Thursday, December 15, 2005
If you're male, or if, for some other reason, the subject of breastfeeding makes you uncomfortable, be warned and stop here :)
Since Nova was pretty much snatched away at birth, I never had the chance to nurse him at all, and of course, once the got him to Charlotte, he was on a strictly monitored diet, so I couldn't nurse him there either, since you know, breasts don't come with cc measurement markings... So I pump faithfully like a good lil cow, every 3 hours for the last 12 days - now he's 12 days old, and finally they say his diet is unrestricted and that I can nurse him. He's 12 days old and has been bottle fed from the first feeding - like I have a chance in hell of getting him to nurse right?
I figured I'd give it a shot, but didn't hold out any hope for it actually working you know? I had resigned myself to being attached to that machine for something like a year, and that was OK, not great, but I could deal with it. I should have known the little guy would take right to it. He never even hesitated. It absolutely made my night! Of course, I'll have to go back to pumping when he goes back, but at least for the next couple of weeks, I'll get to do it the right way.
For those of you that are still with me who never breastfed, you just have no idea what a feeling it is to snuggle your child up to you and nurse. I'm inexplicably happy that he's going to do it!
I did the pump thing for Alexis, and I nursed Terra for 4 months until she refused to nurse because of nipple confusion (HA! Just lost any male readers that made it this far - I said nipple!) I remember when Terra decided she was done with breastfeeding. I cried like a fool, lol. Of course, with Nova, I won't be going back to work when he's 3 weeks old, so it will be different, I hope. Who knows, with him going back in the hospital for the surgery. He's liable to decide by that time that he prefers the bottle, but at least I/he/we got a few weeks of the real thing.
So anyway, we took his carseat to the hospital tonight, and bought him the most adorable little winter jumpsuit, and brought home a lot of his stuff so we won't have so much to carry tomorrow. . . I'm so damn excited, I doubt I'll sleep tonight, and boy do I need to sleep! Oh well, it isn't like new mothers expect or require sleep, right?
Yeah, I'm going to go try anyway. Expect pictures tomorrow for sure - of the whole family together by the Christmas tree!
congenital heart defect
posted by Erin @
4:19 PM
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