Things with Elijah had been going so well. Me? Not so much. But still, SO well with Eli. I might have known it was too good to last! It was like we were 4-year olds excited to have a new best friend, until we had our first big fight. We're over it now, but that first little squabble still left its battle wounds.
What was the problem? Breastfeeding of course. The one thing I thought I had down. Here's how it went.
At first it sucked and was really painful. Then I figured it out. We were getting along swimmingly until my milk came in. Then we had an issue because, heaven forbid, I had TOO MUCH. Like more than normal too much. It hurt a lot and we had to resort to some crazy memorable nursing positions (eg-Eli over my shoulder) to clear some of the milk and avoid Crisis Mastitis. Throughout it all though, Eli's latch was great, he hardly dropped any weight and gained it all back. He was back to his birthweight less than a week after he was born. It didn't hurt for me any more, and once the engorgement was no longer an issue, we'd be great, right? WRONG!
See, Elijah was filling up pretty well and doing this awesome thing where he'd sleep 3-3.5 hours between feedings. It made sleep at night for me really nice and not that different from before he was born. All seemed to be going right, and Matthew and I had even started commenting on how life was starting to feel strangely normal. HA.
Then yesterday I had a home visit from one of my midwives, and she weighed Eli. He had been 9lb 8oz 6 days before, so he needed to be 9lb 14oz to satisfy her. I didn't think that'd be a problem because he had always exceeded the expected weight gain (we were just such pros at breastfeeding.) But it wasn't to be. He was only 9lb 10oz, and all of a sudden we were talking about supply issues.
SUPPLY ISSUES. Yes, apparently it's possible to go from having too much for 3 babies to not enough for 1. I kept it together pretty well when she was here and then went downstairs to Matt to cry. Aaaaaaaand begin the bad day.
I was basically told to feed all the time, or as often as he could possibly want to, and do breast compressions at the same time. Neither the midwife nor I could possibly have realized what that would mean for yesterday though.
Elijah would feed for 5 minutes. MAYBE 10 at best. Then he'd fall asleep before he was done. He'd sleep for 5-10 minutes, wake up content (the content bit would last another 10 minutes) and then he'd randomly lose it because he was hungry, tired and wanted to be soothed. So he'd eat again, but be so tired that it'd put him to sleep. Repeat this cycle for a good 6 hours, throw in a whole lot of tired tears from me, and you have my afternoon. The poor little guy didn't sleep for more than 30 minutes at one time the entire day.
By 6pm I felt like a broken woman. I know that sounds dramatic. It's because it totally was. I was a mess, saying that I'm a failure and can't even provide him with the sustenance that he needs, he must be so fussy because he's starving, we're going to have to resort to formula and he's not even 2 weeks old, blah blah blah. I called the midwife on call and she assured me I was not a failure, I was doing a great job, keep up the good work, it gets easier, normal to go through this, don't worry, etc, etc. It helped so much, and made me glad I have midwives. Ironically, it was the same midwife who was there when I was in labour. So strange. I still like her a lot though.
The evening got a little better because he'd feed at 8, fuss/sleep until 9, then do it again until 10, and then 11. I was afraid to go to bed, because I didn't want to be woken up constantly to deal with that, but he was actually pretty good throughout the night.
This morning wasn't too bad, and I was hopeful that he'd actually have gained the target ounce since yesterday with all the drama and difficulty.
My midwife came by at 12, weighed him, and wouldn't you know it, the little stinker had put on 4 ounces! Mind you, he had just fed, but that was so beyond excellent that I felt like laughing. Maybe not a "haha, that's funny" laugh, but more of a "hahahaha, I'm going crazy and more than a little hysterical, hey, throw me that straight-jacket..." kind of laugh. But still, laughing is good.
And now he's sleeping. He slept this morning for 45 minutes, and I can already feel that today is a better day.
So I think we're okay. The mw said that my supply seems to be fine, that he's probably going through a growth spurt (they do that at 2 weeks apparently), and cluster feeding at the same time. If there was a problem with my supply, he was fixing it for me. **sigh** I just feel emotionally and physically drained from all of the...excitement for lack of a better word.
And I know that Jonah days come to everyone, but do they have to hit you so hard and suddenly? Really. I wanna know.
P.S. I just read the word "probed" on another blog, and my mind actually processed it as "pro-bed" until the rest of the sentence didn't make sense. Then I thought, "What in the world is pro-bed? Some form of bedrest?!" and then it clicked. Maybe I need to get my IQ checked along with the whole infection thing.
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