#abbiefest

[nothingwithoutacompany]

We really killed the game this year, y'all 💪 Each day we will be reminiscing about our #accomplishments of 2016. Like when we performed in the LAST #AbbieFest ever in September! Thank you @maryarrchie, we ❤️ you! Stays tuned for more posts on our radial year 🌈 #throwback #2016 #chicago #chicagotheatre

[secret-tiny-cities]

Ruminations on Breastfeeding, including a Demonstration of an Electric Breastpump, Anecdotes, and Free Samples

(The Last Abbiefest, August 2016. Jason Weinberg helps me find a chair and a table, and a music stand. I set down my pump bag and the cooler, put my papers on the music stand, and begin.)

Hi, my name is Jessica Buha, and I am going to talk about on breastfeeding. The way the next twenty minutes'll work is I'll give some background, then I'll explain the breastpump, then I'll pump, and then we'll have samples. The samples will be in cups, not straight from the boob. There's a reason why, which I'll explain in a bit.

So breastfeeding. To breastfeed a baby, you first need a breast. Like this one.

(I take the left boob out, and use it as a boob puppet.)

“Hi, I'm a boob!”

When my son was younger, I used to use the boobs as little puppets. “Hi, Miles! I'm a boobie! Drink me!”

(I put away the left boob.)

This might seem weird, the need to make little boob puppets. But the thing is that breastfeeding is very very difficult. Which I feel like is kinda this big weird secret—I certainly didn't know.

When I was pregnant, I was Facebook chatting with a high school friend of mine and she was like, “yah, I didn't breastfeed because it wasn't right for my family,” and I'm like, “oh.” It was as though she was like, My kid sleeps outside with the wolves because it's just not right for our family having her sleep inside.”

That might seem extreme, but I had just taken a breastfeeding class, and they said that you NEED to breastfeed until the baby is one year old—this is according to the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics and basically everyone on Earth, because breastmilk is nature's “perfect food.”

It really is incredibly amazing stuff. It will change and grow with your baby—as the baby grows, the milk changes to be the perfect food for that specific stage of your baby's life. And if you catch a cold, then the baby can get all those lovely antibodies, and he'll get sick less. And when you actually nurse your baby, the milk changes—the first half is thinner and more sugary, and the second half is super-fatty so it puts the baby to sleep.

And the best part is that you will never run out of this magical food. Ever. See, the boobs are like a factory that makes sprockets. And when a baby sucks on your boob, he's not emptying the boob. It's like he's placing an order at the factory. He's triggering the factory to make more sprockets. So the more the baby eats, the more milk you produce.

“Nature's perfect food.” Breatsmilk truly amazing stuff.

If your boobs work, which mine didn't, at first.

See, when your baby is first born, your boobs secrete this thick, yellow substance--

(The audience has an unexpectedly strong reaction.)

--colostrum. No, it's really amazing stuff. It's referred to as “liquid gold.” It's the magical, super-concentrated, even-more-amazing-than-breastmilk super-food that your baby needs when he's first born.

I never produced this. But I wasn't worried.

And then, around two to four days after birth, your milk will come in. And your boobs will get large and heavy with milk—almost painfully full, which to me was infuriating, like your pockets being PAINFULLY full of money.

Because my boobs did not get painfully full. They didn't feel full at all. I wasn't worried about this, either.

Because denial is a deep and intoxicating fog.

So, when you breastfeed a baby, you're supposed to feed him eight times a day. “Eight times a day,” or else your milk will dry up. So you're supposed to keep a log where you write down the times you feed him, so you know if you're feeding him enough.

My husband and I kept a log, so I have the times that we fed him on our first night home from the hospital, when he was juuuust under three days old.

I fed Miles at 8:06 pm for half an hour. Then I fed him again at 10:30 for half an hour, then at 11:20 for half an hour, then at 12:34 and 1:11 and 1:56 and 2:15 and at that point, it was pretty clear that I was completely dry.

Which the books and the classes and everyone said would never happen. You would never go completely dry, because a factory would never run out of sprockets. They're constantly coming off the assembly line. Right? You will always be able to squeeze a little bit of breastmillk out, like this, here, watch—

(I take out the left boob and a glass saucepan lid, hold the lid two feet from my boob, and squeeze some milk onto the saucepan lid.)

But I couldn't. Not a drop.

And the breastfeeding classes and all the books said to throw away all those evil, nasty, formula samples you might have gotten in the mail, so you wouldn't be tempted to use them in the middle of the night.

So my baby was hungry and crying and I didn't have anything to feed him.

So I just rocked him. My husband fed me water with a straw. According to the log, I put him on the boobs again at 3:15, and then he finally fell asleep around four AM.

Then he woke up again at 5:15, screaming and hungry.

So we go to the pediatrician for his three-day-old appointment and she weighs him and frowns and tells us to come back in two days for a “weight check” (where she weighs him and frowns) so we come back aGAIN for the third time in five days and our pediatrician's like, “okay, this experiment isn't working. You need to start offering him formula after every breastfeeding session.”

I guess my factory was one of those artisanal ones that handforged all of their sprockets out of iron that they had personally dug out of the ground.  

I have low milk production. This is a medical thing. But it's not seen as being a medical thing. Everyone thought I was being lazy.

Everyone. Other moms. Friends of mine. The universe. Every single person on this planet thought I didn't care about my son.

Or just me. Mostly me. I thought I was being lazy. And I was so mad at myself.

But you can't be mad at yourself when you're breastfeeding. You can't be anxious or upset, because then your milk won't come out.

That's the cruel little truth about breastfeeding. You have to be calm and confident, or the milk won't flow. And if the milk doesn't flow, then it'll eventually disappear—and not eventually, like, a month. Eventually like two days. The factory will close up shop and then you'll never get that imaginary gold star from the World Health Organization for breastfeeding for a whole year. And then where will you be?

So this is what I did. I knew that the anxiety would stop if I could just produce some milk—if I could just convince the factory that I needed sprockets, and I needed them now, so get off your asses and start making them—

So, in order to sufficiently stimulate my milk production, I took a month where I breastfed for ten hours a day.

This is what I did.

First, I'd attempt to nurse him for half an hour.

I'd get a pillow—just use an everyday pillow you use to sleep on, do NOT use a Boppy pillow, they're too skinny and you spend the whole time trying to make sure your baby doesn't roll off of it—and I'd lay him down and tickle his nose with my nipple—this is what they tell you to do; a lot of the advice is about how to convince your baby to latch onto the boob, which was not a problem with me. Miles loved the boob, when I'd pull it out and say, “Hi, Miles, I'm a boob.” he would let out a small cry of joy. Then he'd suck for a moment, spit it out, and scream. There was no milk.

So I'd try to sing to him while offering him other boob, and so he'd try again and spit it out again and scream again, so I'd offer him the first boob and so on...

And then eventually he'd just give up and start to cry and then we're both crying,

And it was just really... intense.

But I'd offer him the boob for half an hour. I'd time myself.

Then I'd go make some formula and feed it to him in a bottle, which he would gobble down. That took around fifteen minutes.

Then I'd rock him to sleep, put him to bed, get out all my pump stuff, and pump for fifteen minutes. Because the boob is like a factory, remember? The only way it's making more milk is if it thinks the baby needs it.

So my boobs would be Extra-Stimulated to make All of the Milk.

I did this eight times a day. For a month.

And it worked.

But not everyone can spend ten hours a day doing nothing but breastfeeding.  So maybe don't judge people who don't do it.

Was it worth it? I will say this about thing about breastfeeding. Once it's established, it's pretty amazing. It's a built-in time of rest during the day, which you will desperately need at nine-and-a-half months when the baby spends most of the day screaming at you and roaming around the house trying to fuck up as much shit as possible.

SO, let's get into the breast pump.

I will say that breast pump is weird. It's pretty weird. Just going to warn you. Visually odd. But it is so useful. So useful. If I had a sidekick, like in a video game, it'd be my breast pump.

Honestly, I cannot recommend an electric breast pump enough. Do not get a manual one. They are worthless. I have one. They are worthless. I know they are less, like, weird. But just do not even bother.

Get an electric pump. Get one, get one, get one. If you are interested in breastfeeding, get an electric pump and an old sports bra. Your insurance will likely cover the cost of the pump. Mine did not. So my cousin gave me one of hers.

But once you have a breast pump, your whole world opens up. If you have a breast pump, you can go to rehearsal for three hours or go see the new Star Wars movie, and someone else can stay home wth the baby and feed him a bottle. and then you can stand in the bathroom stall and pump for fifteen minutes and you won't lose your milk and everything is glorious.

Here's how it works.

(I take my modified sports bra and all the pump pieces out of my bag and start to assemble the breastpump.)

First, we get all the shit together. Valves go here, the little cup things go here. This screws onto here.

Next, put on the sports bra. THIS IS KEY. Just take any old sports bra and make dots where your nipples are and cut slits in it—and then you might cut the slits a little too big and have to resew it up Frankenstein-style, but that's fine—because then you can check your email or read or drive to rehearsal or do whatever it is you're doing.

So, put the nipples through here—hi, nipples!--then put the flanges through here. Perfect.

(I show the audience the completed breastpump. It is visually odd. The audience is quiet.)

So the reason why you have to sample breastmilk from a cup and not right from the boobie is because it probably wouldn't come out if you tried to suck. Like I said, breastmilk is a finicky thing, and in order for it to flow, you have to be relaxed, and calm, and thinking about your baby. I guess it's kinda like peeing in public? Not a very good example.

And if I can't pump any out because I'm too nervous or  just cause the milk just isn't there—which happens about half the time, even when I'm pumping at home under Optimal Circumstances—if that happens, then I have THIS milk that I pumped last night after an evening of drinking. I can't feed it to Miles because it's too boozy, so here you all go.

But. Let's see if I can pump some out. I have two techniques that I use. One is visualizing water flowing, and one is visualizing my baby. We will try both.

So we turn it on, and there are two dials, one controlling the speed of the suck, and one controlling the force of the suck. When you first start, you want the speed of the suck to be as fast as possible. Then, once the milk starts to come, you can turn it down.

Okay. I'm setting my alarm for ten minutes.

(I set my iphone for ten minutes.)

There might be a shivering thing that happens. That's a good sign. It means the milk's sloooowly started to travel down the pipes towards the nipples. Hopefully that will happen at some point.

All right. Let's think about water.

I think of rushing water, of brooks, of places with bridges where the water swirls and the grass bends with the ripples, curling over the rocks, cold on my feet, the stones tickle the swirls on the pads of my toes. The stream talks to the blood in my veins, I let it wash over and through me, a portion of me getting carried away, the things that need to move on, the dead skin cells, the worries, the loose strands of hair all flowing to another destination. Twisted into a nest by a fish, poking the clear strands around the hole where the fish eggs peek out. Each swimming.  Each tiny dark tail flickering.

I think of Miles sucking, his damp forehead, his fingers on the skin of my breast, latching on, sucking. I think of rocking him, of snuggling, of his head on my shoulder with a quilt wrapped around us.

I think of the top of a mountain in early spring. Everything icy, then the water shooting through. Cracking the ice, flowing, flowing, flowing. Down the rocks, flowing. Making everything wet and green. The water runs over the stones. It is flowing. Flowing.

I believe in my milk. I believe in rivers with silver boats and and soda cans rippling behind the canoe and little boys with gold hair like the sea and eyes like the forest peering into the water, seeing the stones at the bottom. Wanting to swim, wanting to be near me.

When I finally hear the drips of my milk in the bottle, it is rain outside my window when the ground is cracked outside.

In my next life, I'll be a fountain. A house with copper veins and a sturdy roof, stars overhead, grass and trees outside the window. Enough beds for all the children to come home to, and their children's children. I stretch the rooms. I widen my arms to embrace them all.

All right. Let me tell you about my son.

His name is Miles. When he laughs, it sounds like birds. His warm weight in my arms is a wonderful thing. His heart against my heart.

That is what Miles is like when he latches on. A sigh, openmouthed, as he reaches under my shoulderblade with one small hand, and grasps the edge with the other.

When I nurse him, I hold him very close in my arms, and he plays gently with the straps of my tanktop, and he's quiet and beautiful. Rhythmic sucking, the same one-two-one-two as a heartbeat. Life.

It feels gentle. It feels like holding hands.

I have time to look at his hair. My son has hair like the ocean at sunset, curling, golden waves.

I have time to look at his eyes, if he's not asleep, if he's just quietly staring off into space, thinking about the womb. His eyes look like the forest at sunrise. Brown like treetrunks, green like moss, grey like the lightening sky.

And if he's asleep, I can look at his eyelashes, which are very long and beautiful.

It's really lovely.

(I check the timer. If there is still time, I read the below piece.)

I wrote this piece when I was breastfeeding him the other day.

“When I hold him I say I love you I love you over and over again so he’ll remember when he’s old

I love my son.  We are sitting in the nursery, he’s on the green pillow across my lap, nose against the skin of my breast, eyes closed, breathing, the gentle tug tug tug that shows he’s not asleep.

I wish we were in England in the twenties in a little cottage in a garden, me always always always striking a match on the black hob of the stove, him drinking tea and swinging his scuffed leather shoes. The rain coming down outside. Us taking a walk the next morning, the world sparkling with sunlight and full of water. The air moist and warm like the womb. Turning over leaves to look for caterpillars. Holding his soft, tiny hand, which now clutches mine, now shakes it free to run over the bright grass. Shoes turning a deep brown from the dew. Eyes wide, fern-like, blooming. His polished-copper hair in the sunlight. My angel man.

Then the war, of course. You forget about the war. You have to.

I would never have let him go. I would make plans to take him to Canada and coal stoves and frozen fingertips in June and a vast wide loneliness. He would have left the night before, throwing his knapsack over the garden wall and crawling after it, note folded on that same scrubbed kitchen table in his longhand. Dispatch papers in his breastpocket. Walking quickly over the cobblestones under the grey stars, past the roses of his childhood, nodding in the black wind before dawn. To the recruitment office, to the bunker, to the submarine humming with electricity and pulsing lights. Laying on his creaking mattress, hearing the snores all around him, thinking of the songs I sang to him in the womb.

When it was just him and me together.  Safe.”

(I check the timer. If there is still time, I read the below piece.)

I wrote this piece when I was pumping the other day.

“I am thinking of my son and how he looks in the morning when everyone is asleep but us, and how his hand curls around my finger and he sighs and sucks with closed eyes. How he sighs like a man coming home from a business trip, setting down his bags in the white foyer of his house, the grass outside new and shining with morning dew, the cab driver's engine growing distant. He hears his sleeping family upstairs, his wife, his children. And he sets down his bags softly and sighs.

He goes into the kitchen. Everything there, the milk in glass bottles, the calendar with pictures of cows. In the backyard, the trees grow. The flowers grow. The clothesline hangs bare. Everything in its place. Everything waiting for him.

He goes upstairs and stands in the doorway of his children's bedrooms and puts his ear to the crack. He doesn't hear anything, and has a flash of panic—but then he remembers that it's always that way. He listens longer, and hears the rush and release of those precious lungs. Growing like flowers. “

(I turn the timer off and unscrew the bottles of milk.)

Okay, let's see what we got.

(I was able to pump half an ounce, which I was pretty pleased by—I will occasionally only pump a few milliliters. I poured the freshly-pumped milk and the boozy-pumped milk into shot glasses, and invited the audience to come up to taste it. Six or so people came up onstage to try some. “It's really sugary!” said one.)

[nothingwithoutacompany]

Happy Abbie Fest BQQ DAY! Co-Artistic Director 🌈@annaroseiiepstein and Artistic Director at Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. Richard Cotovsky are enjoying the nice day. 😎 See you at #thedentheatre next week Friday 7:30pm! 🎭 💘 #newwork #abbiefest #chicagotheatre #maryarrchietheatre (at Chicago, Illinois)

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4:16 AM at Abbie Fest y'all. #bitchjam #abbiefest (at Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co.)