My hands were a mess from constantly washing bottles. I'd pump while Adam gave Bettie a bottle.
I remember one night when we were both utterly exhausted. It was around 5am. I was hooked to the pump and Bettie needed a diaper. Adam took her to the changing table, took her diaper off and she peed all over the place. I (inappropriately, he would argue) started to laugh. Adam got really upset and very petulantly said: you did that on purpose! That made me laugh even harder. He finally saw the humor in telling a several weeks old baby that she was consciously holding on to pee so she could nail him as soon as the defenses were down.
Every time Bettie seemed interested, I'd put her to the breast. Every time I was met by excruciating, toe curling pain. I started to read message boards about EP, exclusively pumping and started feeling resigned to my fate. I held her skin to skin quite a bit. It calmed both of us down and she'd often fall asleep.
I started pumping more than Bettie was eating, so I began stockpiling milk in the freezer. Our freezer isn't very big, and space became an issue. We bought a very small deep freezer to store the stash. I kept telling myself that the upside was that I wouldn't have to pump much once I returned to work.
On February 9th, 2009, two days after her due date, she started rooting around on my chest. I put her to the breast. It didn't hurt and I started to cry. Adam ran over to me, looked a little dejected and asked: It still hurts? I said: No...it's just the most beautiful thing I've ever experienced!
