ma-cow sez

Since my baby didn’t gain enough weight one month, I got obsessed with breastfeeding and baby weight. Every time I would get online I would look for diets, techniques, exercise, and lifestyle in general to increase milk flow. Pointers to make sure when my baby is sucking, she is actually getting milk. I went ahead and did the unthinkable. I went ahead looked for all the old wives tales on breastfeeding diets and tried all of them without finding out why and how they would work. This is probably the first time I followed something without finding out the logic behind it.
Anyway, my obsession kind of pushed me so far, that I would call up and talk to all moms, old or new or would be, and start comparing their experiences, babies weight, how long do they sleep, how much poop they. It was kind of like the old board exam days, where meeting of two friends would always mean questions like “how many hours everyday day are you studying? 9 or 10?” “Did you read the whole mogul history from the reference too!! But that’s 563 pages!”
Anyway, during one of these calls, I was talking to a friend of mine who was expecting at that point of time. After badgering her with all the details on medicines, diet and exercises good for breast milk, when I started on details of breast pump, my friend could not stop herself from asking “But don’t you feel like a cow!! I mean not only you are taking medicines for more milk, you are actually pumping it out of you ….”
Only then I realized, I don’t really feel like a cow, I feel like an overly ambitious, eager to succeed, totally stressed out cow. Thing is whole bunch of my friends had babies around the same time I did, and they went through the same phase. I don’t know what causes it to women like me in this age. I have heard during my mothers’ time, lots of women chose not to breastfeed so that they don’t lose their figure. But us … we get so much information on how breast milk is good for the baby, for her digestion, growth later immunity to disease and then how good it is for the mother also, less chance of breast cancer, more chance of weight loss (might not work by the way … I will explain later) etc etc. That we take it to heart that any use of formula for baby is kind of like a defeat. A failure to be a good mother.
Well the first thing I learnt about breast feeding later is you should be relaxed, and to achieve that if you need to take help of formula once in a while, it wont hurt the baby, in fact, it might just help her. Many such tried and tested experiences I had and still having I will jot down in this section. A request to all reading, in case you guys know something that I don’t, please leave a note.

Superwoman to not-so-supermom

As we, "the today’s superwomen" progress towards motherhood, we are apprehensive, but fairly confident. I mean, we are the batch of women who manage 12 hr jobs, and still manage to pursue family, friends, hobbies, exercise, movies, coffee breaks, eating outs, cooking ins and even that 4 minutes everyday to apply some makeup! Anyway we got that three whole months of maternity leave. Obviously take the job out of equation for “THREE WHOLE MONTHS” it can be easily done, right? After that the baby is practically an adult and your mother or mother-in-law can take over the quite easy job of baby sitting and you can resume your life … oh alright, so you will drop may be an occasional outings or two, to accommodate spending time with the cute lil angel you have at home now. I mean that French minister joined back at work after 5 days of delivery right? And you have 3 whole months!
Bang you have the baby and you realize and keep on realizing, it’s an impossible task … and you thought impossible is not a word that exists in your superwoman dictionary J
Well the only thing correct in all your assumption about motherhood turns out to be the fact that, it is, in fact, 100%, a cute little angel. Which will bode not too well for you, as the cuteness is a sure shot weapon to completely enslave you.
Do I hear you say, hey what all do you have to do to manage feeding and cleaning up after an infant? I mean the thing is not even half a dozen kilos, how much can it eat (and the food by the way is not something you have to make, your body is making it automatically) and how much can it poop? And anyway it sleeps most of the time, right?
J I don’t know the answer to it. I am not sure what I do all day. All I know is I always go to bed sleep deprived and back broken and completely utterly satisfied. The baby taking care part leaves you too exhausted to do anything else and the satisfaction part keep you addicted for more. Of course if the recent recession just left you jobless (like me ;) ) the understanding of previously unknown concepts like single income family and budget is again another thing to add in your exhausting list of chores and worries … but then this blog is not about that. It’s about me and my recently parent friends, our experiences. The things we learnt the hard way. Hoping it would help the yet to be parents and may be put a smile of recognition to the already parents.