Failure

Today I went to a baby massage class. There was a brief discussion about breastfeeding/bottle feeding. All the lady was saying was if you are bottle feeding to make it as close to breastfeeding as you can i.e. switch sides, hold baby close etc. She was in no way trying to make me feel bad and wasn't even dissing bottle feeding at all but this little discussion made me feel like a failure. A failure as a mom and a failure as a woman. And as I sat there for the next hour pretty much every single mom there at one point or another nursed her baby. And each time I saw it I just felt worse and worse.

I wanted to nurse my baby! That was my plan! And every now and again something like today happens and reminds me that I don't and that I cant.

At first it was all going fine. I was expecting nursing to be horrible and painful from what everyone was telling me but there was seriously only maybe a few days where it actually hurt for me. I got a tiny blister, put some of that cream stuff on it and a few days later it was fine. After a bit though I kind of thought something was not going right. Roczen was a week old and we were at Winston's baby blessing. And I seriously had no milk. My sisters even made me drink a huge glass of water. At this point I still hadn't even felt my milk come in. Ya, I know I had some but not a lot. My mom, the health nurse, my sisters all kept asking me if I felt the "let down" I had no idea what the heck they were talking about because I felt nothing. My one sister said her boobs kinda tingled when it happened the other said it kinda hurt for her. I didn't feel a let down until he was probably two weeks old. Well he seemed fine for the next little while until he was about 5 weeks old. He was a very content baby and seriously never cried. Then all of the sudden for a whole week straight he cried from the moment he woke up till the moment he went to bed pretty much. I think he probably reached a growth spurt and what little milk I had just wasn't doing it for him anymore. I kept thinking over and over again that he was hungry and I wasn't making enough milk but everyone kind of brushed it off telling me it was colic or gas or something but I just couldn't get the thought out of my head that he was just hungry. I even told my Dr. about it a couple times. The second time I went in he gave me some pills to try to increase my milk. It definitely helped a little bit but not enough.

At the end of that week I seriously just sat there crying with him all day long. I was exhausted. Nothing I did calmed him down. Trying to feed him usually made him more mad. I finally was just so fed up and told Scott to bring home some formula. We made him a 2 oz bottle and he drank it in like 2 minutes, no joke. Ever since he's been on formula he has been a million times happier! At first I was giving him formula and breast milk because I still needed that feeling of doing that. Of feeding my son, of doing what I was made to do. But after awhile he just preferred the bottle and would not nurse at all. He would just cry and scream the whole time I tried. So I started pumping. But after awhile he wouldn't even take the breast milk in a bottle or if he did he'd start crying right after he finished. I really just think there was nothing to my milk haha Back on Winston's blessing day when I had no milk my sister gave me some she had frozen (sorry if this grosses anyone out) I didn't end up using it because I was finally able to feed him that night myself when we got home. But comparing her milk to mine is like night and day. Mine seriously looked worse than skim milk...hers did not haha My thought one day was that I would rather have a happy baby on formula than a baby who cries all day being breast fed. And that is how I made my decision. Even after I stopped giving him the breast milk I kept pumping and freezing it and yes it's still in my freezer. Scott keeps telling me we need to get rid of it and I really don't know why but I just have a mini panic attack each time he suggests it. I don't really know how to explain it but it's kind of my connection to what I wanted and what could have been I don't know haha that sounds retarded but I just feel so sad every time I think of getting rid of it and I just can't do it.

So even though I know that formula was the best decision for us, it's days like today, or days like last week when I read the side of my formula container and even that is telling me that breastfeeding is the best for babies than I feel like a failure all over again.

My cute formula fed baby!

And I'm sure he'll survive...and maybe I will too haha