baby – Page 2 – Saranity Now!

And we’re done with the DOC Band!

It was actually a little anticlimactic, to be honest. Officially he was supposed to wear it for another week, but we asked for our last adjustment appointment to be our “graduation” appointment so that we wouldn’t have to drive 45 minutes each way again just to get pictures taken. So they adjusted the band, gave us a little certificate, and sent us on our merry way. We were thrilled to not have to go back and they were thrilled to never see my face again.

But then, just under a week later, Jacob started getting red spots that took about five hours to go away, which meant we’d outgrown the helmet and were done early.

Which we celebrated by…questioning our decision to remove the helmet.

Well, that’s how I celebrated. My husband had zero qualms about being done early because either dad guilt isn’t a thing or it’s much milder than mom guilt.

As adamantly opposed as I was to the idea of a second helmet (and yes, I still think that’s a money grab in many cases), Jacob DOES still have a flat spot. So am I being selfish for wanting to be done? But on the flip side, it’s a DIFFERENT flat spot than the one the helmet was correcting, so did I cause this new one by helmeting him in the first place?

The reality is that no one but me (and I suppose other moms who have dealt with flat heads and are now hyper alert to them) is ever going to notice that his head is anything but perfect. While I now have flat-head-dar and look at the shape of everyone’s heads (it’s terrible. I look at my students and am like, “wow, you should have had a helmet!”), there are people who I looked at every day for years without ever thinking “Wow, your head looks like the east building of the National Gallery!”

800px-National_Gallery_of_Art_DC_2007ex — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gallery_of_Art#/media/File:National_Gallery_of_Art_DC_2007ex.jpg

Pre-helmet, Jacob’s misshapen head was noticeable. It isn’t anymore unless you’re really TRYING to find imperfections (and looking at him directly top down. He’s got a tall daddy, so I’m thinking that won’t be the case for most people for the majority of his life). By all accounts, the helmet was very successful in reshaping Jacob’s head. And what it didn’t fix will most likely round out by his second birthday on its own.

So I guess what it really boils down to how to live with the mom guilt.

Pre-baby, it was just guilt. Which I suppose comes with the territory. I am Jewish after all, and if our people are known for anything, it’s guilt. You’re welcome. (See what I did there? I learned at the knees of the masters!)

I automatically assume everything is my fault no matter what. I should have tried harder. Been better. Gotten more people out. Yes, I was born decades after the Holocaust, but damnit, I should have done more!

So now that the helmet is done and his head isn’t a miraculously perfect round orb, I need to find a way to let it go. I’m trying to tell myself that that’s the lesson I’m supposed to learn here. A couple of people said to me, after I went public about the situation with Jacob’s head and neck, that we get the baby we NEED, not necessarily the baby we WANT. On the surface, that sounds terrible, because of course I WANT Jacob! He’s the absolute best part of my life.

But I get where those people were going because I think I needed to learn that I can’t control everything. And if I can’t control everything, then not everything can be my fault. Some things just happen and I need to learn to roll with it.

That’s really a struggle for me and was part of why the inability to exclusively breastfeed Jacob was so devastating as well. I had found something that I couldn’t control. My mother called me arrogant when I expressed that to her, and she’s not wrong. But up until motherhood, I lived a life where I was largely able to say I was going to do something and then find a way to make it happen, come hell or high water. Failure simply wasn’t in my vocabulary.

For example, I said I was going to dance on stage at a Bruce show. And I did.

It’s been humbling to have to change that without seeing it as failure. In my mind, Jacob was supposed to be the Galahad to my Lancelot (yes, I know only like three people got that. But I took an Arthurian legends class in college and it was cool. And I’m a nerd. Get over it). He was supposed to be perfect in all of the areas that I wasn’t. He would have no flaws. And while my mother will tell you he’s the most perfect baby ever, I’m still freaking out that he isn’t crawling yet. And still blaming myself, because if I’d caught the torticollis earlier, wouldn’t he be?

Back to everything being my fault.

But I’m learning. If eventual baby number two* isn’t gaining weight with breastfeeding alone, I’m not going to stress about supplementation because I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t control that. And that, as much as it felt like it was the first time around, it’s neither the end of the world, nor my fault.

*I am not pregnant. I am not planning on becoming pregnant any time soon. I have a nine month old. I’m tired. I do want a second child in the future, but if you read into this to assume that that’s coming soon, I may slap you.

I definitely know more now about keeping baby number two’s head round as well. I know the signs of torticollis, but the reality is that that may be unavoidable too. I had low amniotic fluid the first time around, which is again out of my control. But an earlier diagnosis, if that is an issue again, could be key in the flat head battle. I know to reposition, I know more about tummy time, I know to wear the baby more.

I also know that if future baby number two needs a helmet, we’ll do it. And I’ll do my best not to beat myself up about it too much.

Mom Life

Forget FOMO, I’ve got FOLM. Thanks Obama–I mean Facebook

December 21, 2017December 21, 2017 Sara Confino

I am a crazy perfectionist.

Which may sound strange if you know me in person, because I’m also a mess. My desk at school is currently a raging dumpster fire of papers, my car looks like I live in it, and let’s not even get started on my closet. But I’m an organized mess. I know where everything is at all times and I don’t let my mess get in the way of my quest for perfection.

I’m also insanely competitive, which, if you’ve spoken to me for even three seconds, you already know. I’ve joked before that that’s why I like eBay–not only do you get to shop, it tells you you win when you buy something. And I love winning.

Combining being a perfectionist with my competitive nature, however, has been a disaster in motherhood, especially once we hit the torticollis and helmet bumps in the road. Because that helmet feels like a giant neon sign saying that my baby isn’t perfect, and as he is an extension of me, it feels like it’s screaming to the whole world about one of my flaws.

Yes, I know I’m ridiculous. But it’s still how it feels.

And it all ties in to the latest feeling of failure, which I’m calling FOLM–Fear of Late Milestones.

Much like FOMO or Fear of Missing Out, FOLM has always existed, but is exacerbated by the social media era. I’m sure that moms hundreds of years ago worried when they went to the park, or factory, or public execution (hey, hundreds of years ago, people had pretty sick forms of entertainment) and saw that other babies who were the same age as their babies were walking already and freaked out that there was something wrong with their baby. But it’s worse now that it’s all broadcast on social media.

Last weekend, I saw videos from two different friends, whose babies are within a couple of weeks of Jacob’s age, and their babies were crawling all over the place.

Jacob is not crawling. Nor does he seem anywhere close to it.

I cried. I Googled. I cried some more.

The reality is that babies are expected to start crawling between six and ten months, and Jacob is eight months old. So it doesn’t mean he’s behind. According to our physical therapist, part of that is disposition; Jacob is the most chill baby ever (which he certainly did not get from me, the anxiety queen), so he’s content to sit and watch the world. He’s also huge, weighing in at over 21 pounds at eight months, and bigger babies tend to reach some of the gross motor skills milestones later, as they have more weight to lug around with them.

He also seems to have no desire to crawl yet, which may be my fault. He’ll reach his hand out for something (which really looks like he’s using the Force. Mama’s inner Star Wars nerd is so proud of her little Jedi!), and one of us usually gives it to him. Who needs to crawl when you have a mommy slave?

But I crawled at six months, walked at nine months, identified letters on the fridge at 18 months, and wrote my first novel at 22 months.

Okay, that last one was more like at 25 years. But still. I was exceptionally precocious with all developmental milestones.

And Jacob was supposed to be even better than me with all of that.

I’m fully aware that my competitive nature has not won me any friends. In fact, it’s cost me a lot. Because not only do I try to be the best at everything, I succeed just enough to be insanely annoying. My mom was only in labor with me for eight hours (which is considered supersonic speed for a first baby). I told her I’d beat that, and I did, giving birth to Jacob six hours and one minute after my water broke. She lost eight pounds off her pre-pregnancy weight with me. I lost nine after Jacob was born. Etc.

Do you hate me yet? I kinda hate myself reading that. (And I bet I hate me more than you hate me! Okay, okay, I’ll stop…)

So watching Jacob not be the first to do everything is difficult, because there’s nothing that I can do (besides continuing his physical therapy and doing as many of his exercises with him as I can) to catch him up.

And even more upsetting, our physical therapist showed us a scale of things he should be able to do, and he’s definitely behind in a few areas. Even though the tilt from the torticollis is gone now, he still has residual shoulder strength issues. She said it’s really the chicken or the egg here–did his weak shoulder strength cause the torticollis, or did torticollis cause shoulder weakness.

She did assure us that there was nothing we could have done to prevent it either way, but I still feel like it’s my fault. Torticollis CAN be caused by low amniotic fluid, which I had. Yes, I know that wasn’t my fault on the logical level, but if it’s possible that my body did this to Jacob, I still feel like I did this.

On the plus side, our physical therapist assured us that he’s making progress, that we’ll keep working, that we’ll get him to where he needs to be, and that the age that babies walk and crawl at has no correlation whatsoever to the age that they hit any other developmental milestones at.

She also recommended I get serious professional help because I’m actually competing with myself for what age Jacob does things at.

Not really.

But that’s another one of those hard first-time parenting things, because what my brother and I did is my only real basis of comparison for what Jacob should be doing. And I hate worrying that he’s not exactly where a chart says that he should be.

Until then, feel free to keep reminding me that just because he’s not the first one to do something doesn’t mean he’s actually late. It does take both early and later babies to make up those average age ranges after all.

Happy holidays, folks! I’ll see you in the new year!

Mom Life

Who fat shames a pregnant woman? The same people who use the word “moist” (gross!!!!)

December 15, 2017December 15, 2017 Sara Confino

It’s amazing how boundaries disappear as soon as people realize there’s a tiny person growing inside of you. Is it because they feel like the announcement that you’re pregnant is also an admission of “Hey! I had sex!” so they think you’re open to talking about ridiculously private things?

get pregnant and die gif

I honestly don’t know why it happens, but I do know that as soon as the placenta forms, people lose any semblance of a filter.

Now with my students, I get it. They’re excited and curious and want to learn. It’s still creepy when your high school students come up and rub your belly. Especially the boys. I had a kid who would literally get up, and I’d think he’d be going to sharpen his pencil. Oh no. He would just walk up and rub my stomach. While I was teaching. We had to have a boundary talk. Multiple times. But kids are excited and curious once they find out that you’re pregnant.

inappropriate belly touching

It starts immediately though, like well before you’re showing. I did my cutesy Facebook pregnancy announcement at the start of the second trimester (I’m such a rule follower. God, I kind of want to slap myself right now), and all of a sudden people were ridiculous.

I ate two donut holes one day–not donuts, donut HOLES. Munchkins, if you will–from the English department office and another teacher said, “Guess you can let yourself go now that you’re pregnant, huh?” Another teacher called me “wide load” that week and several coworkers rubbed my COMPLETELY FLAT belly.

dont-touch-my-belly-seriously-dont-touch-it-87374

Nope.

Then came the fat shaming.

Yes, I got fat shamed while pregnant.

People started asking me how much weight I’d gained so far. The answer I SHOULD have given? “None… of your business!”

pregnant or fat

Instead, because I never come up with a snappy comeback on site (and I’m honestly not nearly as snarky in real life as I am in my blog. Believe it or not, I live in genuine fear of actually offending anyone. If I say something too mean in real life, odds are pretty high that I’ll apologize and cry), I tended to stammer out the correct amount.

Before I go further, let me explain–I’m a gym rat. Or at least I was, pre-baby, when I had time to go to the gym. But I’m still an exercise junkie, I just do it at home or while pushing a stroller right now. So I worked out until three days before I gave birth (and only stopped that early because I was in the hospital for two days before Jacob was born), and gained exactly 25 pounds (my doctor recommended I gain 25-35 pounds, so the bare minimum of the healthy range).

im-not-fat-im-pregnant-whats-your-excuse-sweetheart--6db33

“Wow, that’s a lot!” was a frequent response.

“Really?” a few said. “I only gained three pounds when I was pregnant. You’re already higher than that!” (These people are liars, btw. I remember their pregnancies. They gained more than three pounds. They looked like manatees toward the end, just like every other pregnant woman does.)

Or, my personal favorite, “Oh, that’s not so much. It just looks like more on you.”

one baby

If every woman is hearing this kind of thing, I’m shocked that there aren’t more murders committed by pregnant women.

But to be honest, I would take the fat shaming ANY day over the awkward questions you get after the baby is born.

Those tend to fall into two categories (other than the ones from students, who have no shame asking about ALLLLL the gory details and who all think that since Kim Kardashian ate her placenta that that’s like a thing that all mothers do. Um. No.). The “Are you breastfeeding?” and the “Was it a vaginal delivery?” questions.

questions-you-should-never-ask-a-pregnant-woman-1-anything-that-ends-in-a-question-mark-55e73

To be fair, I don’t think there’s anyone who can appropriately ask you those questions. Like I guess my mom can get away with it, and I wouldn’t actually care if my friends asked. But they don’t ask those questions. And there are zero non-doctors who can say the word “vaginal” without making me cringe. But the people who choose to ask those questions are so grossly inappropriate that it’s horrifying.

Who asked me those questions? Weirdly enough, everyone over the age of 55 that I encountered. It’s like those were the popular questions to ask people in the 1970s, so they go around doing it now.

cce1a944b73786b8a6d775fef740475a--office-humor-work-humor

One of my old high school English teachers (a man, no less!) asked me if I was breastfeeding. A long term sub in my building asked me about the delivery (I can’t keep typing “vaginal” without retching. It’s worse than the word “moist.”). A friend’s mother-in-law asked about both at a two-year-old’s birthday party. And so on. I’d list more, but I don’t want to call people out if they’re actually reading this.

-say-the-word-moist-one-more-time-and-ill-shave-you-bald-04b05

And while I wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone asking me about such personal bodily functions under any circumstances, the fact that I struggled so much with breastfeeding made these questions painful. I didn’t want to explain to people that I wasn’t the world’s greatest breastfeeder because everyone made me feel like I should be. Being asked that was like being asked, “So are you succeeding as a mother?” And if I gave an honest answer, I felt like the people asking were going to think that I wasn’t.

I do know that no one asked awkward questions or made me feel bad about my weight with bad intentions. But if you’re one of the people who asks new or expecting mothers those questions, it’s worth remembering that some people are struggling with breastfeeding and don’t want to talk about it (and the others are probably the ones whipping their boobs out constantly, so you don’t need to ask that question). Some people had emergency C-sections that completely went against their birthing plans and don’t want to talk about it. And some people have struggled with eating disorders and body image and are having a hard time with gaining pregnancy weight.

dumb questions

Also, all of that is rude. It’s not your business what my child is eating, what part of my body he came out of, or how much weight I’m gaining. #sorrynotsorry

answer question with middle finger

Mom Life

So your baby needs a helmet. Step one: cry. Step two: deal with it.

December 7, 2017December 7, 2017 Sara Confino

Ah, the dreaded baby helmet. See my previous post for the lead up to realizing we’d need one.

So basically, I wish we’d gone to Cranial Technologies for an evaluation the second my pediatrician pointed out his flat spot, because the earlier you helmet your baby, the less time you spend in one. But my pediatrician advised waiting, (which seems to be her advice on a lot of things, which doesn’t mesh well with my personality. I’m impatient. And a hypochondriac with anxiety issues who has a major addiction to Google. I don’t wait well.) so we spent an agonizing two months flipping Jacob like a pancake while he slept and praying he wouldn’t need a helmet.

short-stack-pancake-costume — https://www.twotwentyone.net/pancake-costume/

Now that he has one, however, I feel like a total moron because A) it’s not THAT bad, B) no one actually cares, and C) we could have been done already if we’d just gotten an evaluation sooner. And the people at Cranial Technologies would have caught his torticollis and all would be well now.

But despite preaching daily to my students to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks, I’m insanely obsessed with my image and what people think of me. On a logical level, I’m fully aware that no one actually notices 95 percent of what I do. On an anxiety level, I think every single person I saw today noticed the chipped nail polish on my right ring finger and judged me for it.

When you have a baby, that feeling of everything being under a microscope is even worse. Even though I felt like that about having to supplement with formula, and the reality was that zero people cared that I wasn’t exclusively breastfeeding, a helmet was going to be SO much worse. EVERYONE would see it. What would I tell older relatives? That girl I didn’t like from second grade who was my Facebook friend was going to think I was a terrible mother. I debated getting off social media for however long Jacob needed a helmet for. And I’m a social media junkie. THAT’s how serious this was.

So what actually happens when you might need a baby helmet?

We went to Cranial Technologies on a Monday. They made us strip Jacob down to a diaper, put a stocking cap with a hole in it for his face over his head, and held up a fan with flashing lights to get his attention while they took pictures. Then they brought us to a room to scare the crap out of us.

Not really. But they definitely pitch it as worse than it is when you’re there. And like the scared sheep–I mean parent–that you are, I’m pretty sure everyone in there says “baaaaa” (or wails it like a crying banshee as I did) and then schedules an appointment to get a helmet.

Worth noting: the place sells helmets. They’re not doctors. If you even THINK you’re borderline on a helmet, go to a pediatric neurosurgeon to get real measurements and a REAL diagnosis. If real doctors tell you you don’t need a helmet, you don’t need a helmet. Cranial Technologies wants your money and thinks you need a helmet. They told us that our numbers were “moderate-severe” when we were there, but on the official report, the numbers were all in the moderate category. And if you actually GOOGLE his numbers, most of them are on the milder end. I’m not saying the helmet doesn’t work; it’s a great product and service, and some kids totally need it, but they’re still salespeople.

And the reality is that you agree to the helmet, despite some research saying they don’t do anything, because you want to know that you did everything you possibly could for your kid. End of story. Does it actually work or do heads start rounding out on their own once you correct torticollis and they’re sitting up more? Who knows.

Their insurance team then calls you two days later and in our case, tells you that insurance won’t even think about covering the helmet. Which I already knew, because the Google Queen combed through our policy and found that “cranial remolding helmets” are only covered for post-operative craniosynostosis and are considered cosmetic and unnecessary otherwise. Viagra? Totally medically necessary under our policy. Preventing a baby from looking like a conehead for the rest of his life? Cosmetic. Makes total sense.

So we bit the bullet, said we’d pay the $2,500 for a helmet, and scheduled the next two appointments. The first one was easy. Another stocking cap (this one without a face hole cut out, so he looked like a baby bank robber) and more pictures and we were on our way home in under 15 minutes.

Ant_Hill_Harry_alias_Baby-Face_Finster — http://looneytunes.wikia.com/wiki/Baby_Buggy_Bunny

The next appointment was hard because it’s when they actually fitted him with the helmet. And I’ll admit, I cried when I saw him in it. I joked that he looked like a Spaceball, but seeing that white orthotic helmet on him was absolutely devastating to my sense of self as a mother. What were people going to think of my son, let alone me? When I’d seen those helmets before, I assumed there was something wrong with the baby, which meant other people were going to think that. I couldn’t handle the thought of that.

Jacob was clearly as upset as I was about his helmet.

The one small, silver lining came in the form of decorating the helmet. I researched online (of course), decorating the helmets and discovered that some car wrapping companies will wrap the helmets. But there were none who advertised that they did that within an hour of where we lived, so I started reaching out to local companies, then remembered that a former student’s dad owned a sign company. I sent her a quick message asking if that was something they’d be willing/able to do, and she replied immediately that not only would they custom design Jacob’s helmet, they’d do it for free because of the difference I made when she was in high school.

Yes, I cried again.

We settled on an aviator-style helmet (I voted for R2D2. Hubby vetoed that. I’m still bitter.) because it would look more like a hat than a helmet, and we got it put on two days after he got the helmet.

At which point, I came clean on Facebook and Instagram and got nothing but wonderful, positive support. And many parents shared stories about their own children’s imperfections and struggles, which was a great reminder that it’s okay to not be perfect. I, like everyone else, try to present the best possible image of my life on social media, but NO ONE is perfect. The helmet is temporary, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Jacob is adorable in it, and I love him more and more every day, helmet or not.

So if you’re struggling with the decision, stop. Take a breath. Because the helmet has one truly awesome benefit to it: you get to worry a little less. There’s no more repositioning, or pillows, or freaking out that he’s sitting in something that might briefly touch his flat spot and make it worse. You’ll still worry that the helmet won’t work or that they’ll recommend a second one and you’ll have to pay $5,000 total out of pocket (they recommend a second helmet to everyone. See above. They’re salespeople). But once I went public, my stress level actually went way down.

Does it suck? Yes. Without a doubt. But as long as it helps, it’ll be totally worth it. And if someone stares in the grocery store, it’s their problem, not yours. Your baby is perfect; you’re just making him or her a little more perfect so no one nicknames them Beldar. (Only my dad got that joke, but it’s okay!)

Hang in there, mamas!

Mom Life

Uh oh, plagio: the flat head diagnosis

November 30, 2017November 30, 2017 Sara Confino

I know I’m jumping around a bit with this post, but it’s what’s happening now, and finding other blogs on this topic helped me. So if I can pay some of that forward, it’s worth sharing.

Jacob’s pediatrician pointed out that he had developed a flat spot on the back right side of his head at his four-month checkup. Hubby and I then descended into a shame spiral of shock and embarrassment that we missed it, panic that it was there in the first place, fear that we caused it, etc. Seriously. We turned into the seven dwarfs of parenting guilt.

Mom-Guilt-Bingo-446x7001-446x7001-446x700 — https://sweettmakesthree.com/mom-guilt-bingo/

“Just try to keep him off of it for a couple of months,” the pediatrician advised. “You can keep a wedge under that side of his mattress so it’s easier for him to turn his head the other way, and do a lot more tummy time. If that doesn’t fix it, you can always get a helmet.”

Sara the Hysterical Google Queen took over.

So I learned ALLLLLLL about plagiocephaly (flat head on one side), brachycephaly (flat back of the head, which I didn’t think was a concern, based on the pictures I found online and then compared frantically to Jacob’s head), and every other kind of cephaly there is (I was already a microcephaly expert from the single, non-Zika-infected mosquito bite I got while pregnant. Have I mentioned that I’m a hypochondriac?).

What did I learn? That repositioning could help and that this probably happened because he was such a great sleeper–which he did NOT inherit from me, the worst insomniac in the world. So because my perfect baby started sleeping through the night at two months old (don’t hate me), his little head grew crooked.

And a lot of nasty people on the internet said it only happens to parents who didn’t hold their babies enough. Guess what? I hold my baby all the freaking time. And this still happened.

But I’m Super Mom! I could fix this! I can fix anything if I try hard enough!

I repositioned like it was my job. For two months I barely slept, but not because Jacob, the most perfect baby in the world, was waking me up. No. I barely slept because I woke up every three minutes to make sure he wasn’t sleeping on his flat spot. I became an expert at flipping him over without waking him up. I joked I was going to patent a baby spatula for perfectly turned babies.

kids are like pancakes — http://quoteaddicts.com/author/kelly-ripa

I bought seven, count them, SEVEN different types of flat head pillows, ranging from $15 to $110 each (I only bought one of the expensive ones). I sent him to daycare with one. I put one in his stroller. I put one on his changing table. I put one on his floor gym. But I only let him sleep on them for supervised naps while I stared at him the entire time to make sure he wouldn’t magically flip onto his belly (which he wasn’t doing yet) and suffocate.

I studied that head from every angle, trying to convince myself that I was seeing improvement. I wasn’t, but it also wasn’t getting worse. I will say that. The pillows do prevent it from getting worse.

And I kept Googling. But as we got closer to his six-month checkup and his flat spot hadn’t improved, I started worrying more. My baby was going to need a helmet. I could feel it.

One day, I took him for a long walk when his dad went out of town, and I took some pictures because he was so cute. And when I looked at the pictures, one eye looked bigger than the other. Cue the panic. I had read, in my frantic Googling, that plagiocephaly could cause facial asymmetry. (Note: we later learned he has no facial asymmetry. Literally, they measured digitally and there’s none at all. I am a crazy person. But in this case, the craziness was a good thing.)

Once I Googled the facial asymmetry with plagiocephaly though, I started finding another word a lot, which I had mostly ignored because I didn’t think it was an issue: torticollis.

Symptoms: head tilted in one direction with chin pointed toward another. Often causes difficulty breastfeeding on one side and difficulty looking in the direction of the head tilt. Rolling to one side only. A flat spot.

It was like one of those scenes in a movie where the protagonist figures out who the killer is. He hated breastfeeding on the right side, where he’d have to turn his head to the left. He only rolled to one side. And as I began scrolling through pictures in my phone, he was facing the same way in every one. Jacob had torticollis.

We took him to the pediatrician immediately, who wasn’t nearly as convinced as I was, but she did say it was time to visit the helmet place for an evaluation.

She wanted us to wait to see what the helmet people said about starting physical therapy, which I wasn’t comfortable with. Knowing that I’m my baby’s best advocate, I reached out to my network of moms and got a recommendation from a family friend to a WONDERFUL physical therapist who deals in infant torticollis.

Long story short, I think our pediatrician should have caught the torticollis (or at least mentioned it to us when she noticed the flat spot, because had I looked for that in pictures sooner, I would have spotted it. And I think dealing with the torticollis at four months would have helped the flat spot enough to potentially avoid the helmet), but it’s too late for that now.

I’ll do another post about the helmet situation (we’re in it now. It sucks, but we’ll deal), but trust your gut, mamas! If you think something is wrong, say something to your pediatrician. And if they won’t hear you out, go to a specialist. Jacob is doing AMAZING in physical therapy. The torticollis is now gone, we’re just working on some residual muscle strength issues in his shoulder, and in another few weeks, all of that should be absolutely perfect.

And if you want to learn from my experience, make sure you’re changing the direction that your baby sleeps in frequently starting at birth and doing lots of tummy time even if your baby hates it (and they ALL hate it!). And if you have to get a helmet, I promise, it’s not the end of the world.

Mom Life

Breastfeeding may be natural, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy

November 22, 2017November 22, 2017 Sara Confino

Breastfeeding is hard.

There. I said it.

You know what? I’m gonna say it again. Breastfeeding is REALLY freaking hard. In fact, it deserves the other f word because it’s so hard, but I like having my teaching job so that I can afford all the cute baby stuff that Jacob needs, so you’ll have to settle for freaking.

Everyone out there makes you think breastfeeding is the easiest, most natural thing in the world. It may be natural, and I’m sure for some women it’s easy, but going around preaching that it’s the simplest act on the planet is a recipe for disaster for other women.

I was never worried about breastfeeding. My mother always talked about how great she was at it (no, mom, that wasn’t remotely traumatizing as a kid to hear about that constantly. Not at all.), and as I take after her in all regards (seriously, we’re the same person, it’s freaky), I figured it would be a piece of cake.

The hubby and I took a breastfeeding class and were the least concerned people there. (Partially because hubby finds everything hilarious. The teacher mentioned milk ducts at one point and he drew a picture of a duck with boobs labeled “milk duck.” I married a child.) Why was everyone else there worried about breastfeeding? It was easy, right? The teacher certainly assured us that it was.

milk duck — How hard can it be if even a rubber ducky can do it?

“Every woman has the ability to exclusively breastfeed her baby,” she told us—a line that would come back to haunt me with harrowing feelings of guilt and failure. She advised us to throw out any free formula that we received ahead of time—the formula companies prey on new mothers, she told us, and mail out formula when you register for gifts, just hoping that you’ll get discouraged and use it instead of breastfeeding. But EVERYONE can do it, so you’re being lazy if you use formula.

breastfeeding apocalypse

I dutifully went home and threw out the Enfamil starter pack that had come in the mail. I wasn’t going to be a lazy formula mom. Uh uh. Not me. No way. Breastmilk all the way. I’d even eat all organic food and nothing processed so my baby would be getting the best quality breastmilk. He was going to be the next Einstein and it would all come from my boobs.

Fast forward another couple of months. Jacob was born two weeks early because my fluid levels started dropping in my 36th week. They hadn’t been super high to begin with, but I drank double my body weight in water daily for the next couple of weeks and figured my levels would be better at my next appointment. They were not. In fact, they were so much worse that I was sent to the hospital at just under 38 weeks, kept on IV fluids for two days, and then induced. I’m only sharing that detail now because I’m 99 percent convinced that the low amniotic fluid levels were related to low milk production later. I’ve found zero research connecting the two, but I would put money on some doctor finding a correlation someday. Please comment if you had something similar!

After a fairly uncomplicated birth, we had a beautiful baby. Granted, his birth weight was probably somewhat inflated after those two days of IV fluids, and all newborns look vaguely like aliens, but he was perfect in every way.

The lactation consultant came into the delivery room, saw that not only was he already latched (I paid attention in breastfeeding class after all), he was already eating. She pronounced my latch flawless and was out of there in under two minutes.

Another lactation consultant came in a day or two later (that hospital time is a blur. I think the nurses monitor when you fall asleep and pick that exact moment to come in and wake you up), advised me to keep his head more in the crook of my arm, agreed that I had an impeccable latch, and went on her merry way.

I was an earth goddess, breastfeeding my baby. All was well.

new baby

Except it wasn’t. When we went to the pediatrician for our second visit, Jacob was still losing weight. And when we went back two days later he should have been gaining weight, but he wasn’t.

“I think it’s time to try supplementing with some formula,” our pediatrician said.

I promptly burst into tears. She comforted me as best as she could, throwing around phrases like “low supply,” “not a big deal,” “happens to so many women,” etc. But all I could hear was, “You failed your baby and now he has to have formula and won’t be as smart or healthy and it’s all your fault.”

-breastfeeding-mums-one-way-or-the-other-they-always-feel-let-down--ced2e

Much heartbreak, an insane amount of pumping, medication, and the world’s worst lactation consultants ever (I’ll blog about that another day—they literally told us to hire someone to watch the baby so I could spend five-to-six hours a day pumping to increase supply) later, we added in formula supplementation, and Jacob finally started gaining weight.

I continued breastfeeding and supplementing with formula after until just after six months, when he started completely refusing to nurse. I’m still pumping to get him whatever benefit there is from the tiny amount that I can sneak into his bottle, but I’m fully aware that the pumping is entirely because of mom guilt and to keep my feelings of failure at bay. guilty

Even now, when he’s seven-and-a-half months old, eating solid food and above the 80th percentile for weight, I’m ashamed of the fact that he subsides on mostly formula. I feel like I failed him. I’m sitting here, writing this, and a tiny little voice in my head is saying, “Maybe you shouldn’t publish this. Don’t let people know that you failed.”

Except I didn’t fail. He’s above the 80th freaking percentile for weight. I think his thighs are bigger than mine now. He’s the happiest, healthiest, best baby in the world (as my mother will stop you on the street to tell you. Seriously, if a random woman stops you on the street to tell you that, say hi to my mom). And while there is some ambiguity about whether my low fluid levels caused low milk production or whether it was Jacob’s disorganized suck that tanked production, the reality is that it doesn’t matter.

That’s the real point to this post: (yes, it took me 1,000 words to get there, and yes, I’m about to get major hate mail from the “Breast is Best”ers, but I don’t care) feed your baby and don’t let anyone (other than yourself) make you feel guilty about how you do it.

I barely left the house for the first three months because I was convinced that if I skipped a breastfeeding session it would cause irreparable damage to my already-low supply. And I wasn’t comfortable breastfeeding in public because Jacob wasn’t good at it, and I’m just not a whip-my-boobs-out-in-public kind of girl. I was terrified that people were going to judge me if they saw me feeding him formula, so I tried to only feed him in private. I refused to talk to anyone about what was going on because I thought that they would judge me. I cried more over breastfeeding than I have over anything else in my life. And I felt utterly despondent because, as a huge control freak, nothing I did could fix this.

spilled milk

But guess what happened when I finally came clean? Absolutely no one cared. Actually, that’s not true. Once I talked about it, people told me all about how much trouble they’d had too. The low supply, the clogged ducts, the agonizing over not knowing if the baby was getting enough to eat, the infections, the tears, the guilt. I wasn’t nearly as alone as I thought I was.

I realized how horrible it is to tell people that “Every woman has the ability to breastfeed her baby,” and that formula is for lazy moms, and I grew increasingly angry at that attitude. If every woman could do it, wet nurses wouldn’t have existed and no one would have invented formula. I’m so grateful that I live in an era where all I had to do to feed my son when my body couldn’t was go to the grocery store.

breastfeeding apocalypse

Saying that every woman can do it is a blatant lie. And it’s a harmful lie because in those early months, when sleep is scarce and women feel isolated at home with a newborn, adding in feelings of failure makes everything so much harder than it needs to be.

When eventual baby #2 comes along (don’t get any ideas, it’s not happening yet!), I plan to breastfeed him or her. But if it isn’t working this time, I’m not going to let the baby’s weight get too low or cry (too much) because I now know that formula isn’t the devil and some things are out of my control.

i-have-breastfed-and-i-have-bottle-fed-and-before-i-knew-it-they-were-all-eating-stale-french-fries-off-the-floor-of-the-minivan-and-i-was-like-whatever-thanks-for-cleaning-5a50c

If breastfeeding was easy for you, cool. Congratulations. If it wasn’t, you’re not alone. And if you need to hear you’re doing a great job when it feels like you aren’t, drop me a line. Because mamas, as long as your baby is eating, you’re doing a great job.

bottle feeding

Mom Life

New name, new baby, new blog, same Sara

November 17, 2017December 13, 2017 Sara Confino

Welcome to the new blog! Life has certainly changed since the Sara*ndipity days, and that felt like it necessitated a new blog.

The biggest change other than my last name? This little guy.

Jacob Samuel Confino joined us two weeks early at the beginning of April and then EVERYTHING changed.

Those of you with kids are sitting there saying, “Well, duh.” I mean, I knew everything would be different, but I don’t think I quite realized the extent to which my life would be consumed by baby everything.

I also wasn’t prepared for how hard being a new mom is. Those first few months are intense–I joked that I lived in Room because I felt tethered to the house by breastfeeding issues. You frequently have no idea if what’s going on is normal or not–should his belly button look like that? WTF is that flakey stuff on his head? Is his poop supposed to look like that? Why is he hiccuping so much? Do I wake him up to feed him or let him sleep? The list is endless.

Everyone on social media makes it all look so easy. (I’m guilty of this too. Every picture I post of Jacob is smiling and perfect and makes it seem like I’m Super Mom. I’m not. I feel like Hot Mess Mom 90 percent of the time and Actually Pretty Decent Mom the rest of the time.)

This is where mom guilt comes in. Because you don’t want to ask anyone for help when they all seem like they have their lives perfectly together.

I turned to Google. Which is the norm for me–my mom jokes that she should have named me Google. (She frequently texts me and asks me to Google things for her. I point out that she could have typed that same query into Google with even less effort than it took to ask me to do it for her, but she claims I’m better at it than she is.) And while I found a lot of very helpful information out there (it’s how I accurately diagnosed my baby’s torticollis when my doctor missed it–more about that later), I also frequently fell into the black hole of misinformation that sent me spiraling into panic attacks about things I didn’t need to worry about.

Which leads me to the point of this blog. Yes, it’s a mommy blog. Yes, the mighty have fallen. Get over it. (And if you don’t get the title, here’s the reference. It works because there have already been a million mommy moments where I’ve felt the need to yell “Serenity now!”)

I’m only seven-and-a-half months in, so I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know everything, because I definitely don’t. But there’s a lot of stuff that I needed to hear and that I wish someone had told me when I was going through it.

So if anyone can learn from my experiences or feel like they’re not alone or just feel a sense of belonging, then cool, I’ve done my job. Or if you just want to feel some quality schadenfreude by seeing what my life is like behind the social media curtain, you can do that too.

Either way, enjoy!

*I am not pregnant. I am not planning on becoming pregnant any time soon. I have a nine month old. I’m tired. I do want a second child in the future, but if you read into this to assume that that’s coming soon, I may slap you.

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