A day of failures

Today is going to be a self deprecating day-I can already tell. I was actually in my bed for about 7.5 hrs last night for the first time in forever, but I think I actually got about 5 hrs sleep. I kept waking up listening for Jonathan and looking at the clock to make sure I didn't sleep through my alarm. Chris came to be about 3:30am and I bolted up to make sure the baby was OK and that was not the reason for his late night.

I often feel like a failure in this new mothering role and today is no exception. I woke up feeling as if someone backed over me with a Smart car (that teeny little car that is supposed to be very eco-friendly); something heavy enough to cause pain, but not heavy enough to incapacitate me.
Here is a pic of one:
(Scroll down a smidge)


My back is killing me as if I slept like a pretzel, and my ribs feel like Chris kicked me in his sleep. I know my ribs are from my fall at the hotel, but they felt better yesterday. So I was reluctant to pick up my son for his 5am feeding because of how much pain I am in. Failure #1-not wanting to pick him up and wishing I had someone else here to help.

When I found out I was pregnant, I desperately wanted to breastfeed, knowing it was the best for the baby. At first everything was going well and I was pumping because Jonathan was in the NICU and I wasn't there for every feeding and when I did try to breastfeed he just looked at me like I must be kidding putting this huge thing in his face and expecting him to feed from it. Then about a week or so from his release date, my milk supply started to dwindle. By the time my 6 week check-up came along for my OB I was down to 2 ounces a day. She gave me a pill to help me produce and I was back up to 4 ounces a day. It wasn't the 12 ounces a day I was producing, but better than nothing. For the last few days, I am lucky to get 1 ounce a day. Failure #2, pumping a pittance of milk.

When I was producing all or most of Jonathan's food for the day he was a good baby who took his feedings and had no problems with his digestion or any reflux. Now that I am practically barren, he has problems releasing gas, pooping and spits up a lot. I know that if he was back on a booby juice diet instead of formula that he wouldn't have these issues. He sometimes cries and gets almost purple in the face from trying to pass gas of any kind or trying to poop. Failure #3-being the cause of my own son's pain with digesting his food.

Chris has to work a mid today and open tomorrow, so that means he will be gone from 11am until almost 11pm and then has to be back to work at about 6am tomorrow morning. That means that from 5am today until about 3pm tomorrow, the only break I will get will HOPEFULLY be the 11pm feeding and this is only if Chris is home in time to take it. So I am PO'd about the fact that I will get no sleep and have to be alone with my son with no break for the next day and a half. Failure #4-being resentful of the fact that I will not get any sleep or me time-I am a selfish person.

These are just my failures today, tomorrow #ers 2 & 3 will be the same, but I will have new failures to add to them to make myself feel like a stinky pile of poo. I am sure this is quite normal for all new mom's, but I don't like thinking I failed at something.

I have decided that my body just doesn't like the whole mom role. My pregnancy was difficult, the whole delivery fiasco (a story for another day) was difficult and now I have booby juice issues. Why can't I do the most basic thing that women were put on this earth to do? Why can't I be part of the norm instead of being an exception? I know most of the time we want to stand out and be our own person, but this one time in my life I would have LOVED to be average.