There's A Party in My Tummy.

Several people have recently mentioned that they went through and read my entire blog. Aside from being in awe of their commitment to reading and baffled by the news that anyone would be interested in what I have to say, I assume that this means that they are aware that I have struggled with depression for years. If you are not one of these committed readers, you may read about my depression here. I have tried a whole list of remedies for my depression that I won't bother going into here. I plan on spending too much time talking about my placenta to bother talking about Zoloft.

Two or three years ago if you asked me what I thought about placentas, I would have told you that I didn't. I knew what placentas were and what they did but I didn't really care. The most I cared about placentas was that I hoped I would never have a problem with one of mine. I also knew that I had never had a problem with one of my former placentas.

I never imagined that I would appreciate a placenta as much as I appreciate the one that emerged from my body one month and one day ago. But, life threw me a curve ball and I love my placenta. I really really love my placenta. It's magical and wonderful and it has changed my life for the better.

When I became pregnant with my one month and one day old son, I knew immediately that I would be planning a homebirth. I also knew that most of my homebirthing friends still had their own placentas in their freezers. Seriously, I know at least four people who have placentas in their freezers. I immediately decided that I would never be one of the creepy placenta-freezer people, partially because my husband would be pretty grossed out by the idea.

I began to weigh my placenta-related options. I could plant a tree on top of my placenta, but we rent and we don't plan on living here for a very long time. That tree would be special and I didn't want to have to leave mine and my baby's placenta tree behind. I'm sure I could have my midwife dispose of my placenta as some sort of bio-waste, but none of my other homebirthing friends had mentioned doing that and I am too much of a follower to have gone against the grain like that. I knew that some people ate their placentas. I think that they cook them up like a steak and have a feast. I like to be off-center, but even I thought that eating a cooked up placenta steak was a little much.

Finally, the golden option presented itself. I could hire someone to dehydrate my placenta, grind it up, stuff it into capsules, and then give it back to me. I could then do as I pleased with these capsules. Initially, I selected this option because the previously mentioned options were out of the question for me. Encapsulation was the only one I could imagine working for us in a logistical sense. I decided to have my placenta encapsulated without having committed to the idea of actually consuming the capsules. I didn't know what I planned to do with them, but I felt good about knowing what would become of my placenta.

As my pregnancy progressed, I began to do a bit more reading about what people actually do with their encapsulated placentas. I read this brief rundown and then I decided it warranted more research. I couldn't believe that it could actually be beneficial to consume your own placenta. It sounded icky and cannibalistic to me. But when I started to think about my crippling depression, I started to give it a bit more consideration. You see, having depression is a bit like drowning. It's not fun feeling like you can't come up for air and many people who have experienced it will tell you that they would do whatever it takes to prevent themselves from experiencing it again. I was just desperate enough to try it.

When I realized that consuming my encapsulated placenta could potentially help me to overcome my depression, I actually became excited about it. And when my baby was born, I was careful to make sure that everyone involved in the birth knew that I was keeping it, with the intention of encapsulating it. The next day, the placenta encapsulator came and picked it up. Two days after that, she brought it back. The next day, I started taking them.

What happened next was nothing short of miraculous. Over the course of the last four weeks, I have experienced only one short period of "baby blues." I am actually motivated to clean my house, keep up with errands, socialize with other humans, exercise, get dressed, wash my hair, do my homework, play with my children, shut off the computer and chillax with my man, and a whole bunch of other things that I had previously had to bribe myself to do. I feel great. In fact, I even thought of myself as "pretty" this morning when I looked in the mirror. That hasn't happened in about three years. Aside from feeling great, I really do think that I look good. My hair is shiny, my nails are growing, and my skin is glowing and radiant.

The most miraculous of all the placenta miracles is that I am actually happy. I feel good, I like my life, I like myself, and I feel positive. People....I am clinically depressed. These feelings are totally alien to me. I haven't felt these fluffy, sparkly feelings in years. I almost don't know what to do with myself every day because I am just so happy. Yes, I have an awesome husband. Yes, I have awesome children. Yes, having a new baby is very exciting. Yeah, my grades are good. But all of that made me happy before, I just wasn't able to manifest my happiness because the chemical imbalance in my brain prevented me from doing so.

I credit my magical placenta. I credit the fact that I am using my own body to heal itself. I know in my heart of hearts that my decision to have my placenta cooked, crushed up, and put into pills was the right one. I also know that my decision to consume these pills has changed my life. Mother nature sure knew what she was doing when she designed my placenta-growing body. If she were tangible, I'd give her a hug.

People have had mixed reactions to my placenta consumption. Many say that they don't care that it is unrecognizable in its pill form, they would know what it was and they would never be able to take the capsules. Others say that it just seems icky (which seems funny to me considering the ingredients in modern medications that they probably take without a second thought). Some people just don't believe me and don't believe in the benefits of placentophagy. I respect the fact that some people may not be able to become comfortable with the idea of consuming their own placentas. However, I encourage them to look at it from a different point of view. I encourage people daily to get outside of their comfort zones and try new things and this is no different. How will you ever know how what your placenta can do for you unless you try?

Just ask my shiny hair and my strong nails and they will tell you (or they would if they could speak) that placenta pills are awesome. There's a party in my tummy and I credit my walk on the weird side for helping me get it started.

In the immortal words of Jim Morrison, "Where's your will to be weird?"

Boob Truth.

I can't believe that I haven't blogged in almost a year. I haven't been tempted too either. I just haven't had much to say. I was also pregnant and anything I might have said would have been hormonal and sad.

Pregnancy over the last year means that I have a brand new baby (a boy) who I am currently breastfeeding. My older son was breastfed for 26 months and this baby will be breastfed until he weans himself as well. This means that my body will not be my own again for another couple of years. It hasn't been my own since June of 2007 when I got pregnant with my older son.

I got pregnant the same month that he weaned from the breast. Yes, folks, I have been using my body to help another body grow for almost 4 years. And if Baby Coe nurses for as long as his big brother did, it will be close to 6 by the time I am finished. And for that matter, I am not sure if I am done having kids yet. Time will be left to tell on that one.

Anyone who knows me or has me as a friend on Facebook knows that I post about breastfeeding constantly. If breastfeeding was gangster, I would be an OG. I believe that every baby deserves to be breastfed. The benefits are innumerable and it's an amazing thing. Human milk was designed for human babies and they should reap the benefits of this magical concoction. However, last night something became apparent to me. I need to be honest about breastfeeding.

I posted a link to a preview for a film called "Formula Fed America," and it spawned a good conversation. There was one person who mistakenly believed that formula was only better for six months and after that it didn't matter, there was one who tried everything in her power to keep breastfeeding but dried up between 6 and 9 months both times, and finally there was the one who inspired me to finally blog again. She had her baby the day before I had mine and she has already stopped nursing due to supply issues. This person said that my post made her feel like shit and went on to describe her sadness over the fact that she is no longer nursing her baby.

Very simply put, my heart broke for her. I don't like making people feel badly about themselves and it is never my intention to do so. I also never want to pour salt in a fresh wound. I went to bed feeling like a jerk. The good thing is that I woke up with a revelation. I have not been as honest as I should be about breastfeeding.

I think that I sometimes paint a really rosy picture. "Oooooh, I'm so awesome. I breastfed my son for 26 months and it was magical every second. It was so easy and wonderful. Now I'm doing it again and the magical wonderment has only just begun." Well folks...that is not the case. Even for me, who loves nursing, breastfeeding is work.

With my older son, we initially got thrush. My let down burnt so bad that I would tear up and curl my toes when I nursed. I nursed him around the clock for like six weeks before he started sleeping through the night. My right side always outproduced my left and as a result my left dried up around one year. I nursed for 14 months off of my right side only. As a result, my right breast is about two cup sizes larger than my left. They are visibly different and it's something that burdens my self-esteem. Also, while I was still breastfeeding him, the right was so drastically bigger that I took to putting my hair over the left so that no one could tell. Every picture of me from that time, my hair is over my left breast to hide my embarrassing boob.

Then there's the reality of what nursing for 26 months really entails. Having a screaming toddler attached to my breast. He would twist, turn, scream, latch and unlatch, and sometimes if I was trying to nurse and do homework he would use his busy little hands to make a mockery of my keyboard. Over 26 months, I felt enormous frustration with nursing. For the first year, I said at least once a week that I was going to just quit. But I didn't.

Now, here I sit. A foot away from a baby who is an entirely different kind of nurser than his brother. This guy isn't a natural nurser. He has trouble getting a good latch sometimes and I have to take him off multiple times and try again. He also spits up like crazy and will sit there and nurse for ten minutes only to let go, barf up his entire stomach contents, and want to start again. Let's add in that we also have thrush which has caused a yeast rash on his bottom as well. On top of that, my left breast had supply issues again. My baby is not quite five weeks old but I have spent that entire five weeks trying to diligently work on bringing the supply on my left side up again. I don't want to nurse off of only one side again. That sounds awful. The baby also has not yet learned to nurse lying down. Which means I am up with him a lot during the night.

In short, breastfeeding is kicking my ass for the second time. It's not easy for me. I have plenty of moments where I think, "God, why didn't I buy bottles and formula? I could just give him to Dave and go take a shower, nap, and do my homework." Breastfeeding is an endurance trial. It's not all sunshine and roses and butterflies covered in glitter. Maybe it is for some, but that is not the case for me. I have to work hard to be a good breastfeeder and I do it because I am passionate about it. I feel badly for having possibly given the mistaken impression that breastfeeding was a wonderland for me.

There you have it. The cold hard truth about boobs. Even some of the most passionate nursers struggle and think about giving up.

Decisions About God.

For a long time, I have been very unsure about where I fit on the spectrum of believers and non-believers. I have always said that I have a great deal of Faith but that I have a unique perspective on God. I therefore always believed that I was best left to relate to God on my own, without any guidance from a church or religion.

It is safe to say that I have never been in favor of organized religion or organized worship. I have always felt that organized religion is where Faith goes to die. I stand by that belief. I do not believe that much good comes out of organized religion. In fact, I believe that much of the evil and hate in the world is grown from seeds sown in churches. Even at the height of my Faith, I believed that churches were for the weak minded. I have always felt that people are attracted to church because they lack what it takes to form meaningful thoughts about God on their own. Regardless of what many "Christians" will say, churches have a tendency to tell their minions what to think and the minions have a tendency to do as the churches tell them. It's a vicious cycle, and one that I have never really been a fan of.

*Note-Recently, I was attending a church in order to attempt to better understand my beliefs. I felt that maybe I could connect with God and maybe I could have some magical moment where I just knew. It didn't happen, and my church going didn't last.*

Until recent years I had never thought much about the bible. I knew what it was and since I was convinced that I believed in the Deity it revolves around I think I might have believed that it was really the word of God. However, since becoming an adult, I no longer believe that the bible is the genuine article. I have a myriad of opinions on the bible, but the most important is that it was written by men, who lie and manipulate. Human beings are not very pure creatures and I don't see how every individual who contributed to the greatest story ever told could have been 100% honest and willing to set forth the story given to them without adding their own flavor. Jesus trusted Judas, and Christians trust the holy book. See where I am going with this? I won't even begin to speak on the multiple different versions of the bible, varying by religion. That speaks for itself on the integrity of the bible.

The more I have grown, the more knowledge I have gained, the more skeptical I have become. At first, I was skeptical of religion but now I believe that I am skeptical of the existence of God entirely. I have come to the point where I know that I am either an atheist or an extreme agnostic. I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my mind around some of the things that God stands for (homophobia being the main problem for me). I also cannot reconcile myself to the arrogance and condescension that seems to be second nature for most of the believers that I know. The bottom line is that I have seen what Christianity does to people, and I don't want any part in it. I would rather be a good person because I am following my heart and doing what I believe to be right, as opposed to doing what a book and a pastor tell me to do. I find that much of the good I believe in is said by that book and those pastors to be wrong, and that concerns me. I'd rather not be a hypocrite. I'd rather believe in the good of people and of the Earth than place my faith in a book and a man perched upon a throne in the clouds. I've made the decision to choose the tangible. I've made the decision to have faith in myself.

Admitting it.

Last night I got to thinking about how much the T.V. is on in this house. In the beginning, I started allowing the television to be on for about an hour in the mornings so that I could get through the morning routine more smoothly. Then I started allowing a movie in the evening as a means to wind down. But last night, when I put my mind to it, I realized that now the T.V. is literally on all day and it is always playing shows that are geared to children.

In some ways, I feel that I am justified in allow some use of the television. I am a full time student and I have a lot on my plate. The T.V. allows me to get homework done on days on which I am unable to complete the amount of work that I need to get done during nap time. However, the more I think about that "reason" the more that I realize that it is an excuse that I use to cover up the fact that I may have become a tad lazy in the last year.

Upon the realization that I may be making a critical parenting mistake, I decided last night to institute "No T.V. Tuesdays and Thursdays." It was a brilliant plan. Since my husband is off on Fridays and Saturdays we generally watch less television on those days. So, by adding two "No T.V." days, I would be making it so that the days without the boob tube would outnumber the days with. It was a brilliant plan. It was inspired. But what I didn't count on was what it would cause me to realize. DUN DUN DUN!!!

I realized today that not only had I become a little bit lazy, I have made a huge parenting error. The morning went fairly smoothly. Having to go to the pediatrician made it so that the morning went by quickly. Then there was nap time, which lasted until about 4. After nap, all hell broke loose.

Now, I have heard before that T.V. kills the imagination. I knew full well that kids who watch too much T.V. generally exhibit a tendency toward less creative play. What I didn't realize is that this would actually apply to my household. There was crying, there was wandering around, there was clinging to mommy like a barnacle. What wasn't happening was the use of the hundreds of dollars worth of toys in this house.

All of the play silks sat unloved. The wooden cars were neglected. The baby dolls were shunned. The play food was scattered by my attempt to "cook breakfast."I was left to wonder, "What have I done?" And then to panic and start to go insane thinking, "Can I fix this?" The sad thing is that I am not an expert. I don't know if the damage is done.

What I do know is that effective immediately there is a television ban in effect. During any hour where anyone under the age of 24 (my age, Dave is older) is awake, the television shall remain off. After a month or two, if I see sufficient progress I might begin to allow an hour of T.V. on non-bath nights as a pre-bedtime wind down. However, at this point I would be content to throw the stupid thing out of the upstairs window.

I have been told by my recovering alcoholic mother that the first step to conquering a problem is admitting that you have one. Well, here I am admitting it. The Beemans have a television issue. However, we will let the box control us no more. Never again will we be sedentary. We shall henceforth not allow our minds to turn to jelly. We are revolting against the mindless box of doom. I am admitting that I made a mistake.

I know that a lot of parents would rather die than make an admission like the one that I have made. But I think it's important for me to admit that I made an error. I allowed convenience to outweigh best interests. I allowed school to come before my family. The thing is, I love my good grades but I could definitely find something else to sacrifice in order to achieve them. I made the wrong choice, I sacrificed my children. In no other aspect am I a convenience parent, so why would I lower my standards as far as their play time?

I can't really say why I did, what I can say is that I will not do it any longer. To know better is to do better, and starting today I believe that I have done much better. I'm going to take it a day at a time, with the T.V. off along the way. Wish me luck.

Boobies on the Brain.

Yesterday a lot of people on various social networking sites that I frequent were doing a lot of talking about breastfeeding. I have been breastfeeding Archer for 25 months and since it was being spoken of yesterday, I started to really think about breastfeeding and my experience with it. I realized that a lot of the time I come off as a passionate breastfeeder, which I am. However, that was not always the case.

I did not breastfeed my daughter. In fact, I would be giving myself way too much credit if I said that I tried for a week. If I am completely honest about it, I think I only lasted a grand total of two days. The fact of the matter is that I had absolutely no support and I had a limited amount of knowledge about breastfeeding. Even though I went into motherhood with the desire to breastfeed, I don't think I could have named a single benefit of breastmilk vs. formula. I honestly thought that they were the same, except that breastfeeding was harder and you actually had to hold your baby when you did it.

I remember when my daughter was born and I would ask for help getting her latched on to my breast. It hurt terribly and she would just scream. I felt like if I could just get her on correctly, we would be good to go. The problem was that I gave birth to her on a Saturday. Apparently there are no lactation consultants in the hospital on Saturdays or Sundays. The busy nurses would come in and throw her on for me, but it never felt right nor did they actually show me what to do. We were discharged before we could speak to one and after that (being as I was 19, naive, scared, and alone) I thought WIC was the only resource I had. The ladies at WIC were not very encouraging. They seemed to have limited knowledge and the lactation consultant from WIC was rude, condescending, and seemed too busy for me.

Needless to say, by the time she was a week old she was exclusively formula fed. At the time, everyone I knew formula fed. I come from a town with a lot of teen moms and so even at 19, I did have a lot of mom friends. I cannot name a single one who breastfed past 8 weeks and even those who went 8 weeks were supplementing through that time. Because of this, I had no regrets. I thought that formula must be the right way to go because if breastfeeding really was any different I would surely know and surely more people would be doing it if it were better. That was the end of that, for the time being.

Fast forward about a year and a half. In June of 2007 I became pregnant with my son. My mother in law would always talk about how she breastfed both of her boys and she was always very strongly in favor of breastfeeding. Her daughter also breastfed her daughters for a year apiece. These were the first two women that I met who were completely pro-breastfeeding. Although neither of them gave me a lot of information, knowing them prompted me to look into it. Around that time, I also became a member of Cafemom (an online social network for moms) and I befriended several women who were "lactivists." They were extremely encouraging and supportive of me in my determination to nurse my son (I also credit them with turning me on to cloth diapering and most aspects of attachment parenting, but that's a different story).

Because of them, I began reading about breastfeeding. I also hired a doula (for other reasons), which wound up being a critical decision in regards to my breastfeeding relationship. I read everything that I could. I watched YouTube videos about breastmilk and breastfeeding. The amazing thing was that I was more interested and impacted by what I learned about the benefits of breast milk than I was with the tips and how-to information about breastfeeding. I could not believe the disservice I had done to my daughter.I could not believe that I had deprived her of the nutrients and I could not believe that I had deprived us both of the bond that breastfeeding encourages. I was devastated and sometimes I still am.

See the thing is, I had a lot of trouble bonding with my daughter. Now that she is 4, we are good to go. She is my little girl and I love her to pieces. But when she was between birth and 1 year, I was basically indifferent to her. I knew she was my responsibility and I took good care of her. I thought she was cute and I enjoyed dressing her up, but I could have taken or left motherhood. I was pretty detached and it was really hard for me to get to the point where I truly felt like a mother. On top of the issues that I had with bonding, my daughter was sick all of the time. She was born in October and by March she had had croup, RSV, several colds, and 3 ear infections. When I was reading about the benefits of breastfeeding, I felt like I had suddenly put my finger on something I had been searching to explain for almost 2 years. I had always wondered why I was not a "natural" at motherhood. I wondered what I was doing wrong that contributed to my child being sick all of the time. Well, there I had it. My problems could have been solved by breastfeeding. I believe that they would have, but I say could because I know that there are no guarantees.

However, I think that I affirmed my suspicions after I gave birth to my son. Immediately after he was born, my doula firmly expressed to the hospital staff that it was my wish to nurse immediately. She put her foot down and demanded that no one do a thing until I had fed him. He was placed in my arms (by the very disgruntled, male nurse) and our journey began. My doula showed me how to hold his head and how to cup my breast as I guided him to my nipple. He latched on immediately and things were going great. Then, my wonderful doula uttered the magic words that changed my life. She looked at me and said, "Now what you should be feeling is tug, tug, tug rather than pinch, pinch, pinch." Now, to you those may sound like just words. But to me, they were magic. I felt tug, tug, tug. And I also remembered, at that moment, that with my daughter I had felt pinch, pinch, pinch. At the time, since the nurse had latched her on, I figured that was how it was supposed to feel. Tug, tug, tug had never even crossed my mind. I had even taken the hospital's breastfeeding class before I had my daughter and they had spent so much time warning us to expect pain that I just figured pinch, pinch, pinch was normal.

So, here we are today. My son is 25 months old and he is still nursing. You know why? Because every time I felt the pinching, I would pop him off and then relatch him the way that my doula had taught me. She was the key. She helped me. She practiced what she preached and taught me what to do. I feel that I was abandoned by the medical system, the first time around. I feel that they encouraged breastfeeding for show, but they could really care less what any mother does. Why else would they latch my baby on for me and then leave the room without asking if I was ok? Why else would they tell me to call a lactation consultant if I was having trouble, yet send me home with endless formula coupons and samples? The fact of the matter is, that I was the victim of a very sad system. This is a system that has come to rely too heavily on formula manufacturers. This is a system that has gotten too commercial. I was a victim, my daughter was a victim, and I hope that just by writing this I will help to ensure that someone else will not be a victim.

Cohesion

I have decided that I need my blog to be more cohesive. The posts need to have a theme to keep them all aligned. However, my life (and my brain) is so all over the place, that this is difficult for me. I have a couple of ideas for themes, but I would love some suggestions. My ideas all involve things that are important to me, here they are:

1. Parenting: I am definitely what could/would be termed as an AP mom and I am also definitely crunchy. We cloth diaper, co-sleep, breastfeed, babywear, etc. We are also avid recyclers and take measures to make sure that our home is eco-friendly and toxin free.

2. Equality: I am a very liberal individual, however my main cause is equality. I am extremely passionate about gay rights. I really have no idea why I am so attached to the issue, although I do have several gay friends and family members, but I always have been and I feel really connected to it. Someone told me once that a straight female perspective on gay rights would be interesting, so I think that it might be a winning idea.

3. My journey with weight loss and depression: this was originally what this blog was supposed to be about. However, I sometimes worry that it would get boring and depressing. However, these two things are always a struggle for me and do consume a large part of my life.

4. Adventures in Beemanland: This would be largely about my family life and our day to day adventures without giving parenting advice or being an activist. I would probably take a humorous stance.

Ok folks, I need your help. Those are the ideas that I have but I would LOVE and dearly appreciate your creative minds helping me out on this. I love to write and I would love to have a good, readable blog that people would actually enjoy. Thanks all!

Hard Goodbyes.

I guess that for some reason it had not occurred to me that as a military wife I would be making friends that I would have to part with eventually. I also never realized that it would be so hard on me to say my goodbyes. I just found out this week that my first good friend here in Washington is going to be leaving this summer. I am extremely sad about it. I don't want her to go. I am going to miss her and I am going to miss her kids. It's going to be really hard on me to not see those kids grow up and become the amazing people that I know that they will be. It breaks my heart that I might grow apart from my friend.

I think that a big factor for me is the fact that back home I don't have a lot of friends that are the kind of moms I have met here. Almost none of my mom friends at home are stay at home moms and a lot of them do things very differently than I do. I truly feel that my mom friends here, in Washington, have helped me grow into a better, more hands on parent. This particular friend, who is leaving, is a great mom. She does everything for her kids and they love her to death. She is also a wonderful wife. I look up to her in a lot of ways and it is going to be sad for me to see her go and to lose that influence.

I had a really hard time moving here because I don't make friends easily. I don't require a lot of friends to be happy, I just prefer to have a few that I really like. I feel like I met a small group of awesome women, all of whom I love for different reasons. It is going to be very difficult for me to say goodbye to them now that I have become close to them. It is going to be really hard for me to say goodbye to their children, as well, each of whom I love. I don't take friendship lightly.

Why did it escape me that I would have to say a whole new set of goodbyes eventually? I wish that there was someone that I could write a letter to, asking that only people from Colorado be admitted to the Navy, so that I would never have to say goodbye. What a mess.