Month 1- The Iffy

Avi is One month old today. Technically he was was four weeks old last monday but today is Jan 14th and he was born on Dec 14th. I can’t believe its been a whole month since that fateful night. Motherhood really does change your life in all sorts of ways – some predictable and cliched and some that you just can’t understand unless you become a mother.

Motherhood has not been super easy for me especially because of breastfeeding. Our second night in the hospital the night nurse told us that Avi had lost too much weight and we would have to start supplementing with formula immediately. We started supplementing and breastfeeding was super hard for me because I barely had any colostrum and Avi couldn’t latch on and I was plagued with a sense of failure and of course my post dural headache had my body in full shut down mode. We supplemented 3 times a day for 10 days and then we went to two until his pediatrician said we didn’t have to supplement anymore. However, my anxiety is such that I still give him 20 mls at bedtime just for my sanity. But its weird how much breastfeeding was tied to my self confidence as a mother. Since I felt that I could not nourish Avi with my body, I felt completely incompetent and was terrified that he was starving.  Thankfully, as of now it seems like we are at a good point now and I don’t worry as much but the underlying anxiety is still there.

Maybe becasue of my breastfeeding issues I was also really hesitant to take over caring for Avi and it felt like there were tons of people who were undermining my confidence but I finally started speaking up for myself and just trusting myself that I was his mom and that  my instincts were right. So overall things are much better emotionally for me.

However, just when we started to get my issues under control, Avi had to adjust to life without formula and that has upset his whole schedule and now he is up much more at nights and driving his Mama and Daddy up the wall. But I’m starting to feel like its going to come together as I tweak his schedule a little bit everyday so that we can all get into our groove.