Eva was a premie so her first few weeks at home were filled with doctor's visits. Since she was a NICU baby, the hospital followed up by sending a visiting nurse to the house a few times. She was a complete loon, but I was happy to have her checking in on her because Eva also had pretty bad jaundice and she was able to monitor that and let us know when we needed to go get her blood drawn to keep tabs on those levels so they would stay far away from a danger zone. Because of the jaundice, Eva was 'round-the-clock sleepy. Which would be great for a new mom; to say, my 2 week old sleeps through the night. Can you imagine?! Only the problem was, we couldn't LET her sleep through the night. Not only do 2 week olds have to eat every 3 hours normally, OUR 2 week old had to eat every 2 hours in order to fight the jaundice. So every 2 hours we had to wake ourselves and her. Which was much easier said than done all around. It seemed like torture having to pull our weary selves upright in bed, but it was even more difficult to rouse our baby. I remember having to strip her naked under the fan to wake her from her warm slumber in order to eat. At this point I was still trying to get her to latch so I could breastfeed, something I made Matt swore he'd push me to continue giving effort towards, especially when I wanted to quit. Only, Eva wouldn't latch for long. She would grab hold and immediately start sucking away and then realize that it wasn't her precious bottle nipple and spit me right back out. Talk about rejection! So I'd wake her at 10:00, try to get her to latch for 15-20 minutes, resign and then feed her previously pumped breastmilk for 40 minutes (Eva was a slllllllllllllloooooooooow eater! She would always fall back to sleep and we'd have to wake her again!), and then pump for 20 minutes after I put her back to sleep. Of course you have to start the process again exactly 2 hours after you STARTED it the last round. Do the math. I would sleep for 30 mins of every 2 hours, every night...TOPS. Eva also shared our room during this stage and she was FAR from a quiet sleeper. Constant motion+constant sleepy noises=constantly awake mother.
It was madness. I kept up the charade for several weeks before I sobbed to Matt that something had to give. Matt was more than willing to take on some of the bottle feedings in that cycle, but he couldn't be expected to do them all. The man had to get up and work in the morning. But he definitely helped more than I had expected him to. But, I couldn't do the rest. I had to give up the attempts to latch. Matt argued with me, telling me that breastfeeding was best for Eva and that I should stick with it. My point was I didn't care how she got the breastmilk; that I'd continue pumping. He encouraged me strongly not to give up trying.
I could have killed him. I was so exhausted and frustrated and just needed someone to support my decision to let it go; a decision we hold over our own heads as mothers for way too long. But I couldn't kill him, so I broke down in an unprecedented emotional breakdown at 2:00 am in Eva's 4th week of life. Matt held me and told me, "Jane. I could give a rats ass if you breastfeed, bottle-feed or any combo of that. I'm only doing what you told me to; to push you to do it when you wanted to stop.". I had forgotten about that...
I was so relieved, I can't even describe it. I don't know why though. This was the beginning of the "Jane's Life Attached to a Double-Breast Pump" chapter. I have never had such respect for dairy cows in all my life...
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