A New Hope

I’ve posted about it on Facebook, and most of you, if you’re plugged in to the natural birthing world, have already heard about this, but I wanted to go ahead and blog about it as well. About what it means to me and what it might mean for other mamas.

 

I’m talking, of course, about the new recommendation from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada:

 

The evidence is clear that attempting a vaginal delivery is a legitimate option in some breech pregnancies,” said Dr. André Lalonde, Executive Vice-President of [SOGC]. “The onus is now on us as a profession to ensure that Canadian obstetricians have the necessary training to offer women the choice to deliver vaginally when possible.

 

 

What does this means? It means that having a breech baby at term in Canada shouldn’t automatically mean a woman is forced to attempt an external version. That she shouldn’t be forced into a cesarean.  Instead, providers should be trained in breech birth and offer it as the safer alternative to surgery, depending upon the breech presentation and the health of mom and babe.

 

I believe that if the USA had made a similar choice in recent years, to move away from c-sections and towards a more woman-friendly, evidence-based (vs. fear- and insurance-based) system, I wouldn’t have felt forced into a surgery I knew I didn’t need. Uli and I were healthy all through the pregnancy. And as a frank breech, her little butt pressing down on my cervix would have done a great job helping me to dilate. But of course, you all know my story. It was a no-go finding a provider in Madison who’d attend my vaginal breech birth.

 

And, while I’m thankful that women in Wisconsin currently have the option of going up north to deliver at the Morningstar Birthing Center, since it wasn’t a viable option for us, three hours away as it is, I’m sort of sad even to have known about it. It wasn’t a real choice. More than the distance, it was the cost. A practice of midwives, our insurance wouldn’t cover any of their fees, and we couldn’t have afforded paying a second non-insurance-covered provider fee beyond what we’d already paid at the Madison Birth Center.

 

Whether or not you have a few extra thousand saved in the bank shouldn’t determine whether  or not you receive compassionate, adequate health care in your town. At least THAT is being currently discussed by our government. Again. (Hopefully with some real solutions put into place this time.)

 

 

Check-out some of Rixa’s posts about SOGC’s recommendation:

http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2009/06/canada-does-180.html

http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-on-breech-sogc.html

 

 

And the link to the SOGC’s media site:

http://www.sogc.org/media/advisories-20090617a_e.asp

I'm doing the breast I can

Oh, come on. Compared to “My Brest Friend,” that’s nothing. ;-)

*******************

I was thrilled when Uli and I were finally beginning to connect, nursing-wise. After the delay in milk, endless and fruitless pumping,  L.C. consultations and latch issues, the elusive one-on-one connection with my baby seemed finally within reach. And we did make it, just around two months after she was born.

Of course, once I returned to work the pumping business was somewhat problematic, but some herbs and time and we had it figured out.

Or so I thought. Turns out the trials aren’t quite finished.

About a month ago I got a plugged duct. I’d thought I’d had plugged ducts before. But now I know that those were just blebs. A real plugged duct is FIERCELY painful.

Next day came mastitis. Oh, I felt so so sick. Fever, pain, nausea, exhaustion. I followed the LLL recommendation of nursing from the affected side, applying hot compresses and sleeping, and I started to feel better after just a day.

However. Possibly because I’d been twisting Uli all around to get her to nurse from my sore side, I got a cracked nipple. Holy cow. Ouch. But I managed to keep up the nursing and the crack closed.

But the pain didn’t completely go away. It continued to hurt when Uli’d latch-on. OMG, it was horrible. 8 or 9 on a pain scale of 10. I wasn’t liking the idea of taking antibiotics just in case it was a remnant of mastitis. (I don’t like antibiotics ‘just in case.’)  One of my midwives suggested that yeast may have crept in while I had the crack. We started some anti-fungal treatments for both me and Uli. (It wasn’t straight thrush, since she didn’t have any white spots in her mouth nor red diaper rash, but if it was yeast, we’d be passing it back and forth, symptoms or not.) And, hurrah! It was working! 

Except, now I’m done with the treatment and I’m still having some ‘pinching’. Kinda like a sunburn that’s rubbing on scratch material. I need to follow-up with the L.C. and see what’s going on. Very frustrating.

To top it all off, my thyroid is freaking out. I’m overproducing thyroid hormone, which typically makes a person really thin (hah! why can’t I have THAT horrible symptom?) and reduces breast milk production. My milk has been getting less and less and it’s SO sad and upsetting. So I’m on medication now that will hopefully reduce the hormones I don’t need and increase the milk that Uli needs.

SO. My goal is to continue nursing at least until her 1st birthday. Which is lame since what I really hope to do is nurse until she self-weans. I’d even be willing to tandem nurse. And maybe we’ll still be able to do that. But for now, let’s just work through the pain and get my supply back up. Keep that milk flowing! 

Trip to the Zoo

I am conflicted over the zoo. I love animals. I love to see animals in person. But I worry about the whole zoo set-up.

Some zoos (from what I understand it’s probably most of them...) let many of their animals breed freely because baby animals draw crowds. When the babies grow up, the zoos sell them to other zoos or petting zoos or those traveling roadside ‘wildlife park’ things. And then the animals have more babies, the crowds come, the babies grow, the crowds wane, they sell the ‘surplus’ animals, the cycle begins anew. I just don’t think that’s responsible caretaking.

Many exhibits of mammals, if viewed carefully, house frustrated, cage-mad animals. Pacing, picking at themselves, bored out of their gourds. Not a life any of us would want to live, even if we talk about how nice it would be to not have to lift a finger.

I read a book when I was younger (the title of which I cannot  for the life of me remember, though I can still picture its cover) that suggested the only way to save endangered species was to take them from the wild, use zoos to shelter them and visitor fees to pay for their keep, and to selectively breed them, destroying all offspring but the most superior. The book’s author told the reader that to feel compassion for the individual animals was to doom the species--that you had to be ruthless in demanding the best bloodlines and allow only the healthiest babies to grow to adulthood and then be bred again. In his plan, there needn’t be great attention given to the happiness of individual animals. That wasn’t the point. The plan was to make sure that there still were elephants and rhinoceroses and manatees in 100 years, not that the animals’ mental needs were met nor their individualism expressed. What the plan was for, after 100 years, I don’t know if he addressed. Plenty of rare animals for zoo exhibits?

And I just don’t know about all that. I think it is not too much to strive for a peace between man and beast, where at the most powerful, most destructive and cruelest animal (man) backs-off and allows the wildlife to live in peace. But that would mean addressing other human rights issues, like the feeding the people who try to earn money by cutting down forests to meet demand for western materials (or the razing of the rain-forest so that cattle can graze which will later be slaughtered and gobbled by western bellies--or by those who admire the lifestyles of the western world).  It would mean working with people toward sustainable farming. It would mean ensuring that those who hunt gorillas for their flesh have other food to eat. It would mean not just fences and guards around animals, but education, hope, an understanding of our place in the world (note: I’m not talking Manifest Destiny), and ensuring people have real options while living in the midst of wildlife. We don’t have that now. At least, not  enough of it. Yet.

Anyway, that’s just some of my thoughts. Sorry if they’re jumbled. Where was I? Oh, yes. The zoo.

We went. The Henry Vilas Zoo has free admission. So whatever my worries over zoos, I have less of an issue with Vilas. I won’t be buying any $5 sodas nor $20 onesies for Uli;  we’re just there for the view (good or bad). If the zoo closed due to lack of financial support, I would watch more Nature and be okay with it. (Full disclosure: I consider myself complicit in zoos’ methods since I have and will probably again pay to visit, though I feel less guilt over Vilas.)
      
We went, we walked, we looked. And really, it was nice to spend a morning outdoors with my husband and little one. I tried not to think too much about the morality of zoos and managed to focus more on the baby girl, who enjoyed watching the people WAY more than the animals. In fact, the only time she had a freak-out (and honestly, there have been very few freaks of this magnitude ever before) was when we entered the aviary. I don’t know if it’s because it was humid in there, or because it was echoey or because she hates parrots, but she screamed and screamed and sobbed almost as soon as we entered and stopped immediately when we exited. We won’t be going back in there anytime soon, free or not.

Menstrual cups: TMI is my middle name

*Warning to readers:  if you don’t want to read about my period, it’s best you skip this post. Check out the archives or wait a few days for a new posting. I promise to get a non-menstrual-themed blog entry up soon. 

For the rest of you who are thinking, “Thomasin’s period? Why, what more fabulously interesting topic could there possibly be?” please continue on!



As you may have gathered, my period is back. It was MIA for just ten weeks after Uli was born.  I’d been hoping for a nice eighteen-month break like some new mama’s get but, alas, no such luck for me, likely because I wasn’t nursing Uli in the weeks after her birth (pumping just doesn’t affect a woman’s hormones like breastfeeding does). Or perhaps it was the fact that our bedroom is filled with small electronic devices that glow with just enough light to confuse my pineal gland.

But maybe, just maybe, it was because part of me secretly longed for it to return.

I was the last of my friends to meet Aunt Flo. I’d suffered through years of ‘period talks’ at sleepovers (if you were ever a girl in her pre- or early teens, you know what I mean) embarrassed that I had no personal stories to share. How I anxiously awaited the month when I too would become part of the sisterhood! Oh happy day, in the middle of my 14th year, when I could finally say I had cramps! (Had I known those cramps would become a debilitating backache each month, I may not have been as ecstatic. Thankfully, the backaches stopped in my early 20’s).  For me, my period was the portal to womanhood, not a curse.

But let me clarify: it’s not the actual bleeding part that I’ve missed but my choice of feminine protection. Your period isn’t so bad (and can even be kind of interesting) when you have the proper tools. And for me, that tool is a menstrual cup.

It feels like something I should have to go to group for. Hi, my name is Thomasin and I use a menstrual cup.

Blood cups (as some grosser people call them—please don’t call them that. I’m sorry I mentioned it.) are awesome enough to addict their users. I’m so not joking. (Well, okay, I’m kind of joking. Kind of.)

When I first heard of the cups, I was on an internet forum and the women singing their praises were those I considered ‘overly crunchy.’ Hippies. Uber environmentalists. Everything I wasn’t. Did I actually know the women? No. But I knew their type. They weren’t like me. They were extreme. I wasn’t interested in their menstrual propaganda.

Yet, as the years passed, threads continued to pop up again, always declaring things like: 

“I got my cup in the mail last week and just had a chance to try it out today. I LOVE IT!”

“I couldn’t figure-out how to use it at first, but now that I’ve got the insertion down it’s the easiest thing imaginable. I’ll never go back to tampons!”

“I’ve been using my cup for 5 years, and I realized I’ve saved about $1,000 so far.”

“I can’t believe I wasted so much time and money on pads/tampons in the past. I’ll never use anything but a cup from now on.”

After, oh, 80 million or so of those comments, I finally thought I should look into the product a little more closely. This wasn’t a huge research episode or anything, just a quick look around on-line. I read-up on several different brands. My interest was piqued. But still, I was fine with my Tampax.

Until a couple of things happened (imagine I’ve inserted emotional music or graphics showing stars/planets aligning):

It was a cold and rainy afternoon. I was out of tampons. I was broke. I emptied out my change jars. $5 in dimes and nickels—hurrah! I ran to Walgreen’s to pick-up a box. In the interest of saving the planet, I said I didn’t need a bag. Headed back out into the rain to my car. Realized I’d locked my keys in the car. Realized I hadn’t brought my cell-phone along. Realized I’d have to carry the exposed box of tampons back inside to ask the male clerk to call the locksmith. And I’d have to stand there, in the rain, holding the box while the locksmith unlocked my car. And then I’d have to figure out how to pay for the said unlocking. Then I realized I hadn’t locked my keys in the car after all—there they were in my purse. Phew! Embarrassing and financially catastrophic event avoided.

Forward to an afternoon a few paychecks later: I had some cash in my account and was picking-up some items at Whole Foods. Wandered down the personal products aisle and saw The Keeper. Remembered the Walgreen’s episode. Remembered the positive comments I’d read on-line about cups. Decided to spend the $20 and see what all the fuss was about.

I was instantly converted. Some women struggle initially with the insertion/extraction process; it’s different than using tampons. But once you get it down, you’re set. For me, it was pretty easy. I used a punch-down fold to get it in, rotated it a few times to make sure there’s a seal, and voila—12-hour protection. A quick bearing-down to get it out, empty it, rinse it (if at home—or just a toilet paper swipe if you’re in a public restroom), and back in it goes. No problemo.

All seemed perfect. Except that The Keeper was made of gum rubber and I have a latex sensitivity. You don’t want to be using materials you’re sensitive to in, urm, sensitive areas. Irritation galore. So I switched to a silicone version. And now all really IS perfect.

Yes, I have to use my fingers. But I’d be washing my hands anyway, right?

Yes, I see the blood. I’m a woman. It’s my own blood. I can handle it.

Yes, I need to wash/sterilize the cup—takes just minutes a month.

Yes, there can be a learning curve, especially with insertion. Click here for pictures that really helped me.


Menstrual cups are one of those well-kept-secrets that really shouldn’t be a secret. I look forward to sharing the info with my baby girl when she’s less of a baby. And I don’t blame you if you think I’m a bit overly enthusiastic about the subject; some things are difficult to appreciate without first-hand experience. If you’re at all interested in learning more, check out www.ecomenses.com. I am so glad I let my guard down and decided to switch. Even if it did mean joining-up with that group of supposedly uber- crunchy hippy women of whom I’d been so skeptical. ;-)

We don't need no thoughts controlled

Uli can’t even sit on her own yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to start planning for her education, right? The people at the Montessori school we visited appeared pleasantly surprised by our interest. Apparently, they have few children under 6 months attending their open houses. ;-) I’m glad we visited and took their tour if only to confirm that, yes, we are true fans of Montessori methods. They just make sense to me.

I don’t know that I’ll really ever want to enroll Uli in a school away from home (I’m a homeschooler/un-schooler at heart). But it’s interesting, finding out what we can now about our possibilities. Justin was relatively happy with his experience in the Madison Public Schools, so that’s an option for us if we stay in the area. And one that’d be mostly already paid for (I say mostly because taxes don’t cover everything anymore. Did they ever? I thought they did, but nowadays you have to pay for books and sports and things that I believe used to be part of the free public school experience. Or at least something they held bake sales for.)

For now, I’m finding daily inspiration in a blog about a homeschooling/Montessori family with 13 kids. I love reading about their day-to-day fun (and challenges).  If you’re interested, check them out at: http://bakersdozen.typepad.com.

Regardless of where Uli is during future school hours (under my and her father’s tutelage or another’s; home, private, public school, or a mix), I want to be hands-on in my daughter’s education. And one thing: I will NOT be a parent who is afraid to take my child out of school for a personal day. Or for a vacation. Or to question her kindergarten homework load.

And in that line of thought, I ran across an excellent website last week: http://stophomework.com/. I found it very empowering.

A Blog to make you cry

I have a good life. An amazing life. A wonderful, loving husband. A safe, warm home. And I am able to spend three full days a week with my baby. Even on the days when I take her into daycare, I get to spend almost an hour of happy morning time with her before we need to get into the car, and after I pick her up after work I am able to cuddle with her all evening. That’s good stuff. So I may describe frustrations in future entries, but I’m resolving to keep things on the positive productive side and stop whining. Some families have far greater tragedies than separation by daycare.

Which brings me to the blog I read today. One of the amazing thing about blog-land is that it isn’t just about posting pictures of your cute kids, it’s about sharing histories and experiences. Sure, some of what you read might be lies. But much of what is out there are honest truths, expressed via the vehicle of anonymity. And even though you don’t know these other people whose blogs you read, you become a community. A community of pen-pals, sure, but a community nevertheless. You boast, you bitch, you inform, you inquire, you laugh, you get inspired, and you cry with this on-line group. And today was a tearjerker.

I have several blogs I check regularly.  One of them directed her readers to this site, asking for prayers for the family. Oh, their story broke my heart.  Last week they woke up thinking it was a normal morning. Went into the baby’s room, checked his crib, and found he wasn’t breathing.  I can’t imagine. To watch your husband perform CPR on your infant when just 60 seconds before you were waiting to nurse him. I went from having a typical lunch to sobbing in the bathroom.

Today I was thankful that I have the luxury to hate having to drop Uli off at daycare. Because for at least one poor mother, last week was the last she ever spent with her baby.  I honestly just can’t imagine.

milk, Milk the magical fruit

Uli’s been gassy lately and I think it’s because of me. But I can’t see any way around it. It’s a lesser evil. Since returning to the office, I’ve had a dramatic reduction in milk production. I’m still making plenty for her when we’re nursing directly one-on-one, but the amounts I’m pumping while I’m apart from her have been less and less.

Initially, the first few weeks back, I’d consistently pump 13-15 ounces during the workday. Plenty for her to drink the next day as well as a few ounces to stash away in the freezer for growth spurts. But then the separation thing started to hit. Not having her hormones mingling with mine. Not seeing her little cheeks. Not feeding her every 40-90 mins. My milk flow adjusted to the absence of the baby and the amount I was pumping reduced. I started bringing home only 7-9 ounces a day even though she was drinking 10-12. The ‘extra’ freezer stash was quickly depleted. Several times I had to call Justin and ask him to stop-by my office on his way home from work to pick up the milk I’d collected so far that day so that Emily would have something to put in her afternoon bottles.

It’s a terrible feeling, not being able to feed your own child. Obviously we’re not talking about starvation here. We’ve other options than just letting her go hungry. But I am determined not to let the fact that I am away from her during the day interfere with our ability to nurse. If we start introducing supplements, I’ll have an even more difficult time keeping up my supply. Plus, it’s not that I have a truly low milk production, it’s just that I’m having trouble pumping.

What you get when you pump is not what the baby gets when she nurses---babies are so much better at extracting milk than a machine. And mama’s response to a baby suckling is different than her response to a vacuum-hosed whirring pump. Just not as cosy, ‘feeding’ a bottle. What I really need, in a way, is an over-supply of milk, so that the lesser amount I extract via pump is still enough for Uli.

Enter fenugreek. Trigonella foenum-graecum. The wonder herb. Commonly used in Indian curries and Egyptian beverages (thank you, Wikipedia), fenugreek’s fabulous quality (besides being tasty) is that it’s a galactagogue:  it increases milk supply.

I’d been taking fenugreek as a supplement for the past month without much luck. Frustrated, I spoke with the lactation consultant again (wonderful Arlinda, who gave me so much help and encouragement when Uli was first born). She told me that the single dose I was imbibing per day wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. I had to take at least 2 capsules with each meal as well as with snacks. Give it four days, she recommended, and see if that does the job.

And did it ever. I went from an average of 8 oz pumped back up to 13+! Like a miracle. But there are side-effects. It can make some babies gassy. I think it’s having that effect on Uli. I’m going to try taking fenugreek one week on, one week off, and see if that helps with her fussiness. (Because, really, it could just be that she’s been sick.)

Also, fenugreek makes me smell like maple syrup. No kidding. At first, before I spoke with Arlinda, I’d noticed my skin smelling sweet and worried that I was developing diabetes (based on the very educational CSI: Miami where they recognized the killer because of his diabetic scent). But no—it’s the fenugreek. Arlinda mentioned it and I realized immediately that that’s what I’d been noticing—maple syrup. Weird, but not unpleasant.

And now I’ve taken a closer look at www.kellymom.com. Such good info on there! I wish I’d consulted the site before now. I’d heard other mothers talk about it as a resource but felt overwhelmed when Uli was first born by the ENORMITY of information out there. “Information” you can never be too sure about. But I’m now a convert to kellymom. Good stuff. Check it out. Here’s what it says about moms in my situation (so helpful): http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/pumping_decrease.html

We didn’t take Uli to Libby’s on Monday or Tuesday, since baby was still under the weather. Tomorrow (Thursday) is the day. I’m hopeful that with the use of fenugreek and maybe a bit more nursing at night (I’ve slept with her the past three nights and she’s been eating every 2 hours—more often than has been typical) we’ll have our buffer of extra milks and keep the production up. No more emergency calls to Daddy, stealing from tomorrow’s milk to provide today’s. Fingers crossed.

Because FAFSA is on my mind...

I first matriculated in 1995, but it wasn’t until 2008 that I finally earned my Bachelor’s. Thirteen long years. Private college, dropping out, community college, dropping out, part-time attendance at the university, then squeaking-in one full-time semester. Finally graduating. My problem wasn’t that I lacked the study skills. I wasn’t flip-flopping between majors (though there was the short time during which I had the exciting, if improbable, double-major of Zoology). I didn’t abandon my pursuit to backpack across Europe (I wish!). Nope. I was a repeat drop-out because I couldn’t pay tuition. Money, money, money.

It was (and I suppose still is) embarrassing to be (have been) a college drop-out. I felt like a failure. Had to go back to redeem my intellectual reputation. Graduating did serve to heal part of that wound. I felt as though I’d finally achieved something that I’d deserved. But what was I expecting for the day after, exactly?

Having graduated allows me to bask in a general feeling of  self-satisfaction. A “Hurrah! I had a goal and I did it!” But warm fuzzies aside, the degree has gained me little that’s tangible. Yes, I learned some fascinating things at college. However, there hasn’t been quite the amazing life revolution that it appears I’d been unconsciously expecting. I didn’t become known as a super genius. I didn’t learn how to write a novel in thirty days. I didn’t get a new and perfect job. I didn’t even get a raise (my office prizes experience over degrees, dedication to the desk rather than to the books—as do many businesses—so if anything, I lost points by taking time off for classes).

So here I sit, piece of paper in a fancy red holder in a box somewhere upstairs, and instead of feeling like my collegiate pursuits sincerely helped me, I am bogged-down by the thought of all the debit I incurred during said pursuit.

It’s because I’ve been thinking more about being a stay-at-home-mom. It’s my dream. It’s always been my most sincere ‘plan’ for my adulthood, even beyond attending college. And it’s frustrating because I’m not able to live it out now as I’d hoped. I understand that it just isn’t a “now” type thing, sure. But when I delve into how to make it happen someday, I can imagine how we’d save money by growing some of our own produce and buying the rest through CSA. I can plan how we’ll buy second-hand everythings. We already use cloth diapers. We can hang our laundry on a line to dry. We could sell one of our cars. We could wait for me to stay at home until we’ve paid off the credit cards. All that seems very doable. But. Then I start thinking about the one big debt that won’t be going away any time soon. School loans. They are GIGANTIC and scary and freak me out whenever I think about them. And even if we were to claim bankruptcy and move to a yurt and survive off of the land, we’d have those loans hanging over us. Haunting us.

Not to say that I’m unhappy I’m edumacated. I’m just dismayed at the thought of spending the next thirty years paying-back my loans. It makes me wonder whether I might have been better-off accepting the fact that I couldn’t afford college and dedicating my days to enriching my mind via the public library and lectures while working to excel in the office and saving my pennies for a rainy day. Like now, when I have an infant and would love to stay home with her.

If I had to live the past 10 years over again and knew what I know now—that getting a degree would mean I would need to leave my infant with a caregiver so I could pay off my loans—I believe I may have rethought the pursuit of a degree. And I wonder how many other people jump into the college system without truly realizing that it has the potential to limit their future options as much as it may expand them.

The Feb 2nd ’09 issue of Forbes published an article that suggested Americans take some time to reconsider our mass pursuit of higher education. The article states that “the premium that college grads earn over high schoolers has remained relatively constant over the past five years, [but] the cost of acquiring a degree has risen at twice the rate of inflation.” So, even those who never wanted to stay home with kids—those who were pursuing an actual career track—are still finding themselves in debit up to their eyeballs and no grand way to pay it off. Their post-grad jobs are just not enough. We collegiate folks are all fighting over the same $16/hr jobs that we would have been working in had we never darkened our alma maters’ doors.

Now, I don’t particularly care for the lens through which Forbes views the world. The ideas found in the magazine are often of a nature that focus on keeping the status quo intact, so the magazine’s wealthier readers remain on top of the world. Certainly, dissuading others from education while enjoying it themselves would continue to perpetuate their well-honed system. Most realistically, the point of the article is to dissuade those who have from lending to those who have-not (either directly or via their voting powers) in what they appear to describe as a benevolent act of kindness. They know best, after all. Hey there,  you don’t need to go into debt, why don’t you just work in my factory. Nevertheless, the theory has its interesting points—that persons are being duped into believing that a degree is necessary to attain success by a society claiming to be interested in betterment, when rather than being empowered by the pursuit they’ll be losing their financial freedom. Obviously, for many the broadened avenues of thought that might be achieved are still worth something that, if they can’t be measured as a monetary earning, are nevertheless extremely valuable. And I have to believe that for many there will be a monetary gain even with loans. But I understand the argument about college not being a guaranteed ticket to a white-collar job, a hearty paycheck, and a house in a leafy suburb. Nor, it turns out, does it help you become June Cleaver.