Needless to say, I'm back on the juice again. Without it, asking a mom to perform her mom-ly duties on a schedule that would exhaust Sting is downright cruel.
Now, I know moms who abstain for the sake of jazzing their babies up on caffeine through their breast milk. They are saints who amaze me with their ability to nurse with one hand and play Michael Jackson's "Heal the World" on medieval lute in the other. I am not that woman. Anymore. I had lofty aspirations of becoming her, but somewhere along the line between the breast pump, bottle washing, and laundering sweet pea's entire wardrobe twice a day, I didn't accomplish the sleep sufficient to operate my own body and, well, I crashed.
Imagine college, with a midterm test every day and no Starbucks on campus.
Then multiply that by a roommate who wants to party. All. Night. Long.
At the suggestion of my shaky mental health, I made the choice to bottle feed my sweet daughter after holding back months of unexpressed stress and deciding that the dam was about to burst. From the time we started getting strange ultrasounds until she was about five weeks old, I didn't cry. I just labored and read and wrote. Then she began vomiting (which resulted in her last surgery) and I just about went fruit loops.
Funny how your own failure causes you to adjust your definition of the word.
Part of me mourns the breastfeeding picture of mommy/baby closeness I had imagined when I was pregnant. When our Ava Leigh's tummy began working after her initial surgery and we could feed her, it had to be accomplished by bottle so her doctors could observe her intake levels. Day after day, her little mouth became accustomed to the deceptively comforting feel of that rubber nipple and learned to accept it as food source. When her medical team finally allowed her to make an attempt to feed from me, it was a little heartbreaking -- like a pug trying to eat baloney off the floor. Even after I brought her home and continued trying to breastfeed her, both of us ended up disappointed and grumpy.
I think if she had been able to begin life as a breastfeeder, things would've turned out differently. After all, we know this sweet 'tater can chug-a-lug like Charlie Sheen. We're thankful for that accomplishment alone! After all, this was the baby whose doctors wanted to place a G tube in her tummy because it was assumed she'd be a poor feeder.
A lot of children with Downs need this help because poor muscle tone and difficulty sucking often come with the territory. But at her bedside, we had watched her tear up her pacifier for hours on end. We saw her chubby little limbs kick and flail and fight off nurses with the best of them. So we said no to the G tube, and she learned to eat. It was the right choice for her.
After we came home, I dragged my backpack pumping kit up and down the stairs, looking very much like a milking hobo in my own home. I used it to supply the contents of Ava's bottles until I started seeing purple people dancing down the front lawn. Then I mixed my milk with the best Enfamil we could buy until I had assured myself that our baby wouldn't spontaneously combust if I fed her on formula alone. I began to sleep, and to form complete sentences in conversation. And then she began to sleep, sometimes through my feeding alarm. Now, we both awake refreshed and in our right minds. It's nice.
If things had worked out the way I'd originally dreamed they would, I would have breastfed her in a heartbeat. I won't deny that it's nature's perfect baby food (not to mention nature's way of sparing Daddy's wallet for the first few months).
Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice for her. On one hand is the offering of perfect food, which requires stopping the world to acquire with a machine which, frankly, disturbs me; on the other hand, I can give her a well-rested and cheerful Mommy who can regulate her baby's sleep/eat/play schedule so much more effectively and have time to snuggle, teach, and soothe, to boot.
When I first learned I'd have to bottle feed my daughter, I was afraid that it would somehow diminish the bonding that the La Leche League exclusively promises breastfeeders. But now when my little peapod can hardly finish her final ounce for stopping to smile at me during every feeding, I know that being able to hold her close and speak softly to her is the only right answer I'm sure of
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