Emily's Birth & First Month

It’s hard to believe that our Little Em’ly is almost a month old. She certainly took her time in getting here! She was due on August 4^th but it took twelve days and some coaxing, via hormones, in order to actually get her out and into our arms.

Right before we left for the hospital. I don't think I could've gotten any larger.

The last few weeks of my pregnancy were killer and I was so glad that my mum was here to take care of everything. I felt really rotten for a couple of those weeks and we ended up with one trip to hospital, hoping that things were getting somewhere, but there was no baby and instead just a couple of terrifying hours hooked up to a CTG machine because her heart rate had dropped low and been slow to recover.

Early in the morning on August 16^th, mum drove me & David to the hospital where we settled down to begin the waiting process. The staff at the West Suffolk Hospital were great – the first midwife I saw laid out the various stages of labour induction (beginning with prostin gel and ending with a c-section, depending on how things progressed) and then the treatment began. There were a couple terrifying moments while we were waiting:

- we had stepped out into the hall for a tour of the ward when another midwife rushed in the hallway, calling for help, because she was carrying a baby who had stopped breathing. So that was scary, although I think the baby was fine as we heard nothing else.

- I was hooked up to a CTG machine again and for the first two hours Emily’s heart rate kept dropping alarmingly low (down to 88) and not picking up right away, and sometimes the machine would lose all contact with her. It was really starting to stress me out, especially after they had my lie on my left side, which is supposed to be ideal, and the problem still kept occurring. Fortunately once I sat up straight in the bed everything became normal. The doctor who saw me wasn’t worried, but the midwives were fussing and I was panicked. David kept his cool but was getting really impatient to have her out so that we could make sure everything was fine.

Shortly after I sat up and ate lunch, I noticed that the general crappy feeling I’d had for the past few weeks was getting definitely worse. So I made the practical decision to go use the toilet, because even though I know the medical staff have seen it all there is a big part of me that would prefer to not lose complete control over everything... And then I noticed that it was pretty hard to get off the toilet and pretty hard to not push, and the whole terror of Walter’s birth came rushing back to me. So we flagged down the ward midwife and asked for some pain relief, and I explained a bit about Walter’s birth, and she decided to see what was going on. Turns out I was 4cm dilated (was 2cm when I came into the hospital that morning) and she was pleased that the induction was working and went off to run me a bath with lavendar oil (she is a perfectly lovely lady, but at the time my thoughts were along the lines of ‘bugger your stupid lavendar oil, I want drugs not voodoo magic’).

She’d only been gone a few minutes, with strict instructions to David to time my contractions, when I noticed that I was definitely reaching a new level of discomfort. But then the bath was ready and I obligingly got in, remembering how much it helped last time. Well, as they say, every labour is different...

I’d been in the bath for about 5 minutes, and David was dutifully timing my contractions. And we noticed that they went as follows: 30 seconds, 1 minute break, 45 seconds, 1.5 minute break, 60 seconds...1 minute break. At this point David start tugging on the emergency cord in the bathroom and the midwife stuck her head in and I started shouting (although apparently I wasn’t that loud, although I think David is just being nice).

A few minutes after that I was in a wheelchair with a fair amount of the ward staff clustered around me, wheeling me (shouting all the way!) from the maternity ward into the delivery unit. And then I was on gas & air, which made me incredibly ill, so I was begging for “something more” and the midwife examined me (which was pretty cleverly timed as my contractions were a minute or less apart) and discovered I was now 7cm dilated, so that put an epidural out of the question and she ran off to get a nice shot of nice nice nice pethidine. About ten or fifteen minutes after that, just in time for the drug to kick in, Emily crashed into the world.

Not too long after!

Total time of active labour, according to my chart: 1.5 hours.

Emily was born at 3:30pm and I was on a super high of endorphins, end of pain, and pethidine. It was lovely. In fact her being born was one of the best feelings in the world, between the incredible feeling of giving birth coupled with the high of the drug.

I still had a few moments of panic – for one thing, when Walter was born it was so chaotic that I didn’t see him right away, and thus didn’t think to remember that the newly born are a disconcerting shade of blue-purple. So in my super-high way I enquired of the medical staff whether or not she was “supposed to be that colour”, while David laughed at me and reassured me. But given the trouble with her heartbeat earlier I think I can be spared a little consideration for maternal anxiety.

Aside from doctors and midwives popping in and out, the three of us had time together for nearly four hours. The showers on the delivery unit are big enough for an army, so David & Emily could accompany me in and help me get all cleaned up. It was lovely. 

Cuddle time

Unfortunately I couldn’t go home that day, because there was an excess of some sort of gas in a cord sample that the lab was testing, so we needed to stay overnight for monitoring. And the next day I was all pumped to go home, but the pediatrician took forever to come, didn’t see me until five, and then decided that Emily had a bad case of jaundice and she was put on phototherapy for the night. I lost my head a little then – the ward was hot, I’d been waiting all day, and mum, Walter, & David had come to pick me up and that meant we had an incredibly active-verging-on-fussy Walter on our hands only to find out it was all for nothing.

But but but! The staff were amazing. I asked them if they had a place we could wait as a family until we found out if I was going home that night, because Walter was causing a ruckus in my shared room and the other ladies were all recovering from c-sections, and after initially saying they didn’t they ended up finding me a private room! And when it turned out that I had to stay another night, and I was sobbing from the disappointment and tiredness and stress of everything, they decided to let me & Emily use the private room for the night. And they kept checking in on me, and being super supportive, and just generally making it as pleasant as could be in the circumstances, including bending the rules a bit so that my mum could come in at 11am on Sunday (usually only immediate family is allowed at that time) which meant Walter could stay home with David. By 3am, after only six hours of photo therapy, her jaundice was gone and we were pretty confident that we’d be going home on Sunday (which we did! yay!). 

And I came home to two dozen roses from my loving husband!

For the most part it was such a different experience from Walter’s birth. It was a lot more physically traumatic (and David did great too, not letting me know until a few days after how much it had distressed him to see me in so much pain. At the time he just kept his head and was helpful as could be) because it all happened so quickly and I had no time in between contractions to catch a breath, let alone try to relax away the pain. But mentally it was so much better. I didn’t have to worry about the baby coming in an unsafe way and I had people around me, supporting me, at every stage. With such a quick labour we are all thankful that I had to be induced, as it is a fourty minute drive to the hospital and that is over 1/3^rd of the time I was in labour.

The past month has been crazy. Every day has a moment or two of complete chaos where I wonder what exactly I’m doing in this situation known as my life. But every day also has its moments where I know I couldn’t be happier. We’ve all been enjoying getting to know Emily as her personality develops. So far:

- she really, really hates dirty/wet diapers. Really hates them.

- she also really hates spitting up, probably because she tends to do the day’s worth all in one go and it inevitably comes out her nose. Fortunately she seemed to slow down on this after her second week.

- she loves cuddles, especially cuddles with mummy. Such a change from Walter, who is rarely still

- she is fairly laid back, although when she does want to be heard she is good at ensuring everyone for miles around can hear her.

- she is just as strong as Walter was at this age when it comes to moving/thrashing, lifting & turning her head, and trying to climb

Cozy after her first bath (Walter helped)

Snuggling with her bunny from Uncle Johnny

All dressed up for her first Mass

One week old!

I love watching Walter interact with her. From the moment he met her at the hospital you could see the love displayed on his face. We do need to remind him to be gentle, but other than that he is as helpful as can be. When she cries, he brings me her soother or bottle (or a boot or a baking pan or anything else he thinks will help cheer her up). He pats her on the head and likes to play with her toes. One day he discovered that she’d suck on his fingers and he thought that was the best game ever. I think that they are going to be firm friends.

 

7 Quick Takes (Vol. 11)

--- 1 ---

I'm 35 weeks pregnant or something crazy like that. It's nice to be pregnant on my days off, but not so nice on days when I have to go to work. I keep having mysterious health 'issues' -- one day I mistakenly thought the traffic light had turned to green, and I heard it beeping (although in actual fact that crossing does not beep) and blithely walked into traffic. Fortunately David was with me and pulled me back, much to the consternation of other pedestrians who seemed to think he shouldn't have interfered (because letting his wife get hit by a car is so much more caring). The other day I saw an arc of shimmering stars for half an hour, whether my eyes were open or closed, and I was having a little trouble writing basic English because I was struggling to focus. So I'm off to the doctor's to see what is wrong, if anything is wrong. Most people would love to blame this on the pregnancy, but as usual all my test results have come back smack in the middle of normal. So maybe it's just low blood sugar, or exhaustion, or a severe allergic reaction to the fens! Needless to say I am looking forward to being officially off of work so that I can take a little more rest.

--- 2 ---

Speaking of pregnant, I have bump comparisons. Some people have being trying to figure out of Secundus is a girl or boy based on the bump. Other people have been telling me that as long as the baby is healthy it doesn't matter (thanks for that, by the way, I was really worried for awhile about what would happen if I didn't get my gender of choice):

35 Weeks with Walter (cannot for the life of me remember where I was going but I'm wearing some of my real jewelery so it must of been a nice occasion. Possibly garden party? Or college formal?)

33 Weeks with Secundus. As typical for 2nd pregnancies, my bump has been bigger all the way along. I like how bump-like it looks in this picture. Dressed up for Father's Day.

--- 3 ---

The above pictures remind me that I'm generally not a fan of the whole pregnant lady look. I don't mind it, I guess, but I'm not one of these ones who finds the tightest bump-revealing clothes possible. I miss having a hint of a figure and I miss wearing nice bras (I've been living in soft, but support-lacking, maternity & breast feeding bras for over a year now because it's nice to not have excruciating pain every time I roll over at night -- I make an exception if I'm going somewhere nice, as in the above picture). Anyway, the one thing I do like about bump pictures is how they always look like a little baby curled up to sleep on its mum, because that is a reminder of the good things to come.

--- 4 ---

My fridge is currently overflowing with strawberries. I think I read somewhere (BBC?) that the wet spring/summer has meant a good strawberry crop, which explains the explosion of British strawberries in the store. One week we managed to pick up some local ones in the supermarket, and then during a stroll into town a local farmer was selling 2 for the price of 1...so it was stupid not to buy. And then another grocery store was selling packages of strawberries with complimentary double cream... Anyway, strawberries & cream are one of the foods I really associate with our time in England, and since I can't indulge in my other favourite English summer treats (cider/Pimms/champagne/alcoholic ginger beer) I have given myself license to go at the berries.

--- 5 ---

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on my buggy question. We decided that a double buggy would be most practical, and it will give us a chance to see if we use our single at all (which if we don't we'll just sell). So now I'm scouring gumtree for a good deal.

--- 6 ---

I'm looking forward to celebrating Walter's first Canada Day on Monday. Four years in the UK and we've never managed to make it to London for the celebrations, but ah well. We laid in some burger & beer supplies (which reminds me that I should pick up some fries) and I'm hoping to make homemade Nanaimo bars (they are so delicious when homemade, although inedible if purchased from the store).

--- 7 ---

Also, I just need to mention how much I love Pope Francis. Every time I read his homily excerpts (thank you, Catholic Herald) I'm struck by how much wisdom he has to share.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

7 Quick Takes (Vol. 10)

--- 1 ---

Walter turned ten month's old two weeks ago, which is crazy. He & I celebrated with a Walter-Photo-Shoot, in which I took pictures of him while he laughed hysterically/tried to attack the camera. We then indulged in one of this favourite activities: looking at pictures of Walter & Mummy. When I showed him the video I'd shot during the photo shoot he almost hyperventilated with gleeful laughing. It was nice, especially since he's getting a new tooth (or something) and has subsequently morphed back into a Gremlin.

PHOTOS!!!!!!

Let's attack the camera (and mummy!)

--- 2 ---

Summer has made a sudden appearance on this fair isle and Britain is at its best. It's warm enough to go out in summer clothes, but not so warm that the British inability to understand how air conditioning works is a problem. Strawberries are in season, so I can indulge my cravings with lashings of strawberries & cream. It's also time to break out the Pimms Jugs and sample this year's best ciders (an activity best undertaken at a riverside pub). The countdown to my maternity leave, and the hopes of having 3 weeks to rest and relax at home before Secundus are helping the sun elevate my mood. If only I could get some sleep!

--- 3 ---

A couple of weeks ago, David & Walter accompanied me to one of my antenatal appointments. We were kept waiting, so I set Walter loose to play in the waiting room. Between shyness and his stiff new sandals, he was struggling to get up to his usual crawling hijinks. In fact he looked like he could barely crawl at all, which seemed to prompt the woman sitting across from us to strike up a conversation about her own children's prowess in early walking (My son walked at 8 months and my daughter at 10. How old is your baby?). I can't really be bothered to get into the whole competitive parenting thing, so I gave her a polite smile and abstained from mentioning that Walter's been walking (while holding onto our hands, of course), since 5 months. David was of a similar mind to me on keeping quiet, but I was very proud that he seized the opportunity to turn to Walter and say 'shall we go play at the toy table?' at which point Walter proudly walked between the two of us and stood playing with toys until my appointment. The woman didn't bother speaking to us again. David says that this is how one proves a point with class, and I tend to agree.

--- 4 ---

Whenever I miss Sunday Mass, I end up appreciating that being Catholic means having to make an effort to go to church on Sunday. To miss Mass is, at least for my family, no light matter, and I wish that I could see this attitude taken up by more Christians. When I was growing up my family almost never missed a Sunday service -- even on vacation my dad was sure to know of some church that we could go to on a Sunday (and if there was no church then we had family Bible readings & prayers in lieu). On my last trip home the subject of missing Sunday services kept coming up, from people who take a vacation from church when they're on vacation, to people who only go when they feel like going. I'm not saying that I have perfect Sunday Mass attendance or anything, but I like that when anyone in my family misses Sunday Mass it's only after an eximination of conscience, to make sure we're not be misguided, and a family discussion. I think it reminds us that our Sabbath Day should be a day set apart, different from the other days in the week (even if only different by the sometimes inconvenient couple of hours it takes to go to church and back).

--- 5 ---

 Since I wrote Quick Take #2, Summer has once again disappeared and Cambridgeshire is blanketed under warm grey cloud. So that's me told.

--- 6 ---

I'm trying to decide between three kiddy transport options. Input would be useful:

- do we get a cheap double buggy, which is bulky (consider we don't have a car and thus take public transport/walk everywhere) and perhaps not going to be particularly useful as I have a Walter who will probably be an early & insistent walker?

- do I get a buggy board for the current travel system and trust that Walter will muster enough baby intelligence to grasp the concept?

- do I buy Walter one of those super light-weight strollers for longer trips and then manage shorter trips by juggling the kiddos between the current travel system & the baby hawk carrier?

I'm leaning towards the latter one for the time being, but am perhaps being impractical. I'm not rushing out to buy anything, but it's difficult to figure out what will be most useful until we have life with two kids for realz.

--- 7 ---

8 months pregnant and it's sort of kicking my butt, at least in the general feelings of unwellness. Trying to pin down as to whether it's a problem (like blood pressure, dehydration, or a virus) or just being pregnant-having a 10 month old-working full time. Probably the latter. Fortunately I've less than a month left at ye old office. Also fortunately, our bed is on the floor so I just spend my at home time resting in bed, reading my kindle, and letting Walter climb on and off the mattress. We're both happy.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

a growing family

The relatively short space of time between Baby #1 & Baby #2 has made me particularly sensitive to all the negativity surrounding large families, NFP, and generally anything to do with the subject of kids/pregnancy. It got to the point that I had to tell my mum that I was tired of telling people I was pregnant, because I just couldn't deal with the comments ('that was fast'; 'are you crazy?'; 'NFP fail?'; 'it'll be almost as bad as having twins'). As Anne Shirley so wisely points out in Anne of the Island, 'it's all the worse when it is people one likes who manage to say the things that 'seemed to take the color right out of life and leave it as gray and dismal and cheerless as a November morning'.

Talking about baby Hope, as we're calling 'her' (hoping for a girl, this time) is something I'm most comfortable doing with close friends or with women who have large families. In the case of the former, our close friends have been supportive and excited. In the case of the latter, although they will honestly tell me that it can be difficult with two little babies, they can also tell me that it's worth it.

I am annoyed that having a second baby on the way has launched me into the 'women with large families' club, simply by virtue of the babies being close in age. If David and I continue to have children in this devil-may-care fashion we could end up as contestants for a reality TV show! We are serving to over populate the earth, and being negligent/irresponsible, and we clearly need a basics lesson in contraception.

Suffice to say, it's been nice to read the blogs and articles and opinions by other families who have chosen to go the route of NFP. It's encouraging to read how it becomes more and more of a complete and total lifestyle & mindset adjustment. With both pregnancies I've had, at least one person has said, or strongly implied, that this was the result of not using a more reliable method of contraception. With Walter, as I've written in the past, NFP left no surprises. When we needed to avoid pregnancy, we did, and when we felt it was time to start trying, we got lucky right away. With Hope I can honestly say that this was not planned, but the important second part of the statement is that this was also not prevented. Restarting NFP after childbirth is always difficult, but we chose to be less rigid in adjusting to it than we could have been if we really needed to avoid pregnancy. To be honest, by the time Walter was 2.5 months I was already thinking about having another one, and wondering how long we'd wait. It was hard, when I found out, to be gracious about this gift because life was in such turmoil, but we have had to trust this baby's life to God, and our own lives, and in the past few months we have really seen how our little Hope has given us cause to hope for the future. God knew best, as He always does.

The thing is, fertility (or lack thereof), is almost always a surprise. Time after time I come across stories of women who have waited to have children, or who have done the norm by going on the pill only to come off it and try to conceive and get the incredibly negative surprise that things aren't working as they should -- and I also know personally couples who have been told that they would never be able to have children yet have ended up with large families (an incredibly wonderful surprise). I grew up very conscious, always conscious, of my own parents' struggle to have children. It is a long, hard, and sad road for people to walk. So yeah, life may be crazy for the next few years with these little kids, but I cannot overlook the immense blessing here and treat this pregnancy like a catastrophic accident. This baby is an actual human being, with her (or his!) whole future still to unfold, with a little personality that is going to begin growing and developing from birth onwards, and with his (or her!) own way of adding something good to humanity. If you have kids, especially if they're driving you nuts, just take a moment to pause and think about how absolutely freaking lucky you are. I know too many people who would give almost anything to be driven bat-shit crazy by some kids of their own.

In lieu of a Quick Takes Post

I'm a couple weeks behind on Quick Takes, because:

- we've moved twice
- I've gone back to work
- Walter, David, & I were all down with the flu

So, in lieu of a Quick Takes post, I offer this news (which is probably old news to many of my readers)

The Porter Family is expecting to increase by one more member!

We are all very excited, although Walter made a point of jealously drinking his milk while glaring at the ultrasound screen during our first scan appointment this week.

And, don't let 'first scan' throw you off. I'm quite far along in this pregnancy, but due to various complications from travel and not being certain which country I'd be having the baby in (and thus which country to qualify for medical care in), I missed my "12 Week Scan" and so this was my 20-ish week scan.

7 Quick Takes (Vol. 4)

--- 1 ---

I missed doing a quick takes last week because it was my last week in Canada and I was busy packing up. I also had a nasty case of the flu, and Walter had a slightly-less-nasty case of the flu (which took forever to clear up), and it was a bit of rough going for a few days. We both are recovered, but this virus is so contagious that David managed to catch it from us over a week-and-a-half from when we had it. I am so tired of being sick (so far it's been fairly steady for either Walter or I to be sick for the past 6 weeks) and I'm hoping this is the end of it for awhile.

--- 2 ---

It took us 22 hours to get from Vancouver to Cambridge and this time around I realised what it is that I hate so much about travel -- it's the sheer humiliation & degradation levied towards the innocent traveler by those in positions of authority. Think of how many bullies it attracts! This time around there was the utterly horrible US Immigration Officer Lady who accused me of committing fraud and didn't want to believe that I actually had the right to travel with my son to take him back to his father. I know that you're supposed to get a letter of consent to travel without one parent, but circumstance made this difficult (I couldn't get a signed letter from David by the time of our flight) and the guidance from the Government of Canada is that you need it to travel away from your country of residence -- we were traveling to our country of residence. It took a marriage certificate, birth certificates, and David's Cambridge admission letter to convince her that I wasn't abducting Walter. Following from this there were also the horrible stewardesses which American Airlines seems to hire (I don't know why they have such a hard time bringing water for a baby, but this is the second time that Walter's had to go without food because they couldn't be bothered to bring water after I asked for it...so I spent the bulk of our trip dehydrating myself so that I could save all my water for mixing his food), and there were the incompetents at Heathrow who couldn't manage to get anyone's strollers to the gate (we were lucky as our flight terminated there -- there were a couple of families who had to continue their journey without adequate transport around the airport for the children because the strollers were left dumped in the baggage collection area). Try lugging a 20lb infant and several carryons through a massive airport and see how awful you look/feel.

The funny thing about the above list of  grievances is that this was a relatively good journey! UK Immigration was awesome and gave me no trouble, our connections all worked out, and the taxi company sent us a huge van instead of the estate car I'd paid for, meaning we could ride to Cambridge in comfort. I'm really grateful for how smoothly everything worked out, but I think travel is just destined to be unpleasant...

--- 3 ---

When I was born, the in-vogue craft seemed to be cross stitch, as I have a few cross stitched pictures celebrating my arrival. 29 years later and the trend seems to be quilting, as my little son has received four handmade quilts so far. Three of the quilts were made by friends or family (the fourth was purchased from a craft fair) so they are incredibly special to us, but I am almost jealous that he has more quilts than I do (although my one & only baby quilt was made by my Auntie Helen out of my mother's wedding dress). They are all very different and I love them all:

Bright Pinwheels made by my friend Nicole. Walter spent a lot of time on this when he was first born. Not only is it beautiful, but our whole family loves it as a reminder of the amazing, kind, and generous friends we've made in England.

Bedtime Bears -- it's a really large quilt so I'm looking forward to using it when he has a bigger bed.

My Auntie Helen made him this Canadian-themed one. The blue heart in the top-left corner is cut from one of my Grossmutter's dresses, and Walter's name & birthdate are embroidered around it. Needless to say it has a lot of sentimental value for everyone in my family.

The lovely quilty blanket our friend Alice just made for him. The colours are the same as the ones in the wedding quilt that my Aunt Helen made for my parents and it's just perfect for our growing boy.

--- 4 ---

On with the picture theme, here is my favourite 3 Generation picture of Porter-Men:

--- 5 ---

 It's currently snowing. In March. In Cambridge. Maybe this serves me right for not being overly sympathetic to all the Albertans complaining about their latest huge dump of snow, but in my experience on the prairies a March blizzard dump was nothing to be surprised about. The year it happened in late April was a giant pain, but March is still winter in that part of the world, regardless of what the calendar says. Don't hold me to this if we ever move back to central Canada!

--- 6 ---

This morning on my walk in to Mass I realised that I could pretty much describe my life as "purgatory". For me this was a major breakthrough. It may not sound that great, but for the past year and a half I'd been more apt to describe my life as hell -- a seeming endless series of hard events, tough decisions, and disasters that in many ways kept getting worse and with no real end in sight. Now, although things are still really difficult and some days I wonder how I can keep going, it no longer feels like we're doomed to suffer forever. God is giving me grace right now to seek Him in these experiences and to use it as a way of strengthening my faith and my ability to relate to all sorts of people. Sure, I wish my life were quite easier, but the struggle no longer seems pointlessly overwhelming.

--- 7 ---

 I'm late on my Quick Takes, as you may notice since it's now Sunday, not Friday. But I have a jet-lagged baby, a husband with the flu, and a huge amount of errands to run. The good thing about them being late is that I can finish off by mentioning just how awesome it was to return to our very own Fisher House for Mass this morning. We saw so many friends, friends who we could relate some of our most recent struggles to, friends who were instantly supportive. It was so nice. I can't really talk about a lot of our problems by blogging, because I don't want to commit certain things to writing (that blasted paper trail always comes back to haunt one, especially in the UK if the papers are to be believed) so it was nice to reconnect with friends. And this morning's experience wasn't the only chance meeting -- on Friday we bumped into a dear friend, unplanned, because we both happened to choose the same pub at the same time, and on Saturday another dear friend met up with us because she just happened to be in town over the weekend. It's been great.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

The Baby Feeding Minefield

Before Walter came along I used to stumble across child-rearing articles in the paper and find myself amused & surprised by the amount of vitriol that the comments section collected. I was always surprised that people got so passionate about various theories. I naively assumed that how one chose to raise their children, provided they were not causing them abusive harm, was their own business and I didn’t see why the media was always harping on about various theories and studies. The breastfeeding debate was one that I found particularly silly, as it always seemed fairly obvious to me that breastfeeding was the best way to feed a baby, since it is a natural function. Then I had Walter and many things changed.

It didn’t take me much time after his birth to see why people get so passionate about feeding their babies. The debate seems to be designed to separate good mothers (those who breastfeed) from bad mothers (those who give their babies formula). It’s that old human need to win the “competition” rearing its ugly head, and it arms itself from the best motives (I hope!) but has a really horrible effect. What I mean is this:

I don’t think it takes much to see that breastfeeding really is the ideal way for feeding a baby. It’s natural, it’s right there, and our bodies create a milk specifically to meet a human baby’s needs. If something natural can do the trick, then I don’t think that mucking about with unnatural means is the way to go. But knowing this, there are still a lot of mothers who either choose to, or who have to, feed their babies on formula. And this is where it starts to get tricky. The breastfeeding movement has led to the distortion of certain ‘facts’ about formula, has sugar-coated the practice of breastfeeding, and has negatively used the media against those of us who need to feed our children with formula. It is no wonder that women like myself who planned to breastfeed but have had to resort to formula get so passionately upset.

Distortion of Facts

We are given all sorts of reasons that breast-feeding is better for babies. One thing that was often emphasized is just how inexpensive it is compared to formula. That is true, but what I do have a quarrel with is that the pamphlets on the subject seem to have lit onto a rather high figure for calculating the costs of raising a formula-baby. In fact it seemed to be about £200 higher than what I would expect the maximum to be for Walter if we stayed in the UK, and he drinks the most expensive brand of formula. Yes, it does increase the grocery bill by about £10/week, but he’s going to increase my grocery bill once he starts on solids anyway. I find this to be a rather cheap shot.

Formula is often portrayed as the easy way out, which spins off into all sorts of tangents about mothers who just don’t care enough to put that extra effort into their baby. Bollocks. Yes, establishing breastfeeding is difficult. I know so many mothers who breastfeed and complain that no one warned them that they would have to dedicate the first six weeks of their baby's life to just trying to get enough food into it. Formula is certainly easy compared to those first six weeks. But that doesn't mean that it's easy, and that doesn't mean that it is easier than established breastfeeding. Anyone who has had to listen to me complain about Walter’s eating habits should clue in that it’s not as simple as just giving him a bottle. He doesn’t necessarily eat according to the suggested amounts for his age group and it’s a constant guessing game of trying to ensure he is getting enough to eat. And, because no one seems to actually know anything about babies, it’s difficult to even get advice on how to tell if he’s eating too much, too little, or just enough. For example, I can read in a book that babies will stop eating when they’re full. But this same book will then say that one reason babies spit up is that they’re eating too much. Which is it? Why is the media always telling us that formula babies have a tendency towards obesity because they're easy to overfeed if they'll stop eating when they're full?And, because babies keep gaining weight, it's a constant game of trying to guess what size of bottle to make him.

It is also a challenge because I, of course, cannot just produce food for him when he needs it. I always need to plan ahead and I carry packets of emergency formula powder in his diaper bag just in case. I have had many an anxious moment wondering where I will get water from to mix up his meal when we’re out, or worrying when I cannot get to the store and his powder is running low. Feeding a baby a bottle in public may, unfortunately, be more socially acceptable than flagrantly breastfeeding, but going out with a formula baby poses its own sets of challenges.

A Rosy View of Breastfeeding

The sugar-coating begins in ante-natal classes, where at least in my experience any supposed ‘barriers’ to breastfeeding were seen as inconsequential, simply the result of maternal ignorance and a problem easily sorted. I still wonder why, if it is quite so simple as all that, none of the midwives at the hospital, or the lactation consultant, or the health visitor could figure out why Walter would only drink from a bottle. Perhaps my experience was worse than others – exhausted from labour & surgery, unable to move from bed to even pick up my crying baby, and then being told that I wouldn’t be discharged until he could successfully breastfeed even when it was clear that no one could figure out why he wasn’t eating. I was in tears before anyone bothered to tell me that if I bought him some formula I could leave the hospital.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the first couple of weeks where I had to resign myself to giving Walter formula were rough. I wanted to breastfeed. I planned to breastfeed. I tried to breastfeed. And all to no avail. I felt let down by my own body and, until we got the hang of a feeding routine that helped him, frustrated with my stubborn little boy who either turned into a screaming red-faced monster or latched on and refused to suck when given the option of breastfeeding. Some of the health visitors I saw were amazing. They encouraged me to try different ways of getting breastmilk into him but also gave me free reign to supplement his diet with formula. That was a blessing, because the flip side of the coin are the disapproving looks and the glossing over my difficulties with the idea that it will happen in time. One day I took Walter to the doctor’s for a routine appointment and I sat across from a woman who was feeding her newborn from a bottle. As soon as she saw me looking in her direction she began trying to justify why her daughter was eating from a bottle. I was saddened by the fact that she would feel so judged for her actions that she needed to defend them without me even saying a word.

I think you need to be a pretty strong-minded woman to choose to feed your baby formula from the start, without exploring breastfeeding. If you’re that strong does the disapproval of others bother you? I don’t know, but I do know that the inability of health care professionals to hide their disapproval is a blow to those who are already feeling like a failure because they are forced to choose the option they didn’t want.

The Media Impact

And now we get to the part that really bothers me, and which prompted me to finally get all these thoughts down on paper. Formula feeding is such a perceived problem that it has become very difficult to get any actual information on it. Formula companies are not supposed to advertise their “from birth” products, which is so wrong! You walk into the store and are confronted with a number of different products. How do you know which one to choose? Walter drinks the brand recommend by the hospital, but sometimes that isn’t available so in this situations he drinks a different brand that is made by the same company. I prefer this latter brand, but I can’t discover what the difference between the two is, aside from price. I don’t want to switch him completely unless I know what the difference is, but it’s hard to find this info without advertising!

All of the packaging has to have statements that “breastfeeding is best for infants”, statements which echo the “breast is best” posters in the lobbies of various baby-care units. I am thus constantly given reminders that I am choosing a lesser option. Before I had trouble feeding him I didn’t see any problem with these slogans, because they speak the truth. But now that I know how difficult it can be, and how painful it is to be told that formula needs to be part of the feeding routine, I find their prominence quite offensive.

These are just a few examples of my experiences. I am by no means against breastfeeding, and I hope to be able to successfully breastfeed our next child, but I think that it is important to see the other side of the issue. I know that I found comfort in reading stories similar to mine, and I also think that it is important that we treat each other with respect and be able to commiserate with each other’s difficulties whether we give our babies breast or bottle.