When Will I Not Suck At This?

Motherhood is hard. Breastfeeding is hard (and painful and inconvenient and kind of gross). Not sleeping is hard. Being cooped up all day in a crappy, chilly apartment during the dead of winter is hard. Combine all those things, and you just may end up like I did early this morning: sobbing on the living room floor. Little did I know what today had in store. If I had, I probably would have thrown myself off the balcony. The past several nights, Charlotte has been waking up every hour or so to nurse, have her diaper changed, and otherwise fuss. Last night, I suggested that Chris sleep in the guest bedroom so he could get a full night’s sleep for work the next day. And so began another looooooong night of Charlotte constantly waking up. I slept in 20- to 45-minute increments, but it took over an hour to get her to sleep after each time she woke up. At 5:30 a.m. I nursed her again and, dead tired, wondered what I had gotten myself into with this whole motherhood thing. A couple minutes later, Charlotte woke up—if she had really even been asleep in the first place. Chris was due to get up at 6:40, and I kept thinking that if I could make it until then, I could at least escape baby duty long enough to inhale a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal—and just not worry about her for a couple minutes. Charlotte was fussing and crying, and by 6:54, I marched into the guest bedroom and essentially handed her to Chris. Well, by 6:54, Chris was already running late for work, so he plopped her into the swing where she continued to cry, and I went ahead and joined her. For the rest of the morning, except for nursing, Charlotte fussed and cried. Nothing would soothe her. By noon, I was cleared out of milk and my child was howling. I called Chris at work (remember, he works about a mile away), and asked if he could come home for lunch so I could at least take a shower. I felt awful about asking him to do so, but I was utterly desperate at this point. Charlotte had been crying for hours and hours. Bless him, he came home, but he insisted I call the pediatrician in the meantime. So I called the doctor. He asked about nursing and I told him that was the only time Charlotte was quiet, but even then she was very frantic and squirmy, not calm and soothed like she usually is when she eats. The doctor asked if I had a bottle of expressed (i.e., “pumped”) milk available. I told him yes—I had barely managed to generate a measly 2 ounces, what with Charlotte nursing constantly. Then he suggested that perhaps she was hungrier than usual and my milk production just wasn’t keeping up. He said to give her as many bottles as she would take and see if she’d sleep after that. I panicked—this one teeny tiny bottle of breast milk was all I had, and I knew there wasn’t a drop left in me. So I asked him the taboo question that the American Academy of Pediatrics and La Leche League deem the most shameful of all questions: At this point, should I supplement breast milk with formula? “Yes, absolutely,” Charlotte’s most kind, nonjudgmental, and brilliant pediatrician said. I was torn between sheer skepticism and relief that my problem might be solved by sticking a few bottles into Charlotte’s mouth, but I immediately gave her the expressed breast milk, followed by a 2-ounce bottle of formula. As I was preparing yet another 2-ounce bottle of formula, Chris arrived home. A mere 1 hour after nursing, this girl downed 6 more ounces of breast milk and formula. Sure, she spit up a bit at the end, but Chris swooped in and took her away to get her burped and cleaned up while I TOOK A SHOWER! By the time I emerged, my baby girl was sleeping soundly in her bassinet, and Chris returned to work before his lunch hour was up. As Chris left, I fell apart for about the 17th time today (keep in mind I haven’t slept since January). Was I relieved that she didn’t appear to be sick or (gasp of horror) have the onset of colic? Of course. But I felt absolutely terrible. I had failed to adequately feed my kid. What kind of mother fails to properly feed her child? I feel guilty. But I’m also PISSED. The breastfeeding propaganda that the hospital shoved down my throat portrays baby formula as poison that will forever damage your kid. “Don’t worry about not having enough milk,” they say. “Your body naturally creates just the right amount for baby.” Seriously, the only excuse you have to get out of breastfeeding is if you have AIDS. Have the flu? No matter! Baby has your antibodies so she won’t get sick! So barf then nurse! Undergoing surgery? You can still pump! Have a business trip? Pump and pump and pump! Are your nipples producing more blood than milk? Tough it out! (The book the hospital gave me actually referred to latching onto cracked, bleeding nipples as “mild discomfort” and said it would be a shame to veer off nursing because of something so minor. Right. I had given birth two days prior, and I seriously debated which was more painful.) I’m a reasonably intelligent person, but I’m also a first-time mother and more than anything I want to give Charlotte the best possible start in life. This, combined with waaaaaay too much information and a naturally guilt-ridden personality led me to discount my own instinct. The idea that Charlotte wasn’t getting enough via nursing had been silently nagging at me the past several days, but the “experts” convinced me I was wrong and just trying to get out of my still-painful breastfeeding duties by possibly sneaking in some formula. Thank goodness Charlotte’s pediatrician more or less prescribed formula to supplement nursing. Still, the idea that I screwed up so massively bugs me a lot. I hesitated to even post this blog entry because I'm not proud of my screw-up, but maybe someone else can learn from this crappy day. The fact that I put more stock in experts' opinions than my own about my body and my baby cost Charlotte. Lesson learned.