A few scares... (and a guide to breastfeeding if you're like me)

Charley is now two months old and the past two months have been the most joy-filled, and yet stress-filled weeks of my life. Of course, there is always the ordinary anxiety that always accompanies motherhood -- the worrying about safety all day and watching his chest rise and fall all night, just to make sure he's still breathing. I'm not a panicky or anxious parent, so I really don't want to give that impression, but it is absolutely true that a chemical and emotional switch flips in the brain. You worry about things you had previously never considered and so many of your plans and expectations are foiled by the realities of a newborn.

I should say that before he was born, I worried about lots of things. Since the moment I got a positive test, I worried about miscarriage. Before each ultrasound, I worried about illnesses and birth defects. At delivery, I worried about caring for him. I worried about his sleeping patterns, his safety, his procedures in the hospital and his vaccines. So far, I have been incredibly fortunate that all of my worries were unfounded and I have been blessed with a healthy, safe baby who sleeps better than I could have ever expected and I, without tooting my own horn, have risen to the demands of motherhood calmly and effectively.

But that's not to say that nothing has gone awry -- just things that I never would have expected.

Charley had a few unexpected scares for us. First of all, his weight has been an issue since his first weeks. As I've explained before, Charley was supposed to be a big baby and all previous family experience suggested a big-headed chubster. He was born at 8 lbs 3 oz, however, and in the hospital, he lost the maximum amount of weight allowed. In his first week of life, I already had to become "more aggressive" about feeding him, meaning I wasn't allowed to let him fall asleep at the breast and I had to wake him at shorter intervals through the night. This was difficult as he was born with day and night rhythms already in place and he really wanted to sleep for a long interval at night.

I fed him on demand for weeks, spending at least an hour for each nursing session. There were days when I was trapped in the room indefinitely and had trouble even making time for my own meals. No matter what I did, however, he was barely gaining weight. Information was difficult to come by, too. The websites and resources for breastfeeding are so insistent on continuing to breastfeed and not "giving up" that they give few specifics or numbers. I saw at least six different lactation nurses in those first weeks and attended breastfeeding support group meetings and I must admit, I felt somewhat duped.

They all had different excuses for why Charley was gaining so slowly and for his being in the tenth percentile for size, even though he was born above average. As nice and supportive as they all were, I felt like few would address me as an intelligent person with good instincts and legitimate concerns. They told me that breastfed babies are always a bit lighter than formula-fed babies, but should they be on the cusp of a "failure to thrive" designation? They told me that most mothers produce plenty of milk and that most fears of low milk supply are unfounded, but should it take nearly four weeks, twice the expected limit, for your baby to get back to birth weight?

I felt like all of them, and my pediatrician to some extent, were all in on the effort. It was as if they couldn't recognize how hard I really was trying. It seemed like their number one priority was making sure I didn't "give up" and surrender to the evil conveniences of formula. I just wanted them all to recognize that this problem was not caused by a lack of information or dedication and it sure as hell wasn't going to be fixed with recipes for organic brewers yeast cookies and bullshit excuses.

My breaking point was when he weighed in at 8lbs 12oz at the pediatrician's office on a Friday, then weighed exactly the same a week later at a breastfeeding support group meeting. The nurse told me he was fine. That I shouldn't compare her scale to his. Well, I say fuck that.

That night, I bought my own scale on Amazon and had it rush delivered to my house. I had also decided before to supplement with formula and at this point, I decided he can have as much formula as he wants.
I'm going to be real right now for all the moms out there who are either still expecting and thinking about how to feed, or moms with newborns struggling with breastfeeding -- both can be awesome and the most important thing is that your baby eats enough.

Breastfeeding can be great. It helps you lose the baby weight and it provides ideal nutrition and antibodies for your baby. It is also an amazing bonding experience for both of you. To this day, nothing relaxes my son like nursing. As a matter of fact, we nurse exclusively most nights after about 8pm and through the night. For Charley, breastmilk is easily digested and is rarely accompanied by burping, gas or spitting up.

Breastfeeding can also be a total pain in the ass. I have been to get-togethers in the past 9 weeks at which I spent nearly two hours in a guest room nursing. The stories you hear about overflowing chest freezers of stored breastmilk are baloney. Apparently, this is very rare for a first-timer and often those friends of yours are talking about breastfeeding their second or third child.

Pumping has its own challenges. The flange-diaphragm set-up is a pain to wash. You also might be disappointed with just how much milk is produced. If you double pump, you literally have to sit there with both hands holding set-ups. No Kindle or smartphone for you, sister. It's either a) stare at TV or b) stare at wall. I started single pumping, which takes twice as long because it's one side at a time, just to fight the minutiae and to cut set-up washing in half.

Sure, we all knew that caring for a newborn would be hectic and tedious at times, completely surrounded around feeding and diapers. What I did not expect, however, is that life with moderately low to inadequate milk supply could literally be like this:

45 - 60 minutes: nurse baby (assuming baby is satisfied with current supply)

20 - 30 minutes: pump ten minutes per side to stimulate production (you used nipple shield to nurse and that means less stimulation)

10 minutes: store meager pumped milk portion in storage bottle or bag then wash damned set-up again

By this time, it's been nearly two hours and it's almost time to nurse again! And if you're home alone with baby, what do you do with him during all that pumping and washing? Good question. For a natural practice that is supposed to promote bonding and contact with baby, you're going to spend an awful lot of time either putting him down when sleeping or passing him off to Daddy or Nana so you can make like a cow and milk yourself.

Obviously, it's not like this for everyone, but for me it was. In order to follow the lactation consultants' collective advice for producing more milk, this is basically what I would have to do. And because I got so little when I pumped, I had to nurse everywhere because I never had a full bottle of pumped milk for a feed.

If I'm being blunt and literal, I didn't have this baby so I could do nothing but feed it. I want to talk to him, play with him. I want to do everything I can to promote his development, while also taking him out and sharing him with my family. This can be totally possible with exclusive breastfeeding, but not for me.

So now let's hit formula. If you ask Dr. Google and the lactation community, the downsides of formula are as follows:

- lesser nutritional value to breastmilk
- no health benefits for mom
- it's a processed food
- no skin-to-skin contact; less bonding
- no antibodies
- no variety of nutrients and tastes from mom's diet
- producers are evil, manipulative corporate monsters who may have laced formula unintentionally or by neglect with melamine and insect parts and they inundate new moms with samples and bogus pamphlets and surveys to get money out of your pocket and make you slaves to the canister, man!

And the upside? My son finally started to gain weight and he digested it just fine with absolutely no problems. I also found a lot of security in knowing exactly how much he was getting and learning how much was enough for him.

And the most unpopular statement of all? The one that can get me figuratively burned at the stake via web comments? The day when I decided to become an exclusive formula mom was the single most liberating day of my life. It was like graduating college, paying off a car loan, and finally finishing that home improvement project all rolled into one. I got freedom and my life back and I got to do all of it with the best damn two-ringer-chubby-thighed guy I know.

My husband and family members could now be part of the feeding and caring process. I didn't have to worry about leaking through a shirt or finding places to nurse. That little container of powder could go with us anywhere, refrigeration or no refrigeration, and nothing was going to stop us now! We went to parties and the mall and the zoo and friends' houses -- I was finally sharing my baby with the world and this was something I had wanted to do for years.

So if breastmilk was the most natural, affectionate, nurturing experience of your life and your baby weight just fell off while you filled dozens of bags with pumped milk, good for you. Go blog about it. But if you are like me and it was just so hard and your baby wasn't gaining weight, stop listening to the hype and do what is right for you and your family. Sure, it's a little expensive, but even for a budget-every-penny teacher like me, it was the best money I ever spent.