I blame the lactation hippie.

It's hard not to be the crazy mom. There's so much that we just don't know about what is and is not normal. Any snake oil salesman can come along and tell me that Ava is missing out on XYZ and we need to buy/sell/do ABC in order to make sure she's OK and I will bite.

Case in point: Wednesday, I met with a lactation consultant to get some pointers about nursing and such. Ms Tie-Dyed In the Wool Earthy Chunky Organic Granola immediately sets forth assessing what we're dealing with (namely, The Girls, if ya get my drift) and how we can help Ava have more milk and less formula. Before I can even say "age of Aquarius", I'm buying a new nursing pillow ("My Brest Friend"), a ten-day supply of herbal supplements to help increase my milk supply, and am on the phone with the pediatrician's office to schedule an immediate appointment to take care of Ava's tied tongue, which is a HUGE impediment to her successful latching-on and will result in her NEVER BEING ABLE TO BREASTFEED OMG WE NEED TO FIX THIS STAT. As luck would have it, we can get in at 4:30 that same day! Hooray! Never let it be said that my baby girl suffered for my lack of action.

OK, so I drag our tired butts to the doctor's office, which, fortunately, is super close to home. Two hours later, we return home with the knowledge that yes, she has a bit of a connection betwixt her tongue and the bottom of her mouth, but, in the words of our Very Wise Doctor, "if she can latch on to a bottle, she can latch on to a breast." Furthermore, in 25 years of pediatric practice, he has never corrected such a thing, nor even seen one that he thought was worthy of referring out to a specialist for correction. He then patted us both on the heads, gave me a lolly, and sent us on our way. And when we got outside it was raining, which was the cherry on the cake of that crazy stupid day. Poor Rob. He was waiting for us when we got home, and he pulled my exhaustedly sobbing self out of the car, somehow got Ava into the house, put us both in comfy pajamas and declared Wednesday over.

I didn't intend to go insane and be That Mom. Really. At no time did I insist that My Child Needs Immediate Attention. It just worked out that way. Thank God we found a doctor who takes things like this in stride and is able to keep a straight face and reassure me that, really, there's nothing wrong with our kid and we can relax about her nursing. She's fine.

Good lord. This post-partum hormonal thing sneaks up on you. I mean, I knew that stuff would get to me in new and exciting ways but I had no idea how quickly I would go from "I'm fine, we're cool" to "OMG WHY IS THE WORLD SO AWFUL?!" So now we have some rules about how my errands are managed; namely, no same-day add-ons. If something new comes up, it can wait until tomorrow or next week or whenever.

This morning I took Ava to the lab for some bloodwork--just a follow-up for the PKU that they performed last week in the hospital. Routine stuff, kind of unpleasant as they do what is called a "heel stick" and it's probably 30 seconds of aggravation for babies and two days of anxiety for moms (even moms who are working very hard not to be high maintenance). Again, she's fine, resting comfortably, and I celebrated the completion of the blood draw with a diet Coke and a fancy cupcake.

I was talking to my friend Tina today about this hormonal thing that's happening. I feel good and I don't feel overwhelmed (read: this is something I'm pretty sure I can handle). But the second anyone asks "So, how are you doing?" I get a bit teary and pherklempt and I have to take a second to get on top of it. Tina recalled feeling the same way--super tired, but generally OK until someone asks if you're OK and when you start to think about just how much Everything has changed you feel overcome by how amazing and different and hard and wonderful it all is and how it all changed in one exhilarating minute (must stop, getting weepy...).

Rob's back at work and that's been an adjustment for everyone. His first day back was Wednesday, and that made for a long Tuesday night and a tough Wednesday morning (even before the hippie). We had a better night last night, as Ava decided that sleeping after each bottle would be acceptable to her. That made a huge difference, as when she sleeps, everybody gets to sleep. I'll still take a nap in a little while, but it doesn't feel like such a necessity today ; rather, it's kind of the way my naps used to be back B.A. (Before Ava) when I was just lazy instead of justifiably tired ;).

Oh, and the herbal supplements that Sunshine Von Acid Trip recommended seem to have helped with the milk supply. Go figure.