You Can Do This!

After one night in the hospital, making sure Niley was healthy and mamma was okay, they were ready to send us home. I remember feeling the weight of gravity pull me down in resistance. I think I even asked if I could stay another night - it's all such a blur- and the midwife told me no, I was going home. I guess we are in this fully and completely. No going back.

It's a good thing they sleep most of the time those first few days, gives you a chance to settle in, a little heads up to catch the weight of now having another being, aside from yourself, to constantly care for. Sleep, eat, poop would be the rhythm of life for the foreseeable future.

Before we left the hospital, I jumped at the chance to have a nurse come visit me at my home the following day. I felt so fortunate. The reality of having a new baby and no idea what you're doing is intimidating. Even though I had cared for so many babies throughout my life, nothing could have prepared me for the reality of motherhood and having a newborn baby at home ALL THE TIME. Any help was welcomed and appreciated.

Here I was, a brand new mom, in love with my baby already (sometimes this can take awhile). I felt like she was nursing well (if I am completely honest, our latch could have used some improvement). She was peeing. She was pooping (that tar-like substance). All was well.

Typically, unless there is a concern, you would go in to the doctor with your newborn baby a week after they were born. Baby's birth weight drops naturally after being born. After a constant feast through the umbilical cord for the past nine months, they are now getting a small amount of protein rich colostrum while your milk is taking it's sweet time coming in over these first handful of days.

Because of what I found to be a traumatic experience, I would like new mamma's to understand that it can even take a few weeks for a baby to get back to their birth weight. Like everything in life, there is a spectrum. And statistics around weight gain in the U.S are based on bottle fed babies. It is common for breastfed babies to eat less at a time and to eat more often. I look at it like this: Baby eats, pees, poops, AND is content: ALL IS WELL. (Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and you should consult a trusted health care provider for any and all concerns.)

Day two at home with a newborn baby and the nurse shows up. Right away this felt very invasive and technical. Not at all how I imagined. She weighs my baby and because the birth weight had dropped below a certain percentage - I can't even remember what that percentage was - she has to make a report. The whole experience, from the knock at the door to the culmination of making the report felt like a CPS home visit. WTF?

This started a LONG trajectory of weight check visits, lactation consulting, pumping, supplementing, but above all STRESS. And stress affects your milk supply in a negative way. And pumping after you've just fed - uck - what an uncomfortable dissatisfying experience.

I have often wondered if I would not have had the nurse come to the house and I had just stuck with the traditional week one visit to the doctor, would everything have been different? But this struggle was a strong impetus in the creation of the Postpartum Experience Project. All too many women struggle with breastfeeding and give up before they intend to. On my website you will find links to excellent videos about how to successfully breastfeed. There is an inherent technique for feeding a newborn baby versus a baby who has more neck strength. And a proper latch is gold to ensure breastfeeding is comfortable and that baby gets plenty of milk.

Eats, pees, poops, content: ALL IS WELL. You can do this!