Post-Pregancy Pepperoni Pie: Breastfeeding Tips and Exposé for New Moms

My post-pregnancy body is on a downward spiral:

- Belly, previously a prized possession: now a deflated balloon.
- Eye socket skin: threatening to release eyeballs if I don't sleep soon.
- Hair: untended, unwashed, limp.
- More hanging body parts hanging out in my recovery mesh underpants. Tummy-grabbing, nana-knickers, courtesy of St Mary's Hospital, after a painfully natural birth. (Disclosure: Turns out that these disposable undies, un-disposed of, are far comfy-er than the skimpy red ones I wore at conception. And, in the gospel according to this mama, they have earned their own sanitized brand of "sexy": over-washing has worn the mesh full of additional holes. Hubby, however, needs convincing of this theory.)

Thankfully, there are two things, well three, that defy the droopy nature of my 'new mama' style. Firstly, introducing...drum roll...
- Double-threat, bulbous bazoongas:  Phenomenal fertile factories of milk. Milk that could easily be mistaken for helium or silicone. Somewhat science fiction-looking: a shock to my own senses for the first week or two. I needed to learn to appreciate these boulders of glory, as I knew, it was only a matter of months, two years tops, that they two - too - would sink to new depths.

Second Defiers of Gravity:
- My lips: No, not bulbous lip implants to match. Simply that the corners of my life are elevated toward heaven, containing all the quiet contentment of my heart. Awww, how sweet. I have discovered a new love, unmatched, hatched the moment my child entered my world.  A Gain to Defy All Losses.

However, right now I'm starving after another day battling those seductive Sirens of Sleep, trying to pacify my new pooping, peeing, gassy, fussy Burrito of Joy. Easiest solution: order pizza. But I need a plan: detaching myself from The Chief Executive Offspring (CEO) is an exercise of will against will. He's still disgruntled about being dragged so rudely from the womb, plucked out with forceps like a sausage off a barbecue. I get why he's still complaining two months later. I get why he's trying to suck his way back in.

Luckily, his woeful wailing waxes and wanes, most predictably when: 1) when he is zonked out from vocal cord exhaustion 2) he is guzzling from Mother Nature's fantastic, free fountain (a delight unavailable in utero. Gain.) or 3) I have lulled him by dancing beside the speaker. "Dance!" yells my CEO in a language I can barely make out, even though I read the book, listened to the DVD, followed the blog and dreamt about all three. (Yes, you can decode your baby's cries: it's all contained conveniently in the research by Priscilla Dunston called "Dunston Baby Language": I'm waiting for the "Rosetta Stone" release for true fluency.) Simply speaking, Nahhhhhh! means hungry (a cry influenced by the tongue making a sucking motion), Owwhhh! means tired (mouth in an O-shape like a yawn), Airggghh! means "Burp Me, B*tch!" and so on.

I haven't had time to eat (or sleep, brush teeth or hair, or think), but I dutifully squint my ears and tune-in my eyes to decipher the CEO's latest monologue.  Yup, definitely "owwwhhh!" cries. He's tired. I report promptly to my station next to the speaker, cue his favorite dance number and begin to baby boogie. My CEO melts into my arms and his long eyelashes hover over porcelain cheeks. Sneaky, stealthy, to avoid suspicion, and without breaking a beat, I cha-cha over to his crib. I slow the swinging of my hips, the rocking of my arms - amazing, he's asleep! I suspend him arms-length away from the warmth of my body - he's still asleep! I lower him slowly, letting my arms hold him for a few moments next to the crib mattress, shhhh...softly! He's still asleep!  I slowly withdraw my arms, skin-cell-by-skin-cell, until I stand free and balanced - hallelujah! he is still asleep and I will eat! I scramble between sofa cushions, turning out old pacifier, old diaper, new pacifier, PHONE! Turning the dance music down, I speed dial Vinnie's Pizza Delivery, and deliver my order to a confused hostess in urgent, hissed whispers as if in a hostage situation.

The CEO opens one eye and discovers he is no longer aboard the Mother Ship. Nahhh! Owwhhh! Airgggh!  Soon I'm chest-deep back into my job as head of Human Growth Services - not a particularly sought-after position, there have been no other applicants. Yes, Hubby helps, but his body and brain haven't been preparing hormonally for the best part of nine months, so he may as well be holding a turkey to baste for all he knows. He is the in-house Swaddler, he heads his own department. Swaddling looks something like twisting the baby into a trucker's hitch knot using just a blanket, too extravagant for my milk-poop-milk-pee brain.

I've been trying to "pump", so I can delegate some of my Human Growth responsibilities to Hubby, but my milk production is, sadly, on the low-and-slow, which produces two problems:

1) Life juice drips slowly from my body into his, so the CEO sucks on these mammaries for the best part of the day and night. But even milk jugs need a break.

2) When he finally goes to sleep at night, I long to succumb to those sweet-songed Sleep Sirens. Instead, I plug a silicone suction cup onto my breast. The Breast Pump. If you thought pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding blisters (we didn't discuss that yet) and unexpected poop/vomit/pee squirts were plenty, you will then get punked by The Breast Pump.  For a mama that flows like Niagara Falls, the shenanigans of breast pumping would be offset by fruitful gains: abundant milk supply to feed the baby while mama sleeps, shops or flushes the chain.  However, after a day of being sucked dry, this mama struggles to produce a meagre 2oz after a 30-solid-minutes of squeezing a plastic hand pump: Work worthy of carpel tunnel. This paltry amount allows for all of five-minutes rest while the adorable little milk vampire empties the bottle in Daddy's hand and spits it out. Then his suck-y little lips, opening-and-closing like a fish, gasp at the air, for a refill.  Just enough time for mama to poop sans breast accessory. Sorry, flushing is a luxury I just don't have time for at this point...

Can I tell you that NO one can prepare you for how it looks and feels the first time you switch on that pump sucker...This unimposing machine - without any foreplay, warning or lubrication - roars as it attempts to vacuum as much as your breast as it can down a hole the size of a quarter. Frightening.

The CEO doesn't sleep much, but he sleeps more than me. But somehow, I made it out to a breast feeding class. With my mother by my side. Heaven knows I suddenly and desperately need my mother after I popped out a baby. I suddenly appreciate how much my mother loves me and remember my love as her young child whose discomfort magically disappeared just by closing her eyes and burying them in mama's skirt. The child I left behind at 13 when I asked mum to walk ahead of me in public, so I could pretend I was far too grown up to be out with a parent. That will come back to haunt me.

I needed her with as much intensity as I DIDN'T need the anxiety produced by the CEO's wailing for the entire car ride. He's not even bothering to communicate: "Nah, Owh, Airgh!" or "Heh!", he's resorted to a good ol' fashioned catch-all "Wahhhhhhh!" Why do I have the urge to pull over to rescue him from his god-forsaken car seat before we've even left the neighborhood? It never bothered me before when a baby cried. This must be baby-karma's revenge for those times I was stuck on an airplane near a crying baby, barely concealing my shamefully pre-maternal frustration. The CEO cried all the way there until I sat down in the welcoming (yet forbidding) circle of exposed breasts and I re-attached my own boob jewel. It was within this welcoming (yet forbidding) circle that I heard my first: "My baby is an excellent sleeper, 6-8 hours a night!" The mama gazed proudly at her future philosopher, sleeping soundly in the car seat. Everyone coos and congratulates, but my veins bulge in places that I only recently discovered I had veins. "And I produce wayyy too much milk. I am just full of milk all the time." I wonder if her baby ever projectile pooped at her. I wonder if her nipples are so blistered that she resorted to applying a lettuce leaf to each breast, per some online mama's blog. I only had cabbage. I thought I looked quite mermaid-y but my mum burst out laughing at the sight of me. I stalked away, clutching my two purple cabbages and tended to my painful blistered balloons in sulky peace.

I return to reality in time to hear the same Mama of Sleeping Angel suggest "meditation" as a way to cope with the stress and fatigue of having a new infant. "You only have to find 5 minutes a day," she tells the group, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Mamas murmur approval at her. Meditation? Five minutes? I'll be asleep in one. I silently hope her yoga mat wraps itself around her blistered boobs, and I want to tell her what she can do her sticks of incense. Behind my tight smile and eyes of jealous hellfire, I'm a little taken aback by my daggered response to her well-intentioned, well-rested suggestions. Namaste. No sleep for 2 months turned me into a psycho.

The doorbell rings. I forgot about my pizza order. I'm still feeding the hungry CEO, who makes a loud plucking sound, as I quickly detach him. I tuck him under my arm pit. I daren't put His Majesty down in his crib. I swing open the front door with a friendly smile. "Hi!"

But before my eyes hit their intended target...out the lower corner of my eye, I glimpse a white mountain with pink peak. I know we don't live in the Himalayan Mountain range. And then it hits me. Hanging proud and free, as if saying "Well, hello there!" to the boy at the doorstep. Before the baby can grab it, I quickly pulled my dress over it, but horror overtakes me. I entertain the pleasant idea that the Pizza Delivery Boy, who regularly delivered to our house, could be blind, because his cheap, impenetrably blank Ray Bans stare blankly back at me. However, how did he drive here in the beat up car humming in the driveway if he's blind? I knew too much time had passed before the popped-out was popped back. I had to face it: the damage had been done; the glimpse had been glimpsed. I calculated that the PDB (I cannot even say "pizza delivery b**" anymore without judging myself as the Destroyer of Young Innocence) must have been at least 16 to have a driver's permit. But he looked younger - he still had that adolescent skinny floppy-armed look, with awkward limbs growing at different speeds to each other. His hair still remembered the style imposed on him by his mother and a fuzzy canopy of never-shaved hair sheltered his upper lip. A mere child! Cringing, I mumbled, "I'm sorry, I was just breastfeeding." I shrink again into the word 'breast'. I am suddenly painfully aware that a teenage boy and a breastfeeding mother have very little insight into each others' worlds: one dealing with such overexposure to wobbly fat sacks that she can't even tell if it's in or out; the other dealing with extreme underexposure - that this could possibly be his first non-virtual sighting. The burden of that was painful. I was even more mortified about the obvious embarrassment of the PDB, than any personal shame. Our paths had now crossed in a much more significant way than a simple exchange of carbs and cash.

I sunk back into the darkness of our entrance way, and burrowed my head into my handbag, my mind racing. The CEO was beginning to realize he was not being reunited with a fat sack with the urgency he had anticipated. He was beginning to grumble: "N- N- N-". I couldn't focus. Can I regain composure after breast exposure?

The pizza was our usual - a large pie with pepperoni. So thankfully, I didn't have to ask the price and bear the burden of looking upon his burning face with my burning face for a second longer. For what seemed like an eternity of booming silence, I cringed and rummaged: one-handed, aimlessly amongst receipts, crumb-encrusted baby toys, half-eaten granola bars and half-drunken water bottles. My stunned brain cells spin in my stirred fish bowl of a brain, obscuring the goal, unable to recognize or categorize objects in my bottomless sack of a handbag. What am I looking for again? Money. Plan of action? Complete transition with minimal interaction. Right. Assemble remaining available brain cells for counting function.

"Na- Na Na-!" The CEO's lip corners are turning down, accompanied by a breath-y hiccup: indicating preparation for a full-blown wail. I anticipate the awkward diversion from our usually-banal and forgettable interaction, knowing full-well that my pink exposee would be stamped right bang in the forefront of both our minds - not unlike one large pepperoni positioned bang-center in the middle of the pizza. I was throwing bills here, there and everywhere, digging for the correct tender that wouldn't involve him having to find me change. I would rather be the rummager than rummagee. Goodness knows if I have to witness his awkwardness. "Nahhhh!" jolts my hazy focus beyond my handbag handles to the immediate surroundings. Somewhere in my peripheral - I cannot yet bring myself to look directly - he's standing there, frozen solid, still holding the pizza box. Right. Of course he is. You got this. Pay. Thanks. Goodbye. Close door quickly. Then cringe as much as you like.

Finally, I re-emerge with exact tender plus tip. The PDB holds out the large square cardboard box as though it were the red velvet cushion upon which sat a crown. He mumbles one word: "thanks" - I know that because I lip-read under the loud "Nahhhhhhhh! and, with that, he turns quickly and is gone. Never do I have to see him again. I shut my door quickly, scolded my nipple, reattached the CEO and cringed throughout cold pizza. Desperately seeking new pizza delivery service.