I had always wanted to write “To Pump Or Not To Pump – Part Deux” while at UAB,but never got to. I’m sure some of you were anxiously awaiting the sequel! I actually took photos for the post and just didn’t get around to writing it, so here goes! Better late than never!
While at UAB, I mentioned pumping all during the day to maintain my milk supply for Victoria. I thought you might find some photos of the rooms I went to interesting. It was a very nice set up for those of us who had to utilize the rooms so frequently. This place became somewhat of a second home for me while Victoria was in such critical condition.
Just down the hallway from the RNICU (the first unit that Victoria was in) was the Lactation Center. Once you entered the center you had to sign-in. I would write down my name and the time I entered the center for their records. I would then proceed to one of the two rooms set up for pumping moms. There was a lock on the door to which you had to punch in a code.
Upon entering the room, you would see two curtains hanging from the ceiling that could be pulled to conceal the pumping mom in her chair by her pump. As you sat in the chair having the life sucked out of you, you would stare at one of two things in front of your face … your pump or a huge picture of a baby nursing. Looking at pictures like that are supposed to stimulate your milk supply. Isn’t that interesting? I’m assuming it worked for me because my milk supply never dropped. In fact, I had a huge bag in the freezer of small bottles of milk. The nurses that cared for Victoria always commented on my milk supply doing so well.
Just so you get the feeling of being in my shoes, I took several pictures of what I saw as I sat in my chair.
Right in front of me I saw my pump which sat on top of a file cabinet-type piece of furniture.
Then looking a little downward, I saw the tubes running from my pump to the breast shields.
Next, looking completely down at my chest, I saw what looked to be a get-up from a Madonna concert. Enough said. Let the pictures show all!
As I look back on our experiences at UAB, I have to say that my favorite comical post was the one concerning pumping. For such a stressful time, it was definitely some much needed comic relief. I mean, you have to find the rainbows during the rain storms of life and for me, the rainbow was more of a suction device that could be used for torture in medieval times.
Who’s to say that rainbows are always something that will initially make you laugh or smile? Our rainbows might be masked by pain or discomfort. You just endure the pain and you find something funny there.
Pump on!
As a single person about 6 years back and even now being married, I’ve always joked about gross things. It’s been a part of my personality. People look at me on the outside and think I’m all “prim and proper” and then they hear crazy stuff come out of my mouth. They laugh hysterically because they are shocked by my dry-humor comments. They don’t expect a little southern girl to make jokes about the potty or funny bodily functions.
I must admit that I get this trait honestly. Somehow I picked this up from my simple family life. My parents didn’t talk that way, per say, it’s just that we had an open home life and talked about a lot of funny things. I’m glad I was raised that way. We didn’t try to be anything we were not. We just laughed at life and enjoyed the humor in how God created things. He has to have a sense of humor, so why don’t we?
Being a mother now, I definitely have to have a sense of humor about bodily functions and such. I mean, all day long I’m looking at “poo” and “pee” and the biggest boogers of all time. If someone had a video camera on me when having to clean all three of my girls umbilical chords until they fell off, I’d be one of those people who gagged through the entire process. I’d probably win the AFV million dollar prize! You have to laugh at some point or else you go crazy. And, now with Victoria’s surgery under my belt, I’ve seen more blood than I thought I ever wanted to and more tubes and wires in weird places of the body than I ever cared to see. I guess I thought I’d stop being grossed out after all my crazy experiences with my kids. But, I don’t.
You wonder sometimes if your kids have a clue that you don’t really care for catching their puke, constantly wiping poop off their bottoms or picking their boogers. I guess they might think you are some super hero with an immunity to being grossed out. Wouldn’t that be nice? But, in reality, their gross bodily functions are like our kryptonite. Those gross things almost cripple us. We are within inches of being brought to our knees by an overwhelming sense of nausea. But, thankfully, the Lord comes to our rescue. He reminds us, once again, that as mothers we have been gifted and equipped to handle even the most awful of situations. We can, again, rise to the occasion and do our job like no one else can.
Now as I close, let me go wipe the poop off of Victoria’s bottom that so explosively entered her diaper while I was writing this blog. Call me Wonder Woman, I guess! Now where is my invisible jet ….
PS – I caught a little smile on Victoria’s face today. I think this smile was a fore-warning of the explosion of poop that was to be in my near future. Those dratted poops!
Here is a song I wrote about Victoria. I can picture Elyssa (or me) singing this in church with a slide show of all Victoria has gone through so far in her short life. My prayer is that this song would be a testimony of how there is value in every life. No matter if the life begins with struggles, God ordains that life. And, we (and Victoria) are ministers to the fact that He gives “gifts” to certain people. Those gifts are special children that help us to see His glory fully and know that He is a good God.
Okay, I’m officially grossed out. Let me tell you why.
Victoria has always sounded a little stopped up in the mask of her face, even before surgery. I was never able to really suck anything out of it with a bulb syringe, even though I had tried. I mentioned in an earlier post about a lactation consultant telling me that I could squirt a few drops of breast milk in Victoria’s nose and massage it to help suck her boogers out. Well, it has really been working. It’s been working so well that I’ve gotten grossed out quite a few times. Last night was one of those times. Mark and I were both in the living room and while feeding Victoria I stopped for a few minutes to try to suck out her nose. She had been sounding quite stopped up and I didn’t want her to go to bed for the night that way. Well, amongst the few smaller treasures I found were several HUGE boogers. They were so big that I cannot believe they came out of her nose! They were bigger than what I’ve seen in an adult-size nose (not that I make it a habit of looking at adult-size boogers!). I don’t mean to get to graphic in my description, but it was awful. I thought I was going to be sick.
I’ve been trying to look up online if Down Syndrome babies might struggle with this because of smaller nasal passages, but haven’t found anything yet. Surely, Victoria’s smaller passages has something to do with what is coming out of her nose. I must say, I’ve never encountered anything like this with my other children and it alarms me quite a bit.
Even in the midst of getting some quite large plugs of mucus out of Victoria’s nose, I can still hear more in there when she is breathing. That blows my mind. I cannot believe that she could have more, but from the sounds of it … there is. I believe I might talk to my pediatrician about this and see if there is a better way to remove all of this mucus. At UAB they had a suction tube and it worked well, but the tube was too small to get large pieces out. Maybe there is something like a larger suction tube that they can direct me to that will help give a better flowing suction to help relieve her sinuses. It makes me sad to think that she has more of these large plugs in her nose. No wonder she has had trouble breathing in the past! There were plenty of obstructions from what I’ve seen so far. Maybe Mama can help her little Victoria breathe better soon!
PS – Sorry to gross anyone out. This is a very real part of Victoria’s life, although it’s very yucky. So, pray that we can get her cleaned out well so she can breathe easier! You can hear how stopped up Victoria is in this video. What sounds like snoring is more mucus plugs that I need to get out. Poor girl!
PSS – In doing a search for this particular topic today, I came across another blog of a mom who has a little girl with Downs. Their little girl is so cute. I thought I’d share her blog with you. I can picture Victoria growing up to be like their little girl. The blog address is: http://thebalsisfamily.blogspot.com/
PSSS – Today Elyssa and Natalie wore the dresses that Mrs. Syble gave them to church. Natalie didn’t really cooperate for the photo, however. You get the idea, though! Cute dresses!
