I am His Mother

Yesterday was a big day for me.

I failed and I succeeded all in one day.

We brought our son home on Friday. Folks, he is truly adorable. And though labor and delivery is never fun, I would do it all over again to have him here and to be able to look into his round little red face covered with tiny pimples (because his mother was very hormonal) and one little dimple and remember what happiness feels like. For the last several months, I just haven't been able to feel happy. Or joyful. Or passionate about anything but sneaking a treat and getting some extra sleep (which was undoubtedly uncomfortable anyway). The minute I delivered that baby, I just felt...better.

There were so many things I was hoping would go differently this time around, and for the most part, everything felt pretty near perfect. Yeah, would have been nice to say I could have done it without the epidural, but I'm convinced it would have taken three times as long to get him here without one. Yeah, would have been nice to hold him right away, but there was something so magical about watching his daddy be the first parent to snuggle him--and lucky for us, the doctor took her time cleaning me up, so I got to sit and watch him marvel in our new little miracle. Not only that--but we got that moment. The one where the baby comes out and you know he is okay, so you look at each other and there are tears and that unspoken communication of "look what beautiful thing we created!"

Yes, Italy was kind to us indeed.

We got to bring Sly (*not his real name, but since it seems to be the thing to refer to my children as my little brother does, this little man has been Sly since before his parents were married) home less than 48 hours after his birth. Actually, he was home 37 hours after he was delivered. I can't even tell you how many hours old Kevin was when she got to come home! We are so blessed that everything has been different this time around.

Except...one thing.

The one thing I counted on being different has been very much the same as it was with Kevin.

I wanted so badly to be able to nurse this baby. I mean, really get to nurse him, not just the whole pump-and-bottle routine I did with Kevin. I always thought that the reason she never learned to nurse was because she was so old before she got to try. Now I know differently.

The first time I tried to nurse Sly, he latched on right away and did great. It was a bit painful, but I expected it to be that way. I fed him twice that night and then, at about 7:00 am, my nurse came in and instead of bringing him to me, told me that he'd had a slightly low blood sugar reading so they were going to give him a bottle. I asked if they wanted me to nurse him but they didn't seem to think that would bring him up fast enough, so I agreed. He still latched throughout the rest of the day, but we were supplementing with little bits of formula through one of those small tubes I'd come to loathe when Kevin was in the NICU. He was still in my room and at my chest, though, so I counted my blessings. By the end of the day I was very sore and slightly bloody, but we were doing it!

Scott took Kevin swimming the evening we brought Sly home. I was resting in bed and listening to the baby monitor when I started to feel that something wasn't right. When I went in to check on him, Sly was looking slightly shaky. I was worried about his blood sugar getting low again, so I tried to nurse him. He just screamed. So I gave him a small bottle. He was fine a few minutes later.

This became our routine: try to get him to nurse, succeed in making him scream, and finally give up and feed him a bottle. Each time he would latch for less and less time until he refused to try to latch at all.

So I decided to enlist the help of my old friend, The Pump.

I have a love-hate relationship with that thing. Scott and I agreed when I stopped pumping after six months with Kevin that if it ever came to that again, we would go straight to formula.

I didn't give in so easily to this plan, though. If I can just get my milk to come in, I thought, then maybe it will be enough to get him to latch again.

I pumped and I pumped and I pumped. Each time, I was getting nowhere near the colostrum amounts I should have been getting. And my milk still didn't come.

Have I mentioned our son is over nine pounds?

The kid would have been starving had he been trying to live on that alone.

I prayed and I prayed and I prayed for a solution. Was there something I hadn't tried? Was there a magic answer? Could a lactation consultant fix our problem, or were we beyond help? Would be going straight to just bottles now be giving up too easily?

I sat there, in my son's room, in the middle of the night and listed the pros and cons of breast vs. bottle in our specific case. The main two pros in the breast feeding column came down to bonding and pride. The pros in the bottle list were much longer and made more sense: I could get more sleep so that I could be a nicer person to both of my children and my husband (Scott confessed that this was his main reason), pumping was a hassle, I could give up the insulin and get back to a normal health routine much faster, he could be fed by grandparents and bond with them, my milk wouldn't be enough even if it did come in, we might get a date night once in a while, he would be a much happier baby, I would be a much happier mommy...the list went on and on.

And I knew then, at two am, that failing was my answer.

I'll admit, I felt sad. I felt guilty. I couldn't give my child what he needed from me, and now anyone could fill his needs--nourishment would come from a can instead of from me. I'd never get to use that adorable and thrifty nursing cover my mother-in-law helped me make. I'd never get to know what it felt like to not have to pack bottles everywhere we went. Breast is best--and all along my goal with this pregnancy was to give this child his best chance at life. Neither of us would be getting the benefits if I gave up now. As a woman, I felt very much a failure.

That morning, Scott went back to work. I was on my own with a two-and-a half-year old and a four-day-old for half a day. I was nervous. I was tired. I was emotionally drained.

And, as comfort so often comes to me, it came again, in the words of a book.

I laid Sly on a quilt on his floor and had Kevin bring me a book from his shelf. Reading to them was something I could do that wouldn't favor one over the other, so it seemed like a good option. Kevin brought me two small board books that the Easter Bunny had left in Sly's mini basket. She handed me the one with the bird on the front cover.

"Are You My Mother? By P.D. Eastman," I began to read.

"A mother bird sat on her egg. The egg jumped. 'I must get something for my baby bird to eat!' she said. So away she went."

I know that feeling, I thought. It is always about getting them something to eat. And it is the mother's responsibility.

"Inside the nest, the egg jumped. It jumped and jumped and jumped. Until...out came a baby bird! 'Where is my mother?' he said. He did not see her anywhere."

Interesting, I noticed. He doesn't care about food. It's his mother he wants. But she is so caught up in how to feed him, she doesn't even notice.

And for the next several cardboard pages, I waited for the little bird to find his mother. And I realized that although the mother thought that it was all about the food, to the baby bird, it was all about her. The kitten, the hen, the dog, and the cow could not replace her. Conversely, all the doctors and nurses and mommy bloggers and relatives in the world can't replace what my baby needs from me--and that isn't food. It's love.

"Just then, the baby bird saw a big thing. 'You are my mother!' he said.

"The big thing said, "SNORT!'"

And at this point I had to laugh...because snorting is exactly the kind of sound The Pump makes.

"'Oh no!' said the baby bird. 'You are not my mother! You are a scary Snort!' 

"The Snort lifted the baby bird up, up, up. Then something happened. The Snort put the baby bird right back in the tree. The baby bird was home!"

The Snort machine did the same thing for us, I realized. It put my perspective back where it should be. Through everything I went through with this pregnancy, how can I look at this chunky, pink, beautiful healthy baby boy and consider myself a failure? 

"Just then the mother bird came back."

It isn't about how he is fed,  I realized. It is about how he is loved.

"'I know who you are,' said the baby bird. 

"'You are not a kitten or a hen or a dog. You are not a cow or a Snort! You are a bird, and you are my mother!'"

And now, if you will excuse me, I have to go. My baby boy is crying because he needs me.

Because I am his mother.