Baby Love- Finding our Way

Hello fair OMG, We're Pregnant readers! I'm back. Café Bébé is in the house again this week with another installment of Baby Love, part 2 ... Finding our Way.



This post centers on the first few days with our Little Miss...

After the joy of seeing my daughter for the first time, the motherhood learning curve began. Having had a c-section, moving, holding my daughter and attempting to breastfeed was more than a bit challenging. The whole breastfeeding experience was a humbling eye opener. In my wildest dreams I never imagined that the "most natural thing in the world" could be so stressful and difficult. My boobs were grabbed, molested, shoved, tweaked and tortured and all the while my poor newborn daughter screamed and stressed and none of it was the "most natural thing in the world". Suffice it to say, we failed at breastfeeding. I hadn't planned on this (EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED). My husband had to brave the aisles of Boots to find formula, bottles and a steriliser. I know I wasn't a failure but it certainly felt like it.

Due to the struggle with breastfeeding, my Little Miss didn't eat for the first 2 days of her life. I was pressured and pressured to persevere with the breastfeeding and it wasn't until Little Miss became a bit jittery and they decided to test her blood sugar (which was ok - she just needed to eat!) that I began to realise that we needed to do something for her and that something wasn't going to come from my boobs. At a particularly low moment on the ward, late at night, I shuffled to the midwife desk where several of them were gathered. I held my daughter and stared at them and said "I don't know what to do!". One of the kindly midwives came to me, put her arm around me and said "Do you want me to give you permission to bottle feed your daughter?". I did ... I needed someone to finally tell me that it was OK!

The midwife then said, "I'll take your Little Miss and feed her, you go lie down". I handed over my precious daughter, shuffled back to my bed and sobbed and sobbed. When Little Miss came back to me, happily fed and full and sleeping, I was grateful. She had finally eaten and all might not have been right with the world, but it was right with her and that's all that mattered.

Being on a ward with three other mothers and their babies was far from restful. The added torture of attempting to move about, having just had major abdominal surgery, made me more than a bit emotional. Of course, hormones also had a lot to do with that. At one point, I attempted to read a magazine. I actually could not understand the words on the page! At another point I couldn't entirely remember if I had had a "Little Miss" or a "Little Mister". This is called sleep deprivation or motherhood...I forget which!

Those times at night on the ward were dreadful. As my husband was not allowed to stay with us (I think he skipped to the car park and thoroughly enjoyed his quiet night's sleep), I felt utterly alone and confused. I couldn't sleep, my Little Miss kept waking up and militant midwives kept darting in to keep up the Breastfeeding Campaign.

I wanted them all to go away and let us go home. All I focused on was GOING HOME! After 2 days on the ward, I had to GET OUT! Short of giving away my newborn daughter, I would have done ANYTHING else to go home. I had lost a lot of blood in my c-section and nearly needed a transfusion. I felt miserable and woozy most of the time and my face was the colour of semi-skimmed milk. I didn't care...I was getting out of there...cue Mission Impossible music!!

Two days after giving birth to my gorgeous Little Miss and at about 8pm, I was SPRUNG!!! My best friend and her daughter had come from Spain to spend the weekend with us and help us out so with husband at the wheel and Little Miss secured in her car seat and my arm around the car seat, JUST IN CASE, we made our way home. We stopped at McDonald's on the way home and got a takeaway as I was starving. That Chicken Legend was the BEST sandwich I had ever had!!!

We sat Little Miss in her car seat and just sort of marveled at her. It came time for her first feed in her new home and I prepared the bottle. Hubby and I went up to her room to feed her for the first time. Hubby sat in the rocking chair with her and I selected a random play on the iPod in her room. The first song that came up was amazingly appropriate: "Songbird" by Eva Cassidy. If you don't know it, listen and you'll see how wonderful it is. As "Songbird" played, I watched my husband feed his daughter and I knew that we were a family and I got all teary and said "I'm just so happy!".

Who cared that my boobs didn't work and my stomach was a disaster? I had a gorgeous baby girl and an amazingly wonderful husband...and all was right with our world.

Tune in next week for another installment of BABY LOVE...
and if you're looking for more great posts from Café Bébé, click here to visit my site!

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