Bit of a Cow

 First of all, I'm having problems with emoticons, again. The server where I host them seems to be down all the time lately and it seems I have to find another place where to upload all my emoticons and then I have to manually go to each post to change the website in the image link. Fortunately MS Word "replace all" tool will be of great help but I still have to find a reliable server where to keep the emoticons so I never have to do that again. Any suggestions where to host a bunch of emoticons? Until I solve it, I will just skip the emoticons.

Back to the title of this post. I don't really feel like a cow but I just couldn't resist using this title because I probably should feel like a cow for two very valid reasons. First reason, I keep being milked. My main task lately is to sit on the couch and produce milk for a very hungry little creature. Her life consists of eating, creating dirty diapers and sleeping. Like really, no exaggeration what so ever. She wakes up hungry, gets stuffed with milk, gets burped, is hungry again and eats, then fills a diaper and gets it changed, is hungry again and eats, and then falls asleep while eating. A couple of hours later repeats the entire thing from the beginning.

The milk thing has been much more simple the second time around. Last time there was the entire fiasco with a midwife getting me upset over starving my baby and then stuffing a bottle down Siiri's throat in the hospital. The midwife wasn't very successful at getting her eat the substitute milk but managed to make Siiri desperately caugh it out because some foul-smelling liquid was practically poured down her throat. It took me 5 days for the milk to come in and only then I could start breastfeeding on demand without any pumping or offering substitute milk. This time I knew better. I had read a lot about how breastfeeding works and the first couple of days I was just breastfeeding on demand to stimulate milk production. The principle of breastfeeding is that it happens on demand. When milk is removed, new milk is produced. When milk is left over, then milk production decreases. When milk is being sucked out when there is none, milk production is stimulated and there's more milk next time. When the baby is given substitute milk then she feels little need to waste energy sucking a boob so that alone could guarantee the need for substitute milk in the future.

Liisa seemed fairly content and used up diapers (good signs) but she was hungry all the time. On the second day weighing it became clear that Liisa was losing too much weight. All newborns lose weight in their first days of life and doctors ignore weight loss up to 7%. Liisa had lost 7.8% already so they brought me substitute milk and a large syringe (no needle of course). Okay, so that was a bit of a shock. I thought it was going so well this time. She seemed so full of milk all the time so I didn't even suspect that anything was wrong. With Siiri it took me an hour of despair to get used to the idea that breastfeeding isn't all that simple. This time it took me 10 seconds. I took a moment to let it sink in and then made a plan. My plan was pretty obvious: I decided I need to start pumping milk as soon as possible. That's what helped last time and I was sure it will help this time as well. They have a pump in the hospital, usually used to prove to mothers how bad their milk production really is and how they should just start giving their babies substitute milk already. I used the pump so milk would come in sooner. I gave Liisa a couple of small portions of substitute milk as well and also breastfed and by next day she had already gained 80g (that's 2,2% of her birth weight!). I left the hospital with doctor's orders, "Forget about the substitute milk and just breastfeed on demand.".  YAY!

The second reason I should feel like a cow is weight. With this pregnancy I gained about 18 kg. The baby weighed 3,6 kg, placenta weighs about 1 kg, amniotic fluid weighs about 1 kg and  I lost about 0.4 kg of blood during labor and a lot afterwards (that's quite normal). So, simple math... I got home from the hospital after giving birth and I had lost 3.6+1+1+0.4 kg= 0 kg. Wait, what?! I stepped on the scale and I had lost 0 kg of my pregnancy weight. So yeah, they fed us well and I ate about 1000 kcal worth of extra food and I drank 3 liters of fluid, mostly water, every day I spent in the hospital. I felt my body needed all that for both recovery and milk production and I felt very healthy. In hindsight, I'd still eat and drink the same amount because I did recover super fast.

Any ideas how to lose 18 kg in a few months without any effort? Preferably even 21 kg because I was in winter weight just before I got pregant. Currently I have just decided that scales are evil and I will not step on a scale until Liisa is a month old. I won't diet or try excessive exercising for the first weeks. I'll just try to regain proper posture and I'll start using Xbox Kinect exercise program in a couple of weeks.

I should feel like a cow but I'm actually quite content. As long as I don't step on the scale I manage to delude myself into imagining that my body is getting leaner every day and breastfeeding is actually quite enjoyable. It's so relaxing in many ways and the baby is so cute while breastfeeding. It could just be the hormone oxytocin talking - it's also called "love hormone" because it creates the feeling of bonding. Both of my kids have looked the most adorable while breastfeeding. Liisa is super cute, Siiri is very cuddly lately, Erkki's at home from work and life is good. I'm really happy with everything.