Three weeks before I gave birth to my son, a dear friend gave me a piece of advice: “breastfeeding is a choice.” I shrugged her off – of course I would breastfeed. I had read extensively about the benefits of breast milk for babies and envisioned happily nourishing my baby with the intuitive ease of a crunchy social media mama for months to come.
But breastfeeding was hardly intuitive. It all started the night my son was born, when he was taken to the NICU for a low heart rate and oxygen levels. The NICU doctor told us he likely had transient tachypnea of the newborn (TTN), a short-lived breathing disorder seen after delivery, and would need to be monitored closely for the next 48 hours. One doctor described the disorder as the temporary struggle to transition from the womb to the outside world, which made sense to me. The baby had been so cozy inside, and now, suddenly, everything was different.
Most newborns sleep in a bassinet next to mom’s hospital bed, less than an arm’s length away, for middle of the night feeds and plenty of skin to skin contact. Leo was only six hours old and we were now separated by long hallways and an elevator ride to a different floor. I was grateful he was receiving excellent care, but the distance felt insurmountable. My brain couldn’t quite process the fact that the baby who had been safe inside my body for the last nine months was now in another room without me.
I was still recovering from the epidural (and, you know, birth) and needed a wheelchair to walk any further than from my bed to the bathroom, so we decided that Adam or a nurse would wheel me up to the NICU every three hours for feedings. The plan was solid in theory, but a hospital wheelchair shortage meant that we were often left scrambling to find a chair. If you haven’t been freshly postpartum and sitting on the edge of your hospital bed waiting for someone to find you a wheelchair at 2:00 AM so you can feed your baby, you haven’t lived! Because NICU babies are on an understandably regimented feeding schedule, there was little room for tardiness. On more than one occasion, by the time I finally made it to my baby’s side, I found him in a nurse’s arms, a bottle of formula already in his mouth.
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