Grey's Anatomy Doesn't Feel The Same Anymore,

I have loved Grey's Anatomy for so many years, since I had to try and convince my mum to let me watch it (I was kind of sheltered at 12, okay?) and whilst I could have a moan about how only having the M left from MAGIC and even then, not all the time, makes it not as good, but honestly, I love it. I've loved the offshoots of Private Practice and Station 19, I love the political side of it... I just love it. I cried when Eric Dane passed away because he was so incredible in Grey's and I don't think I could have watched him in anything else and not expected him to be one of the Dirty Mistresses, but I put myself on a bit of a ban of watching medical dramas whilst I was pregnant, so no Grey's even for comfort watching, no Casualty or ER or This Is Going To Hurt or Bodies, because I was stressed and scared enough without adding fuel to that particular fire. 

In the first few weeks after the delivery of my son, I wasn't really watching a whole lot of television anyway, because I would have just fallen asleep on the sofa or fallen back to sleep in my bed, because I was, like all or at least most new parents, exhausted and trying to learn how to function, but you would think over 4 months down the line I would be able to lift that ban now? Well, not really.

Whilst I'm sure there would be a lot of people who would look at my situation and call me lucky, I did experience a level of birth trauma that I'm finding it hard to navigate. Whilst it wasn't the whole thing of being rushed in for an emergency C-section where the surgeons are racing against the clock to make sure the baby, me or both of us are not in danger, it doesn't mean it was easy, or an experience I want to repeat, and there are a lot of times where I feel like the situation I was in, the stresses and worries and circumstances, basically robbed me of the birth that I wanted and the impact that that had, especially early on, was huge, but it means that watching women in labour on TV programs is hard, and watching storylines about people experiencing complications is even harder. I know it's worse at the moment because even though our little guy is sleeping pretty well for a still pretty small baby, I'm not sleeping properly and I'm not a hundred percent sure as to why, but lack of sleep always means I have more of a hair trigger for things like this, so I've been having to ask my partner to mute things or skip through scenes, because I just can't cope with them right now.

It's the sort of thing that people tell you gets better with time, and I honestly hope that it does, but I think it's not just time, but distance, and distance requires not poking a wound, even a mental one, whilst it's still fresh and open and healing, so for now, I'm trying not to poke it by staying away from things which remind me why it hurts. 

Wouldn't It Be Great If IKEA,

I'm going to start this by saying I don't agree with the Lancashire Hot Pots on this one and I neither fear IKEA nor dislike it, in fact, I love it. I know that not everyone likes them, I know some people see them as just a cheap furniture pusher and I'm sure that some people are devastated that the entire MALM range is going to be going soon, even though they already axed the best colour (one of the previous oaks that was a textured veneer and just generally beautiful) partly because it's been around for 24 years (I'm not sad enough to know that without looking it up - it was on the wall of IKEA when we were there last) and it's hard enough when an entire brand goes pop and you can't get it anymore, let alone when a business makes a decision to move on from something that has been a staple for that long. 

I've been irritated with them before, because they do something like make the best plant goujons you've ever tasted and then discontinue them, or make the plant balls a bit too meaty so I have a half panic until Paul reassures me that they are the plant ones, he checked and he watched them make my food (he's a good egg), and when the Warrington one decided to slim down their menu for some reason and they weren't sharing that reason because it was after they finished the kitchen refurb and they dropped the rice bowl, it boiled my piss, but the recent salve to that has been a return of the rice bowl and another deal for super cheap food.

I've also seen some amazing things in IKEA like nursing groups in the cafe, they've done a pub* quiz and all those sorts of things that make it more like a community hub than a shop and I love that, and I love the feeding area for babies that I've used as a pumping area more than once. There's a lot that I like about IKEA, even if the Tetris game of getting things into a small car is both laughable and infuriating, the names are a dyslexic person (me)'s worst nightmare and there needs to be a lane for dawdlers because I just want to push them onto the nearest sofa so that they are out of my way. (I wouldn't but the thought crosses my mind on a more than semi regular basis...) I feel similar in the Trafford Centre, but there's less soft landings for people there.

So what is my latest IKEA related gripe? I like the new blue Billy bookcase. In fact, I love it. I love the green Kallax, too. I love the wonky nature of the shelves being different widths and things, but you can only have it in green and the green one is only in wonky. The blue Billy? No height extension, no drawer for the bottom, no doors at all... and let's face it, colour matching is hard to impossible, and because of the nature of what IKEA is, it's not going to look the same if you vinyl wrap or paint your own at home, so it's cool and it's "highly customisable" but not highly enough really. If you want a desk on a Billy, it has to be a white one, if you want the drawer, it has to be a white one, if you have non-standard ceilings... options are vastly reduced. I know, I know, it's mass produced and it's cheap and it's not meant to be custom furniture and you'd pay a lot more for something that is, but just imagine being able to use it like a pick 'n' mix, even if only on the website, and going here's the materials, here's the styles or patterns or whatever you want to call it, and then being able to get multiple height extensions for the Billy bookcases if you have high ceilings, because as long as it's mounted to the wall, the engineering of one versus two shouldn't be complicated at all. I'd love to be able to get blue ones with a drawer at the bottom for little man's toys, a couple of opaque doors at the top and glass doors down the middle to mean that my books get less dusty when they're sat on their shelves, but there are no blue doors and there's no drawer in the brown walnut that I also think would look quite nice.

We had talked about getting a carpenter in and getting something done in the front room and I think what we would be looking for would be very similar to what I've described above, but as I say, it would be more expensive, and we can't do expensive until after the wedding, because until then, well, we have a wedding to pay for, and weddings don't come cheap either!

What We Don't Know,

This might be a little all over the place because I'm working on very little sleep and trying to get it typed up whilst watching over my little boy in his bouncer, and also eating my lunch, because nothing teaches you to multitask like becoming a mum. Or a parent in general really, but when I think of it in terms of myself I always think of it in terms of becoming a mum instead of becoming a parent. Maybe that's just me?

I realise there is a privilege to being a parent these days. I'm not talking about the privilege of a relatively easy journey into being a parent and whether infertility rates are going up or we're just hearing more of it because people are more open about it, society is more accepting of discussions about it and because social media means when you've seen one video about something you see ALL OF THEM, but the privilege of the fact that when something seems... off?... you can do a quick search on Google (*other search engines are available even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes) or go to specific places such as communities on Reddit, forums on Peanut or similar apps for parents or even the NHSs own website(s) to reassure yourself that everything is fine or find information about what to do next. I've said a few times that these things aren't perfect, but then all babies are loveable little individuals, they're all different and none of them come with an instruction manual, so I get that most of these places are just full of people doing their best.

That being said, research is done with an idea in mind of what we don't know; it's a specific question being asked and hopefully answered whether it's a quick Google search, hitting the text books, medical journals with case files of things which have happened before or work in labs where there is a particular scope or question and the research is the journey to finding out the answer. So what happens if you don't know what the question is? Or what is you have what you think is an answer, but it's wrong? Well, nothing happens, which I think is why I love Tim Minchin's Commencement Speech when he says (I'm paraphrasing slightly) that opinions differ from arseholes in that, whilst everyone has one, yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined, because it's true, and also because it's Tim Minchin so it's funny. Unfortunately though people are very often only dispossessed of their erroneous facts and opinions when they're mocked for holding them in the first place, or upon being forced to be because they have been proven wrong, and honestly, it seems a little harsh. Is this a tangent? I promise it is not.

Recently I met up with a group of other women, all of whom have children, but ranging from my own at under a year, to some whose children are in their twenties, so they're probably closer in age to when they will or might become grandparents than their own experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and early parenthood, but the great thing is there is a universality to the experience of parenthood, even when there are so many divisions between us and there are some things you can only understand as a mum or a birthing parent (I know the two are not synonymous) or a non birthing parent, or a working parent, a single parent, a twin mum, a c-section mum etc. Even within those groups you'll have divisions, whether it be elective or emergency C-sections (reluctant C-section mums like myself) and there are obviously a lot that can intersect as well, which can further unite and divide us depending on where we fall.

I think I've previously mentioned - or perhaps I just wrote as part of my I'm distracting myself from the monotony and boredom of waiting for something to happen in the hospital - that when I came across a video on social media that stated that when you have a "month long period" after childbirth, it's not that, but it is partly because your body has a dinner plate sized wound where the placenta has detached from and your body needs to heal it and that comes with some bleeding or something that looks like bleeding and partly because your body is doing a bunch of things to go back to it's pre-pregnancy self (or at least your uterus is, or is aiming to). 

One of the ladies I was with mentioned she didn't think you bled with a C-section, but you do, because even with the best surgeon, they can't repair the wound from the placenta instantly and they can't do everything else to heal the body that the body does for itself. She then asked if it was when you were breastfeeding that you didn't bleed, and no, you do, and you can actually bleed more, because all the clotting that your body has to do as part of that healing process can be interrupted by the hormones which are needed for breastfeeding. Thankfully, I have seen enough information out there that says you don't need to go into the hospital about the bleeding unless the clot are bigger than the size of a lemon, and let's face it, you're going to remember that because it feels pretty shocking - lemons aren't small!! - but the whole experience is pretty shocking. I remember I knocked my belly somehow, it might have been whilst putting on one of those support belt things because my scar was tender and my back was still painful, and there was this gush... And I thought I had really done myself some damage, but no, it was completely normal. 

It sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory, but I often wondered when I was going through pregnancy if the reason you weren't told about certain things which happen or the frequency with which they happen was less to do with inadequate messaging or not knowing how to reach the right people etc and more to do with not putting anyone off of having a baby that wants to, because generally birth rates (I'm just talking in the UK here) are lower than previous, although some recent records show a slight, very slight, uptick. Given that fertility rates have been dropping (at least in what I read from 2021-2024) and people are having smaller families at a later stage, anything else which is liable to make more people reconsider having children is probably seen as a bad thing.

That being said, and it might be because I'm a thirsty sponge for information, I generally think that more information is better, and even if a person is never planning to have children, can't biologically have children or whatever their situation, more people understanding pregnancy symptoms and conditions like Hyperemesis Gravidarum, severe morning sickness (because it can be severe without reaching the level of HG) and pelvic girdle pain to name only a few, there might be a little more compassion and understanding for pregnant people. Granted there also might not be, because there are people who simply believe that pregnancy is a choice and if you make the choice it's your problem to deal with what you get with it, but I'm choosing to be optimistic about people's ability and inclination towards compassion, partly because I don't want to think about the issues which are still ongoing in America where choice and pregnancy are a very problematic conversation for other reasons. 

The Path to Saying 'I Do' Part 4,

Something I have never quite got my head around is people like me, who barely do their hair in any other way than scraped back into a messy bun or a ponytail, rarely wear make up and aren't much for getting false nails done going ahead and going against all of that for their wedding day. 

Look, I get that whole wanting to look 'your best' for the day and wanting to look nice for the photos and all that, but at the same time, I wouldn't want to be walking down the aisle towards someone who barely recognised me or someone who I barely recognised. It's almost like if my fiancé decided to get laser eye surgery the night before the wedding (I know it's not that quick but work with me on this one) or wear contact lenses. It's not that I've not seen him without his glasses on, because I have. More often than not he goes to sleep before me and obviously doesn't wear his glasses, and has normally taken them off for a while before going to bed whilst getting ready to go to bed, but the picture of him in my head is wearing glasses, so I would be pretty confused if he wasn't wearing them. Or if he decided to shave his beard off the night before or the morning of the wedding, I would be pretty confused.

I've been debating over whether or not to dye my hair back to ginger, because I've been so lazy over the last two years that I don't think he's ever actually seen me with my properly ginger hair, and if having a little one to run around after is going to mean I'm continuing on that lazy streak (or rather won't have the time for doing it) it may be the last time for a long time I actually have ginger hair, and is that going to be strange when there's photos across my house of my husband and some ginger bride? Is that going to confuse my kid? I don't know, but I'm sure that if I was wearing properly done make up - you know, when people go the whole hog and book someone to do their make up and style their hair properly and all of that - I think it would confuse my kid, both on the day and in the photos later.

It's probably going to be another thing that is assumed to be a money saving effort - hair dressers and make up artists are expensive! - but I am fully intending to do my own hair and make up, but it's not about the cost, it's about wanting to look like myself. For one thing, my partner isn't a big fan of make up. For someone who has always been a lover of red lipstick, that's been a bit of an adjustment for me, but I realised pretty early on I like kissing him more than I like red lipstick - if that doesn't tell him how much I like kissing him... nothing. ever. will. For another, make up 'trends' have never been my thing, and I've never in my life worn fake eyelashes and don't feel the need to start on my wedding day. There are very few times in my life I've ever worn foundation, so it seems crazy to me to pay someone to come in and put my mascara on, draw on a bit of eyeliner and put on some lipstick for me. The only thing that makes me consider it is that I struggle to get eyeliner even most of the time. 

And yet with all that being said, I am tempted to go and get my nails done, if only for the fact that I'm sure there will be a few photos of hands, and I'm not the biggest fan of my son's newborn photos where my hands are in them because I still  bite my nails and it's not just a little bit or a polite nibble on the corner of the thumb, but a full on, aggressive, I bite them, I tear them, I go too far and then they hurt kind of thing. I'm trying to leave them alone from now until the wedding but I've been saying that since January and we're not getting very far... 

To some extent, it feels like another area where people can just get carried away...

One thing I am struggling with at the moment is how 'me' I feel in my dress, and I'm not sure if it's just because I didn't do the whole bridal store try on a bunch of dresses, find the right one and cry, because I found one I was in love with that wasn't my size and couldn't get it in a larger size, the fact that my body is a larger size than I'm comfortable wearing, or if I just bought my dress too early and this is a natural consequence of having too long to stew on it, but whatever it is, that's a decision I've made and I'm not revisiting! 

The Path to Saying 'I Do' Part 3,

Realising the date that this would be published, I think it'll be understandable why it's been pushed to an hour later than they normally are published!

I'm not going to lie, there is so much dumb... stuff... out there that you can buy for weddings. I'm not even just talking about on Shein and Temu and Amazon; so many places are guilty of it. And what's even more... ridiculous? Is that it leeches across into FB marketplace and Vinted because people will sell the ridiculous crap that they bought AND DIDN'T USE for someone else to then come along and buy to not use at their wedding.

I've already had a good moan about the twee language used on invites, but you can get tags and things to reserve chairs at your wedding for immediate family or specific people, or whatever really because apparently, this is a thing we need to do these days. Why is no one being taught that front rows are for immediate family or the bridal party? Why do we need a seat tag that says Reserved and why does it have to say 'Kindly reserved'? Can I get tags for my wedding that say aggressively reserved and have the ushers wearing sumo suits? If you sit in the front row and you're not immediate family or the bridal party, they're going to tackle you off the chair and scream THIS IS RESERVED at you? Why does it feel like we're approaching the point of having a seating chart for the ceremony as well as for the dinner? Seating charts are enough of a hassle without having to start stressing about the ceremony as well! 

There's also these things of, right, I don't know what they call them in the UK, but I think the American name is incidentals baskets? Our venue has actually put in the contract that we can't have them and honestly, I appreciate not having something else to do. I realise that having things like a pack of plasters or blister plasters - women in heels will know - or paracetamol is good. Maybe even having a spare can of deodorant, but then I'm an asthmatic who worked in a building where aerosols set off the fire alarm so I'm not a big fan of using deodorant in a public bathroom. But then people put other things like eye shadow, mascara and other bits in so that you can touch your make up up... Have you never heard of pink eye or conjunctivitis? They had one of these baskets in the ladies when I went to the last Night of Writing Dangerously, and it was cute and lovely, but honestly, I'm not sure anyone misses them at weddings when they're not there. I can't be the only person that carries any make up that might need retouching with me or carries spare paracetamol and plasters if there's even the vaguest chance I may need them? Surely it's just about being prepared, and why are we babying our guests? 

Along the same lines - flip flops. I get that some people are really going to appreciate a basket of flip flops or hotel slippers, but people could just wear heels that are a bit less high and therefore more comfortable over a longer period or bring their own flats. Hell, bring your own trainers. I have some gorgeous heels for the ceremony and photos, but I'm not even sure I'll wear them for the first dance. My red Converse (which I already owned) will be making an appearance and I would just encourage everyone else to do the same thing at my wedding. Bring your trainers, don't bother what it looks like, because I'm not buying a crap tonne of flip flops in multiple sizes in case anyone's feet hurt. I'd say sorry, not sorry, but I'm not even pretending to be sorry on this one.

The next thing is glow sticks that then say 'Let Love Glow'; I'm sorry, it's a wedding, not a rave, so it's not really my vibe. Especially because they're another thing that gets bought and then sold on and I'm not a hundred percent convinced anyone uses them. Wedding bubbles are the same because I just see so many of them for sale.

I think one of the biggest things that occurred to me whilst I was planning this wedding was that I haven't been to many weddings and a lot of the things that people try and say you 'have to' do are a bit more of a thing for large weddings, for one, and for another, there are a lot that are very Americanised. Now, as a person who didn't have a baby shower or a gender reveal, I think it's easy to make a guess how I feel about things being very Americanised... 

I'm not saying we're not going to do anything people don't think is too cutesy or ridiculous or anything like that. I decided we were having a pick and mix because I found a bunch of apothecary jars in Aldi for next to nothing, and given that both my fiancé and I are quite into sweets, it seemed natural to choose to do a pick and mix, partly because anything that doesn't get eaten can just come home with us... but there is plenty that we're not doing, and honestly, I would be surprised if the people closest to us (aka the people who are invited) are actually surprised and I would hope that they're not disappointed, but either way, I don't plan on learning any lessons from it, because there won't be a next time.

Reflux in Babies,

I feel like there needs to be some sort of checklist created to try and make life easier for parents of babies with reflux, because there is advice all over the internet, and there are all sorts of old wives tales, and then there are the GPs and the health visitors who seem too afraid to suggest anything, in case they get it wrong.

There are plenty of products on the market that claim to help, whether it's specific formula milk, wedge cushions to keep baby from being a hundred percent flat or the somewhat ridiculous Baby Up, that is basically a baby carrier on a high chair to hold the baby so the parents don't have to. That might seem like I'm being a bit dismissive, and maybe I am, but I have a baby with reflux, I do know how hard it is, but even if it didn't have a three hundred pound price tag, I don't think I would want to have one to hold my baby, because I know that sometimes when baby's feel unwell, holding them isn't just about keeping them upright, it's about them feeling better because they need you close to them. They need the skin to skin that hospitals and midwives are teaching, because it's about comfort.

When I raised the fact that my son was struggling with reflux, which was partly in response to the health visitor saying he was dipping from the line of where he should be growing, her best suggestion was to visit the GP, and then when I visited the GP the best thing that they could suggest for a baby with constipation and reflux was to give him Gaviscon. Which makes babies constipated. Because that is clearly logical. At the time I didn't have any other ideas, so I just had to go with it, especially since I didn't have any data of when he was throwing up or refluxing things back or whatever they wanted to call it, because it also gets called posseting and exactly what you call it depends on what it is, but it seemed that no one was interested in investigating what it was, even when we ended up in A&E several times.

You might be thinking, okay, well how is a checklist going to help? 

If we had had the data we would have known he was more likely to reflux when he was over a certain amount of hours for a bottle, which meant a lot of them were coming back on his early morning feeds. At that stage, yes, Gaviscon might help, because it settles the stomach acid that's built up over a longer period, but that wasn't every time. We weren't sure whether it was only the formula he was on or if it was also when he was drinking breast milk. As we realised it was far more common with formula we chose to change his milk, but just went for a different 'normal' milk rather than the special diet ones, because they all say about being used under medical supervision, though the doctors didn't seem too interested in us moving onto one of these.

Around the same time we were giving him Gaviscon - which originally cleared the problem of constipation and then made it a hell of a lot worse - we started giving him Infacol, and it took a while to realise that whilst he got better with both, that was mainly due to the Infacol, so we were able to figure out that a lot of the problem was wind, but he's a terrible burper without the Infacol and only slightly better on it. Sometimes, he'd burp when we were burping him, but he would burp with such force he'd bring back a load of milk anyway... 

So checklist: 

Have you tried Infacol? 

I would say have you tried Gaviscon, but it doesn't stop the reflux, it just stops the pain or discomfort associated with it, so I don't know why they prescribe it. How about treating the problem, rather than the symptoms?!

Have you tried a different formula?

There are a lot of different formulas on the market, and at the time that all of this was happening for us, there were a few recalls going on and that made me anxious about what formula to give him. When we initially left the hospital, he was on Cow and Gate, but then that was recalled, so we changed to Kendamil, but that didn't seem to agree with him, and this was what we were only supplementing him with a small amount. We made the decision to go for Mamia, because when I looked into it there hadn't been a recall on Mamia formula, or at the very least it hadn't been recalled because of bacteria contamination. When we looked to change, I read that Mamia formula was most like or very similar to Aptamil, so Aptamil was obviously off the table, and with the fact that we weren't sure if the issues with Kendamil were the bottles or the formula in the early days, we didn't want to go for that either, so we decided to stick to the pre-made formula bottles by Cow and Gate, because he seemed to be mostly okay with those. When we managed over a week without spit up with those we bought the powdered version (and then had a spit up incident with the pre-made stuff), but at least he was actually gaining weight by then.

Have you tried keeping the baby upright?

We tried this so much, because it was all that we could do. We have wedge pillows in the pram, in the Moses basket, in the bassinet and one that moves all around the house in order to make sure Little Man was never fully flat. It helped a little, but at the same time we had to keep everything covered with muslims and over covers because he was still spitting up. 

Have you tried either caramel or baby rice to thicken the milk?

This is basically what special formula is anyway, but you can use it in breast milk if you are combination feeding or feeding exclusively expressed milk. It's also something you can then try without committing to a whole box of formula. It gives the opportunity to try it for a few bottles and see if it makes a difference. We never got to this, or we haven't got to it yet.

Have you tried specialised milk?

Have you tried a different brand of specialised milk?

Honestly, I think I would probably stick to the same brand when changing onto a specialised milk, but if the issue was the brand of milk, that wouldn't help, would it? So surely the next bit is to change to a different specialised milk, whether this is called comfort or reflux, because it changes across different brands. 

Have you tried allergy milk? 

There's a few ways that this is done, whether it is goat's milk or something where the lactose is stripped out, in order to try and eliminate the idea that it's an intolerance or allergy to lactose. I already knew that if we got here, I wouldn't be able to do this for his breast milk, partly because it takes a bit of time for it to clear from your system, so I would have been pumping milk we couldn't use for a period of time, I couldn't produce enough milk to fulfil all of Little One's needs, but also because I've tried being vegan a couple of times for Veganuary and I sucked at it. 

To be honest, I'm not really sure what comes after this. I know that people say 'they'll grow out of it' or 'it'll get better', but it's hard to sit and watch your child not be able to keep the only food and drink that they can have down. We've had issues with dehydration, we've had issues where I know he's hungry and I've not known what to do, because he can't keep things down, and we've had issues because I've felt nothing but guilt for the fact that I can't do anything. Even when the only thing I can do is give him small bottles of food every forty five minutes to an hour, I have struggled, because without setting constant alarms that then drive me mad, I can't keep track of time very well, and I can't stop thinking about how unsustainable some of these options that people suggest are, either for me or for when Little One goes to nursery.

Things That Changed When I Decided To Stop Pumping,

I was going to set this to post today at lunch, like I do for a lot of these now, but I'm kind of glad that I held off, because it all got a lot more complicated than I had originally thought that it would be when I found a clogged duct yesterday and then woke up with pain and leaking this morning which changed the process of getting to the end of pumping after I thought I was already there. It's frustrating, but that's life, I guess.

So I decided to stop pumping recently and you would think, hey, it just gives you one less thing to do in a day... It doesn't just give me one less thing to do, it gives me plenty less things to do. Instead of having to think about how I'm going to plan my day around pumping, trying for every two to three hours because that's the optimum, that's what you are advised to do, planning how much time I needed for pump time and all of the other bits I felt I needed to do because I was trying to build up my supply from being a chronic under supplier, even if I could only get to being a 'just enougher', that was what I was aiming for, and if I could have gone a bit over that and started freezing milk for when my little boy goes to nursery in a scarily short length of time, amazing, but that felt like a dream. Stopping pumping meant that I could take a step back from all of that and just be present with my son. Not to mention I could go back to sitting in the front of the car when I wasn't driving, because one of the easiest times to plan to pump was when we were in the car for anything longer than fifteen minutes, and although I bought myself a nursing cover, they kind of suck, so it was easier to sit in the back letting it all hang out because we have privacy glass on the back windows.

It's not just about being able to be present with my son though, or the ability to not have to plan the way I was trying to, but being able to drop washing storage bottles and sterilising storage bottles, and all of the pump parts as well, of course. It's the not having to try and organise when I need to replace pump parts, or think about charging the wearables when I can't use my 'big' pump. It's not having to think about, plan out and share the system of organising the storage bottles so that we know when things were pumped, that they've been stored correctly (least amount of time at ambient temperature as possible, but definitely less than six hours, and then less than six days in the fridge) and they're used in the right amount of time. Honestly, sometimes the storage of milk took over half a shelf in my fridge and that's not even because I was pumping at high volumes, because I wasn't, we just had more small storage bottles than big ones, so anything over five ounces needed a second bottle. I know a lot of people use bags and then it's easier and more natural to write onto them - you can write the date, the time, anything you need to know like the days I needed the strong pain killers because of the surgery or the back pain I was feeling, I could add that onto the bags, but to me, bags are a real faff.

Tangent, but I think that unless you are freezing your milk, bags just make like a little bit difficult, because they don't stand up well, especially not when you are pumping smaller quantities like I was in recent times, but they also tend to get milk in the seal at the top which is just annoying, and trying to organise them in the fridge is just a ball ache. That's just me though. Since we were using everything out of the fridge we found using chalk pens on the top of the lids of the bottles and then washing the date off each time we were washing the bottles worked pretty okay, except that I tended to only take one storage bottle upstairs for overnight pumps - and yes, we did get a mini fridge for upstairs to keep pumped milk and little man's overnight bottles in, don't hate the idea until you've tried it - they often had two dates on, which meant we were really only getting about five days of storage out of them in the fridge... but back to my main point...

Stopping pumping also changed things in terms of my wardrobe. Before I stopped pumping I as back in the size of jeans I was wearing before my pregnancy, and that might seem obvious because I think I have mentioned before that I didn't gain weight during the pregnancy because of the sickness and vomiting, but the shape of my body did change and I've had to accept that whilst I'm back in my old jeans, they do fit a little more snugly than they did before. Being back in my old size meant I was able to think about getting back into other things I hadn't been able to wear for a while though, like my Oddballs boxers, which pre-pregnancy, and even for a while into my pregnancy, were the most comfortable thing I could wear. They didn't go too well under the bump, had no chance of going around the bump and then when there was no bump anymore, they didn't go well with my C section scar because unfortunately their waistband sits right where my C section scar is.

Now, that's not a pop at Oddballs, because the scar sits where it is as a matter of design by surgeons who perform C sections. The "modern" C section is done in a way that hides the scar in a place where you're less likely to see it, and it sort of "fades into" the fold(s) under your tummy, you know, the little sort of pooch most people get following pregnancy, but that means that most underwear is going to be really uncomfortable for the first few weeks and for some of us, getting out of the granny pants that are about the only thing that don't irritate it can be difficult, because there's always that fear of causing more pain and irritation in a place that has been experiencing a lot of pain and irritation. I don't know what the advised timeline is for when you can start wearing your waistband over your scar again, but I do think it's really different for everyone and some people will probably take a little skin discomfort to feel like themselves again, and others would rather have big bloomer style pants for longer rather than risk irritating the scar again. 

When I stopped pumping I was able to think as well about being able to wear a normal bra again, instead of a nursing bra or a pumping bra, and don't make any mistake, they are two very different things. So I was able to go back to wearing normal bras, or potentially my Oddballs bralettes, and I was also able to go back to wearing normal T shirts and normal jumpers. Prior to giving up, pumping meant that I had to wear something that was either a nursing top, or a spaghetti strap which wasn't great when it was in the middle of the winter, or a big baggy jumper so that I knew that I'd be able to get it out of the way and either get the pump parts underneath it. When I say, get it out of the way, it was more often just take it off entirely, so stopping pumping meant I didn't have to think about stripping off in my house, in my car or anything else. I didn't have to think about whether we had parcels arriving, because some of the parcel delivery guys walk through our garden to deliver the parcels, right past the window of the room I sit in with the curtains open and everything hanging out. It was less limiting in terms of being able to have people over. I no longer have to think about stressing out over not pumping, feeling uncomfortable wearing my wearables with people over, or having to secret myself away in another room and hope no one comes to find me, so that I can get the pumping that I need to do done and stop my breasts from feeling swollen, full and uncomfortable. It's even more important for being out of the house, because I don't have to think about how long social engagements are, having to go sit in the car in the cold half way through - I have set the alarm off on the car multiple times by being sat in it with the engine off and the doors locked so no one well meaning comes and opens the door whilst I'm pumping or attaching or detaching pump parts. I don't have to think about storing milk that I've pumped on the way, in the car or anything like that, though we did manage a successful trip up to Murrayfield with me pumping on the way, in the car park and in a few other places, but we took a camping fridge and had it plugged into a battery pack, to make sure it wasn't just dumped, because undersupplies have a right to be more precious about our milk than oversuppliers. I realise this is something that gets contentious, but it's true. Even if you as an oversupplier are really generous and donate your milk to NICUs or other mamas, it's not the same. I realise that I'm only coming at that from a perspective of an undersupplier, but that means I have had the experience of the mum guilt of not having enough or being enough for your child and it being something you have no choice in.

Not having to think about pumps and breast milk and all that sort of thing just means I can focus more on my child and him meeting people in my life and my partner's life, them enjoying meeting him and all the little things he's started doing like smiling, and learning to laugh and grabbing for things. Okay, I still need to plan out feeding things, like having his bottles and the Rapid Cool clean, or how many bottles he will or might need when we are out of the house, or when his naps should be and how I can get him down for a nap outside of our home and his usual routine, stopping pumping gives me less to think about and far less logistics to manage.

I have been quite specific about the language I've used when talking about stopping pumping, partly because I have to keep reminding myself that I am neither giving up not quitting pumping, I'm just stopping. Quitting and giving up make it feel like a very negative thing, and I'm trying to focus on everything that is positive about it. This was not an easy decision to come to. It was a really difficult decision that I had to make, and to some degree that I wanted to make. I knew that it was coming for a while before having to make the decision, and I wanted it to be something that I wanted to make the decision on instead of it being something that just happened to be me, because so many things during the birth and early days with my son felt like they just happened to me rather than being my decision. It has been a really upsetting decision to make, because it has made me feel inadequate but I'd also been feeling inadequate from pumping for a long period of time because I've just simply not been able to produce enough milk for my son. Part of that is because of my ADHD and the limitations of that, with overstimulation, time blindness and other issues. The ADHD was the reason we were pumping entirely in the first place, too. In the end，it was something where breastfeeding just felt too difficult and too over stimulating, especially when people say it's natural and that means that there can be an expectation that you get it and your baby gets it from minute one and it's easy. It is far from easy. Sometimes, when the ADHD symptoms weren't too bad, I could do it, or if my son was sniffly and ill, and I knew my body needed to get the message that he wasn't well to produce milk that would help him feel better, I would fight through the issues I had with it to do what my son needed me to, to do what was better for his immune system, but as a daily thing, I couldn't do it. It felt like another demand I was having to manage and that I felt incapable of managing.

Pumping allowed me to make sure my son got as much support for his immune system as I could give him, whilst also meaning my partner could give him a bottle if I couldn't do it, or someone else could if we just needed to get some sleep. Whilst we didn't manage to get to the point I wanted to get to - somewhere between the 6 months weaning stage and the 2 years that the WHO advise - we made it three months, which is more than either my partner or I had when we were young (and we turned out fine, apparently!) and more than some friends we know, but not as long as others. We made it past two rounds of vaccinations and through the first few snotty noses. We made it as long as I was capable of doing it, and stopped when doing it was causing more harm to me than not doing it would cause to my son, and one of the biggest things I've realised is that I didn't know before we started how much it would take over my life, and I didn't acknowledge how much it had taken over my life until we made the decision to stop.