30 before 30: I breastfed twins

I am blogging my way through 30 things I have done before I turn 30! Today's post is partially a recycle from a post I wrote a year ago (almost to the day!) (you don't really need to read the link since most of the post is here).

My girls were born at 33 weeks, 5 days. I knew I wouldn't be having that amazing bonding experience where they place the baby on the chest and have that immediate connection when baby starts to nurse. Nope, my experience was even close.

In fact, I was still recovering from my c-section and hadn't even seen my girls when the nurses rolled in a hospital grade breast pump and got me started on expressing milk. Although I planned on breastfeeding, no one ever really asked me. So I diligently started pumping every three hours, even through the night. Very quickly I was producing more than enough milk for my little preemies in the NICU.

It wasn't until my girls were nearly ready to leave the hospital that the nurses suggest that we give breastfeeding a try. Until that point I was pumping and they were eating expressed milk. Grace tried to nurse first and really had no interest. So she went back to the bottle. Several days later we tried with Ana. She was better but clearly still needed to take a bottle as well. My babies were less than 5 pounds and they sent me home with them without any clear plan on how to feed them. I had never successfully breastfed before bringing them home at two weeks of age.

Despite what "they" say, breastfeeding is at first completely unnatural. It feels awkward and strange. Add in an enormous pillow for support and there is nothing discreet or normal feeling about holding a baby to your boob. There was no way for me to fail at pumping, so I stuck with my machine for the first few weeks my girls were home. Eventually pumping became a chore while breastfeeding felt unsuccessful. The girls had a painful latch and ate poorly from the breast. I had to give them a bottle after every feeding. It was time consuming. It was awkward. It was painful.

I hated breastfeeding. While I was also not particularly fond of my relationship with the pump, at least it didn't hurt and wasn't frustrating. The nurses, lactation consultants and the books all said that breastfeeding should never be painful. They are full of shit. It hurt and it hurt badly. There were moments of pure pain when I cried as the girls latched on. There were moments where I wanted to scream and give up.

To top it off, I felt no bonding as a result of breastfeeding. Everything I'd read said that breastfeeding allowed for a special bond between mom and baby. I saw it only as a means to an end.

I don't know why I didn't give up. At 3 weeks I was miserable. At 4 weeks I was still in pain. At 5 weeks I was sure that I was going to give up. So I started setting small goals. Instead of thinking about nursing for 6 months, I gave myself permission to reevaluate every week. I started to increase the number of times I tried to nurse. In the beginning I only nursed once a day. By 12 weeks I nursed 7-8 times a day (per girl). At some point it just clicked for us; suddenly the girls' latch improved, eventually the pain disappeared and slowly but surely I replaced the bottles with the breast.

By the time we mastered nursing, I didn't even like the one time a day that the girls get a bottle (pediatrician ordered-- a formula supplement for preemies with higher calorie content). I came to appreciate that there was no prep work, no dishes and my ability to do it anywhere.

And most importantly, I fell in love with that time with my girls. Occasionally I tandem fed (read: feed both at the same time), but usually I prefered to take my time with each girl. Sure, it slowed down the pace of my day, but it gave me a moment to observe each one. They were distinct in their eating style, in their sounds and in their needs. With twins I spent most of my day bouncing between the two of them, so I learned to appreciate the opportunity to just be with one for a few short minutes.

By the time I went back to work, we were nursing nearly every session. I went back three days a week and reestablished a relationship with my pump. I desperately missed nursing my babies when I was gone, but I looked forward to any time they wanted to nurse in the mornings, afternoons or evenings.

In the beginning of August Grace started to refuse me. By the middle of August we were done nursing. I was so sad to be done nursing her. I was scared it would cause problems that I was only nursing Ana. But it went on fine and I continued to love my moments with Ana. I found other ways to share quiet moments with Grace. Just short of 14 months Ana also stopped nursing. I was devastated to be totally done nursing my babies. Many days I still miss those quiet, peaceful moments that only we shared.

But I am also proud. I nursed my babies. For nine months I nursed twins and I nursed Ana for almost 14 months. I feel accomplished and I am proud.

30 before 30: Master's degree

When I started working at Loretto I had completed a handful of undergraduate education courses and had spent several summers teaching and directing a summer camp for elementary school kids. I was completely qualified on content, but felt I needed more teacher training. Although I do believe a lot of teaching is an innate quality, and, I believe teaching can be learned while doing, I knew that I needed more training to be as good a teacher as I wanted to be. So in my second year of teaching I simultaneously began a program to earn my Master in Education.

Many of my courses were amazing for helping me to become a better teacher. After every course I went home thinking about how to apply what I had learned in my classroom. I took courses that helped me employ different techniques, challenged my philosophies on learning and encouraged technology in the classroom. I can honestly say that I became a better teacher because of things I learned during my master's program.

I completed my entire degree while teaching full time. It took three years. In my final year of courses I wrote my thesis about Baby Think It Over, the electronic babies used to teach students about the demands of parenting. It was a program that I facilitated as a teacher and it was fun and fascinating to learn about as a method of teaching about teen parenting.

I started my final semester just days before I found out that Loretto was closing. And I received my diploma just days before I closed up my classroom and moved on to a new career.

Today I work in an entirely different industry, but I am grateful for what I learned while earning my master's degree. I met a lot of wonderful people. The technology courses have served me even in a different field and learning about different theories and philosophies of education have helped me to better understand the varying needs of people. But mostly I am grateful that those three years helped me to be a better teacher to the young women who sat in my classroom. And if anything I learned and put into practice helped any one of them to learn, then it was three years well spent.

30 before 30: I built a house

I am blogging about 30 things I have done before I turn 30! If you want to read from the beginning, start here.

I built a house. In five days.

Now don't be calling me to construct your dream home or anything. This wasn't the kind of home that we are accustomed to. No, this was the kind of house in an impoverished area of Tijuana that makes you grateful.

In my fourth year of college (that would be my first senior year) I started volunteering with a local youth group. I loved those kids. In fact, I can thank them for the inspiration to become a teacher and to delve deeper into my faith.

Every summer they took a trip across the border to Tijuana to build homes. It was quite an undertaking. I don't remember the specifics, but there must have been 50 high school kids as well as 15-20 adults. We camped on a mesa in tents (with armed guards, by the way). We used outhouses that remind me of that opening scene in Slumdog Millionaire. Our showers were literally buckets hung on a string. There was the incident with the rattlesnake under my tent, but I prefer not to talk about that. At night there was prayer, song and fellowship. It was beautiful.

But during the day? Man, oh man. We worked. Our group was at two sites, building two houses. Thankfully there were some adults who were experienced from years past. We had a manual on what to construct and we were given the hardwood and supplies for the home itself. The tools all came with us from San Diego.

On the first day we laid a foundation. We hand mixed dirt, rocks, water and concrete. We poured and leveled it. It was backbreaking work.

Then we went back and I spent a day sawing 2x4s. With a hand saw. My entire hand was a blister. We assembled a frame. We constructed a roof. And walls. I used a hammer. (Aside: remember that episode of Gilmore Girls where Rory shows up at Habitat for Humanity with the hammer that Lorelai decked out with pink feathers? Ya, that kind of hammer would never have worked) Once the exterior was wrapped with tack paper (I think that is what is called...is that right? anyone? I don't really know), we wrapped the house with chicken wire. It had to be really taut because the next thing we were doing was stucco-ing the wall. With concrete. In case you were wondering, concrete doesn't stick to walls very easily. But it is awfully fun to do it!

If you aren't familiar with the impoverished parts of the Mexico border, you need to know that it is dry desert. There are hills and canyons. There are no trees. There are no paved roads. There is no plumbing. The people who live there have barrels which are filled by water trucks a few times a week. There are wires running in the sand; people just keep cutting into the lines to draw power to their homes.

One day I was invited into the current house of the family we were building for. It was a one room house with no foundation. It was filthy and lacked insulation. The home we built had a flat, concrete foundation, two rooms and windows. The high school kids pooled their personal money so that we could buy drywall and paint to do a little extra on the interior than the original plan called for. What a moving experience--to see kids throw their own money into a hat to do more for those who have less.

I worked hard that week. It was physically exhausting. But it was fun too. What a blast to be "at camp" with all those awesome high school students. While we were working on the house we sang. When we were back at the camp we sang and laughed. One afternoon we stopped at a taqueria for great food. And there was the adventure when I was driving a van out of Mexico and nearly killed myself and some students while trying not to lose the caravan...

The kids from St. Therese were filled with faith and passion. I went on that trip because their enthusiasm to work on that project was contagious. I am grateful to those students (who are all adults now! AHH!) for all that they taught me about faith and fellowship. I am grateful that they invited me to take this trip with them and share in such an amazing weeklong experience. I am grateful to the family who accepted our help and allowed us to work with them.

I helped to build a home in Mexico.

30 before 30: chasing dead relatives

I am blogging my way through my  30 accomplishments before I turn 30...

In 2010 we took a family trip to Ireland. It was an amazing trip for many reasons and you can click on that link if you want to read about our trip.

What I loved most about that trip is how we spent one memorable day "chasing dead relatives" as our guide Liam called it. He said it is quite common for people to return to Ireland and look for family history. I thought we were going to go visit the towns my great-grandmother and great-grandfather were born in. Turns out we took a little adventure.

We started by meeting up at the home of some distant cousins. Let me tell you-- we thought it sounded a little sketchy. We landed in Dublin and were told that these cousins we had never met were sending us transportation to take us to their home. We had no idea what to expect and we joked that all eight of us would be showing up in some tiny apartment with some crazy people. We were wrong.

First of all we got picked up in some fancy cab bus that fit all of us. Then we pulled up to a gorgeous home where the table was set with the fine china. My grandfather met his first cousin and there were lots more cousins of varying degrees and of all ages.

Brandon, me, an Irish cousin, my sister Cristina, my brother Ryan and another distant cousin Pedraig

Then there was a traditional Irish dinner that was pretty amazing. And wine. And beer. And cake. And all our fears about this dinner with our Irish family were gone. They were fabulous people and quite the dinner hosts.

They had a fancy cake for us.

The next day we left Dublin and headed west and north into areas not usually destined for tourists. My mom had done some primary research and so we knew what towns we were headed for. We were in search of the home where my great-grandfather was born. We ended up in a town where we learned that our name was actually a variation of "Towey" and it turns out just about everyone in the town had the same last name. Liam divided us up and sent us into local bars and told us to ask people about our great-grandfather. Yes, we actually went into bars and markets and asked people if they knew about a man who died 40 years ago. First of all, let me tell you how difficult is to ask about a guy named "Anthony Towey" in a town where everyone has an uncle or cousin or brother named "Anthony Towey." Secondly, we actually got some useful information.

The "Towey" kids

So we did what anyone would do next: we went to the cemetery and started searching for headstones. Since my great-grandfather died in the United States, we were looking for the burial sites of his parents. We spent at least an hour searching through a cemetery from the late 1800 and early 1900s. The thing about old cemeteries in Ireland is that amongst the many marked graves there are hundreds and thousands of unmarked sites for those who died in the famine. Due to the mass of poor people who died during the famine, many were placed in mass graves. Others were marked simply with a stone. It was humbling, sad and educational. As we walked through the final resting place of so many Irish, I was full of mixed emotions for so many people who had died. We read so many headstones and wondered about so many of the people who are buried there. It felt a bit strange, so I appreciated when Liam told us that he believed that the dead were to content to have any visitors.


My parents trying to read the worn down inscriptions

After we failed to find what we were looking for on the "old" side of the cemetery we crossed the street to the more recent side. Naturally, my brother and dad struck up conversation with a grave digger. All of a sudden the grave digger is on his cell phone talking to the guy who is the holder of the church records. And 15 minutes later I am walking down a country road in Ireland with my family with some vague instructions on how to get to the home of this guy. We find his home and he leads us to his backyard where he has laid out several books on the table.



Handwritten church records.



Unfortunately the record books didn't have exactly what we were looking for. But it was pretty amazing to be sitting in an Irishman's backyard, looking through handwritten death records. 

Next thing we knew we were back in the van on the way to the little village where we had heard the family property was. We had a small description from the Dublin family of what we were looking for, so we started looking for a "boreen." Now if you know what a boreen is, you are far ahead of where we were (turns out it is a little path-- a little path that the cows took).

 We were on a tiny little road in our huge van and we started stopping at people's homes to ask if they knew where the "Towey" property was. People kept pointing. The kids followed us with bikes. My dad introduced himself to all the neighbors, each time repeating the story of what we were looking for.

My dad talking to one of the locals.

Finally we found the boreen. After a days worth of searching, we walked down a little worn out path to find the remains of a one room home where my great-grandfather was born.



The boreen.

There was little left to be seen on the property where my great-grandfather was born. We found a few rusty tools and some falling down walls. But I was standing in a place where three generations ago my family had humble beginnings. I reflected on how lucky I was to be there with my parents, my siblings, my grandfather and my husband. I marveled at how amazing it was that in one short day we had such an exciting adventure, searching for just a little proof that one day our family before us had walked those same streets.

Remains of the home.

We continued our trip as planned and had a lot of other amazing experiences unrelated to searching for our family. At the end of our trip we made a brief detour to have lunch in the town where my great-grandmother was born. But that one day was special to me and all of my family. On that day we put aside our own desires. We put aside our biases and fears. We trusted in our Irish guide and we met a lot of people along the way. One day in Ireland we chased dead relatives.

30 before 30: I went to university

My parents were the first in their families to graduate from college. Although they hoped for us to go to college, they never made a big deal of it. What I mean to say is that they never said we had to go to college; but they did make a big deal out of what college was for and what it would do for us and our lives. They laid the framework and as a result I never had any doubt that I wanted to go to college.

Since I attended an all-girls college preparatory school, there was quite a lot of discussion about college and universities. At that time I wasn't really interested in leaving the west coast, so I applied to several private, Catholic colleges in California, Oregon and Washington, plus UC Berkeley. I also applied to Stanford on a wish and a prayer since it was my grandma's dream to have a grandkid go to Stanford and she threw out that she would pay for college if I got accepted. Ya, that didn't happen.

I was home alone one evening in December of 1999 when I received my first acceptance letter from Gonzaga University. I cried. It made college feel real. I was going to college.

In the end my choices came down to Gonzaga, University of San Francisco, University of San Diego and Santa Clara. I loved every one of those schools, but in the end I ended up at the University of San Diego. The Toreros.

I started at USD in the fall of 2000. I declared Political Science as my major and moved into the dorms. I had chosen Theology and Religious Studies as my minor, but very soon into my courses I fell in love with that field and chose to double major in Poly Sci and Religion.

In my first week of school I started working for Banquets and Catering, a job that I worked at until the day I graduated. That job defined a lot of my experience at USD. I made many lifelong friends working in B&C. I also had amazing opportunities in that job. As a server and supervisor in that job I was blessed with the chance to attend many special events at USD. I served dinner to Jimmy Carter and Jenny Craig. I served a private breakfast to Supreme Court Justice Scalia. I regularly served in the home of the University president.

In addition to working at Banquets and Catering, I chose to work for The Vista, the USD student newspaper. As a freshman I was a staff writer. My sophomore year I was a page editor. My first senior year I was the Opinion editor and my second senior year I was the Managing editor.

I thrived at USD. I made lifelong friends. I learned lifelong lessons. I had the opportunity to live in Spain (story forthcoming). I believe that attending university made me a better critical thinker and challenged me to be a life-long learner. USD gave me the chance to grow in my faith and in myself as a person. In it is a time in my life that I am grateful for. Most of all I am grateful to my parents for knowing that it would help me grow and prepare me for my life. I am thankful that their experience was valuable enough to them that they made whatever sacrifices necessary to send me and my siblings to college.

In one short blog post I can't describe all the ways I loved my experience at USD and how happy I am to have had my time there. But I am proud of what I accomplished there academically. I made amazing friends. And one day I hope that my kids will want to follow in my footsteps and go to college as well.

30 before 30: half marathon

If you are just joining us, I am blogging my way through 30 things I have accomplished in my life!

In March 2009 I achieved my greatest athletic feat thus far. I ran a half marathon.

I ran 13.1 miles.

As I've mentioned before, I am not the most athletic person in my family. Training for a half marathon was difficult. It took at lot of focused planning and dedication. I fought a lot of battles in my head to avoid quitting. But thanks to the encouragement of my husband and sister, I spent several months training and preparing for the half. (If you want, you can read my complete history of running here.)

I didn't win any awards or set any records. But in 2009 I ran 13.1 miles and I am proud of that. I am proud that I set a goal and I achieved it.

Kevin (friend), Brandon (husband), me and Cristina (sister) after we finished the Shamrock'n Half Marathon.

In the last couple weeks I have started running again. My brother challenged us to run a half marathon in April. I am not sure that I can physically prepare that quickly. I am not sure that I even want to try to run that distance again. But I am happy to be running again and I look foward to whatever races are in my future!

30 before 30: we own a home

This afternoon I loaded the girls up in the wagon and we went to the park. I put the girls in the swing and within minutes I had a fan club. A group of four girls, aged 7-9, were asking me questions about my babies. When I took Grace and Ana out of the swings, the playground girls asked if they could play with my babies. It was adorable.

Swinging at the park this afternoon

A little over two years ago we started looking for a home. Since Brandon and I worked more than 30 miles apart, we had a lot of choices of towns to live in. We finally decided on a county and went to work looking at different homes in several different cities.

In the end it came down to two different homes. I wanted a small, rundown, 1970s ranch style home in a pretty posh town within walking distance to the lake. I loved the huge backyard, the established trees and the proximity to outdoor activities. I loved the charm and the idea that we could make it whatever we wanted since it needed a significant amount of work. Brandon wanted the early 90s suburban home near a school and parks in the town that I grew up in. It was move-in ready (except a necessary coat of paint inside), was on wide streets and was much bigger and nicer. In the end, we went with the house Brandon loved.

This house has had more than its fair share of issues. Let me tell you, homeownership can be a bitch when things are leaking, falling over or overflowing. I don't know how many times I have cursed being a homeowner and wishing I had a landlord to call. But this is our home. This is the home we bought so we would have a safe place to raise our children. This is the home that together we have decorated and filled with furniture and joy and laughter.

And today when my babies were surrounded by neighborhood children who wanted to talk to me and play with my babies, I remembered how blessed I am that we are able to own a home in this great town and how happy I am to be in this house. Our house. Our home.