Censorship, Babies, and all such things

It’s funny. When I censor myself from writing about one thing in my life, it seems to stop and create a roadblock to  writing, brain dumping, decompressing about all other things in my life. Does that ever happen to you? Not the ground rules, because I have those. For example, I don’t write anything specific about work or clients. Ever. That’s a  separate life and while I’ve written about being a working Mama, a traveling working Mama, re-integrating back into the workforce, etc. I don’t discuss who I work for, what’s happening, etc. What a great way to get yourself fired if you did.

So the ground rules have never bothered me. But when there is something happening, that has happened, that I tell myself, “No. You can’t write about that. You’ll be judged, people may not understand…” every excuse and fear in the book, I find I’ve closed myself off emotionally from more than just one topic.

So. Here we go. And you’ll read this and most of you will probably think I’m even more emotional and dumb than ever. That’s okay because even though I know in the grand scheme of this thing called life this is not even a blip on the radar, in the little scheme of my world and my children’s world it’s important to me and their well being. And in my life, that kind of stuff matters.

What’s the big secret? I stopped nursing Xavier. Bam. What? A big build up for a huge letdown? Maybe for you. Not for me. With Prayse the decision although ultimately mine, I felt had really been made for me by my body. I nursed her for more than 8 months, my body was just done. I had done everything in the book to keep rebuilding and rebuilding supply, taking multiple supplements, losing an obscene amount of weight because of the calories being burned. And at the end of the day when I got turned down for trying to donate blood because I didn’t weigh enough and when I had to go shopping to buy size zero pants and I realized my milk was once again drying up… well, I realized I’d fought a really good fight for the health of my daughter and I felt proud.

This time? I felt selfish. My milk supply was decreasing due to a four day work trip. I couldn’t get back often enough to pump to keep it up. I came home and we went from sleeping four hour stretches at night to one hour, forty minute stretches at night. I was getting sick right and left from lack of sleep. I LOVED nursing, I hated pumping. I was traveling more and more and hated the inconvenience of finding places to pump in airports and client meetings. I hated having to dump out milk that dang it, I worked so hard for.

I was making a day trip – a brutal 20 hour day trip door to door. It was one of those fly there and back in a day trips. I had three things: My computer, my pump, and work stuff for a client. I couldn’t check any of them. I couldn’t carry-on three items. I decided to leave my pump at home (big painful mistake looking back by the way, never do this). I cried that night before as I nursed my son. Big tears and we rocked. Who knows how many apologies came out of my mouth and “I love you’s.”

Fact- my son will be just fine on formula. He won’t feel like I love him any less.

Fact- I am a HUGE proponent of breastfeeding. I felt like a hypocrite. I felt like I was giving my son less of me than I gave Prayse. The guilt was enormous.

Did you know feelings can be facts? They can in matters of the heart.

So, there you have it. There’s the big secret that I couldn’t, haven’t even told my Mamas because I didn’t want them to look at me differently, even though I know they wouldn’t have. Even though I know they would have been supportive. I was having a hard time being supportive. Even though – my fantabulous hubby has given me THREE full nights of sleep since then. I haven’t had that in over six months. But he could do that for me because now he can give Xavier a bottle. Even though I can eat whatever I want (although nothing has changed in my eating habits). Such is the life of a Mama I think – we feel selfish enjoying things that are perfectly acceptable to enjoy.

So, it feels good to write again. And even better I see things like this

and watch videos such as this

And I remind myself that in the really super duper important, legacy lasting things- I’m doing the best I can and since I refuse to fail in such important things, I know I’ll be successful. I know I’m a good Mama.