Followup

Or, Answers to Your Not-So-Burning Questions, Plus Some Other Stuff

Thanks for all the well wishes on my health. I was feeling quite a bit better yesterday, but this morning am sort of weak-kneed and wobbly feeling. And nauseated. Were it not wholly impossible, I would suspect I was pregnant. Which, let me repeat, is not scientifically possible. I happen to be going to my GP today for a physical, so we'll see what she has to say. I am still convinced it's e. coli -- besides, I have this weird little rash on my forearms -- but I doubt that is actually the case. Let's just hope I don't end up featured in one of the Lisa Sanders case studies in the NYT magazine, although in that case at least my medical mystery would have been solved...

And since we're on that topic, let me say that I loved your comments on the s*x post. I have been pondering the meaning of "watering the fern" ever since. (Is this another one of those pieces of information I missed out on in junior high??) In all seriousness, though, reading your various perspectives was really enlightening. Thank you.

Today Ess is five months old. Crazy. To celebrate, she slept through the night. Again. We were in total disbelief this morning. And, if possible, got a worse night's sleep than we did the night before. What the hell is wrong with us? Also, the five-month-birthday means I need to write another mushy monthly post to her. But I can't find the frickin' USB cable (haven't looked under the couch yet), so all of the cutie pie pictures remain on the camera, and the post is yet unwritten. Also, she is currently fighting her first nap like a banshee. Hmm.

Ess has been remarkably drooly, and even more spitty than usual, in the last several days. So much so that she got a little rash on her chin. I asked a friend about this, and she said the same thing happened to her son just before a tooth or two cut through. Good god. Teeth? You've got to be kidding me. (And, really, would she be sleeping like this if she were working on a tooth? I think not.) On a similar note, I spent last night perusing our baby books for advice on when to start the solid foods, something that I feel strangely resistant to. I don't want to trap Ess in infancy -- I'm so much looking forward to her growing and walking and talking, although not so much to the experiments with poopies -- but the idea of starting her on food is unpleasant. Or at least overwhelming. Since her corrected age doesn't hit four months for another couple weeks, I think we're going to hold off on solids for at least a month.

Lastly, Jennie asked what I'd decided to do about the freezer stash of breast milk following Pumpgate 06. Well, this would assume that I'd made a decision, which I haven't. I started adding a daily pumping session after Ess goes to bed so that we'd have fresh milk on hand while awaiting the word about what to do with the stash. That got us through the immediate crisis, and enabled me to build up a decent little supply in the freezer... and to put off deciding what to do with the possibly tainted milk. Logically, it seems I should use it; three lactation consultants, as well as our own immunology expert and the women at PumpMoms, a fabulous Yahoo group I found during this debacle, told me it was fine as long as it smells fine, which it does. But LLL advised me to err on the side of caution and not use it. And so there it sits, taking up space in the freezer. I am thinking of some middle way, in which I throw out the newest milk -- that which I know was pumped through the mold -- and keep and use the older stuff, which might not have been. But for now I am doing nothing. Except pumping.