Formula Feed    I know “breast is best” and I had every intention of breast feeding my daughter. I took a breastfeeding class prior to her birth, bought a state of the art breast pump, a pretty pink breast feeding cover and a Boppy pillow with several trendy patterned covers. A day or two after my daughter’s birth we discovered that my milk wasn’t coming in and the nurses had me supplementing my daughter’s diet with formula. I religiously pumped using the hospital grade pump and rejoiced when I pumped enough milk to cover the bottom of the bottle! Unfortunately, I never produced enough to adequately nourish my baby. After being released from the hospital I persevered by renting a hospital grade pump, taking supplements, increasing my water in-take and drinking Mother’s Milk Tea. But an appointment with a lactation consultant showed that my efforts weren’t improving my milk production and all I could produce at any given time was less than an ounce. I will never forget sitting in the pediatrician’s office when my daughter was only a few weeks old. We were making an extra visit because my daughter wasn’t gaining weight. I wept when the doctor gently told me I should give up on my breastfeeding journey. I felt like a failure and feared that my daughter wouldn’t develop properly and be scarred for life! I know people probably judged me when they saw me feeding my daughter formula, completely oblivious of my tremendous struggle and feelings of inadequacy. Leading up to motherhood I would have been one of those people judging. I was void of the knowledge that not producing milk was even a possibility. When I heard of a mother feeding formula to her baby I felt she had “given up” not wantingto be  inconvenienced  with the demands often accompanied by breastfeeding. There are many women who choose to formula feed but for me it wasn’t a choice. Although my body didn’t cooperate, my daughter and I are extremely close. She had a healthy first year of life, met all of her milestones and continues to thrive; scoring off the charts on a recent developmental screening administered by our Parent Educator. 

Give My Baby a Pacifier     On the day my daughter was born I told the nurses to put a “no pacifier” placard in her bassinet to ensure that she never be given a pacifier. What I hadn’t anticipated is the fact that my daughter was born with a lot to say and she wanted to ensure that everyone (even the family in the room down the hall) heard her! When her pediatrician visited us in the hospital she commented on my daughter’s thunderous cries. The doctor was finding it difficult to hear her heartbeat and questioned whether she had a pacifier. The nurses at the hospital must have felt the same way because after spending an hour in the nursery my daughter came back to the room with a green pacifier in her mouth! The pacifier stayed and my daughter used and adored her “paci”until she was close to two and half years old. It soothed her during car rides, helped her fall asleep and comforted her on airline flights. The pacifier didn’t delay her language development or harm her teeth. Although getting my daughter to relinquish her pacifier was a bit painful for the entire family, as I look back on my days prior to motherhood I can’t help but feel a bit quilty at the mother I scoffed at who had given her older toddler a pacifier on the airplane. I thought the child was too old for a pacifier but the woman was traveling alone and as a mommy I view that nothing short of a true victory! I published a story on this blog  in March titled “The Pacifier,” which details the adventures my daughter had with her beloved “paci.”