One of my favorite CD's ever is Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville. It's filled with melancholy and sadness about a woman not measuring up to all the standards set for her.
From Canary:
I learn my name
I write with a number two pencil
I work up to my potential
I earn my meat
I come when called
I jump when you circle the cherry
I sing like a good canary
I come when called
I come, that's all
When they discovered Jack had hypoglycemia, they took him away and immediately began giving him formula. He had to eat a certain amount every 3 hours whether he wanted to or not. I tried to breast feed but he would always fall asleep. The staff at Group Health told me I could not sacrifice his nutritional needs for my desire to breastfeed. They gave me an industrial pump which I used religiously -- 8 times a day. When we were released, I felt like I needed to continue to supplement because I was so afraid of the condition returning. I know exactly how much milk I produce and I know it is way less that than formula he was eating. I continued with the pump and breast fed in addition to the bottle. It became apparent I could not do the bottle and breast feed. Breast feeding is harder for a kid and they won't do it if they don't have to (at first anyway). So yesterday, I just breast fed him knowing there was no way he was getting enough to eat. It worked ok during the day, but starting at 11 Jack just screamed. He screamed and screamed and would not take the breast. This went on for several hours.
Today, breastfeeding is proven to be the best way to feed an infant. There is a great deal of pressure to do it. If you don't, it's because you didn't try hard enough. What would you do if you had a baby screaming in your arms and you know they were hungry? Should I have just let him scream all night? If I didn't have the fear of the low blood sugar problem in the back of my mind, I may have. The lactation consultant I talked to several times yesterday said I wasn't starving him. But she wasn't around at 1am when he was still crying.
Ryan suggested we give him formula and I knew that would end my attempts at breastfeeding. My milk supply has never increased much and I would have to sacrifice Jack's comfort in the short term (maybe another week?) to get the supply to increase. I gave him the formula and he immediately stopped crying and went to sleep.
I got through natural childbirth and my body has always been really strong. Yet, I couldn't get it to produce what it needed to feed my child. I know I will be judged and questioned by the same seattle hippies who thought natural childbirth was a good idea ( a group I counted myself in just 9 days ago). I am so sad about it because I know all the benefits for him in the long term. All I can say is that I gave it everything I had but I failed.
A Journal of my life as a parent
1 comment:
It's weird to think that a relatively short time ago (in the geological sense), a baby that was hypoglycemic and couldn't or didn't want to breastfeed wouldn't survive, and that would have been that. I don't know what my point is here, other than to say that evolution is, like, weird. There is no actual wisdom here. Please move along.
Mrs. Transient Gadfly would, at this juncture, probably point out that the smartest, most outgoing and energetic little child we've ever met was bottle fed. Mr. Transient Gadfly would probably say something about phenomena that are true across populations (e.g. breast feeding being better for the baby's development) being pretty much irrelevant when they get down to you, the individual, and that in fact no actual discrete inferences based on them can be made. Mr. Transient Gadfly has a particular proclivity towards rambling, though, and his points tend to not make much sense by the time he gets around to making them.
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