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June 14, 2004
REVIEW OF THE FIRST 8 WEEKS OF SCARLET POPPY’S LIFE…
Breastfeeding...
Probably my most important job as the mother of a newborn. I breastfed my first daughter, Pixie Bella, successfully for 18 months, so I guess I hadn’t considered for a moment that I’d have any trouble breastfeeding my next baby. I hadn’t thought about the fact that every baby is different, and each baby has to LEARN how to breastfeed from scratch. Yes, I knew that my boobs made milk, and that mother’s milk was the best food for a new baby, but I had forgotten that every other part of the breastfeeding equation depended upon the baby mastering the boob! And that takes TIME.
Within moments of Scarlet being placed on my chest after birth I brought her to the nipple. She licked, and munched, and maybe sucked a little, and basically I kept her there for probably an hour or more, while I delivered the placenta and had my episiotomy painstakingly – and beautifully I am told!! – stitched.
I stayed in the hospital for a day and a half after the birth, and because Scarlet was only a tiny 5lbs at birth (2.2kgs) I kept her tucked up against my chest, warm and snuggled, for as much of that time as possible. It is important that she was kept really toasty and warm, for fear that her blood-sugars could drop easily and damage her brain. And so we snuggled together for most of the first day or two of her life, and I’d put her to the breast whenever she seemed interested. She seemed to be feeding well.
The day after I came home my milk came in. Oh pain. My breasts became so tight and engorged that I was in constant pain. Sleeping was agony, my breasts were so painfully engorged that every time I moved in bed they ached. In the morning I had lumps, and began to fear the fight against mastitis again. (I came perilously close to getting mastitis MANY times during my bf-ing of Pixie). No matter how many times I put Scarlet to the breast, she couldn’t seem to feed enough to give me any relief. I tried cabbage leaves in my bra, hot washes, but nothing alleviated the pain. Eventually I dug around in my cupboard to find my trusty old breast-pump I’d used so often during my BF days with Pixie. It had saved me from the clutches of mastitis many a time during those days, and although I knew that pumping may interfere with the supply-demand balance so early in our BF days, I simply had to pump. And so I pumped, and pumped and pumped. Oh sweet relief. Finally my boobs were empty and felt soft and flaccid and pain-free and I had a good night’s sleep.
Then a few days after that real trouble reared it’s ugly head. I started experiencing nipple pain. I mean nipple P-A-I-N!!!! Within a day it got so excruciating I was crying (tears of blood it felt like) during every feed. It felt like my nipples were being slashed by razor-blades every time the baby fed. Was her latch-on so bad it was causing such serious nipple pain? I was in so much pain I simply couldn’t feed. By the time the midwife arrived for a home visit I was deeply distraught. She diagnosed thrush and told me to start treating immediately. I started expressing breast milk, and to avoid ‘nipple-confusion’ we started feeding Scarlet with a syringe. She hated it, and it was rather slow and painful, so during the night-feed we gave her breast-milk from a bottle, and she lapped it up easily. The next night I had the great fortune of being able to sleep through the night, as Jay was happy to get up and feed Scarlet expressed b-m during the AM hours. With a full night’s sleep under my belt I felt hugely better – I noticed that my body healed from the birth trauma (episiotomy and hemorrhoids) much quicker once I slept a few 7-8 hour stints.
After a day or two of not breastfeeding directly but feeding Scarlet expressed BM from syringe and bottle, I decided to feed again. The pain had been so intensely excruciating that I was seriously nervous about putting the baby to the breast again, and could only bring myself to do it with the added protection of nipple shields. It went well, I couldn’t feel any pain, and so I fed with nipple shields on for the best part of a week. We continued to feed at night with the bottle. I had been warned about so-called ‘nipple confusion’, and had read in Penelope Leach that no baby under 6 weeks of age can master BOTH the bottle and the nipple simultaneously, and Scarlet was only a very tiny one week old, but we had to do what we had to do to get through a week of excruciating nipple pain whilst still exclusively breast-milk feeding.
Well, when I decided to put Scarlet back on the boob without the nipple shields the real problems began. It seemed she’d lost the knack and she was doing all sorts of crazy (and painful) things with my nipples. She was also screaming in frustration and popping on and off the boob and not drawing down the milk properly, and it was all A Big Mess! I remember one night I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, completely convinced that we’d ‘ruined’ my little helpless baby and that she was now no longer capable of breastfeeding and that she’d have to be bottle-fed formula and that I’d spend every minute of her bottle-feeding life seriously distraught because I’d failed her!!!! I was a complete MESS! I was absolutely devastated and heart-broken at the thought that I wasn’t going to be able to breastfeed my baby and that I might have let her down in such a crucial way so early in her little life! After all, I had breastfed Pixie for 18 months, and now my breastfeeding relationship with Scarlet was seriously compromised at 2 weeks of age!!!!!!
I had to do some serious soul-searching. I’d had a pretty fucked-up attitude to breastfeeding with Pixie. Even though I fed her for so long and was completed committed to the ‘idea’ of breastfeeding, I never enjoyed it. In fact I often resented it and was downright annoyed by her constant feeding and demands. I did it, because I felt it was the ‘right’ thing to do, but my heart wasn’t in it. I found it literally ‘draining’ and was hugely relieved when I finally weaned Pixie at 18 months. I’d had many run-ins with mastitis and blocked milk ducts, and I’d found the whole breast-feeding business difficult and exhausting. Basically, I had a stinking bad attitude and took the whole thing for granted.
Now I was so perilously close to losing my breastfeeding relationship with Scarlet, I was awakened to a few home truths. I realized just how badly I WANTED to breastfeed, and I realized just how easy it could be to lose that opportunity forever. I vowed to never, EVER complain about breastfeeding again, because I realized what a precious bond it was, and just how easily it could be compromised and lost. My whole attitude was transformed in one heart-wrenching bout of grief. Breastfeeding was vitally important to me as a mother, and it was a fragile relationship that had to be ‘nursed’ along; to be treated with respect, gratitude, and above all, reverence.
Well, babies are more capable and resilient than I (or Penelope Leach) think. And after sobbing heartbrokenly for a night I woke up the next morning completely and utterly DETERMINED to do everything in my power to get my baby to RE-learn breastfeeding. It was a tough few days. She struggled, we had to feed her by the syringe sometimes when I was too frustrated to go on, BUT…after a few days she began to have a few good feeds. She still wasn’t feeding well when she was tired, but in the morning and early afternoon we were having some success. Throughout that whole difficult time I kept trying to visualize breast-feeding a huge, wriggling one-year-old Scarlet, and that image kept me going through a few desperate and dark days.
One week later we had made it through!! And now, at 8-9 weeks of age Scarlet is a breastfeeding CHAMPION!!!! She feeds beautifully; strong, efficient, no pain or latch-on difficulties whatsoever. With Pixie I’d spend all day feeding and massaging and working to get hard lumps out of my engorged breasts! I still get engorged breasts some times, but Scarlet can empty them in one ten-minute feed. Pixie used to writhe and scream on the breast because the milk would often come down too fast and she was furious that she couldn’t control the flow. Scarlet mastered it by week four and never complains! She’s settled herself into a fairly regular routine of 6-7 feeds a day, and now only wakes up once overnight, sometimes sleeping for 7-8 hour stretches. She’s growing like a mushroom, and I am actually ENJOYING breastfeeding in a way I never did with Pixie. When you come close to losing something, you realize it’s true value. I now KNOW that breastfeeding is the BEST baby job on offer. As Jay changes nappies, baths Scarlet, gets up to bottle feed at night (a habit we have happily retained) I know that I am the lucky one with the best job of all: putting that adorable little body to the breast to effortlessly supply her with all the nutrition and comfort she needs whilst I get to hold her and watch her and feel her. There are times when only the boob will placate her; and times when she wriggles on my knee with unabated excitement before latching on. And I have the added comfort of knowing she is getting the healthiest start I can give her. It’s a lucky job.
Further Thoughts on my Birth Experience...
I didn’t get the birth I wanted.
Some of you may think I am a crazy lunatic, and most of the time I’d be loathe to disagree :^) , but for Scarlet’s birth I had planned an Unassisted Homebirth. I had visions of Jay and I battling through the birth together; ready to experience the most sacred, intimate and profound event of our lives…naturally, alone, in the peace and sanctity of our own home. I had visions of a sacred spiritual event, welcoming my child into a gentle warm and loving environment of soft lighting and happy faces. Instead I was transferred to hospital fully dilated, wheeled out of my home on a stretcher at dawn in complete and furious agony, the baby’s head right between my legs, fully in the birth canal. I gave birth screaming at the top of my lungs, under fierce hospital lights, with about 4-5 strangers (medicos) looking on.
It was all going to plan until I was diagnosed with high blood pressure at 38 weeks. Jay and I researched the situation like crazy, and when I went into labor at 39 weeks we decided to try for our unassisted homebirth anyway, whilst monitoring my BP every 20 minutes throughout labor. Well, in the end it wasn’t the high BP that got me transferred to hospital, but the strange and stinking fact that I simply cannot push my babies out!
Yes, women give birth everyday, our bodies are designed to stretch and expel large-bodied babes, but my perineum happens to be sealed-shut as tight as a steel-trap. I have to be ‘cut’ before my babies will be born, same story, with both births. I spent a few days after the birth pondering why? Why can’t I push those babies out? After all, I make teeny tiny little elfin babies, Pixie was only 5lb 14, Scarlet a mere slip at 5lbs. And I STILL couldn’t huff and puff and push that baby out!!!
After planning an unassisted homebirth, and spending 6 months visualizing and focusing on it, you could imagine that I might be disappointed, maybe even bitter and twisted, over my failed homebirth effort. Strangely enough I’m not. I will admit to having one moment of jealously when I read a homebirth story of someone who nearly gave birth before the midwives arrived and pushed once and twice and walah! their baby came flying out. But I know in my heart that I had given MY ALL to labor and birth at home and in the end I NEEDED assistance. I have thought long and hard about why I cannot push my babies out and I think it has something to do with ‘letting go.’ I’m not too good at ‘letting go’. I am a self-acclaimed control-freak, and I have been searching my whole life for faith. Faith in a higher power, faith in life’s purpose, faith that life isn‘t simply meaningless, cruel and unjust (as it can often look, especially when you watch the nightly news!) And in the end I still fear that there is nothing and no-one waiting to catch me if I fall. I have the mistaken idea that I must control everything. When I look back on my birth I honestly think I was unable to ‘let go’. I was in tremendous pain (it was a seriously painful birth) and the whole time I felt like I had to ‘control’ it. I lost sight of the fact ~ or never truly ‘knew’ it to begin with ~ that birth is bigger than me and it has to come ‘through’ me. Birth is something you simply cannot control. I had to surrender and I couldn’t. Not enough faith. I was too afraid to ‘let go’. Hence once fiercely sealed-shut perineum because I fought to ‘keep control’ of the situation.
Does that make any sense? Probably not. Let’s just agree on the fact that I am an anal (and vaginal!) retentive control-freak who has ‘letting go’ issues!!!
Yes, I didn’t get the birth I wanted. But how about this: I got the perfect peaceful baby I ordered!!!! And let’s face it: a few hours of hard labor in the birth room pales into insignificance compared to a lifetime with your child. Which raises another important point: sometimes we pregnant women focus so hard on the birth that we forget entirely that what we are really about is giving birth to the parent within. I probably should’ve spent more time re-acquainting myself with the ins and outs of breastfeeding, and less time on how to avoid an episiotomy. Yes, having to have ANOTHER episiotomy stinks, but in the end there was nothing I could do to prevent it. Yes, having to be transferred to hospital and give birth screaming at the top of my lungs (every swear word I could conjure – quite a few you could imagine!) was not the warm welcome I had intended for my lovely daughter. But she is BEAUTIFUL AND PEACEFUL nonetheless and I am one proud and happy mother. The entire day of Scarlet’s birth I kept repeating to Jay, “I am NEVER EVER going to do that again. We are not having anymore children, sorry!” Now ~ now that I have the beautiful Scarlet Poppy in my life ~ I would go through it all again in a heartbeat. Fierce pain, the cutting of my flesh WITHOUT (I might add) an anesthetic, the burning hellish ring of fire, the horrible hospital transfer…YES I would do it all again in a heartbeat to bring a beautiful soul into the world like my Scarlet Poppy. She is so DIVINE she makes me want to rush out and have another baby straight away. Can you believe that??!!!!!!
Yes, I didn’t get the birth I wanted. But the baby is divine.
Miss Scarlet Poppy...
OH, my new little girl is such a wonderful baby. She’s now 10 weeks old (it’s taking me weeks to write this entry), and she has settled into a routine already. No coaxing from me (well, maybe just a little), but it’s all her own doing. I simply looked up one day around the 6 week mark and noticed she was feeding at the same time every day, and that she seemed to be going to bed at 7 pm every evening along with Pixie and only waking once in the AM hours for a feed. Wow. What a heaven-sent creature!!!!
And she is beautiful. My goodness she’s beautiful. Yes, she started off a little scrawny…ha, what an understatement! If you’ve never seen a 5lb baby before let me tell you, they are seriously TINY AND FRAGILE. None of the clothes we had ready would fit her. Jay had to rush to the hospital shop and scrounge around for a premmie suit. I look at that suit now and it ASTOUNDS me. Was she really THAT small? I swear it wouldn’t even fit on Pixie’s Baby Born doll. It wouldn’t even fit on a rag doll!! But she started growing really quickly, just as Pixie did. She outgrew that suit in a week and graduated to 5 (count them) 00000 suits. I might not have the best placentas in the world, but my abundant boobs make up for it. She’s now somewhere in the vicinity of 9 lbs. Full little cheeks, scrumptious chubby thighs, and soft and full little fists. Ahhhhhhhhhh! She’s wearing 4 ‘0000’ suits now.
I am already nostalgic about the time surrounding her birth and first days. It was only 10 weeks ago but seems like an age. The days surrounding your child’s birth have a very magical quality like nothing else. You feel as though the whole world should stop, because you gave birth to a new and beautiful baby. There is so much joy and happiness and celebration. And all this despite the hemorrhoids, despite the bleeding, despite the stitches, despite the lack of sleep. You’re in some kind of delicious twilight zone, so proud at having birthed a whole, complete baby; utterly absorbed in getting to know every inch of her little being. We were so wonderfully surprised that it was another little girl when we expected a boy. For days I was amazed that this little girl had tricked us all into thinking she was a boy when she was an adorable little elfin girl all along!!! How clever was she? I spent days just rolling her new name over my tongue, and thinking about how I was now the mum of TWO girls. I have always wanted to be the mother of a gang of girls! It felt so good that I could now say, “The kids!”
But despite the glorious feeling surrounding the birth, those first weeks at home can be downright weird. With little Scarlet the first 3 weeks were really tricky. We had the whole boob-feeding saga to contend with, and at the same time Pixie came down with an EVIL flu, that had her barking and spluttering all night long. She was sick for a full two weeks, and then one week later she got it back again. It was tough. Tough times. But you expect a little bit of a tricky start to every baby’s life. With Pixie I think the dark fog lasted for the entire first bloody year….with Scarlet the fog started to lift at 3 weeks and skies were fully clear and bright by 6-8 weeks. Now I can fully enjoy my little baby without any chaos, fear, anxiety, or crises. It’s smooth sailing, and Scarlet is a delightful companion.
I am very lucky. She is a very predictable easy-going baby. Hardly ever cries. She sleeps for 2-3 hours in the mornings. We simply wrap her, put her in her rose-silk draped cot, and leave her to it. She might stay awake for 10-20 minutes, but she doesn’t complain, she just ‘talks’ to herself and eventually she drifts into sleep. I might hear a peep from her 50 minutes later, but if I look in 10 minutes after that she’s usually asleep again. She’ll have another sleep or two in the afternoon, shorter sleeps, sometimes only 30 minutes to an hour, but then she’ll go down at night by about 7pm and sleep through until 2-3am. All I can say ~ after all the sleeping troubles I had with Pixie as a baby ~ is WOW!
She started smiling at 4 weeks. These days when we smile at her she BEAMS back, that beautiful gummy smile of little babies! Ahhhhhh! And she likes to talk, and will coo and hoot at us in conversation. She LOVES singing, and if you sing to her she will always burst into a beaming smile. She loves Pixie, but Pixie is forever sticking her fingers in Scarlet’s face, so she gets a bit twitchy if Pixie’s too close. *Sigh* Pixie loves Scarlet, but she is such a jumping boisterous girl that it often unsettles us when she’s jumping around the baby. She wants to hold Scarlet ALL the time, but Scarlet doesn’t like it too much, and I think it frustrates Pixie. But she loves me to tell stories of all the things Scarlet will do when she’s bigger, so HOPEFULLY all will go well once Scarlet is a little more robust.
It was hard at first with such a TINY baby. She seemed far too small to be put in a car-seat and carted around, too small for her boisterous big sister’s arms, too small in the big bright world. She hasn’t been out of the house much still, perhaps only 4-5 times, and only when it is deemed necessary – for her health or our sanity. When we carry her outside her eyes squint in the bright sunshine she is so unused to it, but she loves to watch the rustling leaves and to see the sky and listen to the song of the magpies.
Sisters...
I suspect I might have chalk-and-cheese daughters, despite the fact that they’ll obviously look somewhat alike. Where Pixie seems restless, unsettled, and emotionally highly-strung, Scarlet seems calm, predictable and content. Unfortunately Scarlet’s behavior is putting Pixie’s babyhood into poor relief. I used to think Pixie was a good breast-feeder, but she was difficult compared to Scarlet. As a baby Pixie was touchy, un-cuddly and un-smiley. And now Scarlet is in our lives Pixie’s behavior seems to have taken a turn for the worst. It’s understandable, considering the cute-as-a-button easy-going baby in the house, but Jay and I are naturally enough a little tired and drained, and Pixie’s unruly behavior is causing us a few ‘bad days’. Poor kid is getting a bit of a hard time from us, and is starting to pay no attention whatsoever to our bad-tempered attempts to discipline her. I don’t blame her, and I’m desperately trying to find a moment here and there to figure a way to improve our discipline approach, which seems out-dated and non-functional for our sprightly four-and-a-half-year-old. She’s demanding more and more attention from me, which is understandable but a bit trying when I’ve got more demands on me than ever before. She’s taken to waking me up at the ungodly hour of 6am. It’s the middle of winter here, and it’s pitch black at 6am, so it’s really REALLY hard to be chirpy. Pixie’s always been the type of kid who wakes up with a start, jumps out of bed and is immediately ready for action. It’s infuriating to a slow-slothful starter like myself who simply wants to roll over and snooze on and off for a while.
And her four-year-old INCESSANT chatter is hard to handle when you’re bone tired and weary from a 6am start. She talks ALL DAY LONG. Interrupts us constantly, and asks WHY? in response to EVERYTHING we say. “Pixie don’t interrupt when Dad and I are talking.’ “What does interrupt mean Mummy?” “Pixie please just sit still and eat your dinner.” “Why Mummy?” “Because you don’t want to be hungry.” “Why Mummy? Why don’t I want to be hungry?” “Because it’ll make you grumpy.” “Why don’t I want to be grumpy Mummy?” “Because it will drive me insane.” “What does insane mean Mummy?” “Crazy. Lala. Loopy. Mad as a hatter.” “Why Mummy? Why will you be loopy mummy? Why Mummy? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??”
You get the idea huh? And this, my friends, goes on all day looooooooooooooooong. I really am trying my best - to be patient, to be tolerant, to be generous and loving… but some-days it’s damn hard work!
Second Babies...
Everyone tells me that Pixie has ‘first-child syndrome.’ First children are always more intense, more demanding. And as a first time mother you haven’t got a clue and struggle to learn the ropes, making the first-baby more touchy, more difficult. Second babies, they say, are placid and easy-going, all because you know what you’re doing.
Well, I’m not entirely sure it boils down to that. Pixie and Scarlet were wildly different even in-utero, so I suspect a heck of a lot of it is personality. But there is no denying the fact that second-time around this parenthood gig is vastly different. I am SO MUCH more relaxed, I really do have an inkling into what I’m doing. And best of all, I really feel I am savoring Scarlet’s babyhood, that I truly appreciate it’s fleeting flittingness. I know full-well how quickly it passes, and the thought that Scarlet may be my last baby just makes me want to slow down and cuddle and kiss and rock her even more. I have realized with shocking clarity that our children are little for such a short time, they are wholly dependent upon us for only a few fleeting years; and so I am urging myself to make the most of it, to revel in it, to soak up every last morsel. It strikes me that THESE are the best years of our family life. That within 10 short years our girls will be grown and pursuing there own social lives, their own interests, and we will feel old and worn These are the perfect years of busy bustling households, fun and laughter; joy in each other’s company, new discoveries, love and inter-dependence. I must cherish this time, because I don’t want to ever look back on my family life and realize I wished it away because it was tough, or the kids were always whining, the baby crying, or because there was never enough time for ‘me’. I want to give myself over to it’s joys completely, and stop stressing about the pile of dishes in the sink, the unwashed nappies stinking out the laundry, and the mountain of unpaid bills on the fridge. Normal life can wait, my daughter’s babyhood will not.
On that note I shall ponder until next week when some new thought will probably be demanding my attention. Until then, enjoy those babies!!
~Eloise~
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