"Can't Find the Time" or "Can't Pump Enough"

FOREWORD: I wrote the following post on July 1st, originally published to our family blog, after which, I realized I should have written it here on this blog, as it hadn't included any pictures of our baby girlie. So, here it is as it was 'over there', minus our baby girl's name:

*sigh* I want to blog, really, I do! I just can't find the time these past couple weeks... It's no coincidence that this all coincides with my recent return to the world of those who work for a living. And don't get me started on that right now. Blak.

Anyhow, we're off to Utah in the early morning - - and I'm sooo not ready. And today, well, today was a really, really hard day. Today kicked my butt. But I won't get into all the details on that. The short of it is I'm exhausted and I'm wired outta my mind; not a good combo. Blak.

I hope (I hope, I hope, I hope) things go well with our drive north tomorrow. It will be the longest car ride yet for our baby girlie. When I was once baby/child free, a drive northbound to Salt Lake would take me 6 hours, tops, driving 80 mph (minimum), stopping only in Beaver to gas up and to take one bathroom break. Those days have been looong gone for a few years now. With baby girlie in tow, I'm guessing tomorrow's drive will be 8 hours long (minimum). Blak. Anyone want to take bets? Eight hours is twice as long as our old weekend drives to LA. Blak. My father told me I was too optimistic; he said it'll be closer to 10 hours. God, I hope he's wrong! Plus we lose an hour once we arrive because of the Mountain-time change. Oh and get this: We'll be entirely prepared-bottles free this trip, and I'm NOT AT ALL happy about this.

My lil' surgery last week managed to provide baby sweet potato girl the opportunity to wipe out my entire frozen supply of pumped breast milk! The surgery, by the way, was nothing super major: An outpatient visit with my OB... I had a centimeter's depth removed from my cervix and a deep cone biopsy taken. It required general anesthesia, so I was required to "pump and dump" for the 24 hours following. My bebe spent the morning after the procedure with her Grammy, who's been visiting Vegas from Iowa, so I could not only get some work done that Friday, but also avoid baby's enthusiastic dancing and jumping on my sore pelvis (bless you, Grammy!). In less than 5 hours' time, two n' a 1/2 feedings later, our lil' piglet managed to consume over 22 ounces!?! I kid you not. To put this into the proper perspective, for those who aren't up to snuff on this stuff, think about this: For a baby her age, 18-20 ounces is the typical amount needed for 12 HOURS period. Yeah. She's unbelievable. I still cannot believe it. 22 ounces in less than 5 hours.

And as luck would have it, she being 3 months old now, as all my nursing literature had forewarned, my milk production has begun to level out, limited to baby's demand. The days of ample overproduction seem to be past. There's no extra milkies to be had, unless I want to wake up at 2am to pump in the middle of the night - - which I have done FOUR TIMES in the last week, trying desperately to recreate a back-up supply, however, my lil' jellybean has somehow wound up drinking each 'extra bottle' every time. Yeah, so I don't have any prepared breast milk available for her and this drive to SLC.

It very well could wind up taking us 10 hours to get there, after all.

P.S. Hopefully next week, I'll get a chance to do some better blogging than this!