Kiersten’s Blog

Dear Nursing Nazi,

I was made aware of a conversation you had with a mutual friend, wherein you alluded to the fact that I just quit nursing for no good reason.  Let me tell you something.  I didn’t just quit.  And quitting has not been easy for me.  I realize that breast milk is best for most babies.  I have done absolutely everything I could think of so that my baby would not be formula fed.  I have decided that after four long months of torture, I’m done.  I didn’t give up without a fight.  Don’t you dare judge me for the way I need to feed my baby now.  He has had everything he needed from me in the last 4 months.  Now it’s time for me to regain my sanity.  How can I be a good mother if I can’t take care of my baby’s most basic need?  Nursing wasn’t allowing me to do that.  Pumping wasn’t even allowing me to do that.  I changed my diet.  I lost sleep.  I read books.  I watched videos.  I sought out professional help.  When all of that didn’t work, I started pumping.  Still, the torture persisted.  I am happy to announce that I quit!  I’m done.  And guess what, I’m excited about quitting!  I’m excited to have my life back!  Call me what you want, but don’t you dare say I didn’t do everything in my power to make it work.  Don’t you dare call me a bad mother because you feel like I gave up too easily on my child.  Be grateful that you’re lucky enough to have the right body and the right children to make it work for you.  I don’t.  And I’m finally okay with that.

Yours truly,

Kiersten the formula feeder

P.S.  I have discovered since I started my baby on formula, that he is intolerant of my breast milk.  My formula fed baby is a happy baby.  And I’m a happier mother.

I have a double breast infection.  Have I mentioned I’m weaning?  I think I’m finished torturing myself.

I haven’t been wanting to blog lately, mostly because I don’t want people really feeling sorry for me.  I think, however, that it’s important to put myself out there right now.  I know there are some of you who are or have in the past or will someday deal with the issues I’m dealing with right now and can benefit from what I have to say.  Even if you never will, maybe my writings will help you better understand your loved ones who are struggling with similar situations.

I have always been pretty on top of things.  I don’t get flustered easily.  I get things done.  I don’t stress.  I’m a pretty put together and optimistic person.  Lately I don’t know where that person is.  I feel sad and unsure of how to get anything done.  I cry.  A lot.  I have no motivation.  I’m tired.  I’m cranky.  Let me illustrate: this is what my house looked like 5 hours ago (it’s not much different now).

Coloring books and colored pencils always adorn the floor of my living room. That’s pretty much how London spends all of her time, much of it watching movies (I know, bad Mom).

Sometimes I wonder if this area will ever be clean for more than a couple of hours.

The sewing machine is still not put away. I keep meaning to fix Ashton’s crib bumper but that keeps getting put off. At least I have pretty flowers to dress the messy table up a little bit.

This room is never clean. Note the exersaucer I put together yesterday. I knew we didn’t have room for it but I was sure Ashton would love it. Yeah, not so much. At least not yet.

Note the laundry that’s constantly piling up. This is clean and has been for about a week. At least I have a sleeping baby.

There are a lot of factors contributing to my change of attitude and my complacency.  My schedule has been pretty lax this summer.  I haven’t been exercising like I used to.  Feeding my baby has been the biggest challenge of my life thus far.  We’re still trying to find a house to buy.  In addition, I’m pretty sure I have postpartum depression.  I realize more and more that my feelings are normal.  It’s okay for me to feel this way.  It’s okay for me to need help.  I’m going to the doctor tomorrow about it.  I keep thinking things have to get better.  They do.  And they will.  There was a great article in last month’s Ensign about postpartum depression.  Reading that is when I realized that this is a real issue that I need to deal with.  I guess we all have our challenges.  This is mine now.  And for now, I’m just taking things one day at a time and holding on as best I can.

I’ve been falling behind on the blogging for the last couple of months.  I wrote an entry last week but it didn’t seem appropriate to share with the whole world.  Hopefully I’ll be feeling better soon and up to some happy blogging.  As for now, I’m still just trying to make it from one day to the next.

I do have some good news.  London is totally and completely potty trained!  It has taken more than a year.  It was probably close to two years ago that I started to potty train her.  It’s been at least a year and a half.  When we moved here to San Diego, I vowed to get her potty trained in the first month.  I got close.  She learned to pee in the potty and have no accidents.  We kept diapers on at night.  But she still wouldn’t poop in the potty.  She never messed in her underwear.  She would just wait until she had a diaper on at night and poop in it.  Then I would change her and put her back to bed.  This lasted until just a couple of weeks ago.  At one point, I ran out of diapers and didn’t buy more, thinking she would just go in the potty.  This just caused her to hold it longer and get more and more constipated AND she peed in her bed every night so I was washing sheets every day.  It wasn’t worth the fight so I bought diapers again.  Recently we ran out of diapers again.  I had been telling her for weeks that when we ran out this time, I wasn’t buying more.  I was preparing to go through the same situation this time, but she was ready.  The first night in the middle of the night, she called me into her room while I was feeding Ashton.  She had peed in her bed, just a little.  She didn’t seem concerned about it, which worried me, but we cleaned up and went back to bed.  That was it.  The next night was fine and she started pooping in the potty.  It wasn’t even a big deal.  She just went!  Now it’s a normal thing.  Granted, the first day, she thought she got to go to Chuck E Cheeses and get candy and prizes and go to KidsVille and all sorts of other things.  Now she still asks for prizes but not as often.  The other day when she told me she was going poop, I started to get excited and she said, “Don’t be proud yet!  I didn’t go yet!”  She’s definitely proud of herself.  It’s a big deal for her.

The funniest thing about London being poop-trained is how she looks at every time she poops.  Once she goes, she looks in at it and tells me what it looks like.  I hear things like.  “It looks like a snake.”  “This one looks like a monster.”  “I think this one is a Christmas tree.”  “Oh, Mom, this one looks like a pineapple and that one’s an eye.”  Kind of gross, I know, but at least she’s going.  And it’s entertaining.  No two look alike to her.

I took the little man in for his 4 month checkup yesterday and was surprised at the findings.  I wasn’t surprised that his weight was 13 lbs, 13 oz and only in the 25th percentile.  I was, however, kind of surprised that he is now 25 1/2 inches tall and in the 69th percentile.  How did I get a tall kid?  I’m so happy for him!  Oh, and his head is 17 inches around, putting him up in the 75th percentile.  He’s growing a big brain in there.  The doctor says he’s a healthy little guy.

Here’s what’s been happening this month.  We still don’t sleep through the night and I still have a messy house.  These things have to change soon.  We have slacked off on our walking because the stroller has been out of commission.  Hopefully we’ll be up and running soon and I hope he remembers that he likes his stroller once he has to get back in it.  He is smiling a lot more and gurgles and talks a lot.  He loves checking himself out in the mirror, especially while he’s getting his diaper changed.  He has a new favorite toy: his teddy bear.  It’s soft and snuggly.  When he’s upset, we give it to him.  He snuggles it up to his face and calms right down.  He definitely loves to snuggle and we still swaddle him whenever he goes to bed.  He’s a strong little guy and stands up and stomps his feet every chance he gets.  He’s also to the point where he can almost sit up, but he’s still not rolling over.  He’s not a fan of tummy time or any time in the car seat, which is unfortunate.  Now that he likes to play with toys, I may be able to distract him a little from the pains of being in the car.  He’s sure a fun little guy to have around.

Oh, and for those of you wanting a nursing update, I gave up.  I’m pumping and we’re all happier (except for Taylor when he has to get up to feed the baby in the middle of the night).

When I gave birth to London almost 4 years ago, I really wanted to nurse her.  I tried and tried for the first night but she couldn’t latch on.  I found out the next morning that she had a cleft palate and wasn’t able to suck.  So I pumped for 9 months.  I was a local celebrity.  Whenever I would go to WIC, the ladies there would tell me how great I was and how they would tell all sorts of women about me because I was pumping exclusively.  I’ll admit, it wasn’t easy.  I got many, many clogged milk ducts, but it really wasn’t too bad.  By the time I was established and in a routine, I only had to pump 3 times a day and I produced way more milk than London ate.  My freezer was full.  Still, I was always jealous of those women who could just whip it out any time, anywhere and nurse their baby.  They were always prepared.  They never had to prepare a bottle (or clean a bottle, for that matter).  “Next time,” I would think, “I’ll be able to do that.”  I would dream about how nice and convenient that would be.

My dream came true with my second child.  He was born with an intact palate and latched on quite well from the beginning.  I had heard about how nursing could be a little painful in the beginning, but it would get better quickly as long as the baby was latched on properly.  I always heard about how great it is for the baby and how natural and wonderful it is.  I honestly thought that the women who had a really hard time with it either didn’t care enough to make it work, or didn’t try hard enough.  It’s a natural thing.  What could be so hard about it?

There are a lot of things I wasn’t told about nursing, or I didn’t care to hear or believe.  Some women love it.  Not me.  I really do hate it.  Every time I need to nurse, I put it off as long as possible because I dislike it so much.  It makes me mad at my baby that it’s so hard.  If you think that’s a good way to bond with your child, more power to you!  I know it’s not like this for everybody, but I also know that there are a lot of women who feel the same as me but don’t voice their frustrations so publicly.  Maybe there’s a little bit of shame in the fact that I can’t produce what my baby needs when all I hear is how good breast milk is for the baby and the mother and why wouldn’t any mother do it?  I’m going to attempt to break down for you what nursing is really like.  At least what it’s really like for me.

Month 1: The first couple of weeks were rough.  I had a baby who was eating well and latched on great, but I was still recovering from giving birth and on top of that, I was really sore from nursing.  That went away, my milk was established, and I felt like things were moving in the right direction.

Month 2: As soon as I felt like things might be getting to be okay, Ashton became a huge pain to feed.  He would scream every time I tried to feed him.  I didn’t know if he was getting enough because he hardly ate every time I fed him.  I got to the point where I was willing to try anything to help him.  I had heard that a lot of babies are lactose intolerant so I decided to cut dairy out of my diet.  This seemed to help a bit.  The doctor also prescribed acid reflux medication for him.  I think the combination of those two things helped calm him down quite a bit.  I can remember having one good nursing experience.  “If every time I nursed could be like this, I could handle it,” I thought.  Again, I thought things were getting better.

Month 3: Ashton started off nursing fine but now he’s growing and getting stronger.  He would kick and grab and move around and pull of and get mad all at the same time.  I was starting to get really sore again.  I felt like I was starting over again.  Finally I had enough and set up an appointment to see the nurse.  Apparently I was doing everything just right.  He’s latched on well.  The problem is, he’s just not getting it fast enough.  She gave me a few suggestions that I was already doing, and told me to just keep at it.  Now we’re rounding the corner into the 4th month and I’ve almost given up.  I started pumping so that I could heal.  I wasn’t healing.  In fact, I was getting worse.  I called the doctor and was put on anti-biotics for a breast infection.  I’m feeling much better and finally starting to heal again, but I can’t say I’ll be nursing this baby again.  I have been pumping and have found out that I don’t produce enough milk.  I bought formula and have been supplementing with that, but I think it’s making my baby constipated.  I guess it’s time to try a new formula.  I feel bad that I have a formula fed baby.  I didn’t want that.  I wanted it to work out this time.  I’ve finally come to grips with the fact that I’ll likely never be that woman who just loves to nurse.  It will always be and inconvenience and a chore.  I’m still pumping, still trying to bring my supply up.  I’m just not quite ready to give up completely yet.  I still keep thinking that maybe once I heal, I can have some good experiences with nursing.  Realistically, that’s not going to happen.  I’ll see what this week holds for me, but I’m not crossing my fingers expecting a miracle.

I tried to keep it positive.  I apologize for any negativity you may be reading, but I think it’s important for women to know that nursing really isn’t for everyone.  And that’s okay.  It’s important for me to know that.