Car...Pull...Tunnel

Today was a good day!!
So as some of you know Riley and I have been having issues with the whole latching thing. So I have been pumping night and day so that all he gets is my milk. It has been a tiring process, but hey it needs to be done because my little man needs it. I have been trying to feed him just all natural, but we just can't seem to get it down. And when I was in the hospital we just never got a good session with the Lactation consultant. So we never figured it out. They tried to help a few times, and a visit would consist of maybe 5 minutes, but I never got any helpful info that I didn't already know about. So Riley has been pretty much feeding from a bottle, or a shield from me. I have tried just plain me and it ends up hurting so bad I almost cry. And it takes a lot of pain for me to cry.
I was tol I would have a lactation consultant sent to our house after we got out of the hospital, but none ever came. When I called to ask about it....they told me no one was coming. Aughhh I called the women's center to try and get an appointment with them. It is $100 an hour for a lactation consult even if you aren't very successful. Also to rent a Medela Symphony hospital grade pump is $100 a month. Ouch! I know babies are expensive.....but I never figured this would be an expense for them. I just couldn't justify spending $100 an hour to try and figure out if we can latch or not....and maybe or maybe not being successful with it.
I have been getting desperate to try and figure out what to do. I want to be able to have that experience with Riley, but am not sure if I can. I have felt like things happened to fast at the hospital and I missed out on things. I mean I am grateful that Riley is okay and that he is healthy....but I just never got the whole nesting voodoo powers, the whole preparing for baby mentally by going into labor and such. And I feel a little jipped. I am not ungrateful I promise.....I just feel like I missed out on some of the things that you go through when you go into labor. And so I have been very determined to not miss out on this.
I wasn't sure what to do as paying the consultant was out of the question. And my family is far away. So I called Travis Air Force Base and asked them if I could rent a pump from them. The lactation consultant was really nice, and very helpful. She even said we could drive up to the base and have a meeting with her for free! So today Chuck and I loaded Riley up in the car and we drove to Travis. With traffic and such it is about an hour drive. Without.....you can get there in about half an hour. But we always seem to hit some traffic. lol We made it to our appointment on time, and even though we were only set for an hour, she ended up giving us an hour and a half. She was full of all sorts of helpful info. And I am very pleased to say that we got some successful latches from Riley. Now that I understand better on how things work and how to make it work for him.....we just need to keep practicing until we get it just right! ;0) She gave me tons of hand outs, and even gave me a pump for a month to try out from the hospital. It is called the Medela classic, and this thing is wicked awesome!
She researched stuff online for me and everything. She really is great at her job. And she said I can come back any time for help with Riley. And it was all FREE! You got to love the military at times like these where they really do help out families. I mean they don't have to provide a consultant for families, and they don't have to have equipment for us to borrow for free. So it awesome that we had a resource somewhat close by for us to use.
The consultant was really pleased with how determined I was to do this. She said that most first time moms would have given up already on the whole thing and just gone with formula. I have cracked, bled, and have been in pain a lot. And yet I have kept at it knowing that eventually I would get the hang of this thing. She said she was impressed with how well we are doing, and how patient I am. It felt good to have a complete stranger tell me these things. I mean your mom tells you that, but it's your mom.....she needs to tell you these things sometimes. lol But a stranger noticing you doing these things makes you realise that it's not just your mom telling you that you sing like an angel when you really break glass.....it's real! ;0)
When I first started pumping, I would sit in the hospital bed holding both the bottles while I pumped. I was pumping so often and for a while each time that my hands started hurting. Well I kept at it no matter what, and now the pain in my hands has gotten worse. The day I came home from the hospital I lost feeling in my right hand. I can barely feel anything in my fingers. Then the next morning my left hand was having the same issues! It has got a little better in my left hand, but my right has become worse. I even bought a hands free top for pumping, but the damage is done. I was informed today that it is Carpal Tunnel!! Awesome sauce! I know very little about it, and need to research more on it......but I am hoping that it will go away after a while. I am going to start wrapping my right hand at night so I don't bend it while I sleep, because it is worse at night and in the morning. I just hope the pain goes away after a while because this is no good. So now you know why I named the title of this post Car...pull...tunnel! lol

Not much else is going on here. I seem to get headaches every day since I had Riley. And some days they are to much. Today my headache was unbearable. So after our consult I tried to tuff it out so we could go get some chow, and go to the exchange. I wanted to look around for some stuff I figured would be cheaper on base. But the headache just seemed to get worse. Finally we made it off of base and home around 5-ish. I was in bad shape by then. Light even hurt my eyes. So I sat in the dark in a hot shower for a while then crawled into bed and Chuck let me sleep for an hour. I then made myself get up because I felt bad for sleeping while Chuck was taking care of Riley. The headache isn't as bad now, but it is still there. ughhhh What am I going to do next week when Chuck has to go back to work?!!!

That's all for now. Riley has his big snip snip appointment tomorrow, so I will let you know about that.

XoXo-Andrea Carla