Mother's Day

This is my first official mother's day (with a baby on the outside anyway), and I am so thankful to be a mom. I had no idea what it would be like, and how amazing it would be. We are having so much fun with our baby.

I started this blog to have a place to work through my thoughts about working, nursing, daycare, and all that goes along with that. It helps me to "think out loud" when I am processing stuff and it has been helpful. If along the way, I can also give some tips to another working mom that will be a bonus. I am sure no one will ever read this, except maybe the two friends I told about it, I want to be anonymous so that I don't feel like I have to edit myself and I can write whatever I want.

I will continue to breastfeed as long as it makes sense for our family and seems like the best decision. My original goal was to make it to 6 months exclusively breastfeeding, but that was stressing me out and I started having pumping issues. Once I gave myself permission to let go of that goal and just take it day by day, my production went way up and actually makes it more likely that I can keep this up for longer.

The last few days his feeding schedule has been erratic, Wednesday was the worst, when I got there to pick him up he was sitting in a swing screaming because he was hungry. He drank all his milk at 2:30 and just couldn’t make it until 5. I think I need to send a little more milk, 9 oz for the morning and 9 oz for the afternoon (I was sending 8 oz for each), and also send a back up bottle with 3 oz just in case he is hungrier that day. This will mean pumping 3 times some days, and 2 times other days but I can handle that for now. On Tuesday I actually went to the day care at 4 pm and nursed him, but I certainly can’t do that everyday.

I know my last few posts have been very negative, and there are certainly days when I am sad or bitter about our situation and having to put him in day care, but there are also days when I feel okay about where are, days when my job is challenging and I enjoy what I am doing and when the baby is happy and seems to enjoy the social aspect of day care. They do fun things with the babies, he is always making paintings or smiling and interacting with the other babies.

Isn't this supposed to get easer?

When I started back to work everyone told me it would get easier as time went on, and maybe 2 months isn't long enough for it to get easier, but it is still HARD. Yesterday while I was nursing him at lunch I was watching one baby cry in his crib because each of the teachers was caring for another baby, and I thought about my baby laying there crying and then I started crying myself. As I cried on my way back to work I questioned once again, whether this is worth it or not.

I think the guilt is one of the hardest things to deal with as a working mom, I feel guilty when I leave him in the morning and I feel guilty when I get into what I am doing at work and don't think about him for minutes at a time. Today I was talking to my boss about future plans for our department and my career specifically and I was getting excited about the opportunities and then had to catch myself and remind myself that my husband and I were just talking about me possibly being able to quit working in a year so that I can stay home with the baby. I don't know what I want! When my job was boring I was miserable because I had so much time to think about the baby and how much I missed him, but now that my job is better I feel a different kind of guilt.