233 Days

That's how long we've gone without a drop of formula.

7 months, 10 days. 117 days of pumping 3x per day (while working full time), another 56 days pumping 2x per day (while breastfeeding on maternity leave) and 46 days pumping 1x per (while breastfeeding on weekends). I have pumped 509 times so far and breastfed on average 1,165 times since my son was born. That doesn’t include the power-pumping sessions to try to increase my supply or the many, many nights of cluster feedings during growth spurts.

And yet today I sit here feeling defeated. I feel like I’ve failed. Today was the first day my son had formula. To say it was hard to prepare his bottles this morning would be a lie … it was excruciating. I decided to send one bottle with solely breast-milk and two more split 50/50 with formula. But as I put them in his bag I stopped, I thought “I can squeeze in 20 minutes of pumping, I don’t need to send this” … but by then we were already late and I knew that wasn’t a viable option. So I zippered his bag closed with tears in my eyes and off we went.

I know there are those of you out there looking at your computer screen saying “you made it 7 months, you should be proud!” but I also know there are some that are probably thinking “you didn’t try hard enough” …and that’s how I’m feeling right now. Maybe I should have taken more time to pump when I was on maternity leave, maybe I should have introduced power-pumping earlier, maybe I should have done middle-of-the-night pumping sessions, maybe, maybe, maybe… but guess what? I didn’t. I didn’t want to sacrifice the little time I had on maternity leave pumping – those 20 minutes I couldn’t be holding my son, playing with him, looking in his eyes – I’d chose those moments over pumping any day. It doesn’t help that my initial pumping experience was awful (see post) and that I almost wanted to give up then. It doesn’t help that every time AF rears her ugly head my supply dwindles to practically nothing. And it certainly doesn’t help that when I’ve been sick and unable to eat or drink anything my supply takes another hit, which when you have a child in daycare happens more frequently than I’d like.

Slowly but surely over these past few weeks, I’ve watched as my already incredibly small freezer stash has dwindled away to nothing. And with each defrosted bag, my dreams and hopes of making it 12 months on breast-milk alone were shattered just a little more. I have two bags left in the freezer – 11oz – that’s it. 509 sessions and that’s all I have to show for it. I could have pulled those out this morning and sent them to daycare to get one more day of 100% breast-milk into my son, but logic said not too. Logic said, use today (and possibly the rest of the week) to send 50/50 bottles. Pump as much as you can at work, power-pump once at night and hopefully maybe by the Grace of God, next week I’ll have enough stored again to send only breast-milk to daycare. But if not, I have to be okay with knowing I’m still sending some breast-milk.

At this point I don’t care if I have a “stash” in fact I don’t want one…what I would like though would be to make enough to send to school every day … that’s a measly 15oz… why is that so hard?

And why am I being so hard on myself for having to send formula? I personally know SO many women that have raised their children on formula only, or had to switch because they were unable to pump at work, or like me watched in horror as their supply just decreased on its own.

I was talking to a someone about my “situation” this past weekend because I knew then that I was going to have to start supplementing and wanted input and her response was “Oh, that’s really too bad. You’ve made it this far it would be such a shame to not make it all the way”… I don’t think she realized the impact of what she said. I know she wasn’t trying to be hurtful or judgmental but hearing that only made me feel worse about what I was going to have to do. Truth is, I didn’t tell her I was sending formula today because I wasn’t sure what her reaction was going to be. I don’t think she knows how difficult it was/is for me or how emotional of a decision it actually was. I don’t think she knows that I feel like I’ve failed or that I feel like in some way it makes me a bad mother.

And maybe that’s the bigger issue. Before Lucas was born, I’d find myself sometimes silently questioning the actions of other mothers, as if I knew better (that’s funny right?). But once I became a mother I realized that every family is different and every child is different. What works for one doesn’t always work for all. You have to do what’s best for you and your family. And yet, I constantly feel judged. I feel like people are questioning my mothering abilities. I watch as other mothers make their own baby food while I pack jarred Earth’s Best, or mothers that are still breastfeeding at 12 months while I am introducing formula at 7 months, or mothers that stay home with their babies while I work full time. I need to take a step back and applaud myself for everything I have done and continue to do for my son. He has a family that loves him to the moon and back, a roof over his head, food in his belly, clothes on his back, books to read, toys to play with, a dog to snuggle and an entire world to discover. I need to learn to stop judging myself. To trust that I’m making the best decisions for us, to know that I am a good mother.

While all of this was going through my head this morning I came across my friend (and photographer) Melanie’s blog on Facebook. Her words “It’s Motherhood, Not Martyr-hood” couldn’t be truer and were exactly what I needed to read today.  So I send a million thanks her way, for reminding me that while my choices may not live up to the pressures of our generation, they are mine and I should hold my head high.

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to look myself in the mirror and tell myself I’m an AWESOME mom, that I’m doing the very best I possibly can and that NO ONE can take that away from me.

And to every mother I ever judged, silently or otherwise, please accept my sincerest of apologies. I never realized how hard this job really is!

Toughest Job in the World

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My Current Mommy Struggle

It’s been a while since I last blogged but life has been keeping me pretty busy! Lucas turned 7 months this past weekend (update to come) and we’ve been all over the place trying to re-settle in after vacation, find our new home and live our normal life.

I’ve also been having some internal personal struggles. A few things have been weighing on me lately but the biggest one is the lack of time I get to spend with my son. Now I know I said back in November that I wanted (no, needed) to be something more than just a mom, but as time has flown by I’ve realized that there is truly nothing I want more in this world than to be able to stay home with my son. My husband laughs and says it’s “just because you don’t want to work anymore”, but that has nothing to do with it. Every day that I drop Lucas off at daycare is another day that I don’t get to spend with him. It’s another nine hours that he’s with someone else that will watch him, play with him, experience his growth and ultimately influence him. I love our daycare, I truly do, the women there are amazing and they love Lucas almost as much as we do, but it’s becoming more and more difficult for me to say goodbye every morning. With each passing milestone I get more frustrated. Each time I see him do something for the first time I wonder if it’s really the first time or if he’s already done it at daycare. And now that he’s even more aware of his surroundings and the people around him, he’s starting to reach for his teacher in the morning which only further breaks my heart. Again, I have to reiterate how much I love our daycare and his teacher (I’ve known her for 20 years) it doesn’t take away the fact that it hurts to see him reach for someone else! 

Couple that with the fact that more than a handful of my friends have now reduced their hours or left the workplace altogether for this very reason and my emotions are in overdrive. I know that so many women do exactly what I am doing every day and they manage to make it work and I know being a stay-at-home-mom is just as “un-glamorous” as being a working-mom, but still my heart aches for him during the day. I look at his pictures while I’m pumping for the millionth time, struggling to produce enough milk for his daycare bottles  and I wonder what we’d be doing if we were together. Would we be reading a new book, or taking a long walk, or just sitting outside listening to nature? But instead I sit in a cold dreary office (as most are) watching the minutes tick by until I can go pick him up and have just a few precious hours with him before he goes to bed. I envy my sister, who as a teacher, gets out of school at 3pm(ish), and has multiple weeks of vacation every year to spend with her son. C was born at the end of January, so after her maternity leave ended she went back to work for three weeks before having the entire summer off. She didn’t have to drop him at daycare until he was almost 8 months old… I on the other hand was dropping Lucas off at 9 weeks. It literally breaks my heart to look back at how few pictures I have of him at 9, 10, 11 weeks because we weren’t together. After going back to work so early I vowed that on our next baby I would take the full 12 weeks. But as it turns out my employer does not offer maternity leave. So, once again I’d be in a situation where any leave I take would be unpaid.

Spending a week with Lucas and my husband (along with S, B & C) in Florida made me realize even further how much I want to be home with him. Being able to wake up every morning knowing we had a full day ahead was so wonderful. I was sad to come home (as I typically am after a vacation) and Brian had to practically beg me not to go into my “post vacation depression”…while I was able to keep a smile on my face this time, knowing that we were going back to our “normal” routine weighed heavily on my mind. So, I did what I always do, I started thinking (obsessively) about how I could make my dream of staying home a reality. I know myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t be able to not work at all, so the idea of doing something part-time on nights and weekends entered my brain. That way I’d be home with Lucas during the week, we could avoid the cost of daycare (a huge savings over the course of a year) and I would still be able to have some adult interaction and have that sense of being a “contributing member of society” that I know I’ll want and need. You know that saying, “everything happens for a reason,” well maybe the reason we sold our house so quickly and we haven’t been able to find another one is because of this (am I reaching?). While my brain was in overdrive I also spent some time crunching numbers. I figured out what our new home budget would allow for if I were to work from home. These two things put together confirmed my decision. I spoke with Brian and amazingly enough he is on board with the idea. It’s not something that is going to happen immediately (see previous living situation issue) but it’s something we’ve both agreed would be best for our family. Yes, it might mean cutting back on some of the “fun” stuff but at the end of the day family is really the most important thing isn’t it?

All of this being said, we have a ways to go before it could even potentially happen (I’m hoping by mid-summer) but knowing what we’re working toward gives me a new sense of calm. It makes those morning drop-offs just a bit easier. With every passing day I’m (hopefully) one day closer to being home with my son. We still haven’t figured out all the nit-picky details like who will help me with nighttime daycare when Brian travels or what I’ll do for work but I have no doubt that we’ll figure it out…it always seems to fall into place just when we needed it to most!