For reasons I struggle to talk about without crying, my baby is mixed feeding, and whilst I would love to get to the stage where I can either breastfeed or pump enough for him to not need to have any formula, I also appreciate that the level of stress it was putting onto not just me, but also my partner, initially was just not worth it, so he has a couple of bottles a day of formula to make sure he's getting enough milk and also to make it so my partner can feed him without me having to be involved at all.
When little man spits up formula, I obviously worry about why he's spitting up (did we overfeed him? did we not burp him properly? did we try too hard to burp him and we've made him spit up? you know, all that) but it's not anything like as hard as when he spits up breastmilk. With breastmilk, I obviously worry about whether something I am eating is making him feel ill, but there's also an emotional component to it where I'm not mad, but I'm frustrated and I'm upset because I know how tired and how hungry breastfeeding is making me, and I know how much effort I'm putting into pumping or trying to be awake for pumping, and it feels like some of that, or all of that, has gone to waste. It's why I don't tend to let other people feed him or burp him, because if they do it wrong and he throws up an entire feed, I'm going to get really upset, because I already feel like my body isn't making enough for him, so to lose any of it is just utterly devastating.
The first night after my son was born was pretty horrific, not because of the pain from my surgery (although that didn't help) or the emotional toll of having had to have a C section (which also didn't help) or the fact that my partner was at home and I was still stuck in the hospital with no idea when I was going to be allowed to leave (which really didn't help) but because the midwives and health care assistants that were looking after me were pretty arsey, and made me feel like I was the only new mum in the world with no idea what I was doing, and instead of feeling supported I spent the whole night feeling judged and as though I was hassling them when I was asking them a question or buzzing for them (even though they kept telling me to buzz for them if I needed anything or when I was feeding). What made it feel worse was they kept telling me that they had to observe me feeding my son, and that made it feel really invasive, even though the only way to be in a labour ward is to accept that you somewhat need to leave your dignity at the door... (Whilst we're on the subject, is it not really problematic that that seems to be the prevailing opinion, because it really feels it!)
One of the specific things that upset me was that when my son was cluster feeding, or rather trying to, and in the post surgical haze I had forgotten all about what cluster feeding was or what it looked like or anything like that, one of the midwives rather bruskly asked me if my milk had even come in whilst I was trying to breast feed, and I had no idea, because I had never done this before, and I was just trying to do what I was being told to. No one had really told me what to do if it wasn't, so I was stuck in a hospital bed feeling like the medical staff were accusing me of starving my son (she did actually say at one point he was starving, but it was in the colloquial sense as opposed to the medical sense) with no idea what I was supposed to do, so eventually I had to call my partner, because I didn't know what else I could do, and even if the suggestion was that I should get some formula to feed him, I couldn't physically leave the hospital, so I had no idea how I was supposed to do that. Ever since then, I've been really defensive about my milk supply, and I tend to get upset when we're running low on pumped milk in the fridge, and I get really anxious and upset when we use the last of it, even when I know we have formula or when I've been pumping a reasonable amount to be able to replace what we're using.
Obviously the reason I am putting myself through the stress of pumping is to be able to feed my son, so any time we're using milk to feed him it's a good thing and I'm happy I'm able to give him what he needs, but it's why any that seems wasted makes me feel prickly, whether it's what he's spit up, any where he's started a bottle and not quite finished it, so there's a tiny amount in the bottom of the bottle which can't reasonably be saved (and shouldn't be because if it's been in a bottle when he's feeding it has to be thrown out pretty quickly) or even just the drips and dregs that get wasted when I'm transferring between bottles from the pump to then be stored.
I honestly thought it was a cliche, the way people go on about breast milk, but I'm really starting to get it...
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