Breast Milk Voodoo

The boys are really doing great. Carrie and I are having a blast holding them and watching them change daily. They are opening their eyes and yelling a lot. Zane laughs and smiles when he is being held and laughs more when he hears another baby cry, which is pretty funny. Cash is off his CPAP and just has that breathing thing that his brothers have. They hate it. They are always pulling it off and their nurses have to reposition them. Cade is especially bad about ripping his off his head. They love it when they are being held and they especially love it when Carrie has Kangaroo time with them. They are all three on breast milk which is fed to them through a feeding tube that goes straight to their stomach. Hopefully they will be on a bottle in 3 or 4 weeks. They suck on pacifiers, so they are getting better at that. I know that everyone wanted to know their exact size at birth, so here it is;

Cade - 3lbs 5.9 ounces and 15.75 inches long

Zane - 2 lbs 15 ounces and 15.5 inches long

Cash - 3 lbs 4.8 ounces and 15 inches long

They are long and skinny. Their hands are really big. Apparently, these boys are really good size for triplets born at 29 weeks. One nurse told me that oftentimes a single baby will weigh this much at 29 weeks. That's really good news.

Speaking of breast milk.

I pretty much knew nothing about this process. I knew that women fed their babies with breast milk either directly or by pumping. That's about all I knew. After finding out a bit more about breast pumping and breast milk in general, I am absolutely petrified. I mean I am scared to death. This breast milk motherhood thing is tied directly into the entire force of the universe, and I feel like I could be crushed by it in an instant.

Allow me to explain.

The day the boys were born, a lactation consultant came by Carrie's room. She explained that Carrie would need to pump every three hours. She said that not much would be there at first and not to get discouraged. More would come after Carrie held the boys and heard them cry.

What?

Hold on?

Stop.

Seriously.

I thought a woman got pregnant, her breasts filled up with milk, she had the baby or babies in our case, and fed them. End of story. The end.

No! Not so fast. There is voodoo that goes into this thing. Many might call it mother nature. Okay. I can handle nature having a hand in it, but I have some questions.

I have asked these questions to Doctors and Nurses. First I will write the question and give the answer I heard from medical science. After that will be my own personal answer that I believe is closer to the truth.

Q=Question
MSA=Medical Science Answer
MT=Mike's Theory

Q: Why when a woman hears a baby cry, why does she immediately start lactating?

MSA: The cry of the baby triggers something in the brain that makes the woman produce milk. It's the instinct of the mother kicking in.

MT: This is pure voodoo. I would think the milk would already be there because the woman just gave birth. I think that women are tied to some weird gravitational pull that allows them to have super powers that I believe will eventually destroy me.

Q: Why when a mother holds her child does it help the milk come in?

MSA: Once again, the contact with the baby triggers things in a woman's brain helps milk productions.

MT: The woman has the ability to hold things and make her body do whatever she wants it to. She can hold a knife for a while and later on, a man using that knife will slip and cut himself with it, simply because the woman was upset with him and wanted him be punished for some transgression. Once again as a man I don't stand a chance against this strange power.

Now, after learning all this, I was totally freaked out. I realized that most men are just stronger physically than women to make us feel better. It coaxes us into a feeling of superiority that is just false. A man who is paying attention will notice a deep change in his wife after she gives birth. It is the sort of change that all of a sudden you know that your wife will pounce on someone and chew their entire head off in 16 seconds if they mess with her babies. It's a powerful thing.

If all this wasn't enough I got more crazy voodoo information. We were in the NICU and Carrie was talking about breast milk with one of the nurses. I was talking to Cash, and they were over by Zane. I heard what they said, even though I don't think I was supposed to.

Nurse: You are doing great with your milk.

Carrie: I sure hope so. I'm worried cause there are three of them.

Nurse: Don't worry. There is plenty so far. I've seen women have a very hard time.

Carrie: Holding them and hearing them really helps.

Nurse: Oh yes. Also, I knew one woman who would smell the urine in her babies diapers, and this would help a lot also.

STOP! Shut up right now. What is this madness? I don't need to hear any more. This is what they LET me hear. What do they talk about when the guys aren't around.

This brings me to my next point. I have always been very leery about the power a woman has and her tie to the earth, moon, wind, rain ect.

Allow me to explain.

Pagans used to worship women. They worshiped what they referred to as the "Divine Feminine". Women gave life and were the start of it all as far as they were concerned. This is a good point. After the pagan religion was pretty much stamped out, later religions always have women in more of a backseat role.

I have had several questions about women my whole life.

1. Why when women start hanging out or living together they sync up on the same cycle?

No one has EVER been able to explain this one to me. This one scared me pretty bad when I first found out about it when I was in high school. I had no sisters, so I had no experience with this. When I found out, I didn't speak for about ten days. It was all I could think about. Then my buddy Andy told me something that his Dad told him.

Andy's Dad: Son, if it bleeds for seven days and doesn't die, you don't want any part of it.

All of these things that I have mentioned about women are amazing. Women are tied to the earth and moon. With this I believe they possess powers that men simply can't interfere with.

What else did the nurse tell Carrie after I was out of ear shot?

I imagined this conversation taking place;

Nurse: You can make your husband have a heart attack.

Carrie: What? How?

Nurse: Sure. You hear about guys dropping dead all the time right?

Carrie: Yes.

Nurse: You know, perfectly healthy guys dropping dead for no reason.

Carrie: Yes.

Nurse: It's usually their wives.

Carrie: How?

Nurse: You know how I just told you about smelling the babies urine will make your milk come?

Carrie: Uh huh.

Nurse: Well, if your husband ever makes you mad, you can give him a heart attack. You can make it as bad as you want. Some women just give their husbands a mild heart attack to make them appreciate what they have.

Carrie: How?

Nurse: Wait until your husband goes to sleep. Put your hand on his chest so you can feel his heart. Smell his hair. It might be dirty, but just do it. When your hand is on his heart and you are smelling his hair, repeat these words to yourself "FLOCKA FLOCKA HOY DOY"
That's it.

Carrie: Flocka Flocka Hoy Doy?

Nurse: Yep. That's all you need to do. Heart attack the next day. Say FLOCKA once for a mild heart attack and four times to really hurt him. That' how you dial it in.

Carrie: Wow. That's great. He's doing good right now, but if he ever gets out of line.....

That's just my take on the whole thing. I can't prove any of this, but it does concern me.

Finally, I am amazed by motherhood. This is my first real experience with it. I know that it is super powerful. Watching Carrie with my boys is unreal. There is a transformation that happened. Many husbands get a little jealous. I'm not because I understand it as much a a male can understand such things. She is the best Mom. Her thoughts are always with the boys. The first time she left them to come to Austin was very hard for her. I felt a little guilty because I didn't feel as bad as she did. I then realized that I am not able to. We have two different roles to play and we have to do it as a team. We are very committed to doing so and I have my best friend to do this with.

Besides, I am scared of her.