Milk mantra

Right now it's past midnight and I'm sitting alone downstairs pumping because I'm in a dry spell. I hate these. Everything's going fine and dandy for weeks and then omgwillibeabletofeedmybaby happens. H is a beast of an eater - 25 ounces just while I'm at work?! - and I so want to be able to keep up with her. So I'm working in late-night pumps and dawn pumps until my body sorts itself out. In the meantime I smell like maple syrup due to all the fenugreek, which makes me even hungrier than I already (always!) am.

Hazel's such a big eater that I find myself only barely staying ahead of her. It's a delicate balance to be sure, sometimes veering dangerously close to the edge. Some days I have one extra bottle in the fridge when I get home from work. Often there's nothing left over, and we have only what I pumped that day. There is no freezer stash. And no Plan B. And so when my body decides it's temporarily only going to work for the baby and not her mechanical equivalent, I have to go into overdrive. I can't not do everything I can to get her what she needs, even though her needs appear to be a tad on the extreme side. The pleasure she gets from eating probably comes from me anyway. So here I am, filling a quiet house with the loudest machine ever as the clock ticks.

I wonder if she'll ever know what this is like. The crazy balance of moving my computer and papers two or three times a day at work to set up in a different room, muting conference calls over my incessant whirring, having all of my colleagues know my pumping schedule? It's weird. But it also just feels like life, like the realities of women in the workplace, and there's a part of making people get over their weirdness about it that I really enjoy.

H is so awesome, though. She's my girl. Her grin just melts me. She's teething already, and having a tough time the last few days as a result. She's also rolling like mad and moving so much at night that she'll wake herself up, stuck in a crazy position. So between the extra pumping and middle-of-the-night wakeups to rescue an upside down baby, it's a tired house. That grin, though! Worth it.

This week we're attempting our first real family photos. I meant to do newborn photos, but I got cheap and time just sort of flew by. She's so much more fun now anyway, so I'm excited that we'll be capturing her at this age. My Wednesday morning work calendar proudly says "PTO - Cherry Blossom Photos." Part of me thinks my colleagues assume this is a euphemism for a strange pumping ritual and don't want to ask questions. I'm excited, though. And since I'm always calculating events as being good or bad for the supply, Cherry Blossom Photos are a WIN. Bonus hours of feeding her myself. Birthday dinner date on Friday with a babysitter at home: bad for the supply. And so it goes. One day at a time, though, that's the milk mantra around here.

Speaking of that most precious liquid, I'm now 30 minutes into this pump with 4.5 ounces on the books. Not great. But every bit counts. And tomorrow is another day.