*Disclaimer - this is my own experience and and my own thoughts and is in no way meant catagorize or denigrate the medical field.
A year has come and gone since the birth of my third child, my sweet baby David. I hate the way I feel about his birth. In fact, I don't like to think about it. For the first three months of his life, I was stripped of any mothering confidence I had developed over 14 years (and there was a lot of it) by every docter and nurse I came across. It was a miserable, anxious time for me because (gasp!) he was a slow weight gainer.
14 years prior, I delivered James like a champ. I was 17 and built like an East German swimmer, so pushing out 8 lbs of baby boy went smoothly. Out he came with a perfectly pitched scream and top notch apgar scores. They gave him right to me, and the nurses helped me put him to my breast... I looked down with complete adoration at my little treasure from God snuggled as close to his mother as he could get outside the womb.
I nursed him all summer, and then, when I went back to highschool that fall, I kept nursing and pumped for him in the nurses office. I was determined. Everyone second guesses a teenage mother. What could she possibly know for God's sake? So, nursing was mine... no one could argue with it. James gained well and grew fast. He was above the 90% percentile for everything, and I resided in that happy mom's club of fat, huge babies that everyone loves to talk about.
Warren was a c-section and I was completely unprepared for it. I never even considered that a section would be in my cards. But there I was in labor and that little punk was breech. Off we went to the surgery table. His head got stuck as they were getting him out, and when he delivered he was silent. I kept thinking, "Where is that beuatiful cry?" His scores were all 0's and 1's... they had to resuscitate him and then... he screamed and 5 min later was perfect. They wheeled me to recovery where I demanded my baby, struggled to get up in my bed, and put him to my breast. He was a little more difficult to get going, but by the time we left the hospital he had gained weight and we were off and running.
David was a planned section. His older brother messed it up for everyone because they gave me a "classic" cut to get him out. So, this was a whole other experience. It was kind of weird... like checking into a hotel, except that afterward they hook you up to an IV and keep you awake while they cut your pelvis open. He came out crying nicely... I asked for him as soon as I got to recovery and started the nursing. He latched on like a pro and reminded me of James... I sighed with relief.
That was Monday, March 21st and by Wednesday morning he was in the NICU and so was I. There were claims about low-blood sugar and jaundice, but I was already on my iphone looking stuff up and arguing with people. I was in a panic and fighting with the NICU nurses (who can be quite possessive of their tiny wards) gave me some sense of control. Right away I fought about whether he needed to be under a heat lamp because I needed nurse him. I went behind my nurses back (they apparently hate this) and went to the floor docter. The docter had him taken off the heat-lamp and I spent the next week living there in a little chair (literally, I even slept there) next to his bassinette, nursing and testing.... testing and nursing.... oh, and pumping. I kept my own little vigil over his progress in between weighing diapers, taking his temperature, and watching his blood sugar scale like a jail prisoner making hash marks on a wall.
Nights in the NICU are weird. Most of the babies are not full term, not crying, and are not easily disturbed. Me and and my full term 7 lb-er didn't fit in. During the day, the NICU is quiet and somewhat solemn. They have signs up everywhere about "quiet and dark times" and the parents of the premies come in and sit quietly beside their little beeping babies. Night is a different story. The lights are on, the nurses chit-chat, and I was miserable. Trying to sleep upright in a rocking chair with the lights on is hard enough, without listening to conversations about basket raffles, the best place to buy k-cups, and a little bit of flirting with male nurses. My kid and I just wanted to sleep for gods sake! And when he did wake and cry (which was often in that environment), the nurses would joke, "Oh my gosh! What is that? We don't hear that around here!" "Oh yeah?", I would think, "You probablly don't often hear of an overly stressed mother strangling someone with an IV cord or stabbing someone with that damn heel pricker either!"
We went home after a week and for the next 2 months he gained weight slowly. They plotted him on that god forsaken growth chart. You know, the one that most parents are so excited about. "Guess what! Little Bradey is in the 75 percentile for height and weight!" Go fuck yourself. For me that chart was a panacea. So, because my baby wasn't following his "curve" on that chart, the pediatrician wanted me to suppliment with formula and I fought it tooth and nail. They sent me to a lactation consultant and I was eating oatmeal out the wazo and drinking every herb that had anything to do with milk production. At one point the pediatrician told me that I needed to eat more cheeseburgers. Eat more cheeseburgers? Does this guy know who he's talking too? The entire beef industry is supported by my appetite! But anyway, my instincts told me that it had nothing to do with my milk or our nursing. I felt that it was something with his system or metabolism. No one wanted to hear what I thought and he chugged along slowly.
Besides being skinny, he was a perfectly happy and developing baby... so I decided to trust my instincts and I stopped going to the docter all together. (Here is where I want my mother-in-law to know that it's nothing personal... I ignore and do what I want no matter who it is) I ignored calls for weight-check appointments and cancelled his 2 month well visit. I just needed to get away from them all. I needed to take care of my child. I needed to mother him and do what I felt was best. I also stopped looking at people's FB pictures of their plump newborns and claims of amazing well visit stats.
I can tell you this, one bad experience in the hospital or with medicine in general can make you a little nutty. I reacted by cloth diapering, driving to Mennonite farms for raw milk and buckwheat honey, and attachment parenting. I would probablly do most of these things anyway, but I cleaved to them in my search for controll over my child's well-being. I worked hard on him all summer with the nursing. I even got a new docter, a much more laid back one, who was willing to work with me. And slowly, but surely, he started to gain weight. By September he was gaining over 2 lbs a month.... by December he had gone from below the 5% to between the 40-50%.
My little guy is 13 months old now. People remark on how much he's grown, especially his fat chunky legs. These comments make me happy but also make me smart with a bit of pain for that skinny newborn and his haggard mother. But here we are, he his chubby and I am slowly regaining my trust in medicine and my confidence in myself. It's important as a mother to have confidence in yourself because no one cares more for your children than you do. You are their gaurdian, their champion, their protector. Docters are smart, educated people. But you, the mother, made a God-given, natural, or cosmic bond the minute you saw that second line on the stick and smiled or freaked out.
I do realize that after three babies I can be more cavalier about pish-poshing what a docter is saying. If it had been my first child I probably would have taken their word for it because that instinct would have been so new. But even a first time mom shouldn't let anyone rip them of their burgeoning confidence. There should be a healthy balance between a docter's knowledge and a mother's instincts and love. You should be a team, both of you dedicated to the well being of your child. The docter should be your "go-to person". But don't forget that you are the head coach. Afterall, as the floor docter in the NICU told me after one of my rumbles with a nurse, "He is your baby first and our patient second."
