Motherhood is a place where your individual dreams, expectations, and ideals go to die. The important things in life come to the forefront and the nice-to-haves take a backseat. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather an opportunity to practice essentialism and expectation readjustment.
Since Saphira was born we have been trying to ensure she is growing as she should since she has been on the smaller side. At 2.5 months, our lactation consultant recommended supplementing breastfeeding sessions with some formula to help with Saphira’s growth. Logically, this made sense since our goal is for Saphira to grow big and strong. However, emotionally it has been hard for me to give her formula as I feel like my body has failed.
Before having Saphira, my view of feeding a baby was that fed is best and if I could breastfeed and nurse great, if not, I was not going to sweat it. However, when I was able to nurse Saphira I thought I was good to go. I did not realize that reassessment could be necessary depending on if she was growing properly. I naively thought that we were good to go once Saphira latched on. After doing a few weighted feeds where Saphira did not take in what she should at her age it became a potential cause for concern. A subsequent follow-up showed slowed weight gain and our formula journey began. Thankfully, Saphira has seemed to process formula well and we had already been training her on the bottle in preparation for daycare.
While I have had some time to process these unexpected changes, they have still been difficult. It brought up a lot of feelings from my miscarriage. When you go through pregnancy loss there is a lot of accompanying body doubt. You wonder if something you did brought about the miscarriage and if your body can even sustain life. Could you have done something differently to prevent the miscarriage? After realizing we needed to supplement with formula, a lot of those similar doubts and fears cropped up because of my prior experience of loss. I wondered how my body could sustain Saphira for 9 months but not continue to sustain her at the level she needed when in this world. Why was I not enough?
After the lactation appointment where we received the recommendation to supplement with formula to help Saphira grow, I curled up in a coffee shop and wrote the following poem to help process my thoughts and feelings. I never write poetry so I was surprised when I turned this medium to help me work through the unexpected.
Lower and lower and lower the percentiles drop
A grade on my body's ability
A reflection of your ability to suck
'Are you open to supplementing?'
Fed is best they say
Logic agrees, but my heart grieves
Why isn't my body enough for you?
It grew you for 9 months
But cannot fully sustain you beyond
Fed is best I tell myself
Middle of the night extracting what I can
Wondering when this journey can be over, but also
Wanting to nourish you with my body forever
Maybe the less pressure will help
Me enjoy the time we do spend
You the space to grow and thrive
Fed is best I concede
Though my heart still grieves
At the end of the day, I do think supplementing with formula will be the best for our family as it will take some pressure off of me pumping on top of nursing Saphira. Especially as I go back to work it will help relieve me of the worry that I will not produce enough milk during the day to send bottles to Saphira’s daycare. Numerous people have encouraged me that even a little breastmilk will go a long way so I try to remind myself that as well when I am tempted to feel like I am not enough. Ultimately, prioritizing my daughter’s growth over my desire to exclusively breastfeed is a way I can sacrifice my desires for her good.
Thus far, motherhood has challenged me to let go of my desires and goals and reassess them in light of what is important for me/Saphira/our family at each individual moment. As someone with high goals, expectations, and desires this is proving to be a great training ground for me and I look forward to sharing other ways that I am growing as a person.
I hear you! It is absolutely hard when we have to adjust our expectations. I'm super proud of you for the work your body is doing and for your willingness to be transparent. Love you, Emma!