Expectations of Motherhood

My personality is one that has both a love and hate relationship with a change of plans.  Typically if it works in my favor, I am fine with it, maybe even a little excited.

Calling last minute to cancel an across town meeting on a cold, rainy night? I will probably want to hug you as my PJs and I were lusting for a night of hot chocolate and Netflix.

However, if you Fail me? Disappoint me? Let me down? forget it.  You're now on my shit-list.

You're my husband who says he'll be home at a certain time and then doesn't call, doesn't answer his phone, but later returns three hours late with that dumb look on his face of "what? you needed me?" will result in a long fight and lots of tears.

My expectations and "plans" for motherhood have left me in a similar place.

When I had to go on bedrest and was told there would be a good chance I'd have to be induced.  I cried right there on the spot. That didn't work with my unmedicated, water birth birth-plan.  However, a small part of me jumped for joy that I could pass off my two busiest, most stressful weeks of work to all of my co-workers.

My labor ended up (almost) happening on its own, allowing me to have a compromised version of my birth plan - little medication, but no water birth.  Given the options I ended up a very delusional happy girl.

Other things have worked in my favor.

Evie came early enough that my six weeks of maternity leave will end the day before our ten day paid Christmas and New Years break. Instead of having to use sick days for Christmas, I now get paid for the Christmas holiday

Cloth diapering sounded like an extreme chore to me, but it's not been the end of the world.  In fact, breastfed newborn poop is fairly manageable!

Sleepless nights have proved difficult and never ending, but I expected them.

However, I didn't expect the postpartum "baby blues" to hit me as strong as they did. For some reason, I thought that anticipating them would mean I would be immune.  Exhaustion. Hormones. Recovery aches and pains. Crying baby. Struggling to breast feed. It all adds up to a lot of crying. And a lot of hiding under my covers calling my Mom.  ($80 in extra phone minutes to be exact. Oops. But worth every penny...)

I didn't expect to resent or dare I say hate my baby for the first week.  She brought a lot of change, a lack of sleep, speaking in grunts to my husband as we passed off a crying baby in the middle of the night... And having those feelings made me cry even more.

The most unexpected of all came with an inability to breastfeed. We had a class on breastfeeding during our Bradley course, we took a three hour intensive class at the hospital and I read more than half of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.  I knew all the holds, what a good latch looked like, how to get the baby to unlatch, etc.

I'd heard stories of women struggling with breastfeeding and just figured they were either ill-informed, lazy, or gave up too quickly.  I'd heard stories of cracked nipples, bleeding, and toe-curling pain.  None of that was going to affect me since I wanted to breastfeed so badly and was ready to stick it out.

And that's when God laughed.  It was almost like He said, everything else has been so easy and perfect for you thus far - I hereby present you a challenge.

And boy has it been.  First of all, dear Internet, my large breasts have grown to the obscene.  A 38K to be exact.  So large that no store carries my size (they barely carry my regular size) leaving me with a pile of wrong size mail order bras and a lot of wasted money. I discovered a nearby hospital carried specialty nursing bras and went for a fitting.  As the specialist fitted me she whispered in my ear, "Don't worry sweetie, there is still one size larger if you find you need it"

While in recovery at the hospital,  lactation consultants told me that my boobs were probably too big to breastfeed because I would suffocate the baby. (Cue the tears and blow to the self-esteem)  My nipples were stretched flat and Evie couldn't get even a hint of a latch.

I learned how to pump and feed Evie with a syringe and later a bottle.  But she was rapidly losing weight and getting jaundice.  A nurse woke me up in the middle of the night and said we needed to get some food in her and they brought us formula.  I cried the entire night I fed her those bottles.  This was not in my plan.

Once we made it home from the hospital I kept up with the pumping and bottle feeding routine. I'd try to nurse Evie occasionally but I'd end up crying because I still couldn't get Evie to latch.  We even met with another LC two other times and it still wasn't working.

My frustration grew to the point where my tears turned to anger, bitterness and jealousy.  I sobbed hysterically to my mother for a good thirty minutes about how easy and natural I thought this would be. How (seemingly) every mom is able to breastfeed but me. How the mental game of breastfeed was eating me alive.  How I could sacrifice cold, dark mornings to train for endurance races and even PR in a snowy triathlon...but I could not seem to endure the pain and trials of breastfeeding.

She comforted me, and reminded me as so many others have, that if pumping and bottle feeding is all I can do, than I am still meeting my goal of feeding Evie breast milk, the delivery method just isn't as I expected or wanted.  I resolved that day that I would continue to pump and try breastfeeding only once every other day, to keep my emotions calm.

We had one more LC appointment the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.  I was dreading it.  Evie and I hadn't practiced much, nor did I feel like things were improving.  The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint the pediatrician (she is also our lactation consultant).

Evie's check up stats were perfect.  Instead of judging or criticizing my lack of efforts in getting Evie to latch, the pediatrician invited me to come in as often as I'd like for help, but that if pumping was all I could do, than it was okay with her. She even gave me a few tips on how to do it.

For some reason, that was all I needed to be set free from my perceived failure to my own expectations. Funny how, sometimes, approval from others is all we need.

Evie and I continue to mostly pump and bottle feed, and we practice here and there.  I read an article that said sometimes babies of large breasted women don't get a good latch until they are 3-6 weeks old.  I am holding on to hope.

I have learned a few lessons in all this.  First, I have a lot to be thankful for.  If this is my biggest struggle, than I am really and truly blessed.  Second, I have been very spoiled and fortunate in all the good things that have come to us so easily and naturally thus far.  Third, motherhood is full of surprises. I really need to let go of my pride and expectations, to let God work in me, and to become a lot more humble.