Ok. So, I know my blog is usually about craft projects, recipes, etc., but I need to get a few things off my chest and let people know what is going on.
This will probably be one of the few personal blog posts that I will post because I do not feel like having my life open up to the whole world, but I know other people might go through these same things and I want them to be able to read my story just in case they are.
I am going to preface this by saying that I did not expect at all to feel this way. I understand that Post Partum Depression is common and sometimes women can suffer from some of the symptoms of it without having the full blown depression. At this time, I truly feel like I am suffering from Post Partum Depression. I don't know how bad I have it, but I do know that I am getting some well needed support in the form of great friends!
Our son was born 2 1/2 weeks ago via c-section. A c-section was not in my original plan for having a child, but since our son decided that he liked to sit with his head in my rib cage, I had no other option. I had a minor breakdown in the Operating Room because (1) I was in a foreign country, (2), the operating room scared me, and (3), I'm a chicken and hate pain. Luckily, I had a great doctor who helped me through the whole process of getting a spinal for my anesthesia and I didn't feel a thing during my whole c-section (well except the chest compressions that they had to do to get my son's head out of my ribs, but those weren't painful, just akward feeling).
Going into the hospital, I was dead-set on breastfeeding. In fact, it was the only real thing about my birth plan that I had specified. Everything else I had just gone by what the doctors had recommended. As soon as they got me out of recovery and into my hospital room, I wanted to try to nurse. Well, the only way I was able to try to nurse was on my side, which was extremely painful after the surgery. Ultimately, our son didn't latch on the first time and was left in our room to sleep in the bed with me since that is all he wanted to do anyway.
The second day in the hospital, I was able to nurse, but instantly thought something had to be up because it was taking my son at least an hour to nurse on one breast alone. I chalked it up to him being brand new to the world and decided that it would get better. The whole time in the hospital, I continued to nurse even though the feedings seemed to be taking longer and longer. We even had a nursing session that lasted 2 1/2 hours one night. The doctor instantly told me that I needed to limit my son's time on each breast. After consulting with a few friends of mine who breastfed, I decided that wasn't really an option for me because then I would be worried about my son not getting enought to eat. I decided that I would try limiting his time later on down the road, but understood that he was falling asleep because he was a newborn and that is what babies do.
When we got home from the hospital, I was still dead set on solely breastfeeding my son. I had even decided at this point that I didn't want to pump unless completely necessary for my husband and I to go to a function or something. Our son continued to nurse (and take forever). One day, it seriously felt like all I was doing was sitting on the couch with my son in my arms feeding him. Needless to say, this all took a toll on me. I had started to pump during the day after feedings to get my supply up and also so that my husband could help out at night since that seemed to be when my incision hurt the most.
After about a week and a half of being home, I decided that I was only going to pump and then we would give our son the expressed milk in bottles. I even looked at a million websites that said this was completely possible and actually not that bad of an idea. When we brought it up to our son's doctor at his 2 week check-up, he instantly agreed that it was a good idea since it seemed our son was sucking at the breast more for comfort than food and also since he seems to fall asleep more than eat when he is on the breast, but is completely alert for a bottle.
Well that lasted a whole day, which brings us to today. I decided today that formula is going to be the way to go for our son. It is a very hard decision to make and I am still struggling with it and know that I will struggle with it for at least a few weeks. I told my husband earlier that I feel like every time I make a bottle with formula, I am going to cry that I am not giving my son breastmilk. I know this will pass with time, but right now the wounds are still pretty fresh so I might be an emotional wreck.
A lot of you may be wondering why I quit so soon with the pumping. There are quite a few reasons and I will list them for you:
1. Pumping really is no fun. And it can be horribly depressing when you are not getting a large output.
2. I felt like I was not getting to spend any time with my son other than the occasional feeding that I wouldn't be pumping through.
3. I felt like I was not getting to spend quality time with my husband. He is on leave right now and I felt like he was having to do all the baby work because I was constantly having to go hook myself up to the pump.
4. Emotions. Something about both breastfeeding and pumping made my emotions go crazy. I could be nursing my son and instantly just want to cry because I didn't feel like I was doing it good enough even though he was latched on.
5. Breastfeeding in public. I am going to be completely honest with this. I am totally ok with people breastfeeding in public, but could never see myself actually doing this. I had bought nursing covers and was going to make a really cool nursing shawl, but honestly the thought of using it in public kind of bothered me. Maybe it is because we are in a country where it is still very taboo since many of the women here do not nurse and have full-time nannies or maybe it is because I am a prude, but either way, I knew I would never be completely comfortable with nursing in public and this caused me to feel like I would never be able to leave the house.
6. Time for myself. I felt like I had none. Now, I know, I had a child and should expect some of my time to go away, and I do, but I literally did not even have 5 seconds to myself half the time between trying to help with diaper changes, feedings, and then going to pump or wash the pump parts for the next pumping session.
So how do I feel now that I quit both breastfeeding and pumping?
1. The immediate emotion that I feel when thinking about this idea is guilt. I hate that I am not giving my son breast milk, but ultimately I have to accept the fact that he is still getting fed and is still going to be loved and love me and my husband (at least for a few years).
2. I feel like I can actually leave the house. Leaving the house is a great way to make myself feel better and is a great way to let people see our son. If we never left the house, lots of people would have never had the chance to meet our son.
3. I feel like I will have time to get stuff done, which is great because we are supposed to be leaving this duty station sometime in the near future and my OCD is already acting up of things that I want to do or get done before we leave this country.
Ultimately, I know that I will get over the guilt that I am currently feeling in time and will feel like a good mother again. (Yes, I have actually caught myself saying that I am a terrible mother because of this whole breastfeeding/pumping thing and that has to stop). I also feel like I will be in better control of my emotions and time now that I can mix up a bottle for my son whenever he is hungry and I do not have to wait to pump the milk for him (Yes, I had a small stockpile of milk in the fridge so I was not pumping just for a feeding to follow, but it seemd like it was going to get to that point very quickly).
I have also realized that I may have wanted to breastfeed for some pretty selfish reasons. My main priority was my son's health, but I had also read online about the ways that breastfeeding or pumping can help a new mom out as well. There is the obvious benefit of weight loss because both breastfeeding and pumping burn so many calories, but there are lots of other selfish reasons too. I think this did not have anything bad to do with the actual process of breastfeeding, but I feel like it is making being happy about formula feeding very hard on me.
As I am typing this, I am already going through the pain of engorgement and have been thinking about how I wouldn't be going through this pain if I hadn't quit. The truth is that I would be putting myself through more pain emotionally if I had kept going either down the breastfeeding road or the pumping road and that pain would have lasted a lot longer than the couple days that this current pain will last.
I'm going to wrap this up since I feel like I have written a novel and a not very well organized novel at that.
I wrote this post so that people can know what is going on with me and so that I can hopefully get support from family and friends. I have some great friends that have really stepped up to make me feel great about any decison that I have made and I am super thankful for all of them!
I know there are people out there that believe breastfeeding is the only way to feed your child the healthy way and I don't need to hear comments about that right now. I have to focus on getting myself completely healed up from the surgery and focus on making sure my son is healthy. If you have a problem with any decisions I make, feel free to let me know at a later time. All I ask for now is that you offer words of encouragment or just offer pleasantries so that I can get all healed up.