My Post pregnancy journey

Who is a mother?

While I was recovering from my post partum depression, boom, I was hit with another bomb.

My baby stopped breastfeeding from me. She was just 45 days old. After her vaccination, she just wouldn't turn her head towards my breast.

I started pumping and fed her. The pumped milk was not enough. We had to give her formula too.

I was broken into a million pieces. After knowing all the benefits of breastfeeding, I couldn't accept that I wasn't able to do it. I couldn't blame the situation or the baby. So I blamed myself.

I tried forcefully feeding her, she would cry and cry. We took her to so many doctors and lactation consultants.I couldn't bear it after a point , so I completely gave up breastfeeding.

My milk supply was dropping and I didn't know that I should have started pumping regularly as soon as the baby resisted breastfeeding. I didn't know how to do it properly. Wasted so much of money buying unnecessary things not knowing why I wasn't pumping enough.

Some people told me that I didn't have enough milk to begin with. Some people told me that my milk supply will stop even if I pump since baby is not feeding. But I was so adamant that I would do anything to give as much as breast milk possible to my baby even if I was too late to start properly.

It was a pain to pump milk for every three or four hours, not being able to sleep even after the baby sleeps. But it was more painful that I wasn't able to comfort my baby. She used to comfort nurse lots of time.

I missed holding my baby close to me. I cried for days and nights. I doubted if I was being a good mom. I felt like a machine as I held the breast pump close to me day and night.

Sometimes the baby would fall asleep on my lap, but I had to move her back to bed so that I could pump., even though I loved having my baby sleep on my lap.

Sometimes the machine noise would startle the sleeping baby. I would enclose the pump under the blanket and reduce the sound as much as possible.

I was surrounded by tubes and motors and plastic bottles and silicon nipples. I was missing on so much of milestones of my daughter's developments.

Though I was grateful that I had people around me who took care of the baby whenever I had to pump, I was also angry whenever someone else fed the bottle to my baby. It was like I had given up my right as a mom to feed this newborn baby. I would cry looking at the feeding pillow that I used for those 45 days to breastfeed her.

Something that should have been a warm and very very sacred relationship between me and my baby was lost. I thought that I wasn't a good mom. I felt like I was so easily replaceable in my daughter's life. Like I was nothing to her.

My husband asked me, Are you a mom only if you breastfed the baby?

And that question struck me.

My baby was thriving very well, actually much better after I started pumping and offered her formula milk along with it. She was doing much better in terms of her weight gain.

Why wasn't I happy seeing my baby be healthy and happy?

I carried this beautiful baby with so much of struggle in my womb for nine months. It wasn't an easy pregnancy. I was admitted to hospital multiple times, yet I stayed strong. But postpartum depression broke me.

I loved my baby so much.

I asked myself, am I a good mother only if I breastfed my baby?, am I not a good mother if I put my baby on my lap and sit in that same position for hours throughout night so that my baby sleeps well?

Am I not a good mother when I bathe ans dress my baby everyday?, am I not a good mother when I note down her poop and pee count everyday?

Am I not a good mother because I couldn't soothe my baby by nursing her?, Am I not a good mother when I swing her cradle for hours even when my hands hurt?

Am I not a good mother when I burnt my hands several times while sterilizing her bottles?, Am I not a good mother when I wake up at wee hours in night to mix formula milk for my daughter at right proportion with right heat?

Am I not a good mother when I sit with my breast pump and pump as much as can so many times through day and night?

Am I not a good mother, even if I love my baby from the depth of my heart?

Motherhood doesn't fit into any definition. It's just love. You could have given birth through normal delivery or c section, you could breast feed or formula feed the baby , You can choose to be a stay at home mom Or a working mom. You could have given birth directly or through a surrogate  , or you could have adopted, all that matters in the end is how truly you love this tiny human being.

Nobody else's opinion matters.

My husband told me this, Being a mother is so much more than just feeding the baby. He told me to think about the 1000 other things that I need to plan for my baby because at the end of the day, she is going to sleep right beside me.