How about DJ's birth. Delilah Joy aka DJ aka Lila. Well, then again, I suppose I should have a separate blog post specifically for her birth story, so as to avoid getting in this soon to be jumbled mess of a rant. So I'll hold off for now.
She was born. Then I died on the inside, a little bit, for a little while. Breastfeeding was a nightmare. I was told repeatedly how beautiful it would be, how great of a connection, how it should come naturally, how it shouldn't be painful, but all I ever felt was severe pain and agony, therefore I was broken and a failure. So I had to pump milk for her, one boob at a time, each one for 20 minutes, every time she ate. So that meant that every time she ate I had to feed her, change her, get her back to sleep, pump, wash-rinse-repeat. What a typical breastfeeding mom would encounter or even one feeding formula, would have been a 20-30 minute feeding routine, was this elaborate nearly hour and a half routine for me, only to be repeated every 2-3 hours...so when did I sleep? Hardly ever. You know what happens when you're sleep deprived and literally draining your body of nutrients and hormonally inducing that sleepy feeling one gets after nursing? You lose your mind. You hit rock bottom. To top it all off at 3 weeks Delilah started to become colicky. Do you know what colic is? It's when a baby cries for HOURS for NO reason, and NOTHING you do soothes them. They aren't crying because they are tired, or wet, or hungry, or in pain...simply crying for who knows why. Characteristically in the evening hours. Meaning even less sleep. I know what you're thinking...where's the father of this child to help out? Well, he doesn't wake to the sound of an infant crying, needed his sleep, and didn't care how the mother was feeling...how she was heartbroken, torn, beat down, defeated, lost...he didn't care. He cared so little that when she broke down after being extremely sleep deprived and listening to HOURS of inconsolable crying for WEEKS, when her daughter was 6 weeks old and she lost it and tried to confide in him out of fear...he told her "You have things you need to take care of...just do it. Pull yourself together and act like a fucking adult" soon followed by "We better just call it quits now and try and salvage a friendship for our children's sake." Yep, real supportive right there, exactly what a mother at her absolute worst wants to hear from the one person on earth who is suppose to be helping.
Then I stare at my 6 week old and the life I had growing up with divorced parents flashes before my eyes. Before I had gotten pregnant with her I told myself I would make whatever sacrifices I needed to make in order to work things out with him. But none of them were enough, the sacrifices I made went unnoticed. The time with friends that I skipped. The hours spent in the car to and from work 40 miles away. Throwing in the towel and giving up my dream of ever being near my family, and staying in Ferntucky for the rest of my life. Accepting lower quality education for my children. My son sacrificing the joy of having playmates over because none of them thought an hour drive one way was logical. All of those sacrifices....none of them were of value to him, so why on earth was I even making them? He didn't see how any of those things were a big deal. He didn't see how staying in a town near his family, near his friends, was a sacrifice for me when my family and my friends were all far away. In a town that has a hick small town mentality that I cannot relate to, making it impossible to find friends to relate to. Why did I sacrifice my own happiness in an attempt for his? Well I now realize that that was a terrible idea...I'm almost positive that isn't how a marriage works. Yes families make sacrifices for the better of one quite often, but he was never going to reciprocate or even acknowledge sacrifices made. But I'm the selfish one in his eyes, I didn't make any sacrifices he says. In his eyes I could have gotten any job in Fernley...because that's exactly what I wanted to do with the education I got, take "any job"...work at WalMart...that's every education driven individual's dream. To him that would have been a valid sacrifice...to me, that was crossing the line.
After that I died inside. I became a shell. I became a single parent with a roommate who babysits our child 3 days a week. After you have a baby, you're at your most vulnerable state imaginable. Nothing about your body, your hormones, your anything, nothing is normal, everything is changed...then to throw zero support on top of it...it's no wonder I shrank down to nothingness.
Women who have difficulty breastfeeding during the first two weeks are twice as likely to develop postpartum depression. I was what is called a perfect storm candidate for PPD. There's a family history of depression, marital conflict, an infant with health issues, next to no support, and hormonal risks. Then throw in a multitude of changes in the workplace, exclusively pumping breast milk, and a drastic change in my diet due to Lila's allergies...well there you have it, a perfect storm.
There is one thing that I have going for me, one major thing. My education. I know child develop like the back of my hand, I'm a trained observer, I also know the signs of PPD and have been trained in identifying it in others. So I reached out, joined a support group for moms who also had to exclusively pump...because let me tell you, it's unlike any stress that you could imagine. Here's some insight to the insanity: 39 steps to help prepare you for exclusively pumping
One of the mom's in the group posted a picture of their baby's upper lip, she explained it was an Upper Lip Tie (ULT) and that it was the cause for all of her breastfeeding issues, she described how her little one acted while breastfeeding, how painful it was for her...basically described the exact same experience I was going through at the time. That had to be it, that had to be exactly what my baby's problem was. Instantly I went to Delilah and lifted up her upper lip and I knew it, her upper lip looked exactly like this other baby's. I was always staring at Delilah's face (being the observer that I am), determining which parts of her looked like me vs her dad...her mouth I couldn't figure out. It definitely wasn't Rogers...and well it didn't seem like mine, I would tell people her bottom lip is just like mine, but somethings different about her upper lip, it was so thin when she smiled. Which was because it was basically tied down, when I smile my upper lip stays exposed, while as hers was as if it were stapled in the middle and couldn't stay pouted out during a smile. Which then led to a journey of getting laser surgery to release the tie. Another blog post in the making.
And now here I am, nearly 6 months later. A lot of other things have become even more disastrous. Yet I'm coming around the bend and feeling a lot less depressed. I've been exercising when I can...trying to go on walks where I push the big 4 child strollers at work for 30 minutes several times a week, in the sunshine...seems to be helping. My next goal is to hopefully get Delilah on formula, so I can stop my insane diet that has me wasting away to nothing and finally get my energy back by eating normal meals.
The quote below speaks loudly to me, as I'm sure it does to him too. He didn't think I was making any sacrifices, he didn't think I was showing him that I wanted him. Every little way possible I felt I could show him went unnoticed. I hate that. I hate that nothing I did could make him feel wanted.
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