Our first week home: learning to listen to myself

Our first week home has been a dramatic but special one.  The biggest milestone we got through was how to feed our baby.  I began nursing in the hospital but our boy that began at 7lb. 4oz. lost over 9% of his weight by the time we brought him home.  Although it is normal to lose weight that first week, the doctors get concerned if the baby loses more than 10% and we were close.  Was I producing enough colostrum?  When was my milk going to come in?  Was I nursing enough?  We went home and sure enough my milk came in and we just kept trying. We kept close tabs on how often Joaquin peed and pooped and then I got a check in call from the nurse...I was already exhausted from nursing so often and knowing Joaquin wasn't meeting the required amounts of bathroom breaks.  I felt like the nurse was scolding me on the phone when I gave her my report and basically she made me feel like a bad mother as if I wasn't doing everything I could.  By the time she heard me crying at the end of our phone call she apologized and tried to sound sympathetic.  She made me call my pediatrician's office asap so they could help me set up a better feeding plan.  Luckily the nurse at the pediatrician was much nicer.  She told me it was hard for everyone beginning and it was just a bump I would get past.  However the new schedule was to nurse Joaquin every 2 hours from start time to start time and then pump in between.  This meant the only time I was with my son was when struggling to nurse and get him to latch on and make enough milk and then I would pump very little more while he was awake and then he would sleep the next 40 minutes and the vicious cycle repeated itself.   I just wanted time to play with him when he was awake. So...why was I nursing?  Why was I feeling deprived of seeing my son awake and just torturing the two of us for something I didn't even need to do?  I was doing it because I felt like I should and it was what everyone else was doing.  I was also saving money. These were all the wrong reasons. I get that there are antibodies you can only get in breast milk and it helps baby's immune system...but at the pediatrician today she assured me that some other studies are just not complete.  She mentioned how some studies show higher IQ's of those breast fed and then mentioned how those studies often compare suburbs to inner city and this is often affected by socio-economic status.  She said there are many more factors that go into your child's IQ besides breast milk such as how often you talk to your little one about the world like showing which tree is bigger when out on a walk or if you read to them often.  I am not discrediting the benefits of breast milk, I am just acknowledging that it is not for everyone.  I had a home nurse come and see me over the weekend and we talked this out.  She told me I needed to do what I wanted to do and not what everyone else wanted me to do.  What I wanted to do was use formula so she told me go ahead and stop the breast milk cold turkey if that's what I wanted.  The rest of that day was the best day I had with my baby yet!  I couldn't handle the stress of not knowing how much he was eating with breas milk and with formula I could see exactly how much.  Everyone around me wanted to help me but no one could help my baby eat or help me nurse so now with formula I can take turns with others and I get so much more play time with Joaquin when he is awake other than when he's eating!  It was the best decision I could have made.

Here's a photo of Joaquin resting/playing on my knees, he's awake! Although looking a little sleepy...ha!

Now for a little soap box...I had such a hard time with so many people telling me why I should nurse.  Even when I said I wanted to use formula, people would still say: well keep trying or what about both?  That just wasn't the solution for me.  The whole pregnancy was full of other people's opinions on why I needed a Dula or a midwife or a water birth...I don't even like taking baths, why would I like that?!  I just wanted to deliver in the hospital and take the drugs.  When my baby was breech, multiple people told me to get the version. They weren't in the doctors office listening to my 50-50 chances of it working with all the risks and pains involved.  So many women say birth and pregnancy is about you getting to make your own choices and not to let the doctors boss you around.  But my choice was to listen to doctors and I wanted to deliver in the hospital and although the c-section was not intentional, it really all worked out for the best!

Here we are going home!

Now JAG (Joaquin), JAG (Jesus) and RAG (my initials)  are home and adjusting to our new life.  This is only the beginning and I am so grateful even with the hardships.  I have a supportive husband and we have had plenty of visitors to help us out.  I can only imagine the months ahead, or weeks...or better yet let's start with days.