Ideas Blog

I’m awake. I am. I shouldn’t be, I should be napping now because Henry is asleep but I’ve given up. I’m on a hair trigger and keep leaping up running to the kitchen and sterilizing bottles as soon as I hear him stir, he’s only snuffling in his sleep but I’m intent on getting those damn bottles ready so he wont cry. I am, in short going mad. Sort of…So its probably best that I am awake so I don’t keep jumping up in a desperate haze after only 10 minutes of sleep. That can’t be good for you can it? So instead I’m writing to you, feeling a bit sick because I decided that eating a whole bag of newly microwaved popcorn (triple cheese) was a good idea on a practically empty stomach so I could take my medication…Ick.

I was meant to write an important and deeply serious post about breastfeeding but after that introduction I’m not sure you can take me seriously anymore, can you? Would it help if I told you I have actually had a shower today and I’m wearing clean clothes, not a tracksuit  pant in sight? I’ve also been for a walk in the sunshine with Henry too! (I just won’t mention that the walk was a desperate attempt to get him to sleep and an excuse for me to shakily buy a huge mars bar and boost bar for $6 at the local servo).

Anyway um seriously lets try this again.

I wanted to say that I am a huge advocate for breastfeeding, I think it is the best thing you can do for your baby and it is amazing that a woman can provide all the nutrition her baby needs. Before Henry was born I was determined that I would breastfeed him, to me there was no alternative and I smugly assumed that I would be able to do it. In fact I thought that women who gave up breastfeeding didn’t try hard enough, I thought you could overcome things like mastitis, poor attachment and low supply by perseverance and being brave. Suck it up and get on with it. I was obviously a horrible human being to think these things. But this is also what health professionals, such as midwives lead you to believe, breast is best. There is pride around breastfeeding and women who bottle feed are looked down on, there is a label that they are lower class, selfish and interested in their looks not their baby’s health, uneducated and lazy. This label might not be spoken out aloud but it is there by default. ‘Breast is best’ remember? In maternity wards  as soon as you have given birth you are bombarded by breastfeeding association posters and midwives who tell you ‘breast is best’. Women who bottle feed for whatever reason typically feel guilty and sad, they speak of this on parenting DVDs and in documentaries, as they are made to believe they have somehow failed.

I am now one of those sad new mums, guilty in my heart. I can no longer breastfeed. I’d done well to start off. Well its a team effort so Henry and I did so well in those early days; he latched on and was a good little sucker, I was proud of us both and so happy that I could naturally provide all the nutrition that he needed. Plus its so nice to have that bond and those close cuddles with your little warm bundle of baby (who smells totally delicious by the way). I spoke to family members who wholeheartedly supported me and the breastfeeding. All of us saying things like: I was saving money, its easier, no sterilizing in sight, no bottles needed and no faffing around. I’m not really sure what happened in the second month but things stopped working like they should, Henry stopped latching on properly, I had been told to switch sides when he fell asleep at the breast instead of waking him up and making him drain it like I’d been doing before, I stopped drawing out the feeds so much because again I’d been told he needed unlimited access to the milk, I started wearing cheap plastic backed nursing pads. And I got very sick with mastitis and a nipple infection. I have been on antibiotics for about 6 weeks now, I’ve been taking other medications on top of that. I’ve been to the doctors countless times and ended up in the emergency dept. at our local hospital. The pain has been so unbearable that I had to take synthetic morphine (I’m allergic to real morphine) so that I could actually feed Henry, I started to dread feeds and he wouldn’t suck properly because I was so sore and I think he knew it. I ended up not being able to feed my baby at all and phoned Al up in a meeting sobbing and panicked because I couldn’t even express anything for him as I was so sick and blocked up. So we introduced mixed feeding to give me a break and to feed poor hungry Henry. It came to a head on my first mothers day, I was in so much pain I couldn’t even pick Henry up. I had been crying almost non-stop with the pain and frustration, I was in and out of the shower in desperation to try and unblock those burning ducts. We called out a locum doctor who basically told me I was chasing my tail and I had to put a stop to this. I had to either endure this as long as I was breastfeeding, or give it up. It wasn’t a choice really.

I had done my best but it wasn’t good enough. I’m now taking medication to stop lactation and I’m formula feeding my baby, something I wouldn’t have dreamt of only a few months ago. I am doing something that I was against, but I have no choice. You’ve got to feed your baby no matter what and I wasn’t able to provide that food for him anymore. Despite having an off day today I have noticed he is much less stressed, happier and a better sleeper on formula. That can’t be a bad thing can it?

I am still an advocate for breastfeeding, I do feel that if you can do it then you should but now I realize not everybody can and that it is unfair to assume that all women can happily breastfeed. I will try again with my second child but for now formula is actually what is best for Henry and I.

So next time you might think of judging a woman for not breastfeeding maybe there is more than meets the eye, maybe she has been through hell and back trying to breastfeed and maybe she didn’t have a choice. She probably feels guilty and sad, she might even be badly missing those sleepy cuddles in the middle of the night and the close bond of breastfeeding. So try to be kind won’t you?

Disclaimer: Everyone I’ve spoken to has been very kind and supportive, as they know what I’ve been through. But I’m sort of talking to my former self here, who wasn’t the most open minded or kind about those things (I never said anything out aloud and kept my judgement to myself but I still judged). I am now eating humble pie, don’t you worry about that.

Al and I have been wanting to make a small veggie patch in the garden, not only because I enjoy gardening but because it is a good way of getting enthusiastic about eating veggies as they taste better! Its also cheaper than buying veggies at the supermarket and better for you because the veggies you grow are in your control. You can garden using organic methods and the veggies you produce don’t have to travel anywhere to get to your plate (other than a few steps) nor are they picked before they are ripe and packed away in storage to ripen in unnatural light and surroundings.

We have already bought some seeds (spinach, rocket, sunflowers, tomatoes) and we were looking into growing potatoes and the like as well. I borrowed a book from the library that briefly mentioned heirloom seeds and I think it must have got Al thinking because the other day he declared that we shouldn’t use the seeds we have already bought, that we should use heirloom seeds instead.

I may have been a tad confused at this and asked Al to explain why the sudden change? He had been doing some research and had found some very persuasive arguments for the use of heirloom seeds in our little veggie garden.

So why Heirloom?

Apparently the food we eat and even grow ourselves is sadly lacking in vital nutrients and the nutritional value of these fruits and veggies has been slowly decreasing since the end of World War II. Why? Well at the end of World War II people started homogenising, controlling and experimenting to get hardy, quick growing, high yield plants that could take the heavy use of pesticides, insecticides and different types of fertiliser. The USA for instance had a large amount of left over nitrogen from bomb making and they used this to make nitrogen rich fertiliser. So the crops they grew had to be able to withstand this high nitrogen content and thrive on it when only a few varieties were able to do this.

Consumerism has added to this need to have consistency within fruit and vegetables as people are less attracted to foods that look ‘different’ and are ‘unreliable’. By ‘unreliable’ and ‘different’ I mean that heirloom seeds produce plants that bear many different shaped and sized fruit (even from the one plant) and this fruit may have knobbly bits and different markings on its skin which are viewed as blemishes or ‘odd’.  Thus making these types of fruits and vegetables less desirable and hard to market and price due to their uniqueness.

So by grafting, artificially pollinating, cross-breeding and other uses of cultivation people have bred out these undesirable characteristics of the fruit and vegetables that humans used to eat. Unfortunately this means that they have also altered some plants beyond recognition and which scarily by looking at the plant make-up can no longer be truly traced back to any one ancestor. By doing this they have also created plants that no longer produce all the nutritional value that they used to carry.

What are Heirloom seeds?

Heirloom seeds are seeds that have literally been passed down from generation to generation (and unchanged by human intervention), either by seed companies that wanted to keep this type of plant, by families from their gardens and by farmers. This was once a very common practice but it got a bit lost with rules and regulations being passed by various countries in an attempt to ‘clean up’ certain varieties and add consistency to the market. These rules where also put in place to try and keep seed suppliers honest so they could not sell one type of seed in place of another.

BUT People are now gaining a better understanding of why heirloom plants are so important and so some of these stringent measures have changed and more people are buying and growing them themselves, there are even farmers taking up heirloom varieties and selling them to a more open minded market.

Heirloom seeds have also been pollinated by non-artifical means (bees and other insects etc.) so they are more ‘natural’ in their development and the way they have changed over time.

Click the below images for links to more information. The Diggers Club is especially exciting as you can buy seeds and plants from them and in fact they are the most well known heirloom seed supplier in Australia :)

Hello again,

It appears that I couldn’t stay away that long… I made something today for my niece as its her birthday tomorrow (I’m terrible at remembering birthdays until the last minute, so I’m afraid she’s going to have to get her present late in the mail…why can’t I remember at least a week ahead?)

Anyway I now have the craft bug again and its very frustrating because the inspection has been put forward till next tues (which is really very good because I got sick after my last post and haven’t been able to do any cleaning or anything until today anyway). BUT I want to start making things again and making things means making mess…it took me a LOT of effort not to ruin our lovely clean study by making one small thing today…AND the next two things I want to make are BIG things that will take time and make MESS! One thing is a present for a friend so I won’t go into detail about it here but the other thng is a baby quilt which I have had ideas for all morning and I’m itching to start making it. I’ll do an ideas post on the very shortly!

Anyway here is a sneak peak at what I made today, I’ll show you properly once my niece has received it :)

Have a good weekend! Al and I are going on a small road trip/drive tomorrow so there may be photos to share…If we remember to take any…  :)

See you soon x x