In case you didn't know...

My little Sammy was born on Friday the 19th of March at 10:22am, weighing 6lbs 9 oz, and 19 3\4" long.

To say this has been a crazy week or so would be an understatement.

I was in labor the entire afternoon of the 18th at work, not really sure what was going on since contractions weren't consistant but I was getting more and more with an hour.

I still had planned 4 more days of work (I so should have stuck to my original plan of the 15th!) so I haven't done my exit interview or anything and HR has to get with legal to research this as they've never dealt with something like this before.

I won't go into detail about the L&D, except to say my two L&D nurses were awesome. There was one terrifying moment at around 4 am when suddenly my room was filled with nurses and doctors yelling at me to move different ways, the baby was in distress and Jim swears up and down they said to just get the baby out at one point.

Obviously everything was fine, Sam just didn't liked to be messed with in any way. I had all kinds of internal sensors going on at that point too. Fun.

We were home by Sunday and as always the more difficult stuff comes up when you're home away from even semi-access to help.

I had originally intended to breastfeed my baby. I had read the different holds, I knew from EVERYONE I know who's done it that it hurts at the start but eventually (weeks etc) it's very painful but you get through. I hadn't read anywhere about different latching techniques... maybe things would have been different if I had... I dunno know...

I do know that I was torn up completely within a short time (not saying that's unusal) and had skin peeling off. I couldn't even express milk without pain, and yes I had the cream to take care of them... I had practically bought all the Medela side items to make sure I'd have what I needed on hand.

I even had a Lactation Consultant come to the house and spend 2 - 3 hours showing me how to have baby latch (totally different that the hospital & book had shown) Hers was an hour and half ritual she said after 3 weeks would have you and baby nursing without the pain.

See the problem for me was having to "Practice" with my baby screaming for food and totally stressing me out. Sam's feeding technique according to my book would be "baracuda baby" Again not giving any excuse why I didn't go forward...

I didn't intend to be sitting a week after my little Sammy was born to be sitting at home with bound breasts stuffed with cabbage leaves to stop the milk because I just couldn't cut it.

I was bawling and dreading feeding time... that was my fear. That I would pull away from Sam because of my anxiety and physical pain.

It didn't help that I felt JP was basically trying to bully me into my "commitment" to breast feed. I never remember swearing some sort of blood oath, I had always said I would try but from my understanding you never know how it'll go for you.

I mean, I read NOTHING on bottle feeding a newborn and have had to put together a crash course sending JP to the store to buy more bottles, to buy a measure water pitcher, etc etc... Trying to figure out how much formula baby might eat today as not to waist... plus how to figure out how much more he wants and he's slowly increasing.

The pain of stopping I won't go into at all. I had intended to ween via expressing but I guess I hadn't been going long enough and had to ween via breast feeding and well that caused a weekend of intense pain that I put both JP and my Mom through... not to mention the addition hormonal wave that goes with it after the wave of just giving birth hormones.

I felt and still feel very very disappointed in myself... but I had realized after a Thursday night feeding (JP was out) that was so stressful... I realized I have been struggling for so long that I was just tired of it... There was the year of trying to get pregnant when everyone one around seemed to have no problems at all, then all the tests this past spring, then the fertility treatments, then the genetic scare...

I had had enough of continual worry. It's worrying enough trying to learn the cues of a newborn, Is that I'm hungry or I have to pass gas crying? Is that the I'm going no. 2 face or something else?

I decided I wanted to enjoy my time with my baby. I'll never get it back and I didn't want to remember dreading feeding times, I didn't want to remember shredded nipples and poly-whatever it was cream.

I know I'll be looked down on by the majority out there. So be it. All the baby information out there contradicts itself anyway... no one can claim to know what's right for everyone. Yes, I would have liked to get through it and feed my baby naturally but it didn't work out that way, and I'm dealing with that the best way I can.