Failure to Thrive: A First Time Mom's Account of What No One Could Have Prepared Her For

My daughter just turned one last week. And I haven't really had much time to write because she is a full time job. This is my personal account of my mistakes, my ignorance, and my trials as a mother. Judge me if you like, but the following story is one of heart ache and guilt of a first time mother. I share this because I felt so alone and I would never wish that on anyone.

I was one of those freak women who loved being pregnant. I'd never felt more important in my life. I was responsible for another's existence. Pretty epic feeling. I also wasn't genuinely uncomfortable until my 40th week of pregnancy. It was the only time in my life I was grateful for being a real sized girl with curves. I was made to have babies.

We'd moved far away from immediate family four years prior and had been positive we could go it alone. I had one mom friend. One. And a bunch of women around me who talked about wanting babies but were no where near ready. My mother wasn't a positive part of my life. In fact she told me that I probably couldn't have a natural birth and still comes down on me for being bigger, post pregnancy.

Now I'm not going to say I'm "smart." There are some things in this life I'm completely stupid about but I'm reasonably intelligent. As far as kids go, I was a nanny for 10 years of my life, taking care of babies from 9months on. And a big part of me did believe most of it is instinctual. Still, I read the books and took the classes and heard other stories but no one could have prepared me for what happened, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

My daughter's birth was amazing. I was only in hard, active labor for about 5 hours and when we got to the hospital, 5 pushes, a bit of a tear and out she popped, puffy and perfect. She was everything. Now I was in a pro-breastfeeding hospital, and one that promoted skin to skin. But everything happened so fast. We arrived and went straight into delivery, even though the admitting nurses thought my screams of pain were overdramatized.

When she popped out, I remembered this video I saw of this perfect baby doing a boob crawl where she literally just wanted boob and I thought breastfeeding was the coolest thing ever so I was ready. But I needed stitches, so after about 30min of them poking around and prepping me, they took my daughter to be cleaned and wrapped and gave her to daddy.

My entire body was shaking, the adrenaline and body exhaustion was intense and I just wanted to be left alone, but they needed to make sure I would heal ok. After about and hour they moved us to our on room. I remember being kind of wishy washy about visitors but there were a few people I didn't mind coming to see her fresh. But before I knew it, we had quite the following. I didn't mind at the time but in retrospect that probably wasn't the best.

Everything in the books, the classes and our birth plan said breast feeding in the first 2 hours is key. And I was ready! Here's my disclaimer: I always hated my boobs. To me they only existed one day to be suckled and sag. I didn't dress them up in cutesy bras, they weren't an erogenous zone for me and I never tried to have cleavage. They were just boobs.

The only good advice I got about breastfeeding is: "Breastfeeding is HARD, definitely see a lactation consultant." That was already part of the plan. Breastfeeding was really weird. I didn't feel much. I was having a really hard time keying into my body and felt really disconnected about the whole thing. It wasn't as beautiful and heartwarming as I thought. The nurses, one of which was mean and ugly to boot," kept saying I needed to feed her, but she wasn't cueing hunger and was asleep. I'd always heard, never wake a sleeping baby.

We saw the Lactation Consultant, she was super nice and helpful but then we had problems later and she was no where to be found. In comes nurse number two and starts talking to me about expressing and stimulating the nipple, which seemed so weird to me. I couldn't grasp it. It felt awkward. My hubby expressed my milk better than me and the nurse said, "You have flat nipples." In the midst of my exhaustion I just kind of got offended. I'd never thought of my nipples as any different than anyone else's. Apparently this was an issue. She gave me a nipple shield. I remember her just sticking it on me. No explanation. I was just thinking, I don't need some nipple prosthetic. I think we'll figure it out. None of the holds except classic cradle worked and my breasts just felt numb to anything she was doing the first 48 hours. All I felt were the uterine cramps to acknowledge her getting the colostrum.

When we left the hospital, my dad had stayed with us to help us keep up the house and hubby had two weeks off. I'd naturally had the sore and cracked nipples but after the first week and a half everything became painful. I was exhausted and mostly disoriented. We were also overwhelmed.
I finally started texting the few moms I knew asking if breastfeeding was uncomfortable and everyone said the first month was so tough. So I just rationalized, ok I had the perfect pregnancy and delivery, so this is your challenge.

My husband was as great of a support as any man could be. He read and Googled and spoke to all the moms he knew seeking help and advice. He bought witch hazel and nipple butter and cream and jelly and anything. Finally it just got to be too much. My nipples weren't getting better. Breastfeeding was getting worse. I tried hot showers, being bra-less and nothing worked. That's when the hubby brought up the nipple shield again.

On another related happening, my daughter had lost a bit of weight on her 3 day old appointment, which was normal at the time. Her two week appointment was about 12 days away. So my husband and I decided that if it didn't get better, we'd get a lactation consultant then. The nipple shield helped but unbeknownst to me, I was using it improperly. I read the directions but something didn't translate amidst the new mom stress and exhaustion and I wasn't using it properly. We constantly saw milk in the reservoir and I leaked often so we thought everything was ok. She was a quiet, happy baby for the most part.

I remember saying to my husband, "You'd think she'd be generally miserable if she wasn't getting enough, right?" Breastfeeding didn't get better. The pain was so terrible that I'd taken to breastfeeding alone with water and hard candies to push through the pain. I cried and cried and cried. I didn't understand. We had our appointment and I knew I'd seek help. Before our appointment my dad insisted I speak with my step mother who scared the shit out of me by saying nipple shields were bad news and caused problems. She used to be a pediatric nurse, so I decided we'd ditch it and try on our own. I finally reached out to my only mom friend, my breastfeeding idol, and she told me I should contact La Leche League for free help because it shouldn't be that kind of painful.

Her husband came over shortly after to do her newborn photos and all day we'd been doing well without the shield. It was also our first few days alone and I felt like a really good mom. She'd had newborn acne but her shots came out wonderful and the breastfeeding shots he got I'm truly happy and in awe. It was the first time I'd felt comfortable nursing in weeks.

The next day I was all ready to contact an LLL leader when it occurred to me that my mother in law would be bouncing into town and I was afraid she'd judge me. I was afraid she wouldn't support my getting help and she'd be more of a stress. I thought, ok, we have our doctor's appointment and he 6 day visit. Let me just talk to the pediatrician and then get through the visit and we'll go from there.

The day of our doctor's appointment we arrived with our daughter and were informed she didn't have an appointment. My husband was livid. We were then told that we wouldn't be able to be seen for another 5 days. During this time, my mother in law arrived and I used to nipple shield to make sure I didn't have any more issues to make the visit more stressful.

On the last day of her visit, my husband had the day off and we went to visit the pediatrician. We asked about lactation consultants and we talked about breastfeeding and she said everything looked fine, she disappeared to get us some paperwork and then came back and gave us the worst news ever:
Our daughter had lost, not gained weight. The amount was dangerous and we needed to take her to the hospital to make sure that everything in her little body was working and make sure we could get her weight up.

I just burst into tears. I felt like the worst mother in the universe. I really did. How could I not tell? How was I not feeding my baby? What did I do wrong?

We went to the hospital, to admitting and I was just constantly crying. I was a complete mess. My husband was just trying to work things out. We'd self paid our delivery with a midwives group and had no insurance. This was stressful on top of the fact that our daughter was in danger.

Sitting in admitting, someone saw her sleeping and commented on how beautiful she was and then said, "She's so little, she must have been a premie!" My heart just shriveled. My healthy baby girl had withered down to someone tiny and I didn't see it. My heart still hurts just thinking about it as I type teary eyed.

Once we got to pediatrics all the testing began. My husband left to go home and get us both clothing and pajamas. All we'd heard was, "a few days." The nurses came in and so did the doctor and told us she just wasn't getting enough and they'd measured and tested and my body just wasn't making enough to feed her. She'd need to have some formula to catch up. The first band of nurses and her doctor were amazing. I sat there crying and cold and they just reminded me, it wasn't my fault. Sometimes we all need a little extra help.

I'd never looked at formula. It was never an option to me. I wanted things to happen naturally so one of the nurses gave me recommendation, and I took it. The first 2 nights were the worst. They had us on a rigorous feeding schedule, I had to pump in between and they had to constantly check her. The put a feeding tube through her nose and were testing her for every scary thing you could imagine: liver, kidney, stomach and intestine issues. We had to rule every thing out.

After 4 days we got antsy and my husband couldn't take any more time off. They kept saying, maybe tomorrow or the next day in reference to our questions about when we could go home. She was gaining steadily but not enough to release her. My husband left the 5th night and we didn't know when he could come back.

Thank GOODNESS for my friend Emily bringing me DVDs and for my best friend Jillian coming every afternoon to check on us because I was very lonely and upset. It was a shared room and I refused to leave my daughter's side. By the end of the visit we were there for 10 days. TEN DAYS. I didn't step outside. I barely left the bed. They wouldn't let her sleep with me. I had to eat shitty hospital food that made me sick. 5 days straight we couldn't see my husband.

It was on day 7 that I lost it. They'd switched doctors and the new one was not very warm. I cried and told her she couldn't keep telling us maybe tomorrow. I'd pleaded that I would bring her in every day. WE needed to go home. I missed my husband and my dog and my bed and my mental health was dwindling. And then the mean bitch doctor uttered something I will never forget: "She is doing better but you need to realize, your baby almost DIED, so we can't just let her go home until she's in a more stable healthy state."

I just cried. And I just retracted back into my little corner of a room. She offered us a private room and I told her we had no insurance, we couldn't afford such a luxury. She said that shouldn't be a concern and yet she didn't offer to pay my bills. The nurses in the pediatric ward were mostly amazing. My daughter was the youngest on the floor so they just loved her. Our neighbor in the room was a sweet Latin mother and grandmother who's toddler got a bad grease burn and needed skin grafts. They were very supportive.

I was a zombie in that room. I was completely disconnected from everything. By the end of the visit my daughter had been diagnosed "Failure to Thrive." Unfortunately this is a very blanket term. It covers a wide range of weight, size and internal issues for babies and children. My supply never caught up to where I needed it and she had to have formula supplementation.

No one ever told me how intense breastfeeding is. It's not romantic and easy. And no one told us we needed a web of support. It does take a village. My mom kept saying I just got it down so easy, and my friends told me it would get better or they gave up and did formula. As soon as this happened I had so many mothers reach out and tell me about their trials with breastfeeding. But it wasn't until this crisis that I even knew.

I know I may sound like an ignorant, negligent mother. I have serious guilt about this. It's exactly a year later and I still have anxiety about it. I still cry. My daughter is healthy but people comment on her being small and I get so upset. I've also become resentful, I see these young new moms just take to breastfeeding like a dog to water and I'm jealous. I go over and over and over in my head on what I did wrong and why I didn't see it. I also see these mothers who view breastfeeding as an inconvenience and who tell me they just "gave up" and I think they're cheating themselves and their children.

Now I will say that two of my closest friends have perfect formula-fed children and both shared their stress and distress with breastfeeding with me. Pretty much only those two women do I back for their choices because I love them so much -ha!- Unfair, but true! With that said, I am grateful for formula. Having been on both sides, I give MAJOR props to both moms really. Mixing formula, the cost, the supplies and the cleaning of bottles is a PAIN IN THE ASS. Power to you! Breastfeeding is intense, it runs your life. Your little one rules and drools! Those breastfeeding mamas who go the distance need literal medals. Seriously.

This was not my plan. Never could I have imagined this. There is so much I'd change. I know how fortunate I am that I even have a healthy child. I know there are so many mothers with worse situations than mine. This isn't just some cautionary tale. But I'm sharing the truth because I never even knew problems like these existed. Maybe that makes me stupid. But maybe there's ONE MOM out there, ONE mom going through something similar, and I just gave her the nudge she needed to get help. It wasn't ignorance or arrogance in me that kept me from getting help. It was just that first time mom haze. I just thought it was an adjustment period.

At times I think, "now I know for next time." But at other times I feel scarred for life and afraid to have another baby. Time heals all and only time will tell. For now I just concentrate on my daughter. She is my everything. And we have everything because we have her.