A break from all the cute stuff

When we were released from the hospital on Tuesday, Lindsay had lost about 15 % of her body weight. We instructed by the pediatrician to supplement nursing with formula. We're not new to this - Lauren weighed only 4 pounds when she left the hospital and we had a similar routine of feeding every 2 hours. Fortunately, since Lindsay weighs just under 6 pounds, we're able to let her wake herself when hungry at night which has been every 4 hours - which makes this a whole lot more bearable than it was with Lauren.

Lindsay is starting to prefer the bottle, which is to be expected. It's a whole lot easier for her. It is entirely about hormones that this feels like rejection, but I'll embarrassedly admit I burst into tears yesterday in front of one of the partners in my pediatrician's practice and her medical student, completely frustrated that for the second time I find myself failing at what's supposed to be a natural process. I can step back and realize it's sort of ridiculous that doing what's best for my babies would cause me to feel rejected and like a failure. Particularly since it's just the delivery system that's not working for us - I am making plenty of milk and Lindsay is drinking it out of a bottle. It's more efficient for both of us, and allows my husband to share in feeding the baby. Yet, I can't seem to shake the negative emotions about it. Taking the pediatrician's advice to make Lindsay nurse for a half hour every 2 hours before offering a bottle just makes us both upset. She's ravenous. I feel like every single interaction I have with my newborn is a struggle.

I decided to take my husband's advice and stop struggling with this. It's much more important that Lindsay puts on some weight than whether or not I feel validated. Besides, I'm not sure if I would've scored his admiration were it not for being able to pump, answer client e-mail, and catalog Lauren's inventory of Playdoh food. Oh, right. I just birthed a 6 1/2 pound baby. Du-uh.