Breastfeeding vs. Formulafeeding

This post is not intended to start a debate between breastfeeders vs formula feeding. It is merely to express my emotional journey between the two. I have no problems with formula feeding (for other people), though I will admit that I side eye people who HAVE milk and CAN breastfeed but choose to formula feed for no medically necessary reason (boob jobs, medicines etc.) as well as those who give up because it hurts or is hard. Those opinions also are closely tied to my own journey though and I realize this.

Breastfeeding (especially in the first weeks-err months) is one of the hardest things I've done. There was a weekend that I resorted to exclusively pumping because of how painful it was, but I went back to it and gritted my teeth through the pain. I'm 4 months in and my nipples are still tender and sore but not to an unbearable degree. I can still enjoy the act of breastfeeding at this point and appreciate the bonding experience.

I have fought, cried, and emotionally abused myself to breastfeed. Thanks to PCOS, my body does not produce enough to meet my sons needs. In four months my supply has not increased at all. Period. When my milk came in, I could pump 2 ounces. Which was fine for a 3 day old. Not so much for a 3 month old. I have worked with Dr's, lactation consultants, gadgets, pumping regimens, natural remedies, foods and prescription drugs. To this day, I can still only get 2 ounces every few hours. Which means he gets 2-4 ounces of formula every few hours (except at night).

the first time I gave him formula he was 5 or 6 days old and I cried the entire time. I think I cried the whole first week while giving him a bottle. I felt like a failure as a mom and to this day, those emotions and that memory of that moment haunt me.

(Here's where formula feeding moms will really gnash their teeth.) I'm EMBARRASSED to BUY FORMULA. I won't look the cashier in the eye. It's like being a teenage girl buying a pregnancy test or condoms. I'm embarrassed to give my baby a bottle in public because people can see me mix the powder and water and know its formula. (On the other hand I won't breastfeed in public either. I will whip them out around female family members or in a public retail women's lounge or mother's room, or even in my car parked at the edge of a prking lot away from everyone but won't find me on a bench int he mall with my boob out flapping in the breeze for the world to see.) (So there I have offended both types of moms with my prudishness equally!).

I have a negative image of formula feeding (that I never had before) due to my own struggle and desire to breastfeed. I'm projecting my own fears, experiences etc. into this one act of parenting becaue of my own dissappointment. The studies and articles about the benefits of breastfeeding over formula swim through my subconcious brain to give me nightmares.

I KNOW its okay. The Dr's tell me his fine and healthy and I'm doing a good job. Everyone comments on how alert and strong he is; How good his disposition and behavior are; how clear his skin; how beautiful of a baby he is. He is getting the immunities and benefits of breastmilk and the intimate bonding of nursing two ounces at a time.

I can go on like this as long as my body produces. If I can make it to 6 months he will still have recieved a lot of benefit from my meager supply. I, however, need to reconcile with myself this negativity. I tell myself that my body sin't a failure. It gave me the most amazing little boy after years of struggle, but this is one more black mark against it. Maybe thats part of the scars of being a bitter infertile. We never quite learn how to love ourselves again (and forgive our bodies) and automatically self loathe when our bodies don't perform the way we want.

I will always struggle with breastfeeding, the way my birth went, and with my body but just as I haven't given up with breastfeeding, I won't give up on trying to forgive me, even while I die of shame when purchasing formula.

Pregnant Panhandlers- A Rant

Just so you know, going into this, I’m a very practiced equestrian and I love being on a high horse (as long as I can sit a Western Saddle). So if you are offended by my judgments on those less fortunate than myself, I suggest you stop reading now.

Panhandlers annoy me. I know there are many people who have lost jobs and homes and have issues and I feel sorry for them. I really do. I always try to say to myself “you don’t know what they’ve been through.” The problem is the few times I’ve tried to offer some food or a bottle of water they scoff at me. They want money. Well sorry bucko, but beggars can’t be choosers. If you are that choosey, then you don’t really need it.

In my state Panhandling has become quite lucrative. They did an expose on one of the more well known panhandlers in Greensboro only to find that when he’s not wearing his “homeless uniform” he’s driving around in a Cadillac and has a very nice house, while laughing at the people he’s hosed. All of a sudden there’s one on every corner which automatically breeds distrust.

More specifically, if you are a female, wearing nice clothes and holding a sign that says “Homeless, just had a baby, need money” with no baby in sight, I’m not giving you crap. ESPECIALLY when there is a HIRING sign on the store BEHIND your sorry ass. If you REALLY have a kid, then you obviously have a sitter or someone to help you, so take yourself inside and apply for a job and use their address. We have WAY too many programs available that my taxes pay for along with local and national charities I contribute to regularly to be doling out cash for something I honestly believe is a flat lie to appeal to people’s sympathy.

Here’s the clincher for me though. TWO women standing at the same intersection (different medians) in front of the hospital in Winston holding cardboard signs “Homeless and Pregnant, God Bless You.” Of course I have to pass them to get to my OBGYN. What takes the cake? They both stand there brazen as can be eating fast food, with large gulp cups and smoking like freight trains. I want to murder them.

I see them all the time. I don’t believe for a skinny minute they are BOTH pregnant and if they are homeless how the heck are they buying cigarettes when they need to be eating for those babies and NOT smoking. I’m sick of the ploys to get money for doing nothing. Oh, its hard work standing out on a pretty day (because I never see them when the weather isn’t beautiful) for hours taking money and chatting with your girlfriend. Whatever. Get a fucking job like the rest of us and if you can’t afford to have a kid, don’t get pregnant. If you can’t afford a home, having nasty street sex in a cardboard box should be the last thing on your mind.

Maybe I’m just a doubting person because I have seen way too much corruption and know of way too many manipulative people, but I can’t honestly believe 95% of the panhandlers I see. When they use babies to evoke the heartstrings it makes me see red, especially when I know they are being mistreated if they are truly pregnant etc by how they are treating their bodies.
To try to ease my frustration when I see them (and my blood pressure) DH jokes about how they both got knocked up by the guy Panhandler a block down and he’s panhandling to pay his future child support. I laugh, but I gag at the same time….because the image of the three unattractive people rolling around in an alley makes me want to puke.

I don't think I can take much more today

I got a text from a dear friend of mine who has given up on having children due to severe endometriosis. She could never get pregnant. She texted me that she went to the dr. due to severe pain only to find out she was having a miscarriage. A baby she never even knew about due to a slippage of a hormonal IUD that the Dr's had recommended she get to help her body's hormones etc. They will be doing a D and C. My heart is broken today.

I’m depressed and feeling lost and my heart is breaking for her. I pray I have the strength to help her through this, through the tumult that my mind and heart are in.

I pray that I can shoulder all the emotions that are overwhelming me today, not just hers, but my own.

Dear Lord,
Please give me the strength to make it through and be strong for my friend. Help me to put aside my own discontent and awkward feelings for the next few days so that i may lead her through this terrible time. She has come to me for help because she knows I've been through this. Please do not let me let her down.

Help me to dry my tears (and get out of this bathroom at work), get through the day with strength and courage. Help my sweet friend find peace and love and understanding in this tragic event.

I know Bumblebee is taking care of her little one and giving him/her comfort. Help me give my friend that calm comfort that people provided to me.

Lord give me strength.

Gender Anxiety

I can’t believe tomorrow is the big day. It blows my mind. What happened to “this day will never get here?” I’m expecting today and tomorrow morning to move so slowly but so far it has sped along at a normal clip to spite me.

I know, the time is hurtling towards the ultrasound because I’m scared to death. I’m not scared my baby won’t be there but I’m scared of what will happen AFTER we find out the gender. Why you ask? Well let me be blunt.

We don’t care what we have. I am just as excited for a boy as a girl and vice versa as is my husband but we are both worried about our families’ relationship and reactions with our child.

We have tried for three almost four years for a child, long after our other siblings have had a few. (Each of our siblings has two children already). All of the grandchildren are boys. We have been put upon with so much pressure to have “THE girl.” Even when we were struggling with IF, insensitive comments were made constantly about its up to us, and we need to figure it out because we owe the family a girl etc. etc. It was very hurtful because all we wanted was a baby.

Since getting pregnant, more pressure has been put on us. “Make sure it’s a girl, we are putting our order in for a granddaughter etc.” to the point that it has taken all I had in me not to scream at them. Now that the time is here to find out, I’m scared to death. They have taken a lot of our joy and excitement away to be replaced by nerves and apprehension.

DH and I discussed it yesterday and he has the same fears that I do. We have been planning all along for either sex: picking out both names, picking out both sets of bedding and nursery ideas etc. We are both prepared for the fact that if HLB is a girl we will be inundated with gifts and clothes that we don’t even want but its already been established that if it’s a boy we will be getting hand me downs only as no one is excited to buy for another boy and I want to cry.

I want to cry for my son that I will love very much because he will be overlooked by his extended family and it breaks my heart. We are prepared for the comments. My husband is actually ready to end his relationship with his parents if they say one negative thing about our son being a boy. He was furious in his discussion yesterday because he knows them, and he knows what things will be said and he if it comes to pass like that, he will never again see his family and I know this.

We know my family will not be as bad though there are bound to be some stupid comments made (and have already been but I refrain from mentioning them here for many reasons) but my mother has already expressed excitement in having either sex so we are more apt to put them in their place over stupid comments then to end a relationship with them completely. Maybe its different as they only have TWO grandchildren where as the other side has FOUR. I don’t know. But it hurts me unbearably.

I want a little boy. I want a little girl too. I’m greedy. I want both and we fully intend to have a second child in 2-3 years. I feel that if this one is a boy though, I will be so full of anxiety waiting for the end of relationships, the inevitable comments, etc. that I won’t enjoy it. I feel that for my baby’s sake, it would be best if this first one is a girl, and THAT makes me feel like an absolutely horrible mother.

I have been living with this apprehension over the sex of my baby for a very long time. I can’t get it out of my head right now with it looming tomorrow. I side-eye people when they express gender disappointment because a baby is all I want but now that its here I’m so afraid I will have it simply because of family dynamics and I feel like a wretched person and a fraud. Maybe this is a Karmic lesson that I shouldn’t judge other’s because I don’t know what they are going through (though most of the time they give stupid reasons like they don’t want to clean a penis or simply want to decorate in pink and they still deserved side-eyeing).

It’s all I can do to type this out and put this giant fear into words. I feel physically sick to my stomach having written it but I don’t want it festering inside me. I’m hoping by getting it out that I can focus on the joy. We are so truly excited to give a name to our baby and go shopping and plan for this little One’s future and we will do so with or without our families but I so want this baby to be loved and know its grandparents and cousins. It DESERVES that no matter what is between its legs.

I know, that no matter what happens and who this baby turns out to be, that it will never want for love because his/her Daddy and Mommy love it to the moon and back and that will be enough it has to be.

National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day

I wasn't sure I would write about today. I've done my best to actually avoid thinking too much about what today is and how much it hurts. Last year at this time I was mourning the babies that have been lost and all the beautiful and strong mother's who were not holding their precious babes. I didn't know that my own precious baby was already dead. Last year, I was still living in my wonderful world of innocence and bliss about my own pregnancy.

October 19th is the day my world officially fell apart when we found the missed miscarriage. All I have to do is close my eyes and it all comes rushing back as if I were there again, the smells, the dr's office, the feeling of my heart being torn in two. This year, on this day, National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day means so much more to me. I never gave birth. I never saw my baby or even knew what the sex was but it doesn't matter. Bumblebee was my baby and I mourned and I still grieve and think of what would be had things not happened the way it did.

Today, I think of all those other mothers who I can't even bear to name because the tears are already splashing on my keyboard. My heart aches for them.

Even looking forward to holding HLB in my arms, it doesn't diminish the pain of losing Bumblebee. Today, I grieve and I dread the 19th. Today, I send hope out into the world for the others like me who have known loss and pain. Today, I pray that our angels are high in the clouds frolicking in joy and peace having never known the sorrow of this world.

Confusion

I've been debating for a week what to write here. I go back and forth on a daily basis on what I believe and what I want. What I should do versus what my heart needs to do. I'm lost in a sea of indecision. I'm lost in my blog. My blog has become less entertainment and more of a whining diary of my life. I don't like that. I can flow the words like a waterfall over smooth rocks when I choose to but nothing since shortly after the miscarriage has been remotely informative, entertaining or worth reading.

Months of allergies, weightloss and pathetic diatribes. I apologize. I'm forever apologizing for something but this is not where I intended this blog to go. No matter if I struggle with IF or had a pregnancy and baby to discuss, this blog has taken a horrible turn even for me.

Yet, I have no desire to write anything more than recipes and complaints. And that tells me my life is not in a good spot. In church, the sermon was about contentment and entitlement and I began to open my eyes to how bitter I've become. How discontented I've become. Every example the preacher used, rang alarm bells in my head. Because I have become one of "those" women who say, "Why does SHE get to have a baby?" "Why does she get to have a fourth kid and I don't get one? She can't even afford it." "Why God why?" and my preacher is right. We turn it around and eventually blame God and I would be lying if I said those thoughts haven't entered my mind. My religion is a constant struggle for me because I'm trying NOT to blame God. I don't like who I have become.

My dear friend Beth has been going to church with me for the past month. We have gone Every sunday and have found a church that speaks to both of us. We struggle weekly with the message because it hits home on a deep soul level. It has awoken me to see what I have done to myself and my life over the past few years. I'm trying to find ME again. Trying to figure out what God wants from me on this journey and struggling to take each day as it comes.

I don't know where this blog will go. I want to find deeper meaning in the words that are transcribed, not pathetic little pithy posts of complaint. In my life, right now, I'm not even sure I want to continue to TTC, atleast not with medication. Everytime I turn around, something inside me is screaming to not take the Clomid and so I put it off for one more month. I think I'm going to put it off for a few months, give myself a break from the war in myself. I need to trust my instincts and they are saying, I'm no longer ready. If I were to get pregnant tomorrow, I would be ready to have a baby, but I'm not ready to go back on the meds. There is something I need to do before that. I'm not sure what, but I think it is to refind myself. To re-love myself and find strength for whatever may happen. To find my relationship with God.

I will continue with the McFatty Monday posts because the weightloss is helping me and helping my body, but I make no promises where this blog may head in the next little bit. I may find my voice again or it may sit blank between Mondays. I just don't know.

Bitterness

I am trying really hard not to be bitter and depressed. I have my moments. Unfortunately, the news has been covering a tragedy in our local area about a little 5 year old girl who went missing. As the story has progressed over the past week we learned that the mother sold the child as a sex slave. I could not be more apalled. Last night we learned that the little girl's body had been recovered about an hour from my home.

I cried. I cried for what this little girl has suffered through at the hands of her own mother who didn't love her. I cried for yet another life that would never bloom. I cried for my child.

This morning I learned that the 'mother' (and i use the term loosely here) sits in jail: Pregnant. PREGNANT!

The unfairness, the wretchedness. I have no words for the anger and hurt. I know it has nothing to do with me and mine but it still hurts. I cry for her children and those that love them. I cry for me and my husband who want nothing more than to see a child grow up loved and happy and to share our love.

Hug your children tonight. Rub your growing bellies and pray for those children who are not loved.