I think the routine is working — Allie still had a fussy period last nite (albeit shorter and less emphatic than it had been in the beginning, and the best part: both Mr. W and I are now emotionally unaffected! We just comforted her if needed, and we ourselves were comforted with the thought that the more energy she expends right now crying, the more tired she’ll be later.) between 8-9p-ish, but Mr. W was able to put her down for naptime on the couch on her back before she woke up into her fussy period. She didn’t sleep long, maybe half an hour or so, but she was able to fall asleep in a strange environment with lights/TV on, with just about a minute or less assistance from the pacifier. I nursed her for the last time at 9pm, she went to sleep in her crib shortly after with minimal fussing and no assistance from the pacifier (I would say most evenings now she doesn’t need the pacifier to go down for the night), and skipped her usual 4am feeding. She instead woke up crying for food at 6:10a-ish. That’s 9 hours between meals! My breasts were not comfortable, but I pumped behind her morning feeding to store and felt much better. She’s now back to sleep, but it’s anyone’s guess how long she’ll stay down since she’s used to getting up between 7a and 8a with a 4a and a 7a feeding. This later morning first feeding throws her schedule off.

Pumping is still a mental game; I “power-pumped” at the advice of my cousin with 10 mins on, 10 mins break, 10 mins back on, and the first pump behind her feeding only got me 1.5 oz total; the 2nd pump after the break (during which I brushed my teeth, washed my face, got dressed for the day, cuz you can’t afford to be unproductive with precious free minutes with an infant) yielded another 2.5 oz so I was able to store 4 oz in the freezer for future use. I power-pumped last nite for her evening bottle feeding, which I was to do in lieu of breastfeeding, and got out 4 oz total, also. I look forward to a day when I don’t have to power-pump and could supply enough milk first round. The 1st pump behind a feeding doesn’t give me a letdown anymore, but the 2nd one does. I got my Medela Harmony handpump in the mail yesterday; my cousin Jennifer feels it gets out more than the electric pump. I haven’t tried it, yet, but I did take it apart, disinfect all the parts and put them back together to familiarize myself.

I have no idea how pumping is going to work when I get back to the courthouse after maternity leave; finding a place to pump and store the parts may be difficult. I’m going to have to ask for longer and very regular breaks when we’re in trial, too. I guess as a last resort, I can borrow a reporter’s office and their mini-fridge. =P I know that law provides that in a workplace with 50+ employees, a clean private mother’s lounge is required to let mothers pump at work, but the building is only so big and they can’t just build a room.

Speaking of work, I received second-hand an email between downtown Payroll Dept and our in-house administrative secretary Patricia who does payroll for us. I had carefully planned for usage of my time so that I could maximize my maternity leave, but apparently a Payroll clerk downtown changed my time and instead of letting me use sick time for this CRFA (baby bonding time), and I have tons of sick hours, she switched it to use vacation time, which I have a very limited supply of. The reason I want to use sick during CRFA is because I will NOT be allowed to use sick after the 6 weeks of CRFA is over, so at that point I HAVE to use my limited vacation. This way of using my time has been approved by my supervisors and later by some other downtown department; I don’t know where she gets off changing it despite what I’d put on the maternity leave form. Patricia didn’t think it was right, either, and wanted to make sure I got a copy of the email. Yet another stressor. I’ll have to call and see if I could make this Payroll clerk change my time usage back to the way I’d intended it. Apparently she’d changed it as of January 9 without my permission. That means I’d run out of vacation time very quickly and the rest of my time off would be without pay. I had a hard time falling asleep being upset/stressed over this last nite/this morning.