From:<snipped>
Subject:re:  advice you requested
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 7:29 AM

Thank you for responding so quickly!  I have been so worried because I
thought I was doing things right, and then with such confusing information I
wasn't sure.  Thank you for sending me the book.  Yes I do I have a computer
at home and I was able to open it just fine after downloading the adobe
reader.  Here's the answers to the questions.


 <<Just to be safe here's some questions that I would like you to answer just
to be sure there isn't a problem:
 How often does your baby nurse and for how many minutes each time?>>
  About 8 times per day on occasion 9.  Usually for about 6-7 minutes per
side - but she REALLY enjoys suckling.  My breasts are usually emptied at 6-7
minutes per side, sometimes 5, but I usually let her suckle for about 25-30
minutes total - mainly just to cuddle with her.  This is about every three
hours, sometimes 2 1/2 and sometimes 4.  She is waking up usually twice in
the middle of the night.  At 2 and 5 or at 3 and 6.


<<You don't have sore nipples?>>
  No - amazingly.  I think you could pierce both of them and I wouldn't feel
a thing!


<<Is your baby wetting at least 6 time per day-really wet diapers? Is the
urine clear or pale yellow?>>
I would say she wets twice that and it is always clear.  But I have a bladder
the size of a tiny pea (no pun intended!) so maybe she takes after her mama.


<<Are baby's stools soft and mushy or hard and dry? How often does baby have
a stool?>>
  She has a stool usually 4-5 times per day and they are always orangy yellow
in color and they are liquid and mush.  This is down from 6-7 times per day
like it was the first six weeks, but the color and consistency is the same as
before.  Now she just makes more in one diaper and goes longer in between.


<< Does baby seem happy and content after feedings?>>
She is terribly happy after feeding.  Sometimes she stops just to smile at my
breast and then she sucks some more!  The only time she is really fussy about
anything is if she is over tired or if I take too long getting her from one
breast to the other.  It's like she thinks I forgot that her belly wasn't
full enough even though I am just hooking up the nursing bra.  Her usual
temperament is very content and since she learned to smile - she smiles all
the time at everything.  (But that's another trademark mama thing - she can
smile even when she is crying.)


<<Are your breasts softer after feeding if you let her nurse the way she
wants?>>

Yes - I can definitely tell they are both empty.  In the first few weeks I
was unsure how to tell, so I used a breast pump for a couple days in a row
after each nursing to see if I could see a difference in how they felt full

or empty and to see if anything more came out.  They are completely empty and
soft by the time she is done.  (I think God graced me with a good baby -
because no one in the hospital here showed me anything!

I was stuck in a russian hospital -where they wouldn't allow my husband to
come in and no one spoke english- because the baby came earlier than we
planned by about a week.  My husband is bilingual so the other hospital we
had planned on intended to let him translate for me.  That particular
hospital is an old hospital with a new

breed of policies that a lot of foreigners go to because it is cheaper but
closer to western facilities.  They recommended this other hospital
mistakenly thinking their policies had been updated also.  The doctors in the
hospital I was in knew they couldn't talk to me, so they didn't even try to
show me anything like how to latch her on correctly or anything.)  It is a
very, very new thing here to allow husbands with you when you deliver.
Russian hospitals are very crude about procedure and until that part changes,
the husbands won't be allowed most places.  I delivered my child (after she
was turned and after I WALKED to the delivery room and hopped up on an extra
high bed) in front of 3 other women who were lying on carts in the delivery
room and had just finished delivering their babies.

That is why this hospital allows no husbands - because they herd you all
together like cattle.  I did have a woman missionary friend who could have
come with me, but they would allow NO visitors at all and definitely no one
with you when you were delivering - no language excuses acceptable. Needless
to say I was terrified and by the time Valeria came out, I was having such a
panic attack and breathing so awfully that I almost passed out when it was
time to push.


Maybe that Ezzo has bad advice in it.  I definitely had some criticism for
it, but I also have to say it did me some good as I didn't have anything else
to go by. I didn't know anything.  Nothing!  That I knew of, there were not
even

english birthing classes available.  I wouldn't have even known to let
Valeria suckle while I was in the hospital to stimulate the milk if it
weren't for reading that book.  I would have sat around waiting for my milk
to come in and not known why I was having problems.  Also in the hospital all
they fed us was rice, potatoes and bread and caffienated tea.
(Unfortunately, yes that is the kind of tea the doctor was talking about.
Plain brown caffienated tea.  The only dairy she said was acceptable was to
put some milk in this tea whenever I drank it.  She said drinking this
several times a day - not water - would make good milk and stimulate let
down.) I don't know how anyone could produce milk with that kind of bland
diet.  My husband was able to smuggle me in some water, juice and some fruit,
but I had to sneak to eat it.  And anyway, it made sense to me to just keep a
balanced diet like I did when I was pregnant.  It seemed to me, though no one
had told me this, that the baby was used to what I was eating while I

was pregnant, and so why should I drastically change that to nurse her -
unless there was some proven problem?  I had heard about the peanut thing -
but since me and no one in my family or my husband's has any nut allergies
and I ate peanut butter all through my pregnancy, I just didn't think it
could be that.  The doctor who told me to nurse her only 4-5 minutes per side
only told me this through my husband's translation as I was leaving the
hospital.  She told me that my baby was terribly active, and that little
girls were to be small - thus taking them off the breast at 3-4 minutes so
they don't get too big.  For the first few weeks she was so tired, it took
her 15-20 minutes to empty a side.  So of course I got griped at by the home
health nurse too.  Then I made the mistake of asking the nurse a good way to
hold the baby to burp her.  I had seen lots of diagrams, but I was afraid
with her head being so

wobbly that I would hurt her.  Immediately, the nurse also raked me for my
diet and told that breast fed babies should not have gas and do not need
burped.  If she has gas at all, then it is definitely my fault for eating
something I wasn't supposed to.


It is terribly outlandish here, as you can tell.  It made sense to me, thank
God, that God is the one who made breastfeeding and He made it for a reason.
Otherwise I might have listened to some of this garble and been tempted to
give Valeria a bottle of water or formula like they tell you to do here.  But
I prayed about it alot, and thought it best to keep going.  I figured if
Valeria was too chubby, then that is the way God wanted her for now because
all she was getting was breastmilk and unless I was just undernourished I
didn't think I could tamper with His ultimate plan for her.  The hospital
experience was a total nightmare, as I speak very little russian -very
little- and there was no one to speak english since they wouldn't let my
husband in.  Unfortunately, I don't have an option where to go for care,
because western facilities are beyond outrageous in price.  I do have to give
some credit to the delivery hospital though.  If I had been in an american
hospital - I would have surely had a csection and they managed to get her out
with no episiotomy and only a few stitches.  Quite crudely, as I didn't have
pain killers and she had never turned on her own- they reached up in me and
turned her - YIKES!  But overall, I would say if I had understood their words
or what they were doing to me it wouldn't have been nearly as bad.  If I
weren't a christian, I would surely have needed years of counseling after the
hospital experience!


I am leaving Saturday for the states.  I will be gone August 5th to August
21st to have Valeria visit her new grandma's.  I am going to try and see an
american pediatrician while I am there.  Thank you very much for your help.
I will let you know how it is going when I get back and I will read through
the book as soon as possible.  I will start on that today.

If we weren't on the internet - I would kiss you!

Sincerely,  <snipped>

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