Crying over spilt milk: just as satisfying as it's cracked up to be Things are going really well with the whole "stuff the baby until he gains weight, dammit!" initiative. Blake's been feeding well (once he makes up his mind to accept the breast), and he's been sucking back the supplimental feeding fluid like a champ. I've been expressing as much as I can, although we're still using the hated formula to top up the dose. We've had lots of wet diapers, which is one of the most positive indicators that he's getting enough. So yeah - life's a pretty sweet fruit. The only bug in our biscuit is that we found a way to fuck up the mechanical breast pump. When I tried to use it this evening, it was in pieces, so I did my best to hook it all up & started in. Nothing. I thought I was dry - but when I tested this theory with the manual pump, I found that I was emphatically NOT dry. The Boy's been fiddling with the fooking thing for hours, and he thinks he might've found the problem by now - we'll see for sure after Blake's next feeding. But this evening we were back to the exhausting hand pump. I pumped & pumped & pumped, and when I was on the verge of passing out, other hands took over (I know. Gross.) We pumped for about an hour and a half, and I was thrilled with the amount - almost 2 ounces, which is Blake's between-feedings quota. We popped it in the fridge & my mom set about making dinner. Blake was dozing away, sedate after about 2 hours of off-and-on breast feeding. But he was still sucking vigorously, so my mom decided to get him started with the tube while the rest of us ate dinner. I was making my way upstairs to the kitchen when I heard a shout. "Oh my God! It's..." My mom had dropped the bottle into the stroller. Almost two hours of effort and my own ticket to self-esteem through non-formula feedings was running into the cushions. Apparently God decided to give me a new definition of "sisyphean." I was given the bottle to refill from the can in the fridge as my mom rushed downstairs with the baby. She had an awful, queasy look on her face that hurts me to remember. I reached for the can in the fridge and then something snapped deep inside me. "Boy, can you do this?" I managed to call out as my body was wracked with sobbing. Then I ran out of the kitchen and wept. It took me about 5 minutes to get settled, and the first thing I did was go to reassure my mother that everything was okay. I could tell that she was just as mad as me, but mixed in with her anger was the fear that I would go nuclear on her. I'm glad I didn't. It's not worth it, even if I do have to feed my baby a fluid I hate like poison.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 12/14/2003 11:02:00 p.m.