Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is getting better. We have our bad days where there are tears on both our parts (including today) but I no longer cry from the act of feeding [though I do cry sometimes when he screams at my boob for 45 minutes). And he now weighs 8lb 10oz at his last doctor check which is very very nice.
I've now been breastfeeding over four weeks. He will be one month old Monday! The only way I made it with breastfeeding this far was taking it one day at a time, one feed at a time. I'm a type-A personality. As a lawyer I was trained to anticipate future outcomes, and map out plans. With breastfeeding I couldn't do that. The thought of sticking with it for six months made me want to have a panic attack... but one day at a time I've made it a month. To be honest, the thought of breastfeeding for six months still makes me feel overwhelmed but I'm taking it one day at a time. I hope that this lesson, that one day at a time you can make it through what you think is impossible, will stay with me beyond this.
It also helps to strengthen my resolve when I get Si.mil.ac and Enf.amil ads daily in the mail with things like feeding issues are normal- see our $5 coupon inside. And it disturbs me they had a brown baby on the cover. Are they targeting me?
Motherhood
Being his mother is awesome. I thought long and hard how to describe it, but there are no words so this inadequate word of awesome- it will have to do. I thought my love would just spring up like a geyser when he was born and while I did love him from the start, the depth of my love, it grows deeper each day. There are still days I can't believe he's here, that he's mine, that I am not living in some dream that I will wake up from.
I was worried that I would continue worrying once he got here as I worried through pregnancy but I'm not. Becoming a mother. . . I don't know how better to explain it but it feels like the razor that rubbed against my heart has finally been removed. I can turn off the one track mind- the hamster wheel that was my brain on infertility. Jack mentioned the other day that I seem like a different person. Ofcourse, I am but its not that I'm a truly different person, its that I can finally go back to who I was. Infertility is very ugly and it holds you in a vice. You don't fully get that until you are free from its clutches and can look back. Each smile, each cry, each coo, each diaper change and spit up- he's healing me.
Monday he turns one month old. I'm looking forward to my first newsletter to him. As a boy, I wonder if he'll ever care enough to go back and read these when he's older, but in truth, I'm doing them for me I guess. One month. Time is no longer standing still- its whizzing by- tell me, how is this fair?
i couldn't have said it better myself. it's amazing isn't it? the whole thing only recently began to feel real for me and louise is four and a half months old.
ReplyDeletei'm glad you are still able to breastfeed, one day at a time sounds like a good way to take it. it really pisses me off that the formula companies are bombarding you with coupons, why? because i am formula feeding and they're not sending me shit! i signed up on enfamil's website long ago, when louise was about three months old and i STILL hadn't received any coupons from them i dropped them an email asking when i might start receiving them, i got an email back saying they sent something. i expected it to be a big envelope with several coupons, you want to know what it was? ONE freaking coupon for five dollars off. assholes. i guess i should have told them i was breastfeeding and thinking about switching to formula. their tactics are pure evil, i understand they are trying to get more customers but it's fucked up to try and convince someone who's breastfeeding to switch to formula when breast milk is CLEARLY superior.
I am so glad that it's "awesome" - and I think that's a great word to describe it, btw! Also very very glad that the breastfeeding is getting easier - or, if not easier, at least easier to tolerate. I'm so very grateful that you posted on your difficulties with this. It's something you don't see very much, and yet I know it has to be more common than some people make it sound.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as always, I'm so happy when you sound like you're doing so well. Can't wait to join you in the motherhood club...
One month old baby... Where does time fly? It was only yesterday we were reading about the contraction-rama and the 'is it, isn't it now' and now he is one. month. old!!! I am so glad to hear that having a baby is that awesome as we all imagined it to be, despite the bf not being always as great as praised in the books (life ain't exactly quite by the books, is it now...).
ReplyDeleteI like your method of 'baby steps' (have you seen 'How about Bob?', with Bill Murray - that's where this phrase is from, ironically quite appropriate in the 'reproduction field' ;-)). We never stop learning, do we?
It goes SO fast! My guys are going to be 3 months old on Thursday, WHAT???@!!! You are doing a great job!
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you're doing better. I'm still struggling with the BF at nearly 3 months, but am also taking it bit by bit at this point.
ReplyDeletewow... a month already!!!
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