The Question of Revealing

The dilemma has presented itself. How much of life am I willing to reveal, knowing there are strong opinions out there? I believe I have come to a conclusion (or will have by the end of this post), and will now embark on the journey of writing about our first two weeks.

Leading up to the birth of little Alexi I focused on the desires I had for a natural birth and how to cope with pain to achieve that. During that time I focused only a little on the things I needed to know for the first couple weeks. Yes, I did do initial study of baby baths, cord care, and what to expect diaper-wise. I even had read a book on breastfeeding. But my focus was clearly on the birthday of our child. (eventually some version of a birth story will be posted)

After meeting Alexi for the first time, the baby nurse (a certified lactation consultant) helped be to latch her on for the first time. Hasty instructions were given and I was left with my baby girl to bond and for her to eat. Many of the nurses that we had in the next 24 hours were ready and willing to help me with breastfeeding but I found myself struggling.

I wasn't sure how to ask the questions I had, so I asked nothing. I was stressed being there in the hospital, and that affected both how I nursed and how she fed. When we left the hospital she had dropped from 7lb 11oz to 6lb 15oz. Over the next week she gained weight and was doing great physically; I could say honestly that she was doing great. As night time would roll around, though, Chad could paint a pretty terrible picture of my mental state. Getting barely any sleep coupled with being on call all of the time (and having my energy literally sucked out of me each feeding) I was a wreck. As I got more tired and stressed, Alexia's latch got worse and soon I found myself in lots of pain. I so wanted breastfeeding to work and to love it that I was growing super frantic. After nights and nights of lots of tears and me not functioning, Chad started suggesting a switch to formula.

The last thing I wanted to consider was switching to formula when baby girl was doing fine. It felt so selfish to talk about taking away her perfect food for the formula. I was a formula fed baby and turned out perfectly healthy, I had just read so much and believe that breast really is best (I mean God made it). I also really wanted to experience the bonding that breastfeeding can be. All of these desires just made me so stressed to make it work that there was no getting her to latch correctly. I was looking for permission to give up. Mostly I was looking for permission from myself. I had conversations with my mom, support from my Mr. and did research on switching to formula online.

I took a deep breath and said yes to Chad one afternoon and walked out of the house. He had the bottle, the formula, the instructions, and the baby. She took the bottle perfectly. It was hard on me, still is at times, but I wouldn't take back that choice. Even without getting any more sleep, I immediately felt the difference of not having baby girl suck the energy out of me and having the ability to have husband take a turn feeding. And about that bonding, Alexi has spent the most time looking in my eyes and bonding with me since the switch.

So there it is, our baby girl is formula fed. The choice was made for momma's sanity and that's okay. I have theories how it could have been a better situation with different preparation, but for the time being, we are recovering from being over exhausted and cherishing time with our little newborn.

BT