Quinn and I never had issues with nursing. He was great at latching and I had all the time in the world to spend sitting there staring at him. It was one of those truly beautiful bonding experiences. I loved every minute of it.
When I went back to work I hated pumping. Sitting in the room tucked in the corner of the awkward floor in the big corporate office building with a handful of other women. All strapped to some kind of milking device while clacking away at their emails or trying to eat some kind of lunch. It was impersonal, it lacked that spark of mother and child bonding time. And it was boring. It became a chore, a simple means to an end. But it was necessary so that I could come home at the end of the day and spend one or two nursing sessions back with my baby and provide for him while I was away.
This time around I didn’t have a choice. Well, I did, but not in my mind. I had the picture of my two babies nursing, tandem, and me staring loving at them both at every session. It was a beautiful dream, and in many ways it has come true. But it’s so much different than I want it to be. I don’t know if it’s because so much time was spent only pumping, if maybe I got too lazy with my pump sessions, maybe my body simply can’t keep up with two. I’m sure I could muster up a dozen or two ideas as to why it’s just not what it should be, but none of them will make it any better. So I just keep trying and supplementing and trying some more.
Currently I’m only able to supply them each with half of what they need during each feeding. I take a double dose of fenugreek, three times a day, as suggested by the lactation consultant at the children’s hospital. I pump and nurse and pump and hydrate like no bodies business. But…
But at the end of it all they still need more. So I’m having to be okay with supplementing. The homeopathic, Chiropractic living, health fanatic who is adamantly opposed to baby formula is having to supplement. I just have to smile at the curve balls that life throws me. I am constantly reminded that no matter what my plans may be there is a bigger picture at work here and I sometimes just have to roll with it and be a little more flexible that I might want to be.
There are worse things.
xoxo
