that title /\ sure does encompass a lot, but for me, they are all intertwined.
in the hospital, i wasn't ever given a choice. i mean, that was fine by me, since my plan was to breastfeed anyway, but looking back, no one ever had a conversation about this with me. in fact, no one even showed me how. i remember when the nurse came in the day after asher was born to ask if i had fed him. "fed him?" i thought... "how do i do that?" she grabbed my boob and tried to shove it into my son's mouth, but to no avail. "keep trying," she instructed. so try i did. i spent that next day trying over and over and over again. eventually, i asked to speak with a lactation consultant (and i honestly wouldn't have even known to do that, but a good friend of mine had given birth two week prior and told me to do so). the lactation consultant esentially did the same thing the nurse did: contort my boob every which way possible and shove it into my son's mouth. when that didn't work, i was shown how to hand express the colostrum from my breast and syringe feed the baby like a bird. whatever worked. upon her exit, she instructed me to "keep trying." this went on for the entire length of our hospital stay. three lactation consultants, five nurses, and even one attending doctor tried to get my son to latch. eventually the original lactation consultant returned to check on us and handed my a nipple shield. it worked! but before i could get too happy, i was instructed to NOT use the shield for more than a few days and to "keep trying". what a bummer. the day after we were released (yes, the day after), i attended a breastfeeding group with that same lactation consultant. again she tried, but to no avail. upon my exist she suggested i look into hiring a private lactation consultant. i remember watching all of the other women at the group breastfeed their babies. some even shred stories of breastfeeding struggles and woes, but i left feeling more defeated than empowered. i now know that his inability to latch was do to severe ties all over his mouth and that no amount of "trying" was going to solve that. against convention, i continued to feed my baby using the shield. hey, if it isn't broken, why fix it? after the revision surgery, aj was still unable to latch, and so use of the shield continued still. i found a new ibclc who did weighted feeds and, while use of a shield is considered a "crutch", my son was transferring milk well and gaining weight. in my eyes, those are both major successes. but then the rashes started. "restrict your diet" i was instructed. so i took out dairy and soy (and beef, too, because bovine protein closely mimics milk and soy protein). and magically, the rashes disappeared. victory! but then more rashes, angrier rashes appeared. "restrict your diet" i was instructed. so i took out gluten and corn (also high allergens). and soon, those rashes faded, too.... but not before the bloody stool began. (and let me just tell you, seeing blood in my son's poop bout scared me to death!) "restrict your diet" i was instructed. so this time, i also removed eggs and nuts. i'm not going to sugar coat this, because i know there are women who eat this cleanly every day, but living like this was a miserable existence. so i did what i thought was an easy fix, i asked for a prescription for hypoallergenic formula. the formula is covered by insurance (thank goodness, because it's super expensive!) and smells TERRIBLE. i called my ob to let him know that i would be ceasing breastfeeding, and he gave me a chart to do so slowly (so as to avoid engorged breasts and mastitis). the first time i fed him a bottle, i cried (i did the second and third time, as well) and my son screamed. i switched bottles and nipples, but every time, he would just cry, cry, cry and make "yucky" faces (and hell, i couldn't blame him). this is where the mom guilt really started to set in. mom guilt is like normal guilt, except it makes you question your parenting decisions. should i have just kept the restricted diet in order to keep breastfeeding? was i being truly selfish? there are women out there who literally cannot breastfeed - and here i am, choosing not to. those were a long few nights and days. up all evening thinking about how i possibly made a huge mistake and dreading the moment i would have to make a bottle for my baby. but it wasn't until the other day when my best friend came over with her baby (he's only a month or so older than asher!). there she was, breastfeeding away (without a shield, i'd like to add) and here i was, forcing my screaming child to drink this concoction that i legitimately loathed. (it is SUPER IMPORTANT that i add here that i am totally not against formula-feeding! whether you have to or choose to - the MOST important thing here is that baby is fed and thriving. but for me, i just want to highlight the emotions switching over to formula evoked for ME.) it was at this moment that i realized just how emotional i was about breastfeeding. i shoved my feelings aside and the very next day, attempted formula feeding again. two other friends were over witnessing this and how upset it made me. that night, i had a breakdown. i cried to my husband and to my father. i wanted to breastfeed and feared that i did, in fact, make a terrible decision. but it was during these conversations that i realized my "mom guilt" is actually much, much more than that: it's full blown anxiety. anxiety about breastfeeding. anxiety about sleep and wake times. anxiety about mouth ties. anxious. all of the time. about everything. did you know that postpartum anxiety is a thing? because i didn't. i had been screened multiple times for postpartum depression, but i wasn't depressed. i was ANXIOUS. i googled everything. i joined every facebook group i could. i texted other moms incessantly. i asked "is this normal?" seventy five times a day. in no way could this be healthy. i'm happy to report that i will be attending a support group for moms with PPD/PPA on tuesday of next week and i have NO SHAME in doing so. mom-ing is fucking hard. i am responsible for keeping a little person alive and well day in and day out. my obsession with doing the "right" thing just needs to change focus. logically, i understand that i need to be confident in my decision-making... that there really aren't any "right" choices and that there REALLY ARE a million opinions out there. but emotionally, i need help in doing so. and i am ok with asking for a little help.
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this past thanksgiving, my life changed in a big way. this past thanksgiving, i became a mom.
we were scheduled for a c-section for the following day. luckily, my sister in law hosted for the holiday, so chris and i went over happy and hungry. we left early-ish, came home, showered, packed our hospital bags, and went to bed. around nine o'clock, i got up to use the restroom. i crawled back in bed and felt a gigantic gush. i remember thinking to myself, "did i not pee all the way on the toilet?" ...but the gush didn't stop. so i jostled chris away and said matter-of-factly, "my water broke." in an instant, chris flew out of bed, panic-stricken and tossed me a new pair of sweatpants. "put these on! we have to go now!" he shouted, quickly followed by, "and call the doctor!" his frantic-ness made me a little nervous, but i managed to call the ob (who called me back within minutes and told me to come to l&d). i did put on those new sweatpants, by the way, which were soon soaked, too. chris started the car and off we were. when i got to l&d, it was pretty obvious by my all-too soaked-through sweatpants that labor had started, so they ushered me into triage. i was hooked up to all sorts of monitors and by then, contractions had started. the doctor arrived not too long after. he told me that as long as the contractions stayed spaced apart and i didn't dialate too quickly, we could still wait until the morning for the c-section. but about a half hour later, the contractions were intense and i had dialated quite a bit, so off to the operating room it was. in the operating room, they administered a spinal. whoa baby did it hurt (but it only lasted a second before i went comfortably numb from the waist down). before i could process what was about the happen next, a sheet went up and chris was ushered into the operating room. i could see shadows through the curtain and hear mumblings, but i fixated on chris (who reported that i looked like a deer in headlights). not fifteen minutes later, they told chris to peek over the curtain and out popped asher james. the nurses took aj to another room to weigh and clean him (chris followed) and there i lay, belly open, now a mom. chris returned with the baby a few minutes later. i remember feeling like i was in a dream. (i also remember asking for nausea medication!) once i was sewn back up, the three of us went to a recovery room (for about an hour... but i don't have much recollection of this). after that, we were taken to our hospital room, where we would spend the next three days together. those next days were a whirlwind of emotions. friends and family came to visit. i attempted to feed my new baby. i learned what exhaustion truly felt like. and i realized that my life would never be the same again <3 there is something to be said for a "motherly instinct". i am by no means a parenting expert (far from it, as i frequently question every move i make), but when i had a feeling there was something more than i was being told, i sure am glad i listened to my gut.
since we brought him home from the hospital, poor aj really struggled to poop. he would grunt and cry (and sometimes scream) for quite a while before being able to evacuate his bowels. what's more is that it was never a complete evacuation. he would poop. we would change him. ten minutes later, more poop. this would continue for an hour or more so that by the time he fell asleep, i'd have to wake him to feed him again. i alerted the pediatrician, but he told me that aj was experiencing uncoordinated pooping and that he'd just "figure it out." (over a month later, this is still going on, by the way!) [also note: this is not the same thing as constipation. his poop is normal, he just struggles to get it all out.] his struggle to poop escalated, and my poor baby was skipping naps between feedings altogether. it got so bad, that he was only sleeping about 4 hours total in a 24 hour period. (just an fyi, infants this young are supposed to sleep about 16 hours per 24 hour period!) of course i alerted the pediatrician again and was force fed the same answer. we tried warm baths, glycerin suppositories, and anal stimulation. all to no avail. finally we decided enough was enough (and mama was NOT sleeping), so we took aj to an occupational therapist. we learned lots of helpful leg exercises to get things "flowing" and a better way to conduct tummy time to help build those belly muscles. but the most important thing we learned was that aj had mouth ties. (in fact, he had four of them: a posterior tongue tie, a lip tie, and both buccal [cheek] restrictions.) i immediately made an appointment with a preferred provider in nyc (who happens to be both a pediatric dentist and a medical doctor). while we waiting for our appointment, chris and i did tons and tons of research. what we learned made so much sense. all of these "things" that my baby was experiencing stemmed from his mouth: the inability to latch properly, my other struggles with breastfeeding (which i'll detail at a later date), his reflux (projectile vomiting after feeding; he's on zantac now to help mitigate that), his pooping issues, his lack of sleep, his constant tension and crying, his aerophagia (sucking in a ton of air while eating - he literally sounds like a squeaking mouse)... and on and on... so why weren't we told this by the pediatrician or other lactation consultants we met with before? simply put, this is a fairly controversial hot topic. there's a lot of research out there in support of getting ties released but, at the same time, there are still a lot of "old school" and/or untrained professionals out there. after lots of debate (and lots of tears), chris and i decided to move forward with the procedure (which was on saturday). [note: i know how to procedure was done, but i am one of those people who can't bear to watch, so i excused myself from the room and closed my eyes and plugged my ears. my husband was a real trooper and stayed with asher to help comfort him.] we first had a consult with the doc (who confirmed all four areas of need) and then he used a laser (which essentially cauterizes the areas so there is little to no blood) to remove the skin filaments that were preventing aj from having full mouth mobility. i got to nurse my baby immediately afterwards (using a shield, because we still can't latch) and we were taught how to do mouth stretches (5x a day!) to prevent reattachment. so how are we doing two days post op? fairly well! asher is sleeping much more (thank the heavens) because releasing the ties releases a lot of mouth an neck tension allowing him to relax more. he doesn't seem like he's in any real pain (but just in case, i made a homeopathic concoction of cold breastmilk, arnica pills, and camilla drops) except when we do the mouth stretches (then my house sounds like a torture chamber and part of me dies inside every. single. time.). there's still a lot of work to be done and we will be working closely with a lactation consultant (to help us re-learn breastfeeding) and a craniosacral therapist (think chiropractor but way more gentle). i'll keep you posted on our progress! |
Authorjust a girl growing into womanhood growing into motherhood. Archives
January 2018
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