has devolved to this:

Things right now are in a state of controlled chaos. With my mom still here helping, we’re able to get out of the house most days with everyone in tow. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and laundry is done on a pretty regular basis.

But around the house, there’s evidence of the underlying bedlam. The bathrooms haven’t been cleaned in a month. There are raisins and remnants of Goldfish crackers smashed into the carpet. All of my wearable clothes are covered, to some degree, in breastmilk. There are burp cloths, wash cloths, receiving blankets and hand towels stuffed into every corner of the house — all also covered in breastmilk.

I do not, as they say, “have it together.”

Speaking of which, breastfeeding is going . . . well, just okay, to be honest. I think Amaia has a bit of a tongue tie. She loses suction during feedings, sometimes frequently. She also chokes on the stream of milk during letdown and pops off, shrieking and crying. She doesn’t always empty my breast either, which may have contributed to the nasty case of mastitis I got earlier this week (104.5 fever = 3 pound weight loss FTW!).

According to my unofficial weighing method (step on scale with baby, step on scale without baby, subtract difference), she’s gaining weight just fine and her diaper output rivals that of a grown man on a high-fiber diet, so I’m not super worried about it. I read that some tongue ties are outgrown in the first year as the frenulum stretches. I’m hoping that’s the case here. But in the meantime, it’s annoying, frustrating and makes for some very messy feeding sessions. We’re working on it. Ideas/thoughts welcome.

Sleep is another subject altogether. With the twins, I started pretty early with scheduled feedings and a set bedtime. A natural and reliable pattern emerged by about 12 weeks and viola, there was our schedule. But with a singleton and two older children, it’s on-demand feeding and haphazard sleep schedules as we work around toddler routines and a house guest. The one thing I am determined to work on first is the afternoon nap because, come hell or high water, everyone is going to be napping at 2 p.m. Ideas/thoughts also welcome here.

Elise and Althea are getting used to Amaia’s presence. They now include her in their roll call of objects and people they see in the room. Once in a while, they’ll hold a small toy in the crook of their arm and say “Amaia” or start singing a Yo Gabba Gabba song about babies. Though it was unplanned, I’m glad we had another child while the girls are still younger — I think that emotional issues would have been much more complicated had Chris and I waited as planned to have a third.

Other than that, everything is just freaking great! Here are some photos. Admittedly, we’ve been pretty lame about taking photos lately. As soon as I can stop walking around the house with breastmilk soaking the front of my shirt, I’ll get to work on that too.

(Man, my blog post titles are getting stupid.)

It’s been eight days since I last nursed my girls.

::sob!::

Since I first started writing about weaning last month, I gradually reduced the number and frequency of nursings. We’d skip a day, then two days, then three. The couple of times we went for three days, my boobs ended up insanely uncomfortable — not really engorged, but heavy as bowling balls and very sensitive.

Then the tantrums started.

When it became obvious that we weren’t headed to my bedroom to nurse, the girls would start throwing a tantrum. That wasn’t worth it to me, so we’d nurse.

And then one morning, they didn’t freak out.

And they didn’t freak out the next morning either.

And here we are, eight days later, and my boobs have not freaked out and the girls haven’t freaked out and we’re all doing just fine, it seems.

My boobs have changed already. The last vestiges of hormonal brown discoloration are finally fading away. My nipples have regained their non-stretched-to-hell appearance. The aereola seem to be shrinking and looking less Nat Geo.

I think I’m doing okay with it. For a silly, superstitious reason, I kind of wanted to make their last time nursing be on the 17th, when they’d be 17 months old. You know, golden birthday nonsense.

But we did good. Sixteen-and-a-half months of nursing twins ain’t bad, in my book. We’re happy. We’re healthy.