Stream of Consciousness

A ten minute random stream of consciousness from the mind of Feeble. (Forgive the typos! I'll try to fix them later...)

• Breastfeedng is a lot harder than I thought it would be, and I'm (sadly) not enjoying it very much. Feeling disappointed in myself, because I'd taken all the classes, read all the books, etc. but still feel like I'm failing. Learning new things usually comes easy to me, but it hasn't been the case with this.
  
• At his two week checkup today, Bug was still 3 oz short of regaining his birth weight and I'm really down about it. Trying to maintain perspective and tell myself we'll get there, but perspective can be hard to come by when you're working on a sleep deficit. Thank God for Mr. F, he's doing everything he can to lift my spirits and encourage me.
  
• Some people can be really discouraging/aggravating without even knowing it. I've been finding out who those people are in the last two weeks. From the relative who tries to (helpfully?) suggest that perhaps I have an insufficient milk supply to the person who keeps trying to persuade me that we should let Bug sleep in our bed.
  
• When you have a baby everyone and their cousin has an opinion and by gum they are going to let you hear it, whether you like it or not.
  
• I'm getting somewhat better at deflecting unwanted advice.
  
• I'm still very bashful about feeding Bug anywhere outside our home, particularly around family or friends. Need to get over that...
  
• It is helpful to know ahead of time that every nurse and doctor one encounters in the hospital and at every pediatric appointment thereafter also has different opinions. One nurse, when she saw I was having trouble getting started with breastfeeding, brought me a nipple shield to use. The nurse who came on during the next shift was appalled and said that I shouldn't use it, and that if I had to use it, then I needed to pump. One nurse said "let him feed as long as he wants on each side". The pediatrician says switch sides after twenty minutes. It can be overwhelming trying to parse all the different information.
  
• Mr. F is still home with us, again, thank God, and taking very good care of us. Cooking dinner, making lunch, even breakfast. He's running errands, doing laundry, tidying up, doing dishes, changing diapers, watching Bug while I take a shower - and he's doing it all with a smile. Countless times a day I am reminded of why I fell in love with and married him. And I am so not ready for him to go back to work...
  
• Senior Kitty is ever so slightly jealous of all the attention Bug is getting, but is being a pretty good sport about it. Whenever he gets the chance, he snuggles right up with us and Bug. He doesn't seem to mind Bug at all, even when he cries. Though sometimes if Bug starts crying in his crib, and we're not in the room, Senior Kitty starts crying too as if to say "somebody come quick and do something!"
  
• The best gift anyone gave us was a whole freezer full of pre-cooked meals. We've had lasagne and roast chicken and vegetable soup and a variety of other dishes on hand that can be thawed and reheated relatively quickly. I'd wanted to do this myself - cook and freeze extra meals - but I never quite mustered the energy to do it in the last few months of my pregnancy. Thankfully someone else did it for us and we've had almost three weeks now of not having to figure out what to do about dinner. Definitely my most favorite gift of all.
  
• The day after I caved in and finally gave Bug a pacifier, the American Acadamy of Pediatricians (or Pediatrics?) published new recommendations advocating pacifier use at bedtime to help prevent SIDS. Talk about timing. I was feeling like I'd already failed Motherhood 101 by popping the plug into Bug's mouth to quiet him. Then I read the article the following day and didn't feel quite so bad about it.
  
• Today we showed up for our pediatrician appointment promptly at 11, only to find that we were early - very early. The appointment was actually for 2:30. (thankfully they took us anyway).
  
• All in all, some things have been easier than I could have imagined (dealing with sleep deprivation), other things are much harder (remembering what day it is, or remembering to mail out a greeting card in time).
  
• Lying in my hospital bed about 24 hours after Bug's birth, I found myself thinking about Christ's birth and how the events of the past 36 hours really caused me to reexamine everything I believed about it. Having given birth, I now found myself thinking about Mary, about what it must have been like for her. Was she distressed to be stuck in a dirty old animal stable when her time arrived? I would have been beside myself! Did she labor very long? Was Joseph freaking out, or did he know just how to soothe and calm her? Who cut the cord? It would seem that in most cases back then, a woman would be surrounded by other women, or women in her family would attend to her during her labor and delivery. And yet we have no indication that was the case for her. From the biblical account we are told that it was she and Joseph in the stable. How lonely was she for the company of other women who'd been through birth themselves? Or did God just provide massive amounts of grace?
  
  Just thinking about it all overwhelmed me, and the whole concept of Jesus' birth resonated deeper in my heart than ever before. Maybe it was the hormones, the sleep deprivation, the newness of the situation, but I just couldn't keep the tears from streaming down my face as I lay there pondering it all in the dark, just before sunrise.
  

The timer I set to remind me when it was time for Bug's next feeding is going off. He's snoozing away in his crib, and I hate to wake him but I must. We've got another 3 ounces plus to get on him before Friday...