Being a Mother!!!

Being a mother!!!

It's been one month, three weeks and five days already. It is true that time flies when you're happy. Since Lukie was born I can say that I haven't had a lot of sleep or time to do anything else.

I still remember when I was in the hospital the first night after delivering him. Because I wanted to breastfeed him, the nurse came in the middle of the night and woke me up. I was in between sleep and dream. I didn't even remember that I had been in the hospital to deliver my child. She touched my arm and said that I needed to feed him because he was crying non-stop. I opened my bra and started to feed him by instinct. I was a little surprised that he didn't just know how to latch and suck right away. My feeling was concern that he might be very hungry. What could I do?



The nurse said don't worry and keep trying. The first time he just didn't open his mouth. Then I tried to change his position to the other side. He still didn't know how to latch and continued to cry and cry. My heart beat as fast as his voice and I continued trying to encourage him to latch on. I asked the nurse if she could see if I had milk or not. She said yes, you do and it is colostrum and don't worry, it is enough for a newborn baby. Lukie stopped crying and went to sleep without feeding. He must have been very tired from being born. I felt guilty that I couldn't feed him. The nurse said that newborns can stay without feeding for 24 hours and a lot of them will lose a little weight after they are born. Then she asked me if I wanted him to be with me. Of course I wanted to be with him and wanted to spend time with him. So the first night I ended up staying up, holding him and hugging him until the morning. My husband was totally out because of helping me push.


After the first night, I asked the nurse if I could have Lukie in my room all the time and she said yes. Two nights in the hospital went by pretty fast. We got home on Sunday afternoon. I remember dressing up Lukie with a very cute shirt and cute pants. The outfit looked a little too big but, believe it or not, it fit him perfectly by the time he was two weeks old.



The first two weeks I got help from my husband. That was very nice. He took two weeks vacation from work. He loves being with Lukie and feels so joyful at being a new father. I was struggerling with breastfeeding. My breasts were engorged, so hard and very painful. I didn't cry when I delivered Lukie but I cried when my breasts were engorged and I had to feed my son. The tears were from the pain but I told myself I would never give up.


All my friends from the web board gave me encouragement and told me to be patient. It will be fine in two weeks. Now I'm so glad I passed the being-a-mother test. To be a mother is difficult. I don't want to be a mother that could give her baby breastmilk but didn't even try. I think anyone could raise my child with formula and tell my child that she is his mom. I think that is cheating way if you can feed your child with breastfeeding and you don't. Level of being mom is different between formula mom and brestfeeding mom.



After all the pain and struggling from breastfeeding in the first month, now I have adjusted to the routine and love being a mother very much. Loving a baby that is my child is so powerful to me. The first week I felt like I never knew this little boy before. How could I get to know him? The more you raise your child by yourself the more you love him, too, and I believe every mother knows this.


To be continued.