We’ve been in this game for 3 months now and wow! Can I just say, this is fun? It really is. To see this little person grow and learn, it’s absolutely amazing. We’ve made progress on sleeping, she knows who her parents are and she’s starting to talk and coo and communicate with those around her. It’s super cute.
But as everything else goes, breastfeeding is not as easy as all those mom who overproduce make it look. They’re really the only ones sharing photos of their massive stashes of milk that they keep in the deep freezer. I’ve connected with other moms who produce like me, they make just enough to keep their babies alive and sometimes even supplement with formula.
Can I also say that this world of Social Media has made it incredibly competitive to “live” online? There’s nothing that you can put online that people won’t take wrong or see it as something they have to potentially live up to.
I digress.
So, as EVERYONE told me, it DID get better around 2 – 3 months. We learned how to latch without a nipple shield, (good for if they have small mouths or oral issues) and it seemed that I was making enough to satisfy the little chica, which made me feel so good. It’s wild how moms feel about being able to provide. Like, we feed them. We keep them alive. That’s quite a responsibility to carry. This is why it’s such a huge deal.
That’s why moms make it public, because we birth and provide initial nurturing to the world from our wombs and bodies. This is why, breastfeeding shouldn’t even be a question of the law (as it’s been recently been made legal to breastfeed in public in all 50 states). It’s natural. It’s as natural as walking yet, it has to be made “legal” for us to do it in public.
As natural as it is, it’s still hard to do, especially as a working mom. The pressure to provide even when you’re away from your child is a pressure no man will ever know.
Recently, on top of going back to work, making sure I’m doing a good job of picking up where I left off and making sure I pump three times a day, my blood sugars have been going haywire. I feel like I’m pregnant again, trying to predict the curve before I even see it coming. And I’m wondering why. Is it my body readjusting to the real world? Am I really that off with carb counting? What am I missing here?
So, of course as any person living with diabetes would do, I have changed my diet and fumbled around with my basal rates. Oh, and did I mention my CGM has been acting up since I delivered Luna? Yeah, go figure. The last a1c was a 5.9 but after this month, I wouldn’t be surprised if it shot up.
The balance to keep all of this going is immense, but the superhuman moms of the world have done it in the past. I keep thinking that I just have to power through but after sleepless nights after pumping and thinking about everything on my plate, I’m thinking I might need to see a therapist instead. But who has time for that?