Irish twins… almost

Lola and Max are 13 months apart, so they’re not officially Irish twins if you go by the definition of babies born in the same calendar year or 12 months apart. But I think the experience of mothering them will be similar.

Having Lola put in my arms was pure joy. Well, also fear. But mostly happiness, gratitude, and a kind of dreamy I-can’t-believe-it contentment. Having Max is happiness with a big dollop of guilt. Having a newborn stuck to your breast is a real turn-off for toddlers, it seems. Lola has perfected an aggrieved, “Who the hell is that guy?” look that makes me feel like a very bad mother indeed.

I feel guilty about not giving her the avalanche of attention that I would like to give her, and I also miss her, terribly. For the past three months I haven’t been able to go to the park with her every afternoon as I used to… this week I started going again, with young Max in a kangaroo pouch or his pram, so I can chase her around and enjoy her again. It’s time to reclaim my little girl… I just hope that doesn’t mean I end up feeling guilty about neglecting Max.

Mastitis and falling in love with Max

I have never felt more ill than the two times I’ve had mastitis. For the past 36 hours I have been a feeble, sweat-drenched ball of misery and my left breast REALLY hurts.Treatment is no fun at all… keep feeding with your huge engorged excruciatingly painful breast! The more, the better! This whole childbirth raising kids malarky is masochistic. So I kept feeding, drank loads of water, took panadol, plonked a hot water bottle on the boob and a cold washer with vinegar on my head and hoped it would get better rather than worse. Def didn’t want to take antibiotics if I could help it, but also did not want to develop a breast abscess. Good god.. an abscess on your breast. They should really mention that the statistical chance of this is extremely low – like 0.2 per cent of women – every time they do those pithy web rundowns on mastitis.

Now the fever has broken and I am thinking that at least it gave me lots of time to gaze at Max, who is filling out nicely. He’s a calm little fellow, but he’s started to give me involuntary little smiles when I stroke his cheek or hand and it gives me a glimpse of a certain cheekiness that he might have.

Max’s arrival has brought a lot of conflicting emotions for me. I am so happy he’s here, and he’s healthy. And I am starting to fall in love with him, but it’s complicated by seeing Lola struggling with sadness over not getting as much of my attention. I feel so guilty. Time and attention are so important for babies… Lola has new words every day at the moment – she’s trying to really talk. And she knows the stories we read her are somehow contained in the words… she points to them. Max eats and sleeps and dirties a mind-boggling number of nappies a day.

A friend advised me to be patient… these first few months with a newborn are intense, but after that I should be able to find a rhythm that allows me to give Lola and Max the attention they need.

Drama queen

All this living in Latin America has turned me into a drama queen. At least that’s my excuse, and I am sticking to it. Also, the hormones. The hormones are out of control this time around as a pregnant lady. I weep at Masterchef eliminations. Letters from friends. Lola kissing my belly when I say, “Kiss for Maxi?”. Yesterday I cried because I was tired and the thought of having to spend half an hour coaxing her to eat her dinner was all too much. I think I am actually crying more than my one-year-old at the moment.

I am not coping at all well with having a rapidly ageing placenta (grade 3). I feel like it’s a time bomb inside me. Real world and twitter and blog friends have shared their stories of similar experiences with me, which helps more than I can say. But then this insidious worry creeps back. He doesn’t kick for a while, and I can’t help wondering if the placenta has become so bad at its job that he’s wasted away inside me. It just lurks there, this thought, at the back of my mind. Some of you reading this blog have dealt with far, far worse, and to you I apologise… I know I should be coping better, maybe not indulging this fear.

We have an ultrasound tomorrow, and I am really hoping the doctor will pick a day very soon to get him out. It feels like Russian roulette to me, leaving him in there when my body is not giving him what he needs. If something went wrong, how would I know? At least out in the world we could see if something was happening and help him. Feed him. Make sure he has enough air. Bloody placenta.

Dr Google has been even less help than usual… there’s actually not so much out there about what a grade three placenta really means. Just a lot of other worried women crowd-sourcing an answer to the same questions I have.

Dr E is pretty efficient and hands-on, so I take some comfort in that. He was quite ready to induce Lola the moment she hit 40 weeks, so I guess I should take comfort in his judgment that Maxi is doing well enough to stay in there that little bit longer. Unlike with IVF, we don’t know down to the minute, hour and day when Maxi was conceived. Dr E is as stunned as I am that he even was conceived. The estimate, based on my last period.. which was actually almost my first period after Lola’s birth and therefore a fairly useless indicator if you get what I mean, is that I will be at 38 weeks on Weds. I don’t want to pull him out, undercooked. But then I don’t want to leave him and run any risks at all with his tiny little life.

And one more thing, while I am indulging this drama queen thing… he has refused to show me his face once, in any of our ultrasounds. Lola gave me a big-cheeked full frontal face shot around 32 weeks, which I had propped by my bedside for the rest of the pregnancy. Maxi just gives me butt cheeks. Somehow I think I would feel better if I had seen the outline of his little face.

Pregnancy brain

Anyone who has traveled at high altitude (and I mean on the ground, not in a pressurised airplane cabin making “oo-aah” sounds at the lovely scenery) will know that it can do funny things to your mind and body.

Landing in La Paz, Bolivia, one of the world’s highest cities, for the first time I thought my head would explode. A friend had once helpfully explained to me the effect altitude has on on the blood vessels in your brain by holding up a potato crisp packet that looked like it was about to explode. We were three-quarters of the way up a mountain at the time and the chip packet had been swelling gradually the whole while. “This is what your blood vessels are doing right now,” she said, gleefully triggering an “oh-my-god-i’m-going-to-have-a-stroke” moment.

Every trip I have done to La Paz has been characterised by a dreamlike quality that is all about the altitude. Sure, the little round women on the street, with their multi-layered disco-coloured skirts, long black plaits and rubber sandals let you know that you are somewhere distinctly foreign. And the witches’ market, crowded with strange ingredients and tiny dried llamas, gives a hint that science has its place, but so does the spirit world.

But the big factor is altitude. And altitude, I have discovered, is a lot like pregnancy. Struggling up La Paz’s steep narrow streets while huffing and puffing is a lot like hauling yourself and your bowling ball belly a few blocks to the shops in the late stages of pregnancy. And altitude and pregnancy both play tricks on your mind, and on what’s achieveable. On every business trip to La Paz I have been under the illusion that my mind was working at its sharpest, that my razor-sharp intellect would carry me through sticky situations. Returning to sea level, I look at my notes and wonder what the hell was I thinking. “Why didn’t I ask that very obvious, and crucial, question?” “What does this half-finished sentence mean?” “Why does that scribble mean?”

With about a month to go before the arrival of Maximum Maxi-Wobble the second, our son, it is dawning on me that my mind is playing tricks on me, in a La Paz kind of way. A crazy amount of work has come my way, and I have said yes to it all. So I find myself flitting between hefty, detail-oriented editing projects, staking out police stations and airports and interviewing small businesswomen in poor, farflung parts of Lima, all with a strange, dreamlike lack of urgency. Deadlines shmeadlines. I’m going through all the motions, but it’s almost like I’m watching myself go through those motions in a film of my life, and I’d rather switch over to that scintillating new series I discovered, Devious Maids. Yes – Devious Maids!!! The shame…

I need to turn back to work now; I just had to get that off my chest. Self-diagnosed pregnancy brain. There is a reason for this wading-through-cement pace of mine right now. I am not losing it, I am just very, very pregnant.

Also, regular readers should know that Lola slept last night the WHOLE NIGHT THROUGH. And yesterday she got into the spirit of this walking business, after racing around for months with the help of a little finger, and launched off by herself constantly. She was doing laps of our living room. Wobbly, drunken laps, but amaaaaaazing to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link

Dare I wade into the minefield of class and ethnic warfare that is naming a child?

I can’t help myself.

Yes, the time has come to choose a name for foetus Max. Poor Lola went nine days without a name because I could not cope with the overwhelming responsibility for picking just the right one for her, and even now I wonder…

Max is Max for the moment because I got tired of calling him Senor X, Dirty Harry or Bruce Lee. And to try to prompt his dad into engaging into this, my favourite pregnancy discussion. Until Rufus suggests something better, I decreed, he shall be Max. Also Max is my friend’s dog’s name, and she helped me come up with this ultimatum. And I don’t want to tell this kid one day that he was named after a Jack Russell called Maximum Maxi-wobble.

What could be better than fantasising about what your future child should be called? What kind of boy will Max be? Rufus apparently thinks there are MANY things more interesting. Angry Birds for example. He is so chilled out, I know he just thinks the right name will present itself when Max himself does. But after Lola, I know better.

So, the list of potentials, to date:

Luca           (My favourite… but does it matter if your kids’ names all start with the same                          letter. Like the Kardashians… they are my definition of a complete waste of                          space. Who ARE those people and WHY does ANYONE care?)

James        (Love, but is common as muck of course, and now the future King of England                      might also be called this, according to the bookies…)

Dante         (Can’t imagine myself in the park yelling “Dante! Dante!” to be perfectly honest)

Fabian        (He will end up being called Fabby)

Hugo          (I love love love and Rufus hates.. also in Latin America he would be “Ugo” and                          people will assume we are raving leftie Hugo Chavez fans)

Sebastian   (I love this, Rufus thinks it’s ok; but more importantly everyone seems to have a                          Sebastian these days. Does it really matter if a name is popular?)

Finn            (Rufus thinks this is just finny because “fin” in Espanol is “the end”. Also that poor                        actor Finn from Glee just died so now this name makes me sad)

Bruno         (I like two-syllable boys names that end with O… they sound kind of cool and                                assured. Maybe Ludo?)

Raphael      (Love this, Rufus is all “meh”. But also last name starts with an R – is alliteration                     a good thing, people? Or bad?)

Felix            (I think this is cute, Rufus not so much)

Darcy          (I like this but can’t get over the Pride and Prejudice association … BBC series,                          Colin Firth striding out of lake all wet and glistening, for those not in the                             know. One of my favourite pieces of TV of alltime, but still, a bit naff to name                         my son after an 18th-century literary hearthrob modelled on a toff)

Gabriel       (Nice but maybe a bit wishy washy?)

Junot          (Grasping at straws but I kind of like)

Jasper        (Kind of cool… but also a wee bit posh twat)

So that’s the current list. Tell me if we are crazy. Other recent input includes Rufus’s dad, who wants him to be called Frank after Sinatra. His half-brother who wants to call him Lars after some heavy metal drummer. And a friend who also has a son with a Latin American just emailed me her thoughts on names that work both ways – ie English-Spanish: Oscar Stefano Dante Mateo Felix Leo Rafael Tiago Valentín Tomás.

So that’s some name possibilities. The politics of naming a child are endless. There was an amusing spat on UK TV recently in which a smug blonde woman attacked people who give their children misspelled (or spelled “orginally”) names. I have to admit I totally agree with her… making up creative spellings of names for your baby is one of my pet hates. It can leave the kid open to a lifetime of spelling out their name or making assumptions about their background (ie, their parents didn’t know how to spell). But then, ALL names say something about the parents, and the parents’ desires or aspirations for their kids. And about their prejudices.

Celebrities call their kids ludicrous things, I think, because they are secure in the knowledge that they are so wealthy and privileged and entitled that their kids will get along just fine, whatever they’re called. It’s like a bit “F*** U” to the rest of us plebs who actually have to wonder if little X Y or Z will be taunted in the playground or bullied or at a disadvantage when they apply for jobs/college/music school. Seriously, who calls their kid Blanket? Was that the first thing he saw when the baby popped out? Maybe I should just stop torturing myself and call him scrubs, or forceps.

http://www.babycenter.com/0_ultimate-celebrity-baby-names-list_3647306.bc

Anyway, even though I get her point I just did not like this woman’s tone. She was being a total snob. And the presenter sitting across from her obviously felt the same way because she dealt her a real body blow when the blonde started in on people who name their kids after places: ie Posh and Becks’ Brooklyn, or the Hilton’s Paris, I spose.

“But… your daughter is called India!” the presenter said, incredulous.

Kapow! Fantastic.

Of course, India is actually a really popular slightly posh name in the UK, probably because it references the glorious empire years. Or maybe that blonde is a bit thick and doesn’t realise that India is a place.

There are also cultural and religious reasons for choosing a child’s name, or family reasons – like X junior or little Arabel (After great-great-absolutely-loaded-with-cash aunt Arabel). And who has the right to go barging in with an opinion on anyone’s religion or culture?

I have a lovely child of hippies friend called Honey, which is not really so out-there. And she ended up meeting a lovely child of Welsh hippies guy called something-from-Lord-of-the-Rings (and this was before the movies came out).

What do I aspire to, for Max? I want him to be a happy little vegemite. I want him to have friends. I don’t want him to be teased. When he applies for a job I don’t want people to laugh at his resume. I want the world for him, like most parents do for their kids. Picking the right name is part of that – perhaps it is even the very least part of it.

Only once did I have a boyfriend whose name I particularly liked. I have lots of friends with names I would never choose for my kids. In the end, the person outshines the name, and if it doesn’t, he can always change it, or use a nickname.

Related articles

• Baby names: 5 tips for naming non-royal babies (metro.co.uk)
• Single Syllable Names for Boys: A to Z (appellationmountain.net)
• Why not a royal baby named ‘Greg Thompson’? Mallick (thestar.com)

Perspective

The past 18 months has given me a very different perspective on life, and I am not just talking about motherhood.

I am a mother, and I am about to become a mother all over again. How can this be? In the distraught days of my IVF treatments and bouncing between doctors, I had to finally accept that it might not just happen for us. The world is not fair. The very best of people may not be able to have children; the very worst of people often do. Life is a lottery – some of us are born into happy families, some not; some of us come into poverty, violence and tragedy, some of us are blessed with happy childhoods filled with good family, friends, green spaces and backyard pools. Some arrive in perfect health, others struggle from the very beginning against great odds.

I knew all this intellectually pre-Lola – we all do! But her presence in this world has helped me deal with my own small struggles with greater grace and optimism and courage. She helps me feel that things are going to be ok in the end. Because one sniff of her deliciousness, one brush of her perfect cheek, one giggle from her – these are all magic remedies. I am going to make things ok, for her sake, and for our sake.

I once wrote here that getting pregnant was the worst career move I ever made – getting pregnant a second time hasn’t really helped either. But I am no longer in that place of panic and fear that I was when she was about to be born. I only just confessed this second pregnancy to my bosses a week ago. A lawyer had advised me to keep it under my hat for as long as I needed to… but I am now 26 weeks pregnant and I was feeling stressed with so much uncertainty. I had arrived in a place where I just thought, “Damn it, if they sack me, they sack me, I just want to know where I stand”.

So the upshot appears to be a change in my contract – moving from a retainer plus expenses/benefits and expenses to a fully freelance basis, with a view to me returning to a full staff position again post-baby, depending on what jobs come up, and where. I will retain full health benefits and the retainer till after the birth. So it’s a six-month financial hit, depending on whether a job really does come up, and how long I take off with the baby.

This will be a blow, but I do feel they are committed to me coming back. And I will get to stay at home with the new baby with a flexible work arrangement in the meantime. So I think that’s a pretty good result in the end. And all those months of worrying led me to think about alternatives as well, so perhaps I will get that restaurant blog off the ground, or end up taking a new career path.

These small troubles of mine have forced me to think about my own value in the workplace, to whether I attached too much importance and too much of my self-worth to my company, and to what I really want in life. We resist change sometimes because it’s scary. I am not risk-averse, but I do not like feeling like the ground is shifting beneath me. But good things can come out of a period of turmoil – this time, Lola and her brother (AKA Bruce Lee, Dirty Harry, or simply X – we are no closer in the great name hunt). That is a dream come true, and that is where I am aiming to keep my focus. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her name was Lola…

Nine months! Lola is officially tall for her age, “slender” – at the bottom of the healthy range – and her head is growing nicely and in proportion. They have charts for all these things at the pediatricians, and I love a good chart.

Dr S is a fantastic guy, uber patient with all of our questions, and lovely in the way he interacts with her. She gave him a round of applause for his troubles.

But then came the nasty bit – a blood test to check her iron levels etc. I thought this would be a pin prick, but no – these nurses stuck a huge needle in her arm and dug around for her tiny vein, all while I had to help keep her still on the table. Then they didn’t get enough blood so they stabbed her in the finger as well. She was screaming like a banshee and I thought she wouldn’t ever trust me again. She was pretty pissed off with us for most of the day – well, she took it out on her dad, mostly. So for any new parents out there who are advised to get a blood test, if there is ANY way you can possibly avoid it, or somehow get enough with just a prick to the finger, then go down that route.

After that trauma I had to go via another lab to have my own blood drawn for the third time for the Panorama test which detects trisomies with almost 100 per cent certainty. Being 41, my doctor advised I get this test for peace of mind… well, having two failed tests (not having enough cells in the blood sample or some such) has not put my mind at rest.

I really hope this time we have some results. It’ll be pretty bloody late to do anything about them… even though I wasn’t ever convinced I would or could do anything if the baby does have some problem, I wanted to know. I wanted that peace of mind, goddamnit, not that old “Your baby has a 1 in 274 chance of Down’s” malarkey. It’s something I have to confess has been haunting me. In Latin America, you see a LOT of children and adults with Down’s Syndrome, I think because they have a much lower rate of detection, and because even if it was detected, many people would never abort a foetus for religious or moral reasons. Or they simply don’t have that option. I read somewhere that the abortion rate for foetuses diagnosed with Down’s in Europe and the US is pretty high – around 92 per cent – even though no one likes to talk about it.

I’ve gone and said the “A” word now.

I have seen so many beautiful pictures of Down’s kids lately, and it’s wonderful to see attitudes changing with the help of role models like the girl who plays Becky the cheerleader in Glee. But the horrible truth is that every time I see a Down’s kid or adult at the moment, my heart clenches up. I don’t want my child to be anything other than healthy. Of course I don’t. No mother wants that. I have a lot of friends who say they wouldn’t care – that it wouldn’t change anything. But I see those adults with Down’s, so dependent on their ageing parents, and I wonder what will happen to them? I wonder if I could do that.

Now I have gone down a path I don’t know much about, and maybe some of you will clobber me for it. Or offer me some better information or advice.

For now, between these sudden moments of fear, I just tell myself everything will be alright. What else can I do?

Baby no 2 still has no real nickname. We used to call him/her “ajonjoli”, or sesame seed, but we’ve moved into large mango territory now, apparently. These fruit comparisons are downright confusing, if you ask me. The nameless one has recently started kicking me. I think because he/she realises that I need a good kicking every now and then to remind me that he/she is on the way. I still forget sometimes.

 

 

 

To sleep, perchance to dream

Lola is sleeping!

Still. After a dream month or so of sleeping 8pm to 4am or so, she suddenly started with the every two or three hours waking thing again. When you’re in that newborn whirl you get accustomed to it somehow, but having your sleep restored then taken away again… well, it’s like taking candy from a baby. You being the baby. I just felt like howling with frustration.

We went for her six-month check-up on Monday and the Dr is happy with her progress (she shamelessly flirted with him). But he did say now is the time to train her to sleep.

Cue heart-clench. I had been hoping we could just sail along as we are, me feeding her to sleep every night, until she just sort of got the idea herself.

But Dr S was rather brutal in his assessment. “You must do it now or your life will be hell!” he warned, with a scary eyebrow waggle. These Peruvian doctors have not heard of the babywearing, feed-on-demand movement, it seems.

He said we must put her down for the night sleepy but not asleep and then leave the room for five minutes exactly. Returning once to reassure her, but without touching or picking her up or kisses or anything. And then we have to leave her. For the whole night. Even if she vomits, he said. Another scary eyebrow waggle.

Say what? Leave her in her own vomit?

Any thoughts on this one, people?

Anyway, I’m not going there just yet, mainly because I’m a coward, and because this week is my first week back at work. I am actually enjoying the work part, although it’s only been one day. But I have diagnosed myself with post-traumatic stress (joking, but I do feel physically ill at the thought of any contact with my evil boss) after last year’s dramas over the pregnancy.

I wrote to evil boss yesterday because I just didn’t want to speak to him. It was a short note telling him I was off to see someone about an upcoming event, asking him if there was anything in particular he’d like me to raise, and he replied at once, chiding me for being “abrupt”. Then he actually asked me what sex the baby was. Her name.

To say I was livid is a massive understatement. This man intimidated me throughout my entire pregnancy and undermined me to the extent that I am now “in negotiations for my next post”, and now he wants to be mates?

Of course the big twist in all of this is that I am apparently seven weeks pregnant. I still can’t believe it. I am so focused on Lola I can’t imagine another person coming into being. And I have no idea, no idea at all, as to how we’ll work this, practically speaking. I am consulting an employment lawyer to see if I have a leg to stand on (I fear not as I am on contract, so even if the company should offer me something from an ethical point of view, they probably don’t legally).

I am still surprised by my treatment. This is a company that has treated me well for more than a decade. But it made my pregnancy a fear- and stress-soaked experience. It’s shocking to me still that a company like this treats pregnant women in such a way.

To end on a positive and terribly cliched note, Lola has brought a whole new perspective to all of this. I was ready to go for evil boss’s jugular yesterday, but having woken up to her and to Rufus and stopped to think about all I have in life, it just didn’t seem to matter so much anymore.

Six months today!

 

 

 

And the meaning of life is…

What do you do when you get that thing you wanted so badly you couldn’t think about anything else for years?

In my case, a baby.

Lola has brought such joy to my life, if I could, I would skip out of work for a good long while and just hang out with her, watching her do all the amazing and hilarious things that babies do.

Alas, like most women, it is back to the workforce for me. And after six months I’ve actually had a good while longer with little L than many mums out there. So this is not a lament. This is the kind of dilemma I dreamed about having when I was going through IVF.

Having a career/work change forced on me at this time is forcing me to really think about my priorities. What is most important to me? What do I love to do? How does Lola change things?

I’ve had a good career run – for 15 years every career decision I’ve made has been based upon whether I want to do something. Nothing more. Did I want to move to London? Hell yes. Did I want to move to NYC? Yes please. And Lima? Why not?

This is the first time I have had to consider anyone else in that equation. As far as Rufus, Lola and I are concerned, staying put would be the best thing for the next 18 months or so.  (Assuming there is no catastrophic earthquake, which is a worry that lurks in the back of my brain). So my preferred scenario, scenario A, would be to stay put, so Rufus can continue a nice career roll of his own, Lola can be with a nanny rather than in a childcare centre, and we can take advantage of cheaper cost of living to find our feet financially.

I have asked my boss if it would be possible to work in a remote capacity in the short term. This would tick all of the boxes above, with another attractive benefit – I’d be working from home and so would still have plenty of time with Lola.

The boss says this is a possibility, depending largely on a big new project taking shape this year. It’s still a remote possibility, however, so I’m faced with scenarios B and C.

B would be accepting a new job with the same company, possibly in Hong Kong, Washington or London. This was how I envisioned things going when I first moved here. But how things change! Such a move now would make me the main breadwinner and Rufus a stay at home parent in the short term. Cost of living is much higher. Childcare is scarily expensive.

C would be leaving this company and finding something else here. I could do that, but it would mean leaving my chosen career, and I worry that would mean throwing away everything I’ve worked for. But another part of me wonders if it’s time to choose a new path, one that involves more security, benefits and a higher salary to help pay for Lola’s education etc. Would it be great? Or would I end up in a job I didn’t like for the next 20 years?

I’ve been told that identifying what you love is the best way to figure out what you should be doing. Maybe I should just open up a coffee shop that sells really great patisserie and tea in china cups, with loads of great magazines, movie nights, tastings and exhibitions.

 

 

 

Express yourself

There is nothing remotely fun or erotic about expressing milk.

I love my breasts. They have provided many, many hours of fun over the years. They were always on the generous side, so they looked good in curvy dresses and tops. When I first started working, I remember an older, female colleague sizing them up one day when I turned up in the office in a multicoloured minidress (I was still a student, in my defence), and saying “God, how do you get them to stay up like that?”

And sex? Well, my breasts were always pretty much my “start” buttons.

The girls are still one of my favourite bits, but now that Lola has come along it’s all a bit more confusing. They are abundant providers of milk. So I’m very pleased about that, and in awe at the whole thing. And I’m still having hours of fun… just in an entirely different way.

It’s lovely being with Lola, even in the wee small hours of the night. Sometime she attacks the boob like a ferocious little tiger, clamps on and sucks intently for thirty minutes, batting away all interlopers (me.. sometime Rufus) with her little hand. Other times she fools around, having a little snack then peering up at me with a huge shy smile before going in for another go. One time she flipped us the bird, I’m sure unintentionally.

But sex? I won’t let Rufus near them. It’s just weird, somehow. I think my mind can’t quite separate the two so I’m waiting till Lola’s done with them to see if I can reclaim them for myself.

And now I’m on the expressing track. I managed to avoid it, mostly, so far because Lola turns into a demon at the sight of a bottle, or even a dummy. So I just let her get on with the boob. And it’s true that if you are one of the lucky ones who hasn’t had too much trouble breastfeeding (and my heart goes out to you if you’re not) it’s just so, so, so much easier than messing about with bottles and formulas.

With my back-to-work deadline looming in a month, though, Lola needs to learn how to take a bottle for the times when I won’t be there. Since she started sleeping longer, my milk flow has slowed to a trickle, so this morning I strapped on the breast pump once again to see if I can rev it up and store up a decent supply for her.

I really do feel like an old cow sitting here with the machine going “mheeh, mheeh, mheeh”.

Nor am I that hopeful that Lola is ever going to really get the hang of the bottle. Every time we’ve tried it she screams, or fools about in a completely inept way with milk going everywhere but in her mouth. Also, I’m not sure if the milk will rev up again sufficiently. I don’t want to move her onto formula if I can avoid it; but stressing about it won’t help anyone.

The other day we gave her a couple of spoons of rice cereal mixed with breast milk, and some spoonfuls of apple juice, and she got on much better with a spoon than a teat. So Plan B is going to be a sippy cup of milk along with whatever solids we are trying to introduce. I can see how that will be a time-consuming process.

Anyway, breasts, I salute you. And one day, I’m hoping we will go back to the old ways.