Newborn Life: 7

I tried a box of the lactation bars. I’ve been eating one every night for 6 nights. I get so impatient and frustrated because the results are gradual. I don’t want gradual, I want instant gratification. Isn’t that kind of how we are in life? Sometimes we struggle so much to have patience to see the bigger picture and wait for the future outcome. We get so wrapped up in the present and just want it now. I am seeing a slow, gradual progression and I should be celebrating that. But it’s hard. I am still nowhere near supplying how much he takes in. I’m slowly producing more and he is slowly eating more. I can’t keep up. I don’t think I will ever be able to keep up, that’s the reality. But for some reason I just can’t let it go. I know so many people have said it’s totally fine to strictly bottle feed. No one is holding me to this except myself. The voice inside my head is the voice that is the most critical. I never thought I was going to care this much. When I was pregnant, I had no idea if I was even going to breastfeed and wasn’t really even sold on the idea at all. But now, I feel like it’s my job. And by job, I don’t mean that in a negative way, I mean it is what my body is meant to do. Originally when I had discussed milk production with my doctor, she mentioned that I could try putting him to me to create a “bonding experience.” I thought that just sounded stupid. I don’t need my boob hanging out to bond with my baby. However, after talking to my Doula friend and Chiropractor, they both mentioned that bringing him to me is more than that. His saliva stimulates my brain which stimulates my body to produce more. Ok, now that makes sense. See, this is exactly why I get so frustrated with general medicine. Sometimes the things they say just doesn’t make sense or isn’t the full explanation. I am for sure grateful for doctors, absolutely, but really? Sometimes I just shake my head. A few weeks went by and only now someone explains the real meaning. That day I went home and tried it. It helped! Between the bars and the “breastfeeding” my production was slowly increasing. However, he wasn’t taking to the left side, which is what they call “slacker boob” or….more like non-existent boob. So I wasn’t surprised he didn’t want it. Well, now that put me in a position where I still had to pump after that anyways. This was all incredibly time consuming, especially at night. I continued to do it for about a week. I stayed positive and just kept trying but it didn’t get better. At this point, it is starting to affect my mental health. How much can one person go through? So I finally made the hard decision to stop. Sometimes decisions can be so hard, especially when ultimately you are the only person that can make them for yourself. I’ve really never been one to struggle with decision making but this one was just excruciating. I wanted to provide for Mason through food but it just wasn’t possible. Let me just clear the air and be frank in saying, when I say “lack of supply” we are talking .25 a pump. With the other tricks I was able to get to .75 a time at most. For those of you who know what I am talking about, this is pitiful. Like, really bad. I was able to give him my milk only 1 bottle every 24 hours. That was 1/8 of what he was actually consuming. It literally took me all day to come up with just one bottle. It was deeply unsatisfying. The actual stopping process was way more difficult than I imagined. I didn’t really think it through but how painful! Everyday I just pumped less and less. This sent me into depression for a couple days. I had just spent the last few weeks trying to build up my supply; tracking it, and almost making a game of it. Trying to see how much I could get, trying to stay positive. Now, I have to sit and watch my supply go down, almost as if I am watching something close to me slowly die. I was grieving, crying every time. My hormones were playing a major role as well during those couple days. Then, I’m not really sure what happened but everything was lifted. I got to a point where I was only pumping once every 20 hours. I’m not sure if there was a hormonal switch or I was actually getting sleep, or all of the above but I felt free. I was no longer chained to a machine. I woke up one morning and came to terms with it. It was okay. I was going to be okay. I knew all along this was the right decision but still grieved it. But after I woke up that one morning, I was actually excited about being done. I can be a normal person again. I can drink coffee, wine, and buy generic multivitamins. So many things I hadn’t done in a year. During the IVF process I was on a lot of restrictions as well and those started in May 2020. So to be this new person and finally have these feelings of being myself again was unfamiliar territory. But I am ready to move on to the next chapter.

And for now,

Xoxo