Thursday, November 08, 2007

Drying up

WARNING!! This post may contain TMI for some readers.

The girls are getting smaller. I can finally wear some of the button down shirts I am so fond of for work. I still have to wear a sweater over them, lest I pop a button, but I'm getting closer! I grew to a size 38D (normally a 34A/B) so most of my work shirts have been a bust (pun intended). I had to go shopping for shirts so I didn't look like a hooker looking for a John at work. Tonight I am going to try and go for a run (weather dependent) for the first time in a year.

As much as I wanted to get Claire as close to a year on breastmilk as possible, it just wasn't going to happen. We simply ran out of space. Our home freezer above our fridge has been loaded and unloaded as we transferred milk to various family members numerous times in the last four months. About two weeks ago I jotted down where milk stashes were located (MIL, BIL, my mom's...) and the respective dates along with the 'expiration' dates. Milk that is stored in a deep freeze is good for 6-7 months; milk in a regular freezer is only good for 3-4 months.

Erring on the side of caution I realized that the milk at my mom's had to be used in early December. Before we could get that milk back up here and into our freezer we needed to unload the stash we have on hand from the last several weeks. Well, since I have been pumping since Claire's arrival and was kicking out 10-12 ounces every 4 hours it has taken me nearly a month to slow down my production enough to call it done. Weaning off releasing that much milk can be VERY painful. This weekend I pushed it to the extreme, before learning I may have been doing some damage to myself. It got to the point where I couldn't pick Claire up because it hurt too much. I went back to stretching the time in between sessions while continuing to cut down on the time attached to the machine. That seemed to help as yesterday I only pumped once. I'm thinking by this weekend I can have a glass of wine and not have to worry about it being passed onto Claire. My guess is Claire will still be on breastmilk for about 2-3 more months. As we get closer to the end of the stash we will stretch it out by mixing it with formula and mixing it in with solids (can you believe she will start solids soon?!?).

The girls are closer to the size they were while preggers. Part of me wants them to stay this size :) Yet I am itching to get back into my button downs (I'm addicted to them, BTW) and get back to running without pain.

1 comment:

carrster said...

Ah so much to look forward to...

Good luck with the Girls. :) Hopefully they will retain some of their pg fullness and still let you wear buttondowns & run!

(I always hated that button down problem, btw. Argh).