Today Oliver gets circumcised – we chose to do it today because having it done at the hospital would have cost us double – the hospitals charge and the doctor’s charge. So we’re going into my OB’s office today to have it done.
I’m really hoping this goes better than the doctor’s appointment we had on Friday last week. In the hospital you generally get a visit from the lactation consultants – they check up on you to see how breastfeeding is going, make sure to answer all your questions and give you the run down on what to expect. Well … when they found out I had had a breast reduction our lactation consultant pretty much freaked out and told us not to expect to be able to breastfeed our baby.
I then reminded her that we have a living, healthy 3 1/2 year old daughter who was exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of her life and continued to breastfeed until 9 months of age when she weaned herself off. Needless to say she was flabbergasted. I was the only woman she had heard of who was able to successfully breastfeed after a breast reduction!! Um. Really? Because I can list 2 other names off the top of my head, of people in my circle of influence who also successfully breastfed after a breast reduction – but whatever, I’m not the “consultant”.
So after enduring her freak out and reassuring her that we knew of all the risks, after all, we had done this before, and that at the end of the day if breastfeeding really isn’t work we weren’t going to starve our child – we’re not against formula if it means our baby will thrive, she told us we should have his weight checked before the weekend and then give them a call to let them know how things are going. (Hear: I don’t believe you, I want you to see your doctor and make sure that you’re not starving your child)
Insert our appointment on Friday – we went in for the weight check – Oliver was 8lb and 12oz when went home from the hospital and on Friday he was 8lb 13oz. He gained weight. Which, duh, happens. So I called them to let them know he had gained weight – they were excited and then told me I should have another weight check in 2 weeks. Bull shit. Enough with this. Breastfeeding works for us, leave it alone. That was my rant.
On Friday our pediatrician also wanted to check his bilirubin score (jaundice) because of his coloring – so we waited and had that done, too. Which was a little piece of hell, if you ask me. They have to make a slit in his heel to get blood out – a good amount of blood for the test – and since he wasn’t bleeding how they wanted him to – they did it twice and it took a good 10 minutes of them squeezing his feet to get blood out and his baby-murder-curdle cry to get the test done. I held him, they asked me if I was going to be able to handle it and I was all – uh, I’ll be able to handle it better this way rather than hearing it from another room and feeling completely powerless, thanks.
I kept my cool while we were in the office – as soon as we got outside though – I fell apart. I let it go, I lost my cool. I sobbed. Witnessing that at hardly 4 days old was a little much for me at that point.
So lets hope that circumcision goes much better. I hear it makes the baby sleepy and that they’re numbed and not really bothered by it. But who am I? It’s not my foreskin we’re removing.