Separation - Who Suffers The Most?

I'll tell you now the answer is me, but I'll come to the reasons why shortly.

Next month my big brother will be getting married.  He is pretty much already married as he has been with his future wife for a long time now and they have two kids - the oldest is nearly 11 and the youngest will be 7 in the summer.  Next week is the hen weekend.  Something I have been fretting over for a long time now.  Not fretting in a bad way - just questioning whether or not I'll actually be able to go.  Due to The Popster being breast fed and having an intense dislike for bottles it looked as though the only way I could go was to take her and hubby with me.  They would hang out in the hotel room and I would pop back every 3 hours, sober, to feed her.  Not an exciting hen weekend!!  For this reason we put The Popster into training.

Training did not work.  It consisted of regularly trying to give The Popster a feed via the bottle, (using expressed breast milk).  We tried everything.  Different people feeding her, different bottles, different teats, a cup, trying to trick her by substituting her dummy for a bottle and then quickly switching back again before she noticed.  Feeding her when hungry, feeding her when not hungry.  Warming the milk, not warming the milk.  Everything.  She did not want that bottle.  She had standards.  She would only take her food from the source.  This was heartbreaking for me.  The worst part was pouring the perfectly good milk I had produced down the sink after The Popster had a tantrum when offered it.  I don't really know how to describe the feelings you have when expressing milk, but I'll give it a go.

First of all I'll describe to you the first conversation I ever had about expressing milk and therefore my first knowledge of what it was all about.  I promise you the start/set up of this story is not what you are expecting right now.  Here goes.....

I was around 6 months pregnant and at work.  I had a very important meeting about ROI, (Return On Investment).  I was in the process of a complicated piece of work that was incredibly important and would result in steering our companies strategy for the following year.  The meeting involved the Director Of Music, the Programming Controller and the Managing Director.  Just to give you a little more info so you can really picture this, they were all men, the Programming Controller was newly married and childless, the Director of Music is gay and disliked children and the MD was married with 2 kids.  Somehow, during the course of this meeting the conversation turned to expressing breast milk and I swear it was not me that went there!!  My MD decided to steer half the meeting to giving me advice about making sure I spent the money and bought a decent electric breast pump.  Manual was a stupid idea - it had to be electric and not the cheapest.  I also had to pump milk to freeze after I had a drink or two and label it as drunk milk.  If my baby was playing up at all, I could feed her the drunk milk and that would help her sleep.  I did question his daughters progress at school and was assured she was very bright and doing well - the drunk milk was not harmful.  Now you may be thinking - all good advice.  But then just try and picture the circumstances of this conversation!!!  You should have seen the faces of the two guys without children!! Priceless.  Never in a million years when I went to work that day did I think I would be sat in a meeting with 3 guys talking about pumping milk out of my breasts!!

Much as you talk about pumping milk out of your breasts nothing can prepare you for the reality of actually doing it.  It is weird!  Until you have done it yourself you just won't understand.  Breastfeeding isn't weird - it's nice, and most importantly it's mostly invisible.  Pumping is a mechanical version of that but without the baby - and you can SEE IT!  It spurts out all over the place - it doesn't matter how many times I do it, it always amazes me. Now having knowledge of what is involved in expressing milk, that conversation at work with 3 senior, male colleagues feels even weirder!!

A couple of weeks ago I randomly decided to try a bottle of milk on The Popster again - this was after giving up for a few weeks.  It was only a small amount as it was depressing throwing it away all the time.  Miraculously, she didn't scream, she didn't make a fuss and she drank it.  She was slow - very very slow, but she did drink it!!  Weirdly this was the same day that she slept with her head turned left for the first time.  A truly miraculous day - see previous blog.  This small step meant the Hen Weekend was back on and I may actually make it and it also meant The Popsters training would start again and would hopefully progress at pace.  It also meant a serious amount of time on the electric breast pump as I had to stock the freezer for a whole 24 hour period and also a supply of training bottles to give every day until D-Day.  It also meant we had to do a bit of a practice run.

The Hen Weekend is next week, so today I had to leave the house and The Popster for a period sufficient for a decent trial run.  How would The Popster and get her through 2 whole feeds!  He also had a Liverpool vs Man Utd match to suffer.  As it turned out, the football side of things worked out with Liverpool winning 3-1.  The Popster side of things wasn't quite as perfect but they weren't bad and it has given us encouragement for next week.  How were things for me?  Well, I mooched around the shops and then went to see The Kings Speech at the cinema. I also ate my first Maccie D's in a long, long time.  I don't recommend it - I have now relegated Maccie D's for times of drunkeness only.  It was very disappointing - but mostly bland.  Anyway, yet again I digress.  Mooching all good.  Maccie D's bland.  Film, very enjoyable but slightly marred by the throbbing, right breast that was ready to explode!  I was fearful for the person sat in front of me.  Exploding breasts whacking you on the back of the head can't be good when you're trying to watch an incredibly English film about a stammering King.  God Save The King!  Seriously, that boob was bursting!!!!  It had been something like 7 hours of milk slowly seeping into that breast - as it turns out that is a lot of milk.  The left was fine - I was looking very wonky!

The Popster was fine.  She was playing and hanging out with her Dad.  She wasn't missing me.  When I got home, all excited to see her, she barely even looked at me.  She gave me a cursory glance when I put her face right up to mine, but that was about it.  "Oh right - that woman with the boobs is back.  Now help me put this rattle in my mouth.".  No the person who suffered in this first separation was me.  Squeezing a pint of milk into a boob that can only contain half a pint does not make a happy separation.  Next week at the Hen Weekend, I will be excusing myself from the party every few hours in order to attach myself to an electric pump and relieve that pressure.  Putting it in the freezer and labeling it "drunk milk" will not be happening though!