The Baby Marriage

When Dashing Boy and I became engaged 5 years ago (today!) a thought came into my mind "Sure, I'm excited about the wedding but mostly I am excited about being married." And so in the months leading up to our wedding I spent more time daydreaming about life as a wife and less time dreaming about all the little details that accompany a wedding. In the end, the wedding itself was beautiful and indeed fulfilled my dreams, but it was driving away from the temple with Dashing Boy- a marriage begun- that was the most poignant part of everything.

When I became pregnant with our baby, daydreams did fill my heart and days as I thought about what it would be like to have a baby in our home. But also, it was something that seemed so abstract. And before the baby would be in our home, I would have to bring him here. And so I focused my efforts on the birth. I read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth highlighting helpful passages the whole way through, then re-reading those passages (absolutely most helpful thing I did). Dashing Boy and I attended six weeks of hypnobabies classes and practiced scripts and such with each other.

And then the birth day arrived. And it was wonderful! I loved it in fact. I had prepared myself going into it. I think I might tell more of our birth story another day, but it was everything I had hoped for. A beautiful experience and entrance to the world and our family.

In a way, it was kind of like the wedding part of the whole experience. Surreal. Wonderful. Powerful love emotions everywhere.

Our baby was here. The birth wedding was over and now it was time for the marriage part- the new family life. While I had prepared for the birth so well, it seemed like this part would come so naturally-- and a lot of it has. But somehow in all my preparations, my daydreams of this new time did not include one very vital detail.

When I first nursed our baby and in the first two days everything seemed to be going as expected. My nipples hurt, but I had heard that would most likely be the case. But then they hurt so much that I made an emergency phone call to a friend who just had her third baby. She rushed over to my house, took one look at me, gave me some vital tips and kindly asked if she could help me correctly latch my baby. (Yes! Please do!) Goodness was I ever doing it wrong. My daydreamed, not-ever-having-closely-watched-someone-breastfeed image of nursing was enabling me to breastfeed my baby by letting him suck on my nipples and not breasts! Oy! No good. Who knew?!

With my newfound latching knowledge we were off to a much better start. But then about a week in, our little boy started throwing up. It seemed as though he was throwing up entire meals (this hasn't happened since). We of course were very concerned. So we called the pediatrician and went in to weigh our baby the next day so we could have some peace of mind that everything was fine.

It wasn't fine. One week after his initial weight loss and our boy hadn't gained back any of his birth weight.

And so, out came Mama Bear. I sprung into action. I went to a lactation store. I rented a hospital grade pump so I could increase my milk supply. We fed him a little formula. Bought bottles supposed to be like breasts (they aren't). Used the SNS system with my pumped milk. Kind friends came over and gave me helpful advice and encouragement.

Let's just say this last week has been operation feed baby.

I have never shown so many people my breasts in my whole life. And I think I am getting resigned to just going shirtless at home now. It is just so much easier. I feel like the African women in Babies- what is the point of covering up?

This process has been extremely emotional for all of us here. Actually mostly me and Dashing Boy. On the cusp of a huge breakdown on Friday a wonderful lactation consultant came over. Our calm little guy is just very sleepy and instead of letting us know when he is hungry he just resigns himself to sleep (his active alert times slide away to sleeping time when he eats despite our best efforts, go figure). Keeping him awake through an entire feeding is like a circus act I tell you. She showed us all kinds of tricks.

She also rented us a milk intake scale so we can monitor his progress from home- a huge help. Between all the things we've been doing, I'm exhausted and all I can think about is milk. That's pretty much all I'm doing right now- and it is hard. I now understand why breastfeeding support groups exist.

But seeing that he got a full meal, and holding a milk-drunk baby with a milky white tongue and a satisfied expression on his face-- well that makes all this hard work worth it.

Indeed, those moments have been some of the most poignant we've had with our baby to date.