Everyone tells you "When you have your baby you are just going to KNOW what to do!" And then you have the baby and you don't....cue the panic! The day I had Sadie I remember thinking I had never seen anything more beautiful and never felt the love I felt for her.
But under all that love and adoration was a slight panic. Everything went pretty easy for the first four days of her life, for her that is. I was a nervous wreck. And now I know that's ok and completely normal! But before having a baby everyone says it's all butterflies and unicorns and you will breastfeed on top of your rainbow forever. But that is not the case. Being a parent means rolling with the punches. Learning how to deal with the eb and flow of life and the crazy things that tiny person is going to throw at you. I was nursing at the time and that was going great until the fourth night after my sweet Sadie's arrival. We were watching the bachelor (Juan Pablo's season yuck!) and I was nursing for the millionth time that day it felt like and I could tell she wasn't getting enough to eat. I could feel it, I could see it and I wanted to just die knowing I couldn't provide for my baby. I started frantically pumping to see how much I could get (right after nursing like I was going to get anything?!) but for some reason that's what I did! I tell Chris at 10:00 PM to run to the store and get some formula because she was not getting enough. He rushed to the store and came home with the entire formula aisle and ingredients to make homemade spinach dip because apparently that's what he felt was the right thing to do in the moment. He was clearly a little panicked also because he stayed up randomly making spinach dip for most of that night haha! I nursed all throughout the night, to scared to use the formula because I literally knew NOTHING about formula. Because remember the unicorns and the breastfeeding rainbow everyone tells you about? Well mine wasn't working and I hadn't been prepared for other options. We had an appointment with our lactation consultant that next morning just on time so I could find out what I needed to do for my baby that I couldn't satisfy. Sure enough she had lost a lot of weight and I needed to start supplementing until my milk came in. Talk about a blow to a new moms ego. I had built it up so high in my head that breastfeeding would go perfectly and we would all live happily ever after and it came crashing down in one look at the scale. Looking back on this I know it was my "mothers intuition" telling me she wasn't getting enough but in the moment it just killed me I couldn't provide for her. After all the panic and craziness of having a new baby settled down everything just kind of clicked. I realized this is my new life and I wouldn't have it any other way! You learn your baby and they learn you. Sadie is now a thriving, happy, formula fed 9 month old!
And I know now I can trust my instincts when it comes to her and her needs. So when people say "when you have your baby you are just going to KNOW what to do" you will. It just may not happen when you expect it to.
