Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings

So, I am perplexed as to why I feel this way.

I have made the decision to quit pumping. I am now down to two pumpings a day. This morning I pumped my smallest amount after going all night. I only pumped 3 oz. My normal amount for the morning was 10 oz. I think overall, for us, there are many more positives to switching to formula than there are negatives. Nevertheless I am plagued by thoughts of sadness about it. For one, it's the "breast milk is so much better your baby will waste away and be sick more often and not be smart in school and how could you use formula?" camp. They are loud. They make me feel guilty. They claim that if you just stick with it your baby will catch on, it will be better in the end. Sometimes it is just not the case. Believe me when I say we tried. Numerous times. We had 1/2 hour scream-fests in the middle of the might. She knew how to latch and I knew she was hungry. She just wouldn't eat. Even though I know my milk was abundant, she would eat every hour around the clock. After 3 weeks I caved and started pumping. She was like a different baby (in some ways). She started eating every 2-3 hours (still does!) and sleeping for longer stretches. As soon as the bottle hit her lips, it was like I could see the relief on her face; like she was just waiting for it. Occasionally she wanted to breast feed for comfort, but she won't even do that now. Several times I tried going back to exclusive BFing, but she wouldn't have it. I know the benefits of breast milk; that's why I chose to pump for the first few months. I have a bit of a supply frozen, so she'll still be getting 2 oz. of milk in each bottle for close to another month, which I feel good about. I wanted to freeze more than that, but my supply was not keeping up with her hearty appetite, so she was already getting half formula anyway.

I do not love my baby any less because we are switching to formula. In fact, quite the opposite. I am doing this because I feel it is best. Not only is it less stress for me, but she is dealing with it much better, too. Dorothy is a fussy child most of the time. She frequently arches her back and screams. Sometimes she is so mad she refuses to eat her bottle. In the few days we have been doing 2/3 formula and 1/3 breast milk, she has not had one episode where she was screaming/refusing her bottle. She still fusses a lot of the time and gets mad (a lot of it must be personality). She also has had less (only one episode in a week) excema flare-ups on her cheeks. When it flares up, it is all of a sudden. Her cheeks will get bright red, as well as dry and scaly. This will last for several hours to a day or so. My thought is that she has food sensitivities. These two things paired with constant spitting up told me that she was not comfortable. Since the switch to mostly formula she also spits up less. She still spits, but generally not the large volume that she was doing after almost every feeding, and not one projectile. I have a feeling it will improve even more once we have made the switch entirely.

So, being that we have found it best to switch, after months of thinking about the timing of it, why do I now feel sadness? Is it the bond I want to keep with her? Is it the fact that I am pretty sure I won't have many opportunities to do the breast feeding thing again? This is all compounded by the fact that I went on the regular pill yesterday. I was on the nursing pill until then. I don't know what it is about the pill that I hate so much. I even had this issue when I was on it when we first got married. I much prefer charting. It's something about preventing children that bothers me. Even though I know charting is essentially doing the same thing, it is not physically altering my body to do so. Something that is hard for me to explain is the fact that the cutting back on pumping and going on the pill has brought me similar feelings as when we lost the baby. I know it sounds strange, but I think a lot of it has to do with the process I have to go through mentally/emotionally now that things are different. Of course I knew from the moment I was diagnosed with IC that things were going to be much different than I had dreamed....

I think most women who want children spend their young lives dreaming and hoping about what their life will be like. It's funny to say it, but I just saw my life barefoot and pregnant. Call me crazy, I don't care. I saw myself having several babies close together; happily cooking and cleaning; wiping noses and wiping tears. You know, generally doing all that domestic crap that a lot of women don't want these days. And with each pill it feels to me like that dream dies. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but that's what I feel.