Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Find out why your health insurer denied your claim. (via) "ProPublica’s Claim File Helper lets you customize a letter requesting the notes and documents your insurer used when deciding to deny you coverage. Get your claim file before submitting an appeal."

2. Israel kills 32 Palestinians waiting for food at US-backed Gaza aid sites (June 2, via) "Condemning the attacks, the Government Media Office described the GHF distribution sites as 'mass death traps, not humanitarian relief points'."

3. Ultramarathon runner breastfeeds her baby 3 times on her way to a surprise win (May 30) Wow! Good for her!

4. MIT class president barred from graduation after speaking out on Gaza (June 2)

The speech is very good! Watch it here: MIT Class President Megha Vemuri’s Viral Graduation Speech on Israel’s Genocide in Gaza (May 30) 

5. Penn & Teller’s Entropy: ‘The Weirdest Trick We’ve Ever Done’ | Penn & Teller: Fool Us | The CW (February 22) This is fun, I like this.

6. How six months in the West Bank undid a lifetime of Zionist indoctrination (May 30, via) "Through All That’s Left, I began traveling regularly to the West Bank with a perspective wholly different from my 18-year-old self. I joined Palestinian farmers in their fields, accompanied shepherds grazing their flocks, attended protests against Israeli state violence, and eventually spent nights — then weeks, then months — in Palestinian villages. As part of protective presence activism, my fellow activists and I documented settler attacks and military incursions, hoping our privileged status in the eyes of the state might deter violence."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. This:

Image shows 2 photos: Kermit the Frog and Trump. Image text: "Here we have a photo of a commencement address being given by a puppet controlled by someone else... and a photo of Kermit the Frog giving a commencement address." Image source.

Wait, Kermit the Frog gave a commencement speech? Apparently yes! Kermit the Frog delivers commencement speech to University of Maryland graduates (May 23)

2. The Compassion of Strangers (June 1) "Witness what happened in San Diego outside the popular Buona Forchetta restaurant in South Park. When I.C.E. showed up in its vans to detain workers—not criminals, but workers—the community did not stand idly by. They began to fill the streets, block vehicles, and were eventually dispersed with flash bangs."

3. Trump Administration Knew Vast Majority of Venezuelans Sent to Salvadoran Prison Had Not Been Convicted of U.S. Crimes (May 30) "President Donald Trump and his aides have branded the Venezuelans as 'rapists,' 'savages,' 'monsters' and 'the worst of the worst.' When multiple news organizations disputed those assertions with reporting that showed many of the deportees did not have criminal records, the administration doubled down."

4. Make America ChatGPT again: Experts say AI was used to create RFK Jr health report that cited false studies (May 30) "Analysis conducted by The Post found that at least 21 links in the original version of the report to scientific studies or articles were dead."

5. SCOTUS allows the Trump admin to end legal status for another half-million people (May 31) "'[S]omehow, the Court has now apparently determined … that it is in the public’s interest to have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims,' [Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson] wrote."

6. The Trump administration is making the country less safe for domestic violence victims (May 30) "Funding pauses, cuts, firings and information purges have destabilized the infrastructure that helps victims of abuse. At the same time, federal teams dedicated to preventing sexual violence are being decimated. Departments in charge of administering grants that fund shelters for those fleeing assault have been deemed 'duplicative, DEI or simply unnecessary.'"

You know how MAGAs are saying all these things about how we need to stop trans people from using the bathroom, because we care oh so much about preventing violence against women? Well, no, the MAGA government does NOT care about protecting women. (I don't make any claims about the average Republican voter, perhaps on some level the average voter *does* want to protect women from domestic violence. I'm just talking about what we can see the government is doing.) They are making cuts to the programs that actually help. Their talk about "protecting women" is actually just about scoring points in a culture war.

7. US judge rules prisons must provide gender-affirming care for trans people (June 3) "Even if it had extensively studied the issue before deciding to stop gender-affirming care, the decision might still violate the US constitution’s eighth amendment’s protections against “cruel and unusual” punishment, Lamberth wrote."

8. Impact Metrics Dashboard (via) A website that estimates the number of deaths due to USAID cuts. Current estimate is that over 300.000 people have died. (Some background information about where this page came from: Tracking Anticipated Deaths from USAID Funding Cuts)

"Queer Conception" (book review)

Book cover for "Queer Conception" by Kristin L. Kali.

I recently read the book "Queer Conception", by Kristin L. Kali (they/them). I liked this book because it was very practical and it was about how conception *actually* works. To have a pregnancy, you need a sperm and and egg and a person with a uterus to carry the pregnancy. Other concerns, like what gender everyone identifies as, and which people will take on the responsibility of being the child's parents, and how you feel about having sex... these things could be different for every situation.

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Queer people need a different approach than cis heterosexual people

The systems in place to help people with assisted reproduction, like IVF, IUI, test strips for ovulation, etc, are designed for hetero couples struggling with infertility. The research and the guidelines given by doctors are all based on hetero couples struggling with infertility. 

Obviously for queer people, the situation is totally different. Kali is a midwife who specifically works with queer families, and wrote this book to address queer people's needs. (And also single people who want to have a baby without a partner.)

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This book is extremely practical

This book is literally a guide for how to actually do all these things. It's so incredibly practical. Here are a few areas it discussed:

Legal issues: If the child is not biologically related to the parent(s), this brings in legal issues where at some point, the legal system might decide that the biological parent has rights related to being the parent. You really need to think about all these things before you start the process. 

I had wondered if perhaps, when a lesbian couple wants to have a child, maybe one of them can go have sex with a man 1 time and get a baby that way- no, don't do this, because then in legal terms, the random man is the child's father and has rights associated with that. Now, the lesbian couple could ask a friend to give them a sperm sample, and do the insemination themselves or with a doctor, without the sperm donor present (the book walks through a lot of details about how to do this)- from a legal perspective, getting pregnant in this way is a different thing than getting pregnant from intercourse. This is still risky from a legal perspective though, and many fertility clinics aren't willing to work with you if you have a known sperm donor.

Clear communication: If you decide to ask someone you know (like a friend or family member) to be a sperm donor, egg donor, or surrogate, you have to be really clear about what you are asking, and make sure you are not pressuring them. The book has very thorough advice on this. Send them a message saying "We want to have a baby, so we will need a sperm donor, you are one of the people we are considering asking, if you are interested in hearing more information about this, please let me know before the end of the month- if we don't hear from you, no worries, we won't ask you about it again." [This is my paraphrase- there is an example in the book which is longer than this.] Let them respond or not respond- don't put them in a position where they aren't really comfortable with it but they can't think of a way to say no so they feel like they have to go along with it.

And then, when discussing with the friend about potentially being a donor, you have to tell them, "You will not be the child's parent. You will not have a say in where the child lives, the child's education, etc." (If you want a donor who does have a say in how the child is raised, then actually you are looking for a co-parent, not a donor. Which is fine; that's also a valid family structure if that's what you want. But you need to make that clear from the beginning.) This sounds kinda harsh, but you don't want to get into ugly fights later because your donor believes they are the child's parent. If the potential donor is not okay with the arrangement, they should say no and not be a donor. (I mean, *I* would not be okay with it, so I am not willing to be a donor. Which is fine.)

So many concrete details about the biological aspects: If you have ovaries but are taking testosterone, how long will you need to stop taking testosterone so you can ovulate? If you are inseminating with a fresh sperm sample, how much time do you have to do it before the sperm die? (And what if it's a frozen sperm sample, how much time in this case?) If you are not the birthing parent but you want to breastfeed the baby, how do you induce lactation? (This is really cool- trans women can breastfeed if they follow this process.) And so on and so on.

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Default roles vs choices

Because this book is so incredibly practical, it made me wonder, why am I reading this? I'm straight and cis and I'm married to a man, and I have 2 kids via getting pregnant the "normal" way (if you could say it's "normal" for an asexual to have PIV sex...). None of the advice in this book is for me.

But it made me think about how so much of my own path to having kids just kind of happened the "default" way, without anybody really perceiving much of it as a choice- whereas, most queer people who want to have kids have a whole lot of choices they have to make about how to go about it.

Let me make a bulleted list to show you what I mean.

So, as a cis person in a hetero marriage, when we decide "we want to have a baby now", we go forward with the assumption that these are our roles:

Mom:

• is the child's biological parent
• has PIV [penis-in-vagina] sex
• gets pregnant
• goes to all the prenatal doctor's appointments
• makes a birth plan (this includes a bunch of decisions about whether to have an epidural, etc), packs up the hospital bag
• gives birth
• decides whether to breastfeed the baby or use formula
• has maternity leave

Dad:

• is the child's biological parent
• has PIV sex
• if he's a really stellar partner, he should come to the prenatal doctor's appointments, but ya know maybe he doesn't have time, that's understandable
• ideally he should be present at the birth
• has paternity leave, maybe, but it's shorter than the mom's maternity leave

But it's really beneficial to listen to queer people, because we learn that it doesn't have to be these exact roles. For queer families who don't have the "default" combination of egg/sperm/uterus, they have to make a bunch of decisions about all the little parts of these roles. Who will do what? Those are all decisions, not something they can just fall into automatically.

The interesting thing is... I guess I *did* make choices... like... when I decided to marry my husband, I wasn't thinking about "his genetics are good for making babies", but implicitly I was deciding that, right? The sections in this book about requirements for choosing a sperm donor or an egg donor made me uncomfortable because it feels unethical to judge some people's genetics as "better" than other people's... but in a way it's good that queer people have these options- really more options and choices than straight cis people who are just going along with the "normal" way to have babies. I chose my husband to be my husband and my kids' biological father, because that's normal- why would it be "unethical" to chose someone to be your partner, and then when you and your partner don't have the right combination to make a baby, you make a careful, intentional choice about getting someone else to be your sperm or egg donor? In both cases it's a choice, right? I think this is a valuable thing for straight people to think about.

(Like, I don't mean that a straight couple where both partners are fertile should literally go find someone else to be their sperm or egg donor. I mean, just being aware of all the *implicit* "default" choices that you make, as a cis straight person, when you chose to marry someone and have kids with them.)

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What to tell the kid

The book discusses the question of how to tell the kid that their parent(s) aren't their biological parent(s). Basically, in heteronormative world, it's a big huge deal if the kid and parent aren't biologically related. It's like, a bad thing or a secret or a scandal, and people want to hide it from the kid, and worry about how the kid will feel... In the queer community, the situation is completely different. For queer families, it's totally normal that a kid is not biologically related to their parent(s), and it's not an issue at all. 

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 About donors and surrogates

This is something I'm really curious about. Why would someone choose to be an egg donor, sperm donor, or surrogate? The book talks about donors giving a "gift" to another family- framing it as a really noble, loving thing to do, an act done by someone aware of the weighty realities of families who need help to conceive, and who wants to help in a significant, meaningful way.

I've never thought of it like that. Typically, I've seen the concept of egg donors or sperm donors in subplots on sitcoms... The characters need money, so they look into the process of donating eggs or sperm, and they're uncomfortable with the idea of having unknown biological children somewhere out there, but they want to just do it for the money and not think about that... and then in the end they decide not to do it, which is a relief to everyone.

I always thought of it like... you do it for the money, and hope nobody actually uses your eggs or sperm to make an actual child, because it's just too weird to have your biological child somewhere out there in the world.

But the way "Queer Conception" talks about it... it's a serious thing, not a joke on a sitcom, obviously, and I'm really curious to find out more. This is the kind of thing people do because they want to... it's not about just getting the money and then trying not to think about it ever again.

The book talked about how to evaluate donor profiles from an egg bank or sperm bank to choose the donor you want. To me this was a bit weird, because... shouldn't we treat everyone equally, and just let some random process decide for us? (Please note that I literally moved to China because I thought ideally people should be "objective" rather than biased toward living in a place that's familiar to them. I have since realized that actually my own cultural background does matter, and we shouldn't have a goal of being "objective" on a global scale.) But no, the book did not even entertain the question "is it ethical to judge people's genetics and choose one?" The book was all about how to choose, not if you should choose. Maybe I'm the only one with the weird idea that this might be ethically problematic? I mean... I agree that it *should* be a choice, but it took me a while to get to that conclusion, whereas maybe everybody else thinks that's obvious?

In particular, the book said white people probably shouldn't use a donor who is a person of color. Donors of color are underrepresented in sperm banks, so if you use their sample, you're taking away an opportunity for another family. (This was another example of how the book talked about sperm and egg donation like it actually matters, rather than just being a silly thing that sitcom characters do for money.) And if your whole family is white, you likely won't be able to meet the child's need to connect with their own race. (Kali says there may be a few exceptions to this advice- like if you already have a child of color, and so you want a sibling who is the same race.)

And I'm so curious about why someone would choose to be a surrogate. I totally hated being pregnant, but it was all worth it because now I have 2 amazing kids. But if I wasn't gonna get a kid out of it, no way in hell would I want to do that.

(I have heard of some women who like being pregnant. I guess they weren't throwing up every day like me.)

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Looking at your own cervix

The book contains very detailed, practical instructions on how to pinpoint when exactly you ovulate. Apparently, if you look at the cervix, you will actually see that it looks different at different points in the cycle, and this is one of the most important indicators for figuring out when you ovulate.

The book describes, in extremely concrete, practical detail, how to use a mirror to look at your own cervix.

I feel like, wow. This is really useful information! Maybe some people would like to do this, to learn more about their own body, and some people might not be interested, but wow everyone who has a cervix should have access to this information! 

I kind of had a reaction like it was weird, like only people who are really kinky or sexually adventurous would look at their own cervix. Like if you look at your own cervix, and people find out, they'll think you're a pervert who shouldn't be around children, or something. But, why? Why is it "normal" to let your (male) partner put his penis in there, but "weird" to look in there yourself to see what it looks like? Why do we have this idea, as a society, that someone else should have access to your body in a way that you yourself don't?

Anyway, if you have a cervix, and you're interested in looking at it, you totally can.

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Everything is gender neutral

I was really impressed by the way this book was written in a completely gender-neutral way. It always talks about "the sperm donor", "the partner who is carrying the pregnancy", "the non-gestational parent", etc- it doesn't say "man", "woman", "mom", "dad", etc. Sometimes I had to take a minute to picture an example of what it was talking about (for example, if it talks about a situation where "you can carry a pregnancy conceived with your partner's egg", I might take a second to imagine what kind of configuration of genders that would be- like, that could be a lesbian couple. It could be other configurations too.)

The only part of the book I remember using words like "woman" was in the part that talked about how trans women do have the ability to breastfeed.

On my blog I don't write in this kind of gender-neutral way. My thinking is, I will use words like "women" and "moms" because I am talking about things that affect cis women rather than cis men, and I think it's important to make that obvious- but also use terms like "women and/or people who can get pregnant" because this doesn't *just* affect cis women.

But this book is explicitly for a queer audience, the kind of people who have to go to the ob-gyn office and all the walls are pink and it's just overwhelming how feminine everything is- it makes sense that this book is written completely gender-neutral.

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Conclusion

I wanted to read this book because most pregnancy resources are overwhelmingly heteronormative and cisnormative. I feel it's really helpful to get a different perspective on how conception works. (The other pregnancy books I've read don't talk about conception much at all- it's assumed that that's the easy part and you don't need instructions on it. Actually, I was kind of asexually happy about how "Queer Conception" doesn't talk about getting pregnant via sex.) Also this makes me curious to learn more about sperm/egg donation and surrogacy, so maybe I'll read books about that too.

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Related:

Being Asexual in Pregnancy World 

"Expecting Better": Asking the Right Questions About Pregnancy

A Comprehensive Pro-Choice Ethic

Formula is a Useful Tool

Mixing formula powder and water in a baby bottle. Image source.

For my first baby, I did exclusive breastfeeding. For the second baby, I'm doing mixed feeding- breast milk sometimes and formula sometimes.

Basically what happened was this: she was born premature, with a low birth weight, so the doctors told us we should give her formula at the beginning, to help her gain weight. I already had experience with breastfeeding, so I was doing that too- ramping up the breastfeeding and also sometimes having my husband give her a bottle of formula when I felt too exhausted to breastfeed. Soon we got to where she was only breastfeeding and not drinking formula at all.

Occasionally, if I had to go out somewhere and my husband was taking care of the baby, he would give her formula.

And then I had some health problems, and had to take medicine, and the doctor said I shouldn't breastfeed for about 4 days because the medicine could affect my breast milk. So my baby drank formula during that time. Oh, that time was the worst, my breasts were so hard and painful, and I pumped sometimes but didn't get that much milk out. (Have to keep pumping to help with the pain from breasts being too full, and also to maintain my milk supply.) It hurt, constantly, and my baby always wanted me to hold her, and it hurt so much when I held her against my chest. And how am I supposed to find time to pump, if the baby cries every time I put her down? Then when I was allowed to breastfeed again, my supply had decreased substantially, so I had to spend a few days ramping it up again- but at least I wasn't in pain!- and giving my baby formula sometimes to make up the difference.

The next few months, I exclusively breastfed her. I was on maternity leave and I was with her all the time, so no issues there.

Then when I went back to work, we hired an ayi to take care of the baby. (In China, an "ayi" is a woman who works as a nanny or cleaner. And it also has other meanings, like an aunt who is your mom's sister, or just a friendly way to refer to a woman who is your parents' age.) I pump at work every day, but the amount I pump is less than the amount that the baby drinks during the day, so I told the ayi to give her formula in addition to the pumped milk. My thinking was, I don't want to get myself stressed out about needing to pump an amount of milk equal to what the baby drinks, every single day. I just don't want to have that constant stress in my life.

When I'm at home, in the evenings and weekends, I breastfeed her. When I'm at work, the amount of milk I have from pumping isn't enough, so the baby also drinks formula.

Also I figure, the baby was already 5 months old when I went back to work, which is pretty close to the time babies can start eating solid food at 6 months. So even if you exclusively breastfeed, your baby is eating other stuff besides breast milk at 6 months. That's not that different from doing breast milk sometimes and formula sometimes.

My main priority here, in deciding to breastfeed her when I'm with her and let people give her formula when I'm not, is to do what's convenient for me. I don't want to mess around with bottles. Breastfeeding is SO CONVENIENT. You don't have to think about "well how much formula should I mix up?" and trying to heat it up again within the hour to make her drink it again if she didn't finish it. You don't have to wash bottles. You don't have to spend time mixing it up while the baby cries. You don't have to worry about making it the right temperature. When you go out, you don't have to think about bringing formula and bottles and hot water. You don't have to ask questions like "should we bring our bottle warmer on vacation?" 

All these benefits only apply if I am there with the baby, though. If it's someone else, obviously they can't breastfeed my baby, so they will be messing around with bottles and doing all that hassle with getting it to the right temperature, and washing the bottle afterwards, etc. At that point, giving breast milk is NOT really more convenient than formula. Maybe they're about the same. 

BUT if they give the baby pumped breast milk, that means *I* need to pump it, and ughhh I don't like pumping. Well, let me clarify: I don't like using my electric pump. At home, I use a haakaa pump at the same time I'm breastfeeding the baby- the haakaa pump works very well for that. The haakaa is great, but it can't trigger a letdown, so it doesn't work for me when I'm not with my baby.

So if we're talking about prioritizing my convenience, then no, I don't want to spend my time pumping and pumping and pumping so that when I'm not there, the baby can always drink breast milk.

(And I've heard some moms talking about "you have to wake up at 2 am and pump" and wow, no, I am so not doing that. Strongly advise against waking up at 2 am to pump! That sounds like the worst!)

So, what works well in terms of my own convenience is that I breastfeed the baby when she is with me. I also pump. I like to use the haakaa pump at home. At work, because I'm away from my baby for the whole day, I have to pump or else my breasts will be in pain. So I have to use my electric pump. But only once a day. That feels reasonable. I don't do it enough to actually pump an amount equal to what the baby drinks. So we also use formula.

Breastfeeding is one of those "mommy wars" things- there are moms claiming that you HAVE to breastfeed, or else you're a bad mom, etc. There is research that says breastfeeding is better for the baby than formula- but a lot of that research is complicated by other factors. Moms who have the time and resources to breastfeed are likely to have more money and education, and their babies do better for those reasons, not really because of the breastfeeding. Personally, I think breastfeeding is better for the baby, but formula is also fine. Either one is fine; don't worry about "not being a good enough mom" or whatever.

And for my second child, what I realized was, the thing that's really important to me is I don't want to be washing bottles all the time. So when I'm with her, I breastfeed, and when I'm not with her, I don't really want to pump (then I have to wash the pump parts!), so, she can have formula then.

So I've discovered that formula is a very useful tool for me, as a mom. It gives me more options. Because I have formula available, I'm able to prioritize the things I want to prioritize. And I don't have to be stressed about pumping.

For my first child, the situation was totally different. The situation was, my mother-in-law was living with us to help take care of the baby, and she was constantly negative about everything I was doing. Even before the baby was born, she was pretty sure that I would "not have enough milk." So one reason that it was so important to me to exclusively breastfeed was so there would be something my baby needed me for, and my mother-in-law wouldn't be able to take over everything.

As I said, I like how having formula available gives me more options. But when my first child was a baby, formula didn't give me more options, because of my mother-in-law. I felt I couldn't allow anyone to give the baby formula, even one time, because once that door was open, I wouldn't be able to stop her from giving him formula any time she wanted. And when the baby drinks formula more, he won't be hungry, so he won't demand breastfeeding from me- and in order to produce a good amount of breast milk, I need the baby to work with me on it, I need the baby to breastfeed. If the baby has formula, in a way that the mom can't control, it will mess up the mom's breastfeeding schedule and milk supply.

I insisted that he couldn't have formula, so then she wouldn't be able to judge me as not being good enough for "not having enough milk." And so she needed to keep coming to me, bringing me the baby, saying he needed me. I was the only one who could feed him.

Every morning before going to work, I made sure to breastfeed him right before I left. Every evening when I came home, I breastfed him right away. At work, I pumped twice a day, spending 30 minutes pumping each time, plus setup and cleanup time. I tried to pump more, at home when I had time, and keep a stash of milk in the freezer. As the baby grew, he drank more, and there were many times I worried there wouldn't be enough milk in the fridge for him when I wasn't there. It was very stressful, pumping twice a day at work, and worrying about if it would be enough... The worst was when I accidentally spilled some of the pumped milk, or when I finished a pumping session and looked in the bottle and saw that the amount collected was much less than normal, for some reason. Then I had to panic and think about when I would possibly have time to pump more. But of course the baby always wanted me to hold him, and my breasts always felt empty from all the pumping and breastfeeding I was already doing- there's just never a good time to add another pumping session. Also if you're stressed, you probably will produce less during the pumping session.

But that wasn't as bad as it would have been if I had let my mother-in-law feed him formula. I had to do all of that. She was trying to take my baby from me.

Now, with my second child, since I'm in charge, I have all the options. I can choose the option that works best for me. With my first child, I did not have all the options. "Breastfeed most of the time, and sometimes give formula to the extent that it makes things easier for me" was not an option, because of my mother-in-law. The best of the available options back then was exclusive breastfeeding.

Also, back then, the advice I heard about breastfeeding was that if your baby has formula at all, you'll get into this vicious cycle where the baby drinks formula, so you breastfeed less, so your breast milk supply decreases, so breastfeeding becomes harder, so you give the baby more formula- and so on until your breast milk dries up completely. I heard a lot about how if you're away from your baby, and the baby drinks a bottle, you have to then pump an amount at least equal to what was in the bottle, otherwise your supply will decrease. 

I've realized, this time with my second child, that I don't need to take those warnings super-literally. I've found it's more like, my milk supply is in a range. On weekends I breastfeed all the time- so on those days, I'm producing more milk. And on work days, I only pump once a day, so that means I'm producing a smaller amount of milk than if I was breastfeeding during the day. (Obviously in the evenings I breastfeed her.) I've found that this doesn't cause any issues. My milk supply spans this range. It's not like "OHHH NOOO if you don't pump the amount that the baby drinks, your milk supply will decrease and decrease and you'll end up quitting breastfeeding!!!!!" And when I had medical problems and couldn't breastfeed for a few days, my supply did decrease, very noticeably. But the baby and I worked at it and we got my supply up to the right level again. It wasn't as dire as you'd think, based on the warnings I'd heard in the breastfeeding groups.

Everyone is different- this is just my experience with breastfeeding. For some people it's easier and for some people it's harder, for various reasons. The important thing is that the mom/ birthing person is the one who makes the decisions about breastfeeding. She needs to be in charge, because it affects her body, not just the baby. For breastfeeding to be successful, your breasts need to be synched with the baby. You can't have other people giving the baby formula at unpredictable times. Then you end up with your breasts being hard and painful, and your supply decreases if the baby isn't drinking it.

I read something on the internet, a while ago, about black women breastfeeding. It said that during slavery, sometimes a black woman would be forced to breastfeed her white master's baby, and then her own baby might die from lack of nutrition. And someone on the internet left a comment saying, "This doesn't make sense- it's totally possible for 1 woman to breastfeed 2 babies. Just because she had to breastfeed another baby doesn't mean her own baby would die."

And, here's the thing: It IS totally possible for 1 woman to breastfeed 2 babies, IF she's allowed to be in charge of it, and she can plan it out, and people give her the support and resources and time that's required to do it. Yes. Totally doable. But if someone is constantly standing over her telling her she's doing everything wrong, then no, she's not going to be able to breastfeed 2 babies. Which was probably the case during slavery.

And what I'm finding now is, I really appreciate having formula available as a tool to help make things easier for me. It's a tool. It's an option. It's a choice. That's what it is to me now, with my second baby. With my first baby, it wasn't like that at all. Formula and breastfeeding were an arena where I had to struggle against my mother-in-law, who was trying to take my baby away from me. It was a way that she could judge me, or that I could prove that the baby needed me. Having formula available didn't give me more options; instead, it introduced the risk that she would feed the baby formula in a way that messed up my whole breastfeeding schedule and milk supply. And I had to fear that.

But now, I'm in charge. And it should be this way. It has to be the mom/ birthing person who's in charge of the decisions about breastfeeding. And the other family members or nanny support her, rather than tell her she's doing everything wrong. I'm glad now formula is simply a useful tool for me- nothing more, nothing less- rather than a weapon to use to fight over the baby.

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Related:

What I Wish I'd Known About Breastfeeding 

A Comprehensive Pro-Choice Ethic

Breastfeeding: Take and Eat; This is My Body

Blogaround

1. 2024 Arrives With A Sudoku Miracle (January 1) 1-hour-54-minute sudoku solve video. Wow, this ruleset is very complicated. I'm super impressed by Simon solving it.

2. If Trump Is Not an Insurrectionist, What Is He? (January 5) "The unspoken assumption behind the idea that Trump should be allowed on the ballot and that the public should have the chance to choose for or against him yet again is that he will respect the voice of the electorate. But we know this isn’t true. It wasn’t true after the 2016 presidential election — when, after winning the Electoral College, he sought to delegitimize the popular vote victory of his opponent as fraud — and it was put into stark relief after the 2020 presidential election."

3. 'Jane Roe' is anonymous no more. The very public fight against abortion bans in 2023 (December 31) "Now, it's different. 'Women and pregnant people in this country are so angry and so shocked at the treatment that they are receiving at the hands of the state that they have been compelled to tell their stories,' she says."

4. UN experts alarmed by Alabama plan to kill prisoner using untried gas method (January 3) [content note: death penalty] "In a joint statement released on Wednesday in Geneva, the four independent UN monitors call on the US government and Alabama to halt the execution scheduled for 25 January. They accuse the state of rushing ahead with an experimental execution technique that could inflict grave suffering on Smith in violation of the international ban on torture."

5. Epiphany: One Of Us (January 7) "And then God Almighty — God who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements when the morning stars sang together, God who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place, God who bound the chains of the Pleiades and loosed the cords of Orion — wept."

6. WHO Guideline for complementary feeding of infants and young children 6-23 months of age (October 16) New guidelines released by the World Health Organization, about how to feed babies, and WOW there are big changes here! This link has the very long report documents, I will try to see if I can find a shorter summary. But just to give you an idea of how big the changes are: They are now saying that babies can start having cow milk rather than formula at 6 months old (used to be 12 months!). Still saying breastfeeding is best, and recommending that you continue to breastfeed until the baby is 2 years old, and beyond, but wow big changes in the guidelines around formula.

7. Changing Course: Why More Chinese Students Are Eyeing Southeast Asia (January 9) "For instance, in Thailand, Chinese students comprised the majority of international students in 2022, with 21,419 enrollments, a 130% increase from 9,329 in 2012."

8. Who Gets to Be a Person? (January 4) [content note: miscarriage] "In pursuing the case, prosecutors deny Watts the full expression of her grief. They deny her the right to feel pain and shock at her miscarriage, to act like a traumatized human being. Even if the grand jury does not indict her, she has experienced hell."

And an update on that: Ohio woman who miscarried at home won’t be charged with corpse abuse, grand jury decides (January 12)

The main thing here is... a miscarriage at 22 weeks, that's horrible. That's devastating, to lose the baby when you're already 22 weeks into the pregnancy. Watts needs compassion and support; she needs to be allowed to grieve, because that's a terrible thing to go through. But instead she was treated like she had done something bad to her baby.

9. More delays for NASA’s astronaut moonshots, with crew landing off until 2026 (January 10)

10. Do pregnant women have a right to urgent medical care? No, according to a US court (January 10) This is just BONKERS. Doesn't the Texas abortion ban supposedly have an exception for "life of the mother"? So why is Texas now arguing that ERs shouldn't be required to do abortions which are necessary to save pregnant people's lives? So that whole "exception for life of the mother" thing was totally fake, then?

11. In Hottest Year On Record, US Cut Carbon Emissions. Good Start! (January 11)

12. China rolls out new measures to facilitate foreigners’ visit to country (January 11) I saw this in the news, but I don't understand what it actually means in practical terms (like, I'm an immigrant in China, is this gonna benefit me?). We'll see.

Blogaround

Loki and Mobius. Image from season 2 episode 2 of "Loki." Image source.

1. Therapist Reacts to WRECK-IT RALPH (September 15) 27-minute video from Cinema Therapy.

2. Our Testers Have Requested This Video! (October 3) "There is more jiggory pokery we can perform here." 1-hour-0-minute sudoku solve video.

And this one: Who Is The REAL "Top G"? (September 30) 1-hour-16-minute sudoku solve video.

3. Second malaria vaccine to win global approval is cheaper and easier to make (October 3, via) [content note: big photo of a mosquito] This is great news!

4. Why mRNA Vaccine Researchers Won the Nobel Prize & Why We Can’t Forget Novavax (October 5) "The takeaway is that mRNA vaccines are incredible technology that not only saved millions of lives but may go on to save millions, or billions more as that technology is applied to other therapies."

5. Eminem - The Monster ft. Rihanna (Audio) (2013) I like this song for ex-evangelical reasons. "You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath."

6. Why some people prefer chestfeeding to breastfeeding – and no, they’re not trying to erase women (September 2) Really cool article that features a trans man who got pregnant, gave birth, and chestfed his child.

7. Homeschooling: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (October 9) 24-minute video from John Oliver.

Blogaround

Anakin and Padme meme. First panel: Anakin says "I'm going to prove 3 * sum from 1 to infinity of 1/(2^2n) = 1". Second panel: Padme says, "Algebraically, right?" Third panel: Anakin looks at her skeptically. Fourth panel: Where the fourth panel would be, it's just the entire image but shrunk down to 1/4 size, and in the 4th panel of the 4th panel, there's the whole image again shrunk down to that size, and so on forever. Image source: Facebook.

1. Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials (2003) "The relevance to parachute use is that individuals jumping from aircraft without the help of a parachute are likely to have a high prevalence of pre-existing psychiatric morbidity. Individuals who use parachutes are likely to have less psychiatric morbidity and may also differ in key demographic factors, such as income and cigarette use. It follows, therefore, that the apparent protective effect of parachutes may be merely an example of the 'healthy cohort' effect."

2. ‘They Aren’t Who You Think They Are’ (2021) [content note: child sexual abuse and coverup] "Nobody resigned as a result of the failure to stop a decade of abuse. There was no disciplinary action against any of Newman’s supervisors, and Joe White is still the head of the camp today."

3. ‘An Evangelical Childhood is a Total Mindfuck’ New Memoir Recounts the Anxiety and Thrills of Growing Up a Conservative Christian (June 18) "I mean, the white evangelical project is wracked by inner anxieties, but [for many] it feels that it would be somehow unholy or unseemly, if not even sinful, to interrogate those inner anxieties."

4. Care Tactics (July) "While Amazon and insurance companies report billions of dollars in revenue, and innovators fantasize about the augmented reality glasses that will 'fix' deafness, caregivers and disabled people are left to crowdsource improvised hacks to navigate a world indifferent—if not outright hostile—to their actual needs and desires."

5. Mary the Tower (July 22) "She went through the whole manuscript of John 11 and John 12, and lo and behold, that editor had gone in at every single place and changed every moment that you read Martha in English, it originally said, 'Mary.'" Wow. If this is true, it's huge.

6. Waste Expert Answers Garbage Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED (April 13) Wow this is really cool and informative! I always feel suspicious about how it's so easy to buy new things- won't all those new things end up being thrown out eventually? Shouldn't society be taking that into consideration and treating it as the responsibility of the manufacturers? Everyone is focused on the new things, but nobody is talking about the old things being thrown away- but in the long run, those two things will be equal, so it seems like something is wrong here...?

7. My Journey From Concerned Parent to LGBT Ally (August 3) Good article about a Chinese mom of a gay son. There are ways that queerness intersects with Chinese culture differently than how it intersects with western culture. For example, in every culture it's hard to come out to one's parents, but in China it's harder because of how much one's behavior/success/failures is seen as representative of the entire family. And because of the one-child policy, there's so much pressure for the kid to be everything that the parents want them to be, because the parents just have the 1 kid.

8. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lands in Taiwan amid threats of Chinese retaliation (August 2) Yeah this is worrisome.

9. World Breastfeeding Week. The theme for World Breastfeeding Week 2022 is "Step Up," meaning that society (governments, companies, etc) have to step up in support of breastfeeding. I love this, because usually when people talk about breastfeeding, it's seen as just an individual choice and then people argue about whether or not it indicates if you're a "good enough" mom or whatever. This is all kinds of wrong, because the systems aren't in place to provide new moms with the resources and education they need to actually be successful at breastfeeding. (And what's even more ridiculous is people who say "breastfeeding is free!" like omg, it is very much NOT free- you either have to quit your job, or buy a bunch of pumping equipment and hope you're lucky enough to have a job that provides break time and a a good private space with a table, chair, and outlet so you can pump, and also a fridge. Like what on earth is this nonsense about "breastfeeding is free"?) 

Society does NOT give moms the support they need, and then says "oh it's okay if you use formula, it doesn't mean you're a bad mom." That's not good enough.

(Btw I exclusively breastfed my son and I have Some Opinions about it.)

10. Stunning Kansas vote shows just how badly the Right has overplayed its hand (August 5) "It’s middle America Kansas, reliably red Kansas, that delivered a breathtaking rebuke to a ballot effort that would have allowed legislators to ban abortion in the state."

11. Carbon12 – The new reserve currency for Christians (August 4) Oh this is 100% a scam.

Top 15 posts from 2020

A computer with the word "BLOG" displayed on the screen. Image source.

Hi readers! Here's a roundup of my most read/ favorite posts from 2020. This year 2 of the big themes on the blog were COVID-19 and the birth of my little son. 

I am in China (have been in China for the entire pandemic), so I experienced all the lockdowns and panicking about a month earlier than most of my readers. Then after 2-3 months we were more or less "back to normal", except we have to wear masks, and can't travel. (It's been a very different story in the US...) 

And I announced the birth of my son! He is amazing and perfect. So I've had a lot to say on the blog about pregnancy and babies and being a mom.

Anyway here are the top 6 posts with the most page views:

1. The Babylon Bee Completely Misunderstands Boundaries. I Am Shocked. (note: not actually shocked) "The Babylon Bee is trash."

2. An Invisible Virus and an Omniscient God "In particular, why aren't Christians in the United States using 'discernment' to make up for the lack of COVID-19 testing? Surely in the US there exist some Christians who are close enough to God that they're that good at 'discernment'... right?"

3. What Pregnancy Taught Me About Being Pro-Choice "Now I know how hard pregnancy is, and I understand the importance of 'my body, my choice' in a way I never did before."

4. Bathsheba's Son "Bathsheba spent 9 months nurturing and loving the child that grew inside her body. David spent 9 months covering up a rape and a murder."

5. Dance, Those Who Dance Upon Injustice "Someday we will tell our children about how people danced in the streets after the 2020 election."

6. Welcome Baby Square Root! 

And here are some other good posts I wrote:

1. What I Wish I'd Known About Breastfeeding "Because I now see that there are lots of good reasons [to give formula]. But 'the mom is right here and wants to breastfeed the baby, but her husband's family is telling her 'no, you can't, you don't have enough milk'' is NOT one of them. That's effed-up."

2. I'm SO HAPPY I Won't Be Praying During Childbirth "What if something went wrong, and I thought it was my fault because I didn't pray the right way?"

3. Yes, I Want Justice (A post about white evangelicals and #BlackLivesMatter) "In this ideology, the idea of 'helping the victims' makes no sense- the so-called victims are sinners too and deserve to go to hell just as much as those who hurt them."

4. Breastfeeding: Take and Eat; This is My Body "It's interesting to me that, from a cis man's perspective, language about eating another person's body and shedding blood is about violence and murder and death. Not the case for me. I have a uterus; I use my body to create a new life. I bled for him. I nurse him from my own breasts."

5. An Update on Whether or Not "Marriage is Hard" Now That We Have a Child "Having a newborn child (and my mother-in-law living with us) brought a lot of stress and conflict into our relationship for about 3 months, but that's a completely different thing than saying 'marriage is hard.'"

6. China Bans Foreigners (Like Me) From Entering the Country "This isn't like the travel bans in other countries, affecting tourists and business travelers. This affects long-term residents who uprooted their whole lives a month ago because of the virus, and were prepared to spend 14 days in quarantine in order to come back."

7. When the Teacher Says, "Don't Look at Your Report Card" "I thought there were things about myself that I shouldn't know, but that other people- people more qualified than me- should know. That's bullshit."

8. Homesick "The short version is, I'm ready to be done living in China, right when the US is ... how shall I put this ... not livable."

9. Taking My Kid To Church (Blog Series) "In other words, I don't want to approach this from the negative side, 'warning' him about religion. I want to teach him positive things about morality."

Thanks again to all my readers! I really love writing the blog and I love when people write to me to say they can relate to it and my posts are helpful for them. <3

Also I have a Patreon! A big thank-you to my Patreon supporters- it really does make a big difference. If you enjoy the blog, maybe consider supporting me on Patreon sometime in the next year.

So, what are my plans for the blog in 2021? Well, in general I have been posting way less than I want to, because of my high-maintenance child (okay, I guess all toddlers are high-maintenance) and my mother-in-law who is always here judging me. There are so many things I want to blog about. Lots of draft posts and partial ideas. It will all get posted eventually.

There will be a big post on asexuality sometime in the next few weeks. :) I've got it almost 100% finished, so I feel confident about promising it to you all. Stay tuned.

Anyway, thanks so much, and looking forward to lots more blogging in the future~

What I Wish I'd Known About Breastfeeding

Exasperated little blonde girl meme, with the text: "How much milk does your baby drink? Idk a boobfull?" Image source.

I have a baby now, and for the first 6 months of his life, before he started eating solid food, I exclusively breastfed him. I'm really happy with it; turns out I really love breastfeeding.

But in the beginning, there were definitely things that I had a messed-up perspective on. So I'm writing this post about it.

So, some background about my views on breastfeeding, before I got pregnant:

• My mom breastfed me and my siblings, so I always believed that's what you "should" do, and that's what I wanted to do for my hypothetical future babies. 
• However, whenever I read an article that mentioned breastfeeding, it was always about "hey don't shame moms who feed their baby formula, it's so terrible how we're making women compete with each other and feel like they're not good enough moms, don't say 'breast is best' because there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU if you feed your baby formula, you are NOT a failure" and "breastfeeding is SO HARD, physically and emotionally."

So overall, I wanted to breastfeed my baby, but felt extremely skittish about "shaming" the idea of giving a baby formula. 

When I was pregnant, sometimes friends asked me "are you going to breastfeed?" and I answered "I hope I can." Because I thought, even though I really want to exclusively breastfeed, well, everyone keeps saying how breastfeeding is "so hard," so ... well maybe I just can't.

"I hope I can." Fully open to the possibility that, hey, maybe I just can't, and oh well, then I'll give the baby formula. I now see that this "I hope I can" attitude was all kinds of wrong. Believing that it was all out of my control and hey, if it didn't work out, well, *shrug*. No. Instead of "I hope I can", I should have been educating myself about how to breastfeed successfully.

(Really, it reminds me a lot of how, when I started studying Chinese, everyone was like "learning Chinese is SO HARD" and so I actually literally believed that maybe, as a white person, I'd just never be able to, no matter how hard I worked. Maybe I "just can't." Umm, spoiler: I am fluent in Chinese now.)

During the pregnancy, I read the book "What to Expect When You're Expecting" [affiliate link] (which was very useful for me, but I'll warn you that it's extremely heteronormative and cisnormative). It had a lot of information about how breastfeeding is the best source of nutrition for babies, how it's good for their immune system, and gives all kind of other benefits. About studies that showed breastfed babies went on to live healthier lives than formula-fed babies.

And I was very surprised. I didn't know that before- I thought it was the same. I thought with modern technology, surely we've developed baby formula that's just as good as breast milk. Well, no, we haven't. (And after Square Root was born, I learned a lot more about the differences between formula-fed and breastfed babies- for a lot of our "what's normal" questions, there are actually 2 different answers: what's normal for breastfed babies and what's normal for formula-fed babies. About their poop- what it looks like, how often. About how often they eat. About weight gain. About whether or not they are likely to be constipated, or overfed. It's like there are 2 different types of babies. No, formula is not "the same" at all- formula is not as good for babies as breast milk.)

I'd read articles about "hey don't shame moms who don't breastfeed" so I thought it didn't matter one way or the other. But I don't want to get up and wash bottles in the middle of the night, so I hope I can breastfeed.

Yeah, I literally didn't know breastfeeding was way better for baby's health than formula-feeding. I'd heard too much rhetoric about "it's okay to not breastfeed, you're not a bad mom", so I thought it was the same.

Perhaps this is a more accurate way of putting it: If your only consideration is what the baby eats, then breast milk is SO MUCH better than formula. Formula is fine, but breast milk is just WAY BETTER. But there are other factors that should be considered too: like mom's mental health. If breastfeeding and pumping is taking a huge toll on you, that matters, and maybe it would be good to give your baby formula instead. And also: mom's pumping schedule. If you have to go to work, and your job doesn't allow you to take breaks and pump milk, then the breastfeeding is just not going to work. You can't make enough milk to exclusively breastfeed, while also going 8+ hours without getting the milk out. Your boobs will be giant and hard as rocks, oww. If you're in that situation, breastfeeding is just not workable. Don't feel bad about that; formula is fine.

Anyway, back to me when I was pregnant. Friends and family recommended that if I wanted to breastfeed, I should go to a class on it, or go to La Leche League meetings, or join social media groups where people discussed breastfeeding. I was like "Why? Like, what's there to learn, doesn't the baby just suck your boob? Seems pretty straightforward... how can there be a whole class on it?" But people told me, no actually it's not that straightforward. Sometimes there are problems. You have to learn how to do it, it doesn't *just happen*.

So I did. I read a lot of articles about how to have a successful breastfeeding relationship, and I joined a social media support group for breastfeeding. I'm so glad I did. I learned about how to teach your boobs how much milk to make. I learned about how you shouldn't pump until your baby is maybe 4-6 weeks old, because you want to establish your supply before you start pumping. I learned that a lot of people worry their baby isn't eating enough- because you can't see how much the baby is eating- but actually a lot of the signs that make people worry are completely normal and do NOT mean you have to give your baby formula. I learned about blocked ducts and mastitis and how to avoid them. I learned about a lot of the common misconceptions about breastfeeding.

So basically I knew what I'd do once the baby was born.

My husband, on the other hand... So when we were putting together our list of things to buy to get ready for the baby, my husband (Hendrix) said we should buy a can of formula, "as a backup." And I was concerned- if we have formula, then are people going to try to pressure me to give it to the baby, so we "don't waste it" or some nonsense like that? Hendrix reassured me that that wouldn't happen. So we bought the formula.

At our prenatal appointments, the nurses told us "Our hospital supports breastfeeding, so we don't provide formula. If you want to give your baby formula, you have to bring your own." I'm very glad I gave birth at a hospital that explicitly supports breastfeeding; apparently in China a lot of hospitals pressure you to give your baby formula. Which I think has a lot to do with formula companies trying to make money.

The issue, though, was that I was coming from a background of "breastfeeding is normal, and I've done a lot of reading and I know what I need to do in order to make breastfeeding work" but Hendrix and his mom (who lives with us) were coming from a background of "giving the baby formula is normal, of course you need to have formula as a backup in case the mom doesn't have enough milk." It was like my mother-in-law 100% expected that I wouldn't "have enough milk" and we would give the baby formula. (Apparently this "you don't have enough milk" is an extremely common misconception in China- the reality is that it's extremely rare that you're just biologically unable to produce enough milk.)

So we packed up our hospital bag, and Hendrix said we have to bring the can of formula. I was uneasy about that, but we brought it "as a backup." And looking back on it now, I wish I had communicated with my husband better about this.

Fast-forward to the day the baby was born. I breastfed him immediately after he popped out and the nurses wiped him off and weighed him. And that day, I breastfed him a bunch of times, and it went well.

And then that night, he was crying and he wouldn't sleep. And my mother-in-law was saying he's hungry and I don't have enough milk, and my husband was worried and wanted to give him formula, and I said no. I said no, but I felt so scared and weak. I'd just given birth 24 hours before and I couldn't even stand up without help. And everyone was speaking Chinese- and I can speak Chinese, but not about something as complicated as this... and I didn't even know what to say anyway. Just thinking that if we give him formula now, that means we're giving up on the whole breastfeeding thing, giving up on it so fast. I wanted to breastfeed until the baby is at least 1 year old, and we're just gonna give up on it now, 1 day in, because I'm too weak to stop it. I know what to do, I did the research and my husband and mother-in-law didn't, but here we are at 2 am and they just keep telling me "he's hungry" and I don't know what to say.

All I could do was tell my husband "this is really important to me." And keep trying to feed the baby, keep putting him on my boobs and hope something was coming out. And eventually the baby fell asleep, and we got through the night. Without giving him formula.

Looking back on it now, I wish I had discussed this with my husband more beforehand. Not just "I want to breastfeed" because we did discuss that- but "we need to do x, y, and z, and here are the reasons why." I now see that it wasn't enough that I knew what to do- I needed to make sure my husband knew too. Because he loves the baby too, and if he thought the baby was hungry and needed it, it's understandable that he might have fought me and insisted on giving our baby formula, and unknowingly screwed up my milk supply. (Like, it's not the end of the world if you give the baby formula at the beginning- you can still exclusively breastfeed, but it's harder; you've dug yourself into a hole.)

When you give birth, you NEED to have someone with you who knows what you want and fully supports you. Your partner, a family member, a doula, someone. Someone who can stand up for you, because you'll be in pain and full of hormones, and you might not be able to stand up for yourself.

I wish I had thought more about the reasons that one might choose to give their baby formula. Because I now see that there are lots of good reasons. But "the mom is right here and wants to breastfeed the baby, but her husband's family is telling her 'no, you can't, you don't have enough milk'" is NOT one of them. That's effed-up. And I still feel bad about having been in that situation, even though in the end I "won." And I feel bad thinking about other moms who did get pressured into giving their baby formula when that's not what they wanted.

And I wish I could have viewed the formula as a tool that is possibly useful to me in some situations. But I didn't- I just had this very emotional "formula is bad" feeling about it. But now I see that formula could have been a very useful tool for me, for situations where I had to go out and leave the baby with my mother-in-law, and there wasn't enough pumped breast milk in the fridge. See, that's what we should have used the formula can for. As a backup for if I'm PHYSICALLY NOT THERE and baby needs to eat.

After that first night, though, things have gone very well with the breastfeeding. I love it because it's such a beautiful, loving bond with my baby, and it's so convenient. (I don't like pumping milk at work though... that's a pain, but I have to do it.)

We do a disservice by putting so much emphasis on "you're not a failure if you give your baby formula" without also providing the education and support that is needed to successfully breastfeed. I wish people could just see it for what it is: here are the advantages, here is the work you have to do, here are the things you'll need to buy, here is the knowledge you need for if you run into problems. (And same for formula-feeding or mixed-feeding: here are the advantages, here is the work you have to do, etc.) But there's this fear that the entire topic of breastfeeding is so emotionally-charged and tied to people's identity of being a "good mom", so we can't discuss it in an objective, informative way.

Let me sum it up like this: If you're pregnant and you're wondering if you'll breastfeed or not, first of all, know that it is your decision and it is a very personal decision. Next, I strongly recommend you research the options- exclusive breastfeeding, formula, or mixed-feeding. Learn about how they each work in practical terms and how much work each of them would end up being for you. Learn about the benefits of breastfeeding for the baby's health. Decide what you want to do- and if you want to exclusively breastfeed, don't phrase it like "I hope I can, but eh I understand if it doesn't work out". No, that's ridiculous to have that kind of defeatist attitude when your baby isn't even born yet. Do your research, arm yourself with information, communicate with your partner, and be confident.

---------------------

Related:

Breastfeeding: Take and Eat; This is My Body 

Breastfeeding resources:

Kelly Mom 

La Leche League

Breastfeeding: Take and Eat; This is My Body

Artwork showing a woman breastfeeding a baby. Image source.

I find myself following Jesus' example as I breastfeed my child. Feeding this baby from my own body; in a sense, saying to him, "Take and eat; this is my body."

For the first few months of his life, he's totally dependent on my breast milk for all of his nutrition. And the results are astonishing- this baby grows so fast! He's growing and thriving and wiggling around everywhere, getting stronger and stronger, and it's all because I am feeding him from my own body.

He needs me.

And I need him too. If I don't feed him or pump for 4 or 5 hours, then my breasts get all hard and painful, and all I can think is I need to get home and feed my baby. I want to feed him so bad. He needs me and I need him.

Breast milk is the only thing that "wants" to be eaten. For other foods, we're taking something whose original purpose was to be a useful part of a plant or animal, and repurposing it as food for ourselves. (Even for something like a fruit that "wants" animals to eat it and spread its seeds, the fruit doesn't "care" about being healthy and nutritious for the animal that eats it.) And so, the normal foods we eat can be difficult to digest, and there is waste. Not so with breast milk- it is optimized for one purpose only: to be the best and most nutritious food for a growing baby. It's extremely easy for babies to digest it and then poop. It's almost impossible for breastfed babies to be constipated. And their poop is very different from formula-fed babies' poop.

Breastfeeding literally says "take and eat, this is my body" in a way that nothing else can.

And during pregnancy I could say "This is my body, broken for you." I certainly felt broken. Nausea, throwing up, heartburn, exhaustion, weird pains as the baby grows bigger and bigger and pushes up all my organs. Pregnancy is about giving up my body for another person. Like what Jesus said, except he was talking about violence and death. In my case, though, it's about creating new life.

How about the "this is my blood, shed for you" part? Well. WELL. Did you know that right after you give birth, you have THE BIGGEST PERIOD OF YOUR LIFE? It's called lochia and can last for several weeks. For the first few days at least, there's so much blood, it's soaking through giant pads. I needed to do that as part of giving life to my baby.

And now I feed him from my own body, like Jesus did.

It's beautiful and it's a special bond between me and my child, but it can also be mundane and annoying. When baby goes through a growth spurt and wants to eat CONSTANTLY. When it's the middle of the night and I just wish he would GO TO SLEEP. When he's crying in his car seat and I'm trying to figure out if I can lean over far enough that he can reach my boob.

Day in and day out, feeding my child from my body.

It's interesting to me that, from a cis man's perspective, language about eating another person's body and shedding blood is about violence and murder and death. Not the case for me. I have a uterus; I use my body to create a new life. I bled for him. I nurse him from my own breasts.

Feeding my baby, every day. In doing this, I proclaim the Lord's life and resurrection until She comes again.

------------

[Please note that this is a symbol and a metaphor. This is not some kind of command, like "if you have a uterus then you HAVE TO get pregnant and have a baby and breastfeed." That would be quite ridiculous, to take what I've written here and misinterpret it to say I'm trying to tell everyone what to do. That would be as ridiculous as reading a beautiful bit of poetry that says "you knit me together in my mother's womb" and claiming it means no one is allowed to ever have an abortion. Or something silly like that.]