Feeding

Why is something so natural as breastfeeding so difficult?!

With the assistance (read poking, prodding and pulling!) of many a midwife over the past 3 weeks we have been unable to get Lily to feed from the breast.

Up until now she has been feeding well from the nipple shield and because this diminishes supply I have been pumping at most feeds to keep the stimulation up.

Up until now, occasionally Lily would at night still be hungry after the breast and so I would top her up with EBM.

I was very proud as up until Friday night we had gone for 3 days with no EBM top up. I was very happy that things appeared to be progressing in the right direction.

This was until on Friday when a lactation consultant advised me to feed Lily from a bigger shield to encourage her to open her mouth up wide, this would help with attaching to the breast.

Well that didn't work and resulted in a very unsettled night on Friday night. Yesterday was even worse, and resulted in Lily being awake and very unsettled/screaming when put down from 4:00pm until 2:00am this morning.

She is pretty well refusing to feed from me at all even though she is clearly hungry, yet will drink, sorry gulp EBM from the bottle.

Sometimes she will attach to the shield and just do little comfort sucks but will not feed from me.

So this leaves me where? The only way I can feed my daughter is with EBM from the bottle.

This breaks my heart. I have not been able to breastfeed Lily at all. She has not once attached and fed properly from the breast.

This leaves me feeling horribly inadequate and broken, I just don't know what to do.

Lily's EDD

This is how Lily looked on her EDD.

And this is how I looked on Lily's EDD.

Yesterday the 9th of October was Lily's EDD, it was a glorious day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and I was holding my baby girl, who was 18 days old.

I could not have asked for a better day, yesterday was I think the first day that I truly felt like Lily's Mum. My heart was bursting with pride and love for my daughter.

For the first week or so of Lily's life, I felt so far removed from her. I guess it was a lot to do with the traumatic birth, the fact that she was whisked away so quickly and also that she was in the nursery and I had very limited one on one contact with her.

Not only that at the end of each day, I went to bed in my room and Lily remained in the nursery. Only now do I realise just how difficult that was. At the time I guess I was just going through the motions, it was like a movie was being played out and I was there as one of the main characters but I felt like I was watching the movie and not really there at all.

Regardless of why I was feeling the way I was, that is how I was feeling. I no longer wish to dwell on that or continue to re-hash it in my mind.
From now I wish only to focus on the overwhelming love that I feel for Lily, and feel nothing but excitement for the future.

I have my happy, healthy little family and I wish for no more.

Yesterday Lily and I went and spent the day at my Mums. We all had a lovely day. We went for a nice long walk into town to get the local papers and an icecream, it was really nice to be out in the fresh air and sunshine. All around the town that Mum lives in is beautiful old trees and seemingly blossoming flowers everywhere you turn so it made for a lovely walk, admiring all the old houses along the way. Lily slept soundly in her pram oblivious to her surroundings.

When we got back to Mums we took some photos in front of one of Mums big old trees. I have many photos of me pregnant in front of that tree, so it is so nice to have some photos with Lily under the tree, particulary on her EDD.

Today we have had a skip bin delivered. I am very excited about this as it is going to be glorious weather over the weekend and we are going to pull the front garden out and get it ready to put the new plants in so that they can get established before the weather gets too hot.
I think we are going to try and get the most part of it done tomorrow so that Cameron can sit and watch Bathurst on Sunday.
I am so glad that our house is going to start to look decent from the front, those hedges that are in the front garden just grow out of control and look very untidy.

And to finish off this entry, another picture of Lily and I on her EDD.

A Fresh Day

Well today brings about a fresh day, and my best attempt at a fresh attitude.

I have realised that if I continue to spend all my waking hours feeling guilty and worrying, I am missing out on the most wonderful time of my life, enjoying these amazing days with my newborn daughter. ( I am not going to be able to say that for much longer, time is flying!)

So from today I am making a conscious effort to let go of the all the negative thoughts and feelings I have been experiencing and enjoy each and every second with my beautiful daughter.

Speaking of Lily, here are a few pictures.

This was taken yesterday when I was enjoying a cuddle. 15 days old.

Lily enjoyed a bit of playtime in her rocker last night, for about 10 minutes and then she decided she was still hungry. This girl just melts my heart! I love the alertness in this shot. 15 days old.My precious princess sleeping this morning. 16 days old. As you can see here, Lily haves having her hands up near her face, it doesn't matter how tightly I wrap her. At night when I put her in her cradle I can hear her moaning and groaning, and yep sure enough when she wakes again there are those little hands peaking out above the blankets. I am not surprised though, I remember at all my scans her hands were always up at her face.

Lily having playtime this morning (actually I should call it awake time, she is a bit young to play!) I know it is just wind, but look at that gorgeous smile! 16 days old.

Getting sleepy

I just love the expression in this picture.And one more of my perfect little princess

Guilt

I think I know what is driving my worry, guilt...

Everyday I look at Lily, I look into her trusting eyes as she gazes up at me, I am her everything. Lily relies totally and utterly 100% on me for everything and I feel nothing but absolute guilt.

I feel extremely guilty that it is my fault for everything that Lily has been through. I should have refused to be induced, I should have tried different medication, I should have demanded to be admitted to hospital for BP monitoring, I should have spent more time sitting with my feet up to help my swelling and try to keep my BP down.

For goodness sakes it is not even Lily's EDD yet. On the 9th of October, this Thursday when Lily was due to enter this world, she will already be 18 days old. That is 18 days that Lily was entitled to still be baking away in my belly, food and drink on tap, not forced into this harsh world and put through what she has been put through.

I should have stuck to my guns. I had read all the horror stories about inductions, I knew the statistics of babies going into distress, I knew the percentage of inductions that end in caesereans, and yet I still allowed myself to be induced, to put my unborn child at risk of that and worse. Why? Because I was told I was going to be induced and also because I did not trust my body to nurture my unborn child.

I thought I could protect my baby more if they were here in my arms. How wrong I was.

I should have spent much more time preparing and equipping myself for a positive birth experience, one of which would happen when my baby was ready, not have spent my time reading horror stories.

I went into hospital with horror stories in my head, and what did I get? My very own horror story. One that I am totally consumed by guilt about.

Every day when I look into Lily's beautiful, innocent, trusting eyes I am wracked with guilt. It is my fault that Lily went through what she did, and I don't know quite how I am going to put it behind me and move forward.

Worry

Is it usual to spend a great deal of your day and night worrying about your child?
Is it normal to be constantly expecting something awful to happen?
Is it normal to not trust your bodies ability to nurture and protect your child?

I am beginning to think that it is not normal to spend as much time as I do worrying about Lily. I am sort of constantly in a down state of mind worrying and expecting something to go wrong. This is the most amazing time of my life I should be on top of the world, and I have moments where I am but for what feels like the most part I am worrying myself sick about Lily.

Lily's dramatic entrance into the world and consequent worrysome first week of life I am sure are not helping my cause. My worrywart nature probably does little to ease the situation either.

I am just so worried that something is going to happen to my precious daughter. I am not sure exactly what I am scared of, a whole host of things I guess, I am so upset with myself for feeling this way, why can't I ever just relax and worry about things when and if they happen and not worry about things that will hopefully never eventuate. I am my own worst enemy sometimes.

As much as I wish I didn't feel this way, I am starting to think that I really need to do something to address the issue before it snowballs into something bigger.
I am certainly not depressed, I just can't seem to stop worrying, I am not sure what you call that.

Today for example Cameron suggested that I have a nap while Lily was sleeping. So I was laying on the lounge and I was so tired but I just couldn't switch off and go to sleep. This was because the cat was out and I was worried she would get into the pram that Lily was sleeping in, despite Cameron's reassurance that he was right there and would keep an eye on the cat.
See to me that isn't normal, I trust Cameron with mine and his daughters life, but I just cannot switch off, but I know that as a mother you never do switch off. However I shouldn't have any trouble having a one hour nap while Cameron is in the same room with Lily.

For what it's worth I did have a nap, for about 40 minutes, and I am feeling much better for it, it really helped just to give me a bit of a pep up.
Usually when I sleep through the day I wake up feeling miserable, but not today.

I just really wish that I could relax and enjoy this wonderous time like most new mothers and have more faith in myself and my abilities.

Two Weeks Old

My goodness how did that happen? Lily is now two weeks and one day old, the time is just flying by.

This morning we took Lily to the hospital to be weighed. Because of the big drop in weight that she had they are keeping a close eye on her weight. Particulary because she was not a big baby to start with. Lily now weighs 3060grams, she has put on 120grams in the past three days, from my understanding that is quite a good gain.

I just hope and pray that Lily continues to pile the weight on. I often joke that it is like weight watchers in reverse, we want the scales to be going up not down!

I find it sad that I now sometimes dread feed time as I am just so worried about whether she is eating enough or not.

I find at night that Lily has one feed where she just cant seem to get enough and tires of feeding from the breast, so I am topping her up with EBM.

I am also expressing after each feed as Lily is still feeding through the nipple shield which will affect my supply as with the shield the aereola isn't getting as much stimulation. However if this is the only way that I am able to breastfeed for the moment I am happy to go with it.

The other day when I seen a lactation consultant, she was not concerned about the shield as she seems to think that once Lily gets a bit bigger and stronger she will feed fine from the breast.

I just need to remember that each feed once she has fed for a while with the shield on that I remove the shield and try to get Lily to feed from the breast.

She attaches fine, and has a few sucks but then comes off. The lactation consultant also said that if Lily keeps doing that I will get very sore nipples.

So for now I need to continue with the expressing after each feed and persisting to try and get Lily to attach to the breast. I just hope that my supply doesn't dwindle to much because I really want to contine to breastfeed for some time yet!

I better get a move on as Cameron is on his way home with lunch and Lily has just finished feeding so we may get 5 minutes together.

I better start posting some pics though as we have SOO many.

This is Lily enjoying her bath on Saturday at 13 days old. I love the relaxed look she gets on her face, she generally loves her baths.

This is Lily's I am hungry I don't care for photos at the moment. (Excuse Cameron's unshaved-ness!) 13 days.

This is a self portrait of our little family taken last night at 14 days.

To be honest I am quite upset with myself as I am spending so much time worrying about Lily that I am not allowing myself to relax and enjoy this wonderous journey. Each day Lily is growing and changing, certainly becoming more alert. I know that I am going to look back and realise just how much Lily has grown and changed and I just don't want to regret anything such as not taking the time to just hold and smell her.

I seem to always be worried about the cleaning and other things that have to be done. I don't want to worry about that stuff, I keep telling myself it will all still be there when I put Lily down. This is an amazing time of our lives and I should be solely focussed on relishing and enjoying each moment to the fullest.

Feeling Alive

Well I am feeling much better this morning, it is amazing what a decent sleep can do.

I woke Lily to feed her at 7:30pm and she went back to sleep at about 8:30 so I took the opportunity to have an early night myself.
Lily slept until 11:45pm when she woke for a feed again, I was feeling really alert after 3 hours solid sleep, something I hadn't had for a while!
Lily then woke again at 3:20 am for another feed so again another couple of hours solid sleep. Then we were up at 7:30am.

Lily seemed to feed much better overnight, and certainly setlled much easier. I am hoping that she is now getting much more milk and her settling well is a reflection of this.
The midwife will be here in about half an hour to weigh her again, so lets hope the scales reflect this.

I was feeling so down and like a failure yesterday, no wonder my little girl was so unsettled at night, she was hungry. I didn't think she was hungry though as it appeared to me she was feeding well. Oh well I guess there is so much to learn and I should try not to beat myself up too much.

After the midwife has been this morning, I think we are going to go up to Mums for a visit, I need to get out of these 4 walls and have a change of scenery. Mum lives in a beautiful hilly area so I think we may even pop Lily in her pram and go for a walk, that would be lovely.

When I took Lily's nappy off this morning to give her a bath her cord had come off! How exciting! So that is something else I can put in Lily's baby book, her cord fell off at 10 days old. My goodness I can't believe my little princess is 10 days old already, where has the time gone? Oh thats right the first week was spent in hospital.

I feel sort of though our precious first few days where stolen away from us. We could only admire our baby girl through the glass of her crib.
However at the same time I know that I have so much to be thankful for and I am so thankful everyday that Lily has bounced back so well and we are now home as a family, just the way it should be.

I try to drink in each day to the max and take in and savour every moment as I know that time passes by so quickly.
This is what I kept telling myself yesterday to enjoy each moment, however I have discovered that is a little easier said than done when you are dragging your feet with tiredness! Never the less I will contine to soak up and enjoy my baby girl.

Best be off to pack Lily's bag for her first trip to Nana's and my first time driving since having Lily. So far I have been sitting in the back seat with her. I am sure I will stop at least 3 times to check she is ok!