Countdown to an Illness…

Aug 28th 2008

I am wrecked today, and you're going to hear about it. Not having any sleep in 3 weeks (or 3 years essentially) has seriously caught up to me.

I go to sleep at midnight-ish. Not getting home from class until 11:15 makes it impossible to go to bed any sooner than that. I say Hi to John, pump, and pass out. I'm up at 2 feeding and pumping. I'm back asleep at 2:30. Then I'm up at 4, back asleep at 4:30. Then up at 6, and up for the day. No chance for naps between work and school.

So let's total that up:
12-2, 2:30-4, 4:30-6 = 5 hours total a night.

That's actually more than I thought I was getting, considering I feel like I'm going to fall out of my chair today. However human beings need more than 5 INTERRUPTED hours of sleep a day.

Right now I have a fever-like ickiness about me, and I can't seem to function. My milk supply is in the toilet, and not getting any sleep is not helping the situation.

But, there's nothing that can be done. I have to be up all night feeding/pumping. Even when Jules slept through the night over the weekend, I still had to get up to pump to a.) keep my supply up and b.) relieve the painful engorgement. I don't pump enough milk at work to get Jules through a day, so I have to pump every time I feed him too. Otherwise, no lunch for Julesy.

Today is one of those bad days where I wanna cry but I'm just too tired. I'm quite sure I'll be coming down with some sort of sickness pretty soon, and I'm using tiny bit of energy I do have to tell myself not to stress about the measely 7 ounces I've pumped so far today. If anyone has any magical solutions for how to sleep while pumping… or how to boost supply even though I'm already taking buckets of fenugreek… lay 'em on me. I'll try anything.

Achhoo! Well….. here we go.

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Priscilla

Hey Gina, I joined the ivillage 2008 group and have always enjoyed reading your posts and now your blog, although not always agreeing with what you have to say. My little boy is 3 months old and I have a 3 year old boy, they are the loves of my life. I don't think I can be of very much help, but I just wanted to say you are doing a super job. I don't have all the stresses you do, but life can be tough with a little one, specially when you want to give them the best start in life by breastfeeding. I'm on my second bout with mastitis, had it three times with my first son, but I'll keep on breastfeeding. Hang in there and best of luck to you.

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TheFeministBreeder

I completely and totally 100% agree. This sux on a gabillion levels.
However, nothing can give. I wrack my brain all day long to try to think of ways to cut something out, but I can't find a way. I have to go to work. I have to go to school. And I have to keep feeding my baby. I would love to find a way to cut down my hours at work, but I make all the money. It's not possible. I BRING HOME over $3000 a month, plus I carry our insurance, PLUS I carry our retirement account, etc, etc. Giving up my income would put us on the streets (and though $3000K per month cash might SOUND like loads of money, we can barely eat since we lost $30K on our condo and owe more in credit cards than most people pay for their cars.
So, work can't give. I have to get my degree finished before I can move up at work, or move on with my life. And I'm not feeding Jules formula. Not doing it.
If somebody wants to donate a winning lottery ticket to me... send it on over.

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Ms. Lisa Ann Jarrett-Stevenson

In the most sincere and non-attacking way, you might think about "rearranging" your hand. What I mean is that one can only keep this up for a certain period of time w/o going serverely nuts and/or killing themselves. While this may sound very harsh, it's true. Your kids want to have you around in the long haul, but if something happens to you, well, then they lose out on having a mother.
To more fully understand some of what I am talking about, I recommend reading on the train to work (or whenever) "Midlife Crisis At 30". I don't have the authors' names handy right now, but it should be easy to look up on powells.com or something like that. Also, take the title with "a grain of salt", per say, as the theme of the book is basically how women today are dealing with feminism as we currently know it and their moms who broke new ground for women starting in the 70s. A very interesting read that I was personally able to pull something out of.

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