Feelings On Nursing (or lack thereof)

I spent the first 5 weeks of Eva's life agonizing over her health and how she was eating. It was miserable. I couldn't fully enjoy her because of all the worry. Finally, after 5 difficult weeks, I decided to give up trying to nurse her. And just like that, I began to bond with my baby for the first time. While I don't regret my decision (it led to a much happier, healthier baby and mama), I do carry deep remorse over the entire situation.

I'm going to be perfectly frank here: I feel like an impostor as a mother. Rationally, I know that to be an absolutely ludicrous feeling, but deep down, there's a yearning for what I wasn't able to do for my baby. Because I'm not nursing her, I feel replaceable. I feel like anyone could just step in and take my place and life could carry on without skipping a beat.

I guess a big part of the reason I feel like a fake is because I tried to do most things the more natural, gentle way in terms of pregnancy and babies. I had a wonderful pregnancy guided by midwives, a powerful natural birth in a very peaceful environment, heck, I even cloth diapered! But as hard as I tried, I couldn't make breastfeeding (the most NATURAL thing of all) work for us.

When expressing my grief over our circumstance, many people (likely with good intentions) made comments to the effect of: "It's ok, there's always future babies you can try again with." While yes, that's true that I will absolutely be giving my everything (again) to breastfeed future babies, it does nothing for the here and now. Those future babies aren't Eva. I'll never be able to nurse her properly. I'll never be able to do for her what I'll (hopefully) do for her siblings. And that's what I mourn. Yes, I now know what I need to do differently to have a higher chance of success in breastfeeding, but I mourn the loss of that with this baby. She's my only Eva.

When I see or hear of friends (or even strangers) discussing anything to do with breastfeeding, I feel a pit in my stomach and a quick pain in my chest. I feel like such a phony because I'm missing that one piece of motherhood. Like I said, logically I know this to be ridiculous. Lots and lots of women bottle feed their babies for all kinds of reasons and they are wonderful mothers. But I can't get rid of this feeling. It's getting to the point that I'm avoiding these friends that have even innocently mentioned anything about their positive experiences breastfeeding. It's crazy!

I figured I would struggle with these feelings for a while, but I had no idea I would still be feeling this way months later. I know this is such a minor, silly trial (especially in light of such devastating circumstances people close to me are dealing with right now) and I've tried to bury these feelings all this time. But I still feel them, no matter how deeply they're buried.

My baby is happy and healthy and I know that's all that matters. I just hope these feelings subside over time.

2 Months

Poor baby girl - already getting a bit neglected. Isn't the first child supposed to get overly smothered with all the ridiculous details only a first time mom cares about? Since we were traveling for basically an entire month due to unfortunate circumstances, I'm going to give us a pass for missing her 1 month updates. Quite a lot happened in her first month of life.

-Received the nicknames Bug, Sugar Bug, June Bug, and Evie Girl.
- Her sweet cousin, Garrett, passed away so we made 2 trips to DFW and back to be with family and also flew to Utah and back for the funeral.
- She had surgery for her severe lip and tongue tie (on her one month birthday no less :( happy birthday, baby).
- She struggled so hard with nursing and finally at 3 weeks she began bottle feeding. We slowly transitioned from breast milk to formula.
- Once on a bottle, she started sleeping longer stretches at night (going from waking every hour while nursing to waking every 3-4 hours on the bottle).
- Because she started on formula, her poo became more gross and difficult to deal with in cloth diapers, so we switched from cloth to disposable. More expensive, but far easier clean up for formula fed babies.

Sadly, I don't have an official 1 month photo or stats from the doctor (because we were out of town from weeks 2-6 of her life, so we didn't make a 1 month appt). So here are some cute pictures from her first month:

During her second month of life, things began to slow back down a bit. We eventually came back home to San Antonio (after she recovered and had her post-op check up for her surgery) and began to start figuring out our groove. But here's what went down during her second month:

-She started smiling intentionally! It was only 1 or 2 smiles a day at first, but gradually she started grinning more and more.
-She LOVES to be talked to, especially when you have a smile on your face. She'll just stare as you say things to her.
-She's become best friends with this cute decoration Jenn (Skylar's long time friend) made for her. It hangs on the wall above her changing table and she absolutely loves looking at it and smiling at it. I use it to keep all her bows easily accessible, so I'm not sure if it's the colors she loves or what. She'll happily lay there for 10 minutes or more just watching it (even though it doesn't move).
-Got her first round of shots and handled it like a champ, only letting out one yelp as they stuck her.
-Began tolerating her car seat a little more. The first month, she would SCREAM the entire time she had to be in her car seat (except on the long drives to/from DFW for some reason. God was merciful with that).
-Started having regular tummy time. At first she completely hated it and wouldn't last more than a few seconds before screaming, but it's getting better. She's always had a really strong neck (from the first few minutes after she was born, she was pushing herself off my chest and moving her head around), but we're just trying to stabilize those muscles ;)

2 month stats:
Weight: 11 lbs, 3.5 oz (50%)
Height: 21.75 inches (25%)
Head: 15.5 inches (75%)

And now for the cutest 2 month old bug you've ever seen:

I don't know  if it was just all the difficulties and sadness we faced during her first month, but it seemed to drag on and on and on. Her second seemed to fly by. I know time will only speed up from here on out. I sure do like this kiddo and I love being her mama!