200.8 / 204.8 - First Food for Monkey and Football

200.8 was Monday and 204.8 was today.  No idea how I can gain four pounds in a day, but I'll probably have the fun of losing at least two of them tomorrow.  Worked out both yesterday and today.  Wish I had more time to write on this blog, but life keeps me so tired I'm lucky to post this much right now.

I did want to share that Monkey and Football had their first food today.  I am following the Westin A. Price guidelines, so their first food was egg yolk, mixed liberally with breast milk.  Football has been interested in the spoon for a couple of weeks now, and has happily slurped up breast milk with it.  However, she wasn't very interested today; she basically let all the egg stuff drool out while she grinned at me.

I gave Monkey a spoonful, and as soon as I took it out, he started crying.  I worried that he might not like it, but then he grabbed my hand and shoved the spoon back in his mouth:)  By the third spoonful he was slurping it off the spoon.

I only gave them each five spoonfuls, in case they were allergic, but neither of them seems to have had any reactions, so I can give them more tomorrow.  On my way to getting done with this whole breastfeeding thing!

Whatever Works is Good - an update on breastfeeding schedules

Sticking to a strict schedule wasn't much better than letting them set the feeding schedule.  So now we're on a modified schedule, where we try go at least 3 hours, but don't wake the babies up at night to eat.  So it doesn't always work out to 8 times a day, but I figure that, if they are hungry, they will cry.  If they are hungry and cuing for 15 mins, we feed them in between feedings, but that has only happened a few times over the last five days, and usually they fall back asleep after an ounce or two, or 10 minutes or so.  (They are 100% breast milk, but I do express milk so that I can take breaks sometimes.)

Since yesterday, however, the babies have slept more than ever before in their life ... in their car seats.  I don't know why, but our house has looked like this most of the time for the last 24 hours:

I'll take it.  Back to sleep for me!

What I really, really want ... Financial Bucket List

Thanks Carla, for pointing me to Krystal's $500 Give Me Back My Five Bucks competition, sponsored by Life Insurance Finder, the life insurance experts.

The contest rules require that you post your financial bucket list as part of your blog post entry. I'm not sure what that is, exactly, since I understand that a bucket list is a list of things to do before you die.  Quite honestly, if I die and my last student loan debt isn't paid off, I could care less.  (I wouldn't be sticking my family with it either - my life insurance would more than cover it).  So I think for a bucket list, I should talk about something I'm saving for that I really want to have or do before I die.

Namib Desert

My really, really big want is a safari to Namibia.  The second least populated country in the world, after Mongolia, Namibia has unspoiled, beautiful desert vistas full of exotic animals, pretty much all of which can be hunted.  I think this would be a wonderful 13th birthday / 45th birthday present for myself and the twins.  I'm thinking they can get some smaller game and I can take my once-in-a-lifetime African trophy hunt.

*

To be completely honest, I've never hunted in my life.  But I'd like to, and I really want my children to as well.  I live in a rural area and hunting is part of the ethnic heritage that I want them to appreciate.  So part of the appeal of Namibia is the requirement that I become a reasonably proficient hunter over the next thirteen years, and pass along the conservationist values that hunting entails to my children.

Great Southern Kudu

I've looked into it a bit, and I think the trip would cost $15-20K today.  So I'm probably looking at $22-30K in 13 years, assuming 3% inflation and no other changes (I know this isn't realistic, but I have to start somewhere). If I save $2K a year for the next 13 years, I'll have around 30K assuming a 2% annual rate of return after taxes.


I haven't actually started saving for this yet - I'm waiting for my finances to stabilize a bit first (my post about how I've spent >2K in the last month on baby stuff is coming soon, really).  Maybe this post will be the kick in the butt I need to keep myself accountable, since my safari dreams will only become a reality if I start working on them now.

Lactation Problems and the Breast Pump Dilemma

I've always intended to breastfeed my babies.  On the farm, we never use supplementation of any sort for our babies; if it is medically necessary for them, they are culls from our program and we don't sell them to our customers.  If I won't feed formula to baby goats, I'm certainly not going to feed it to my babies.

We're in the middle of week 2, though, and I have one baby that will nurse from one breast.  Monkey will nurse one breast; Football won't nurse either.  In fact, last week, she would scream hysterically if put on a breast and, if her mouth was forced over the nipple, she bit it.   Since she had nursed fine for the first couple of days, I didn't worry about it for a while, but at a week my pediatrician said that she needed nutrition, so I've been pumping and bottle feeding her.

Naturally, I hope this is going to be a temporary solution.  I try to offer her the breast as often as I can, and she's gotten better - she no longer screams, and will occasionally give a desultory suck or two.  I'm actively looking for a lactation consultant in the hopes that one can suggest something that I haven't tried, but, at the end of the day, it just depends on whether she'll flip the switch and breast feed or not.

Which leads to the problems of breast pumps.  I had an Ameda Elite at the hospital, and I rented one for a week.  It was OK, although the case on my rental was broken, which caused an annoying squeak, so it had to be returned.  It was a $60 / month rental, though, so by the time I used it for a year, I might as well have bought a new one. (New ones are $800, resale value on ebay is about $450)

In the interim, however, a friend who had to pump exclusively for her twins recommended the Medela Symphony.  I tried to rent one, but there aren't any available in my area, so I ended up with a Medela Lactina Select instead, which is basically the older model of the Symphony.  At $30 / month, it is very affordable, but it does not have nearly the functionality of the symphony.  In particular, it lacks Medela's 2 phase pumping.  The Symphony costs $1200 and has a resale value on ebay of about $700-800, and rents for $80/month, when it is available.  I prefer the pumping feel of the Lactina Select to the Elite, so I am thinking that I should probably buy a Medela product.

My other option is to buy a high end consumer grade pump. The Medela Pump In Style Advanced also has the 2 phase pumping option, if not quite as many settings as the Symphony.  It costs $260 and has an ebay resale value of around $50.  But it's not really intended for pumping 8x a day for a year, and I may have to buy two of them if one burns out (Although the motor is warrantied for a year, the rest of it only has a 90 day warranty.)

My insurance won't pay for a pump, but it looks as though the cost will be covered by my FSA, so I won't need to come up with the cash for any of these out of pocket.  Still, even though it is paid for in pre-tax dollars, $1200 is a lot of money, and there is no guarantee that the current resale value will hold after I have used it for a year.

If I knew that Football was never going to nurse, I'd buy the Symphony or maybe the Elite; conversely, if I knew she was going to nurse, I would buy the Pump in Style.  But, since the future is uncertain, I have to choose.  Theoretically, I have until my pump rental expires in early December to decide, but since I'm planning to get a better pump, I plan to make the decision reasonably soon.

Does anyone have any experience with these pumps?  Even if you don't, would you consider a hospital grade pump a want or a need, in light of my situation?

Introducing Monkey and Football

Football and Monkey

Since this blog is semi-anonymous, I'm giving them pseudonyms.  Maybe when I'm not in a daze of hormones and generic Percocet, these nicknames won't seem as cute, but since me in millions has Mr. Cupcake, then I'm not the only person on the web who likes silly nicknames.  Football is the girl on the left and Monkey is the boy on the right.

I wanted to write a nice long post about their birth and the hospital experience, but Monkey is cueing so it will have to wait until tomorrow.