Week 12: My 2 biggest fears before she was born

Original post on Eloise’s facebook group a little over a month after we found out about her diagnosis.

I had a lot of dreams about what it would be like to be a mom.

Out of them all, what I imagined most was the first year of our relationship. I pictured it far more than her future.

Interestingly, before she was born I had 2 big fears.

1. That she’d be autistic (I had read somewhere that babies born small and early are at higher risk of autism. And yes, I see the irony here. Not only will she have many autistic characteristics, but autism would be a far far far more mild diagnosis than her chromosome deletion.)
2. That we wouldn’t be able to breastfeed.

You see, it turns out when we look at other mammals, human babies are born about 18 months too soon. So they need a “fourth trimester” where they are nearly attached to their mom for the same things as in the womb — food and closeness.

I dreamed of this physical nearness. That first magical hour after birth where she found her way to my breasts to eat. Co-sleeping and dream feeding. Her preference for me (or, rather my milk most likely) over others. Being able to bring her places more easily because I could feed her at the drop of a hat. Her responding to and recognizing my voice. Her studying my face and smiling in response.

I just wanted to BE with her. All the time. To snuggle that tiny body and respond to her demands. To feel her softness. To take in her baby smells.

I think that’s why nursing appealed to me so much. And why I was so afraid it wouldn’t work for us — far before she was even born.

So here we are, nearly 3 months later

We’re in a strange, new hybrid nursing approach that just wasn’t even on my radar of possibilities (I thought I would be exclusively pumping or exclusively no-shield nursing. I never imagined a place where I’m doing neither and both at the same time.)

As hard as it is to juggle all day, right now I am just grateful to have even just a tiny slice of what I’d imagined. Even if I want to throw this bottle-shaped nipple shield out the window sometimes (gosh it’s a pain for so many reasons).

But I’ve realized there are some pretty amazing up sides that I need to remind myself about.

1. It’s accidentally become a homemade SNS. At least until we find tubing we can use (lots of it, so we can throw it away with each use to avoid bacteria growth) for a real SNS (supplemental nursing system where baby gets extra milk from a bottle through the tube while nursing). It turns out that while I was worrying about how to get Eloise more milk but not bottle feed her, she already figured it out. If she is in too much pain or too sleepy then she keeps demanding that I re-fill the nipple shield with milk (it fits about 5ml or a teaspoon). I tried keeping track yesterday, and, incredibly , with just refills alone she managed to drink anywhere from 3/4 to 4/5 of what she normally would by bottle. Smart girl.

2. She is napping far better than ever now. She generally falls asleep “nursing” and although it now means I cannot do anything at all because there’s a tiny baby sleeping or eating on me, it really is a dream come true for me. I love love love it. And, as an added bonus, I have time to do some self therapy by writing out my thoughts and feelings on my phone Like what I’m doing at this very instant.

3. Right now, the shield is allowing her to at least practice nursing even if many of the sessions are just me refilling the shield over and over. (Yesterday out of 12 nursing sessions she actually nursed in 2 of them, and partially nursed in 4 of them. The rest were just refill sessions. So far today the last half of the day has been only nursing.)

4. I can see what’s happening through the shield. Which is even an advantage. I can see if she’s on foremilk or hindmilk. I can see if there’s still milk coming or if it’s done. So it’s allowing me the ability to understand a bit more how my body is working in tune with her feeding.

5. Being a human pacifier isn’t painful. Cause this shield is made of thick silicone that separates her mouth from my nipple, so I am not bleeding or in pain. And that’s a thing many women struggle with.

I still really hope someday we can be shield-less and that she exclusively nurses (oh man I cannot even imagine what life without pumping would be like right now).

Because, though it may sound silly, the shield sometimes feels like a representation of how separated we are from one another compared to where I thought we would be. A barrier to that physical closeness I imagined.

Wow.

I just realized…

My biggest hope for her future is the nearly the same hope I had for her newborn stage.

As a newborn I dreamed of physical closeness.

As a growing child I dreamed of emotional closeness.

Closeness.

Which makes sense why my biggest fear is that her chromosome deletion will separate her from me. That she won’t really “see” me. That I won’t be able to get to really know her.

I still grieve that she will never speak. That I’ll never hear her call my name. That I’ll never hear about her day at school. That I’ll never hear about her hopes and dreams.

But, like this shield and this pumping, maybe there has to be a way around her communication barriers. It won’t look like what I was picturing but maybe we can find a way to make it work. Maybe we can be as emotionally close as I had hoped.

It’ll just look different.

In the meantime, I’ll just go back to enjoying these baby snuggles.