Vicious Cycles.

Never are the inconvenient patterns of nursing ever so apparent as when there are guests. I shouldn't even "blame" it on nursing, really, but this is how it goes.

-I need to eat to make milk
-I need to feed the baby every 3 hours
-If I don't eat between those hours, I don't have enough milk for the baby.

The problem with guests is that they don't understand this, so for example, this morning, everyone was up before me, but decided to take their time getting dressed and showered. Most days I don't get a shower because I have too much work and getting the gnome ready takes up any free time I have. (This is partly what caused the cyst, but I digress). So what happened is, the guests decided to wait until AFTER I finally got ready to get ready, and before they even started were like "lets go to breakfast!"

I love going to breakfast. Unfortunately, though, and hour had already passed and so now its less than two before the gnome needs to eat and we have 3 people needing showers. Meanwhile i've been ready to go for 30 minutes, and I'm starving. So if we wait much longer not only can't we go because the gnome will be hungry, but I'm starving and probably have no milk whatsoever to give her. I hate to be a bitch about it, but it's really not fair.

Yesterday we went out and my MIL made the comment that since I'm not pregnant anymore, the fact that I'm hungry isn't as big of a deal, because I "can wait." In theory, yes... But it just shows how little people "get" breastfeeding. Milk doesn't just magically appear. As much as my grandmother drove me crazy during her visit, she had a point. When you're nursing you need nutrition- you need food to create milk, and the healthier the food the better. So now I have about 90 minutes before gnome wakes up screaming for food, and we still have one shower to go before everyone is ready. Then watch- I'll have to put the gnome (who is now sleeping peacefully in her bassinet) into the carseat and everyone will huff and puff at me for being so slow. WTF?

Yesterday had its own challenges. The gnome has been hungrier than usual. It's weird how she goes in cycles. For a few weeks now she's barely wanted any food, and yesterday she got fed three times in as many hours because she was literally screaming for more. It's scary. I guess she must be in a growth spurt. We took her to the flea market yesterday and while she was there she got hungry. I didn't want to do it, but i packed formula just in case, and i tried giving it to her there but she flat out refused it. I tried it again and again, and nothing. She will NOT drink that stuff anymore, which i guess is flattering. But we ended up at a baby store across the street from the flea market and used their nursing room so I could feed her in some semblance of privacy. They also had scales there, so we weighed her- she was 13.13. I guess that's big. Explains why her diapers are too small, but I still think it seems low. She gained 3 pounds in a bit over a month, though, so that's probably good. But I would hope she was closer to 15 pounds by now, but I guess since she was eating so little before...

Usually in the mornings I'm so full she only needs one side before she's done eating, but this morning I gave her both sides and she didn't stop me. Hopefully she'll be satisfied a bit longer today, if I can generate enough milk by then. It's now 9:26 and she's going to want food at 11... We're waiting on my husband, who knows all of this. It's not his fault, and if he doesn't think we can make it he'll say something before we go, but at this point I'm so hungry I'm going insane. I am one of those people who wakes up starving and *has* to eat, or all hell breaks loose. I am more of a morning person, just as the gnome seems to be. Lucky me! She's as cranky at night as I am, which is more than anyone deserves! My poor husband. If he weren't taking so long right now I'd feel bad for him...