one of those days.

Today has been one of those days.  I have felt frustrated, irritable, unproductive and generally lousy.  Part of the problem is Lee, let me explain...
Recently (aka this week) Lee has become very agitated, he doesn't nap for more than 15 minutes at a time, and he spends a lot of his time tensing his whole little body and angrily grunting. Usually clawing my face or neck in the process.  Ex-haust-ing.

*Lee this morning.*

I hate most of all that I don't know how to make him more calm, I have tried every little thing I can dream up and nothing seems to help all that much.  Poor boy.  The added demands and stress have left me feeling SO on edge, grumpy and blah.  Kevin was good to remind me (over and over) last night that my #1 job is to BE Lee's mom and thus, even though I did very little else yesterday, I did the most important thing.  I know he's right but it doesn't feel like enough or good, etc... I am having a bit of a time letting go.  Today has been much the same, I didn't even bother getting baby Lee dressed today, never thought I'd be one of "those" moms who lets their child hang out in the pj's that they spit their peaches all over that morning, but today I am. I decided to eat lunch before getting to my list of people I needed to contact for some reason or another and of course by the time I'd finished Lee was up from his "nap". One of those days. Kevin urged me to get out of the house, at least long enough to walk down the street to where our mailbox is with Lee so I did.  It was my first time putting Lee directly into the stroller instead of his carseat first and...he got stuck.  I could not for the life of me get the buckles to come out. One of those days.  And deep down I know it's okay.  But the deep down is having trouble getting to the surface today.  One of those days.  My agitation has made me hungry but we haven't been shopping in at least a week.  I hate not having salty munchies when I "need" them.  One of those days. 

AND THEN...

... we have blissfully peaceful *moments* and I can't help but think of how much I love this kid.  I know days like today pass just as quickly as the good ones and soon he'll be all grown up and so I guess it's okay that today has been one of those days.

my happy bottle-fed baby.

Bottle "tree" that I LOVE.

The past few weeks have been quite the journey for me and baby Lee.  Finally when he was nine weeks old, (just two weeks ago now) after copious amounts of deliberation, I started feeding Lee bottles.  I thought the struggle with nursing would go away after Lee got bigger and stronger.  The struggle he had at the beginning is very normal for premature babies like him.  Not to say that knowing that made it any easier for me.  We tried EVERYTHING at first.  I spoke with three separate lactation specialists and tried anything and everything they suggested; a syringe, an SNS (or tube feeding) and finally a shield, which is the only thing that worked at all in the end.  The last lactation specialist I saw explained that many babies who are born even a few (in our case four) weeks premature haven’t developed the strength needed to suck as hard as they need to feed well.  She explained that I shouldn’t expect him to be at that level until he had reached his actual due date at the end of May.  

 

Of course sweet Lee’s due date came and went and still, he would not eat without the shield.  It was manageable, especially compared to how he had been before but it still made me feel uptight every feeding and stranded at our house.  The shield made it practically impossible to feed using a cover, that in combination with the fact that Lee generally cried at the beginning and end of every feeding, and always sometimes in-between made it very difficult to feed him outside of our home. 

I thought several times about just “giving up” and trying a bottle but I’d determined before he was ever born that I would absolutely nurse him and the material I read and the nursing class I went to all taught that it was basically ALWAYS possible for ANYONE to nurse a baby if they stuck with it enough.  I studied all the benefits of breast milk vs. formula and since I was going to be a stay-at-home mom, I didn’t see any reason that could possibly deter me from my decision to nurse.  So, even the thought of feeding with a bottle made me have a guilty pit in my stomach. 

Finally one Sunday night, we were over at my brother Scott’s house and Jenna and I were feeding our babies.  Lee was really struggling and crying as usual and Jenna finally said, “you know Michelle, that really isn’t normal.” I told her of my frustration with nursing and how I kept waiting for it to be that special bonding experience that so many talked about.  I told her how I had come to dread every time feedings rolled around, which is frequently with a newborn.  I hadn’t even realized quite how much it had all been weighing on me until I started to talk to her about it.  And Jenna said, “just try a bottle Michelle, there’s nothing wrong with that; you and Lee should both be happy.”  Jenna gave me just the validation I needed and that night, I started feeding Lee bottles and he’s been bottle-fed ever since. 

At first I thought I would continue to use breast milk but after just one night of pumping after every feeding (yes Lee is still waking up ever 3 to 4 hours) I realized that it just wasn’t manageable (for me) to continue on that way.  Lee is basically completely formula fed now and we are both happier than ever.  

 I still feel guilty sometimes but I’ve begun to realize that all my guilt comes from my worries about what Others may think of my decision, not what I feel deep down is best for me and Lee.  So, I’m trying to push away those feelings whenever they come cropping up again. 

Again I’ve had the opportunity to learn to be less quick to judge others’ decisions and circumstances. I’ve learned first-hand that not every baby is cut out for nursing and that it’s OKAY.  Man, someday, I’m going to stop needing to learn things the hard way.  (hopefully)

To any of you who may feel as I have sometimes, with my decision to bottle-feed my baby, that people may be judging you, maybe they are (I did), but they don’t know and it doesn’t matter. No one will ever know exactly what is right for you and your family but You and God. How grateful I am that we have a Heavenly Father, God, who cares so intimately about the happiness of each of us that He’ll bless a struggling first-time mom with peace about bottle feeding as many times as she needs.

life: postpartum.

I have so many thoughts and feelings and they just weren’t coming together in the way I hoped so, a list will have to do.

 

·     * Lee Daken is the most wonderful blessing and miracle Kevin and I have experienced to date. 

·      *The process of delivery is a beautiful miracle.

·     * The incredible women who place babies for adoption to give them a better life are some of the strongest and  most selfless people in the world.

·     * A mother's-love is one of the most powerful things I have ever felt.

·     * Babies are so incredibly close to God.

·     * Each birth of a child is a miracle.

 

·      The desire and longing to be a mother doesn’t make me super-human in dealing with the physical strain of a new baby that doesn’t sleep at night very much.

·      Trying to meet the simple needs of an infant can be absolutely exhausting.

·      Spending all day everyday trying to meet the simple needs of baby Lee has brought the greatest happiness I’ve experienced as well as the greatest physical strain.

·      I don’t know how you couldn’t be absolutely obsessed with your children.

 

·        * I can’t watch or hold our sweet Lee enough.

·     * I don’t know how to properly thank our Heavenly Father for the much-desired blessing of being a mother.

·    *  My heart aches for those I love still waiting to be wives and mothers.

·     * I feel like I can relate to Alma the younger in his feelings after he repented and received forgiveness in my feelings during our trial of faith with infertility and since Lee was born;

Alma 36:20 “And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!”

 

* There is so much physical and emotional change that comes with having a baby. 

  *   Having a baby really changes a body physically. Those changes, though maybe not permanent, are really hard emotionally while they last.

*It is really emotionally straining when you don’t know how to help your baby. (i.e. when Lee had Jaundice or when his circumcision site was bleeding and we had to take him to the E.R. or when he wouldn’t eat at first and I tried everything with the aide of 3 different lactation specialists before I had any success.)  

      PS, Everything is fine now, all that happened in the first week of Lee’s life.

In his Billibed.

 

*     It takes no time at all to feel genuine and sometimes painful concern for your children. (I can’t imagine what it will be like when they have emotional hardships too.)

*     Nothing but continuously praying for strength and guidance could get me through being a new mom and having absolutely no idea what I’m doing really.

*      Motherhood has brought me a strong sense of need for the Atonement of our Savior.

*      Being a mother is the most wonderful occupation in the world for me.

 

·     * A good dad/husband makes all the difference for a tired mom/wife. Kevin has been my lifesaver.

·     * My own mother is an absolute SUPERSTAR, I can’t imagine how she managed to raise 6 of us with a husband that had very demanding callings in our church that required him to be out of the home most evenings and Sundays basically the whole time we were all growing up.

·    *  My Momma saved me the first few weeks of Lee’s life and we BOTH miss her like crazy now that we’re away in Colorado for the summer.

Me and Lee on our first outing.

The whole family.

 

·     * I can only imagine how hard it must be for our Heavenly Father to let us suffer to become like Him and to let Christ suffer so that we are able to return to Him someday.

·    *  My mind can easily go crazy wanting some semblance of order and activity in my life while my physical body is just not ready for it yet.                                                          

 

*      Family truly is the most important thing in the world, in whatever type or size of family we find ourselves.

*      Our waiting and struggle has affected every aspect of being parents now, we are different people and parents than we ever could have been if we hadn’t gone through that particular trial first.  

 

*      I STILL don’t understand God’s timing but I daily have to keep reminding myself that God knows truly what’s best for us and that I have to put my trust in Him.

*      As the sons of Mosiah learned from reflecting on their mission experiences in retrospect, I know that God fulfills ALL His promises and hears ALL our prayers.

Alma 25:17 “…the Lord had granted unto them according to their prayers, and that he had also verified his word unto them in every particular.”