When I pictured my life with my new baby I envisioned myself as a breastfeeding machine. Holding my little one close, gazing into her eyes and bonding on an intimate level. My experience has been anything but that.
After having a c-section holding her was a huge challenge. I had an enormous amount of pressure built up in my stomach. Trapped gas and swelling for the most part. Holding her in a cradle position compressed my stomach and made it unbearable. Football hold helped some but still wasn't great.
I breastfed exclusively while in the hospital recovering. After being told we needed to feed every 2 hours (even if it meant waking her up) we still had an incredibly fussy baby. One that would kick and scream even after being fed for a longer than the recommended time. One night when she was inconsolable we asked the nurses for help. Of course the second the nurse arrived she settled right down. The nurses were kind enough to take care of her for a few hours so we could rest. Not long after she was in their care, our night nurse came in and woke me. "Your baby has lost 12.5% of her weight, we need to give her formula".
I nodded and as soon as the nurse left immediately started bawling. I was failing my baby. I was trying the best I could to feed her and help her thrive and it wasn't enough. Not even close! All my dreams of having an exclusively breastfed baby came crashing down within hours of her birth. That night she took 70ml of formula. For a 2 day old baby that is a huge amount of food in one go. Their tummies are around the size of a cherry.
That morning our nurse helped us forge a new game plan for feeding. I would breast feed for 20 minutes then pump after to top her up. We had formula on hand to make sure she got enough. Thankfully this plan worked exactly as we needed. She was gaining weight. We stayed an extra day in the hospital because we needed to ensure she had put enough weight back on. Thankfully she regained 4% of her weight in that time.
Getting discharged from the hospital and going home now posed its own set of challenges.
We rented a hospital grade pump from London Drugs instead of buying our own so we had time to make sure the feeding plan was going to continue to work for us. It didn't.
Night times were trying to say the least. She wanted to stay awake from 10pm til 2 or 3am. I would breast feed her for an hour and she would still be hungry. To say it was an exhausting process would be the understatement of the year. She would feed, still be hungry, not go to sleep and then feed again. She was attached to me for most of the night and when she wasnt, she was almost impossible to settle. All of it came down to one this. She was hungry. A hungry baby is a very unhappy baby. An unhappy baby makes for stressed out Mommies and Daddies.
I needed a better way. I needed to feed my baby and I needed to keep my sanity. I was not a good Mom with the level of frustration I was feeling. After an emotional discussion with Steve, we decided I would give up nursing and pump exclusively. This way we could monitor how much she was eating and make sure she was being fed enough. This wasn't an easy decision for me. I wanted so desperately to be the best mom possible and feed my baby the way I'm "supposed to". Guilt consumed me and that familiar feeling of failure came back.
Those feelings were quick to leave once we started pumping exclusively and realized how much happier our baby was. She was full, content and much easier to console. She was happy and so was I.
Pumping isn't without its struggles. I am a dairy cow every 2 hours with bottles attached to my boobs. I've struggled with supply and have had to supplement with formula. Every time I reach for a bottle of formula I cringe. Knowing it gives her an upset stomach and isn't "the very best" I can give her. But it means she is full. She won't go hungry and that's what matters. Sometimes I don't have enough milk for her, other times I have extra (until she decides to cluster feed and drink it all in 2 hours).
We are still working out the kinks of feeding. She seems to have a lot of tummy troubles. Gas gives her pain and makes her fussy. We try too hard to predict how much she needs to eat instead of letting her dictate when she is done. We are learning to roll with the punches and take it minute by minute. Babies are far from predictable and that's ok. I'm certainly not a perfect mother and she isn't the perfect baby but together we are doing our best and that's all you can ask for. All I hope is that one day I look back on this and realize I did just fine and made the best decisions I could.
