*Quick disclaimer: this is a post about breastfeeding. If you're not interested in reading the words nipple, breast, latch, suck, etc... repeatedly... then click away now!
Day two was a terribly long day of frustration. Feeding wasn't going well. The evening shift nurse had attempted to help us latch on, to no avail. I understood that it made sense to take a break from it now and then, but I also felt like my little boy was starving! Full of emotion, trying to feed him just made me cry. The night of Ben's second day of life was truly a breaking point for me. My family had long since left for the day, and Josh was on his way out, too. The previous night Josh had stayed till 10 or 11 pm, and dropped the baby off at the nursery on his way home. I snuggled in for some sleep, and the nurses from the newborn nursery brought him to me in the night to feed. Things had not gone especially well the night before, but I hadn't yet realized that when Ben was mouthing around at my nipple, he wasn't eating anything. I had seen the doctor in the morning, and he said that Ben's bilirubin count was climbing... but not to worry, and not to give up nursing. It was a long day, and after having tried to feed him several times already, I sent Ben to the nursery with Josh, knowing that he was hungry. The nurses brought him back to me within the hour, explaining that he'd been crying hungry since Josh left. I tried again to nurse him - on unbelievably raw, sore nipples, I might add - without any luck. I gave up and tried to comfort him in some other way which, up to this point, had always worked. I laid him on my chest, rubbed his back, let him suck on my finger, stood up with him, bounced him around... nothing. I called for the nurse and recounted my efforts. She suggested that maybe he was uncomfortable from the day's events (Ben had been circumcised that afternoon). She suggested sending him back to the nursery for a dose of Tylenol. It was after midnight at this point, and I knew Ben wasn't in pain... he was HUNGRY! But I also knew that I couldn't feed him, and it seemed apparent that this nurse wasn't too 'into' helping me out. So, I did what seemed like the less painful thing and sent him back to the nursery, where he got some probably unnecessary Tylenol. That bought me about one hour.
Let me take a break to explain what it is like to spend the night in the hospital. You're in a bed that is not your own. You're in a room that is not your own. You're likely healing from something. And the place is about as noisy as your house might be on an incredibly busy day. I had heard the unit's phone ring about 97 times that day, but in the middle of the night it rang out like a fire alarm. A moment later, my nurse bustled into the room.
"Um, Beth?" she said, her voice full of warning. "The nursery just called..." I am telling you, I immediately thought that Ben had stopped breathing, or had been dropped on the floor, or something worse. "Ben is still screaming. And he's been screaming for about an hour. Do you want to try to feed him again?"
I started to cry. Did I want to feed my son? Of course I did! Did I have any idea how I was going to accomplish that? Nope. I looked at her and said, "I just can't. I've tried three times, and I can't get him to latch on. I don't know what to do!"
She said, "We can give him a bottle, if that's okay with you..."
I swallowed hard. I had steeled myself for this recommendation back when I was about 10 weeks pregnant; no way was any child of mine going to get a bottle in the nursery! But... I heard myself say, "Yes, just feed him. Please feed him!" She said it might be best for him to get a bottle from one of the nurses, in terms of avoiding nipple confusion and Ben getting used to getting a bottle from me, etc. I lost it. I cried, "I feel like a bad mom!" She said, "Oh, you're not a bad mom," and left me in my misery. I pulled the sheets up over my head and sobbed, as only a postpartum woman can. I was miserable. The only comfort I could find was that my son was going to eat - he wasn't going to be hungry or uncomfortable, and anything we could get into his belly was going to help him have a bowel movement... which would help the bilirubin to exit his little body. Things weren't going the way I wanted them to, but I felt like I was doing what was best for Ben.
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