Friday, February 08, 2008

Waterloo

I've been in a bit of a blogging slump lately. I have stuff to blog about, like my DC trip (which was lots of fun depsite the lack of blogging about it), but I just can't find my blogging mojo. I've tried doing simple posts and I've pondered just slapping up the pictures from DC and calling it a day but that seams like cheating. Speaking of which, I even thought about seeing if Joan or Opa wanted to "guest blog" the DC trip, but even that felt like asking someone to do my homework for me. So the DC trip has sat in my camera alone and pathetic. And, I am sad to report, that things don't look like they are going to get any better, any time soon. You see, I learned the most tragic thing at our breast feeding class last night. Let me reiterate, THE MOST TRAGIC THING.

Last night we had our first baby/child birth/parenting class and it was on breast feeding ... nothing like jumping straight into the deep end of the pool, eh? All in all it was a very good class. Neither Boo nor I freaked the fuck out, though we did have a moment when we watched a video with an Australian narrator who said "baby" a gazillion times in her strong Australian accent and each of those gazillion times caused one of us to giggle and mutter, "A dingo ate my baby!" Anywho, the instructor was knowledgeable. In fact, she even showed us how to breast feed in public (and we all know how I feel about that, i.e., WRONG) without showing any of your bits or even really what you are doing. Since I've noticed that a lot of woman don't give a flying fig about being discrete or modest, I can only assume that their breast feeding classes were subpar and didn't contain useful information like this. I mean come on, my instructor was a 65+ year old arthritic nurse. If she could whip out her elderly droopy boob and make it work on a weird misshapen doll without revealing a damn thing, there is no excuse for a 30 something year old woman not being able to do the same. But that was not the tragic part. No, it wasn't. Prepare for tragedy, here it comes.

We had moved into the section on the nursing diet and she said, you should eat a healthy and diverse diet. Well, she might have just said, "We are going to talk about mom's nutrition and diet." And I might have cut her off before she got to the healthy and diverse part by throwing my arm in the air with so much force that the rest of my body lifted up out of the chair and I might have been shaking and bouncing and I might have blurted out, before being called on, though being called on was not a requirement, but put me in a class room and I feel like I am under Robert's Rules of Order and need to be called on to speak, but whatever, I digress. I was antsy and anxious and yet, I politely inquired, "So I can have sushi once I give birth right?" and the lady next to me said, "She means we. We can have sushi right?" We might have sounded a little bit desperate. To which the instructor replied, "Sure, as long as it contains no raw fish." And that is when the air left my sails, my ass returned to it's seat, and my world collapsed a little bit. I may have even shed a tear. Because, really, I can have a goddamn veggie roll now. That's not what I want. I want the fishy bits. The salmon rolls. Which, consequently, even if they were cooked would still be no good because nursing moms should only have wild salmon. Not farm raised. Now tell me where in the fuck am I suppose to find a wild salmon out here on the east coast? No where. That's where. So not only can I not have the good sushi, I can't have salmon unless I jet on over to Seattle, Portland or Juno. This is just depressing.

4 comments:

handknitbyafailedfeminist said...

F them. I have a firm belief that when the food you take in becomes breast milk it is both sanctifed and pure. Once I popped the kids out I ate and drank whatever I wanted. To the extreme of having best friend show up immediatelty post delivery with a bag of verbotten things. Don't let them wear you down!

Annie said...

I had sushi (salmon, not wild caught) when pregnant, and I have it now as a nursing mom.

your body will filter out a lot of things that would be bad if the baby had them straight up. Don't sweat it - and as long as you aren't gorging on the Salmon, I'd say it's not really a hazard. Remember - years ago when pregnant you weren't even supposed to take a bath for fear of cooking the baby... and now - well my OB okayed going in a hot tub after the first trimester.

Rebecca said...

Lady, I have never heard of a nursing mom not eating sushi. I think that lady is paranoid. She works for a hospital, she can't give you advice that you could sue about afterwards.

As for the showing boobs in public (I didn't realise it was THAT part of nursing in public that bothered you), there are a few reasons. 1, most people don't take a parenting or breastfeeding class. 2, I am sure most classes don't show you this, even if people take them. 3, people are lazy and/or stressed. 4, some people don't care and don't think they should have to (politics thing). 5, don't forget, your instructor was nursing a doll, which doesn't move on its own. But yes, you can definitely nurse in public without showing anything wrong.

Rebecca said...

Oh, and one more comment on the fishy thing. I have NEVER heard that nursing moms can't have farm-raised salmon. What is the rationale in that? Hubby's friend is educated in fish production and because of all the antibiotics, farm-raised fish freaks him out. But there are antibiotics in most meat too. If you really want wild-caught salmon (cooked) you can buy it at Whole Foods for sure, Big Y I think, maybe Price Chopper. No need to fly all over the country for nice tasty salmon.