Well, I'll get to all these things in time. But, since is the first post, I thought I'd go back to the beginning. Not the pregnancy. You don't want to hear about that yet. Trust me. Instead, I'll go back to the days after the birth of my oldest son and deal with one of the major issues facing new mothers: breastfeeding. I'm not going to talk about statistics or techniques, or how good breastfeeding is for a newborn baby (I'll get there in later posts). Instead, I'll relate my own experience and hopefully help some new moms out there.
I was barely 24 years old when my oldest son Tristan was born. Because of complications during the birth, I didn't even see my new baby until almost a day after he was born. That's when I first tried breastfeeding. The nurses encouraged me, but it still hurt. I had been expecting some pain, but not that kind of pain. Tristan didn't latch well. Even with help from the nurses and a lady from the breastfeeding clinic, it was still painful and awkward. But I gave it a go. I didn't complain, and three days later I was on my way home.
Things didn't go any better at home (or rather, at my parents' house where I was staying for the first couple weeks). Tristan cried and was hungry, so I fed him ever two hours. Sometimes every hour, day and night. I wasn't getting any sleep at all and I was in pain. Still, I kept trying. Eventually this had to get easier. Didn't it?
Now, our area has a program where a public health nurse who specializes in babies and new mothers comes to visit. She arrived when Tristan was 5 days old and my little baby was losing weight even to my inexperienced eyes. I told her that I was concerned about breastfeeding, and not only because of Tristan. At this point, I was bleeding. And I don't mean a drop here or there. I mean I had to keep pads in my bra to keep the blood from soaking through my shirt. On both sides. There's no way this could be normal.
But the nurse assured me things would get better. I asked her about formula. She gave me the "breast milk is better" speech. I persisted, she made me feel like the worst mother in the world for not wanting to feed my baby. I told her I didn't think he was getting much milk anyway because I just didn't seem to be producing anything. She told me that was nonsense, but she promised to stop in the next day to see how we were doing.
By the next day, nothing had changed. Except Tristan was crying almost constantly. The nurse arrived and I repeated all my concerns about my little boy. He couldn't possibly be getting enough milk from me despite all the breastfeeding I was doing and all the pain I was in. There was now orange urine in his diaper. I was getting scared but the nurse assured me he was fine and I should just keep it up. When I pestered her, she finally said that I could supplement with an ounce of milk in the morning and the evening if I wanted to, but breast milk was still better. Then she left, promising to return the next day even though the next day was Saturday. She was supposed to be an expert. I trusted her.
By 5pm, I was agitated and I didn't know why. I paced and rocked my crying baby and knew something wasn't right. By 8pm, a little alarm bell started to go off in my head. Tristan didn't look any different, but something was wrong. Seriously wrong. I told my mother he needed to see a doctor and, being the mother of 4 children herself, she knew better than to question a mother's instinct. She bundled me and my small baby into the car and drove us to the nearest emergency room. My parents lived in the country, so it was a rural hospital.
We saw a doctor immediately. A heel stick later the doctor said the bilirubin count was far too high and sent us rushing to The Children's Hospital in the city. Tristan didn't look ill. He didn't even look a little bit yellowed. But something was wrong enough that the rural doctor knew she was out of her depth. The doctors there were waiting for us at The Children's Hospital, and now Tristan looked yellow. This was less than an hour after we left the rural hospital. Things were taking a turn for the worst and Tristan was admitted to the NICU.
He was severely dehydrated and the doctor would tell me later that if I'd waited until morning, he'd have been past the point where they could have saved him. At that moment, they were too busy saving him to talk to me. Besides, when the nurses realized that I was bleeding (I had at this point bled through my shirt), they took me off to bandage me up. The public health nurse who had ignored all the signs and kept telling me to breastfeed when I obviously couldn't was fired Monday morning.
Tristan recovered and I had a long conversation with my doctor and the pediatrician. I was racked with guilt even though they did their best to convince me that none of it was my fault and that I'd done the right thing by trusting my instincts and rushing to the hospital when I did. But that really wasn't where my guilt was coming from. Being an inexperienced mother, I'd listened to an "expert" and tried to do the right thing. There's no guilt in that and I knew it.
My guilt was about something else entirely. I kept thinking that only a terribly unfit mother wouldn't be able to feed her own child. That's what mothers do, after all. We're equipped for it. Shouldn't I be able to feed my own baby?
When the pediatrician realized this, he said something that I will never forget: "Wet nurses have been around forever and formula was invented to save babies' lives." I'll never forget those words. They made me realize that there have always been women who couldn't breastfeed for whatever reason. It happens. Not all the time or our species would never have made its way past infancy, but it does happen. Not unnatural, but something that just is.
What did I learn from all this? Two things, really. First, not all women can breastfeed and there's no shame in admitting it and using formula. Second, and this one is very important, I learned that a mother, even a new mother, should always trust her instincts. Tristan didn't look any worse at 8pm Friday than he had at 8am Friday. But something forced me to take him to the hospital, and that something saved my son's life.
That's all for this week. Look forward to more posts, though I won't do too many personal stories if I can help it. Next week: back to schook tips for parents sending their little one to grade one. Help your little one adjust to full-time school.
