Then it came time to put all of my knowledge to work.
The first few weeks of motherhood are rough, especially for brand new mothers. I exclusively breast fed my daughter for the first two weeks. She never seemed to get enough to eat. Because she kept losing weight, we kept having to take her to the doctor (Something that made me cringe! Do you know what kind of germs lurk in medical centers in the middle of winter?!). Eventually it got bad enough that she became dehydrated, and lost over 10% of her body weight. She faced hospitalization because I absolutely would not consider supplementing her with formula. I finally agreed to temporarily supplement with formula. I felt a tremendous sense of guilt and failure for doing so. I couldn't provide enough milk for my daughter to stay hydrated, let alone gain all of the wonderful nutrition from it. In the following weeks I did everything breast feeding mama's are supposed to do when they have trouble. I contacted lactation consultants, saw nurses, La Leche League, and re-read the books. Nothing seemed to help. My supply just wasn't enough for my daughter, and I had to make the command decision to switch permanently to formula. As soon as I did that, the most amazing things happened.....she slept through the night....she smiled.....she was a happy, well-fed baby.
However, I felt the need to hide how I was feeding my daughter. My husband, mother-in-law, and friends were all pro-breast feeding.....and some even went as far as saying that formula was bad or poison for babies. I couldn't tell them that I thought I had already failed my daughter by not producing what she needed. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I should not feel shame for giving my daughter what she needed through means other than my body.
Now, my little girl is crawling, babbling, laughing, curious, beautiful.....all of the things that children SHOULD be.
I needed support in those early days. There was none to be found.
Let's change that!
