My maternity leave is coming to an end and I am completely torn. I want to go back to work. Staying home all day is about the least stimulating thing I can think of. It's extremely repetitive- feed baby, change baby, put baby down for a nap. Over and over again. A few weeks after Elijah was born, I was so ready to go back to work. He was (and still is) sleeping most of the day, and I ran out of things to do. But now that it's so close, I'm not thrilled about leaving Elijah. Even though my day is very predictable, those little moments of happiness between the monotony make it all worth it. Yesterday, I finished feeding him and sat him up on my lap. He looked right into my eyes and gave me a huge smile. I starting crying hysterically. I am going to miss him so much! He's going to give that huge smile to some stranger at day care instead of me. The thought of someone else consoling him when he cries, someone else feeding him and changing him, someone else rocking him to sleep makes me crazy! I'm his mom! I should be the one to meet all of his needs. But Daniel (as usual) made me feel better. He asked me if I remember my teacher from day care when I was an infant. Of course I don't. But I know my Mom. I know that she loves me. Sometimes when he knows exactly what to say, it's kind of scary.
We went to day care last Friday to meet his teacher. The whole thing went really well. The classroom is beautiful, and all the teachers were so excited to get a brand new infant to play with (all the other kids in his room are close to 1 year). And then we got back into the car to drive home and I completely lost control. I cried the whole way home. I don't even want to think about the first day I have to leave him there. I just remind myself that I can go visit him as often as I want. It's on the edge of campus, so I can be there in 5 minutes. He starts day care on Oct 29. I'm actually going back to work on the 25th (my 24th birthday!) but my parents are in town, so my Mom is going to come watch him for Thursday and Friday.
Since I'm still on maternity leave, my life has been consumed by Elijah. He is still the easiest baby ever. If his diaper is dry and his belly his full, he's a happy boy. To put him to sleep I just swaddle him, pop in a pacifier, and lay him down. He's asleep within minutes all on his own. The only issue we've had is with breastfeeding. Since we introduced bottles, he has gotten lazy. The bottles we used (the ones that came with my breast pump) let the milk flow so quickly that he didn't even have to suck. So even with just one bottle a day, he came to prefer that, and wouldn't latch on and suck at the breast. A lactation consultant came to the house last week (thanks to my awesome insurance, this is covered with just a co-pay!) and gave me some ideas to help. We switched to a different brand of bottle and a different method of feeding him. It has helped a lot, but he still gets lazy once in a while. I've also been dealing with a ton of clogged ducts. It's pretty painful and very frustrating. I think this comes from an oversupply of milk combined with Elijah's lazy eating and sleeping such long periods at a time. I have an oversupply because of his weight problems in the first few days. The lactation consultants recommended that I pump after feeding Elijah every single time, so I went into overdrive making a ton of milk. Sometimes I wake up in the morning (particularly after Elijah has slept really well) and I'm so engorged it's painful. I've gotten up to 5 oz from the pump after feeding Elijah. That's enough for a whole extra bottle! The clogged ducts make it even harder for Elijah to get milk out, so he gets upset and cries sometimes when the milk doesn't come out fast enough. I'm determined to keep breastfeeding, so even when it gets really frustrating I stick with it. I know a lot of people who just pump and feed bottles exclusively, but I don't want to do that. It will be so much easier when we go home for Thanksgiving if I don't have to bring the pump and bottles and all of that. And, this may be a little selfish, but I like that I'm the only one that can feed him. I don't want anyone else to do that. This is my excuse to take my baby, go to a private place, and spend time together with just us. I don't want to give that up. I know that the struggles I'm going through are nothing compared to what a lot of women have to deal with. I am so happy that we've made it this far and he still hasn't had a drop of formula.
Elijah is almost 7 weeks old and he has started smiling every single day. It melts my heart every time! Daniel and I do the craziest things to get him to smile. If I feel like this now, I can't imagine how excited I'll be when he says "mama" for the first time, or reaches for me. I absolutely love being a mom. It's a million times better than I even imagined (and that's saying a lot!).
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